Grassroots welcome IDS' recommendations with one notable exception...

Over the last four days 1,417 Tory members have given their opinions on twelve of the main recommendations of IDS' social justice report.  Ten of the twelve recommendations secured clear and supportive majorities.  The most popular recommendation - with 95% support - was action to eliminate unfairness to two-parent families within the benefits system.  The controversial proposal of higher taxation of alcohol was rejected by 59% of those surveyed.  The only other recommendation to fall short of a majority was the proposal to give the option of frontloading child benefit.  Although 49% agreed with the proposal, 30% disagreed.

ConservativeHome intends to poll members on the main recommendations of all of the policy groups.

Later today we will publish members' views on extending the married couples' tax allowance to gay couples.

Comments

[David]

The most important question of course is whether they are welcomed by the wider voting public. Otherwise all the enthusiasm by the grassroots will make no difference.

[Editor]

Fair point David but I think our views should count a little too! Yesterday's Sunday Tel/ ICM survey suggested that voters supported the marriage tax allowance by 49% to 44% and general public policy action to support marriage by 57% to 35%.

[Tory T]

And just as pertinently Ed, the Politicalbetting site has broken the numbers down further - most of those who do not care about marriage, or who are against a tax break to support it, are Don't Vote/Will Not Vote-ers.

Thus in terms of looking at how IDS' report will affect a GE as policy, the numbers are FAR more favourable even than the headline figures suggest.

[ID(iot)S]

There you go again with your 'grassroots' claim.

Monty Python might say that you're not the grassroots, you're a very naughty boy!

[Traditional Tory]

The IDS proposals are the simple commonsense we all used to expect from the Conservative Party.

More of this true Conservatism and less of the Socialist PC nonsense and at least there will be a good chance of keeping the decent heart of Conservatism together.

It's becoming increasingly obvius that the assassination of IDS was a devastasting tragedy for the party.

[ID(iot)S]

I know it is not as grand but would not 'ConHome readers' rather than 'grassroots' be a more honest description?

[malcolm]

Not suprised at the results except that as many as 33% supported the tax on alchohol.I'd thought I was in a tiny minority on that one!
I hope the proponents of 'Breakdown Britain' will continue to sell their proposals hard in the coming weeks and months because we can be sure that the Labour party will be full of their 'attack on single mothers' lies.

[Denis Cooper]

Of course in itself a £20 a week tax benefit would not induce anybody to get married or to stay married. However it would send a small positive message
from the government about marriage, reversing years of neutral messages (starting with Lawson*, as I recall) and more recently negative messages.

Given that it's now been proved beyond doubt that the social consequences
of the decline of marriage and the rise in family breakdown are very expensive
for the state, ie for taxpayers, a small tax break sending a positive message should be a good investment in purely financial terms.

* In fact Lawson sent a negative message by default when he failed to spot
that increasing numbers of couples were deciding to live together and to buy
a house together, but to stay unmarried so that they could both still qualify
for mortgage tax relief.

[David Belchamber]

IDS's Report is very welcome; as TT says, commonsense is what we used to expect from the conservatives and a return to it would be most welcome.
With a report as important as this one, might I suggest that it might have had even more impact if it stopped short of making proposals but simply summarised all the evidence collected and posed the same sort of questions the Editor has asked in the recent survey as a basis for general debate?
As it was, the two contentious proposals (tax breaks for marrieds and a vast increase on tax on alcohol in order to dissuade "yoof" from binge-drinking) were rubbished by the opposition, whereas they would have been hard put to do so when presented solely with the facts (highlighting the failure of Nulab policies).
Can we now expect similar reports on taxation, immigration, Europe etc?

[Gadfly]

I have had a chance, via povertydebate.com to read quite a lot of this report. One noticeable thing is that IDS and his team carried out a running opinion poll of all the policy options and the identified problems. The publics opinions are close to those of this poll on cons home and the publics attitudes are fascinating. As some of the respondents to this suggest that the public would take a different view from the members, perhaps cons home could post the results from the report as well.

[Old Hack]

The questions that was mssing from the survey is quite simple: Would these measures taken together repair the broken society?

My answer is that they probably would not, worthy though these measures are.

The state simply does not shape society to the degree necessary for government intervention to overcome the decades long changes to consumer expectations and behaviour, matrimonial expectations and behaviour,or simply the impact of our loss of religious faith.

The state may have contributed to breaking society but it cannot do any more than help at the fringes to repair the damage done.

[Old Hack]

The questions that was mssing from the survey is quite simple: Would these measures taken together repair the broken society?

My answer is that they probably would not, worthy though these measures are.

