Big government rules

Fraser Nelson says that David Cameron has given up on tax cuts and will now concentrate on advancing the frontiers of the state by matching Labour’s high spending

The secret to everlasting left-wing government was discovered in Sweden decades ago. First raise tax and employ as much of the electorate as possible. Next, offer generous welfare and bribe the middle classes with childcare. Soon, a critical mass of voters becomes part of the government project, and votes for its expansion. Higher private sector earners may squeal at the tax rates, but are easily outnumbered. Eventually the right-wing opposition grows tired of losing elections, and starts pledging to outspend the government, if elected. Then victory is complete.

The architects of New Labour used to dream about such an outcome. ‘There will never be a common morality of the citizenship until a majority of the population benefit from the welfare state,’ wrote Anthony Giddens in his book The Third Way. So it must be enormously satisfying for the Prime Minister, after years of expanding welfare and the public sector workforce, that he has achieved this goal. His army of state beneficiaries now has four divisions: state employees (15 per cent of the electorate), the out-of-work and on welfare (11 per cent), benefit-dependent pensioners (18 per cent) and pensioners with independent means (8 per cent). Add these all together, and it turns out that more than half of the electorate are today, in one way or another, in the pay of the government. And this is before counting untraceable tax credits or subsidy-dependent farmers.

New Labour has, then, entered its psephological promised land — where no party can win power on a platform of radical cutbacks in government. Worse, it has dragged the Tories with it. Rolling back the state, once the leitmotif of Conservatism, has become the mission that dare not speak its name.