Skip to main content

Glad to see the back of this nasty government

I will be pleased to see the back of this coalition government. Under the cloak of dealing with the deficit they set about a vicious ideological attack on the poorest and most vulnerable. They branded those on benefits as 'cheats' at worse or 'welfare dependents' at best.  They talked of 'welfare dependency' but did nothing to deal with the root causes of such 'dependency - low pay and poverty. The drove families from their homes because of a 'spare bedroom' - Nasty - very nasty. Hard working families made to take the brunt of austerity. As a result it has been the poorest who have taken the biggest hit in 'dealing with the deficit'.  Austerity became synonymous with 'dealing with the deficit'. Yet austerity was an ideologically driven attack on social and welfare provision. The truth is that if we had 'all been in it together' then there would have been changes in taxes too. As it was it was one rule for the wealthy and another for the poor.

All this is why it is difficult to forgive Mr Clegg's Liberal Democrats. They presided over this too and should take full responsibility for it.  But I suspect they will now attempt to distance themselves. I hope that does't work. Frankly they deserve to be hit, and hit badly by voters. Far from reigning back Tory excesses, they provided a cloak for it. Whilst they claimed to be holding the Tories in the centre ground they sat in cabinet watching the Tories run amok with welfare and benefits. They sat by and watched as the scandal of ATOS disability assessments kicked in - one of the biggest scandals of this government.

The Liberal Democrats will say that 'it was necessary' to address the deficit. But did it work? Did attacking the poorest work in cutting the deficit? No, it did not, which is why we now have the prospect of an election with 'cutting the deficit' as the main issue. And why did it fail? It failed because the government gave little attention to increasing revenues.  Cutting too far too soon slowed economic recovery and cut revenue - that is the crucial reason the government have not met their deficit reduction targets.

With unemployment falling steadily you would think that revenue would increase. But the nature of the rise in employment - part time, casual, 'self employed', zero-hour contracts - does little to increase  revenue. It is not a sign of success, it is a sign of underlying weakness in the economy that people can't be properly employed on decent wages. If they were, then incomes would rise and tax revenue would rise and the deficit fall.  Instead we have the prospect of more and more cuts.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ian Duncan-Smith says he wants to make those on benefits 'better people'!

By any account, the government's austerity strategy is utilitarian. It justifies its approach by the presumed potential ends. It's objective is to cut the deficit, but it has also adopted another objective which is specifically targeted. It seeks to drive people off benefits and 'back to work'.  The two together are toxic to the poorest in society. Those least able to cope are the most affected by the cuts in benefits and the loss of services. It is the coupling of these two strategic aims that make their policies ethically questionable. For, by combining the two, slashing the value of benefits to make budget savings while also changing the benefits system, the highest burden falls on a specific group, those dependent on benefits. For the greater good of the majority, a minority group, those on benefits, are being sacrificed; sacrificed on the altar of austerity. And they are being sacrificed in part so that others may be spared. Utilitarian ethics considers the ba

The unethical language of 'welfare dependency'

It is unethical to stigmatise people without foundation. Creating a stereotype, a generalised brand, in order to  demonize a group regardless of the individual and without regard for the potential harm it may do is unfair and prejudicial. It is one reason, and a major one, why racism is unethical; it fails to give a fair consideration of interest to a group of people simply because they are branded in this way. They are not worthy of equal consideration because they are different.  It seeks also to influence the attitudes of others to those stereotyped. If I said 'the Irish are lazy'; you would rightly respond that this is a ridiculous and unfounded stereotype. It brands all Irish on the basis of a prejudice. It is harmful certainly; but it is worse if I intend it to be harmful. If I intend to influence the attitude of others. And so it is with 'the unemployed'. All I need do is substitute 'work-shy' and use it in an injudicious way; to imply that it applies to

Ethical considerations of a National DNA database.

Plans for a national DNA database   will be revealed by the Prime Minister this week. This is the same proposal the Tories and Liberal Democrats opposed when presented by the Blair government because they argued it posed  a threat to civil liberties. This time it is expected to offer an 'opt-out' clause for those who do not wish their data to be stored; exactly how this would operate isn't yet clear. But does it matter and does it really pose a threat to civil liberties? When it comes to biology and ethics we tend to have a distorted view of DNA and genetics. This is for two reasons. The first is that it is thought that our genome somehow represents the individual as a code that then gets translated. This is biologically speaking wrong. DNA is a template and part of the machinery for making proteins. It isn't a code in anything like the sense of being a 'blueprint' or 'book of life'.  Although these metaphors are used often they are just that, metapho