NEETs are only a symptom of a much deeper problem

Tweet

 

It has been suggested this week that “Primary schools in England should be required to identify children at risk of leaving education at 16 without finding a job”, with a view to putting mentoring / tutoring arrangements in place for the children thus identified. Although the review is specifically about England, the same issue exists in Wales. There is something profoundly depressing about the idea that we can and should categorise children in such a way before they are even 11 years old - or even, according to the author, for pre-school children.

It’s not a new issue, and the links between deprivation in childhood and poor opportunity in adulthood have been well understood for at least 60 years – I read the seminal study on the issue by JWB Douglas (“The Home and the School”) back in the 1960s. Six decades later and we’re still only debating how to address the symptoms – because treating the symptoms is what the proposal for mentoring and tutoring is about. That’s not to argue that we should not be trying to treat the symptoms – any help that we can give the children concerned is to be welcomed.

But really, after all that time, we shouldn’t still be debating potential corrective actions at all – we should be addressing the underlying cause. It remains the case that the social class and financial situation of the parents are the factors with the greatest influence on children’s life chances. Even if we were to accept that the situation of the parents is down to their own choices in life (although I hasten to add that I don’t accept that things are as simple as that), that is no justification for restricting the opportunities open to their children. Yet, far from seeking to make the starting point in life less unequal, recent decades have seen a continued concentration of wealth and income in fewer and fewer hands – and the gap between the richest and poorest in society has grown, not shrunk.

Gross inequality isn’t the natural order of things, and life doesn’t have to be that way. It is the result of political choices made by UK governments, both Tory and Labour, over decades. And the most depressing part of the reporting on the pending review is that it doesn’t even seem to touch on that.

Principles and pragmatism

Tweet

 

One of the big claims – perhaps the only big claim – for the difference between Sir Starmer and what went before is the idea that policy is based not on any sense of ideology or principle, but on pragmatism. As Sir Starmer himself put it, “I don’t have any ideology at all. There’s no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be.” Instead, each and every decision is to be taken by considering only one thing – ‘what works?’.

It leaves undefined the question about what do we mean by ‘works’? The only sensible interpretation of the phrase is that it means that any decision will achieve what it sets out to achieve; there is an objective and that objective is fulfilled. He hasn’t always – or maybe ever – been entirely clear in setting out in plain language what the objective is, but over the last week or so, the debate over cuts such as the winter fuel allowance or the two-child cap have revealed what that objective is. Such policies are not to be judged as to whether they reduce pensioner poverty or child poverty; those are not the objectives. The only factors to be considered are  a) how much does the policy cost, and b) how many votes does it deliver for Labour. There’s a brutal honesty about the underlying calculation: the only objective of government policy is to ensure that the current government remains in office after the next election.

Knowing that the only factor that they are even thinking about is how many votes it will deliver helps to explain what their definition of ‘pragmatism’ really embodies. It almost even makes sense of some of their decisions. Whether the calculation is being done correctly or not is another question. Mathematical and psephological competence cannot be assumed, and maybe any given policy will win fewer, or maybe more, votes than the government thinks. But all those who thought that turfing out the Tories would bring a kinder, more principled approach, or a genuine interest in reducing poverty are being shown very starkly that the question is not whether we live in a fairer society nor whether we reduce child poverty, but whether either of those things will deliver more votes to Labour. And since we know that the least advantaged in society, those most likely to be suffering the greatest pain, are also those least likely to vote, Labour’s willingness to ignore them becomes a lot easier to understand. There was a time when Labour believed in social solidarity and doing the right thing for all citizens. It’s a concept which is totally alien to Sir Starmer’s party.

Planning on the basis of blind faith

Tweet

 

The establishment of the Office for Budget Responsibility by George Osborne in 2010 was a cunning plan to embed orthodox neoliberal economic thinking into the UK economy; to guarantee, in effect, that no non-Conservative government (for which, read Labour) could ever try to follow a different path. He never intended that it would trip up a Conservative government but, in fairness, who could honestly have foreseen Liz Truss? When the inevitable happened, and a Tory Party riven by Brexit, broken by lies, and displaying utter incompetence eventually gave way to a Labour government, the plan worked like a dream. Lacking in sufficient imagination to realise that she could just abolish the OBR (other countries manage without one), appoint different people to run it, or simply change its remit, all of which are in the power of the government, Reeves has chosen instead to do exactly what Osborne planned, and treat its conclusions as though they were written on tablets of stone handed down from on high.

She wanted to count her benefit cuts as saving £5 billion, but the OBR calculated that they would only save £3.4 billion, so off she dutifully went to lop another £1.6 billion off future spending plans. Experience tells us one clear truth – both her original estimate and that of the OBR are wrong. We don’t know by how much (or even in which direction), but planning on the basis that either one is correct five years in advance would be stupidity of the highest order (and therefore, apparently, a basic tenet of government financial planning). As JK Galbraith so succinctly put it, “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.

It’s interesting to note, though, that Reeves’ faith in the power of economic forecasting is selective. When a forecast produced by the OBR ‘forces’ her to do what she wants to do anyway (and anyone who believes that she really doesn’t want to cut benefits needs to get out more), it’s an immutable law of economics; when another forecast by her own government tells her that the result of her actions will be to push 250,000 more people (including 50,000 children) into poverty, she demurs, and claims that they’ve got it wrong because her benefit cuts will miraculously result in more people being in work. The forecast almost certainly is wrong, of course (back to Galbraith), but by how much and in which direction we won’t know for some time to come. What we do know, without having to wait any time at all, is that we have a Labour government which is remarkably relaxed about putting more people into poverty when it’s entirely within their own control not to do so.

Tabloid headlines are no basis for policy-making

Tweet

 

In their attempts to justify their planned reductions in the bill for welfare payments, Sir Starmer and his government have increasingly taken to describing their demand that anyone who can work should work as some sort of moral crusade. The underlying argument, albeit not always expressed in clear terms, seems to be that there is some sort of contract between the state and its citizens, as part of which the state agrees to protect vulnerable citizens whilst citizens agree to contribute by getting themselves gainfully employed. There’s a lot to unpick there.

