Donal Blaney: The test of moral ideas is moral results

Every week the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the Young Britons' Foundation, Donal Blaney, explains one of Morton Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process. Morton Blackwell is the Founder and President of the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia.

“There is much to be said for trying to improve some disadvantaged people's lot. There is nothing to be said for trying to create heaven on earth. When all the objectives of government include the achievement of equality - other than equality before the law - that government poses a threat to liberty.”
- Statecraft, Margaret Thatcher

Maybe I drank too much rum when I was living abroad for the past two years?

Maybe in time I will wake up from this horrible dream, this nightmare, in which the political party that gave us Churchill and Thatcher – the political creed that gave us Reagan and is still adhered to by John Howard and Stephen Harper – have been discarded by David Cameron in what increasingly seems to me to be nothing more than a naked push for power at any price, without any regard for political principle or the true needs of the vast majority of voters.

Learning that the views of Winston Churchill have been discarded in favour of those of Polly Toynbee – who has been wrong on every single issue that’s mattered for the past quarter century – fills me with such a sense of dread that I am wondering more and more whether David Cameron is actually really a conservative at all.

Conservatives are not utopian. Socialists tried to create Utopia by consent (in Britain) and through oppression (in China, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Cuba). Yet socialism failed because it runs completely counter to human nature and while it may have been, in the abstract, a moral idea, the results were wholly immoral.

Conservatives have tended to take the view that the test of moral ideas is whether or not they generate moral results.

Conservatism has espoused the concept of helping those who are genuinely in need. It was on this basis that the concept of the Welfare State as a safety net for the truly disadvantaged was embraced. The morality inherent in conservatism as a political creed remains at the core of conservative thinking today with the principled and morally correct stance being adopted by the Party as regards Darfur (and, dare I say, Afghanistan and Iraq) and in the work of Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice.

When David Cameron said that there is such a thing as society but that it is not the same thing as the state, he was correct. Indeed he is echoing Margaret Thatcher, rather than disavowing her views (as he would have us believe), given that she said that while there is no such thing as society, there are, however, families and communities and thus we all have a civic responsibility to help those in genuine need. Abrogating that responsibility onto some abstract concept of “society” or the state apparatus is immoral.

The announcement this week that a future Conservative government (if one is ever again elected) will address relative poverty – as opposed to addressing absolute povery – is misguided and morally abhorrent.

Surely as conservatives our belief is that the economic pie should be enlarged, not that everyone should receive an equal – or more proximately equal – slice? It is for this reason that we have always advocated tax cuts so as to generate more wealth in the economy as that wealth benefits more people than simply redistributive economic policies can achieve (particularly in today’s globalised markets).

The left’s view of the economy, as Ronald Reagan famously said, “could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it”. We are entering the realms of a social democratic consensus that is wholly at variance with the desires of millions of voters who have hitherto supported the Conservative Party.

The key for us as conservatives must surely be to maximize opportunity and social mobility. It is the decline in social mobility – of the chances for people from poorer backgrounds to achieve everything they dream of – that is the true failing of New Labour and the opportunity for the Conservative Party to make its mark.

This is why conservatives should be embracing grammar schools, the assisted places scheme, scholarships and bursaries. That is why barriers to entry into professions, trades and new markets should be removed. That is why taxes and regulation are inherently immoral because they stifle innovation, strangle businesses, destroy self-reliance and encourage the “sit back and wait for a hand-out because it’s my right” mentality.

While it must be jolly tickety-boo for those who are heirs to vast fortunes to adopt a patrician approach to “The Poor”, it does nothing for those who are truly in poverty (by which I mean absolute poverty, not simply poor by comparison to their neighbours who might have two cars, holiday overseas and own an iPod).

Those who are in genuine need are those who need the help of everyone – not the dead hand of the state (as is Gordon Brown’s way) but of voluntary organizations, churches, families, friends and communities – to help them achieve their true potential in life. David Cameron’s wholly wrong-headed approach – God help us, the approach of the Polly Toynbees of the world – is so wrong, so utterly unconservative that one can only hope that the nightmare will soon end and common sense will be restored before it is too late and a fourth general election defeat is upon us.

