Leopard’s spots resprayed Rev. Stuart Campbell We noted with interest this morning an uncredited story in the Herald, suggesting that Scottish Labour leadership candidate Jim Murphy would stand as an unlikely champion of the poor and downtrodden and the heroic defender of universal benefits. “Murphy rejects Lamont stance on benefit cuts Jim Murphy has signalled a major shift in Scottish Labour policy if he wins the leadership, saying he would not seek to axe popular benefits and entitlements.” On investigation, the truth was somewhat at odds with the headline. Because particularly alert readers may remember the caring, sensitive Jim of April 2010, when an STV debate asked representatives from the four main Scottish parties how they’d cut the deficit. roadtomurphy The SNP’s Angus Robertson had advocated savings from Trident, the ruinous ID-card scheme of the then-Labour UK government and the House Of Lords. Murphy – at that time the Secretary of State for Scotland – had other ideas about the best way to claw some cash back into the Treasury’s coffers: “I think we could be much more ambitious about cutting the cost of welfare. I genuinely think it should be a rule of our country that you should never be better off on benefit than you should be in work.” The Herald piece goes on to quote Murphy more extensively: “I believe in a something for something society. If you pay in you are entitled to get out. People work hard, pay their taxes and stick by the rules. They are right to expect that when they need support it is there for them. That law-abiding, taxpaying majority are entitled to get something from their contribution. Alongside that you have to keep in view the affordability of it but in principle and by instinct I want to take a different approach: something for something. There is an issue of fairness. If you have contributed all your years into a system you are entitled to get something back out of it. The contributory principle has been a core component of the welfare state since its inception and that principle can apply in public services as well.” Allow us to translate, readers. Jim Murphy is NOT against Johann Lamont’s infamous “something for nothing” position, and he’s NOT against benefit cuts. He merely wants to divide the poor into deserving and undeserving, a Victorian-era political strategy more commonly identified as a tool of the Conservatives. If you’ve paid National Insurance for years, he’s happy to let you keep the miserable and grudging pittance of benefits the UK currently pays (subject to ever more draconian requirements and sanctions). But if you’re just unlucky? If you have have some terrible disabling accident BEFORE you’ve paid in enough, or were born with a disability? If you’re a mother who spent most of her life raising a family rather than going out to work? If you’re young and can’t find a job because there simply aren’t enough for everyone? Get lost, slacker. While it’s the most fundamental misunderstanding possible of the intended nature of the welfare state (namely that we all pay in collectively and all can claim if and when needed, rather than being an individual private insurance scheme that just happens to be run by the government), this isn’t new from Scottish Labour, of course. Murphy’s friend and associate on the party’s right wing, Tom Harris MP, made the party’s new stance on the vulnerable crystal-clear some time ago: “We were set up as the party to represent the values of working people, working being the key word. We weren’t set up as some sort of charity to help the poorest in society – the long-term unemployed, the benefit dependent, the drug addicted, the homeless.” Murphy is merely reiterating long-standing Labour policy. So despite what the Herald’s unbylined article claims, he’s as keen as mustard on benefit cuts. A fierce advocate of Trident (and hawkish interventionist military policy in general), he wouldn’t sacrifice a single missile to reduce the deficit while there were still some unemployed people he could take the money from instead. Murphy is undoubtedly the Unionist media’s choice for Scottish Labour leader. One doesn’t have to throw a brick very far before hitting some of his press cheerleaders: “He is the best chance – even the only chance – for Labour.” (Alan Cochrane, The Telegraph) “Jim Murphy is Scottish Labour’s only hope. Murphy it is. Murphy it must be.” (Alex Massie, The Spectator) “If Scottish Labour could draft Murphy, they should: he’d be an excellent leader. He’d easily outclass Nicola Surgeon [sic].” (Fraser Nelson, The Spectator) “Jim Murphy is, by a distance, the best candidate for the job.” (James Forsyth, The Spectator) Our alertest readers will have noticed something of a common thread – all of the above are Conservative commentators writing in Conservative publications. And we know from opinion polls that Conservative voters want Murphy in the job. So viewers can draw their own conclusions from the Herald’s attempt at airbrushing his image into something rather softer and cuddlier than the reality.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:03:19 +0000
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