Labour’s child benefit stance maintains the momentum of Tory cruelty
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Version 0 of 1. It would be better to say Labour know not what they do. But they do. Fresh from making some lobby hack bleed, Ed Balls has announced a cap on child benefit. How lovely. One minute you go from the cosiness of a football match with the press, in which women can only watch from the sidelines, then you have the thrilling announcement that Labour will continue to pursue Iain Duncan Smith’s war on women. You think it’s bit much to talk about child benefit caps like this? A little extreme perhaps? Except Yvette Cooper was doing it herself in January last year. As she and many others have said, women have lost out under all of the policies lashed to the mast of austerity. Talking last year about the benefit caps proposed by Duncan Smith, Cooper said: “Once again women are baring the brunt of David Cameron’s damaging polices and paying the price for this government’s economic failure … the shocking truth is that working women are paying the price of these Tory boys’ political games.” The child benefit cap is a policy designed to show how Labour has “manned up” and can be as punitive as the Tories. It is widely acknowledged that keeping this cap is largely symbolic in terms of savings, and that £400m is a drop in the ocean of deficit. What is actually being cut is the symbolism of child benefit itself. This is a universal benefit paid to the main carer, which in 94% cases is a woman. Like many women, when I had my first child I frittered it away on nappies, food and school trips. When I earned more money, I saved some towards tuition fees. Changes introduced in 2013 mean that as a single parent who earns well I now lose out. A universal benefit has moved to being means-tested, which requires a huge amount of expensive paperwork. So I don’t “live” on this benefit, but many mothers do and have been further impoverished as the cap meant the benefit did not rise, although prices have and wages have stagnated. Balls will argue in his speech that “sacrifices” have to be made by all sections of society. But strangely it is always women and children first. Women rely on benefits more than men precisely because we have children to care for, and over a lifetime this affects our capacity to earn. On average, a fifth of a woman’s income will be made up of welfare payments via benefits, tax credits and pensions. For men it’s a tenth. It is hardly news that many women are now going without proper meals to keep their kids clothed and fed. Though bizarrely we are meant to be more concerned about the profits of Tesco. In 2010, when benefits were tied to the lower rate of inflation, low income families were particularly hard hit. Food banks exist for a reason. Labour now wants to own this mantle of macho, to keep the momentum of cruelty going in the name of responsibility, But lets get real. To date, according to figures from the Fawcett Society, 74% of cuts enacted – to benefits, tax credits, pay and pensions – have been taken from women’s income. That is who is paying the price, and when you take money from women you take it from children. I understand why this is Tory policy; it makes sense for them ideologically because they are keen to sever the middle classes from any notion that the state may offer them something. Benefits are for scroungers not strivers. Dismantling the concept of universal benefits means you can have a class of people who go round saying they get nothing back for all the tax they pay. Don’t mention schools, hospitals, roads; that’s how they feel. It’s a dog whistle to Labour voters thinking about Ukip as it is seen as a blow against the holy trinity of wrongness: foreignness, fecklessness and fatherlessness. For Labour to adopt such a stance is symbolic. Symbolic of a party that has lost touch with its core values. Some blokes somewhere thought this was a smart move, though it feels exactly like a policy worked out on the back of an envelope. After a friendly football match perhaps? |