Please vote for Musings of a Radical in the Total Politics Blog Awards 2011

Right, I wasn’t sure whether to write one of these blogs, but I figure I might as well- if Left Foot Forward and LabourList are going to do it, then I suppose I can follow their example.

This will be my first time in the Total Politics Blog Awards, and I’m hoping to at least rank somewhere! After all, the Blog Awards were partly what inspired me to get involved with blogging in the first place.

As I’m sure you’re aware, I recently published my 200th blog. Since then, my blog Against Authoritarian Crackdowns has been cross-posted to Police State UK.

If you enjoy reading my blogs, and you’d like others to be made more aware of me, then I’d really appreciate it if you could put me down as one of your votes.

You can vote here. You only need to put a minimum of five votes in (the rest can be written in as BLANK); although I’m sure you’ll be able to think of plenty of other blogs deserving of your support too!

Solidarity,

Dan x

Against Authoritarian Crackdowns

As riots ripped through London and spread out to the old industrial towns of the north, the public was not in the mood for understanding.

Instead, huge numbers of ordinary people- including those hurt by the riots and those whose only knowledge of it comes from news broadcasts- are openly backing some of the most authoritarian ideas this country has ever contemplated.

According to YouGov, only 8% of people have successfully connected the unrest to the government’s cuts. A measly 5% of people have recognised the impact of unemployment. A staggering 42% of people blame criminal behaviour, without looking for underlying causes.

Meanwhile, the same poll found quite frankly terrifying support for authoritarian measures: 90% in favour of water cannons, 65% in favour of plastic bullets, 33% in favour of live ammunition and 77% in favour of the use of the army.

The Conservative Party is gearing up to introduce tactics which have worrying parallels with the 1816 riots. In a statement today, David Cameron poured scorn on “phoney concerns about human rights”.

Let me be quite clear about this- an authoritarian response to the riots will not help at all. It is important that those taking part in criminal activity are apprehended and punished, but it is also important that these events be responded to with democracy and concern rather than baton rounds and army boots.

Water cannons can be incredibly dangerous. They have also had to be brought in from Northern Ireland- which raises concerns about how stable the situation there will now be- and aren’t truly going to be effective in this situation.

Typically, water cannons are used to disperse a crowd which has congregated in one area. If the riots were taking place along Whitehall and the rioters were intent on attacking the Palace of Westminster, then a water cannon would be an effective (albeit dangerous) way of forcing them to leave.

Instead, what we have is a number of riots taking place across both London and the country. The riots are now mostly concerned with looting, and are not specifically targeting any one location over any other.

It would be implausible to deploy water cannons in Croydon, Tottenham, Enfield and so on. If one high street is cleared of looters, they will easily run down passageways and find alternative areas to target before the police are capable of catching up.

Plastic bullets are even more dangerous. Fourteen people in Northern Ireland were killed with them, and 9 of those were teenagers or younger. Many of them were not involved in criminal activity, instead being innocent bystanders.

Given that the main intention of preventing rioting should be to preserve human life, I’m not sure how I can criticise Roger Helmer’s demand that rioters be “shot on sight”. It is such an immoral and abhorrent prospect that its mere utterance deserves criticism of the highest order.

There are several more concerns I have with the use of either rubber or live ammunition. Firstly, although the riots have been violent, they have thankfully not been characterised by the sort of gun violence which some might’ve expected given the involvement of certain gangs.

At present, we can be grateful that police officers are not being fired upon. That is probably due to a reluctance to step too far over the line of legality, and the fact that whilst angry most of the rioters aren’t actually keen on murder.

If the police start firing at, and potentially killing, the rioters and undoubtedly innocent bystanders, what will the reaction of armed gangs be? We will see entrenched urban warfare, with gun battles between the police and elements of the rioters, which will do more damage to cities and lives and communities than these riots are presently doing.

Secondly, what exactly makes people believe that the police should be trusted with weaponry?

