MY ENTIRELY apolitical buddy Nick – we played in a band together in the early eighties – puts the fact that I am a socialist down to some inexplicable quirk I picked up while I was a wanky student and he was already doing a proper job of work in a bathroom supplies warehouse.
While I subsequently swanned around doing non-jobs and trying to foment world revolution, he knocked his bird up, secured a council flat which he was then able to buy ridiculously cheaply courtesy of Shirley Porter, climbed the property ladder and eventually established his own bathroom supply business, doing a roaring trade knocking out plush bog seats to the Bishop’s Avenue set at two grand a time.
The inevitable divorce cost him a few bob, but I assume he is still a millionaire, at least on paper. Not bad for a council estate boy, right? Such a story is of course indicative of what happened to a certain layer of the working class in the Thatcher, Major and Blair years.
Although Nick is where he is as much by luck and political design as the graft he undeniably did put in, he naturally believes that he is entitled to what he has got, and that the trouble with bloody lefties like me is that we want to take his dosh away and give it to other people.
The thing is, basically that is what we do want to do. It is an engrained aspect of socialist sensibility to be horrified by poverty, to be outraged at extreme wealth, and to see wealth redistribution as the obvious solution.
We do our best to come up with analytical justification for this stance, endlessly monitoring the ever-expanding ratio between the salary of the average chief executive and the average employee, and memorising the trend line for the UK Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve.
Our logic seems so compelling to us that we find it difficult to believe anybody can see things any other way. Yet the majority of the population still think like Nick, as the latest empirical research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Fabian Society seems to underline.
Regardless of where they actually do stand in the income rankings, most people consider themselves as somewhere close to the middle. Over two-thirds believe that everybody has at least the opportunity to get on in life.
Attitudes are more likely to be negative towards the poor than towards the rich; common sense dictates that the bosses deserve their huge remuneration, although that seems to be changing slowly in the wake of meltdown in financial markets last year.
Consequently, few are convinced by abstract arguments in favour of social equality. Indeed, inequality is considered fine, so long as it is ‘deserved inequality’.
While there is public support for progressive taxation and income redistribution, much of this is premised on fear of the negative consequences of poverty. Put crudely, those surveyed regarded income support as the price society pays to keep burglary and mugging down to acceptable levels.
All of this represents a major problem for any left that is actually interested in expanding it base. Capitalism - and the inequality it creates - continue to enjoy moral legitimacy in the eyes of an overwhelming majority.
While the unfolding recession has generated popular outrage aimed against those at the apex of the banking system, clearly general purpose ‘tax the rich’ fat cat-bashing will most of the time have little purchase.
I’m not suggesting any retreat whatsoever from the underlying principles involved. No socialism worthy of the name can be anything but redistributive in nature. But we need to come up with a more effective way of selling the message to the public, and sooner rather than later at that.
Posted at 14:38, 23 June 2009
Comments (38)
But Dave, when the revolution comes, all normal people (we non-socialists) will have all our wealth expropriated. But what if taking from the talented and rich to give to the incompetent and lazy fails to produce the expected utopia? Surely your plans will come to an end since you will have no one left to steal from.
Please enlighten us!
But kardinal, surely you conscious "non-socialists" are so driven by the system you uphold that you will soon have the expropriated wealth back in your hands via the selling, exploiting and duping at which you all excel.
Socialism = theft
Capitalism = theft
My, the standard of debate on this blog is very high today.
So it seems, Rory. Allison's input was especially original and incisive, wasn't it?
As an older guy born into poverty and who worked like the "Nick" fellow above, I am always appalled at the idea that only "socialism" has the answers to the human condition. Any intelligent decent person does not want wealth and success on the back of poverty and the misery of others. Yet human nature has its share of gangsters, bullies and corrupt politicians as well as poorly equipped genetically flawed beings. Equality for all is a dangerous myth and redistribution an unfair visitation on those clever enough and hard working enough to do well in life. Just observe the behaviour and wealth created by Labour politicians and trade union bosses over the last 50 years. Obscene hypocrisy so much the inevitable application of an ideology that is only good enough to spawn the monsters we endure in Government today. You not three Prime Ministers and their creation of social mobility. Only two of these, both Conservatives, achieved a platform of equal opportunity. Blair and now Brown continue to trample all over social justice and fairness whilst amassing wealth most of us have been forced to surrender via savings and pensions. Socialism, an ideology devoid of any natural foundation and a curse on every land subjugated to its yoke. Cuba, China, the USSR and so on. Stalin and Lenin, men who slaughtered millions who failed to understand the jackboot of "equality".
