I took a pew at James Purnell’s talk to the Social Market Foundation earlier today, and it was striking just how far he went to distinguish Labour’s tough line on benefit claimants from the Tories’ tough line on benefit claimants. There were ideological distinctions between “freedom from” and “freedom to”; claims that only Labour understand how to “build people’s capability”; and a line about how neither David Cameron nor Christopher Grayling have made much reference to “child poverty” recently.
The last point is particularly desperate. Sure, they don’t talk about “child poverty” – but that’s because it’s been used by Labour to fake progress by shifting families from one statistical column to another. But, even still, the Tories have signed-up to the Government’s child poverty targets. And both are agreed that the best method for lifting children out of poverty is to get families back into work. The Tories have their plans to do just this, so what does it matter if they’re not couched in such explicit “child poverty” terms?
In the end, once you’ve waded through the word-play, you’re left with Labour policies which more-or-less
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