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Public opinion and the welfare state: Thatcher's unfinished revolution Public opinion and the welfare state: Thatcher's unfinished revolution
(6 months later)
In the week since Margaret Thatcher's death, a few unfortunate souls have been tasked with finding common ground where little exists. Think of BBC reporters, who fumble their way towards a conclusion that runs "like her or loathe her, she changed Britain", a statement designed to be unarguable. But – at least in relation to inequality and the role of government – the transnational YouGov-Cambridge polling that that we have published calls it into question.In the week since Margaret Thatcher's death, a few unfortunate souls have been tasked with finding common ground where little exists. Think of BBC reporters, who fumble their way towards a conclusion that runs "like her or loathe her, she changed Britain", a statement designed to be unarguable. But – at least in relation to inequality and the role of government – the transnational YouGov-Cambridge polling that that we have published calls it into question.
It is wrong to retro-fit a cohesive rationale to everything done in her 11 and a half years in No 10, since key planks such as privatisation were a function of time and chance. But certain ambitions were clear from the off. One was to free the public purse of some of the cradle-to-grave responsibilities it had acquired after the second world war: "We should not expect the state," she said in 1980, "to appear in the guise of an extravagant good fairy at every christening, a loquacious companion at every stage of life's journey, and the unknown mourner at every funeral." But as preparations are made for her own state-sponsored funeral, the YouGov-Cambridge analysis points to hers being an unfinished revolution in relation to the welfare state. Britons continue to look to government not merely to level the playing field of life, but also to provide a universal safety net, and indeed to redistribute income. On all of these counts, Lady Thatcher would be aggrieved to learn that the UK remains precisely in line with continental Europe, and an ocean away from America. There is less acceptance of supersize pay cheques than in the US, more willingness to pay tax to assist the workless than in Germany, and – perhaps most surprising of all – less of an automatic assumption here than abroad that the government is treating those on benefits too softly.It is wrong to retro-fit a cohesive rationale to everything done in her 11 and a half years in No 10, since key planks such as privatisation were a function of time and chance. But certain ambitions were clear from the off. One was to free the public purse of some of the cradle-to-grave responsibilities it had acquired after the second world war: "We should not expect the state," she said in 1980, "to appear in the guise of an extravagant good fairy at every christening, a loquacious companion at every stage of life's journey, and the unknown mourner at every funeral." But as preparations are made for her own state-sponsored funeral, the YouGov-Cambridge analysis points to hers being an unfinished revolution in relation to the welfare state. Britons continue to look to government not merely to level the playing field of life, but also to provide a universal safety net, and indeed to redistribute income. On all of these counts, Lady Thatcher would be aggrieved to learn that the UK remains precisely in line with continental Europe, and an ocean away from America. There is less acceptance of supersize pay cheques than in the US, more willingness to pay tax to assist the workless than in Germany, and – perhaps most surprising of all – less of an automatic assumption here than abroad that the government is treating those on benefits too softly.
Perhaps that last finding should be taken with a pinch of salt – it could be less a sign of big-hearted Britain than a gauge of progressive administrations in Washington and Paris bringing out their own voters' Scrooge-like side. After all, YouGov also finds Britain giving the benefit of the doubt to George Osborne over his shameless move to link the death of Mick Philpott's six children to wider arguments about benefits cuts, and a large majority in favour of his ugly, arbitrary but easy-to-explain benefit cap. Meanwhile, intriguing new Ipsos-Mori research disentangles attitudinal differences across the generations, and finds post-Thatcher voters are reliably less proud of Britain's welfare institutions than earlier cohorts, raising the prospect that – even if the lady did not prevail by revolution – she may yet triumph by remorseless evolution, as prewar children and baby boomers die off to be replaced as voters by the more atomistic Generations X and Y.Perhaps that last finding should be taken with a pinch of salt – it could be less a sign of big-hearted Britain than a gauge of progressive administrations in Washington and Paris bringing out their own voters' Scrooge-like side. After all, YouGov also finds Britain giving the benefit of the doubt to George Osborne over his shameless move to link the death of Mick Philpott's six children to wider arguments about benefits cuts, and a large majority in favour of his ugly, arbitrary but easy-to-explain benefit cap. Meanwhile, intriguing new Ipsos-Mori research disentangles attitudinal differences across the generations, and finds post-Thatcher voters are reliably less proud of Britain's welfare institutions than earlier cohorts, raising the prospect that – even if the lady did not prevail by revolution – she may yet triumph by remorseless evolution, as prewar children and baby boomers die off to be replaced as voters by the more atomistic Generations X and Y.
Don't bank on things playing out in that dismal way, however. The research suggests that Britons are the opposite of uniquely mean-spirited in the face of hard times, implying that everything remains to play for in the great welfare debate. The same conclusion is implied by the wildly mixed evidence from previous polling on social security cuts. If some coalition cuts such as the "total benefit cap" are crushingly popular, others such as the "bedroom tax" are less supported, the contrast between those two labels illustrating just how much policy nomenclature matter. A Guardian/ICM poll at the start of the year found that the public regarded Mr Osborne's biggest cut – holding down benefit rates, so that payments are slowly eaten up by inflation – as squarely unfair.Don't bank on things playing out in that dismal way, however. The research suggests that Britons are the opposite of uniquely mean-spirited in the face of hard times, implying that everything remains to play for in the great welfare debate. The same conclusion is implied by the wildly mixed evidence from previous polling on social security cuts. If some coalition cuts such as the "total benefit cap" are crushingly popular, others such as the "bedroom tax" are less supported, the contrast between those two labels illustrating just how much policy nomenclature matter. A Guardian/ICM poll at the start of the year found that the public regarded Mr Osborne's biggest cut – holding down benefit rates, so that payments are slowly eaten up by inflation – as squarely unfair.
The picture, then, defies easy summary – one theory goes that while there is deep resentment about those who do or are imagined to play the system, there is also a feeling that those in real need should receive adequate cash. More fundamentally, the mixed signals imply that much remains up in the air. And that is also the heartening conclusion of the international study, which demonstrates that there is nothing uniquely nasty about Britain – no matter how nasty the mood that has taken over the principal party of government.The picture, then, defies easy summary – one theory goes that while there is deep resentment about those who do or are imagined to play the system, there is also a feeling that those in real need should receive adequate cash. More fundamentally, the mixed signals imply that much remains up in the air. And that is also the heartening conclusion of the international study, which demonstrates that there is nothing uniquely nasty about Britain – no matter how nasty the mood that has taken over the principal party of government.
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