I finish with the words of Margaret Thatcher in Statecraft:

“The right-of-centre parties still often compete with left-of-centre ones to proclaim their attachment to all the main programmes of spending, particularly spending on social services of one kind or another. But this is foolish as well as muddled. It is foolish because left-of-centre parties will always be able to outbid right-of-centre ones in this auction - after all, that is why they are on the left in the first place. The muddle arises because once we concede that public spending and taxation are than a necessary evil we have lost sight of the core values of freedom.
 
Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seems to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag.
 
In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer."

Previous entry in this series: Never miss a political meeting if you think there is the slightest chance you'll wish you'd been there

Comments

[Dean]

Excellent article . . .

. . . unlike this one which made me choke on my cornflakes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/25/ntory25.xml

Why we're falling into the trap of using the left's language about relative poverty is beyond me.

Good point about the best way of ensuring maximum wealth is to worry more about the size of the pie than how it's distributed. Only a growing economy can expand the horizons of the less well off in society - the best way of doing this is to not stifle enterprise and reward.

To use another Maggie quote, from her last set-piece as PM:-

"So long as the gap is smaller, they'd sooner the poor were poorer.

You do not create wealth and opportunity that way. You do not create a property owning democracy that way."

[SimonNewman]

"The test of moral ideas is moral results"

I agree 100% with this and the rest of this excellent article, which is simply a restatement of reality-based conservatism. "The principle is right, it's the world that's wrong" is the approach of socialists and neoconservative utopians; and should always be rejected. We stand for _civic society_, for securing the autonomy of people to pursue their own ends, not the socialist _purposive society_ of Toynbee's "wagon train".

[esbonio]

An excellent article.

[S.E.L]

Yes, a very good article.

This from the Telegraph today: Asked to define relative poverty, Mr Cameron said it occurred when "people don't have what others take for granted."

What a ridiculous definition. Would relative poverty be eliminated if others took nothing for granted; would it disappear if we were grateful for all that we had? Surely poverty should be defined in monetary terms, not on people's perceptions.

[Denis Cooper]

Repeatedly over recent months I've offered these twin thoughts: that if you agree to use the language invented by your opponents to disadvantage you in debate, then you will be disadvantaged in debate; and that if you talk like your opponents, you may end up thinking like your opponents. It's regrettable that IDS responded to what he saw in Glasgow by setting up a "Centre for Social Justice". If he'd been more circumspect, he could have called it the "Centre for Social Policy", rather than "social justice". Now that term, that concept, and other associated left-wing concepts are becoming embedded in what passes for contemporary Conservative thinking. I've read Cameron's speech, and as on the previous thread I'd like to highlight these passages:

"So poverty is relative – and those who pretend otherwise are wrong. This has consequences for Conservative thinking."

"In 1997, when New Labour came to power, their approach to poverty combined two essential elements. Their phrase "economic efficiency and social justice" summed up an important truth. That you need to grow the cake – which means economic efficiency. And you need to divide it fairly – which means social justice. As part of this, Labour recognised the fact of relative poverty."

"Relative poverty", "social justice" - what next, "from each according to his ability, to each to according to his need"?

"To start with, we have to recognise that poverty is about more than income. The sixty-per-cent-of-median-income definition of the poverty line is useful, but it is only useful in its own terms - at measuring relative income. The fact is that assets matter as much as income. For the poor, what matters is often the absence of positive assets and the presence of negative assets – in other words, debt."

So presumably not only income, but assets, need to be divided more fairly.

[Jorgen]

Excellent article.

[Denis Cooper]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1956594,00.html

It's good news that the Tories' search for a guru has led to Polly Toynbee - now all they need to do is join the Labour party and their policy unit can pack up and go home. Quite how this enlightenment on poverty fits with their City friends, whose bonuses for this year alone amount to £9bn, is anyone's guess and I'll wait with bated breath to see how this new enlightenment blends with the recent Tory thinktank report that recommended lower taxes for the rich. Still Cameron doesn't really want policies to spoil his liberal honeymoon. Luckily, we who actually do care about social policy and take our Polly seriously won't have to work very hard to spot the glaring contradictions in Tory spin; it's delivery that matters.
Teresa Murray
Rochester and Strood Labour party

[Richard Weatherill]

I entirely agree, Donal, and hope that our editor won't accuse you of "harshness".

