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Ed Millband - Labour would cap welfare

Brett-Butler
in News and Politics

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Sounds a very complex system, any savings from tax credits would be wiped out by extra costs at HMRC and lost hours with red tape.

 

Nor would I trust HMRC to get it right, they let Vodafone off billions, turn a blind eye to Google, Starbucks and Amazon yet harrass cricket clubs and private members clubs like vultures.

 

The current system is not ideal, tax credits cost an absolute fortune but with the economy slowly but surely recovering I am unconvinced that there is a workable solution that wont damage the recovery.

Yet more right wing bile aimed at the public sector when HMRC is powerless to clamp down on tax AVOIDANCE when it's still legal.

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I still maintain that someone on benefits who is getting housing benefit/JSA/council tax benefit is only going to be 10-20 a week better off doing a full time job on minimum wage, in many cases worse off, that is wrong on so many levels as it discourages taking work in many cases.

 

 

I agree fully with you and that's why the minimum wage should be higher, at least a quid an hour higher. Wonder if Labour will increase it.

For a start, child benefit should have a means tested cap on it of household income below £40k/£45k.

 

I fully agree with that. A couple, both graduates, so on 30k pa each don't NEED child benefit and it should be stopped.

I agree fully with you and that's why the minimum wage should be higher, at least a quid an hour higher. Wonder if Labour will increase it.

I'd be surprised if the Living Wage wasn't part of the 2015 manifesto given Labour councils are now pushing it.

I'd be surprised if the Living Wage wasn't part of the 2015 manifesto given Labour councils are now pushing it.

 

It should have a regional element to it as well as £7 or £8 an hour in the NE or say Yorkshire, goes further than for someone living in London or the SE. Yet the minimum wage is exactly the same nationwide. Public sector workers have a London weighting.

I agree fully with you and that's why the minimum wage should be higher, at least a quid an hour higher. Wonder if Labour will increase it.

 

I would make small companies exempt from this though, no reason why Tesco for example couldn't pay their shelf stackers and extra £2 an hour but a start up business is much harder so i would only bring in this proposal for companies with a turnover of say £10m a year.

It should have a regional element to it as well as £7 or £8 an hour in the NE or say Yorkshire, goes further than for someone living in London or the SE. Yet the minimum wage is exactly the same nationwide. Public sector workers have a London weighting.

 

Yes Chris but at the same time costs to businesses are much higher down south

 

Rent of offices/shops/factories are much higher in london, often double that and more of up north so its wrong to assume that all businesses have more money down south to pay much higher wages.

The Living Wage is £1 higher in London, I'd imagine that the living cost difference compared to the rest of the country than the extra cost to business.
Sounds a very complex system, any savings from tax credits would be wiped out by extra costs at HMRC and lost hours with red tape.

 

Nor would I trust HMRC to get it right, they let Vodafone off billions, turn a blind eye to Google, Starbucks and Amazon yet harrass cricket clubs and private members clubs like vultures.

 

The current system is not ideal, tax credits cost an absolute fortune but with the economy slowly but surely recovering I am unconvinced that there is a workable solution that wont damage the recovery.

As long as the data is already held in a suitable way, the cost of extracting the information required would be fairly low.

Well, I said in a thread a few weeks ago that I thought Labour would still win the next election, but like this they're not going to. I don't know if there's ever been a left-wing party who ever won an election promising spending cuts.

Sweden, 1994; Canada 1997 (although the latter was an incumbent). There's definitely room for a fiscally conservative (small-c) social democratic party - if anything it's the only way the left have ever really won convincingly in modern times, Hollande aside. But then, check out how he's doing. (Not, I emphasise, that that means we should rule out short-term stimulus - just that the charge that Labour goes wild on the credit card every time it comes into power has always been one of the most damaging thrown at us, regardless of whether it's true or not, hence why I think we should do all we can to avoid that charge being thrown at us credibly) Polling on the subject of how voters would trust Labour again consistently finds three big issues that Labour need to convince voters who've turned away from us on - welfare, immigration, and the economy, in that order. I don't believe Labour can ever win convincingly on a 'progressive majority' victory - put simply, there are too many Lib Dem-style voters who get pissy at one policy or another then strop off for that kind of voting coalition to stay secure; hence there's far more capacity in terms of long-term voters to be gained from appealing to valence voters - those with no solid ideology who go for who they believe to be the most competent leader.

 

We're taking the right steps, but I just worry if enough people are listening to the person the words are coming out of.