333 people have died in police custody since 1998, with no officers convicted over the deaths.

The shooting of Mark Duggan was the spark which set these riots off. Yet he had not fired his weapon, and in fact the bullet which was lodged inside a police radio was "consistent with being fired from apolice gun". The police managed to fire at their own equipment, and yet somehow they’re supposed to be trusted with extraordinarily dangerous weapons?

Further authoritarian measures are only going to worsen the feelings being hold towards the police. Even comparatively moderate measures, like curfews or restrictions on BlackBerry Messenger, will be taken as a further slight to ordinary people- young people who have thus far avoided participation in the riots will be punished, whilst rioters are unlikely to pay much heed to a curfew imposed by the police.

What, in my opinion, would be an appropriate response?

Firstly, the government should halt the planned cuts to the police and fire brigade- which it has at present refused to consider.

Not only would this allow emergency services to do their jobs properly without fear of their livelihoods being under threat, but it would act as an important counterbalance to any claims that the government was ‘giving in’ to the rioters. Police presence has thus far proved successful in discouraging riots in London, even if it is unlikely to work alone.

Secondly, the government should announce a swathe of u-turns on policies towards both young people and disadvantaged communities.

It would be necessary for this to be sold to the public as being beneficial to the communities as a whole, rather than as some kind of sop to the people smashing windows. However, it is vital that the areas affected be given the support they need to rebuild and prevent events such as this happening again.

Not only should EMA and council cuts be reversed, but a new job creation plan should be unveiled. Unemployment is a major issue in the background of these riots. As rioters realise that if they go home and behave there’s actually going to be a positive future for them we might see the number of people involved in violence decrease.

It would also, of course, be supremely beneficial to the unemployed individuals who haven’t taken part in these riots.

This would stand in contrast to the suggestions that rioters have their homes taken away, and the chorus of right-wing voices demanding benefits be withdrawn from those who have taken part. If people are turned out onto the street and given no legal way of obtaining an income, what can we expect of them except riots?

Thirdly, because the police cannot be everywhere and because of the lack of authority they possess amongst many people, communities should be liaised with. Whilst it won’t have had an immediate impact, the words of Pauline Pearce will be playing on the minds of those who were berated by her. The Turkish and Kurdish community did well in preventing rioters from looting their shops.

It’s important that this be regulated enough to prevent the EDL or BNP from using this as an opportunity to launch a race war.

However, local communities and respected figures should be assisted in discouraging rioting wherever possible- this doesn’t mean through responding to violence in kind, but through leading reach-out programmes during the day to ensure that rioters are made aware of how the rest of the community feels about their actions.

All three of those steps would be positive attempts to bring the rioters under control and would severely reduce the prospect of seeing them again in the near future.

As it is, David Cameron has set the country on a course to chaos- he wants to restrict liberty to an extent Blair could only have dreamed of, and expresses not even the mildest of cares for the economic situation which underlies what London, Manchester, Birmingham and other major cities and towns have witnessed.

I think this puts the lie to the claim that Nick Clegg is putting ‘liberal values’ at the heart of British government. If these ideas are the result of Liberal Democrats restraining Tory authoritarianism, then what did David Cameron originally intend to use? Tactical nukes?

Cities can be rebuilt, community divisions can be healed. But once liberties are lost and authoritarianism escalates it is extremely difficult to turn back the clock.

We’ve seen the state has started closing in on anarchists. We know how aggressive the police can be when confronted with peaceful political demonstrations.

If authoritarian responses are condoned now, it will not be long before Stop the War is attacked with water cannons or student protestors are fired upon with plastic bullets.

This authoritarian streak unveiling itself within not just the Right and the general public but also within the Left is deeply worrying, highly dangerous and will undoubtedly be largely ineffective.

Peace and love,

Dan x

Understanding Riots

According to Bachrach and Baratz (1970) riots are the “ballot boxes of the poor”.

