The welfare narraitve and timing
By Emma.
Nick Cohen at the Spectator makes the interesting point that the Tories have not achieved a poll bounce despite their supposed win over the welfare narrative this past week. His explanation follows the evidence of Lord Ashcroft’s polling that the public may quite like some Tory ideas, but they don’t like or trust Tories to implement them fairly. It’s my belief that they don’t trust Labour to do so either. In many ways the polls refusal to budge on an issue-by-issue, week-by-week basis is probably a result of the sense of “a plague on both your houses” that voters feel at the moment. Labour are doing better out of that because voters dislike the Tories and the Lib Dems more. UKIP are benefiting because they offer an alternative – even if that alternative is basically the boorish ramblings of a pub bore.
As has been said frequently, not being the Coalition is not going to be enough. even if it were enough to win an election it would not be a suitable basis for Government. But as I am not a nihilist, I don’t believe that “not the coalition” is what we are offering now nor what we will be trapped into offering at the next election. Labour can and should offer something vastly different on welfare that plays both ot our strengths and to the voters preconceptions of us. Welfare centred on work. Welfare that works. I think this is what is being fleshed out by Labour at present.
But if Labour are going to be as radical as they are talking about being and as radical as I would like them to be, I’m afraid they need a better salesperson. Liam Byrne is too associated with mishap, poor choices in terms of language and presentation and a bloodless technocracy that is an unfair caricature of the man (who has fought the Bedroom Tax magnificently for example). It’s not personal, but if this is going to be the brief where Labour takes it’s greatest risks both in terms of implementing real change and in terms or potentially alienating some of our more excitable supporters, then it’s time for Ed to display some of that famed ruthlessness that saw him snatch the leadership and move Liam to a role he would be far better suited to.
Whatever Labour decides to do however, the last week has not played as well for the Tories as it ought to have done if their plans to make this a wedge election issue are to work. Because most of the really damaging welfare reforms have only just come in, that damage is still – for the moment – largely theoretical. It is while the skivers of the imagination are at the forefront of everybody’s minds that the Tories have their best shot at storming a lead based on their tough on welfare stance. As the cuts get real, happen to real people with real friends, real children and real stories to tell, the narrative gets harder for the Tories.
I would say the Tories have a while still to pull ahead. The public are currently behind this narrative. But that will get harder as more and more faces are put to the Bedroom Tax. As more and more children suffer as a result of Benefits capping and as more and more disabled people suffer under changes to ESA. And as more and more people find that the Tories mean their benefits too. The ones earned by the honest, hard-working folks and not just the folk devils.
I have said before that I don’t believe there is anything Labour can do to out-bastard the Tories in the minds of the general public on welfare – despite us previously trying. It’s a dead end. A cul-de-sac. A lost cause. It’s not just the wrong thing to do (which it is) it won’t work. But there is a chance that Labour can move the debate on just a little bit to a safer place electorally. Add some nuance to the debate. It is the only chance we have of neutralising this issue for us electorally and equally the only chance to give us the opportunity to take the kind of radical action that is essential if we are to genuinely reform the welfare state to make it work.
If we can hold our nerve over the next few months we have a chance. If we capitulate to the Tory narrative – despite how little it is doing even for them – we lose that chance and lose that opportunity. Perhaps forever.
Tags: welfare reform