One of Greg Clark's objection to Churchill's "safety net" metaphor was that people get tangled up in it and are then unable to extricate themselves. This is undoubtedly true - especially when the net is as labyrinthine as that developed by G Brown - and wholly undesirable. However, the answer should surely be to replace it with a simpler, better designed, 'non-stick' net, rather than to adopt the views of someone like Toynbee and mire us all in the (literally) hopeless idea of "relative poverty".

BTW, I think the final sentence of the 1st para. of your closing quote from 'Statecraft' should read "... are anything other than a necessary evil ...". (There's certainly something missing anyway.)

[Praguetory]

I've been abroad for less than 4 months but my bewilderment matches yours Donal. Rather than attacking the damaging policies that mean we have 8 million "economically inactive" British adults, the Tory leadership are providing cover for more of the same.

I was going to organise some Conservative Party social events in Prague. Instead, I think we'll have some right-wingers events - Cameroons and other Socialist apologists not allowed - it will be easier to attract people to that sort of event. Or am I being "harsh"?

[Michael Ehioze-Ediae]

I CONCUR

[Deborah]

Good article

[David Sergeant]

"Cameroons and other Socialist apologists not allowed - it will be easier to attract people to that sort of event. Or am I being "harsh"?" Pragutory.

No you'r not. You are just jumping to conclusions about what the results, moral or otherwise will be. Poverty has always been relative, the poor now live in houses with electricity. The biggest point of all made by Clark was that Labour is less interested in the worse off because helping them would not help their PR statistics. In other words there are levels of poverty (relative?) and they all need to be adressed. This serious thinking about poverty not advocating socialist solutions.

Donal, on this occasion I think you have rushed to judgement although it seems important for Cameron, Clark, or IDS, to return and carefully say what they meant or didn't mean.

[TomTom]

Asked to define relative poverty, Mr Cameron said it occurred when "people don't have what others take for granted."

The Commodore, Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877)once noted that he was not really any happier with his $100 million than his neighbour who had $1 million.

That i suppose is relative poverty

[Rachel Joyce]

I suspect much of Cameron's idea came from the emerging science of "happiness" as summarised in Richard Layard's recent book. This describes how relative poverty is more of an indicator of unhappiness than actual poverty. However, it also describes how people without work and without apparent status (in relative terms, eg through work or standing in the community) are also more likely to be unhappy. It also shows how more local democracy can empower people and bring greater happiness. THis appears to be linked to DC's concept of a quality of life measure for the country alongside a GDP measure.
If you pull all the science together, taxing people and redistributing will not work to make people happy (the Labour way of doing things). THe only way that a state can tackle poverty (including relative poverty) and increase happiness overall is to increase social mobility (as described above), get more people into work (including policies such as workfare), and getting more people involved in their local communities, coupled with increased local democracy - all very Tory.
As David Sargeant says, it is how the solution is reached - Tory policies are based on common sense, not socialist gut nonsence, and remember that "inequalities" have significantly increased under Labour - a case in point.

[Deborah]

David,
It is true that our definition of poverty changes over time. However, the concept of relative poverty, defined as an arbitrary percentage of average income, is a socialist idea founded on envy.
And the t****r campaign appears particularly insensitive when launched by ex-public schoolboys with significant personal wealth.
Yes, Cameron and Osborne do need to explain what they do and do not mean

[The Watchman]

At the risk of echoing others, I would like to agree with the praise for Mr Blaney's article. It's good to see some coherent Conservative reasoning as opposed to the leftish pap from our trustafarian Reverend Dave.

[Deborah]

"relative poverty is more of an indicator of unhappiness than actual poverty"
Quite. Often the symptoms of "relative poverty" as described by Cameron are not the result of lack of money but the lack of education, prospects and self esteem. Defining this problem by reference to income is an unhelpful cop-out.

