by David Ward
It’s a well-known finding from psychology that people care more about losing a pound they already have than they do about gaining a new one. There’s a reason that relatively well-off pensioners are still upset about losing their Winter Fuel Allowance, and it’s the same reason pensioners still receive the Christmas bonus every year that Edward Heath introduced as a one-off gift in 1972.
Kemi Badenoch’s recent travails suggest that the opposition may soon face a similar dilemma.
The leadership candidate is quite reasonably trying boost her credentials in the contest by taking the fight to her Labour opposite number in the Commons, Angela Rayner.
So it might seem almost a gift to Ms Badenoch that Angela Rayner is closely associated with Labour’s proposed workplace reforms which aim make parental leave, sick pay and other protections available from day 1, strengthen statutory sick pay, and make flexible working the default option from day 1. Badenoch can attack them as ‘anti-business’ with support from the right-leaning press, and make broader points about her values.
Yet as Ms Badenoch found ahead of her party conference, if you make the argument that supporting workers to have flexible hours and conditions is a problem you will be asked what the right level should be, or if there any other workplace entitlements you would change.
Approaching the interview as more of a general chat than a considered case, she ended up telling the interviewer that Maternity Pay had “gone too far”. A position she had rowed back from by the end of the day.
Not to be deterred, on Tuesday the Shadow Communities Secretary had another go, resulting in headlines that she thought the minimum wage was “harming businesses”.
What these rows show is that once people have got used to have maternity pay or the minimum wage, it’s very difficult for a Conservative opposition to start suggesting they should be taken away.
And this will repeat itself as Rayner’s reforms make their way through parliament. There is a discussion to be had about whether rights to flexible working are going to cause businesses difficulty or if parental leave or sick pay should come in after probation rather than the first day.
Tories will be tempted to cry foul about how each measure will bring about the heat death of the British economy any day soon. Yet with a majority of 174 it’s almost certain these measures will be passed in some form.
It may be tempting for the next Tory leader to simply accept this and move on. But having spent the previous few years warning of the terrible effects on growth they will have to explain why they’re no longer worried about those problems. And to respond to the latest comments of the backbench MP for Hard Line Central who is demanding they spur growth by removing them.
So by the next election, when voters have become used to having these better working conditions, the new Tory leader will be faced with the Badenoch conundrum. Do they want to want to remove these conditions or not?
David Ward is a Labour campaigner in Bromley
Tags: david ward, flexible working, Kemi Badenoch, maternity pay, minimum wage, workers' rights
