In the tawdry benefits debate, no politician speaks of moral obligations - so I will
Suzanne Moore, in The Guardian:
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...But the bigger point to all this, and one that has to be met head on, is whether the actual end goal of such discourse is getting rid of the welfare state entirely. If you have been any place where there is no safety net, you will have seen people who appear prematurely aged, or severely obese with no teeth, or those with disabilities out begging on the streets. Some of these people will be vacantly staring into space or scavenging on rubbish heaps. Not everyone who is now unemployed can work. It's that simple.
But Labour goes along with the idea that welfare needs trimming, as the majority think it needs reform. On the Big Benefits Row: Live, the politicians were abysmal, with the usual in-fighting. I waited in vain for one to make a coherent case for our moral obligation to each other.
That case has to be re-made because Charles Murray, the rightwing theorist who first used the term underclass, explained clearly how to get rid of a welfare state. You remove the moral obligation by arguing the other way round: it is welfare that creates moral disaster. You root that in individual weakness. What better describes Iain Duncan Smith's "mission"? The man who exaggerated on his CV and has presided over the closure of jobcentres pushes ever more punitive measures. He insists, as do Labour, that work is the route out of poverty, though we know that it can't be for everyone.
The coalition's sleight of hand means an increasing distancing from the world of benefits by those who see themselves as middle class. The removal of child benefit – a universal benefit – allows more people to feel they are getting nothing from the current system. They may use the NHS but they are not anchored to the state. A certain sympathy is eroded....
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/benefits-debate-politicians-moral-obligations
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