It treats the state and its citizens as two different parties to said contract. Yet, in theory at least, the state is claimed to be nothing more than the way in which citizens act collectively. But if the state and the citizens are really one and the same, it’s an odd sort of contract. In the way that Labour increasingly talk about the relationship between citizens (or workers, to use their preferred term, which treats anyone not making an economic contribution as a second-class citizen) and the state, it seems as though they are closer to the Marxist understanding of the bourgeois state as an arm of the bourgeoisie to which others sell their labour – with Labour placing itself firmly on the bourgeoisie side of that equation. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, though, and assume that it’s just clumsy wording on their behalf, and that what they really mean is that membership of society confers both rights for its members and responsibilities to other members, and that the state is the way in which that relationship is managed and maintained.

I suspect that most of us (even if not all of us) would agree that we want to live in a society which provides a decent living for people who are young, or old, or sick, or disabled as well as those who work. By and large, we’d extend that protection to people who are temporarily out of work. Labour’s target seems to be twofold: firstly, people who can work but choose not to, and secondly tightening the definition of those who can’t work, particularly as it relates to the sick and disabled. Both are problematic. Whilst there is no doubt that there are some people who see a life on benefits as a valid life-style choice, the number is actually not as large as some tabloid headlines would suggest, and neither is the lifestyle as generous or luxurious as said tabloids would have us believe. Similarly, whilst there is no doubt that some of those who are sick or disabled could do some sort of work, the approach to assessing fitness for work – which has been largely outsourced to private providers, frequently with no medical qualifications or experience, who have performance targets to reduce the numbers – has often been heartless and cruel, to say nothing of unfair and stressful. And the sort of work which the individuals theoretically could do isn’t always available anyway. More generally, even if the number of people unemployed matches the number of vacancies, it doesn’t follow that they’re in the right places or that there’s a skills match. A carpenter in Ceredigion can’t simply become a brain surgeon in Banff.

Accepting all those caveats and exceptions, there are undoubtedly a number of people who could be gainfully employed but aren’t, even if the numbers (and therefore the potential resulting financial savings) of those who could actually be matched with suitable vacancies are very much lower that the government likes to claim. Arguably, there is a group of people who are not meeting their side of the contract with their fellow citizens. The issue of what should be done is, however, a great deal more complicated than the simple mathematics used to calculate benefits savings might suggest. Cutting the level of benefits payments is a blunt instrument, even if it could be precisely targeted (perhaps in the age of Sir Starmer, we should say ‘laser-focussed’ which seems to be his in-word) only at that small number of people, because it doesn’t only affect individuals, it also hits their families. Reducing their income can have other consequences such as homelessness which lead to other costs and problems. Even if – and it’s a very, very big if – we, as a society, want to make that group of people suffer, to starve them into accepting whatever work might be available even if not suitable, do we really want to push their children into poverty and homelessness? That’s not a consequence which sits well alongside other alleged government priorities.

At the heart of the issue is a really simple question: how does a society enforce the obligations of membership as well as protecting the rights? The question is simple enough, but the same cannot be said about the answer. Just about the only certainty is that sanctions for non-compliance aren’t the right answer when it comes to benefits, although they seem to be the only ones that Sir Starmer and his crew are considering. A political agenda driven by tabloid headlines and prejudices causes more problems than it solves.

Anti-homeopathy: could it be fatal?

Tweet

 

It could simply be that I haven’t properly comprehended it, but my understanding of homeopathy is that a substance known to be harmful is added to water and then repeatedly diluted until there’s no trace of it left, at which point the water somehow retains a memory of the substance, and that memory, by being drunk, cures the original problem. It would be fair to say that opinions differ as to its efficacy. Science has, to date at least, been unable to explain how water retains a memory of a substance, let alone how that memory can then cure anything. Others swear by it.

The UK Labour government seems to be adopting a form of reverse homeopathy, whereby repeatedly strengthening the dose of the poison is deemed to be a cure. They are committed, for instance, to getting rid of the blight of child poverty, but their approach so far has been to increase the number of children in poverty by retaining the two-child cap on benefits, and now talking about withholding benefits from people deemed able to work, whether work is actually available to them or not. They are also opposed to pensioner poverty, and are tackling it firmly by deliberately reducing pensioner income. The scientific basis for the assumption that increasing poverty is the route to reducing it is even less clear than that for homeopathy, but at least drinking water, with or without a memory, isn’t actively harmful in itself.

The belief in what we might call ‘anti-homeopathy’ isn’t restricted to the governing party. The current main opposition party is suffering from its own version of the same affliction. In their minds, the best way to cure the problem of people not voting for them is to double down on all the reasons why people rejected them. The dose of ideological fervour on offer from Sunak simply wasn’t strong enough, apparently. There were reports yesterday that an opinion poll conducted by Electoral Calculus showed that a Conservative Party led by Robert Jenrick would win rather more seats than one led by Kemi Badenoch. Some foolish commentators have interpreted this as a boost for Jenrick, but they are not taking account of the anti-homeopathy which is currently rife amongst the dwindling number of party members. If what he has to offer might increase the likelihood of people voting for his party, then the dose he’s offering isn’t strong enough. It will surely be Badenoch’s chances which were boosted yesterday.

As to the real cure for this strange affliction currently infecting both parties, it appears there isn’t one. It will just have to work its way through the bodies of both parties until it reaches its conclusion. If we’re lucky, it might even turn out to be fatal.

Left hands and right hands

Tweet

 

The new UK government isn’t the first to talk about wanting to change the NHS from a sickness service into a health service, with more emphasis on prevention rather than cure. And it won’t be the last. Nor will it be the first to talk the talk but fail to deliver – and yesterday’s announcement by Starmer has impending failure written all over it, for at least three reasons.

The first is that many of his proposals – worthy and sensible though they might be – are necessarily long term. For sure, tackling obesity and reducing the consumption of sugar and junk food will reduce the demand for health care, but even if assorted campaigns and new legislation to do those things are both implemented consistently over many years and succeed in achieving their aims (and neither of those things are guaranteed), the impact will be negligible at first, only building up to a significant level over a decade or two. They do nothing to address the crisis facing the NHS now, which doesn’t have the resources to tackle that crisis.

