So much for the centre ground of politics having shifted irrevocably to the right
Chancellor George Osborne will make £12bn in welfare cuts a central plank of his budget speech later today. Despite it being reported this morning that the chancellor plans to ‘slow’ the pace of the cuts, he is hardly taking his foot off the gas – the cuts will simply be carried out over three years instead of two.
The scale and pace of the cuts remain unprecedented. We know at present that Osborne is planning to: lower the benefit cap of £23,000 in London and lower it further in the rest of the country; remove tax credits from around 3.7million working families; disqualify most 18- to 21-year-olds from claiming housing benefit; and freeze the level of working-age benefits for two years from next April.
The scale of the changes will leave the welfare state growing at its slowest pace since 1948 – quite something considering the speed at which Britain’s population is ageing (and is therefore more reliant on social security in some form).
Leave aside for a moment arguments over the morality of taking money away from those with little of it already – all the while cutting inheritance tax for the top 6 per cent (only the top 6 per cent actually pay inheritance tax) – there is a myth doing the rounds that cuts to welfare of this scale are wildly popular.
If Labour leadership contenders start opposing the the benefits cap cut to £23k in London + SE and £20k elsewhere, Osborne will be in clover
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) July 8, 2015
That’s the Spectator’s James Forsyth, who is by no means exceptional in assuming that it’s a vote winner to bash those on benefits.
Yet a ComRes poll for the Daily Mail, out this morning, reveals the opposite. According to this, six in ten (57 per cent) of Britons oppose the potential £12 billion cuts to welfare spending. And it’s supported by just half (52 per cent) of Conservative supporters, with 43 per cent opposed to it. Just a quarter (24 per cent) of Labour supporters back the cuts.
Meanwhile, according to the same poll, the proposed tax cut for top rate tax payers is the least popular of Osborne’s policies; just a third (33 per cent) of Britons polled say they support cutting the rate from 45p to 40p for those earning over £150,000. Six in ten (61 per cent) oppose the tax cut – even among Conservative supporters 57 per cent are opposed.
As for an inheritance tax cut, slightly over half (53 per cent) support increasing the inheritance tax threshold while 39 per cent oppose it. And raising the threshold for the 20p rate of income tax would be supported by eight in ten (80 per cent) of Britons.
So much, then, for the centre ground of politics having shifted irrevocably to the right.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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16 Responses to “Budget: The myth that Osborne’s welfare cuts are wildly popular”
JarrowPete
You fail to see the real issue about “poverty porn”. It’s not about the “idiots” (your word, not mine) you refer to but the tv producers (who are part of the establishment themselves) protecting their own while blaming the working classes on society’s ills. Where are the documentaries about spiv bankers who got us into this horrendous mess in the first place? You have obviously been duped into believing that ALL benefit claimants are spongers.
JAMES MCGIBBON
You should not assume I have mortgage.
JAMES MCGIBBON
I did not say that all benefit seekers were spongers. And no one I know of blames benefit seekers for all the so called ills you refer to. What do you mean by ills. The so called spivs you talk about were ok guys when they were drawing in the dosh although we knew they were spivs. So you want to jail them when they fuck up and replace them with honest bankers!
JarrowPete
“The so-called spivs were ok guys when drawing in the dosh”?? The point is we DIDN’T KNOW they were doing all this roulette bullshit until it all hit the fan and we found out what was really going on. And yes, I would like to see those bankers who manipulated interest rates and committed Corporate fraud jailed because, funny enough, they were actually breaking the law.
JarrowPete
Grow up. You get my point.