"when the revolution comes, all normal people (we non-socialists) will have all our wealth expropriated."
Um, no they won't.
Gosh, that was quite easy.
The standard of facile straw man construction is bloody awful these days isn't it? Heart not in it Kardinal? Bit tired?
Although I did like the promising bit about 'the incompetent and lazy' in which you almost manage to work up a slightly hysterical tone, but it fizzled out rather quickly.
Wow, we've even got some SOCIALISM = USSR dross as well.
Jesus wept.
Now Oldrightie's got it. Kardinal take note. That's how you do it. It's all there, right down to the splurge of consciousness style of presentation.
"Socialism, an ideology devoid of any natural foundation and a curse on every land subjugated to its yoke."
Masterful. Never seen a finer specimen. Great use of the word 'yoke'. Full marks.
My input may not be clever of incisive, but it's how it seems to me as I look out of my 9-5 office window and see the almost half of my wages that I have to surrender to the socialists being pissed away (quite literally outside my office window) by the feckless and jobless, Frosty Jack bottle in hand. All the socialist I know of are rich enough not to be bothered by having to pay punitive taxes and don't live in proximity to the great unwashed or are in receipt of benefits.
Socialism fails because humans are inherantly competitive. For socialism to work each individual needs to believe that the needs of the collective outweigh personal rewards.
To be able to redistribute wealth you need wealth creators.Take away the incentive to create the wealth (why should I work my **** off so that others can sit on theirs) and the whole lot collapses. As for Nick, I'm sure on his way up he employed a few people, paid taxes and probably contributed more to the collective than you have.
Like a parasite, socialism needs capitalism as a host.
Booting the stays out from under the class system by pounding away at inherited wealth and privilege is the most sensible tactic at the moment.
Death duties ought to take care of the wealth and direct democracy would swiftly undermine their cultural hegemony.
Force the vermin back on their unstated core belief in their own and their vile offspring's (unearned, by definition) entitlement.
Alternatively you could go on and on and on and on and on about the middle east, that might work as well.
human beeeings competitiv. taxes meen no insentives. so with high taxes nobody don't do no work. look at places with high taxes, lazy poor alcoholics freeloading off us clever ones, like 1945 to 1979 in england, or in Germany or Noway, everyone there is lazy, they don't do nuffink. Not like us ! We work hard, we do. We do, oh we do, we work so hard, and life is so hard, and we're not happy, and Oh God we don't know why not, and there is something nasty and festering in England's woodshed, and lord help us the tories are coming.
Allison
I take it you don't use public roads, telephone lines, use public transport, drink water, never go to a doctor's surgery or hospital, didn't go to a state school or have kids yourself, don't ever report anything to the cops, don't rely on legal protection for anything, have never claimed any kind of benefit (you now the nice benefits like child benefit and mortgage tax relief that nice respectable people seem to have no problem claiming) and would never call an ambulance. etc.
'It is not from the benevolence of the pimp, the assasin, or the warlord, that we can expect our child whores delivered, our enemies dispatched and our purity saved, but from their regard to their own interest.'
A. Smith (or near enough)
It isn't a very good time in the UK for socialism, that's for sure. That private property is some kind of natural right granted from a god (or arising out of misinformed enlightenment philosophers ideas about the history of private property) rather than something instituted and enforced by the state is taken as a given. We know for certain that it's wrong, we can demonstrate that if Locke's law is actually applied to history as we know it, it would point to communism (rather than applied to history as he imagined it). But people just aren't going to accept theory, who can be arsed with theory?
But the current state of things isn't sustainable, once the developing world develops, and our living standards aren't propped up by sending foreign kids down mines, onto plantations, into sweatshops for next to nothing any longer- who knows what will happen?
People have this set of ideas now, but ordinary people I know generally don't give a fuck either way. My old dad couldn't decide between UKIP or the Tories for the Euro elections- he got to the polling station and voted for the Socialist Labour Party because he remembered Scargill and liked him, and saw his name on the ballot. Most people just don't follow politics or get theoretically involved with politics. But once physical and economic situations change, when the developing world unionises and so on, peoples minds may change.
Actually Allison's comment is right. Incisive.
