So it was this time. The headline 'grabbers' were of course the so-called ‘living wage’—£9 an hour by 2020—but note only for the over 25-year olds; raising the personal tax allowances; restricting child tax credits in future to the first two children; reducing the total amount of benefit per household; and changes on inheritance tax arrangements. They were all carefully targeted to achieve popular appeal and, indeed, Osborne was the ‘hero’ of the moment. Initial polling indicated that 42% of people thought that the budget was ‘fair’ and only 27% ‘not fair’, with 31% registering that they ‘didn’t know’. Also when asked about their own family circumstances, the opinion was that 20% considered themselves ‘better off’, 17% ‘worse off’ and a massive 53% thought that they would not see any changes.
However, a few days later
those last three figures adjusted significantly, particularly in terms of those
that were now of the view that they would be 'worse off.' So the respective
figures altered to 30% ‘better off’, 37% ‘worse off’ and only 19% ‘not affected’.
That began to put a different gloss on this 'popular' budget.
As the dust settled, two of
the budget measures were found to be very unpopular. Limiting public sector pay
rises to 1% for the next four years was opposed by 51% of the people and most alarming of all was the abolition of student maintenance grants—with
only 24% supporting the measure. In addition, eventually the realisation dawned that the
Chancellor had announced a measure that would, in effect, reduce benefits for
people who are actually in work but on low wages. There was a 3 to 1
opposition to this proposal with 45% of the view that too little is spent on
those people who are on low wages and making good efforts to better their
personal circumstances. So all of a sudden the old adage that ‘we are all in
this together’ started to ring rather hollow indeed. Those on middle to higher incomes
and the retired were palpably going to be better off, whilst those on benefits
and/or working but on low wages along with the young and students would be
hit the hardest.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that the poorest 10% of families would be worse off to the
tune of £800 a year because of this budget by 2019. The next poorest 10% would be worse off by £1,100
a year. The four year freeze on working age benefits is estimated to cost
some 13 million families £260 a year each. One graph in their report is
staggering—it outlines the difference the budget effect has on the lowest 40%
of household incomes compared to the top 40% of household incomes ... I leave it to you to look at the link above and draw conclusions.
But leaving aside the
unfairness and the imbalances of the budget, what has been most glaring over
the past week has been the weakness of the two opposition parties at Parliament
in challenging it. Currently the Tories are having an easy ride when that
should clearly not be the case. Labour and the Liberal Democrats are in the midst of leadership
elections and UKIP, despite its 4 million votes, only has one Member of
Parliament. That just leaves the SNP and, to be fair, they are almost
daily putting up a strong fight against the government, presenting themselves
as a coherent and well organised force.
The irony and travesty of the situation is that Cameron and his party do not have a true mandate
from the people of the United Kingdom. Only 33% voted for the Conservatives at the General Election and
even worse, only some 24% of those entitled to vote supported the current
government. Yet they secured 330 MPs—which implies a thoroughly discredited
voting system. 76% of the United Kingdom's people did not support the
Conservatives yet they are going to inflict a lot of hurt and damage on
hundreds of thousands of families.
True to present form, Labour seems to be at sixes
and sevens. Harriet Harman stated that the party will not oppose much of the
welfare changes—which I must say was a surprise to me coming from her. But that
immediately and quite predictably caused a furore in her party with three of the four leadership candidates disowning her statement!
The interview she gave
seemed to concede that the agenda set by the Tories regarding the need for
more austerity, reducing the deficit and getting into surplus by 2020 is one
that is generally popular. So her argument was that Labour had better listen to people’s
concerns, especially about the welfare bill. This is a party 'shocked to its core' without a doubt—where has the natural movement of the working class, the underprivileged
and the deprived gone? Has it lost its soul? Is it afraid to be a
radical force any longer? If so, unless it is careful, the people will soon be
asking ‘what is the point of the Labour party?’
Sadly, the Liberal Democrats
have been decimated and are now a pale shadow of the force they once were. They paid
a heavy price for being in coalition with the Tories and matters should not have been allowed to get to that desperate point by
2015. Many in the party console themselves with the grand view that ‘we did it for
the good of the country’ which is true—but there was no need to have stuck
it out with the Tories for the whole five years. The party should have walked
away some eighteen months previously and let the Tories govern as a minority
government. On any assessment of fairness and 'working for the common good', the Liberal Democrats—at great
sacrifice to themselves—had done their ‘duty’ by mid-2014.
The road back will be a hard
one and I can only hope that either one of Tim Farron or Norman Lamb will turn
out to be radical leader. Going by the evidence coming from the leadership
hustings debates, I do believe they will. But with only 8 MPs, not much can be
achieved in Parliament—so whichever is elected, the main
fight will need to be taken to the country, speaking directly with the people. It can be done. It was
done when the SDP and Liberal parties merged in 1988. Paddy Ashdown took over
after a gruelling divisive year for the two parties regarding the issue of merger. Good people were lost along the way but many of us went round the
country speaking ... and gradually the recovery came. However, those difficulties were nothing like
the present challenges facing the new leader of the Liberal Democrats from Thursday onwards.
His role will be to forge
alliances even outside the traditional party structures—someone has to speak-up
for the young, the students, the poorest in our country, the underprivileged
and those in need of care and support. Someone has to stand up and say the
public sector workers have suffered for long enough—another 1% annual rise for
4 years is blatantly unfair.
Yes, someone has to lead the campaign for a more open,
just and democratic country ...