Spinners and bangers
‘Sell the sizzle not the sausage’ goes the old advertising phrase. Political strategists too have been creative in exploring the stretchable space between substance and message. As a former member of the New Labour junta I am hardly in a position to complain, but the Coalition publicity machine does seem to have gone into a super-fast spin cycle since the New Year.
There is a good example this morning. Normally in Government when ministers are told there might be a problem they will ask their officials to check the facts closely before admitting anything publicly. It is interesting to see the logic reversed as it has been this morning by Chris Grayling, the employment minister, and Damian Green, the immigration minister. Writing in the Daily Telegraph the ministers give the clear impression that there is a major problem with migrants illegitimately claiming benefits. The ministers’ article gets a predictable front page splash with the implication that this problem of benefit abuse involves 370,000 people.
But as a searching interview of Chris Grayling by John Humphries revealed on the Today Programme, the evidence of actual wrongdoing is much, much smaller. Indeed of the 370,000 only 2% were found to be making fraudulent claims. There is a large batch of cases in which the claimant is yet to be fully identified, but on the surface at least, there isn’t any very strong reason to think the proportion of fiddlers will be much higher in this group.
It is unusual for ministers apparently to seek to alarm the public about an existing policy, but even more odd when the factual basis for the concern seems so tenuous. Two of the Government’s vulnerabilities right now are unemployment (which is high and rising) and immigration (which is also high and rising despite a high profile Coalition commitment to reduce it). In the short term, at least, it isn’t clear Government can do much to put either trend into reverse.
Put the two challenges of rising unemployment and immigration control together and the populist script writes itself. Facing this danger – reinforced by the continued toxic salience of immigration in opinion polls – ministers may well have decided that it was vital to show they were getting a grip on the issue. I will leave others to decide whether presenting the public with alarming, but arguably misleading, statistics is a price worth paying to pre-empt allegations of complacency.
The Grayling/Green article is the second high profile example of the Coalition volunteering concern about its own policies. The first was David Cameron’s recognition of the inequities of removing child benefit from households containing a higher tax payer. I am not for a moment doubting the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s concern but it is noteworthy that not only did the Chancellor almost immediately confirm his intention to implement the change but, as Gavin Kelly pointed out, it is hardly credible that Mr Cameron has only just noticed a flaw (namely that a household with a single income of £45k will lose out while one with a combined income of £80k might not) which must have been apparent from the very first time it was floated by officials.
There is no reason why ministers cannot acknowledge problems with their own policies, indeed it could be seen as welcome candour. But aspects of both cases (the ministers’ apparent indifference to the impression created and Mr Cameron’s ‘discovery’ of the perverse impact of benefit withdrawal) suggest that the Coalition has of late been listening rather too carefully to the spin doctors’ advice.
Given the tough policies it is pursuing the Coalition’s popularity is holding up pretty well and most of the media continues to give it the benefit of the doubt. In these circumstances spinning can feel like an easy game to play. But as the weather of public opinion changes the political wicket takes spin less and less well.
Regardless of disagreements about the pace of spending cuts, there is no question the Coalition is trying to do something tough and brave with its austerity programme. Given the pain being suffered by ordinary folk, the credibility of the Government is important not just to its political aspirations but to national morale.
Modern politics inevitably involves creative communication, but selling a sizzle will stop being such an effective strategy once people start noticing the frequent absence of sausage.
Desperate times call for …
The shocking unemployment statistics demand a proper response from our political class but will we see it?
Largely because the media exploit any such admission, politicians are loath to admit that their judgements are often fine and that all significant policy decisions involve risks and downsides as well as benefits. As a former Government advisor and a long time policy wonk I know that any honest evaluation of a policy decision involves weighing up good and bad points; if there was a policy out there that had only benefits it would have been identified and implemented a long time ago.
Today the Government is blaming the global financial crisis for the unemployment statistics while Labour (a cogent but slightly too cheerful Liam Byrne) is calling on George Osborne to adopt the Opposition’s five point recovery plan. Both Parties claim their approach is entirely right and the other side’s totally wrong. Neither claim is true. More importantly, neither offers any comfort to the almost one in five 16-24 year olds now out of work.
