‘David Cameron may think he can borrow Margaret Thatcher’s glamour, authority and charisma with all this grandiosity, but he risks dwindling beneath her shadow.’ Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters
Cameron may think he can borrow her glamour, authority and charisma with all this grandiosity, but he risks dwindling beneath her shadow, the leader who couldn’t win one election, let alone three. YouGov reports 28% choose Thatcher as the greatest postwar PM, but none choose Cameron. Worse, her apotheosis with full military honours marks the very public burial of any pretence at modernising himself or his party. Forget the fuzzy oak tree as Cameron brandishes the old blue beacon, setting fire to parts of the welfare state she never touched. Too early to say yet how the Thatcher triumph will play out in the polls: the latest daily YouGov may be a blip, but Labour leapt 14% ahead, with the Tories on a record 28% low. Attlee-like modesty in time of austerity might have touched more voters, but Cameron doesn’t do subtle.
Where were we, before this great distraction interrupted politics as usual? She died just as the £19bn axe fell on benefits for the working-age poor and disabled, while the rich won a tax bonus. Cameron and Osborne were whooping it up, confident the lucky timing of the horrible Mick Philpott case had swung the scrounger debate in their favour. But the welfare question has hardly begun. Already as details of this month’s cuts started to emerge, there were signs this may not be the electoral clincher Cameron so confidently expects. Winning an opening salvo isn’t winning the battle, let alone the war – and it was far from clear that Lynton Crosby’s poison arrows were winning round one. For all the sound and fury last week, the polls held rock-steady, Labour still firmly 10 points ahead, without buckling on principle. One poll plunged the Tories down 25% with Labour on 40%, while the last three give the Tories their lowest scores.
So how deadly are the three difficult issues, Europe, immigration and welfare? Those around Ed Miliband wondering if they may be less lethal than was feared. They may be boomerangs, making the Tory party look nastier than ever. The Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson, worries that Labour’s stand on benefits “will bring dividends” in the end, while his own party risks “recontaminating the brand”. Character, wisdom, empathy, decency and competence are essential qualities the prime minister will find hard to regain if he loses them. Eye-catching headlines on populist touchstones need to live up to their billing: on all these three Cameron falters once voters are confronted with realities and complexities.
Let’s examine the polls on benefits: an overwhelming number say “welfare needs reform”, including half of Labour voters. But that only states the obvious since social security needs perpetual recalibration depending on employment, economy, social shifts and new priorities. Voters are less sympathetic to claimants than in Thatcher’s 1980s, but may be turning kindlier now they see what’s happening. YouGov finds voters hugely over-estimate benefit cheating, though only 26% think people could live on Iain Duncan Smith’s £53 a week.
Once things get specific and people understand the details, attitudes change. Comres on the bedroom tax this weekend found opinions shifting fast: 51% now say it should be abandoned, 62% say no one should lose housing benefit unless they refuse to move to other suitable accommodation – and nine out ten think the sick and disabled should be exempt. The latest revelation is that the Department of Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own impact assessment shows 63% of those affected are disabled, many with expensive adaptations in their homes;17,000 are blind. Watch as myriad tales pour out from local and national media, telling of rent debts, evictions and homelessness which councils say will cost more than the £460m the DWP hopes to save.
Yet to come will be abundant evidence of serial DWP policy errors. Just wait for the implications to sink in of absurdities such as this. Helping the long-term unemployed into work is every government’s goal, with Iain Duncan Smith spending a fortune on his failing Work Programme. Three things help bridge the gap between dole and work: a £100 job grant tides people over until payday, paying for the bus to work, avoiding Wonga loans. A one-month run-on for housing benefit stops people falling into rent arrears when waiting for their first pay cheque. A £250 grant pays the upfront deposit for a childcare place, without which single parents can’t take an offered job. The cost is negligible, yet these sensible bridges into work are being abolished. How wise will voters think that?
The FT on Thursday splashed on the underlying dysfunction of this government’s cuts, escalating the worst social and economic errors of the Thatcher era. Research shows how swaths of the north, Scotland and Labour areas will be hit five times harder than the sunny Tory home counties. Benefit cuts will take £940 from every adult in places like Blackpool, draining the local economy of demand and any hope of business revival: rolling back the state steamrolls private enterprise flat. Surrey or Buckinghamshire are barely touched, so the great regional divide caused by Thatcher’s crushing of heavy industry is followed by Cameron’s removal of the weak supports that tried to keep those places afloat.
Welfare is at the heart of any nation’s moral identity. Politicians and charitable boards will always wrestle with its impossible dilemmas – how to treat the needy with civilised generosity without weakening work incentives. When pay is so low, pushing benefits lower risks abject poverty – but raise pay too high and do you risk killing jobs? There are better or worse answers that define the gulf between the right and left.
Every citizen feels the same conflict: no one likes to be cruel, no one likes to be cheated by frauds. But looking at the opinion poll trajectory, benefits don’t look quite the electoral winner Cameron presumed. Overplaying the memory of Thatcher only rubs salt in the same old wounds she caused, reminding voters of the least appealing aspects of his party.
This article titled “Benefits don’t look quite the electoral winner Cameron presumed” was written by Polly Toynbee, for The Guardian on Thursday 11th April 2013 20.35 Europe/London