[matt wright]

I agree with David Sargeant when he says that there are people rushing to views about what DC means. It seems as if they want to believe their prejudices especially if it fits with the minority that dislike him. I just cannot understand this negativity and close mindedness. Surely if we want to move forward as an advanced nation to keep ahead of Chiman and compete in the world, then we cannot have so much relative poverty (poverty being more than just income and being also about peoples ability to contribute to society)?

Matt

[Donal Blaney]

Sorry Matt, this isn't a case of rushing to views, rather it is a case of responding to a concerted strategy from the leadership. If we waited weeks or months to respond, so as to avoid being seen as being disloyal, we would be criticised at that time for trying to reopen a realignment of policy that has already been decided on. In my view it is right to have this debate now. It is fundamental to conservative philosophy that we believe in equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome. By talking about "relative poverty" we are using the left's language and doing their bidding for them.

[Denis Cooper]

I'm amazed that some Conservatives seem unconcerned by this ideological capitulation, assuming that Cameron doesn't mean what he says, or that the Conservative route to "social justice" and the elimination of "relative poverty" will be through common sense, not socialistic nonsense. Since Cameron has just nailed his colours to the mast of socialistic nonsense, I don't quite see how that could work out.

I'd also draw attention again to that less-noticed passage in his speech:

"To start with, we have to recognise that poverty is about more than income. The sixty-per-cent-of-median-income definition of the poverty line is useful, but it is only useful in its own terms - at measuring relative income. The fact is that assets matter as much as income."

I can only conclude that he's prepared to contemplate re-distribution not only of income, but also accumulated assets. In the Sunday Telegraph today the leader writer jokes "He could also consider a wealth tax of 80 per cent" but of course there are other, more stealthy, ways of eroding assets.

[SimonNewman]

Donal:
"If we waited weeks or months to respond, so as to avoid being seen as being disloyal..."

I think people have been waiting months and giving the leadership the benefit of the doubt for a long time, as left-wing statements have mounted. There's been no sign of an "And Theory" approach so far, so I think it's understandable that conservatives are fed up. Labour abandoned economiv Marxism so they could win power and institute cultural Marxism. The Conservative party appears to be abandoning conservatism (more accurately, abandoning classical liberalism) and embracing cultural Marxism in order to win power and do... what? I can support my local conservative association because I know they're conservative and I see the benefits of a conservative approach in Wandsworth every day. But why should I support a party leadership that's determined to insist it doesn't believe in conservatism or classical liberalism at all?

[SimonNewman]

I'll note that I'm not a life-long Tory, I joined the party after Cameron was elected! I liked the optimistic approach. I would have been on the left of the Tory party ten years ago. It seems like within a year or so the party leadership has moved from being to the right of me to so far to the left of me they seem indistinguishable from Blair & co.

I have to wonder if this positioning, where "centre ground" means "what the BBC approves of", is even a good way to win electoral victory, never mind a mandate to govern.

[David Sergeant]

"Sorry Matt, this isn't a case of rushing to views, rather it is a case of responding to a concerted strategy from the leadership"

Donal, is it right to assume that "concerted strategy" relates to more than talking about relative poverty (e.g. you mention grammar schools)? I can only guess that talking about Polly Toynbee has finally got to some people who see a general leftwards wandering of Cameron Tories and the excitement about relative poverty is seen as an oportunity to yell stop.

You quote Cameron himself as expressing less than wholesale agreement with the 60% of median income as a definition of poverty but no one, in attacking Cameron, has even attempted to say how you would define absolute poverty which is the alternative. In any case, acceptance of any economic level as absolute poverty means you have a phased reduction in any benefits otherwise you create dissincentives to lift out of absolute poverty. So where is the top level where all benefits stop? You have to define something mathematical.

As for using the language of the left, "relative poverty" and "social justice" (I absolutely hate them both) have become standard terms in politics and government and anyone seriously addressing economics to-day, never mind poverty, has to use them. But I note your comment about "heirs to vast fortunes" - now that is really using the language of the left, Gordon Brown, according to Mathew d'Ancona (an excelent example of the sort of easilly frightened right wing journalists that make Polly Toynbee so effective) in to-day's Telegraph says "rich-kid charlatanism". I just think this sort of language - well I'll finish now!!

