The cost-of-living squeeze in Britain is so acute in part because benefits have fallen steeply in real terms since 2010. In order to stay in power the Conservative government will return money it previously removed
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskWatching a useless machine repeatedly turn itself off was “devastating”, wrote Arthur C. Clarke, a science-fiction author. “There is something unspeakably sinister about a machine that does nothing—absolutely nothing—except switch itself off.” A similar sense of dread occurs when examining the Tories’ record in power over the past 12 years. The Conservative government exists to undo the previous acts of Conservative governments.
Since some services, such as social care, are statutory, others were slashed to compensate. Parts of the public realm that make an area nice—the libraries, parks and emptied bins—suffered most. Now money removed by the Tories during austerity is being dribbled back, often to marginal Tory seats, in a weird form of political extortion: vote Conservative or the flowerbed gets it.
By heeding their calls, Mr Johnson will again be undoing previous Conservative Party policy. The cost-of-living squeeze is so acute in part because benefits have fallen steeply in real terms since 2010. An unemployed person is about £700 a year worse off in real terms than they were in 2010, according to the New Economics Foundation, a think-tank. If the government wants to survive a chilly winter, generous support for Britain’s less well-off is almost obligatory.
Policies change as times do. There is usually, however, a consistent thread when a party stays in power. Yet almost every feature of the Cameron era is being erased. George Osborne, the then chancellor, boasted of making Britain’s corporation tax the lowest in theaverage. Flagship policies of that period are now forgotten. New Schools Network, a government-backed charity that helped set up “free schools”, has shut down after the government cut its funding.
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