The Theos volume and research published earlier this week into the future of welfare received some interesting media attention, one word of which caught my eye.
The Guardian headline on Tuesday stated, “Christians less generous than their clergy and everyone else”, with a stand first that claimed “Christian thinktank finds widespread evidence that church-goers are hostile to benefits claimants.” As it happens, the Theos research did neither of these things and both title and stand first were subsequently changed. But the headline contained a revealing presupposition.
By way of background, it is worth noting what our research did show. It showed that the vast majority of people (87%) thought the welfare state was facing severe problems. It showed that over half (57%) thought the welfare state would shrink or die over the next 30 years. And it showed that the range of those held “mainly” responsible for this was unusually even, with politicians heading up the blame chart (32%), followed by false benefit claimants (20%), benefit tourists (16%), the EU (15%) and the British people for living beyond their means (9%).
By contrast, it did not show that there was “widespread” evidence of antipathy to benefits claimants among any group. Of all sub-groups, the one which most held benefits claimants as mainly to blame was people who lived in the North-West, and even here it was only 26% who chose to blame this group. By contrast, 21% of (nominal) Christians (i.e. not “church-goers”) and 23% of people from other religions said this. So: no widespread hostility, no one group noticeably more hostile than the others, and not much to say about Christians or churchgoers.
So much for the data; what was the interesting word?
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the data had shown that Christians were more inclined reduce the welfare budget. The Theos study did not say (or even ask) this but there is good evidence that some Christians (particularly Anglicans) are more anti-welfarist that the norm (this is a complex issue and is discussed more fully in chapter 5 of the recent Theos report Voting and Values and also in the Westminster Faith Debate’s recent research on the issue). Were that the case, would that make them less generous?
In the minds of some (such as, presumably, whoever wrote the title for this article), your attitude to welfare is a clear indication of your generosity. If you wish to reduce welfare spending, you are not generous; if you don’t, you are.
Others protest. The opposing point of view, made for example by Ruth Porter in her essay in The Future of Welfare is that because taxation is not voluntary it can’t be taken as a measure of generosity. What you choose to give is the true measure of how generous you are, not what you have taken from you.
There are credible and incredible lines within each of these arguments. For example (regarding the first argument), the idea that anyone who opposes welfare spending is ‘not generous’ is clearly nonsensical. There are undoubtedly some mean and selfish people who oppose welfare spending, but to believe all who favour welfare cuts are ungenerous is to live in a dangerously Manichean world. People are not wicked or even ungenerous simply because they want a smaller state.
Regarding the second argument, one might point out that taxation is not necessarily involuntary. Tax may well be taken rather than given, but if you choose to vote for a party that promised to take more of your income, you can legitimately claim your attitude to tax is voluntary and therefore an example of generosity.
So, no knockout punch for either side then, but a curious window onto British politics or, at least, a window onto one of the mindsets existing in British politics today. Perhaps, being a little more provocative, one can put it this way.
A generation or so ago, the right won the economic argument in British politics and the left won the moral one. Few leftist politicians today advocate the economic policies of, say, Neil Kinnock, let alone Michael Foot. Remember what Margaret Thatcher once said was her greatest achievement in politics? (A: New Labour)
But in winning the economic battle, it lost the moral war, as rightist politics post-Thatcher became associated in the public mind with hard-nosed individualism, contempt for ‘society’ and general indifference to the poor. Remember the endeavour to “detoxify” the Tory brand in Cameron’s opposition years (brilliantly satirised in The Thick of It’s Stewart Pearson)? This seems to have been the association in the mind of the Guardian headline writer who equated a negative attitude to state welfare with being “less generous”.
Every political party lives in the shadow of its failures. For Labour this is (once again) economic ineptitude. For the Conservatives, it is moral indifference. Neither will be easy to shake off, but I know which will be easier.
Nick Spencer
Image by Betty Snake from flickr.com under the Creative Commons Licence
