Reblogged from Diary of a Benefit Scrounger:
As you all know, I was devastated to learn there would be a shadow DWP
reshuffle. Most of you disagreed, sure that nothing could be worse than Liam
Byrne.
But did you know we are now on our 3rd Labour DWP team now? Oh
yes, before there was Liam Byrne, there was Douglas Alexander, a brief and
disasterous union. You can see my responses to their first forays into welfare
media here http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/take-time-to-listen-and-learn-douglas.html and
here http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/so-its-welfare-reform-on-agenda-today.html
But
I'm sick and I'm tired. I'm exhausted and so are the legions of welfare warriors
who have attempted to spread truth where there is dishonesty and compassion
where there is cruelty. There simply isn't time to go through the same well worn
stages of misapprehension and mistakes all over again before the 2015
election.
So here, I will attempt to fast forward through the mistakes
and betrayals, the misconceptions and the common beliefs in the desperate hope
that we can avoid making all the same mistakes AGAIN and just move forward with
policy that will not lose us the next general election.
First, the new
team will believe that talking tough on welfare will reverse the mistaken public
belief that Labour are "soft on scroungers". Oh, the detail might be fine. If
you remove your pressure valve and read Rachel Reeves article yesterday
dispassionately, there is quite a lot that was good in it.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare
But
the tone is all wrong. Let me give you an example. The "jobs
guarantee"
Here's what Rachel said : "under Labour the long-term
unemployed would not be able to "linger on benefits" for long periods but would
have to take up a guaranteed job offer or lose their state support. "Nobody
should be under any illusions that they are going to be able to live a life on
benefits under a Labour government," she said. "If you can work you should be
working, and under our compulsory jobs guarantee if you refuse that job you
forgo your benefits, and that is really important."
Now, she could have said "By cutting back on tax
relief for 6 figure pensions, we will ensure that everyone who has been out of
work for 2 years or more is guaranteed a paid job at at least minimum wage. We
care about long term unemployment and we will never return to growth unless we
tackle this issue. Only those who refuse appropriate paid work will lose their
benefits" (Note "appropriate, immediately reassuring all those with
disabilities that they won't be forced into slave labour they are too unwell to
manage)
You see? Exactly the same policy, totally different
approach.
The first tries to out-Tory the Tories, be harder,
talk tougher. This way, so the perceived wisdom goes, is the right approach. But
it isn't and we can accept that today or wait 6 months, maybe a year. But in the
end, Ms Reeves will accept it, just as Liam Byrne finally
had. I have
some sympathy - every IPPR/Demos/Policy Exchange/Pollster assures new ministers
that this is
true, but it isn't.
You see, welfare polling is nowhere near as simple as
it first seems. People want "tough" from the Conservatives. They believe it and
accept it. But they don't want it from Labour. They don't believe it and
"hedging" the message just makes us sound
unstrustworthy.
"But welfare polling is appalling!" I hear you say.
Yes, yes it is. There is no question. But the "opinions" are based on lies. Lies
fed to the public by both Labour and Tory governments for way too long now.
Sure, this is unfortunate for Labour, but there is only one way it will ever
change. And that is challenging the myths and breaking the political consensus.
So do we re-introduce hanging just because the majority of the public say they
want it? Of course not.
And crucially, how much does it matter? Do people vote
in a general election based on welfare policy? No. Emphatically no. In the You
Gov tracker on the issues most important to voters, welfare doesn't even figure.
Even amongst UKIP voters, it is only the 4th most important issue behind the
economy, immigration and Europe. So do Labour plan an election strategy based on
their weaknesses or their strengths?
Well of course the answer is their strengths. The NHS,
education, living standards and justice. Labour only win elections when those
issues are front and centre.
But does that mean we don't challenge the Tories at
all on welfare? Absolutely not. But it has to be done incredibly carefully and
sensitively, with genuine knowledge of the issues.