According to Martin Luther King Jr, “a riot is the language of the unheard.”

Of course, those two quotes do not instantaneously make rioting acceptable.

MLK would go on to later clarify his position on riots in more detail, for example.

“Yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with their causes. Today I want to give the other side. There is certainly something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds. And deep down within them, you can see a desire for self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing.”

“Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations. When one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States.”

Those words are no less true than those I quoted at the very beginning of this blog.

To applaud a riot as if it is a realistic tactic to achieve positive change is absurd. Yes, there will inevitably be positive outcomes from the riots which have raged in London this week. The bizarre figure of Dan Hodges was for once correct to say that:

“But now these issues will be debated. Crime, the cuts, drugs, social policy, policing policy. Oh, we'll debate them. There's nothing like a burnt out high street or two to get us debating.”

For all the flaws of rioting, it can be extremely successful in attracting attentions to issues- much in the same way as the occupation of Milbank last year could arguably be considered valid.

This is somewhat overwhelmed by the widespread outrage that riots result in, and the authoritarian crackdowns which they often precipitate. Above all, riots bring catastrophic risk to human life and can seriously damage the livelihoods and communities of people that deserve defending.

Riots are by their very nature spontaneous actions, and that is one of the reasons that limited violence can be condoned and also why they bring such fear to the establishment. However, for widespread disorder to be a truly productive change it would require phenomenal community organisation and self-discipline.

Burning down Carpet Right isn’t a parallel to the storming of the Bastille, because those who most lose out are not the establishment (the capitalists who owned the building undoubtedly have insurance) but the surrounding community.

For riots to have any real hope of bringing about socialist revolution, it would require a comprehensive overhaul of the existing media- as well as a prepared and popular revolutionary organisation.

That, I suspect, is quite unlikely- indeed, the experience of Russia and other countries demonstrates that the revolutionary organisation necessitated is intrinsically dictatorial and will ultimately hijack the revolution in favour of its small cadre of leaders.

Ultimately then, the riot- although easily romanticised and in some ways potentially positive- is a largely negative action which does not much further the implementation of our principles or policies.

It is demonstrative of how far Labour has sunk that it is barely considered a voice for those people on the streets, and it is of the utmost importance- if Labour is to again be simultaneously left-wing and electorally successful- that it once again gets in touch with those it has unfortunately abandoned.

Because, to be honest, that is what causes riots- disenfranchisement. There are other features and there has to be a spark (be it the treatment/murder of Cynthia Jarrett, Alexandros Grigoropoulos or Mark Duggan), but above all the rioters have to feel divorced from the standard political process and as if all peaceful methods are doomed to failure.

Many of the rioters will have been unable to vote in the last election, and are now being hit hardest by the Coalition’s cuts. Cuts to EMA and youth services seem to be designed to specifically target the young and disadvantaged.

That only adds to a general environment which has been growing over the last decade (and perhaps longer) of anti-youth hysteria. In Maidstone and in towns and cities across the country, young people are treated like vermin to be kept away from shops and fast food outlets with a ‘mosquito’ device.

Stop-and-search has reached ludicrous levels, with counter-terrorism laws regularly employed to harass young people. In effect Labour, with the full support of the Conservative Party, brought back the sus laws which had previously led to rioting in the early 1980s.

People are criticising looting, and indeed such actions are right to be criticised, but branding perpetrators merely as ‘criminals’ or ‘thugs’ (or any number of awful racialised insults bandied around by certain sections of the Twitterati) is overly simplistic.

After all, people are much less likely to loot if they have something to lose- people tend to stop being law abiding members of society as soon as society begins openly rejecting them.

Riots are spontaneous outpourings of immense rage, which has usually been built up over an extended period of time. The role of the Left is not to criticise rioters (regardless of how counter-productive rioting may at some times be) but rather provide an alternative voice and organisation which can bring change constructively rather than destructively.