[Denis Cooper]

"As for using the language of the left, "relative poverty" and "social justice" (I absolutely hate them both) have become standard terms in politics and government and anyone seriously addressing economics to-day, never mind poverty, has to use them."

No, they don't have use them. They can devise their own language, their own standard terms, to express their own ideas - if they have any.

[David Sergeant]

Denis Cooper, you have to use the "standard" language to communicate otherwise you just exist in a parallel universe to everybody else and nobody hears what you say, which is more or less where we have been on welfare since about 1990 and look where it has got us.

Editor, can't you hold a competion for replacement terms for relative poverty and social justice?

[Denis Cooper]

So the Tories have allowed the terminology of the left to become the "standard" terminology of political discourse. That's not very clever for a party of the right.

I recall reading an article about this in the Telegraph, I think by some professor, and I think it was after the 1997 election, but I've never been able to find it again.

But of course Orwell was there before him.

[David Sergeant]

"So the Tories have allowed the terminology of the left to become the "standard" terminology of political discourse. That's not very clever for a party of the right"

Oh the party of the right was capable of being clever, the problem was for years it became lazy and, frankly, cowardly.

[Praguetory]

Good debate - I particularly appreciate Donal coming back a few times. I am however rather irritated by the antis who think that opposition to the current strategy is either a personal vendetta or require specific definitions on absolute poverty from the Conservatives amongst us. It's not personal and we're attacking the non-Conservative principles not the specifics. As with most areas of policy, there aren't any specifics to attack.

[Sean Fear]

Donal Blaney is absolutely right.

I am so pleased that I did not vote for David Cameron last year.

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"Editor, can't you hold a competion for replacement terms for relative poverty and social justice".

My attempt at the definitions and entry into the spirit of the competion (excellent piece of yours, Donal):

Relative poverty means that you will say anything to win an election; it means that your relatives are not rich enough to send you to Eaton; or to afford a windmill on the top of your roof; or not have sufficient food intake to possess the strength hug a hoodie.

Social justice as defined (and there ain'i a better one) by Churchill: is to provide a safety net to those genuine unfortunates that deserve it, plus my rider, that those who wont use their talents should be told in strong language (the description tossers spring to mind) to get on their bikes and do something for themselves.

Keep on trying, Dave! (as if he isn't trying enough).

[Editor]

I would agree with this article from my friend and 18 Doughty Street colleague, Donal Blaney, if the Tory leadership had embraced the policy ideas of Polly Toynbee. It has not (thank God). What Greg Clark, IDS and David Cameron have done is reaffirm the thoroughly 'one nation' idea that conservatives should do everything possible to reattach a forgotten and impoverished section of society to the mainstream. Labour clearly lack the tools for such a thing - conservatives with their belief in the welfare society's superiority, do have the tools (or, more accurately, they know who does (families, churches, free charities etc)). This article is, I fear, guilty of ascribing views to the Cameron teamsters which they have not said they hold. You and I should debate these issues on 18 Doughty Street's sofa before too long, Donal... We may find - once the straw men have been removed from the debate - that the differences between us (and between us and the Cameroons) are not so large after all.

[Denis Cooper]

"Charity" and "justice" are two different things, in some respects opposed and mutually exclusive. The essence of "charity" is that it is voluntary and springs from the heart of the individual. On the other hand "justice" relates more to the law, backed up by the coercive force of the state. And as "Lucinda" from the Labour Party kindly posted some days ago, from their point of view the essence of "justice" is "equality", both of opportunity and outcome. I saw Barbara Castle talking about this some years ago. She'd fought all her life for benefits to be a matter of rights, not charity, which she seemed to regard with contempt.

[Jon Gale]

If Greg Clark had merely talked about doing more to increase prosperity for the poor, no-one would have batted an eyelid.

But because the utter nonsense of "relative" poverty was invoked, and then the greater nonsense of Toynbee, and then compounded with "ditch Churchill" he got his headlines, but at what price?

[Praguetory]

At what price? Put it this way. Tunbridge Wells Conservative Association's e-mail inbox has exceeded its limit.

[Praguetory]

At what price? Put it this way. Tunbridge Wells Conservative Association's e-mail inbox has exceeded its limit.