Here's another example. If I said "The coalition have
limited sickness benefits to one year" that wouldn't be true. Instead I have to
use this incredibly cumbersome sentence : "The coalition have limited sickness
benefits to one year, but only for those who paid into the system or those who
have working partners. This policy only punishes those who have "contributed"
all their lives. Those who are judged to be too sick to ever work are not
affected."
Without all of those caveats, we play IDS game of
ignorance. But the caveats are vital. In every welfare phrase, there are
caveats. Caveats that protext the most sick or the most disabled or the most
unfortunate. You need to learn them all from the start.
People DON'T want people with disabilities to suffer.
Poll after poll confirms this. Just 11% want to see disability benefits cut. Yet
this government are cutting them by at least 20%. That's 1 in every 5 people
with profound disabilities losing everything.
People DON'T believe that parents of young children
should be forced to work. The DON'T believe that pensions are even benefits at
all. There are plenty of "welfare" areas that a Labour government can challenge
on successfully. If I ask people "Do you want your hard earned tax money
supporting scroungers" of course they will reply "NO!" with passion. If I
ask "Is there anyone you worry for under the governmnet's welfare reforms" the
answer is totally different. We must personalise at every
step.
But the most fruitful is Tory
incompetence. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/05/what-were-welfare-reforms-about Every
single welfare "reform" is in chaos. Universal Credit, PIP, ESA, the Work
Programme, the Bedroom Tax - it's an absolute disaster and at least one of these
will blow up spectacularly in the government's face before 2015. Probably all of
them. They have failed totally and utterly and all that has happened is the
benefit bill has risen
not
fallen. As I describe in much more detail here http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/advice-for-labour-on-welfare.html we MUST
take the fight to the Tories with passion and belief. They've failed and we have
about 18 months left to show the public how badly.
So when an interviewer asks "Do you support the
overall benefit cap" the answer is "Not if it forces 200,000 families from their
homes and costs more than it saves". When they say "Ahhh, but so many are
festering on benefits long term" you reply that in fact "Long term unemployment
is just a tenth of 1% of our total social security spend. That's one person in
every thousand! - hardly the most important issue facing Britain today." If we
don't challenge these myths no-one will and the public will of course stay
exactly where they are.
Campaigners have shown repeatedly that public opinion
is not set in stone. The Bedroom Tax seemed like a jolly good plan until we
repeated endlessly that 400,000 of the 600,000 affected had disabilities, that
there simply weren't the homes to move to. PIP was going swimmingly until sick
and disabled people pointed out that 4 x Glastonbury crowds would lose the
support they relied on to leave their homes or get dressed and feed themselves.
Suddenly the government delayed the bulk of the rollout until after 2015,
terrified of endless media stories of people with profound disabilities forced
into starvation and isolation.
But we shouldn't be doing this alone. Even when it
might not be an obvious "vote winner" an opposition party owes it to the public
to speak truth to power. A Labour opposition particularly has the responsibility
to do what is right, not always just what seems popular at the time. We are best
when we do this. Sadly, think tanks and academics and advisors will be convinced
that that means losing votes. We don't have 18 months to convince the new team
this is wrong.
There are more misconceptions - that social media is
not representative of "ordinary core voters". As Liam Byrne found over the
workfare debacle and many, many other faux pas, it is and it often matters
greatly. After 4 days of sustained horror, thousands of lost votes and
mainstream coverage springing directly from the online outrage, he finally
realised that this just wasn't the way to go. Those that had begun to dare
believe Labour could change, were horrified all over again. Delicate trust that
had built was demolished and there are only so many times you can get it
back.
Rachael Reeves will almost certainly get a few chances
to get this right. But only a few. It won't take long before activists and
members up and down the country decide she's just "Liam Byrne with hair" (as one
particularly funny tweet put it yeterday) and then it won't matter how far she
travels, how good she gets, how accomplished at her brief, no-one will hear a
word she says any more. Just as they didn't with Byrne. Even when he got it
right, no-one heard him and when he got it wrong they spread it across all media
like a virus.