I don’t know the area that these riots took place in intimately, and I don’t pretend to. There are people out there who know far more than I- including Symeon Brown- and they are far better placed to comment on the precise nature of the issues involved.

However, what I do know is that these riots need responding to in an understanding manner- when commenting, left-wingers should be sure to be wearing their left-wing hats at all times.

We have a real opportunity to engage with the troubles that ordinary young people face, and it’s too important a chance for us to throw it away by rushing to condemn blindly the riots.

Solidarity,

Dan x

My Two Hundredth Blog

I started ‘Musings of a Radical’ last September, partly as a test to see whether I could keep it up. Now, after two hundred blogs and nearly eleven months, there are some people who are probably due their fair share of thanks.

Chief amongst these, inevitably, is my girlfriend- Danielle. She hasn’t always had an easy time of it (and I know that my insistence on blogging has upon occasions annoyed her rather a lot) but she has always been as supportive as could be.

Second would have to be Peter (@PME200) whose encouragement when I first started is what made me realise that I wasn’t just spewing blog-vomit across the Internet, and that some people (even if it was only a few back then) were actually going to read what I’d written.

My political persuasions have changed quite remarkably over the course of my blogging career. As well as the fallout of the formation of the Coalition, and the beginning of the anti-cuts struggles, this was primarily informed by my experience in blogging.

The way in which this occurred is twofold. Firstly, I have begun to think more clearly about issues- there is far more cohesion in my arguments now, I should like to think.

Whereas before I was someone who identified as left-wing but in reality flitted rather close to Red Toryism and social liberalism, I can now point to deeply held views and can more categorically place myself as a member of the Labour Left.

Secondly, because it’s rather difficult to blog in isolation. When I first blogged, I was essentially writing about whatever occurred to me. Now, I have a large range of inspirations and pay much more attention to the news, as well as to my Twitter feed!

More importantly, I now also read other blogs- bizarrely when I first started blogging, I didn’t really have much experience as the audience of a blog, let alone the author.

Now, I would count the following blogs as part of my regular diet (in addition to the ones you can see on the right-hand-side of the screen):

·         Liberal Conspiracy

·         Left Foot Forward

·         Though Cowards Flinch

·         Labour List

It also helps that I am now a subscriber to the New Statesman!

Some of my posts have proven quite extraordinarily popular- not least of all the one on Debt Cancellation, which is the only blog I’ve written whilst slightly intoxicated and yet also the only blog to reach over 1,000 views.

My guide to Marxist newspapers, which I compiled painstakingly, has apparently been of interest/benefit to quite a few people. I also hope that my revision notes on Ideological Traditions will have helped the people that used them, and will continue to help people in the years to come.

Two of my more controversial blogs, on the #RallyAgainstDebt and the EDL, attracted praise and criticism in equal amounts (well..), which was certainly informative and good to see.

Hmmm, I suppose that’s enough self-indulgence for one year, it feels a bit unnatural blogging about myself rather than something or someone else!

I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading my blogs up to now, and I hope I’m able to keep producing them. My frequency may’ve been reduced from 20 a month to 10, recently, but nonetheless I hope that in a year or so’s time I’ll have written a bucket load more.

Stay frosty,

Dan x

First they came for the Anarchists

I am not, in the proper sense of the word, an anarchist- I have slight statist tendencies wrapped up with my democratic socialism and opposition to unrestricted capitalism.

I do, however, have my sympathies. If you view anarchism as something which goes beyond mere opposition to the existence of the traditional ‘state’, then it certainly has its insights.

To me, at least, anarchism is about acknowledging the dangers of authority, about resisting hierarchy and inequality, and about fostering (to quote the Anarchist Federation’s poster, which is stuck beautifully to my wall) “a society of social solidarity and human dignity”.

And it would be foolish to ignore the ideas of figures such as Proudhon, Bakunin, Tolstoy, Kropotkin, Rocker, Goodman, Bookchin and Chomsky. The long-term aim to abolish formal government is shared by Marxists and many Christian socialists alike.

