Grinding poverty

There have always been two different approaches to poverty. Some have seen poverty as a product of financial inequality, to be mitigated by additional resources, mainly welfare payments. Others have seen it as an indicator of insufficient inclusion or access to opportunities, in particular opportunities brought about by work. The first approach is largely driven by indignation about differences of means, whilst the second feeds on philosophies rooted in personal responsibility. The former leader of the Conservative Party, Iain Duncan Smith (IDS), who has resigned from his post as Work and Pensions Secretary on Friday was a believer in the second approach. Having been booted out by his party colleagues from the leadership post in 2003 he re-invented himself as a fighter against poverty and hopelessness. He founded the Centre for Social Justice, visited the Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow and, over the next 8 years, formulated a sophisticated welfare reform strategy. In 2010, being appointed Work and Pensions Secretary in the first Cameron cabinet, he implemented wide-ranging welfare reforms designed to tackled worklessness and poverty of working families. His efforts culminated in the announcement of the National Living Wage last year which will lift income from work beyond the level of means that can be obtained through out of work welfare payments. It crowned a long and distinguished career of a compassionate conservative. Yet, it was not always like this.

Vision for change - IDS at the Easterhouse Estate in Glasgow in 2002.
Foto Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Poverty has been an object of political reform ever since the industrial revolution created winners and losers in the world of work. In times of full employment until the 1970s, it was largely seen as a consequence of low wages. As the West was hit by large scale structural unemployment, poverty became a by-product of worklessness as well. Ever since these momentous years in the 1970s, the debate about poverty has centred around sufficient welfare payments to those in need, giving them the means to live a decent life. The watchword was dignity.

However, as it became clear that increasing welfare payments contributed to a fundamental change in people's attitudes towards work, reformers changed tack. They began to argue that, whilst little could be done to change people's willingness to work, the consequences of worklessness could, and should be, mitigated through ever higher welfare payments. In particular, it was argued, children of parents who were out of work required additional resources. The main avenue to eradicate child poverty was increasingly perceived to be higher out of work welfare payments to parents, reinforcing a vicious circle in which parents were incentivised to demonstrate to welfare officers how poor they were to gain access to additional resources. A tragic spiral of low levels of personal responsibility, de-legitimising work as a source of income and welfare as a legitimate replacement for income through employment ensued that eventually led to some British families in receipt of hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. The logic was undeniable. Once need was identified, adequate welfare had to be provided.

IDS was not the first person to challenge this logic, but, looking back, it is hard to imagine today how difficult it once was to articulate a different strategy. The impetus for change however did not come from this country, or from conservative politicians, but from social reformers on the left in the US. They recognised the link between out of work payments, behaviour and increasing welfare needs. In a way, they argued, the missing component in eradicating poverty was personal responsibility. What was needed as a hand up, not a handout, echoing the slogans of radical social reformers in the 19th century.

When coming to office in 1992, President Bill Clinton embarked on fundamental welfare reform, based on the principle of incentivising work. Other countries followed suit, interestingly mainly socialist and social democratic governments. In Britain, significant welfare reform was judged a shot too far within the Blair and Brown Cabinets, although progressive reform minded Labour politicians like James Purnell articulated the need for change.

The resignation of IDS on Friday ended one of the most effective welfare reforms this country has seen since the introduction of the welfare state under Clement Attlee. IDS changed for the better the references for the debate in this country. We now speak of the need to support people to get into work, assess their fitness to work, instead of patting them on the back and sending them home with a welfare cheque. This has undoubtedly created frictions and difficulties. Changes to welfare entitlements have been fiercely resisted by those habituated into a life on the dole and the proponents of the status quo.

However the main parameters of the national debate are now around how to sufficiently incentivise employment. And it is IDS's contribution to have brought about this shift.

On 'being ready' for government

Popular wisdom has it that all it takes to win a general election is to have better answers to the problems a country faces than your opponents. A coherent vision and narrative may help too, plus a consistent message articulated on the door steps when canvassing the great British public.

A recently published study in the academic journal however questions this view (Hartwig Pautz, The Thinktanks behind Cameronism'. It argues that opposition parties that are successful at general elections undergo a period of intense debate about ideological renewal, often leading to political re-orientation. The arena for this debate are often think tanks that are more or less associated with the political party in question. Labour underwent such a period before it emerged as New Labour under Tony Blair. The hallmark of such a renewal, and measure of success in readying the party for government, may be the extent to which new policy ideas are being generated, debated, rejected or endorsed. Idea generation, in essence, is an indicator of how effectively a political party functions as a powerhouse for policy formulation necessary to formulate future government programmes. 