Secondly, whilst they are entirely correct to be placing more emphasis on primary care in the community, there is a little problem of chickens and eggs. In previous attempts at health reform, we’ve seen health boards cutting the numbers of hospital beds on the basis that care would be better provided in the community. But what we’ve not always seen is a corresponding increase in the provision of that care in the community. Any approach which depends on cutting first in order to free up the funds for the required investment in community care is inevitably going to make the problem worse in the short term – even if they do eventually get around to improving the community care element, rather than just banking the savings. The investment needs to come first, but the statement that there will be no new money until after the reforms have been implemented is setting the whole approach up to fail from the outset.

Thirdly, it looks a lot like silo thinking, as if the NHS can reform itself in the desired ways in isolation from all other policy decisions. What they say they want to achieve needs a ‘whole-of-government’ approach, and it won’t work if other departments (and especially the Treasury) are pulling in a different direction. The most obvious and immediate example concerns the effect of poverty on health care. We know, from study after study, that poor health and poverty go hand in hand. It isn’t just a case of poverty ‘causing’ poor health; it isn’t quite as simple as that. But a lack of money can limit lifestyle choices – giving people a choice between heating and eating, for example, can lead to people choosing the cheapest rather than the healthiest options. Educational level is another factor in such choices as well, of course – and we know that the level of education is also closely associated with levels of income.

Taking a deliberate decision to withdraw funding from some of the most vulnerable pensioners without assessing the impact, and taking a deliberate decision to leave hundreds of thousands of children in poverty are not decisions taken by the health secretary. But they are decisions which will directly impact the demand for health services in the very short term. By a margin which it is impossible to calculate accurately, they will make things worse. It is, or should be, the job of the PM to ensure that his ministers are working to a joined-up agenda, but allowing one minister to take decisions which will increase the demand on health services whilst instructing another not to increase the supply of those services underlines that it’s not a job which he is currently performing.

There is a lot for which he can justifiably blame his predecessors, but none of that excuses deliberately making things worse.

Does Starmer need a new ruler?

Tweet

 

In the dim and distant past, I was a member of the drama group in a youth club in Penarth, and one of the pieces we had to perform in competition with other clubs was ‘an excerpt from Shakespeare’. I was cast in the title role of what we thespians can only ever refer to as ‘the Scottish play’. An unsavoury character, on the whole, but whatever others might think, I don’t think I was typecast. I remember speaking the line about “this blasted heath” with particular vehemence, on account of the fact that there actually was a blasted Heath in Downing Street at the time.

Anyway, it was the three witches which came to mind yesterday as Heath’s latest successor spoke in the garden at number 10; and most particularly the bit about “double, double, toil and trouble”. Whether the witches were actively evil, deliberately guiding the path of frail and gullible humans towards murder and treachery, or whether they were simply using their supernatural powers to prophesy what was going to happen anyway is one of those unresolvable literary debates about the correct interpretation of words written by a long-dead author. Similarly, turning to yesterday, those of a kinder disposition might think that Starmer was simply using his less-than-supernatural powers to predict the inevitable; others might instead choose to think that he is actively setting out to cause misery and poverty for many, as some sort of object lesson to deter people from ever voting Tory again. But then again, perhaps I’m making it too complex: the explanation doesn’t lie with the English bard – it lies instead with Frankie Howerd’s line about “woe, woe and thrice woe” which seems more apt to describe Starmer’s dismal and depressing performance.

SirKeith did set out to emphasise that it was those with the broadest shoulders who should take the most pain in the forthcoming budget. There is, though, a mismatch between words and actions here – to date it is some of the poorest pensioners and the hundreds of thousand of children officially living in poverty who have borne the brunt of his actions, or in some cases his inactions. It led me to wonder how, exactly, he is measuring shoulder width. Reading a ruler is a simple enough task, even for a non-mathematician, so is he merely reading the ruler from the wrong end, or is his ruler in some way defective? For the ruler to possess a defective ruler isn’t the best of starts.

Being tough

Tweet

 

There are a few lonely voices within the Labour Party calling on Starmer and Reeves to reverse their decision on the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners as the implications, particularly for those just above the threshold for claiming pension credit, become clearer. But with Starmer declaring that things are going to get worse before they start to get better, it seems highly unlikely that there is any sort of U-turn on the horizon. We can forget the detail of the argument; a new government which has declared that it will take tough decisions isn’t going to reverse one of the toughest just weeks into its term of office, no matter how silly the decision comes to look. The same is true about the two-child cap on benefits and none of the signals emerging from Downing Street suggest any likelihood of an early change in that policy either. We’re more likely to get a committee or a commission to look at a long term solution to poverty and, in the meantime, Labour have decided that pushing a large number of pensioners into fuel poverty (and keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty), is an essential element of demonstrating their willingness to be tough.

It's not even clear that there is any particular political benefit to their actions either. With the Tories – and even Reform – criticising the decision on the fuel allowance, Labour are hardly going to prise votes away from those parties by their performative toughness. Whilst it’s true that pensioners are the only demographic still more likely to vote Tory rather than Labour, it doesn’t follow that all pensioners vote Tory. That demographic is itself split by income: the poorest pensioners are the ones most likely to vote Labour. Cutting their income is a policy which seems to be deliberately designed to hurt the party’s own supporters. But if the policy itself is cruel and unnecessary, and it has no obvious political benefit (indeed, it has a clear political downside), why stick as doggedly to it as Reeves seems determined to do? It appears that being tough, being seen to be tough, and refusing to reconsider a decision – whatever the evidence might say – have now become ends in themselves, and depriving pensioners (as well as children) of a decent lifestyle is the price that has to be paid for that. It’s part of their self-image, it is what they think distinguishes them from others, it is how they now define themselves. It’s an expression of what has become their only core political philosophy. And it’s a thoroughly depressing prospect.

