Wednesday 27 July 2011

The Means To The Middle

James Purnell has emerged from beyond the grave to denounce universal entitlement and its payments to the middle classes.

But Herbert Morrison professed never to have seen any conflict "between Labour and what are known as the middle classes". Aneurin Bevan denounced class war, calling instead for "a platform broad enough for all to stand upon" and for the making of "war upon a system, not upon a class". Both served under Clement Attlee (Haileybury, Oxford, the Bar and the Officer Corps), who was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell (Winchester and Oxford). Harold Wilson was a Fellow of an Oxford college, and the son of a chemist and a schoolteacher. Jim Callaghan was a tax inspector. Michael Foot's public school may have been the Quakers' Leighton Park, but it was still a public school, which duly sent him to Oxford. Neil Kinnock's father may have been a miner, but he himself was a lecturer. John Smith was a QC. We all know about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

And why not? The median household income in this country is £21,320. That is the middle. Ninety-three per cent of children attend state schools. Every business is dependent on them, as it is on public transport and the National Health Service. Indeed, hardly anyone has private health insurance, and a large proportion of those who do, have it through their trade unions. And so on.

In the present state of affairs, extremely few are those who could do without their Child Benefit, or their tax credits, or their state pensions, or their winter fuel payments, or their free bus travel, or their free prescriptions, or their free eye and dental treatment, or their free television licenses. Taking away consumer spending power is hardly the way to aid economic recovery. On the bus travel, on the prescriptions, and on the eye and dental treatment, the question is of why anyone should have to pay for them upfront. As it is of why anyone should have to pay upfront for hospital parking, or for undergraduate tuition, or for long term care in old age, when this does not apply in certain parts of the United Kingdom. Which brings us back to Morrison's principle that all parts of the Kingdom should benefit equally from social democracy. And to the fiercely Unionist Bevan, with his platform broad enough for all to stand upon.

Paid for by what? Not by any private sector, as that term is ordinarily used. Thus defined, there is no private sector. Not in any advanced country, and not since the War at the latest. Take out bailouts or the permanent promise of them, take out central and local government contracts, take out planning deals and other sweeteners, and take out the guarantee of customer bases by means of public sector pay and the benefits system, and what is there left? They are all as dependent on public money as any teacher, nurse or road sweeper. Everyone is. With public money come public responsibilities, including public accountability for how those responsibilities are or are not being met.

If you believe that there ought to be a middle class for social and cultural reasons, then you have to believe in the political action necessary in order to secure that class's economic basis. Look at Britain today, and you will see the "free" market's overclass and underclass, with less and less of a middle except in the public sector. Public sector haters and the enemies of middle-class benefits are no more in favour of a thriving middle class than they are in favour of family life, or British agriculture, or a British manufacturing base, or small business, all of which are likewise dependent on government action in order to protect them from the ravages of capitalism.

Middle-class French people refuse to believe the stories of the underclass (or the overclass) in the "Anglo-Saxon" countries. But they are still horrified at the activities of their own, which would be too minor to attract comment here or in the United States. And they are still in a position to take a stand against those activities, because France continues to will, not only the end that is the existence of a large and thriving middle class, but also the means to that end in terms of government action. James Purnell does not will those means. So he cannot will that end.

14 comments:

  1. Yet another of your posts that should be on something like Comment is Free or in the pages of a national newspaper. When are you going to get angry about what Damian Thompson did to you? He sacked you and poisoned your reputation for saying you were a College Tutor at Durham, which you were and are. Comments attacking the blogger personally are normally taken down but instead your university contemporaries were allowed to pour out abuse and defamation of the most outrageous kind. Then he just gave in and got rid of you. Anyone would think that he had recruited them for the purpose.

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  2. Regular Telegraph posting of stuff like this would have got you a column by now, you frequently post the thousand word articles it would have been. The one on extremism in British politics yesterday, the one on five ways to reform Britain's relationship with the EU, the one on restoring civil liberties so as to restore tougher sentences, the one on which way the North should go if the UK breaks up, the one on a Palestinian declaration of independence and a British memorial to those ho died in Mandated Palestine, lots of things. This post could easily be expanded to that length and deserves that sort of audience. Thompson owes you what would now have been earning. If necessary he should sue Jon to get it for you. Whatever happened to Jon?

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  3. Miner's Boy (11+)27 July 2011 at 19:28

    I am not familiar with the previous goings on at the Telegraph but what is the problem with being a college tutor at one of the top three universities in the UK? I presume some level of intelligence is required for this role, and a degree of competence to remain in post. How can someone's reputation be poisoned for this? Is it a question of not having the right letters after one's name?
    If one is defamed and abused for such a thing then surely it is the abusers who are diminished in the minds of the readers rather than the person being attacked?

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  4. They screamed on and on and on that, among other things, I had made it up. I had not. So Thompson just backed down. As has been said, personal abuse of the blogger is normally deleted over there.

    I am starting to think that it was all a set-up by that hateful creature Thompson, who would want to kill off any possibility of an audience for views like mine (especially as expressed by an orthodox Catholic), and the likes of Jon, scum when I knew him and obviously still scum 10 years later. Like Thompson. That said, I don't what I have ever actually done to Jon and various other people who knew me at university.

    But on topic, please.

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  5. Funny how you were a tutor when they planted some ridiculous story in Palatinate, the arrogant saplings at which thought that it would get you sacked. Instead of which you were made SCR President and put on the Governing Body. Kamm, Thompson and all that trash have found their level, planting articles in Palatinate for everyone important to dismiss with contempt. Let's not go into what happened to the Palatinate office soon afterwards.

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  6. Your comments on the Catholic Herald are always excellent and you definitely deserve a more high profile platform. Have you thought about that now that they have sacked the man who ran it as a gay lifestyle magazine for pro-war capitalists?

    Alternatively, have you thought about putting in for Johann Hari's column in the Independent?

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  7. Thanks, but it doesn't really work like that.

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  8. I used to enjoy your Telegraph blog. Apart from Jon and his sock puppets, about half the comments were quite positive or very. The other half meant that something called a debate had been provoked.

    But there were was such a torrent of organised abuse that it didn't seem that way. All egged on by the editor who couldn't even be bothered to spell your name correctly in the web address. Despicable, absolutely despicable.

    One of the strangest features of that sorry saga was how much more weight was give to American (foreign) than British comments by a supposedly Tory paper. Almost everyone who disagreed with your arguments was American or pathetically wanted to be. In that second category I would also put Jon and his little gang.

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  9. Cheer up, Kamm devoted years of his life to emailing under aliases everyone who employed Neil Clark, and to altering Wikipedia entries to defame him. Look at Kamm now, reduced to posting comments about how Clark is never published, posted on everything that Clark publishes, which is one hell of a lot.

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  10. Oh David, bless. I never knew you cared so much

    xxxx

    care to give me a right of reply?

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  11. You have just exercised it.

    Anonymous 20:55, Jon is an American citizen. A public school Mockney (very Nineties), but an American citizen.

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  12. I don't know if you would have had a column by now, but you would undoubtedly have been one of the most sought after freelances. DT saw that coming and conspired with your less clever Durham enemies to kill off your career? No-one would be at all surprised.

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  13. Er, actually I'm neither. But don't let that stop you.

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  14. You certainly used to be an American citizen. But then, you certainly used to be a lot of things.

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