What is this mania for simplification? Listening to Nigel Farage struggling to explain UKIP tax policy on the Today programme this week made me wonder why, in so many areas of policy, politicians of the right have such a fetish for making things less complicated than they really are. UKIP’s message is the very essence of this tendency and in Farage’s case you have to wonder whether he’s just too dim to entertain a complex idea.
It is no surprise that UKIP’s comfortingly simple message is gaining support, but we should be wary of political oversimplification in times of crisis.
This tendency is not restricted to UKIP. The government is learning that simplification of systems can sometimes be very problematic indeed. Something very peculiar is going on at the Department for Work and Pensions, arguably the most important ministry beyond the Treasury in the present climate.
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