Labour's neglect of the family

Many Conservatives anxious to put clear blue water between us and Labour think of lower tax as one policy option that Gordon Brown will never embrace.  Support for marriage is another such policy option and indifference to the family is a leading reason why Labour is failing in its social exclusion agenda.

A new report from the Fabian Society will, this week, recommend new ways for Labour to get back on track with its child poverty targets.  Today's Independent previews some of the report's likely recommendations:

• "higher state benefits for pregnant women on income support;
• a 50p top rate of tax on the rich;
• targets for schools to close the "qualifications gap" between poor and better-off pupils;
• a shift away from tax credits towards high-quality, state-funded child care;
• higher child benefit, such as bigger payments for second and subsequent children;
• a more generous minimum wage;
• back-up for pregnant women to be concentrated on the disadvantaged;
• one year's paid parental leave transferable between parents; and
• a shake-up of inheritance tax so that it hits recipients rather than the estate of the deceased."

There is nothing new in these recommendations.  It is a typically left-wing, big state view of the world.  Every idea involves an expansion of the power and size of the state and no recommendation addresses the importance of marriage and the family.  The family - and marriage, in particular - is the greatest weapon society has against poverty.  Before last year's General Election this is what the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to all of Britain's political leaders:

"The crime problem has a lot to do with a growing number of young people who are severely emotionally undernourished and culturally alienated. Ask anyone who works with children or young people in any city. The climate of chronic family instability, sexual chaos and exploitation, drug abuse and educational disadvantage is a lethal cocktail. To call for more public support for stable families and marriage is not in this context a bit of middle-class, Middle England nostalgia; it’s life and death."

This Labour government remains almost wholly indifferent to the health of marriage, however.  David Cameron has pointed out that "the average taxpayer now contributes at least £570 every year to the direct costs of family breakdown, but only 21p is spent on trying to save troubled relationships".

The Fabian report looks set to call for more targets despite the evidence which shows that such targets distort the behaviour of professionals.  Targets are part of the measurement culture and the welfare state neatly fits into this culture.  Bureaucrats can measure the number of people receiving benefits and the amounts they receive. The care provided by the family and the other 3D institutions of the welfare society - friendship networks and local charities and churches - is almost impossible to measure and therefore gets neglected by the central planners.  As they increase the resourcing of the poverty-fighting instruments they can measure - all those things identified by the Fabian Society - they are taxing and sidelining those superior institutions of the welfare society - the output of which they cannot easily measure.

Until our government directs a comprehensive policy to reward and uphold the still popular aspiration to marry we will not tackle the root causes of major public policy challenges - like the growth of crime and the booming demand for new housing.

Comments

[Graeme Archer]

I have a feeling, and apologies in advance, for what follows will necessarily be anecdotal, so feel free to ignore now if non-empirically based findings annoy you (they often annoy me), but I have just a feeling that actually this might be one of the highly rare topics where not only does it help to be a gay man, but I might be able to write "As a gay man" in a sentence and not gag. (Most "as a gay man" letters to newspapers are written by whining victims with nothing better to do with their time, or as a preface to a request for subsidy, or as a preface to a piece of social liberalism that would be unaffected by one's attracto-gender-axis (my new scientific term). Not this time milady).

Anyway.

As a gay man, I think that it is in the Conservative (not liberal) interest to encourage marriage & would happily support small and targetted changes in the tax system to bring this about. This is not because I have a longing for a return to the 1950s, where everyone knew their place, etc etc (no deodorant; I know this is a fixation of mine but I cannot shake the thought): I think it's quite easy to make a utilitarian argument that most of us would benefit from a state where fewer sexual pair-bondings led to emotional or physical separation.

Here's the social argument: by being tax-neutral on this question, the liberals I think must recognise that they are *on average* increasing human unhappiness: the empirical findings on the outcomes of children from "lone" parent households are quite well documented (I don't think anything sociological can ever move from correlative to causative analysis by the way, True Blue made some v good points on this right a the start, but I think that's more the pity of sociology than anything).

Here's the liberal argument: not funding any particular lifestyle looks attractive till you tot up the costs we have to pay for(both in dealing with the consequences of the social breakdown in the areas where fathers are largely unknown, and also just to fund all the extra houses for the extra lone parents) since marriage became an option rather than the norm.

