I was five when my father lost his job in 1929 and I learned to hate the Tory philosophy that branded the “dole” as shameful. I joined the Labour Party because of its vision of a society in which everyone had rights to food, clothing, housing and medical care. The weakest members of society would no longer go to the wall or be regarded as inferior. The Attlee Government got rid of state charity and I was proud that those without work collected their benefits, with as much right to them as to their pay packets or to fire or burglary pay-outs from the Pru.
The middle-class pseudo-intellectuals around Blair are determined to restore the Tory brand to all social benefits, because although their subservience to the rich is tinged with admiration, they resent and fear the poor, who threaten their peace of mind and, they think, cause their taxes to rise. The phrases “welfare to work” and “a hand-up not a hand-out” carry the insulting implication that lone parents and disabled people are workshy and that a mixture of carrot and stick will make them “get off their beds” and take jobs, which they now refuse only because they are “part of a dependency culture” (Blair-speak for scroungers). The fact that Harman believes she knows better than lone parents and disabled people what is in their best interest shows she has not only taken over the Tories’ policies but has embraced their philosophy as well.
Of course the poverty trap acts as a disincentive to work but it is low wages not high benefits that produce it. Spending money on childcare facilities and making it easier for a few disabled people to get jobs has nothing to do with fixing an appropriate level of benefit for those who still need it. The inspiration for these proposals is the 1832 Poor Law, which insisted that any help given to the poor had to be “less eligible” than the worst conditions endured by those in work.
It led directly to the workhouse and now leads to workhouse conditions in bed and breakfast accommodation or lone parent hostels. Of course lone mothers tell Harman they would prefer a good job to inadequate benefit. When she quotes this sentiment to justify reducing the benefits of those who don’t find suitable jobs, she reveals how far she has sacrificed her humanity to the table talk of the coterie that dominates Blair’s thieves’ kitchen.
Blair aims to scrap universal benefits and introduce means-testing instead. Nothing in his education or experience will have taught him how odious this is. It always demeans, is bureaucratic and turns social welfare officers into tyrants; it takes away rights and substitutes the slur of charity. For Blair to seek to restore it beggars belief.