Stamping out integrity from the outset

Tweet

 

As pantomimes go, there is little to match the traditional monarch’s speech to mark the opening of a new parliamentary session. One MP from the government benches is surrendered as a hostage to Buckingham Palace as a guarantee that duplicitous parliamentarians won’t simply take advantage of the monarch’s visit to capture and behead the king or queen, and is not released until the monarch is safely back in the palace. One of the few concessions, whether to modernity in general or the belief that the monarchy is suffering from extreme poverty, in the whole ceremony is the fact that the hostage now has to make his or her own way to the palace, rather than being escorted in chains by strangely-titled royal officials. The crowns and regalia get to ride to parliament in their very own special carriage, pulled by its own team of horses. After all, what self-respecting hat would want to travel in the same golden carriage as a mere monarch? It’s all part of the richness of a constitution which prioritises form over content.

The thing which all the glitter and gold attempt to conceal is the utter pointlessness and irrelevance of the whole event. It’s not really even the king’s speech at all; it’s written by the PM, the monarch has no control over the content, and there is nothing in either the rules or custom and practice which obliges the government either to do what is in the speech or not to do what isn’t in it. In practice, a government which can command a majority can introduce any legislation it wishes, whether or not it said it was going to at the opening of parliament – and it can also drop anything which is in the speech on a whim. The goat, on whose skin the speech was so carefully inscribed, ultimately died for nothing. It again epitomises the English parliamentary constitution – all about show and tradition, and completely divorced from reality.

In that context, the amendment proposed by the SNP, and which cost seven Labour MPs the right to be told how to vote for daring not to vote as they were told to vote, was irrelevant. Its failure to pass, obviously, makes no difference to the programme for government but, equally, had it passed, it would have made no difference to the programme for government either. The symbolic vote would have been just that – symbolic, but devoid of any meaning or effect. It highlights two other characteristics of that English parliamentary constitution: a number of parliamentary votes are of null practical effect, but the fuss made over a vote varies in inverse ratio to the effect of that vote in practice. It also makes it a strange place to draw a line, and an even stranger place for Labour MPs who only a few weeks ago were railing against the iniquity of a rule which keeps an estimated 300,000 (and increasing) children in poverty to sacrifice their integrity and credibility on the altar of Tory-set rules about financial rigidity.

Maybe – probably, even – the Chancellor will pull a now past-its-sell-by-date rabbit from her hat (perhaps one of the collapsible top hats which used to be kept under the Speaker’s chair for raising points of order during a vote, but which are no longer required for their original purpose) in her upcoming budget and announce that the government are going to do precisely what they’ve just instructed Labour MPs to vote against them doing, and abolish the two child limit. Telling MPs to vote against something one week and for it the next is yet another of those less-than-endearing aspects of the UK’s approach to ‘governing’. Apparently pointless, but with one important effect: getting government MPs to understand, within just a few weeks of being elected, that their integrity is entirely at the disposal of government whips. Once they’ve been made to stand on their heads once, it becomes so much easier to compel them to do it repeatedly in the future. Integrity, once lost, doesn’t simply grow back again before the next meaningless vote.

Continuing chld poverty is a deliberate choice by Labour

Tweet

 

Yesterday, the Leader of the House of Commons reiterated that Labour have no immediate intention of abandoning the two-child benefit cap, because “the economic circumstances do not currently allow for us to abolish the cap”. She talked about Starmer’s announcement of a taskforce to consider the issue of child poverty and report back at some future unspecified date as though that was some sort of solution to a problem which exists now. But the result of this approach is that those children suffering from poverty now will continue to do so, and more will follow them into poverty as a result of continuing the fiscal policies of the previous government.

As Richard Murphy pointed out yesterday, poverty is, by definition, a lack of money. And the solution to a lack of money is to get more money to those in poverty. It really is as simple as that; and it doesn’t take a commission or a taskforce to tell us that. How we get more money into the hands of the poorest is more complex, but we know that most of the children living in poverty live in households where parents are working. Part of the solution must lie in understanding why work does not provide an adequate income so that benefits are needed to make up the deficit. Those benefits are, in effect, a subsidy to under-paying employers. It could reasonably be argued that solving the problem of low wages is more of a long term project, but allowing poverty to continue unrelieved in the meantime is a deliberate political decision which damages the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children.

It is, of course, true that ending the two child cap would be an incomplete solution because it wouldn’t immediately help all children currently living in poverty. It would, though, lift around 300,000 children out of poverty very rapidly. It’s a simple and straightforward first step which the government could take today, and which it is deliberately deciding not to take. They have elevated their desire to be seen to be ‘tough’ in restraining public expenditure over the interests of the next generation because they’ve confined themselves to working within a wholly arbitrary set of fiscal rules. They talk of hope for the future, but hope for the future doesn’t put food on the table today. The number of children in poverty today may be an inheritance from 14 years of Tory government, but every day they remain in poverty is a decision taken by Labour, for which they can blame no-one but themselves.

Summoning the genie

Tweet

 

Statistics and numbers are important, of course, as a means of measuring and assessing things. They also serve a useful function as evidence in political debate, although they seem to be misused more often than not. But one thing we should never do is lose sight of the fact that behind those numbers there are usually real people facing real issues: they aren’t just numbers in a spreadsheet. It’s a point which the Labour Party seem to be missing when it comes to the two-child cap on benefits.

There are arguments for and against setting the level of benefits according to the size of a household. Those against doing so argue that wages and salaries don’t very according to need so benefits shouldn’t do so either; others point out that wages and salaries, unlike benefits, aren’t deliberately set at a level which is supposed to provide an absolute minimum income based on an assessment of need. Whichever side of that debate one supports, arbitrarily setting a limit at two children meets neither of the criteria. It is simply an arbitrary decision based on saving money, and disregarding the consequences for the individuals affected. What is unarguable is that a minimal household income, allegedly set on the basis of need but deliberately excluding part of that need from the assessment, will result in more children living in poverty than would be the case if all children were taken into account.