Here's the personal point. Everything vapid and nihilistic about the gay "subculture" is, actually, a perfectly valid response to sex as recreation. If you can sh*g without consequence, then you will quickly treat human beings as commodities, and not as something special. That's why I cared so much about the Civil Union legislation, by the way - not "as a gay man I demand the same treatment as thee" (though that's true, by the way) - but much more as a Conservative way to build stability and a framework around which (I fervently hope) many thousands of people will be able to build their lives.

I think you can have this framework, and encourage it, without going ultra-prescriptive about the nature of the family you want the state to support. I think it would be good to start by bringing back transferable tax allowance for people willing to make a public and legal commitment to one another's welfare (in the way that cohabitees do not).

[Editor]

Thank you Graeme. A really helpful contribution to the debate. Much appreciated.

[Annabel Herriott]

well exactly true Blue! I just put it a bit blunter that all. I come from oop North tha knows. Now tell us about support!! We havegot the single parenthood already. We now need a more coherent strategy to help and support a lone parent. I repeat. It is NOT just about money. Its about isolation, low self esteem, powerlessness, lack of the old "domestic science" classes in school, where outside agencies were brought in to teach their subject. I remember takinf an "old girl" of a school into class with her 3 month old. Interestingly, the baby chose to throw up over a couple of the girls. Huge reaction, huge mirth, and probably a good visual aid for a bit of sex education! Consequences that barf at one end, and poo at the other. That class NEVER forgot that object lesson. Nulab cancelled all that. Do food technology now. Fat lot of good that is to a young single mum who cant cook, and thinks sandwichs are things you buy at the super market. This is real fellas, happening right now, and I'll keep on bashing your heads with it until the penny finally drops. WE as a party MUST sort out this nulab mess when we get back as an absolute priority. I am beginning to think its a man thing, not to undersatand what women have to cope with. I would truly LOVE to be proved wrong! I here exclude all hands on family men!

[Henry Whitmarsh]

I'm sorry, but you're just going to be accused of wanting to have your cake and eat it. As Conservatives I thought we were supposed to believe that the state should keep its nose out, that all social tinkering by bureaucrats was the devil's work.

People are supposed to want to marry each other for love, commitment, a belief in the institution itself, not just because it's financially lucrative. Similarly, children being brought up marriages do better because they have two parents who are committed to each other by something more than a tax allowance. People should not be paid to get married, I don't think we're in that kind of crisis. Yet.

Graeme, I'm gay too. It was OK to be gay before civil partnerships came in and it's still OK to stay single.

[True Blue]

I'm sorry, but you're just going to be accused of wanting to have your cake and eat it. As Conservatives I thought we were supposed to believe that the state should keep its nose out, that all social tinkering by bureaucrats was the devil's work.

The argument that the pro-marriage lot have put forward is that there is currently a financial disincentive to get married - in other words social engineering against marriage. Some have taken it further and said that the state should give an incentive to get married, in which case your point is valid.

Despite the Editor's views, you can be a small-state conservative and a social liberal. It's a coherent position. It's one of the fault lines in the party.

Interestingly, many of those in favour of pro-marriage tax arrangements would express righteous indignation at any other attempts to give tax incentives or subsidze behaviour liable to benefit large numbers of individuals and lower taxation (the social tinkering you mention), for example, allowing heroine addicts to have prescription heroine.

[Graeme Archer]

Henry! I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay and single - goodness knows I spent enough of my existence in that very state - I was saying only that personally I find the mores promoted by the commercial-social complex that runs gay Britain to be nihilistic (that is *not* to say that I hate being in a gay bar, I had fun with a mate last night in the west end, but the lifestyle that is promoted to young gay people is utterly value-less and ultimately, I think, not the road to a happy existence), and that by providing a route into a sanctioned life framework the government has done some good. Because I believe this, I think that people in such supportive relationships should be rewarded, that's all.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

"the commercial-social complex that runs gay Britain"

I don't think it's a conspiracy that massive.

"by providing a route into a sanctioned life framework the government has done some good."

