The British public share Rowan Williams' concern that "we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted". 55% supported his statement with just 15% opposed.
An overwhelming majority of the British public share Rowan Williams’ concern that “we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted”.
New polling from Populus, which the Times chose not to report today, reveals that 55% of the public agree with the statement that, “The Government is undertaking big reforms to the economy, health and education which it didn’t tell you about during the General Election campaign last year”. Just 15% disagree – a margin of close to 4-to-1.
In an op ed for the New Statesman last week, Rowan Williams wrote:
“With remarkable speed, we are being committed to radical, long-term policies for which no one voted. At the very least, there is an understandable anxiety about what democracy means in such a context.
Not many people want government by plebiscite, certainly. But, for example, the comprehensive reworking of the Education Act 1944 that is now going forward might well be regarded as a proper matter for open probing in the context of election debates. The anxiety and anger have to do with the feeling that not enough has been exposed to proper public argument.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury may not, however, have been the best deliverer of the sentiment since the poll showed that 47% felt it was not his job to “criticise Government policies, whether some people share those criticisms or not”. But the poll reinforces the Observer’s leader article which argued that Williams’ intervention offered a “lesson in Opposition for Mr Miliband“.
The Populus poll also sought to get to the bottom of public opinion on the Conservative party’s welfare reforms. Williams wrote about “a quiet resurgence of the seductive language of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving” poor'” and the “the steady pressure to increase what look like punitive responses to alleged abuses of the system”.
Iain Duncan Smith claimed in an interview with Newsnight that he had “never used the language of the deserving or undeserving poor”. Not everyone’s convinced of the veracity of this claim and IDS’ colleague George Osborne has certainly compared hard woking families with those making a “lifestyle choice” to live on benefits. The truth, of course, is that benefit fraud costs just £1 billion while the Coalition are determined to slash £18 billion from the welfare budget. But the poll, unfortunately, avoided the opportunity to drill down into the emotive topic and instead used a leading question to ask whether the Government was “right to want target undeserving benefit recipients and to take payments away from those who abuse or cheat the system”. Unsurprisingly 80% agreed.
54 Responses to “Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop’s attack of Government policy”
George Lamb
Unfortunatly Mr Balls your own admitted lack of working knowledge in terms of not knowing that the elderly and infirm can and will be punished, treated as benefit cheats by the system (Much simpler to call everyone benefit cheats as it keeps the stats and the remedies so much easier to explain.) as amply explained by Leon and this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12506273 (Many more are availible via google)So if your lack of knowledge of the sytem prevents you from knowing that to be labeld a cheat it could be that an elerly lady might tick the wrong box when asked about her need for help getting dressed, or the help she needs to sit on the loo. Perhaps then the 20% may know more than you do and were as I said waiting to see the evidence, or even showing compassion to these wicked old and disabled people who thought dignity and respect were things to be valued, not disposod of in a form that they may not comprehend or in fact want to fill in at all.
George Lamb
To clarify, I know you will be wondering Mr Balls, what I meant by not wanting to fill the form in at all is that 16bn of benefits are unclaimed. Lets be clear this is money already set aside so it is not a extra drain it is in the dwp account, and people are not claiming it. http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/press_office201022 Traditionaly out of a sense of self respect and self relience it is older people who do not claim, diffrent generation diffrent values you may argue. I will not argue, what I do say though is that as cuts to councils up and down the land take effect, the jobs of the very people who could help these elderly and proud people claim the money that they are entitled to. Although it might be a small weekly amount, an extra tin of bins per week or the fire going on for longer each day maybe even both might be the diffrence between life and death. Ah but then with out the help of social workers, domestic helps, wardens, of shelterd homes, welfare rights advisers, the proud elderly will stand a good chance of making a mistake on the form being refused benefit and labeld scum and cheat for good measure. NOW MR BALLS DO YOU GET THE PICTURE.
gwenhwyfaer
“There is £1bn worth of fraud, according to Will’s article, so I’m not going to dispute that.”
And if it costs £5bn to halve it, is that worth it?
Also, what’s your attitude to the fact that about 15 times that level remains unclaimed because the benefits process is so intimidating and incomprehensible – PRECISELY because of attitudes like yours, it must be said – that horrifying numbers of people refuse or fail to claim their full entitlements? I’m guessing “collateral damage” sums it up, because you’re a silly little troll who thinks people disagreeing with you is “disgusting”, but I’d love to be proved wrong.
Rachel Hubbard
RT @leftfootfwd: Public overwhelmingly backs Archbishop's attack of Government policy http://t.co/Ckab0cq
Clare Fernyhough
As I’ve said here before, all these reforms are ill thought out and cost so much.
The fact is that there are already systems in place to deal with fraud and so called ‘mistakes’ whereby people suddenly forget that they should have informed various authorities about changes. Currently, under labour’s previous reforms, agencies like the inland revenue and universities shared information for that very purpose. I was investigated last year. I had a knock on the door from someone from the housing benefit office to ask why I was claiming housing benefit whilst doing an M.A. The university provided the information to them. I had not in fact done anything wrong since I was only studying part time and therefore I was still entitled to housing benefit. Nevertheless, I had a year’s bank statements photographed along with all of my personal information. The year before that, I had a housing benefit check where they do the same; it is a regular occurance in my area.
Also, you are already fined by having to pay back all monies that are overpaid if you ‘forget’ to inform the DWP about any changes in circumstances, and all claimnats are prosecuted when claimants have commited serious fraud in this respect along with those who commit fraud on a mass scale.
Taking all of this together, it is total lunacy to then spend more on seeking out further fraud than is defrauded.
As for the 20% who thought that it wasn’t a good idea to remove benefits from people who commit fraud, perhaps they understand that it is a complicated concept. I was talking to a friend today about how successive governments should have addressed long term benefit dependancy but failed, and also that before this government now further impoverish the working poor, the genuinely unemployed and the disabled, they should target those who have avoided work for the whole of their lives.
It’s not that simple though. There are a great many of those who are alcholics and drug addicts who will never be able to ‘get it together’ to be able to work, and in fact, who would want to employ them? Additionally, if you start removing benefits long term from these sorts of people it is very likely that they will turn to crime to make ends meet. In fact, there are going to be so many cuts accross the board to everyone with such dire consequences that could potentially see many hundreds of thousands if not millions made homeless, that we will have a genuine crisis on our hands in this country, apart from the prospect of ‘fines’. Analysts have warned the government to expect civil unrest.
As I have commented on here before, what could work is to make benefits a wage and have people engaged in community work a couple of days a week; similar to work, if you haven’t got a good reason for turning up, then you don’t get paid. Even then, I know of some hopeless cases, people who are so damaged and at rock bottom that they will never be useful members of society again; removing benefits will only lead them to further despair. For those who could do something, being engaged in community work, feeling that they are actually doing something for the income provided from the government will restore their dignity and might lead to permanent work if we get out of recession. These programmes could be self funding. For example, I’m chronically disabled and housebound now, but I have a good education and I would be happy to work a few hours a week from home organising something like that; I’m sure there are many others who would love to feel that they could contribute like that too, and in doing so they would feel that they are doing something in return for benefits.
It is only right therefore that The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke out about this issue. He is a religious leader and he should demonstrate that he is concerned with regard to the consequences of welfare reform; if he did not then people would critisise him all the more for keeping silent.