October 5, 2010
The Unconservative Conservatives
Yesterday George Osborne announced some big changes.
A cap system that will reduce income, housing and council tax benefit is going to affect a lot of people’s lives. You can read various good analyses here, here, here, here and here. Personally, I’m still reeling from the extent of Osborne’s assault on those receiving state support, disgusted at his fig-leaf excuses about preventing people seeing benefits as a “lifestyle choice”. But one thing strikes me about these reforms: how cavalier and unconservative the Conservative Party is now being.
As we heard from Adam Smith the other week, politicians should always bear in mind the law of unintended consequences. Changing A with the intention of bringing about B, might inadvertently also cause X, Y and Z – and the end results may be far from pretty.
Think, for example, of an imposed cap on housing benefits. One group I bet Boy George hasn’t thought about who this might affect is battered women. As Hopi Sen tweets:
“Another point on welfare cap. Emergency housing is expensive. Say you leave abusive partner with family, need rehousing, what then?”
Now, I don’t know for sure if it’s the case that women trying to flee partners will now find it even more difficult to leave abusive households (on top of, y’know, the fear of being tracked-down and murdered, which is a common and very real fear in a country where one woman a week dies at her partner’s hands). But it seems likely. I would sincerely like to know if George and Team have factored-in the impact on all similarly vulnerable groups, in every possible permutation of possibile outcomes. My guess is not, because it’s impossible. But they are going ahead regardless. What bold and brave steps our leaders take for us.
Or consider what’s happening here at Cambridge University. Anticipating huge government cuts over coming years, the University has drastically increased the number of fee-paying graduate students admitted. The University Colleges have apparently been ordered to accept this – regardless of whether they have sufficient accommodation or teaching resources available.
On the flip side, the new Coalition immigration cap is causing havoc for overseas students. Many now find themselves struggling to secure entry to the UK, with knock-on effects for the University bureaucracy who are struggling to cope with the myriad resultant problems. I would imagine that many, if not all, universities in Britain are in the same position. The knock-on effects for both UK higher education and – in the longer run – the whole economy simply cannot be fathomed.
These are just two particular illustrations. There must be hundreds more.
What intrigues me, therefore, is the disregard for the radical change that must now surely arise – with unknowable, unforseen consequences. Michael Oakeshott, possibly the greatest modern conservative philosopher, would surely be appalled. Oakeshott likened the running of a state to the sailing of a ship cast adrift on a boundless ocean. The ship could be sailed safely only by the use of tested practical wisdom, and that came only from experience which demanded only gradual and organic change. By contrast, theoretically-driven sojourns – i.e. the pursuing of politics by way of abstract ideology – were more likely to sink the ship than keep it afloat.
Frederick von Hayek, however, wrote a famous article called “Why I am Not A Conservative“. This fascinating essay contains much to think about, but one of its central messages was that Hayek, under the right circumstances, would accept anti-conservative change if it brought about the small-state libertarianism he believed best for all.
George Osborne, it would seem, is not a conservative either.
Mark said,
October 5, 2010 at 9:22 am
Well done Paul, I expect this is exactly the reaction Osborne was hoping for.
George Osborne has suggested that non-disabled people would face a cap on their benefits equal to the amount the average family earns.
This strikes me as a statement so absolutely uncontroversial, that it is really completely worthless. After all, there really are no grounds on which non-disabled people who are not working should get *more* than average. It doesn’t make sense on grounds of egalitarianism and the idea offends most peoples idea of fair play.
A policy designed purely to steal the wind from left wing sails and make the lunatics complaining about it look silly.
Paul Sagar said,
October 5, 2010 at 9:46 am
Mark,
As it happens, one of the commenters from here – Ste For Sure – is preparing a piece for me about the unforseen impact of measures to tinker with benefits in ways designed to pull them down below the average, and the quiet astounding impacts this has on people’s lives.
So if you don’t mind I’ll defer replying to your point until Ste posts up his piece here, hopefully this week.
But also note that you’ve focused in on one very particular benefits change; my analysis rather looks at the mass change being wrought by this administration on a whole host of fronts – and I don’t think you can deny that change *is* happening, whatever you think about that change.
p.s. you are coming over all socialist on the MPs second jobs thread – what gives?!
Peter said,
October 5, 2010 at 11:39 am
I don’t think we can comment too much on these proposals until there’s more detail, but it’s false that nobody lives on benefits as a “lifestyle choice”. I personally know people that fiddle incapacity benefit. Yes, it’s probably not a very big set, and the costs of dealing with it are probably too great, but the left needs to distance itself from defending that sort of person.
The (probable) problem with Osborne’s proposals is that they’ll hit those who aren’t playing the system.
donpaskini said,
October 5, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Excellent article.
Mark – if George Osborne had announced that councils should do their bit to help reduce the deficit by using loopholes to avoid their legal duty to house homeless families in their area, would you support that?
Or what about if he had said that in order to save money, children in poor families should be housed in bed and breakfasts rather than flats, or live three or four to one room?
Because Osborne’s policy may sound like common sense when he says it, but that is what the main practical implications will be. Whether or not that is unintended consequences or deliberate viciousness, it is hardly as uncontentious as you suggest.
Carl P said,
October 5, 2010 at 1:50 pm
This idea that conservatives fear change, I imagine, comes from Burke’s dislike for those godless enlightenment folk. His opinion was that a system of governance, where the high order have the God-given right to govern the lower order, had been working since day one, and he wasn’t prepared to see it displaced for a half-baked set of ideas by people he considered quite untrustworthy. I suppose, since enlightenment politics supposedly triumphed traditional order as per Burke, all conservatives have to contain anti-conservative change if it brings about an order more to their liking.
(Mind you, 23 cabinet members are millionaires, the higher/lower system seems to be working a treat).
Mark said,
October 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Well, I’m actually something of an expert on this topic, seeing as how I earn the average wage and am currently living three to a room. It’s not that bad when the people are nice.
If it’s impossible to house people in decent accommodation for less than the average wage then either the average person doesn’t live in that area, in which case I don’t think it’s unreasonable for an unemployed family to live elsewhere, or house prices are unsustainably expensive, in which case the government should be concentrating on lowering the cost, encouraging more building, rather than sustaining the prices by paying increasingly expensive rents.
Obviously we don’t know the full details of his plan – but if it’s basically that unemployed families will be provided with some form of accommodation but that the amount spent on it will be limited, I’m afraid I can’t see the problem.
Paul -
I don’t think that the idea that delegating responsibility to managers can give those managers an opportunity to take advantage is necessarily a socialist one. I hope not, anyway :/
Ronald Collinson said,
October 5, 2010 at 4:31 pm
I basically agree with this. I’m undecided about the merits of quite a lot of these proposals, but the whole thing is definitely too gung-ho.
Personally, I think it’s an attempt to distract the base from the horrific programme of constitutional reform this Liberal-Democrat led government is imposing on us. [It's funny how perspective makes such a difference on these things].
There have been moments in the last few months when I’ve considered tearing up my membership card and signing up with Labour, although to be honest, they probably wouldn’t want me.
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