It's a debate into which the Archbishop of Canterbury waded last week, earning himself the support – in principle – of Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary. Support in principle seems unlikely to turn into concrete action in the short term, however, even if Labour, as universally expected outside the Downing Street bunker, win the Westminster election later this year. Like so many of Labour’s ‘aspirations’, it will have to wait until the magic growth genie emerges from the lantern and enables the government to do something about the situation without breaking its own, entirely arbitrary, fiscal rules. Labour will, Streeting tells us, have a “serious cross-government strategy” for addressing child poverty, but they can’t tell us what it is yet because they haven’t developed it, and in any event they can’t implement it until the genie has done his work. It means, in essence, further delay, and despite Streeting’s fine words about child poverty having “an impact on their long-term health, wellbeing and educational outcomes”, they are deliberately planning for more children to suffer those consequences for fear that the Tory press will portray them as spendthrift. That will continue for an unspecified and indeterminate period after their election – and if the genie doesn’t show up, then potentially for ever. It makes his support for the archbishop’s words look more than a little mealy-mouthed.

They are placing total reliance on that genie without having the slightest idea of how to summon him out of the lantern, even if he’s in there in the first place. All they can do is rub and polish, rub and polish. But they have to find the lantern first, and it’s not at all certain that they have any more clue than Sunak about where to look.

In a sense it really is our own fault

Tweet

 

Yesterday’s story about the government minister who suggested that people who are struggling to get by should work longer hours or get a better job tells us a lot about the underlying philosophy of the current government, and is a form of victim-blaming. If people are unable to get by on their income, this is, apparently, not because employers are underpaying them, nor is it anything to do with legislation which allows employers to pay less than a living wage, or the actions of the benefits agency in threatening to withhold benefits from people who don’t take low-paid work. No, according to the Tory gospel, it’s their own fault for staying in poorly-paid employment. Whilst there was something of a grudging admission that changing jobs or working longer hours wouldn’t work for everyone, the way the exception was phrased suggests a belief that it is indeed the answer for most.

The idea that people can and should better themselves with no need for legislation or assistance is a key fallacy of Tory ideology, but it lies behind a lot of their thinking, and deliberately conflates the idea of ‘anybody’ with ‘everybody’. As a general rule (although there are always some exceptions), it is true that ‘anyone’ can get a better job, just as ‘anyone’ can become a successful billionaire entrepreneur. And their idea of social justice is based on that idea that opportunities are equal, with its concomitant that anyone who doesn’t do either or both of those things therefore has only themselves to blame. Poverty, in their eyes, is the fault of the poor themselves; people who do not enjoy ‘success’ are just life’s losers. But here’s the point: whilst it’s true that ‘anyone’ can get a better job or become a billionaire, it doesn’t follow that ‘everyone’ can. Indeed it would be impossible for ‘everyone’ to do so. Whilst some doors might theoretically be open to ‘anyone’, we know that only a limited number can pass through them before the room becomes full. We also know that which people pass through them isn’t simply a matter of individual determination; there’s also a good amount of luck involved, to say nothing of the individual’s background.

Let us take as an example, a certain B Johnson, currently the temporary resident of number 10, Downing Street. In theory, anyone in the UK could have ended up living at his current address, but given his limited ability, his utter inconsistency, and his penchant for lies, would he be in the same place today had he been brought up on a council estate? Would he have ever gone to Eton? And without going to Eton, would he ever have got into Oxford? And without both of those things happening, would the Conservative Party ever have endorsed a man (let alone a woman) with such a cavalier disregard for the law and for truth, who is known to have conspired with another to have a journalist beaten up, and who has been fired from two jobs for lying, as a candidate for parliament, never mind for PM? Background, and more particularly parental income and wealth, to say nothing of the consequential power relationships, matter; they matter a lot.

It suits the Tories, though, to blame the poor for their own plight. It suits them even better to blame the poor for the fact that those above the poverty line are also struggling. From their perspective, it’s far better for the not-so-well-off to blame the even poorer for their situation than to encourage them to look at where the power and wealth are being increasingly concentrated. The words of the hapless minister yesterday weren’t a mistake or a slip of the tongue, they were part of a deliberate culture of victim-blaming. One thing that is entirely the fault of those of us who are not part of their priviliged elite is allowing them to get away with it.

Poverty as an objective of policy

Tweet

 

Whilst out and about today in his incessant search for new photo opportunities reasons to visit hospitals, the PM answered a question about energy price rises by saying that the government “… will make sure we look after people to the best of our ability”. The immediately obvious catch in that promise is the bit about the ‘best of our ability’, a caveat which, when applied to Johnson, puts a severe limit on what is actually achievable. It – with almost refreshing honesty – spells out that the limiting factor is the lack of ability of the PM and his government, and not the availability of resource.

He went on to add that “… there’s a limit to the amount of taxpayers’ money we can simply push towards trying to deal with global energy price spikes”, prefaced by the wonderful phrase “Now, we’ve got to be frank with people”, something he’s never achieved in his entire life, and a phrase which guarantees, when uttered by Johnson, that what follows will be either a lie or an obfuscation. And sure enough, it manages to be both. The decision as to how much help to give citizens – and perhaps even more importantly, which citizens should benefit – is far from being as black and white as he suggests. It is, rather, a political decision. The PM and the Chancellor have decided how much help to give to people facing a crisis not in response to some magical financial limit completely outside their control, but in response to their judgement about what they think they can get away with without losing the support of voters, or being defenestrated by angry Tory MPs (who themselves share the same motivation but disagree largely on the basis that they believe that the tolerance level of their electors is lower than the PM thinks it is).

As another report today highlighted, the decision to limit benefits to the first two children in any family has not led to smaller families, merely to more poverty. It’s another example of the same thing – government decisions which deliberately and entirely foreseeably increase poverty levels, and which are taken not on the basis of any real objective limit to what the government can do, but on the basis of political judgements about the best interests of the Tory Party.

