by Kevin Meagher
Contrary to popular belief, ostriches do not in fact bury their heads in the sand. Like most logical animals, they leg it when a danger presents itself.
Alas, many on the left do not seem to possess the good sense of our feathered friends and do, in fact, propel their heads into the ground to avoid hearing a few home truths.
I wrote the other day about how curtailing the costs of the welfare state through instituting a basic golden rule that all adults should be in paid work for the vast majority of their working lives was vital to addressing the public’s mistrust of Labour when it comes to managing benefit costs.
To recap, a YouGov poll to accompany our forthcoming pamphlet ‘Labour’s manifesto uncut: How to win in 2015 and why’ finds that over half of those who think welfare spending is too high (54 per cent) blame Labour, ten times more people than the five per cent who hold the coalition responsible.
Who do they rate best able to keep costs under control? 45 per cent trust Cameron, compared to 14 per cent who back Ed Miliband. It seems obvious that this is a not insignificant difficulty for the party looking to rebuild trust with the electorate.
Yet it’s an argument some people don’t want to hear. The Independent’s Owen Jones dropped me a line on Twitter to ask whether “perpetuating myths” about the welfare state was helpful in repairing public trust (a question framed as an accusation). I’m not exactly clear which thought crime I have committed, but expecting all adults, save for the most vulnerable, to work and contribute is clearly some sort of heinous proposal.
