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| Why do politicians continue to push the zombie creed of austerity? | Why do politicians continue to push the zombie creed of austerity? |
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| For her fifth birthday, my daughter requested a unicorn cake and an angel cake. When I told her she had to choose, my son said: “Why can’t she have two cakes?” Why not, indeed. As a parent, I’d like my children to grow up in a generous world. But budget cuts mean their school is about to lose nearly half its teaching assistants. Philip Hammond’s response to the schools funding crisis is that of Marie Antoinette: let them open grammar schools! | For her fifth birthday, my daughter requested a unicorn cake and an angel cake. When I told her she had to choose, my son said: “Why can’t she have two cakes?” Why not, indeed. As a parent, I’d like my children to grow up in a generous world. But budget cuts mean their school is about to lose nearly half its teaching assistants. Philip Hammond’s response to the schools funding crisis is that of Marie Antoinette: let them open grammar schools! |
| For all the iconoclastic MP-bashing, and politicians’ modish pledges to “give power to the people”, we still tend to view politicians as parent figures. In fact, the more populism takes over, the more we appear to crave authority and a “safe pair of hands”. As one Tory MP said in the chaotic aftermath of the referendum result and David Cameron’s resignation: “It’s time for Mummy.” | For all the iconoclastic MP-bashing, and politicians’ modish pledges to “give power to the people”, we still tend to view politicians as parent figures. In fact, the more populism takes over, the more we appear to crave authority and a “safe pair of hands”. As one Tory MP said in the chaotic aftermath of the referendum result and David Cameron’s resignation: “It’s time for Mummy.” |
| But his ideal mummy is not mine. The US cognitive linguist George Lakoff characterises politics as a clash between two opposing models of parenting. Rightwingers subscribe to the strict, responsible parent with a firm grip on the purse strings, while leftwingers prefer the nurturing, providing version. | But his ideal mummy is not mine. The US cognitive linguist George Lakoff characterises politics as a clash between two opposing models of parenting. Rightwingers subscribe to the strict, responsible parent with a firm grip on the purse strings, while leftwingers prefer the nurturing, providing version. |
| Everyone is currently in thrall to the strict-parent model. Politicians and supposedly impartial broadcasters are constantly noting that, of course, “times are tight”. The beneficent state is a luxury we can no longer afford. “We can’t go back to 1945,” government ministers intone wearily, as if explaining to a child, before blithely announcing a return to other mid-century relics – such as grammar schools. Despite being thoroughly discredited by economists, and despite Theresa May’s promised investment programme, the zombie creed of austerity staggers on. | Everyone is currently in thrall to the strict-parent model. Politicians and supposedly impartial broadcasters are constantly noting that, of course, “times are tight”. The beneficent state is a luxury we can no longer afford. “We can’t go back to 1945,” government ministers intone wearily, as if explaining to a child, before blithely announcing a return to other mid-century relics – such as grammar schools. Despite being thoroughly discredited by economists, and despite Theresa May’s promised investment programme, the zombie creed of austerity staggers on. |
| On what basis, exactly, do we live in straitened times? Yes, there’s the cost and uncertainty of Brexit. But a year or two ago, it was something else – the fallout from the recession, or turbulence in the eurozone. This is opportunistic shock doctrine stuff, where any bungling failure or general sense of global adversity can lend partisan political choices the air of necessity. | On what basis, exactly, do we live in straitened times? Yes, there’s the cost and uncertainty of Brexit. But a year or two ago, it was something else – the fallout from the recession, or turbulence in the eurozone. This is opportunistic shock doctrine stuff, where any bungling failure or general sense of global adversity can lend partisan political choices the air of necessity. |
| The annual ritual of the budget reanimates the pernicious myth that the economy is like a household budget. Since we have our own currency, we actually enjoy capacious fiscal elasticity. The “strict” parent is really a mean parent. The “fairer funding formula”, by which the government is proposing to take money from some schools to give to supposedly more deserving ones, is a pointless zero-sum game. Instead of making children fight over measly slivers of cake, why not just bake a bigger one? | The annual ritual of the budget reanimates the pernicious myth that the economy is like a household budget. Since we have our own currency, we actually enjoy capacious fiscal elasticity. The “strict” parent is really a mean parent. The “fairer funding formula”, by which the government is proposing to take money from some schools to give to supposedly more deserving ones, is a pointless zero-sum game. Instead of making children fight over measly slivers of cake, why not just bake a bigger one? |