The Conservative Party experienced a similar period of internal debate and renewal under David Cameron before the general election in 2010. The jury is still out whether or not it was sufficient to make the Tories a genuinely modern party, but hardly anybody denies that the party has undergone fundamental changes with modernisers, such as George Osborne, in key positions. 

Squeezing through - Ed Miliband - Man without policies?

The picture is different for Labour under Ed Miliband. After five years of relative discipline and few internal squabbles, the party emerges almost empty handed to face the electorate in less than 2 months. Whilst Miliband himself tried to provide an overarching narrative in the 'cost of living' argument (a debate that is vanishing fast with wage rises gathering pace), the party is casting frantically around for policy ideas even at his late stage (note the recent speech of Shadow Education Secretary Tristam Hunt on 'innovation' in the classroom). Whatever Labour wants to be (a force for good in society) and who it wants to represent (the long suffering middle classes or people on zero hour contracts?) it lacks the wealth of ideas and the history of constructive policy debate that characterised New Labour in 1997. 

If it squeakes into government on 8th May, it will resemble the government of Miliband's political mentor: Gordon Brown. Having exhausted his energies and political capital in the fight against his own party and the Blair camp, Brown, when he finally moved into Number 10, had nothing to say and no policies to implement. If it hadn't been for the economic crisis, Brown's government would have quickly been revealed as one without purpose or direction. With Britain on the path to economic recovery, Miliband wont be so 'lucky'. The lack of ideas will come to haunt him as he steps into Number 10. If he gets that far. 

Miliband's electoral strategy unravelling fast

You could feel sorry for the Labour leader Ed Miliband these days. As his party should be riding high in the polls, the numbers show that barely a simple majority of people would cast their vote for Labour in May. On top of that, pretty much no one, friends and foes alike, thinks that he is prime ministerial material, which begs the question, why vote for the party in the first place. The shadow cabinet appears to have taken leave of absence for the last couple of months, seemingly hoping not to be associated with the car crash at the next general election.

If that was not enough, the Scottish Labour party leader Johann Lamont has just resigned. As a parting shot, she did not neglect to put the knife into Ed Miliband's flagging authority and twist it, for good measure. In her statement she said that the London Labour Party was treating her Scottish Labour Party like a branch office (anybody heard this before? Alun Michael and Wales perhaps?). This is more significant as it may seem at first. Scotland is important to Miliband's chances to form a government next May for several reasons.

Bacon batties are the least of Miliband's problems now

First, his circle has long put all the money on what's called the 35% strategy. In effect, it is the hope that, due to the electoral maths, Labour would get into office without winning over a broad majority of voters. It's of course a strategy borne out of the realisation, that Miliband's appeal to centre ground voters is so vanishingly small, that there is no hope in hell he gets more than 35% in the first place. All other things being equal, this strategy might still work.

This is where Scotland comes in. The second part of the strategy is that Scottish Labour MPs will provide the Westminster majority to heave Miliband into office. Enter devolution and the SNP, the Scottish Nationalists. As part of the deal to win over Scots to vote NO to outright secession, all party leaders offered devolution max to the Scots. Which in effect means that Scottish MSPs (parliamentarians in the Edinburgh parliament) will decide a whole raft of things without interference from London. This however means that Scottish MPs in Westminster should also not vote on English matters (the MPs of the Scottish Nationalist who sit at Westminster have long had a tradition of voluntarily abstaining from votes on English matter). Yet, without Scottish votes in Westminster, Miliband will have no majority to form a government. So, if he grants more autonomy to the Scottish Labour Party, he effectively makes the argument that has been put forward by the Conservative Party for a long time, that is no English government should have a majority solely by virtue of Scottish MPs.

That's where the 35% strategy reveals its fatal flaw. Without the support of Scottish MPs, Miliband wont have a majority, hence no government. So he has to deny Scottish MPs of Labour any independence. Which does not look good for a party that kicked off devolution in the first place.

As this perfect storm is gathering strength, Miliband is doing what his political master, Gordon Brown, used to do: disappear from view. The Labour leader has not been seen or heard since Friday, which may just give an extraordinary insight into his (in)ability to deal with problems once he gets into Number 10. If Miliband does not address this Scottish issue head-on, his electoral chances are fading fast, bacon batty or not.

On political capital

As the Labour party is desperately looking for a winning strategy in the 2015 general election, its leader recently purged the shadow cabinet of old Blairites, those former cabinet members who were in the reformist or Blair's camp as opposed to those (like Ed Miliband himself) who were in Gordon Brown's camp.

The viciousness of the internecine fights between the Blairites and Brownites under Tony Blair's government is hardly forgotten and the publication of the memoirs of Gordon Brown's right hand man for the dirty stuff is a recent reminder of how electorally toxic the former chancellor's influence was in British politics.

