Tory benefit proposals: angel or devil in the detail?

The Tories today announced plans for getting people off of long-term benefits and into work. Part of the scheme involves compulsory community for those on benefits for more than two years. Coupled with independent (i.e. private) back-to-work organisations the proposals will tackle ’serial claimants’.

I can envisage this proving popular with taxpayers who have been trained to think of benefit claimants as ’scroungers’ unless proved otherwise. As someone who as unemployed and on job-seeker’s allowance for a little short of a whole year I do have some sympathy with this approach. There is a dignity in work (and Pope John Paul II agreed). Nevertheless, I’d want to hear just as much about a parallel attempt to address the systemic issues that result in some people being on benefits for years.

Similarly, the nature of the contracts with the private ‘back - to - work’ centres will need close scrutiny. We’ve seen enough BBC costume drama to alert us to the iniquities of previous Poor Laws. If shareholders can make a profit out of those on longterm benefits I’d need a lot of convincing.

There’s enough of a critique in the Bible of idleness to make us take it realistically as a problem needing addressing. However, rich people’s exploitation of the poor might just find another avenue under these proposals. Let’s see if there’s a devil or angel in the detail.

Fiscal arithmetic

In today’s Guardian, Mark Lawson identifies Gordon Brown’s 2008 catchphrase as ‘fiscal arithmetic’. According to Lawson it’s the PM’s equivalent of the reassuringly familiar ‘Nice to see you…’ belonging to Bruce Forsyth. What Lawson doesn’t tell us is the response that’s supposed to follow it. Those of us brought up on the ‘Generation Game’ will hear in our heads, even if we resist the urge to join in, ‘to see you, nice’.

What could possibly be our audience response to ‘fiscal arithmetic’?

Lawson is right though, the public’s felt need for reassurance can’t be neglected by a political leader. We want to feel safe, and more so when economic indicators point towards a troubling year. This is perhaps even more urgent for those who sense that they are financially over-committed and took short-term risks with their own credit history on the naïve belief that a day of fiscal reckoning never has to be faced.

It’s common enough to hear religious people blaming God when bad things happen; especially when they’ve got more than a sneaking suspicion that events are partly a result of their own foolishness. The responsibility has got to be deflected. I’m not suggesting that Gordon Brown is a God-substitute but there’s something of a similar process going on. The PM is blamed for everything but also expected to be the reassurance that ’something will come up’. Quite how that works these days, in the midst of a cynical approach to politicians in particular and an ambivalence towards experts in general, is hard to fathom.

‘Fiscal arithmetic’ is perhaps the oddest of catchphrases. Its appeal to the brutish realities of economic decision-making is perhaps not just what we need to hear, but the reassurance we long for. Like the doctor who tells us the truth from appraising our test results, Brown the Accountant of the Nation is maybe recognising the button we need, and want him, to push.