Why fairness? And why now?

By Diana Smith / @mulberrybush

It is not every day that you get a new word rising to the top of political conversation. There is of course nothing really new about “Fair”. It featured in the election slogan for two parties in the general election, but the third party, the Conservatives, chose to make it the key word for their conference.

Words have their seasons. There are always reasons why they come to prominence.

In a time when the economy was growing and many people could see a clear path, and opportunities for doing better, fairness mattered, but not as much as aspiration. Now as we face a time of making do with less, the urge to check other people’s portions is a strong one for many people.

The emphasis on “fairness” came together with the proposal to remove child benefit from higher rate taxpayers. It may have been designed as a demonstration that it was not just the poor that would have to make sacrifices, and that those who had worked hard to get themselves into a comfortable position would have to play their part too.

The proposal was problematic in all sorts of ways. It appears to have been rushed out. Only a very small number of people in the cabinet seemed to be in the know. Spokespeople were wrong footed in media interviews. The intrinsic unfairness of a family with a single salary loosing the benefit at £44,000, and a family with two salaries potentially keeping it at £86,000 caught the imagination of the press who compared it with the 10p tax row. There was vocal dissent from many of the energetic young families who felt they would be effected, and the right-wing press and most of the people at the Conservative conference branded it as putting a cap on aspiration.

That it was raised at all, and raised at the Conservative Party conference must owe quite a lot to the fact that we do have a coalition government, which is trying to bracket together many sets of ideas and aspirations that can appear to be almost irreconcilable.

Fairness may be a central concept for the Liberal Democrats, but for many Conservatives it comes pretty far down the list of priorities. The unique selling point of the Conservative Party for many voters is that it is the party that will allow them to keep more of what they see as theirs, and to ensure that they and their children get access to the best schools, jobs, housing, and health care.

Fairness does well enough as a stick to beat Labour with, Conservatives are generally happy whenever they find a report that tells them that after a whole 13 years in power, Labour did not succeed in eliminating the cumulative effect of generations of privilege. But when their own party starts adopting the words and talking in terms of what they can do to ensure greater fairness, or greater “real fairness” then this has a number of natural Conservative supporters shifting uneasily in their seats, and wondering if this is the party that they signed up for.

The Conservatives may now well be wishing that they had not raised “fairness” in this way, but it is out of the box – and it is going to remain an issue.