Vol. 74/No. 40      October 25, 2010

The move is the opening salvo against a range of universal benefits, as the government prepares to cut £83 billion in its Comprehensive Spending Review, to be announced in Parliament October 20.

In an editorial backing the action, the London Times wrote, “The State provides universal entitlements in many fields… . There are good arguments for all of them. But, when there is no money left, the argument for paying benefits to the well off has weakened to the point of collapse.”

Other universal benefits said to be under threat include TV licenses, bus passes for the elderly, subsidies to students, and sickness benefits, as the government aims to cut the welfare budget by more than £20 billion.

Osborne also announced a cap on the amount of benefits a family can receive, arguing the government must end the so-called “lifestyle choice” of living on benefits.

In a nationalistic “your country needs you” speech, Prime Minister David Cameron sought to deflect criticism of Osborne’s announcement. “I’ve seen the courage of our soldiers, the spirit of our entrepreneurs, the patience of our teachers, the dedication of our doctors, the compassion of our care workers, the wisdom of our elderly, the love of our parents, the hopes of our children. So come on: let’s pull together. Let’s come together. Let’s work, together, in the national interest,” said the Conservative Party leader. That means that those with the “broadest shoulders” should take their share of the pain.

The move to cut child benefits won the well-publicized backing of Martin Narey, head of the children’s charity Barnado’s. Narey, who also headed the End Child Poverty campaign, called for the government to go further and scrap child benefits altogether, with some financial compensation for families earning £30,000 or less.

The Liberal Democrats, junior partner in the coalition government, also expressed support. The government could not make draconian cuts “and still be relaxed about the idea that multimillionaires are receiving universal benefits,” the party said.  
 
Appeal to working people
Such views strengthen the government’s claim that, at a time of austerity, they are looking out for the interests of the hard-working majority. Many workers, burdened by debt and anxious about the future, buy into the government’s false argument to justify the slashing of welfare payments—that government debt is like workers’ personal debt: pay it off now or face greater misery down the road.

Pressure to reduce the deficit comes above all from the rulers’ drive to make the working class pay for the economic and financial crisis. Replacing universal by means-tested benefits, scapegoating the “work shy,” and nationalistic appeals that “we’re all in this together” are the ideological gloss aimed at making the cuts palatable. The drive to reduce the deficit and the assault on universal benefits have nothing to do with protecting workers’ interests.

The Labour Party leadership has argued the government is going too far, too fast. However, its own policies have greased the skids for these measures. When in government, then Labour chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling said that he would take measures to halve the deficit within four years.

In his first speech as the new leader of the Labour Party, Edward Miliband stated that Darling’s projection remained “the starting point” and indicated that he would be prepared to work with the government on “welfare reform.”

“There will be cuts and there would have been if we had been in government,” Miliband said. “I won’t oppose every cut the coalition proposes. There will be some things the coalition does that we won’t like as a party but we will have to support.”

The government has run into opposition to its child benefit announcements from within Conservative Party ranks, and from Conservative Party-backing newspapers, such as the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. What makes those in the government parties and their ruling-class backers nervous is the scale of the cuts being projected today.  
 
Nervousness about scale of cuts
If middle-class families react bitterly to the cut in child benefits, how will workers respond to cuts in their living standards that the Comprehensive Spending Review will signal? Millions of workers in the United Kingdom receive benefits that amount to a social wage, as a result of decades-long labor movement fights to establish social rights for all. The government’s own estimate is the cuts will lead to as many as 1.3 million people losing their jobs.

The nervousness in ruling class circles is increased by declining prospects for the British economy. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research recently reported that growth in the three months to the end of September was just 0.5 percent, in contrast with the 1.2 percent in the previous quarter. The Institute said that the recovery from the depths of the recession had been particularly slow. “Thirty months have passed since the onset of recession, yet the economy still remains more than 4 percent below its pre-recession peak.”

In the background are the economic and financial problems of the United States, of a number of countries in Europe, and of international currency conflicts—all of which impact the United Kingdom. Likewise, governments around the world are looking at the way the UK government’s deficit reduction is handled and how it plays out.

In concert with the stance of the Labour Party leadership, opposition to the austerity measures from the officialdom of the trade unions has been muted—consistent with its course over recent years to the grinding erosion of workers’ living standards and job conditions. The Scottish Trades Union Congress has called a nationwide demonstration in Edinburgh for October 23 under the slogan “There is a better way,” and some local protests are planned. The British TUC is holding a lobby of Parliament on October 19 and is projecting a national demonstration in March 2011.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home