| The budget reanimates the myth the economy is like a household budget. But the 'strict' parent is really a mean parent. | The budget reanimates the myth the economy is like a household budget. But the 'strict' parent is really a mean parent. |
| There are extraordinary funds in private hands, if only we conceived of them as part of our common wealth. A report last week by property consultants Knight Frank predicted that the number of UK-based ultra-high-net-worth individuals (those with more than £24m in assets) will rise by 30% over the next decade. There is more than £10trn squirrelled away in the UK. Corporate profits in Britain are around £400bn a year. The NHS costs £110bn a year; total government spending on education is £85bn a year. We are being schooled in an extraordinary cognitive dissonance, with luxury housing developments springing up in plain sight across the capital. | |
| If you question the basis on which we deem these evident riches untouchable, you are dismissed as hopelessly naive. There’s something doubly infantilising about this reaction: aren’t you aware that belts need to be tightened? And don’t you know the difference between public and private money? | If you question the basis on which we deem these evident riches untouchable, you are dismissed as hopelessly naive. There’s something doubly infantilising about this reaction: aren’t you aware that belts need to be tightened? And don’t you know the difference between public and private money? |
| Yet the fact that the share of wealth in private hands has increased so dramatically over the past four decades shows that the boundaries between public and private are more porous than we are told. As Polly Toynbee noted, £43bn has been given away in tax cuts this year alone. I am not suggesting that parents have unique insights, political or otherwise – but having children does help to reveal orthodox certainties as emperor’s new clothes. Children are blank slates and they take things back to first principles. What kind of society do we want them to grow up in? | Yet the fact that the share of wealth in private hands has increased so dramatically over the past four decades shows that the boundaries between public and private are more porous than we are told. As Polly Toynbee noted, £43bn has been given away in tax cuts this year alone. I am not suggesting that parents have unique insights, political or otherwise – but having children does help to reveal orthodox certainties as emperor’s new clothes. Children are blank slates and they take things back to first principles. What kind of society do we want them to grow up in? |
| And when children start school, parents feel vulnerable on their behalf. They have little choice but to place them in the care of the state, in loco parentis, subject to the government’s wilful caprice and increasingly centralised control. | And when children start school, parents feel vulnerable on their behalf. They have little choice but to place them in the care of the state, in loco parentis, subject to the government’s wilful caprice and increasingly centralised control. |
| Commentators have speculated about the influence of Donald Trump’s father on his policies: if you are treated harshly as a child, does this make you less inclined to provide benefits such as Medicare to your citizens? But it is political as well as personal: the Thatcherite creed of bootstrap autonomy encourages us to level down. If I didn’t get it – goes the tawdry, unambitious logic – why should they? | Commentators have speculated about the influence of Donald Trump’s father on his policies: if you are treated harshly as a child, does this make you less inclined to provide benefits such as Medicare to your citizens? But it is political as well as personal: the Thatcherite creed of bootstrap autonomy encourages us to level down. If I didn’t get it – goes the tawdry, unambitious logic – why should they? |
| Cuts to education budgets are bad enough; a needless act of violence against our children and their future. But what I find maddening is the public licence provided by the fiction of financial constraint. If only we had a sense of our collective plenitude and wherewithal, it would open up the sense of our political possibilities. It would open the Overton window. As Franklin Roosevelt said: “Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.” We must remember that, unlike fake parental “choice” over schools, the government really could get its priorities right. Enough with being told we need to have a “grownup conversation” about the “realities” of public finance. It’s time to jump up and down and shout. | Cuts to education budgets are bad enough; a needless act of violence against our children and their future. But what I find maddening is the public licence provided by the fiction of financial constraint. If only we had a sense of our collective plenitude and wherewithal, it would open up the sense of our political possibilities. It would open the Overton window. As Franklin Roosevelt said: “Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.” We must remember that, unlike fake parental “choice” over schools, the government really could get its priorities right. Enough with being told we need to have a “grownup conversation” about the “realities” of public finance. It’s time to jump up and down and shout. |
| This article was amended on 10 March 2017 to restore a sentence referring to UK corporate profits of £400bn a year that had been cut during the editing process. |