 

That is all the well and good but if companies were forced to pay a 'living wage' that requires no top up with tax credits who do you think will foot the bill?

 

It would lead to costs being passed onto the consumer via higher prices which in turn will fuel inflation which would cause far more damage to the economy.

 

Sure Tesco's and Starbucks and Amazon can afford a 'living wage' but what about the hairdresser starting out on her own and expanding the business by taking on another hairdresser? can they afford to pay a 'living wage'? it would stifle enterprise.

 

Most new jobs in this country aren't being created by multinationals or the Tesco's of this world but by start ups and small businesses.

Hence why Miliband's proposal is subsidies for smaller living wage employers.

Edited by Kanduälska

I read today that Ed was planning to increase JSA to £100 a week from £71 a week for those with more than 5 years NI contributions

 

HAS HE GONE NUTS?

 

The modest gap between minimum wage work and benefits is already deterring large numbers of unemployed people with families from taking minimum wage jobs so increasing JSA is hardly going to spur the jobless into taking mimimum wage jobs, over 3/4 of mimimum wage jobs are taken by immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe.

 

The important thing for any government should be making sure that people are much better off in work.

 

I would make JSA payable at full rate for 2 years, after that it is cut by 25% after 3 years, 50% after 4 years and stopped altogether after 5 years.

 

I don't think the unemployed should be demonised but at the same time benefits are too generous and discourage minimum wage work.

Also, yeah, because someone who's been in work all that time (and gets a level of social security that recognises how much they've contributed) is totally going to be satisfied with staying on the sofa for the rest of their lives.

Sweden, 1994; Canada 1997 (although the latter was an incumbent). There's definitely room for a fiscally conservative (small-c) social democratic party - if anything it's the only way the left have ever really won convincingly in modern times, Hollande aside. But then, check out how he's doing. (Not, I emphasise, that that means we should rule out short-term stimulus - just that the charge that Labour goes wild on the credit card every time it comes into power has always been one of the most damaging thrown at us, regardless of whether it's true or not, hence why I think we should do all we can to avoid that charge being thrown at us credibly) Polling on the subject of how voters would trust Labour again consistently finds three big issues that Labour need to convince voters who've turned away from us on - welfare, immigration, and the economy, in that order. I don't believe Labour can ever win convincingly on a 'progressive majority' victory - put simply, there are too many Lib Dem-style voters who get pissy at one policy or another then strop off for that kind of voting coalition to stay secure; hence there's far more capacity in terms of long-term voters to be gained from appealing to valence voters - those with no solid ideology who go for who they believe to be the most competent leader.

 

We're taking the right steps, but I just worry if enough people are listening to the person the words are coming out of.

Hence why Miliband's proposal is subsidies for smaller living wage employers.

 

I admit I don't know much about either of those, but would they really have been promising spending cuts at a time when the economy was booming and most governments (generally) in the world weren't really bothered about deficits?

 

To take examples from right now, the only left-wing parties who've been winning elections over the past few years are anti-austerity ones. Look at what's happening in Germany atm -- their social-democratic party was even less progressive than the Labour government, they're now saying they pretty much agree with austerity, and consequently, they're going to get HAMMERED in this year's election (and it takes some doing for an opposition party to get hammered by the government in an election in this type of dire economic times, even the Republicans managed a respectable defeat). The German government is pretty unpopular (Merkel herself is well-liked because people see her as decisive, but the government's policies are not), but because the main opposition party isn't giving any real alternative, they're going nowhere and giving people no reason to vote for them -- why would people vote for them if they wouldn't do much different to the other party? Agreeing with the government on the main issues of the day only means you "impress" and get "credibility" from people who would never consider voting for you anyway, while repelling people who would consider voting for you.

 

I predict all this week's announcements will either have no impact or a negative impact on Labour's poll ratings. They're completely misinterpreting why they're not more popular imo.

I admit I don't know much about either of those, but would they really have been promising spending cuts at a time when the economy was booming and most governments (generally) in the world weren't really bothered about deficits?

Indeed, they were the entire basis for Osborne's mistaken belief that cuts and growth could go hand in hand - the fiscal consolidation proposed by the Social Democrats in Sweden and the Liberals in Canada could only have succeeded because the economy was booming. He got correlation and causation mixed up.