After realising how disastrous it is to write Daily
Mail Articles for the Guardian, the next step (as Byrne could confirm) is trying
to write fluffy bunny articles for the Guardian and save the Daily Mail articles
for the Daily Mail. That doesn't work either. The same people mistrust us, but
now they have proof we really ARE double dealing - "Look they say one thing here
and another there" No no no.
Here's another myth "People have lost faith in the
welfare state. Therefore we need to talk tougher and means test as many things
as we can. They don't want people getting something for nothing". This is
completely wrong too. They may well have lost faith in the welfare state, but as
we see around the world, the countries who get tougher and tougher and crack
down hardest, lose more and more support for social security (see the US as the
Granddaddy of examples here) The countries with the most generous welfare
settlements (See Norway and Iceland) have the highest level of public
support.
Means tested benefits are generally hated, universal
benefits generally loved. So Disability Living Allowance which ISN'T means
tested, is a very popular benefit, Employment Support Allowance which IS means
tested is hated and considered to be where all the scroungers lurk. Pensions are
universal and everyone adores them - no politician dares to cut them. Jobseekers
allowance is means tested and everyone hates it, though anyone can lose their
job at any time. Child benefit until recently was non-means tested and no-one
ever thought to question receiving it. Ditto maternity or paternity leave.
Personally, I have some sympathy for means testing at times, but don't let
anyone tell you it's what the public wants. They might say they do but the
reality is totally different.
Yet another step will almost certainly be "saying the
right thing in public, then shafting us horribly and quietly behind the scenes"
(we're back to the dreadful workfare case again) People WILL notice, they WILL
hate you for it and you WON'T get away with it. We live in a world of 24
information freely available to all. There will ALWAYS be an eagle eyed blogger
or campaigner who notices you changed the wording/made a dodgy deal/went back on
your word etc.
So. Let's start from the best place we can. If you
must talk about welfare never say welfare. Say "social security". If you must
talk about social security, talk about the horrors facing people with
disabilities, or people desperately searching for work when there are no jobs.
Talk about how pensions give us faith in the system and most of all, never open
your mouths without reminding the public of the latest Tory "welfare" failure.
Over and over and over in a loop, so that there is no-one left who believes the
Tories are really doing what they say they're doing, but in fact are simply
hurting YOUR Mum or YOUR Dad, YOUR brother or child.
And remember. In 97 we won on the NHS. We won because
people finally understood that Conservative policies only ever lead to a broken
and hopeless Britain. We won on education and compassion and the minimum wage.
We won because people believed we would make their lives better. We didn't win
by promising to hate the hated and hurt the suffering. We never will. The Tories
might, because that's what they do, but we never will.
By 2015 the sheer numbers involved in this attack on
ordinary lives will be the NHS 97 equivalent. Everyone will know someone who has
been hurt by these "reforms" An elderly relative left in their own filth for
want of care. A friend with cancer who worked for 30 years told she's not
entitled to sickness or disability support. A child refused the education they
need, a colleague made homeless by the bedroom tax. Even a boss earning plenty
who lost his child benefit and had to give up his golf holiday - it all counts.
Social Security is for all not just for "scroungers"
We have no choice. We have to get this right NOW. Not
next month and certainly not next year. As I'm sure Liam Byrne will gladly
confirm. If not, we will be torn apart by our own, already reticent to trust us
and return to the ballot box in 2015. We will be torn apart by a Tory press who
know we'll never be Iain Duncan-Smith (Why oh why would we ever want to be???)
and we'll be torn apart by floating voters who don't really give a damn what we
say about "welfare" as long as they worry about putting food on the table,
keeping a roof over their heads or getting the kids new school
shoes.
It's a lose lose. Actually, it's a lose, lose, lose,
lose, lose. And it doesn't have to be that way. But it means trusting the people
who really know, who are living through the hell. The few experts who can bust
any myth for you, counter every nasty Tory swipe at
compassion.
And most of all it means realising that everything you
thought you knew was wrong and you only have a few short weeks to get it
right.
This isn't about "them" it's about "us" - every last
person in the country with a child, every last pensioner, every last person
living with an illness or disability and we simply can't afford to get it wrong
again. We don't have time.
