By Andy Mayer
“We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive, but for those on benefit there is every incentive… well that’s not very sensible.”
soon-to-be Conservative peer Howard Flight to the Evening Standard, 25th November
The ironic context of Howard Flight’s now infamous interview was to note he had been right in 2005, when sacked by Michael Howard, for claiming there was scope for deeper cuts than Howard was letting on. Within that interview are comments that those on the Liberal Democrat left and Ed Miliband would agree with:
he opposes the sharp increases in tuition fees. He fears they will prove a major disincentive to people of his own background going to university, and will generally limit social mobility. “Two of my nieces and nephews, both of them very bright, gave up university halfway through because they didn’t want the financial burden,” he said. As with the child benefit reforms, Flight fears the rich will be fine, the very poor will be subsidised, leaving what he calls the lower middle class trapped in the middle and unable to improve themselves.
He also said, with no hint of foresight:
“We have reached the state of an elected tyranny of the professional politician… Partly because of the media scrutiny, MPs feel they cannot say anything except the blandest nonsense.”
And duly the media have obliged… a selection of comments from over 200 articles below
“The horrors of the Nazi regime had killed eugenics stone dead some 30 years before his bizarre intervention and there is no evidence that the pseudo-scientific belief that the human race can be improved by selective breeding was making a comeback” – Guardian
“The crude eugenics of Mr Flight, suggesting the children of well-off parents are somehow innately superior to those of other families, are so disgusting in modern Britain that he doesn’t deserve to be made a law-maker.” – Mirror
“Howard Flight cannot have spent much time in close proximity to anyone who is working-class” - Independent
Politically his comment, particularly the language used, was unwise in the extreme. His apology swiftly afterwards, his only real option, given the pressure that is still being applied to David Cameron to block his peerage. In the PR terms he hates he created an unwelcome story from nowhere that distracted the Prime Minister from his preferred agenda of the day of talking about sunshine and happiness. Agree or disagree with Flight, that is a political problem.
The two underlying issues though, to what extent should the welfare system be compassionate versus encouraging smart choices, and what are the unintended consequences, particularly on the margins, are difficult and important debates.
The British welfare system is unusually child friendly. Many other countries limit support to small families, don’t provide boosts to housing priority, or have child poverty targets that entrenches such generosity. Large families do tend to be associated with higher levels of poverty, both in this country and across the world. There are poverty incentives built into that system. Once there it is much harder to get out of the system with a large family than not. This ‘breeds’ resentment between those trying, and those acting perfectly rationally in response to the system.
As a result the comments Flight made, albeit using different language are also expressed on council estates. In the BBC soundbites last night we saw Ed Miliband sitting down with Tesco workers talking about welfare reform and the ‘squeezed middle’. One makes a reference to her dissatisfaction that while she and her husband both work, her neighbours along the balcony produce kids and can somehow afford designer clothes. Same point, less inflammatory.
Further this is a Cameroonie debate. This is the politics of fairness, incentives and nudges. It looks like in five years of the wilderness Flight got the new agenda, he just didn’t read the script. For that he deserves his second day of hard lessons in media training, but not to be treated like some latter-day Dr. Mengele.