To explain more, Dave's mate is a millionaire not because he has a wonderful money printer but because of his exploitation of the labour power of those who worked for him directly, and for his suppliers etc - and he happens to have been in arrangements with others who have done likewise so as to own a house on Bishop's Avenue (and he has also extracted the true value of his flat minus actually out of the mouths of babes, in the social services budget of Westminster CC)
It's not his money, it's ours collectively. We are not 'stealing' it from it but seeking to retrieve stolen property.
Naturally he is opposed. But what do all those who made him rich - the people who did far, far more work than him, think? Fuck him and all other exploiters. He is one, we are many.
I think Mike is right. There is also an ecological dimension to the distribution of wealth. I honestly don't see how we can continue with our over-comsumption in the developed world without it leading to disaster. Last week the Met Office said that the climate of Britain will become subtropical by 2080; just imagine what the Med and Africa will be like! There will have to be a fundamental redistribution of world resources to meet the chaos and population movements that will happen. People will need to redefine their relationship with everything. Private property will seem the least of the problems. Hope this doesn't sound too miserable. I will of course be long dead by that time, although my descendants will live on.
Marx wrote that it is people's self-interest, not their altruism, that would motivate them to establish a fair and just society. Yup. He wrote that. I used to sound like the opponents of socialism above until I became open-minded enough to stop and ask myself, waitaminnit, I've never actually read anything Marx wrote. And as life under capitalism grows creepier and creepier (try to get good service - or genuine eye-contact or personal connection, in any large corporate chain store), I began to wonder... if you can't run a business without the work of your "employees" then why aren't they equal partners in some way?
Moves to equalise society don't necessarily mean using the tax system to transfer wealth.
Unfortunately, there's wide acceptance of the simplistic equation of state-owned enterprises and public services with the notion of an equal society.
Another canard is that socialists want to share out money, as Kardinal Birkutzki.
Perhaps Dave could clear up these confusions.
So... if I pay a driver the going rate to deliver my produce, i`m exploiting him? In what way?
If you consider a free agreement between two people within the accepted rules of our society to be exploitation, then not only are you off your rocker, but there can also never be an end to exploitation while there is still a neccesity for work.
So really, instead of worrying about redistribution you should be designing robots.
Is it ok to exploit robots?
Will those robots be made by a company using mines in Cambodia (stocked full of children and bond slaves, too) that they only own as private property because the state seized those *natural* resources and distributed them their way originally with no moral basis?
Or can they magic these robots out of nothing? If so, then I should think that would be completely fine.
I do have to congratulate Allison for managing to recycle the full range of Little Britain-libertarian cliches in a single sentence. Versatile, too; it could stand in for actual argument on virtually any subject you are to mention. Now, who is it that's engaging in class warfare again?
However, the bit where she talks "almost half of my wages that I have to surrender to the socialists" raised a bit of a chuckle at the image of her being unaware she doesn't have to hand over half her paycheck to whatever tiny sectlet is campaigning on her way to work. You have to marvel at the political illiteracy that conflates socialism with New Labour. Still, if this is in anyway widespread, the left are fucked, frankly.
Southpawpunch: "He is one, we are many."
Did you read the post? "Yet the majority of the population still think like Nick, as the latest empirical research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Fabian Society seems to underline."
Seems to me that you're not many enough. Plausibly out numbered, in head-count and capital, and your meme has such a terrible history in so many places.
@Horace. What free agreement? I could live on the dole for sure, was unemployed just recently but it's very tough so got another job - not through free agreement but because I need to sell my labour power and indeed I think current conditions (a reserve army of labour- the unemployed) mean that even more surplus values - I produce £120 of work, I get paid £50, the additional costs e.g. premises, capital interest etc cost £30, the employer pockets £40, my surplus value - goes to the exploiter at present. Expropriate them.
@David, the exploiters - such as the friend of Dave will employ (i.e. exploit) many people.
So the maths are inarguable - the few exploiters (and even those who exploit other exploiters) are vastly outnumbered by the rest of us.
We want back what they have stolen from us, just some of us have so been befuddled by the capitalist propaganda that this society is 'natural', 'fair' or 'inevitable' that they don't yet realise they have been robbed.
The employer must also be bringing something to the relationship in order to make that 40 quid profit (unless you are being tricked). It just happens that the going rate for his premises, knowledge or whatever it is that he is contributing is 40 quid. Your labour is worth 50.
