That Labour wouldn’t scrap the Coalition’s cuts to child benefit for higher earners isn’t a surprise. It is just one of the many admissions that the party will need to make in the next few years about policies it has bitterly opposed.
This week’s admissions that the party couldn’t safeguard winter fuel payment and that it will also introduce a cap on AME welfare spending don’t just represent an attempt to face up to reality, and to show voters that it is prepared to do so. They are also an attempt to see how far the rest of the Labour party can be pushed before the open revolt that everyone has been muttering darkly about begins. So far, the response hasn’t been too bad. Peter Hain took to the screens to complain about the erosion of the universal principle, but one cross voice does not open warfare over welfare make.
The reaction from the party so far will embolden Miliband and colleagues to make further pronouncements on tricky issues. But it will also embolden the Tories to set out their own vision for welfare. If Labour is examining a new Beveridge settlement rather than refusing to change anything out of reverence, then the door is open for others to consider what a modern welfare state should look like.
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