 

To take examples from right now, the only left-wing parties who've been winning elections over the past few years are anti-austerity ones. Look at what's happening in Germany atm -- their social-democratic party was even less progressive than the Labour government, they're now saying they pretty much agree with austerity, and consequently, they're going to get HAMMERED in this year's election (and it takes some doing for an opposition party to get hammered by the government in an election in this type of dire economic times, even the Republicans managed a respectable defeat). The German government is pretty unpopular (Merkel herself is well-liked because people see her as decisive, but the government's policies are not), but because the main opposition party isn't giving any real alternative, they're going nowhere and giving people no reason to vote for them -- why would people vote for them if they wouldn't do much different to the other party? Agreeing with the government on the main issues of the day only means you "impress" and get "credibility" from people who would never consider voting for you anyway, while repelling people who would consider voting for you.

 

I predict all this week's announcements will either have no impact or a negative impact on Labour's poll ratings. They're completely misinterpreting why they're not more popular imo.

And the anti-austerity parties very quickly find themselves boxed in by the practicality that no government can ever truly reject austerity - it can only delay it until growth gives it cover - and that most governments are very limited in how much they can borrow (admittedly, we aren't one of those countries). Hence why Hollande is so unpopular - he was being intellectually dishonest in pretending that he could immediately turn things around and realistically produce enough stimulus to exit recession, and he's being punished for it now.

 

The problems with the SPD I think far more relate to the fact that they totally hammered their constituent base with Schröder's labour market reforms, hence there's a bit of an existential crisis in that it's incredibly difficult to see how they could claim in any way to represent workers. The Labour Party does not have the same problem, and I don't think fiscal conservatism and social democracy are antithetical - indeed, I think one of the biggest tragedies is that the Labour Party throughout its history has allowed them to be seen as antithetical.

 

I don't think agreeing to maintain spending levels of the government to a degree only gets credibility with people who've never considered voting for us - with awareness that I'm doing the empirical no-no of using personal experience, I've come across countless people on the doorstep who said they used to vote Labour, but don't any longer (or even vote at all) because of issues like benefits or because they believe that we aren't responsible with the economy. There are loads of people out there who agree with Labour's vision of society, but don't want it if they think all it will lead to is bankruptcy.

Edited by Kanduälska

The problems with the SPD I think far more relate to the fact that they totally hammered their constituent base with Schröder's labour market reforms, hence there's a bit of an existential crisis in that it's incredibly difficult to see how they could claim in any way to represent workers. The Labour Party does not have the same problem, and I don't think fiscal conservatism and social democracy are antithetical - indeed, I think one of the biggest tragedies is that the Labour Party throughout its history has allowed them to be seen as antithetical.

 

Do you really think it's that different for Labour? I would say by far their biggest problem, rather than not being seen as "credible", is that they're not seen as representing the working-class anymore. That's why loads of former Labour voters are even voting UKIP now (because from what I've seen, UKIP as well as being anti-immigration are also pretending to be against spending cuts, atleast from what I've seen in the north).

 

I don't think agreeing to maintain spending levels of the government to a degree only gets credibility with people who've never considered voting for us - with awareness that I'm doing the empirical no-no of using personal experience, I've come across countless people on the doorstep who said they used to vote Labour, but don't any longer (or even vote at all) because of issues like benefits or because they believe that we aren't responsible with the economy. There are loads of people out there who agree with Labour's vision of society, but don't want it if they think all it will lead to is bankruptcy.

 

Well, I'll use my personal experience then :P and say that, more than anyone saying they think Labour aren't "credible", I know a lot of former Labour voters who've said "well there'd have to be massive spending cuts right now anyway, Labour would be doing the exact same things if they were in government, so what's even the point in voting for them" -- and because they're doing nothing to challenge the perception that spending cuts are inevitable, they're never going to win any of those people over.

 

I just see this going the exact same way as when the Conservatives thought that their EU referendum thing would stop them leaking support to UKIP, and it ended up just leaking even more. They effectively were admitting their opponents were right and just gave UKIP's point of view more legitimacy, rather than winning people over who already agreed with that argument.

Edited by Danny

I predict all this week's announcements will either have no impact or a negative impact on Labour's poll ratings. They're completely misinterpreting why they're not more popular imo.

 

And as expected, all these attempts at trying to get "economic credibility" have achieved absolutely nothing and Labour have had no boost in the polls whatsoever.

 

Maybe they'll finally take this as a sign to stop listening to the cliquish, snobbish, London-centric media, who are almost always spectacularly wrong in gauging public opinion these days. I won't hold my breath though.