Yes, we have to work in order to eat - but just because it is neccesary for us to work doesn`t mean that the people who contribute knowledge or machinery should subsidise those who provide labour. In such an environment there will simply be less machinery and knowledge.
Is that what you`re after?
Horace,
well, not really. They bring the tools that enable to worker to do the job - and by the withholding of which they can prevent the worker doing the job. Those tools (which include procedures) are fully realised products, they are not bringing any economic value to the process other than that which is invested in them. The workers add value, great economic possibilities, through applying their labour.
A lump of metal and a stick of wood are worth as much as the sum of their two parts,, combining them top make a hammer, however, means they will have a value greater than that sum. That value was added by labour.
The trick is we're not paid for the value of our labour, but for the value of our capacity to work, our employers own our labour. Hence all wages are ultimately exploitative.
Perhaps a labourer digging holes at random or searching the streets for someone to dig them for would earn less money than one whop relied upon a boss to find projects and clients or him?
I`m also guessing that a labourer without a spade isn`t going to get very far, so I`m not convinced that tools and organisation don`t add great value as well.
Our employers don`t own our labour. They rent it.
And, if we are unable to own or sell the means of production then nobody has any individual control over their own labour - so how is this circumstance preferable?
Exactly, withold the spade and you withold the ability to work, teh law of no profit no employment rears its ugly head. Precisely what we are trying to emancipate labour from.
The tools don't add value, they transfer the value added to them in their creation.
I'm afraid they don't rent our labour, they rent our capacity to work, they own our labour in as much as they own the product of our work. When we work we work for them.
Several reports lately have drawn attention to the negative effects of inequality eg http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/11/mental-health-inequality
"It has been acknowledged for some time that poverty can be a trigger for poor mental health, but a new study published today by the World Health Organisation (WHO) argues that it is inequality that has the most profound and far-reaching consequences for individuals and wider society..."
Also there is a new book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett called The Spirit Level that shows there is more teenage pregnancy, mental illness, higher prison populations, more murders, higher obesity and less numeracy and literacy in more unequal societies.
Perhaps it's not too surprising if most people don't think equality matters given that all the main political parties think like this, indeed one of the fundamental pillars of New Labour was that inequality was unimportant
my annual income of 14,000€ p.a. places me in the top 12% of earners globally. There´s about 5.3 billion people who earn less money than me.
So you all tell me how many of them have a decent opporunity to ´get on´?
Oh, and the trend in social mobility is that is goes up in more egalitarian societies. That´s right, the more you invest in people, the more likely they are to be successful. Funny that.
"It's not his money, it's ours collectively. We are not 'stealing' it from it but seeking to retrieve stolen property."
And some people still think that socialism is a philosophy of theft? How could they? How could they be so blind as to fail to see that the workers are so evily exploited? Enough sarcasm there?
If you run a business you will only employ someone who is going to make you more money than they cost you. Otherwise you will shortly have no business at all not to mention no income in the meantime.
"if you can't run a business without the work of your "employees" then why aren't they equal partners in some way?"
Because it's your business and it's up to you what conditions to offer, just as it is up to the employee whether or not to accept them.
We no don't live in a country of landed nobles and poor exploited serfs, perhaps that's the problem with socialism. It no longer applies because the changes in the world have made it inapplicable.
I'm not sure I share your negative assessment of this report, Dave. We've done our own analysis over at Left Luggage: http://theleftluggage.wordpress.com/2009/06/25/inequality-and-the-battle-of-ideas/
Seems public opinion is mixed and complex on the issue.
Left Luggage
@Falco: You've completely and utterly missed the point.
The point is that there is no moral reason why the way society uses natural resources should be dictated by private individuals. All ownership springs from state seizure somewhere down the line, so while Businessman Quint can only make a profit on his investment capital if he underpays his employees, the fact is that investment capital should not be in his or any individual's hands in the first place. Socialism is about the democratic use of natural resources.
And you're flat out wrong when you say that practical socialism, as opposed to theoretical, no longer applies. Just because it isn't Wigan miners getting lung diseases for little money, or Manchester children sewing our clothes, and so on, doesn't mean that it doesn't go on. *You* can't see it, so it doesn't happen and our clothes, metals, fruits, chocolate, coffee, diamonds, etc, just happen all by themselves right?
Hell, just because *you* can't readily see it doesn't mean it doesn't go on inside the country anyway. Though the harshest exploitation goes on with people we've been conditioned not to consider people (like illegal immigrants, I heavily recommend "Chinese Whispers: The True Story of Britains Hidden Army of Labour").
