Voices: Has the Tory myth about people on benefits finally shattered?

Has the Tory myth about people on benefits finally shattered? - This debate has provoked civil war within the Conservative Party at its conference in Birmingham...
The Independent
2022-10-05T09:43:08Z
In years to come, it will probably be the mortgage crisis we’re now in that will be ascribed the label of the “poll tax moment” for the Conservatives – the point at which voters could no longer swallow the spin, and began a revolt. But for me, there was another moment that proved the slow-turning tanker had finally done a full pivot.
“Address the elephant in the room. If the gov increased the living wage, those receiving in-work benefits would be able to cope thereby reducing the [universal credit] bill,” said one poster underneath. “If people in work need benefits then the minimum wage is too low. The government needs to stop subsidising badly paid jobs,” chimed in another.
Liz Truss insists government standing firm on 45p tax rate cuts
Liz Truss asked if she 'enjoys chaos' during frosty interview
Larry the cat walks away from Liz Truss on No 10 doorstep
Call for energy 'transparency'
IFS director says 45p U-turn is ‘trivial’ rather than ‘real change’
Kwarteng admits attending champagne party after Budget ‘wasn’t best day to go’
Top 10 Greatest Agatha Christie Novels
‘Get new job’ or cut your spending, Tory chair tells struggling Britons
Jacob Rees-Mogg is booed by protesters in Birmingham
Liz Truss must 'correct' mini-Budget mistakes, says Michael Gove
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: British-Iranian national cuts her hair in protest
Kathryn Stone has ‘done a magnificent job’, says committee chair
Iranians protest over the death of Mahsa Amini
Queen Elizabeth’s Cause of Death Revealed
Bank of England takes emergency action to stabilise UK economy, after earlier IMF warning
Gangsta's Paradise rapper Coolio dead at 59
And then, the gut punch: “A friend of mine is a job coach in the job centre, he claims universal credit because he doesn’t earn enough.” Ouch.
A graph illustrating data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and circulated by the BBC has become a talking point this week. It demonstrates in lurid pinks and purples what people claiming benefits, and those who work either within or for adjacent or allied public services, have understood for well over two decades.
That is, the rapid rise in benefit claims are subsidising two things that individuals themselves have absolutely no control over – wages below the level of subsistence (around 40 per cent of universal credit recipients are in work, often working full time), and housing costs well above the level of affordability for people on ordinary wages.
Of course, that is the sensible view when inflation is rising in such a rapid and chaotic manner. His fellow dissenters within the Tory ranks have seen what the rest of us can see also: that saving money on one set of benefits payments is a false economy that will end up costing far more in the short and longer term. On the cost of supporting homeless families. On mental health treatment for broken parents. In the lost potential of a generation of children who grew up in such abject need that it scarred their life chances.
So, given that the Conservative membership elected Truss and Truss is now a zombie leader, should we prepare for PM Braverman? Perhaps, but it would be a very short-term thing. Because the myth that has dogged British social policy for so long, that if you need to claim benefits it is in some way your fault, is shattered. It is over. And unless you count this column, I won’t be writing its eulogy.