Iain Duncan Smith and Welfare Reform

IDS came from nowhere to lead the Conservative Party. It was all a mistake. It was not his finest hour, but if he pulls off the radical reconstruction of the benefit system, so long acknowledged as necessary, but ducked by weak governments who retreated into spin, his finest hour is in real prospect.

He has invested his recent  life in researching and coming up with solutions as to how to bring the new underclass back into productive society, whilst also asking questions about the affordability of giving millionaires child benefit, state pensions and winter fuel allowances. It is imperative that we deal with both ends of this problem. Anyone who was brought up in politics in the Macmillan era, with the shiny new estates and the liberated people from the bad old days who moved into them, finds the appalling images of deprivation, decay and crime nothing less than a terrible betrayal of the post war social settlement. IDS has toured these places and talked to the people trapped in them. Few others have bothered and very few Tories. 

To reform  benefits is obvious. What is curiously contentious is the idea of removing them from people who do not need them. The argument is they have contributed and deserve them. That is rubbish. It is like saying that because we all contribute to the NHS, we must all take medicine whether we are ill or not and all have our hips replaced even when  there is no need. Linking benefits to the tax system stops silly talk about means tests. The tax code will do the job.

The going, on this project, will now get tough. Iain Duncan Smith must press forward with vigour. The electoral reward for the Conservative Party, if he is allowed to succeed, will be huge. This was New Labour’s task but, as with so much else (except unwinnable wars) it spun itself off the track and walked away. The voters will remember. Just as they did in the post war housing crisis, when Labour failed to hit the targets for newly built homes. The Tories hit the targets and surpassed them. They went on to win two more elections, increasing their majority each time.