There's a study I like to quote, I've probably done so a lot on this blog already, is one by the ILO in 2005- about 9-12 year old workers in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast.
70-100 hours a week, in conditions that drastically reduce life-expectancy, for very little pay. Not enough pay to live on, but the children live on the plantation and get their food from their employers. Imagine being 9 years old, working a 100 hour week, no educational opportunity, you can't leave because it's both your home and your only source of food. They found more than 200,000 in that age group.
In that age group also, they found around 12,000 that were either bond slaves, or they weren't sure if they were bond slaves (it's not like they could check the paperwork). Apparently the going rate is $60 a kid.
The three biggest users of these plantations? Nestle, Mars, Hersheys. But I suppose they have to if they want to profit right? And it's not our concern because while we consume these products, this exploitation goes on far away? Is that your mindset?
"The point is that there is no moral reason why the way society uses natural resources should be dictated by private individuals. All ownership springs from state seizure somewhere down the line,"
However, you believe that there is a moral reason why the resources of individuals should be dictated by society. If all ownership springs from state seizure and this is a bad thing, then why are you advocating more state seizure?
"Businessman Quint can only make a profit on his investment capital if he underpays his employees, the fact is that investment capital should not be in his or any individual's hands in the first place."
Even if Quint, by dint of work and saving has built up that capital over time? Why should he not be free to do with it as he wishes? Quint is risking his capital, (he could loose it just as well as increase it), and offering people employment. No one is compelled to take up his offer, so why claim that his employees must be underpayed?
As for the workers on the Ivory Coast, if many of them are enslaved, why do you believe that socialism is the only answer to their problems? They need freedom, socialism will, at best, give them a kinder master. That aside, is there not something on the statute books that makes the use of slave, (as opposed to low wage), labour a criminal offence for companies operating in this country?
Regarding most calls for people in poor countries to be given better wages you run into problems, (ie. where it is just a low paid job rather than any form of slavery). Companies are only in these places because there is cheap labour available, take away that market advantage and the companies leave. It is far better to have them there "exploiting", (and while the wage they offer will be very low it is usually better than anything else on offer to their prospective employees), than pulling out altogether.
Re illegal immigrants, you either have free movement of labour, (seldom something that meets favour on the left though I tend to agree with it), or you have laws restricting it. If you have restrictions then you place those on the wrong side of the law at a considerable disadvantage and they will suffer for it.
"Socialism is about the democratic use of natural resources."
If you have a group of 100 people and 10 have more than the rest, (even if they deserve every last bit), then a democratic vote can take it away from them. Whether something is democratic has little bearing on whether or not it was the correct thing to do. Slavery is a terrible thing to happen to the poor but if you're not poor then slavery is everything you deserve? Is that your mindset?
"However, you believe that there is a moral reason why the resources of individuals should be dictated by society. If all ownership springs from state seizure and this is a bad thing, then why are you advocating more state seizure?"
"The resources of individuals"- they are not the resources of individuals. They are natural resources. The society we currently live in has these natural resources put in the hands of individuals. This is very damaging, to people, to the environment, to society it's self. Property is a state institution like any other, and like any other it should be dismantled when it does more harm than good.
"Even if Quint, by dint of work and saving has built up that capital over time? Why should he not be free to do with it as he wishes? Quint is risking his capital, (he could loose it just as well as increase it), and offering people employment. No one is compelled to take up his offer, so why claim that his employees must be underpayed?"
Again, no. So what if he's built up capital over time? A thief can work his ass off to build up a priceless art collection, devising radical new ways of robbery through his entrepreneurship- does hard work justify damaging practice? Whoever he's worked for to get that money from shouldn't have had it in the first place to give to him.
In aristrocratic political systems, a few have control over policy. Is that fair? Even if some of those Lords worked really hard? Well we have an aristocratic, oligarchic economic system. For no reason other than the kings who set out the current distribution decided a god had told them they could.
"As for the workers on the Ivory Coast, if many of them are enslaved, why do you believe that socialism is the only answer to their problems? They need freedom, socialism will, at best, give them a kinder master. That aside, is there not something on the statute books that makes the use of slave, (as opposed to low wage), labour a criminal offence for companies operating in this country?"
I don't think you know what socialism is. A "kinder master"? Come on. It's completely obnoxious to think that you know more about what socialism is than socialists. I don't know if it's a criminal offence, if it is it's plainly not enforced. That doesn't make one iota of difference anyway.