The state simply does not shape society to the degree necessary for government intervention to overcome the decades long changes to consumer expectations and behaviour, matrimonial expectations and behaviour,or simply the impact of our loss of religious faith.

The state may have contributed to breaking society but it cannot do any more than help at the fringes to repair the damage done.

[Mr Honk]

From the Policeman's Blog:

The one question that just begs to be asked, is, “Are you married?” It never is, of course, because to ask it might make us appear judgemental. For the record the British Crime Survey in 2001 found that people who cohabited were five times more likely to be at risk from domestic violence. So while it's ok for us to ask about the victim's sexual habits and the medication they're on, it's far too intrusive to ask about their marital status.

[reality check]

As you rsfused to ask the question "should the smae tax break be availible to a widowed or abandoned mother working to raise her kids" we will never know if, when brown highlights the injustice of a "stay at home partner" tax break, it will come to be seen as a clause 28 for widows and abandoned mums.

[a-tracy]

Reality Check, I understand you've a real bee in your bonnet about widows and abandoned mums losing the transferrable tax allowance from the none working partner, however they are eligible for many other benefits which compensate so I don't see it as a clause 28? whatever that means.

I wouldn't benefit from this tax transfer myself but I wouldn't begrudge some of the mums and dads at my childrens school getting the allowance especially those that use their time at the school helping the reading programs, volunteering time to the pta, creating the walking buses, or undertaking voluntary work at the local hospices whilst their children are at school. If giving women and the few men whose primary role is parent/carer a transferred tax allowance reduction in tax to spend on their own family is a bad thing I give up.

[Goldie]

This is all very interesting, but even more interesting is the lack of a thread of the Black Weekend we just had, which was the low-point of Cameron's leadership thus far.

As I have been saying on this site (opening me up to the ridicule of many here), I thought that Gordon Brown would have Dave for lunch. Well, looks like that is about right. Maybe that is worth a thread too.

[Yet Another Anon]

Maybe rather than frontloading Child Benefit the best option would be to provide a fixed rate payment for all parents (as is done currently with Family Premium - except it should be for each parent separately) and not raise the amount but limit it to the amount it initially was paid at and then so long as they had children within the qualifying ages who they were looking after they would go on qualifying but only at the initial rate - otherwise presumably people could go on having children and getting the full frontloaded rate constantly.

This could mean that parents of a child where one had had a child previously could get different rates because the one parent having parented a child earlier than the other would get a lower rate presumably (assuming that the main rate had been uprated previously).

[Matt Wright]

Old Hack, I tend to agree but in fact that is why DC has been saying that communities have to start mending themselves with Govt help being mainly to encourage them. I think this is a notion people from all sides of politics find hard to truly grasp. We expect the left to be wedded to the state being able to solve things but often parts of the right are wedded to the same flawed thinking as well.

Matt

[reality check]

"Reality Check, I understand you've a real bee in your bonnet about widows and abandoned mums losing the transferrable tax allowance from the none working partner, however they are eligible for many other benefits which compensate so I don't see it as a clause 28? whatever that means."

A-tracy the fact that you assume a widow or abandoned mum must be on benefits shows the problem with the IDS brigade. You/they just can't conceive that such a person actually might be a professional well out of the benefit system. They will rightly feel stigmatised by this ridiculous tory moralising (get yourseld a husband dear) - that is why it will become a section 28 issue - a policy which a group find insulting and based on ignornace.

Your second point is unrelated to the benefit in question - give tax credits for volenteering by all means, butdon't assume that middle class stay at home mums (because that's who the ids betsy payment is targetted at) do more than working couples, or working singles.

Tax deductable child care costs would be a much better spend.

[reality check]

By the way, as a transferrable tax allowance doesn't benefit married coupeks where both work, isn't this a massive message that we are a backward lkooking party who doesn't like married women going out to work?

IDS may think that will cure our broken society - i think it is 1950s patronising bs.

[a-tracy]

RC - I don't think that bereavement allowance is means tested so her income shouldn't affect her allowance it seems to be based on her partners national insurance contribution.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Bereaved_/DG_10018684

I'm unsure about the allowances for single mothers/fathers that are working and earning over £35,000 per annum but the newspapers seem to indicate that single parents earning the same money that a couple earn are entitled to more benefits than the couple.

[Christian Mason]

I thought IDS's recommendations on the whole have been excellent. It's a good sign for the future of the Conservative Party that they can talk about marriage and family without being instantly derided by the wider public. Perhaps the legacy of Back to Basics is finally behind us.

A strong focus on family and community should be the backbone of Conservative policy for the upcoming General Election - one clear area in which Labour are lagging far behind in terms of public sentiment.