Whilst there is a significant anti-reformist streak present within anarchism it is important to note that well-respected figures such as Noam Chomsky would be content in the short-term with an egalitarian welfare state and radical increases in direct democracy.

It is thus quite bizarre, then, that anarchism is increasingly used as a synonym for a belief in direct action. Undoubtedly, anarchism has flirted with such activities throughout its history- Malatesta, Goldman and Zapata being prominent examples- but then various not-dissimilar strategies have also been employed by both Blanquist and Marxist revolutionary socialists.

The actions at Millbank and on the 26^th March were quickly taken to be caused by anarchists. However, I witnessed a massive presence from not only anarchists and revolutionary socialists, but radicalised students and ordinary trade unionists.

However, I have known for quite some time that the state has been scaling up their clamping down on anarchist and protest activity.

The Royal Wedding was greeted joyously by the Metropolitan Police Commander who claimed:

“This is a day of celebration, joy and pageantry for Great Britain. Any criminals attempting to disrupt it – be that in the guise of protest or otherwise – will be met by a robust, decisive, flexible and proportionate policing response.”

And boy, didn’t they take that to heart? Anti-monarchists and anarchists were zealously purged, with activists such as Chris Knight and Charlie Veitch amongst others being pre-emptively and/or unfairly detained.

A little while later, whilst helping organise Maidstone’s J30 rally, I was struck once again by the feeling that a political doctrine was being made illegal. To ensure that our protest did not anger the local police force too much, I took the precaution of alerting them of our plans (something that wasn’t necessary, given that it was a static protest).

After several fairly standard-sounding questions, presumably for some sort of form, I was confronted which questions about the potential for anarchists to ‘hijack’ the event- I was asked if I knew whether any anarchists would be turning up, and whether I’d been contacted by any anarchist organisations or websites.

Since I’m unaware of any Maidstone branch of SolFed, I decided to swallow my indignation and allow this grievous misunderstanding of a political philosophy go unchecked. However, it is deeply worrying that anarchists are being signalled out.

Presumably had I said that we’d invited the local black ‘n reds to the demo, I’d have been told that the protest was banned and that a veritable army of police (even more than the two riot vans that patrolled us) would have been mobilised.

Now, however, it appears to have stepped up a level- not only are anarchist protests to be quelled, but all anarchist organising of any kind.

The Griffin Weekly Briefing (Project Griffin is a police 'anti-terrorism' initiative) contains some rather disturbing statements:

“Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local Police.”

Believe me- it is very tempting to start organising a campaign to send anarchist literature to local police forces.

That statement, presented devoid of any context or reason for its presence, appears to me to be a deeply worrying sign of what is to come. And once the anarchists are all locked up in prison, where will they turn next?

How long will it take for the Socialist Workers Party to be criminalised, and the rest of the revolutionary left?

And then, once David Cameron has deployed the coercive powers of the state against his most vocal and militant opponents, who will he choose to dispose of?

We are standing on the brink of a ‘black scare’, to equal the one that raged against communists in the 1950s. Socialists of a radical disposition, and those of a more moderate perspective also, must stand side-by-side with our anarchist comrades as their political organisations and demonstrations are targeted.

Peace and love,

Dan x

The Merits of Universal Welfare

One of the things which consistently keeps the Labour Left down, and undermines our arguments in the eyes of the non-Labour Left, is the way in which the Labour Right so skilfully manages to get airtime.

It is rarely (read: never) John McDonnell representing Labour on Question Time or Newsnight, but it is frequently ultra-Blairites like James Purnell.

The latest idea that these ultras appear to be proposing is a direct challenge to our existing welfare state’s fundamental principles- particularly those of universality.

