But there is in fact a consistent story here. It’s not about left and right. It’s about principles and restraint. Today’s developments throw it in sharp relief.
It’s intended to bring back dignity in labour, especially for low income workers on zero-hours contracts living without any sense of stability in their employment. It promises decent pay, decent conditions and a sense of security – all of which will give workers more money and greater confidence to spend it, ultimately leading to increased demand and higher economic growth. A virtuous cycle.
Employers and business groups were left disappointed. Their attempts to water down the proposals had failed.
If it is a matter of principle, it’s probably not one Mahmood holds. Labour politicians don’t usually spend their careers hoping they’ll one day be able to cut benefits. In reality, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has to make the cuts because she’s lost her fiscal headroom.
You tilt your head one way, the Government looks left wing. You tilt it the other, it looks right wing. The workers rights provisions are good, old fashioned egalitarianism – a commitment to trade unionism, state intervention and assistance for the vulnerable. The decision to cut welfare is the sort of thing George Osborne would have done in 2010. What kind of government manages to combine these contradictory elements?
square OLIVER DUFF
Best-case scenarios for StarmerRead More
The seeming lack of political consistency partly explains the Government’s unpopularity. One of the old truisms of tax policy is that the losers scream loudest. The same is true in politics. People tend to be more aggrieved by what they don’t like than they are pleased by what they do.
On cultural issues, like immigration, the Government is genuinely confused – torn between more “Blue Labour” conservative elements that want to replicate Reform’s agenda and more liberal centre-left elements who want to maintain some sense of progressive principle. This is what explains the morally disastrous recent move to ban refugees from claiming citizenship – Labour’s muddled moral incomprehension and electoral anxiety on culture war topics.
In each case, Labour starts from a position of soft-left principles and then adapts it to the restraints it faces. Sometimes it sticks to its ambitions, sometimes it waters them down, and sometimes it buckles.
Why does she respond by targeting welfare? For the same reason the Government recently targeted international development. Because it is unpopular and expensive. There is no more to it than that. Faced with a series of strict limitations, it has adopted the least painful choice. Progressives won’t like it. I don’t like it. But the political reasoning is obvious.
It’s a basic centre-left government that faces severe restraints on what it can do. Sometimes it is able to push past those restraints. Sometimes it is not.
It is a frustrating state of affairs for voters, political obsessives and the Government itself. But, for now at least, it’s the state of affairs we’re in.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Labour’s unpopularity comes down to one thing )
Also on site :