Can increasing the level of poverty really benefit a political party seeking to remain in government for the long term? Absolutely, with 2 caveats. The first is that the poverty predominantly hits the ‘right’ people – those who either don’t vote at all, or who will never vote Tory (and for the tiny minority who still do, nothing will deter them anyway) – and the second is that those not-so-poor who do or might vote Tory can be persuaded to believe that the poorest deserve their fate. If the poorest can be sufficiently demonised, keeping them poor is a very cheap way of distracting attention from the way government policies benefit the richest. It’s certainly cheaper than actually trying to help the not-so-poor.

The most depressing aspect of all is that deliberately increasing the levels of poverty as a means of keeping the Conservative Party in power in England might even work. Another reason or exercising our right to opt out.

Unaffordability is a myth

Tweet

 

One of the standard objections to allowing refugees access to the UK is that the UK is unable to look after ‘its own people’. It’s usually expressed in terms of questioning why refugees should have priority over homeless people / unemployed people / poor people / military veterans* (*select disfavoured group according to preference). Superficially, it’s not a wholly unreasonable question to ask. It is, though, completely the wrong question, and is based on a series of invalid premises. The invalid premises are that the UK is unable to support those living here who currently need support; that that inability is due to a lack of resources; and that using limited resources to help one group therefore necessarily means that other groups cannot be helped. Take away those premises, and the right question to ask is why, in one of the world’s richest countries, there is so much poverty and homelessness, whether amongst long-standing residents or new arrivals.

In global terms, the UK is a rich – very rich – country. Domestic poverty and hunger aren’t a result of any lack of resources, they’re a result of the way those resources are distributed. And that distribution is a result of a deliberate political choice – which means that it could be changed by making a different political choice. It does, though, suit the ruling classes in the UK to pretend that eliminating poverty, hunger, and homelessness are ‘unaffordable’, and it suits them even more to allow justifiable anger about those issues to be directed at immigrants and refugees rather than at themselves. ‘Divide and rule’ has long been the preferred approach of ruling classes everywhere, and the UK is no exception. Persuading the less well-off that the ‘problem’ is caused by those even poorer than themselves is just the current manifestation of that approach. The saddest part is seeing so many swept along by the big lie that ‘we can’t afford’ to help refugees fleeing a situation that our own government did so much to create.

Have Lib Dems accidentally stumbled onto a good idea?

Tweet

 

One party which has so far failed to send any election literature to this household is the Lib Dems (but don’t bother to rush out and do it now, we’ve already voted). It’s a pity, because there is one aspect of their policy for this election which strikes me as really interesting and different, namely their promise of debt cancellation. The suggestion that this would be a funded by a ‘specific and limited pot of funding’ detracts from the proposal, with its implicit assumption that it is the funding which determines how much debt is written off rather than the need, and there is a question in my mind as to whether the Senedd actually has the power or resources to do this, but the idea deserves to be more widely debated and explored.

The Tories continually tell us that we are facing a debt crisis as a result of the pandemic. They’re right, but they’re referring to the wrong debt crisis, because they’re referring to government debt. Government debt really is not a problem, but their ‘solution’ to this non-problem, namely austerity (although Johnson will insist on calling it something different given his oft-stated aversion to austerity) will not only not solve the non-problem, but will worsen the real debt crisis, which is the extent of private debt burdening lower paid families. Apart from austerity, the second part of the government’s post Covid recovery strategy assumes that, as a result of lockdown, people have been spending less and that spending will be released in a splurge when people can start going to restaurants and hotels and taking holidays again. From the perspective of the social circles in which the Tories move, that may well look to be realistic, but for many families, reduced income as a result of furlough, and the fear of job insecurity as furlough ends and some companies find themselves no longer viable means that many have fallen further into debt, and even amongst those who have seen an opportunity to reduce their debts – or even save – it doesn’t follow that they will be ready to risk their financial security immediately.

Debt cancellation is not a particularly new idea; it’s been done in various economies in the past, sometimes in the form of a general amnesty, other times in the form of write-off of specific types or elements of debt. Amongst the earliest examples was the ancient civilisation of Mesopotamia, which went through a series of cyclical cancellations of debt, aimed at freeing debt slaves and maintaining social peace and stability. Whilst people are not, these days, forced into slavery as a result of debt, they often find themselves forced into taking multiple jobs, depending on friends and family, or sinking deeper into debt. And the driver of debt cancellation for King Hammurabi – social peace and stability – is as valid and relevant today as it was 3000 years ago.

The idea goes against current economic orthodoxy, of course, to say nothing of the idea that the poor deserve to be poor and that people who get into unmanageable levels of debt deserve their fate. But these are shibboleths of capitalist ideology which need to be challenged, and selfishness needs to be replaced by a greater sense of social solidarity. The Lib Dems, albeit in a typically timid and limited Lib Dem fashion, are actually onto something important and radical here (although any of them reading this might now start to have second thoughts). It’s a proposal which deserves to be more widely considered, and taken up by others who are more likely to be in a position to do something about it than a fringe party struggling to retain a foothold in the Senedd.

Pounds and pennies aren't the issue

Tweet

When decimal currency was introduced in 1971, I remember my grandmother and her sister complaining that “they should have waited until we oldies had all died off” before making the change.  There was more to it, of course, than simply a reluctance to change on the part of the older members of society, although that was certainly part of it.  It was also about the effort involved in learning something new and unremembering the habits of a lifetime.  The problem with the proposition, of course, is that no sooner have one set of oldies died out than another set have taken their place.

The report this week about the looming demise of the use of cash raises a similar issue.  Whilst it’s not a clear split, it is certainly true that the older generations are more used to cash and less willing to give it up than the younger generations.  That does make it different in one key aspect, though: because of that generational split, it really is true that the passing of time will, for demographic reasons, further reduce the use of cash.  The call made was that steps should be taken to ensure that those who want to continue to use cash are able to do so, and in respect of those who grew up in a largely cash economy and still live there this makes eminent sense, although for that particular section of society it’s necessarily a time-limited requirement.