Some of the ideas that Purnell has spoken about are possibly quite good. In particular, I feel it is necessary to echo his intentions when he says:

“What I would love to see is Britain fall in love with welfare again, for the people to love the welfare state, as much as they love the NHS”

A lot of the rest of what he says is undiluted cow droppings, and what he said on Newsnights has to my mind been categorically demolished by the brilliant Lisa Ansell.

However, his belief in contribution-based welfare and targeted benefits have since been promoted (in an extremely patronising manner) on Labour List by Josh Eades. This, I feel, provokes a suitable response.

The concept of contribution-based welfare is one which might strike a chord which more advantaged voters, but which fundamentally will not work to protect the most vulnerable when enacted in practice.

Firstly, this is because many of those most in need will not have had the opportunity to contribute. If I am unable to find a job after leaving school or college or university, I will not have been able to pay into the benefits pot but will be no less in need of support during that difficult period.

Secondly, and more importantly, is how thoroughly disrespectful the language used is. Josh Eades, for instance, talks of “an obligation to work”, “a carrot and stick approach” and “an incentive for people to find work”.

Pretty clearly, this plays into the hands of the Conservative Party and their ideological allies in the press. Benefits, according to this warped view, are overwhelmingly sucked up by ‘scroungers’ who refuse to work even though there are jobs going for a ten a penny.

I’m sure I won’t need to explain how idiotic this perception is, but I will do so just to make sure. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the majority of benefit fraud was committed by “hard-working, ordinary people trying to survive day by day”. Far from paying for flat-screen TVs, they were paying for food and heating by taking on cash-in-hand jobs.

Furthermore, significantly more money goes unclaimed than is taken fraudulently, with £12.7bn means-tested benefits and £5bn tax credits unclaimed in 2008/09- benefit fraud was predicted to cost approximately £900m in 2008/09 according to Direct.gov.uk.

And when Ian Duncan Smith told unemployed people in Merthyr Tydfil to get on a bus to Cardiff to look for jobs- as if they were unemployed because of sloth or some sort of personality fault- it was helpfullypointed out by PCS that there were 15,000 unemployed people in the Welsh capital chasing just 1,700 jobs.

However, whilst the Left might be quite willing to challenge the Right (Labour or otherwise) for these Daily Mail-style inaccuracies and slurs, it seems to be the case that we roll over and accept defeat whenever universality comes under serious challenge.

Josh Eades sets out this aspect of his argument in two paragraphs, the former of which I see little intrinsic problem with:

“Incentives like free childcare for all, flexible working hours, the right to do work from home and the right to job share, should be actively encouraged. Now some will ask how this is to be paid for, and this is where it becomes even more radical.

For the ideas to work, there will have to be cuts. But these can be done, and the initiatives I have set out can be paid for not by making ideological cuts, but by making redistribution cuts. Where the elderly don't need winter fuel allowance, we cut, we save and we invest, where the well-off don't need child benefit, we cut, we save and we invest. There are numerous examples out there....does Lord Sugar need winter fuel allowance? Do Victoria and David Beckham need child benefits? The answer is simply no, and by implementing a system of means testing, we save billions to invest in back to work schemes. These are not ideological cuts driven by dogma, they are essential cuts driven by desire to help those who need our support.”

The second paragraph, however, shows an immense ignorance with regards to the history of our welfare state. It also goes directly against the intentions outlined by James Purnell which I quoted close to the beginning of this blog.

The British welfare state is, according to Esping-Andersen (1990), “social democratic”. This means that it is universal and based upon social rights (themselves derived from citizenship), and in essence it is the descendent of what Beveridge once argued for.

Increasingly however, and under pressure from right-wing ideologues such as Purnell and Eades as well as the more openly Thatcherite elements, the British welfare system has begun to take on characteristics of the ‘liberalist’ and ‘corporatist’ systems, as found (I believe) in the United States, Germany and Scandinavia.

It should probably be obvious that the social democratic/democratic socialist party- the Labour Party- should be supporting the original British social democratic system, but I accept that such labels do not go hand-in-hand with Blairism and therefore I will spell out its advantages more specifically.

