Firstly we had Labour’s outrage about high earners losing their child benefit. Why would they oppose something so outrageously popular? Universality of benefits was the line, but considering the means tested additions that they made to pensions that sounds hollow. Of course every MP is a 40% taxpayer by the very fact that they’re an MP. And so are most of their friends. They could not see that their outrage was not shared by their supporters.
But the housing benefit situation is less explicable. As John Rentoul, a New Labour man to his marrow, says:
I suspect Miliband conveyed the wrong message to the country, which simply cannot understand why so many billions of taxpayers’ money is poured into such a badly-designed benefit that undermines work incentives, profits landlords and keeps property prices higher than they would otherwise be.
Spot on. Hopefully Labour activists aren’t still so obsequious that they are hiding the fact that the voters really, really hate being taxed for benefits – and large single parent families in mansions are riling people up.
So why is Labour seemingly keen on re-inventing themselves as the party of upper-upper-middle-class privilege?
It may be the second part of this “profits landlords and keeps property prices higher than they would otherwise be“. MPs, Conservative and Labour like Buy To Let, you only need to look at the register of member’s interests. But its also a sign of where the Labour Party is now compared to even twenty years ago. They are older on average than they were (as are all three main parties) and they are also considerably more middle class (here we could name, but won’t a few councillors). The comfortably off public sector middle manager approaching retirement will have some spare money. They didn’t join the Labour Party or the public sector due to an interest in accounts and economic data, so they will be looking for an investment they understand. And it won’t be the stock market.
Tories buy shares, socialists buy houses. It’s not the cleaner that they’re worried about, it’s the over priced house with the over priced rent.
Related articles
- Opinion: Labour needs to be honest with its core supporters (libdemvoice.org)
- John Rentoul: Ed Miliband needs a plan, and soon (independent.co.uk)
- Cruddas: Labour needs a credible economic alternative (leftfootforward.org)
- Ed Miliband rules out personal tax rise from Labour deficit plan (guardian.co.uk)
- David Cameron refuses to back down on housing benefit cap (telegraph.co.uk)
- PMQs: David Cameron’s not for turning on housing benefit (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
