We’ve now had three years of the blue-tinged contingent of the Coalition perpetrating a sustained attack on social security recipients – those slugabed skivers – in the name of curbing the deficit. Yesterday’s post at the Guardian again maps the profoundly negative tone of the language that has accompanied the agenda. This has had serious consequences. It has further poisoned the debate and eroded empathy. In moving the agenda forward the Conservatives have been aided and abetted by their junior Coalition partners, at the cost to the party of many members and supporters.

Resistance to this agenda has gained limited traction. In part this is because the Government believes that when it seeks to curb the generosity of social security it has the majority of popular opinion on its side. In part it is because the mainstream media has done a feeble job in engaging critically with the Government’s agenda, or even holding the Government to basic standards of honesty. There has been very limited scrutiny of the way the high-flown rhetoric of “making work pay” and ensuring “fairness” has been matched by the squalid detail of policy implementation. And in part it is because Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has been unutterably useless at actually opposing anything.

But are there signs that the complexion of the debate is changing? Continue Reading →