It isn’t only the elderly who prefer cash, though.  Leaving aside the advantages which cash confers for certain types of criminal activity, the combination of digital exclusion and relative poverty means that there are many other people who are unable to be part of the increasing move away from cash.  In the case of these groups, I’m not at all convinced that ensuring the ability to use cash for the indefinite future is the right approach – it looks to me like addressing the symptoms rather than the underlying causes.  It’s the exclusion issues and the relative poverty which need to be tackled, not ensuring the means by which they can be perpetuated into the future.

There was another aspect about the report that struck me as well.  It isn’t just ‘cash’ that many are wedded to, it’s the pound itself as a unit of currency.  As long as the UK remains a member of the EU, there are economic arguments both for and against ditching the pound and adopting the Euro; but popular feeling for retaining the pound owes little to those and depends much more on an identity-based attachment to a particular historic currency.  Whilst I can understand the economic arguments on both sides, I’ve always felt that the ‘attachment’ question is rather lacking in rationality, owing more to nationalism that economics.  If and when we break the link between what we spend on the one hand and coins and notes on the other, perhaps it will become more obvious that the units in which we measure money are less important than its ability to purchase the things that we need.  And, whether people are ready and able to join the cashless economy today or not, that question of spending power and how it is distributed is far more important than either the units in which it is measured or the means by which it is exchanged.  Talking about how we continue to use cash is a diversion from the real question.

It's not just about economics

Tweet

On Friday, the Western Mail’s leader column pronounced in large bold letters that “Brexit must not hit our country's poor”.  As a statement of what most of us would hope for, it’s hard to argue with that.  But how widely held is that view in reality?

As part of the argument in support of its position, the opinion column went on to say “Regardless of how anyone voted in the referendum, nobody will want Wales to fall off an economic cliff in 2019 when the UK leaves the EU.”  I’m far from certain that that is a true or accurate statement.  I have the impression that a quick and total break is exactly what many want and thought they were voting for.  And it was, I thought, perfectly clear during the referendum itself that many of those arguing for Brexit wanted exactly that outcome, believing, in effect, that the ultimate gain from Brexit was worth the pain involved.  That may not have been – indeed was not - what they actually said, but there was enough information to the contrary available for people to understand the likely outcome.  But – as we all do, in our own ways – people chose to believe the ‘facts’ which supported their own predispositions in a classic real-world illustration of confirmation bias.

And from reports I’ve seen on opinion surveys since the vote, including those where respondents have said that the ‘benefits’ of Brexit are so great that they’d be prepared to see relatives thrown out of work in order to realise them, I’m not sure that opinions have changed very much.  Whether I like it or not, I cannot escape the fact that the majority of those who voted in Wales supported Brexit, nor the conclusion that by doing so they voted in favour (in the short term at least) of damaging the economy of Wales, in favour of ending the regional assistance from which Wales has benefited, and in favour of making themselves and the rest of us poorer.  The reasons for doing that are varied: perhaps a belief that ‘taking back control’, or reducing immigration were valuable ends in themselves, or perhaps in the belief that short term pain would lead to long term gain.  Whatever the reasons, they voted for leaving the EU with all its consequences, and much of what the Western Mail and Wales’ politicians seem to have been saying since amounts to an attempt to remain a member for as long as possible, but call it something different.

The desire for Brexit was never primarily an economic one; those making the case always knew that there would be an economic hit as a result.  It wouldn’t fall on the leading Brexiteers, of course; it was always going to be the poorer families, nations, and regions which would suffer.  In the same way, my own wish to remain was never primarily an economic one either; it was about Wales’ place in the world and how best to get there.  There are economic consequences, of course; there will be winners and losers, but over the long term, the economy will adapt – it’s what economies do.  Whether it will recover to the extent that it makes no difference over the very long term is an open question to which we can never really know the answer, since we only get to live through events once.  It’s a wholly unnecessary and self-inflicted pain in the interim but sadly it’s what people voted for, no matter how much the Western Mail and others may try to argue otherwise.

The real problem that I have with all the arguments about mitigating the effect and seeking a way through the mess which causes as little damage as possible is that they’re not tackling the underlying problem, and may be in danger of confirming rather than challenging the views of those who supported Brexit.  What was lacking at the time of the referendum – and is still lacking from our nation’s ‘leaders’ – was any attempt to make a positive argument for the European integration which brought the trade and economic benefits rather than a simplistic negative argument against losing those benefits.  Those who built the EU’s structures – just like those who argued for Brexit – never did so for primarily economic reasons.  It was always about a vision for the future of Europe.  There are flaws in the way that they have attempted to realise that vision, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that they had one.

Underlying the whole debate about Brexit and its consequences is a major gulf between differing views about what sort of Europe we want to see and what our role in it should be, whether as Wales or as the UK.  Treating it as solely an economic issue and concentrating the debate on mitigating the economic effects is ignoring that clash of world views.  It does no more to change the world view of those supporting Brexit than repeatedly telling them that they were duped and misled (even if that happens to be true).  But it is on the underlying conceptions of the world and the role of Wales and the UK in it that the debate needs to be centred if there is to be any chance of a change of attitude.  Changing course for solely economic reasons will only reinforce the belief that we are somehow being ‘dominated and bullied’ by ‘Brussels’ into doing what 'they' want.

Freedom depends on equality

Tweet

I have posted a few times on the idea of freedom of movement as being, in principle, a right available to all rather than just a privileged few, and one response which I often get is that allowing freedom of movement to all would lead to even more mass migration than the world is currently seeing.  It’s an argument that I understand, but it’s an argument based on practicalities rather than on principle.  The fact that treating something as a right might cause problems isn’t an argument for saying that people don’t have that right; it’s an argument for considering what those problems are and how they might be tackled.

People choose to migrate for a number of reasons.  (I use the word ‘choose’ rather loosely here; in war-torn countries, or those ravaged by famine and disease, it doesn’t look much like a choice.)  One way or another, the basic driver for most migrants is the search for a better life.  That is as true for the rich person migrating to a tax haven as it is for the poor African seeking a route to Europe; the difference is that ‘better’ means something rather different at the extremes.  Ultimately, the fact that a better life is available elsewhere is down to differences in economic wealth across the world; global inequality is the main driver.  The question, in terms of policy, is how we respond to that; and there are broadly only two possible options.

