The Tories are radical again

Cameron means business on welfare: the Tories are the radicals again

Fraser Nelson

31 October 2007

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David Cameron is about to take up the issue that Margaret Thatcher didn’t dare touch and that defeated Tony Blair at the height of his powers: welfare reform. Fraser Nelson explains how the Conservative leader intends to bring the American welfare revolution to this country, challenge Labour on its home turf and make poverty history in Britain.

Include all the hidden unemployed (lone parents and those on incapacity benefit) and it soars to five million: a figure which dwarfs the three million figure that stuck to Baroness Thatcher like napalm. The proportion of those on out-of-work benefits, 15 per cent of the population, is even higher in the cities. In Birmingham, one in five is on benefits. In Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester the figure rises to one in four. In a booming economy, such statistics are absurd, as well as unforgivable.

Why should this be so? After all, there are so many jobs that 1,540 immigrants settle here every day to fill them. But in this case, as so often, we come against the great clunking fist of unintended consequences. If the right benefit combinations pay more than work, millions will rationally choose welfare — and are therefore ushered by perverse incentives into a life of poverty. And nowhere in Europe do more children live in such households. A generation trap is in operation.

Navigating the welfare system is, for millions, a way of life. The New Deal (which the Tories would abolish) has done nothing to youth unemployment, greater now than when Labour came to power. Nowhere in Europe are there longer-lasting benefits for lone parents. And nowhere in Europe are there more teenage pregnancies (five times as many as Holland). When Mr Cameron talks about family breakup, it is his code for lone parenthood — which even the American centre-left came to see as a major cause of poverty.

The detail of Cameron’s plan is not yet settled but the ethos is clear: it will involve ‘tough love’ and denying welfare to people who turn down a suitable job. Iain Duncan Smith, one of the unexpected stars of the Blackpool conference, is being brought back to help, and many of the ideas for welfare reform are being drawn from his seminal Breakdown Britain report. It is clear that the approach will be revolutionary, breaking with the European concept of entitlement. Rather than tackling poverty per se, the focus will be on tackling the behaviour which leads to poverty — namely worklessness, educational failure and family breakdown.

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Julio Juncal

November 8th, 2007 8:33pm Report this comment

Mr Nelson says: "This is no accident. It was the American Left which grasped that traditional welfare was actually locking people into poverty, and decided to fight it not by raising incomes through benefits but by cutting welfare rolls." Can you substantiate that statement? The American Left, as we know it, fought tooth and nail against welfare reform under a Republican-dominated Congress and a Democratic President.

Richard Prior

January 8th, 2008 6:53pm Report this comment

David Cameron should go out himself and do some real work for 5 Pounds per hour. Mr Cameron lives far away from reality on cloud Nr.17 Nobody should vote for this stupid and arrogant person

E. Meller

January 8th, 2008 7:04pm Report this comment

So jobseekers should now accept any "suitable" job, OK, but what is a suitable job, you cant put out an IT engineer to clean the streets,or a musician to become an IT enineer. But that is exactly what will happen if private companys get paid to bring people back to work. Mr Cameron wants to rob the jobseekers and give the money to private companys instead. One wonders if Mr. Cameron will have shares in these companys. And regarding "suitable" jobs, I think a suitable job for Mr Cameron would be to clean public toilets.

Jake

June 1st, 2009 8:10pm Report this comment

So if someone is ill will they be forced to work? Many in America have to work whilst still receiving chemo or on dialysis etc. We already have the lowest levels of welfare in Europe and Labour have launched a sustained attack on the system. If Cameron is going to go further God help anyone who loses their job or becomes ill.
Finally if you deny people benefits what do you think will happen? They will resort to crime - or starve. Most wont want to do that so crime it is. Our estates will become a seething mass of drug abuse and crime on a scale like those huge social housing projects in America.
To make people work for their benefits is a disgrace - they should at least get minimum wage if doing a job. This will stop me voting Tory I am afraid.

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