Mick Philpott, George Osborne and the Bankers: Distraction, Division and Deceit

Mick Philpott, a violent husband and father of seventeen, an adulterer, killed his children because you made him. You made him because you supported him with a welfare system. And he is not alone; “many hundreds and thousands” of Mick and Mairead’s exist in “Council estates” across this country.

Like some hackeyed cruise ship magician Paul Dacre has pulled another mangy rabbit from the hat and we have fallen for the oldest trick in the right repertoire – distract while you divide.

“We may not be able to make a heaven on earth for every child, but we can stop subsidising devils like Mick Philpott.”  Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph

“The trial spoke volumes about the sheer nastiness of the individuals involved. But it also lifted the lid on the bleak and often grotesque world of the welfare benefit scroungers — of whom there are not dozens, not hundreds, but tens of thousands in our country. “ A.N. Wilson, Daily Mail

“Asked on a visit to the city whether Mick Philpott was a “vile product” of the benefit system, the Chancellor said a debate was needed on the welfare state subsidising a lifestyle such as Philpott’s” BBC News Online

“She blamed the benefit system for encouraging dysfunctional family set-up” Daily Mail stand first on Ann Widdicombe.

All clear now? We’ve had the prissy bigotry of A N Wilson; the bile, the lazy journalism of Allison Pearson and finally the Chancellor (not an office that normally speaks out about such an abundant failure of local Social Services) has said we need to reduce the welfare paid to the poorest – otherwise they are all going to burn their children to death.

There was another story in the news yesterday which didn’t surge on Twitter, the BBC or even the Daily Mail. “High pay fed ethical ‘vacuum’ at Barclays” read the headline in the FT. Not on page 15 or the back sections. It was front page, main headline.

The FT wrote that a report commissioned by Barclays after the Libor scandal (anyone in prison for that yet?) attacked “entitlement culture” saying “elevated pay levels inevitably distort culture”. This written by a fellow banker from Rothschild shows how the realisation that much banking was “socially useless” and even Ed Miliband’s call for pay-ratios to be part of corporate life are taking hold even among the bankers and their corporate clients.

Osborne does not like this narrative. He is intent on not only doing nothing about it, but in fact extending the ‘compensation’ of the richest in our society (and a fair few in Switzerland).

We are told by the British Chamber of Commerce this week that we should avoid a ‘triple-dip’ recession. Lucky us. Look at litter deeper at the indices and a strange truth emerges. A truth we have been expertly distracted from. The FTSE 100 reached over 6,300 yesterday, up nearly 1,000 points on the year’s low and showing a steady climb through the 6,000 ‘barrier’ over the past 3 years, an almost record level to rival the ‘boom’. So how do assets rise when the economy is in such a dire state, predicted growth almost immeasurable at 0.6%, and the constant narrative of cuts and lack of confidence abounds?

There is of course a huge ‘benefit system’ for the rich in society. One example of it is ‘Quantitative Easing’ which has totaled £375 billion since 2008; about half under each of the last two administrations. Briefly one side effect of QE is that the value, and thus price, of non-cash assets rises; thus public funds support a system to ensure asset prices are maintained. In macro economic terms this is ‘good’ for stability. The by-product of QE (remember only one example of the benefit system for rich people, which includes pension provisions, cheap capital etc) is that their assets rise in price. Houses, shares, companies, incomes, pension pots rise at the top level.

It is, of course, rich people that own the assets.

Normally these gains, as a by-product of a sensible policy, would be adjusted. Governments adjust using the tax system; for example Alistair Darling taxed bonuses for bankers after their boom year of 2009, Ed Miliband has proposed a 10p rate funded by a ‘mansion tax’; these are reasonable adjustments for such windfalls.

Osborne does not want to do this. His view is that the discredited ‘trickle down’ economics of the Reagan era. Far from adjusting for the bonanza, Osborne extends his benefits for the very rich.

There is a huge danger that the Labour Party face in continuing to accept the recession, austerity, cuts agenda pushed by the Tories. Like with the story of Mick Philpott we are being distracted from the deceit. Baseless rants about the feckless poor have been parodied since the time of Dean Swift; Dacre has little new but if we look at the last 24 hours the old tricks work best.

We have to realise that Osborne and Cameron think this administration is doing very well. The NHS has been dismantled by enforced competition and the bizarre idea that commissioning groups can commission themselves; school’s freeholds are handed out to Tory donors and no longer require qualified teachers; banks are still unwieldy, ungovernable, socially useless and reliant of taxpayer subsidised capital. Tories are happy to cut benefits, block the construction of social housing, price education beyond reach, move the poor, the unfortunate or the ordinary out of homes, communities and networks because they have no experience of upheaval or deprivation and less interest. These cuts are reducing taxes and making the rich much richer.

They are not just embarked on tax cuts for millionaires; they are actively subsidising multi-millionaires. This government has been hijacked by ‘graft’ and corruption working solely for its paymasters.

So keep looking at the immigrants, your neighbours curtains, the disabled scroungers, the single mothers, the beggars, universal benefits for mothers or old people, keep looking anywhere but at what Osborne is doing.

Cameron and Osborne think everything in our nation is going well because it is going very well for them, and theirs.