The first four pilots of the government’s £26,000 benefit cap for workless families launches today. While there’s a bit of debate today about the rights and wrongs of this particular benefit cut, it’s worth comparing it with another policy that has grabbed many more headlines. The benefit cap is, as James reported recently, one of the most popular policies pollsters have ever encountered. It was launched as a flagship policy by the Chancellor at the 2010 Conservative autumn conference, with a snappy name. Most backbench Tory MPs report that the only thing that annoys their constituents about the cap is that it’s still too high: Chris Skidmore told me in the autumn that he wished it could be dropped to £15,000. The government has been so successful in selling this policy that its decision to scale down its launch from a nationwide roll-out this April to four pilots in Bromley, Croydon, Enfield and Haringey ahead of a later launch in the autumn was barely noticed.
Most popular
Michael Gove
‘I’m a new kind of Christian’: Jordan Peterson on faith, family and the future of the right
Meanwhile the government’s ‘housing benefit: size criteria for people renting in the social rented sector’ does have a similar compelling argument behind its introduction: why should a government pay for rooms that a social tenant doesn’t use when the sector has an overcrowding problem? (It’s a bit more complicated than that, of course but that’s for another post).
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in