These decisions were not unavoidable. They were a choice

The Labour movement column

By Anthony Painter / @anthonypainter

Britain changed yesterday. We became a different sort of country. The warning signals have been with us for some time. And yesterday we finally understood their meaning. We are moving to an ‘on your own’ culture with a minimum safety net for the deserving poor and little more. Thatcherism? It’s worse.

Amazingly, what was announced yesterday was only round one of two. We don’t yet know the form of the second round: the Autumn Spending Statement. We have been forewarned of its menace. Spending in unprotected departments – i.e. outside of Health and International Development – will be cut by 25% on average. Yesterday was about kicking the feckless and deserving – in the Conservative mindset. October will be about a repeat beating with quite a few additional blows reserved for all of us as well.

And George Osborne confirmed this morning that he is determined to set us all against the least fortunate. He is throwing down the gauntlet. He’ll protect services that we all rely on if social security can take more of the strain. He is turning the many on the few. Fairness? Justice? Welcome to divided Britain; torn apart on the rack of a manufactured crisis.

It was liberals in their early twentieth century social guise who built the early modern welfare state and then provided much of the intellectual force behind its massive expansion in the years following the second world war. Their descendents gleefully collude in its unraveling. And that is precisely what we are seeing – far from a welfare state that lifts people out of poverty, we are seeing one that will hold them there, marginalise them further, and blame them for their predicament. Within weeks of joining the coalition there is a moral crisis in modern liberalism that few of its spineless MPs are willing to face up to.

And this budget – that the Liberal Democrats will ensure passes – contained two sick jokes at its very heart: that it was ‘progressive’ and ‘unavoidable.’ Credit ratings agencies were slightly twitchy – they always are apart from when they are AAA-rating subprime mortgage poisoned financial instruments. Gilt markets barely murmuring – as charts on p.9 of the budget report itself show – compare the UK to Portugal and Spain. The UK’s interest rates have gone down just as Spain and Portugal’s went up. The coalition very generously gave credit to itself for this. Actually, it’s to do with the UK being seen as a less risky proposition:

No debt crisis here; just a debt issue to be tackled in the right way and at the right pace. The right way to do it is to not jeopardise growth while doing it in a manner that does not fundamentally create social devastation. Labour spokespeople – and I’ll come on to Labour a little later – had been primed to attack the budget for its economic deficiencies. And, the economics and financial judgements on which it rested were extremely suspect. These decisions were not ‘unavoidable.’ They were a choice.

However, it was the budget’s social impacts that were really shocking. And that took most by surprise. The really heavy-duty stuff has been reserved for October and yet this budget was still – by any progressive measure – an absolute shocker. In terms of social impact, it was worse than anything that Margaret Thatcher came up with the singular exception of the Poll Tax. At least the unfairness of that was palpable. This budget contained a whole series of measures that will cause immense suffering and increased poverty but by stealth.

Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespeople took to the airwaves to defend their ‘progressive’ budget as soon the chancellor had sat down. And yet a chart (on page 74 of the Red Book) demonstrated clearly that the incomes of the poorest 10% were hit harder than any other group until you reach those earning over £38,000. That’s some weird variant of progressive.

And of course after 2012-13 it will just get worse and the CPI linking of benefits and credits as opposed to the more generous RPI indexing prises the poorest further and further away from the rest. One Liberal Democrat spokesperson – Simon Hughes – had the bare-faced cheek to claim that the Labour government had failed to impact child poverty and had no impact on inequality. They are so ashamed of themselves that they are projecting their misdemeanors onto others.

For all the considerable good that it did socially, Labour is not entirely blameless in what happened yesterday either. It made two fatal mistakes. Firstly, when it increased equality and reduced poverty, it did so by stealth and failed to build a broader consensus behind its actions. By reducing poverty and increasing equality you create a flourishing and fair society for all. It should never have avoided making that case.

And secondly, Labour too often participated in or at least left unchallenged the notion of an ‘undeserving’ or ‘feckless’ poor. Too often, it indulged the divisive language of ‘chavs’, welfare scroungers and illegal immigrants. It focused its efforts on children and families and pensioners – absolutely rightly – but often gave the impression that anyone else was fair game.

Labour did many of the right things to move society further along the curve of justice. It just forgot to say why – as now it must in clearly and value-driven language if it is not to become just a pale and weak shadow of this callous ‘new politics.’ Labour also forgot just how real the Conservative menace was. Yesterday they proved they mean business. With their yellow-clad human shield in position, the Tories set about outrageously questioning the integrity of the severely disabled.

They launched a vicious attack on single mothers – by stealth. Anyone on benefits is marginalised. People who have grown up in or are part of communities will have to move away for no greater reason than the fact their area has gentrified – the double impact of housing benefit cuts and the failure to build enough social housing. Socially severed, geographically dislocated, and emotionally separated – the fate of Britain’s least fortunate over the next few years.

In response to the 1981 budget 364 economists wrote to The Times in protest at the measures that had been taken. Such quaint responses were not enough then and will not suffice now. Labour can’t simply scream loudly and hope it’s heard. It must reignite a sense of empathy that has been eroded through a mixture of media fantasy, political mischief, and economic opportunism.

We are all in this together. If one is alone then we all are. The Tories’ ‘me not you’ society is a road to misery – a national and social tragedy. This budget was worse than any of Thatcher’s. And yet it was presented as if it was less cruel. What is Labour’s mission and purpose? Just as it was since its birth: to create a united society out of a divided one. And the stakes just got higher.

Anthony Painter blogs at http://www.anthonypainter.co.uk