In such extreme circumstances it is worth the thought experiment of exploring the what the political parties might do now if they genuinely put the public interest first.
In economic terms, there is little question the Coalition could press its foot less hard on the austerity pedal and put more money into jobs, wages and purses without being grossly irresponsible. This seems to be the majority view of economists, and even international bodies like the IMF are warning that austerity could be self-defeating. But the Government is also right when it says that credibility is important in volatile markets. An apparent fiscal u-turn in the UK could be portrayed as panic or the beginning of a bigger political capitulation and this could lead, among other things, to an increase in the interest we have to pay on our national borrowing.
In this equation, politics matter. The recent gridlock in America had a direct impact on the country’s economic rating and on the markets. So, if the Coalition and Labour were to agree a package which combined a short term injection of public funding with a cross-party agreement to stick to a now slightly extended period of fiscal balancing it could powerfully reassure markets that the UK isn’t about to give up the ghost on getting the finances under control. The Coalition is the elected Government so it would be its prerogative to determine the content of the growth package, but Labour could show statesmanship (which surely wouldn’t do Ed Miliband’s credibility any harm) by supporting the general thrust of the package and being measured in its criticisms and alternatives.
The Osborne phrase ‘We’re all in this together’ is now used exclusively to taunt the Coalition, but if the political class were able to up their game and collaborate it might take on a new resonance. In such a context part of a growth plan could be to call on business, employee organisations and ordinary citizens to make their contribution to getting us through these dark hours. In the year after the credit crunch there were many examples of employees taking voluntary pay cuts or agreeing work sharing schemes.
This morning an academic on Radio 4 called for more workers to offer to reduce their hours to create more jobs. A growth plan could include temporary regulations to enable employees to take a fixed term reduction in their hours in the context of an agreement by the employer to maintain the organisation’s wage bill but allocate the released hours and costs to create new jobs. Even if such measures were marginal in their impact they would at least lift the national mood out of the terrible despond in which it is now mired.
Like any competitive activity, the problem of changing political conventions lies in who goes first. For the Government to ask the Opposition to enter into talks might look like weakness and, anyway, as I said, the Coalition is the elected administration. So, my bold – and no doubt naïve and doomed – appeal for a cross party strategy to offer hope to the nation’s jobless – would have to start with Labour.
How about changing the current party line – which is to demand the Government adopt Labour’s five point plan – and instead offer to enter into genuine talks with the Coalition about a national recovery plan. The Coalition would probably scoff but the voters, at least, might appreciate it.
The end of the Child Trust Fund
One less publicised area of agreement between the Coalition partners was the plan to hammer home that they had inherited an economy on the verge of Greek style collapse and public finances managed by the political equivalent of Sarah Ferguson. I can’t blame them. Every incoming Government trashes their predecessor’s record and the effective absence of an official opposition makes this an open goal Salomon Kalou would find it hard to miss. By the time he or she is elected, the next Labour leader will find they are running a party deeply associated in the public mind with economic irresponsibility.
So, as a former Labour insider, I have zero credibility in bemoaning any of the Conservative Liberal cuts that are now being announced. But still I can’t help but be sorry to see the abolition of the Child Trust Fund, a policy I had a small part in helping to get implemented. The Conservatives had intended to means test the fund but the Liberal Democrats have long championed its abolition so this is another important victory for Mr Clegg.
As I say, none of us linked to the discredited ‘New Labour junta’ are in a position right now to criticise, but here are some minor points of which I hope ministers were at least made aware before they made their decision:
While changes in tax and benefits have meant income inequality has remained roughly the same over the last decade, asset inequality has grown enormously. Indeed an RSA audience was recently told by the social geographer Danny Dorling that the ratio between the wealthiest 20% and the most asset-poor 20% in London now stands at an unprecedented 2000:1. By giving every child, including the poorest, some savings and topping this up, the CTF was trying to make a small contribution to reducing asset inequality
While the CTF is being abolished the massively more expensive tax reliefs on middle class savings – private pensions and ISAs – are staying in place.
