The new ‘champion of progressive ideals’?
Ruth Lister, Fran Bennett
Conclusion
The Conservatives have declared that ‘protecting the poorest’ constitutes one of ten reasons for voting for them (Conservative Party, 2010b). Their prioritisation of poverty increases the likelihood that it will (unusually) become an election issue and that, whatever the political complexion of the next government, tackling poverty will be high on the agenda. This has to be welcome.
But their central ‘broken Britain’ narrative depends on assertions about the importance of family structure and a presumed culture of ‘welfare dependency’, together with a determination to downplay the effects of structural and economic factors and the role and responsibility of government, that are simply not supported by the available evidence. This narrative also glides over the role played by the Thatcher governments in fracturing Britain, leaving a legacy of massive levels of poverty and inequality. Moreover, while many of the Conservatives’ proposals for supporting families and encouraging work remain unclear or under-developed, what is clear is that families with children will be early victims of cuts while a boost for couples will have to wait and tax changes will be at best poorly targeted and at worst unambiguously regressive.
So, overall, despite the Tories’ newfound concern about poverty and inequality, our argument has been that their diagnosis of the problem and prescription for its solution should make anyone living in poverty, or committed to its eradication, think twice before voting for them.
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Notes
1. It should be noted that in an interview with the New Statesman, Duncan Smith gave a ‘startlingly muddled’ account of what he means by social justice, which referred vaguely to improving the quality of people’s lives (Derbyshire, 2010, 34).
2. Indeed in an earlier Renewal article one of us used the term ‘fractured Britain’ to describe the state of the nation inherited by New Labour (Lister, 1997).
3. These authors, as is common, examine a
4. If WTC for couples were to be increased, more two-earner couples would of course be likely to qualify. (It is also argued that two-earner couples benefit from being able to claim the childcare element, whereas single-earner couples get no equivalent help (CSJ, 2009) – though this applies equally to lone parents not in paid work.)
5. Nicola Smith of the
6. Families with disabled children are likely to continue to be entitled.
7. It has not been made clear which benefits would be affected but we are assuming that the Tories are talking about means-tested out-of-work benefits and not national insurance benefits.
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