As the Tory Party conference creaks open its coffin lid and both IDS and George Osborne leap out in order to terrorise the airwaves it should be no surprise that they have announced with glee that they are going to press ahead with £10 billion benefit cuts no matter how stupid, cruel or unpopular.
For those of us who despair of the policy of austerity it’s frustrating that it even fails when we take austerity on Osborne’s stated priorities of cutting the deficit (it’s still rising) but the government takes it as a point of honour to keep going. I’ll not go into the case against austerity here because I want to take a look at what people think about cuts.
YouGov have been doing polling (pdf) on austerity since the Coalition was formed and while there have been shifts in attitudes towards the government’s economic policy some aspects of public opinion have remained remarkably consistent if not straight forwards.
Thesis
I’ve long felt that there has been a difficulty with a pure anti-cuts message (favoured by much of the left) in that it fails to connect to those not inside its immediate orbit, despite the fact that much of what the left is saying seems to be uncontroversial with the very people they hope to mobilise.
My thesis is this. People think the economy is fucked. People think that the system, let’s call it capitalism, is broken. People think the cuts are bad. They believe they are unfair, hit the most vulnerable hardest and are, indeed, pessimistic about their own immediate future. That’s all brilliant news for the left! Well, obviously it’s not because people are right to think all these things and we love people so don’t want to see them get crushed in the gears of a struggling economy.
The problem is that while people believe the cuts are unfair, too deep, and too fast they also sense that they are a product of a general, global crisis. In other words the cuts appear to be a symptom of the economic malaise, not simply a thing in themselves, and so demanding they do not happen feels like insisting someone with emphysema stops coughing.
Although almost no one in the world puts it like this I’m going to frame it this way – because the anti-capitalists are right that the economy is screwed social democratic solutions like Sure Start Centers, libraries and decent pensions all seem like a luxury for better times. The simple “no cuts” message feels to many on a gut level like an appeal to adopting Labour’s 2006 spending priorities and that doesn’t cut any ice, not least because many think Labour’s economic policies actually caused the crisis in the first place.
What do people feel about austerity?
Given the possibility that the economic situation might shift dramatically, and people’s views with it, I wouldn’t want people to read the numbers and think these are immovable facts. They are evidence of public opinion up to this point and nothing more, but it’s still useful to know.
Between 69 and 71% of people are worried they will not personally have enough to live on comfortably, which is a similar number to those worried that they will suffer directly from cuts in spending on public services such as health, education and welfare. A majority are worried that they will lose their job (or have problems getting a job).
How many people think the economy’s in good shape? 4% (and the highest it’s been since 2010 is a shocking 7%)!
So to say this more clearly – people think the economy is screwed and that this means they will get hurt.
How’s the Coalition doing?
Just 29% of people currently think the Coalition is managing the economy well, that’s compared to 32% this time last year and 47% the year before. So people are less and less convinced that the Coalition has the right medicine for the economic malaise.
63% think the cuts are falling unfairly, 43% think they are too deep and 47% think they are too fast. Bizarrely although the number thinking the cuts are unfair is growing those thinking they are too deep and too fast is falling – and those thinking the cuts are too shallow have doubled from 7% to 14%.
I’m tempted to see this as a growing view that “if you’re going to cut off my arm at least do it properly and don’t drag it out.” You can draw your own conclusions though.
Why is it happening?
54% of people think the cuts are necessary – despite the fact that many of those people don’t like them. That compares to 31% of people who don’t think the cuts are necessary. So twice as many people think the cuts are unfair as those who think they are unnecessary. hat’s suggests we have much more work to do in convincing people the cts don’t need to happen than convincing people that they are a bad thing.
So who’s to blame? Well, Labour.
27% blame the Coalition, 36% Labour, 27% blame both and a gallant 3%, God bless them, don’t blame any party – presumably taking the understandable position that a global economic crisis that started in America may well have not been a direct result of the British government.
For information in June 2010 those numbers were 17%, 48%, 19%, and 9%. So opinion has shifted, but it is direct evidence that talking about “ConDem” cuts will inevitably fall flat when 63% of people think the hated cuts are either solely or jointly Labour’s responsibility – nor is there any particular reason to let Labour off the hook by singling out the Coalition when Ed Balls refuses to pose a concrete alternative.
There is a shift
There has been a shift in public opinion since 2010. People are less convinced by the Coalition than they were and are more convinced that the cuts are too deep or just wrong. What has not changed is that people are as convinced as ever that the economy is in terrible shape.
James Meadway of nef said in April “As the tide of opinion turns, they can be won over to the argument for a genuine economic recovery. The first steps are simple. Stop the cuts. Invest to create decent, sustainable jobs. Tax the rich.” I agree, but we need to make sure that we’re putting forwards a richer analysis than a simple demand to “stop the cuts” because it smacks of an unconvincing fantasy where we pretend the crash never happened.
Unless we’re talking about how investment promotes recovery and for the need for genuine structural changes – in the financial and banking sectors, in housing, in public services, and in the “real” economy – millions of sympathetic people just will not believe it’s possible or desirable to “stop the cuts” – even though they know it hurts.
Without those millions there will still be an anti-cuts movement but one that neglects to convince many who we know desperately desire real change.