In fairness, I wouldn't expect there to be an immediate poll bounce from something like this.

 

Saying that, I still don't like it.

And as expected, all these attempts at trying to get "economic credibility" have achieved absolutely nothing and Labour have had no boost in the polls whatsoever.

 

Maybe they'll finally take this as a sign to stop listening to the cliquish, snobbish, London-centric media, who are almost always spectacularly wrong in gauging public opinion these days. I won't hold my breath though.

 

Nobody believes Labour any more, it is a trust issue more than anything else.

 

War criminal Blair and bankrupter Brown have set Labour's image back a generation, any policy pledge they make that they think will tap into the mood of the country will not be taken seriously, that is why this tough talk on welfare is not gaining them any votes, people know labour are full of hot air, empty vessels making the most noise.

 

Ed could announce tomorrow that he will abolish income tax if he gets elected or raise pensions by £100 a week but no one will believe him.

 

After nearly bankrupting Britain and accumulating the debt they did I don't know how labour MP's can keep a straight face when they are asking for another chance, just hope this country isn't mug enough to give it!

And as expected, all these attempts at trying to get "economic credibility" have achieved absolutely nothing and Labour have had no boost in the polls whatsoever.

 

Maybe they'll finally take this as a sign to stop listening to the cliquish, snobbish, London-centric media, who are almost always spectacularly wrong in gauging public opinion these days. I won't hold my breath though.

People don't really pay attention to these sorts of things at this stage - anybody who thought this would get a poll bounce was being foolish and overexcitable (especially when most people wouldn't have noticed - Miliband's speech was the second story on BBC News. Given the news of Ferguson's retirement the other week only had 9% penetration, and that doubtless had far more coverage...). It's the sort of thing that pays off in the weeks leading up to the election when people actually take notice of detailed policy positions.

 

-x-

 

Additionally, I don't think not being seen to represent the workers is really at all one of Labour's biggest problems. For one, it's not really grounded in policy or empirical data at all - we aren't really comparable with the SPD as we never enacted policies actively weakening workers' rights. Just take a look at the Warwick Agreement, tax credits or the minimum wage - for all the coverage from the sorts of people in the media who will never be happy with a social democratic government due to a fundamental inability to understand that compromise makes the prospect of a full-blooded socialist government pretty much impossible, the last government actually did loads for workers and workers' rights (but then, the same people seem to think that representing the working classes and socialism are coterminous. It's more than possible to take a revisionist social democratic position and still represent and advocate for workers, as the above examples demonstrate.) Yeah, wages in real terms stagnated from 2004 onwards - but something that's been universally acknowledged as something we should have done more about from all sides of the party since. No government is mistake-free on stuff like this. Chuck in that the numbers just don't add up on the claim that our biggest problem is working-class perception of representation...

 

Additionally, on 'loads of Labour voters are going to UKIP' - well, about 9% of our 2010 vote (or roughly 2-3% of the overall vote, though I say this aware of the dangers of overanalysing crosstab figures due to small samples) says they'd vote UKIP tomorrow. I don't really believe that even that many will stick with UKIP come 2015, but additionally, I don't really think that them going to UKIP is a sign of working-class malaise with Labour. I'd say it's more a sign of overall malaise with the main political parties and the people heading them - who, much as I as the political nerd would disagree with them, would all appear identikit to most people who don't pay much attention to politics at all. 'You're all the same' is far more common than 'Labour don't stand up for us' as a complaint, and I don't think that's in terms of policy - barely anybody notices, and where they do I'd wager they notice the disagreements far more than the detail (plus, I don't think anybody could really say we went into the last election with a similar policy prospectus to the Conservatives, and if anything the complaint was even more common then...) - but more in terms of the background of the major leaders. Oxbridge educated, metropolitan, white, male, in suits. The visual shortcuts mixed with the fairly catch-all rhetoric sets the impression that we're 'all the same' far more than policy - if anybody cared enough to delve through Balls' speeches last week then the reservation of the right to £10bn stimulus is at least one big contrast with the false impression of just 'signing up to Osborne's cuts' wholesale.

 

And finally, the policies themselves are actually quite popular in themselves, which I think backs up that it's more a case that people aren't paying attention and that it's more something that'll pay dividends closer to the election - if not in direct boosting of support, then through taking the Conservative attack line on benefits (which has been one of the most damaging for us) off the table.

Edited by Kanduälska

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