Firstly, universal welfare is efficient- Beveridge considered the relatively low cost of the system as a merit, alongside the more apparent social benefits. The bureaucracy required to maintain means-testing is vast, and it is important to note that Channel 4’s Fact Check blog identified the cost of errors in the benefit and tax credit system to be around £4bn (and thus significantly more than the cost of fraud).

Whilst universal-welfare might end up costing more money, it also means that a greater proportion of the money goes on helping people, as opposed to maintaining a system for allocating resources to those who are most in need.

Secondly, universal welfare is popular. The fact that Lord Sugar is entitled to winter fuel allowance might seem bizarre (I presume he could refuse it if he wanted to), but that’s an extreme case. There are many who would otherwise slip through the means-testing net.

I’ve blogged before on how EMA should’ve been expanded, rather than cut, because many who should’ve benefited from it were unable to as a result of complicated living conditions or comparatively wealthy (yet stingy) parents.

Yet even more than that, an integral part of the reason that EMA was supported by such a massive section of the British public is that it wasn’t just given to a tiny disadvantaged few.

Many from more affluent backgrounds also benefited or knew people that did, and this prevented them forming images of ‘EMA claimants’ as ‘scroungers’. I worry that, amongst other flaws, the replacement being introduced instead of EMA will be even easier for the Conservatives to dispose of because such a miniscule section of the electorate will be gaining through it.

As Don Paskini highlighted on Liberal Conspiracy:

“ippr are suggesting that what they call “little things which don’t mean much to people” are withdrawn, such as free bus passes for pensioners, and that means testing of universal benefits are extended.

Free bus passes for pensioners are probably the most popular part of the welfare state. Describing them as “little things which don’t mean much to people” is a one sentence electoral suicide note, and it is really rather troubling if Purnell thinks that taking bus passes off pensioners in exchange for jobs loans is an example of the centre left “regaining the initiative on welfare”.”

There is another reason to support universal welfare. Means-tested welfare is, by its very nature, extremely demeaning to have to claim. If you’re the only child in your school getting free-school-meals then you will unfortunately feel like you are less important than your classmates.

The impact upon self-esteem of weekly (!) appearances at a Job Centre just to get enough money to survive must be absolutely soul-destroying, to an extent which those of us who have never experienced it cannot even imagine.

In summary then, universal welfare is more efficient, less demeaning and easier to defend from the ravages of a right-wing government.

That is not to say that targeting and means-testing are never appropriate- childless families are unlikely to feel much need to get given Child Benefit. It was abhorrent for Conservative councillors to argue that affluent children should be given completely equal provision of youth services as those from disadvantaged backgrounds (particularly using the language they did). It is possible for services to be universal (i.e. everyone should have access to a free school) and involved targeted-provision (i.e. areas of deprivation might require increased funding to education).

I’ve blogged previously with my personal suggestions of how unemployment could be better prevented and solved within the context of universal welfare and a socialist economic system.

Suffice to say that far from being in need of pruning, our present universal welfare system does not spread far enough- unfortunately, successive governments retreated from the ideal of a universal housing system as the council estates, which Nye Bevan once envisaged as having “the working man, the doctor and the clergyman [living] in close proximity to each other”, were dismantled and sold off.

I will conclude by referring not to the great William Beveridge, but to the father of the Swedish Folkhemmet- Gustav Möller:

“1. There should be no stigmatization of the poor, no sorting out of those in need. Rich families as well as poor should have their children's allowance, old age pension and free medical treatment.

2. There should be as little bureaucratic paternalism and arbitrariness as possible. Preferably, the welfare assignments should be administered by the recipients themselves, as when unemployment allowances were administered by the trade unions. And allowances should always be cash.”

Certainly teachings which we, and especially the Labour Right, could learn from.

Solidarity,

Dan x