However, the current leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, is a protege of Brown and he has slowly yet ruthlessly ensured that Brown's minions have won the day. His latest reshuffle has catapulted Brownites into all leading cabinet positions, such as Rachel Reeves (dubbed 'boring snoring' by the press) into the welfare portfolio, whilst prominent Blairites such as Jim Murphy had to bite the dust.

The most interesting appointment however is Tristram Hunt replacing the Blairite Stephen Twigg. Twigg was the butt of many jokes in the press over the last couple of years, mainly because he struggled to define Labour policy in education, the department he covered as shadow education secretary. His was a difficult job since Michael Gove introduced radical 'ueber-Blairite' reforms in the first two years when becoming education secretary, by widening the academy programme which had started under Blair to primary schools and promoting so-called free schools.

The dilemma for Twigg was that Gove only put rocket boosters under what was in effect Blairite policy, and Twigg (and the Labour Party) had previously endorsed it. Being in opposition however changes the game and now Twigg found himself in a position to have to oppose something he originally advocated. Frustratingly, Twigg also found that the goal posts had shifted with Ed Miliband becoming party leader. Miliband had become leader with the votes of the trade unions and he now had to pay them back. This meant that education policy had to appease the teaching unions (who were steadfastly opposed to any reforms, Blairite or otherwise), and his leader bore down on him to comply.

Policy paralysis ensued for Twigg. He couldn't do as he wanted, and wouldn't have done as Miliband urged him to. He found is ignominious end two weeks ago. Being kicked out of his shadow job is one thing. However watching his successor to do exactly what he wanted but couldn't do is another.

The irony wont be lost on Twigg that only two days after his appointment to shadow education secretary, Twigg's successor, Tristram Hunt, a posh boy with a Cambridge PhD, executed a perfect policy u-turn. He announced that, henceforth, it would be Labour party policy to support free schools (independent of local authorities).

The morale of the story? To be radical in policy development, you cannot have the whiff of being a reformer. What you need to have is the reputation of a loyal supporter of your leader and somebody who always toes the party line. If that's the case, then you have political capital to burn.

The end of Blairism

David Miliband, the poster boy of the moderate wing of the Labour party and former foreign secretary, will resign his parliamentary seat tomorrow, the Daily Mirror reports. David Miliband is the older brother of Ed, the current leader of the Labour Party, who pipped him to the job in 2010. David M actually won the vote amongst the party faithful and the MPs of the party, but Ed was elected on the narrowest of margins with the help of the block votes of the trade unions.

Stepping down - David Miliband

David Miliband's resignation will certainly be a harsh blow to the moderate wing of the party, and undoubtedly, his brother Ed is now free to complete the move to the left which he has planned over the last two years. With David M leaving politics, all Blairites have either been sidelined or pushed out of politics by his brother's team.

The fraternal dissonance between the brothers pretty accurately mirrored the strife between the two party camps, one surrounding Tony Blair, the other around Gordon Brown. The irony is lost on no one that those who coalesced around the most successful Labour Prime Minister in history, Tony Blair, have now lost control over the party, whereas the group around Gordon Brown who failed to win a single general election is now fully in charge.

Separated at birth? Wallace and Ed Miliband

At the time of the leadership election, observers were aghast at the viciousness with which Ed Miliband attacked his older brother and maneuvred himself into a leadership position with the support of the unions. David Miliband's resignation will close the chapter of New Labour and finally confirm that the middle ground in British politics is being vacated. It leaves the Labour Party with a largely unelectable leader who has been (unfavourably) compared to the plasticine character of Wallace. It is now up to David Cameron to convince his party that the middle ground is up for grabs to win the next general election in 2015.

Brown waffles his way through his appearance at Leveson

So there you have it: he was always wronged and the evil journalists have made his life hell! We should all feel sorry for Gordon Brown, the former (never elected) Labour Prime Minister who has given evidence to the Leveson Inquiry to this effect this morning. 


Asked sycophantic questions by a largely ineffectual Counsel to the Inquiry, Brown was allowed to waffle for hours without ever answering any question that was put to him. When his own misdeeds came into focus (the way his staff distributed salacious, false information about other politicians) he claimed he never heard of anything or didn't know what the question referred to. The press reaction to his appearance has certainly not lacked honesty!


But even more strikingly, in his endless answers that seemed to ramble on forever, he drew a distinction between good and bad journalism. He supported the idea that 'quality journalists' should be financially supported (by whom? the taxpayer?) whereas 'bad' journalists should not. 


Any wonder we should worry about the freedom of the press with comments like this from a master political manipulator?