Thankyou Comrade, I'll, er, bear that in mind.....

[John]

At last Prescott has done something constructive, and said he will not carry on after Blair goes down in a puff of smoke (oh of course, that will be banned by then). It’s a shame that they don’t take the rest of those incompetent, smug, self congratulating morons that make up the Labour party. Then things really will get better!
While people are granted preference and gain at the expense of others i.e. something which cannot be passed across to all in a fair way, then the reason for those who get preference must be because they are inferior and with Labour in power it reflects the domination by the inferior classes using deception, manipulation, unfairness, cheating – Labour is out to aid the inferior classes and add insult to injury to the disadvantaged gifted.
I believed that once I was free from temporal lobe epilepsy that times would be better after having been denied opportunity worthy of my capabilities because of my disability and denied support for my disability because of my capability resulting in prolonged poverty and waste of talent through no development of my potential, but although not a prisoner through disability any more I am a prisoner of society with just as many constraints inflicted upon me as I was when disabled since I am over qualified for any assistance in spite of having no experience or financial assets to support myself in 1998 and others who were earning over twice what I was who were under qualified could get some support. Overpaid thickos get support, disadvantaged underpaid gifted people get nothing. I am twenty years behind financially and lost fifteen years of my career because of Labour & the DWP and I didn’t qualify for any assistance as they make me the scapegoat for their abuse, betrayal, defamation of character, neglect and prejudice.
Blair & Brown say “A fair deal for all and the chance to make the most of one’s potential” – who are they trying to bluff? I have never been treated fairly nor had the chance to make the most of my potential so it is not worth me trying now.
The only thing which Blair has increased for me is the chance of committing suicide as I am more likely to do this now than ever before, especially as I am treated worst than a criminal and valued as worthless in spite of having talents and capabilities unique to naturally born geniuses. I could do some A-level maths before I went to secondary school without any private tuition and had the mental age of an adult before I was a teenager as I was admitted into an adults psychiatric hospital at the age of twelve in 1973 after suffering a nervous breakdown caused by excessive bullying and emotional abuse by local authority staff and pupils. (Yes, Labour stronghold and authorities.)
I have never been able to control my emotions or temper since then and when things go against me or society is tailored to be unfair to me I get very belligerent and disruptive by behaving in accordance with how I am being treated. If I am treated unfairly with everyone else treated better I behave as if I am bottom of the class and behave the worst.
I am not going to try my best when circumstances are grossly unfair since many thickos invert the truth against me and seen to be more capable. Some treat me as if I am stupid compared to them because they are bullies and cowards and had preferential treatment because they are common. None of them were born geniuses but are just standing on a higher platform. If I had given to me what they had I would naturally be looking down on them.
But then Labour thickos don’t like us do they?

[John (Profector Plumb)]

I have heard cries from both sides – some saying that life is much better under Labour now than it was under Conservative and vice versa.

The popularity behind both sides seems to have its own class of support. Most who are in favour of Labour are those who rely on beggars’ belief and expect others to sacrifice for them whereas those who prefer Conservative are more independent of external support and can manage on their own.

I have also noticed that many staunch Labour supporters are desperate to cling on to their beggars’ rights and will use any method of corrupt reasoning to win the battle – a bit like cowards on the weakest link voting off the best to make life easier for the thickos and punish the best. This is typical of Labour policies in general.

Most of my friends are in support of having Conservative back in power and are sick of being taxed to the hilt by Labour resulting for some in a quality of life worst than what spongers and criminals get.

The differences between Conservative and Labour appears to be the mentality, integrity and individual strengths since Labour are favoured mostly by the incompetent, spongers, lazy, feckless, the underclass, liars, cheats, criminals, etc. whereas Conservative are favoured mostly by those who get on and make progress with their life without relying on others to sacrifice for their gains.

Labour has destructive progress whereas Conservative has constructive progress so as soon as this destructive and incompetent Labour government is ousted the better.

It is unfair for victims being treated worst than criminals and those who try to be penalised to subsidise the lives of those who are lazy, greedy and selfish.

They say that crime doesn’t pay – it shouldn’t and wouldn’t under Conservative, but under Labour it seems the best way forward for the incompetent and brain dead.