The Government’s latest Welfare Plans Prove That A Fairness Agenda Is No Longer At the Forefront of Government Policy.

When David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party he worked hard to remove the party’s image as the “nasty party”. During this transformation he pushed a more liberal “nicey-nice” image, promoted environmentalism and escaped much of the stigma the party had suffered with since Thatcher who, whether justifiable in her aims or not, did alienate half the country. This agenda seemingly appealed to younger voters, myself included, who might traditionally vote Labour or Libdem, however since then he has meandered through issues, veering to the left and the right with seemingly no logic or overall plan. This began from the off with “huskie hugging Cameron” dropping “vote blue go green” before the grass roots had even sprung. The tree might have remained (much to the disgust of traditional “torch carrying” Conservatives) but Conservative environmental policy has never regained its original primacy and other more liberal policies have subsequently been lost or watered down. However despite this policy pruning Cameron had (mostly) remained true to some devotion to fairness. Welfare cuts were made to “reward taxpayers with value for money”, the international development budget was maintained to ensure international commitments weren’t forgotten. Unfortunately over this weekend this “fairness agenda” has been tarnished by a thoroughly unfair and barefacedly populist policy suggestion – removing housing benefit from the under 25s.

One of the main objectives of Cameron’s plan for the country has been to reduce people’s lifelong reliance on the welfare state. Given the deficit, this was both a pragmatic and ideological mission, but a course which seemed to still hold onto a sentiment of fairness. Policy might have been a medicine which wasn’t very appetising, but it was one that needed to be taken. It was in this spirit that benefits were capped at £26,000, which was both a pragmatic and popular policy to take. It felt fair that people who were working should not be penalised with more tax, in order to fund others who did not work as much as they did. Moreover it was a limit placed on everyone, regardless of circumstance, a notice that the government will support you, but only if you manage not to get yourself into too much of a mess. Of course this policy had problems and would never be 100% fair, but it seemed to chime in with people and convince them that it was something tough, but not too harsh.

Today some people feel the same about the latest idea of capping under 25’s housing benefits. Cameron himself said that young people should be living at home, under the care of the Bank of Mum and Dad, not leeching off other people. “Other people” might find this attractive, however this measure doesn’t just miss sight of the case for fairness, it throws it off a cliff into the flaming abyss below. Cameron has often been derided for being posh and out of touch. How much ammunition does he give to his critics by assuming that everyone between the age of 18 and 25 has somewhere to go to? I am very lucky that between moving jobs or house I can bunk at home in the interim. Of course Cameron could have expected the same but many thousands of young adults in the UK cannot.

Furthermore, the policy itself will save only 2bn, not a meagre sum, but for these people the only thing keeping them off the streets. Since being without a permanent address can have massively damaging implications for people and leaves the vulnerable to exploitation, violence and abuse this measure seems to be extremely short term opportunistic, rather than looking at the bigger picture. How much money will these people cost the government in increased crime, drug use, health problems and unemployment? This measure is far from fair but it simply targets a vulnerable group and tells them they should do better, when in many cases they can’t. How can they with youth unemployment running persistently over 20%. These problems all seems self-evident to me but the government hasn’t seemed to acknowledge that any of this might be a problem.

The dangerous populism inherent in this proposal reflects an innate problem in Cameron’s modernisation agenda. Notice that it is the young who are being penalised here, not the prominently Conservative grey vote. I cannot believe that liberal Cameron can really be in favour of pursuing such an agenda, the same as I can't believe he has ever been that happy dropping "green conservstism". This all feels like a prod from the right who are unhappy with the libdems and feel the need to assert their right wing credentials. However it is Cameron who spoke for it. This is not some tirade from a disgruntled backbencher, this is the PM himself coming out for an inherently unfair, and in my opinion uncharacteristic proposal.

Another explanation which might (but I don't think does) exonerate Cameron, appealing to the grass roots. While the young are told they cannot get help from the state to live, that they must move in with their parents, whether they like it or not, the old are given free TV licenses, free bus travel and free prescriptions, not to mention their pensions.  Why isn’t it them who are being told they must move in with their children, use their tv, get them to drive them about rather than taking the bus and stop drawing a pension? Some people (like the despicable Edwina Currie on Twitter today) might claim the young have made their own bed by being disengaged and refusing to vote (not that this was to be seen anywhere in the manifesto of course) but cynics could, quite fairly say that this is just a vote grabber and ask why should the party care about a group who’d be unlikely to vote for them anyway. 

Regardless of the reason, there is no doubt this proposal is unfair and might spell the end of the Nice Guy act for David Cameron.