The first is the one being advocated by virtually all parties in virtually all the world’s wealthy states: pull up the drawbridge, control the borders, select how many (and which) immigrants are allowed in, treat freedom of movement as a privilege only for the few – in essence, to adapt a phrase from another context, “what we have we hold”.  The consequences of that are what we are seeing daily – dispossessed, desperate people risking their lives to travel illegally where they can’t go legally.  And I’m sure that I’m not alone in believing that this is, ultimately, a line which cannot be held, even if we wanted to.

The second is to acknowledge that inequality is the underlying cause and address that inequality.  In essence, that means a deliberate, planned, and managed transfer of wealth from the haves to the have-nots on a global scale.  The UN target of 0.7% of Gross National Income in aid barely scratches the surface of what is required, and that’s even truer when at least some of that aid from the richer countries is then spent back in the donor countries.  It is unlikely to be a popular policy as things stand – we are already seeing people talking about cutting the foreign aid budget because ‘charity begins at home’.  I can understand that view as well when there are so many in our own society who are struggling with the basics; but isn’t that, also, the product of inequality, albeit on a more local basis?

At a European level, this is what the structural funds from which Wales has received large sums (even if we have failed to use them wisely) are all about – trying to spread wealth more evenly across the EU.  The essence of much of the Brexit campaign was to reject the idea that rich countries (like the UK) should contribute more in order to achieve that aim, and one can legitimately argue that the people of Wales rejected the whole concept of redistribution (although that hasn’t stopped our politicians from trying to claim an exemption for Wales).  One of the tragedies of politics in Wales was seeing those who have most to benefit from an attempt at equalisation throwing their lot in with the privileged whose starting point is that the rich have an absolute right to increase their share of wealth at the expense of others.  Sometimes, turkeys really do vote for Christmas, it seems.

The EU vote in Wales also served to underline how big the task in front of us is if we want to move to an approach based on spreading wealth rather than raising walls.  If those who would benefit from more equality reject it in favour of the proposition that the rich should hold on to what they have, what chance of persuading the population as a whole to a position of greater altruism in favour of the world’s poor on an even larger scale?  Yet for those of us who believe that building walls and controlling borders is the wrong way to go, that is the task facing us.  We have to make the argument for greater equality, both at home and worldwide.  But where are the politicians with the courage even to attempt that, rather than lamely fall in behind the privileged and the prejudiced?

I agree with Dave (well, sort of...)

Tweet The fact that Cameron has received so much positive coverage for proposing such a small change in response to the refugee crisis, and that the other parties all seem to be talking about broadly similar numbers, says a lot about the prevailing climate of opinion in the UK towards the troubles of others.  It’s hard to disagree with Cameron’s statement that the UK should take its ‘fair share’ of refugees, but the word ‘fair’ is not one which is amenable to a simple and straightforward definition.  800,000 to Germany and some 10,000 – 15,000 for the UK doesn’t chime with any definition of the word ‘fair’ that I can devise.

It’s also worth noting that, despite the positive coverage being given to the Prime Minister, the gesture by the UK government, directed as it is at those who have not yet started migrating from refugee camps in the Middle East rather than at those already in transit, does absolutely nothing to assist our fellow Europeans in handling the immediate problems that they are facing.  (I suppose, though, one might argue that it speaks to one of those great British values that he’s always banging on about – after all, we all hate queue jumpers, don’t we?  But it’s not much of an excuse.)

Something else that Cameron said with which I agree is that the problem really needs to be solved in the countries from which the refugees are migrating.  I agree with the principle; it’s just that we have a different view about what that actually means.  I think it means helping those countries at war to achieve peace, and those countries whose ‘only’ problem is poverty and hunger by sharing the world’s resources more fairly.  He seems to think that it means dropping more bombs.

And there’s yet a third thing on which I agree with Cameron.  One of the better decisions that his government has taken was to protect the foreign aid budget, and to promise to give 0.7% of GNI as aid.  As with my other points of agreement, the problem is not with the principle, but with the practice.  The proposal to channel part of the foreign aid budget to local authorities in the UK to help with the cost of resettling refugees doesn’t fit with any reasonable person’s definition of overseas aid.  That’s not to say that the councils don’t need financial assistance – merely that it cannot honestly be called foreign aid.

The crises which have led so many people to risk so much to seek out a better future are not ones for which there are any simple or quick solutions.  They require a long term commitment of resources and effort.  But the UK government does not only not have a coherent and viable response to the long term problem – it isn’t even willing to do very much to respond to the immediate needs of those affected.  And it’s being aided and abetted by opposition parties whose response is little better – high on critical rhetoric, but short on willingness to talk about the significantly higher numbers of people who need safe havens now.

Symptoms and causes

Tweet When he says that low levels of attainment in education are linked to levels of poverty, I cannot but agree with the Education Minister.  It’s also impossible to deny the evidence that that is truer in Wales than in England, at least insofar as a simplistic definition of poverty in terms of receiving free school meals is accepted.  Nor can I disagree with his assertion that something needs to be done about all of this.

I’m left concerned though at the nature of his response, which is about ‘breaking the link between poverty and attainment’.  At first sight, it seems to be an obvious response, but it ignores the reality of the long-term failure which is staring us in the face.  It is, at best, an attempt to treat the symptoms, not the disease.

There’s nothing new about the link between social background and attainment.  It’s been studied and reported on for at least half a century.  For at least half a century, politicians have been talking about breaking the link.  And for at least half a century, they have singularly failed to do so.  Yet today’s politicians still seem to be supremely confident that they can achieve something which has defeated others for at least five decades.

It is, of course, much easier to talk about breaking the link than it is to talk about addressing the underlying causes.  And given the average life span of a minister, it’s a pretty safe assumption that it will become someone else’s problem in a few years’ time.  None of that stands up as much of an excuse, though.

The first simple fact is that, if social background is one of the main determinants of attainment, then improving attainment depends on reducing those differences in social background.  And the second is that there is no way of doing that without addressing inequality.  There was a time when one might have expected an understanding of that from a Labour politician.