"Regarding most calls for people in poor countries to be given better wages you run into problems, (ie. where it is just a low paid job rather than any form of slavery). Companies are only in these places because there is cheap labour available, take away that market advantage and the companies leave. It is far better to have them there "exploiting", (and while the wage they offer will be very low it is usually better than anything else on offer to their prospective employees), than pulling out altogether."
Under capitalism it's slavery or starvation, yes. Those are the options of capitalism, not inevitables.
"Re illegal immigrants, you either have free movement of labour, (seldom something that meets favour on the left though I tend to agree with it), or you have laws restricting it. If you have restrictions then you place those on the wrong side of the law at a considerable disadvantage and they will suffer for it."
What does this have to do with anything? Should or shouldn't companies exploit them as they do? Aren't they further proof that socialism is applicable as it ever was, more so considering the foreign workers who shoulder most of the burden nowadays are worse off than their corresponding British workers from decades or more ago?
"If you have a group of 100 people and 10 have more than the rest, (even if they deserve every last bit), then a democratic vote can take it away from them. Whether something is democratic has little bearing on whether or not it was the correct thing to do. Slavery is a terrible thing to happen to the poor but if you're not poor then slavery is everything you deserve? Is that your mindset?"
For Christs sake, you really don't know the first thing about what socialism is do you? What are you harping on about slavery for, no one's talking about enslaving anybody. Christ. There is no possible way any person can deserve more of the natural world than another person. No god has flown down from the sky and given a slice of natural material to certain individuals. All private ownership is the result of state seizure.
If Banksy did a painting on someone's house, working hard on that painting, does that then mean that the house is his? If the owner of a house is away, or is overpowered by Banksy- who then trades it for a house someone else had robbed, are they then rightful owners due to them not being the original thief of what they have in their possession? Would taking this house and giving it to it's rightful owner be "slavery" for Banksy?
If we're to be serious about the idea that all people are born with equal rights, people need to have equal rights over the natural materials that society makes use of, equal rights to dictate what society pours resources into or not, and so on.
And if you're one of those that say no one has any inherent rights, you have no business supporting or opposing anything and if the unions decide to flex their muscles and bring capitalism down- then you would have no moral right to complain.
And if you're one of those who reject authority of the state yet think we should all adhere to an arbitrary "finders keepers" law thought up by one John Locke, you would find that the theory of humanity's development at the time was very flawed and we now know that the earliest societies held resources in common. If you apply Locke's law to history as we know it rather than history as he guessed it- you would find that communism is the result.
Now, you still haven't actually answered my post in any of that. If socialism is "no longer applicable"- what exactly has changed? The degree of exploitation is worse than it has ever been, global inequality is worse than it has ever been, and the policy of letting private dictators rule over scraps of nature has seen us come close to environmental disaster. If it used to be applicable, but is no longer so, what exactly has changed? Because it's people far away taking the brunt rather than people down the street?
Must be a new record for comment length!
If you run a business you will only employ someone who is going to make you more money than they cost you. Otherwise you will shortly have no business at all not to mention no income in the meantime...it's your business and it's up to you what conditions to offer, just as it is up to the employee whether or not to accept them.
Here we have the nub of the problem, a tiny minority do own the productive wealth, about 5% of the population, the rest of the population are faced with the choice of working for them on their terms, or not working.
The second Welfare Reform Bill Bill with its draconian and cruel agenda is powering its way through the Lords, with hardly any dissent, though a small group of Lib Dems/Indies are trying to ameliorate the bit about forcing the severley mentally ill to work, etc.
Its not suprising though that public attitudes to welfare have hardened: this Govt has basically used all the tools of the state, etc and the media to create an atmosphere of contempt and loathing for those on benefits, constant 'anti-fraud' campaigns, etc, a programme worthy of a Eastern Bloc States and which has woefully been left unchallenged by much of the Left. Ministers on TV News describing those on D/B's as 'workshy' even the BBC has got in on the act with its 'On the Fiddle' tabloid TV programmes,
Polls have aways shown the U.K to have some of the most hostile views to welfare in the EU, now all the Govt propoganda is bearing fruit.
But anyone who thinks that cutting welfare etc, won't have deletorious effects on society is delusional...
meanwhile , the far left sets up yet another divisive and marginal group,
see SU Blog...