Although the CTF was fairly new as a policy – no 18 year old would have been able to access their account for another ten years – the policy had been gradually growing in public awareness. Most significantly there was evidence of low income families topping up the accounts, excited that for the first time their own children might get the kind of nest egg other teenagers take for granted.
Asset based welfare (the generic name for polices like the CTF) have often managed to get support across the political spectrum. Left of centre parties like the redistribution while right of centre ones like encouraging thrift and self reliance. Pragmatists on both sides were impressed by the evidence that having savings seems to do more for poorer people’s self esteem and sense of resilience than having an equivalent increase in income.
So it’s sad personally to see something of which I was very proud disappear. But much more importantly it also means that we will have to continue to reconcile ourselves to a large minority of the British people living without the realistic aspiration of ever having savings they can rely on in adversity or draw on to make a dream come true.
Local collaboration will be even more necessary in the tough times ahead
What does the Coalition programme mean for local government? Some of the most specific of the 28 points in the ‘communities and local government’ section focus on planning where the thrust is double devolution. Councils see the return of local planning powers, a measure which will presumably be used to block new housing developments where there is local opposition. But there will also be steps to give neighbourhoods an enhanced role in very local place shaping.
Beyond this there are three sets of issues. The first is a commitment to ‘a radical devolution of power’. Beyond planning, the main specific measures are a general power of competence, cutting local government inspection, scrapping ring fenced grants and the abolition of the Comprehensive Area Assessment. However, as local government has a minimal place in the NHS, crime, schools and ‘social action’ sections, and as there is no mention of Local Strategic Partnerships or any other co-ordinating body, it doesn’t appear this devolution of power will include a wider strategic function across local public services.
Indeed the opening up of schools to new providers, the strengthening of the right of local communities ‘to save local facilities and services threatened with closure’, the direct election of local police chiefs, the freeze on council tax for one (and possibly two) years and the enhancement of rights for residents to veto ‘excessive’ council tax increases, could all be seen as measures that will make it harder for councils to get their way. In this sense the agreement confirms the impression of all the party manifestos which is the absence of a coherent framework for local governance.
It is difficult to know what will be the outcome of the second theme; the reform of local governance. Councillors will no doubt be pleased to see the back of the Standards Board, have some fun with the right to vote on remuneration packages for chief officers but possibly be less enthusiastic about publishing every item of spending over £500. But how many will vote to return to the committee system, and will the 12 big cities take up the opportunity to have mayors, or fight for a ‘no’ in the ‘confirmatory’ referendum?
The third theme isn’t in the local government or public services sections but in paragraph three of the introduction by the two leaders: ‘We are…agreed that the most urgent task facing this coalition is to tackle our record debts’ and in the pledge to ‘significantly accelerate the reduction of the structural deficit….with the main burden…borne by reduced spending’. It is this issue which is certain to be the most important for councils.
In all the talk of the £6 billion savings package, which George Osborne will unveil next week, it is easy to forget this is just the tip of the iceberg. We will have to wait for the budget and the autumn spending review to see the full scale of mainstream budget reductions. But the likely pressure on local government budgets looks even greater in the context of other Coalition spending pledges, including major areas like the NHS, schools and overseas aid which are to be safeguarded from any reduction. With councils apparently having less scope to raise money locally and with communities having more power to slow down or block unpopular cuts, to say councils are between a rock and a hard place is an understatement.
Unless I have missed something, there is little to suggest the Coalition is interested in supporting – let alone incentivising - initiatives like Total Place (perhaps this is just too humdrum for these heady days). But local collaboration and budget pooling is surely vital to minimise the impact of the coming cuts on the most important aspects of local life and the most vulnerable local people. Maybe, in fact, the most important message of the Coalition programme for local public service leaders is actually page seven where we see the photogenic Dave and Nick sitting together committed to overcoming old rivalries for the good of the nation.
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