No one can deny that contemporary politics is vicious, volatile, and nasty. Israel has increased its genocidal and illegal attempt to take control of Gaza after briefly kidnapping activists like Greta Thunberg in international waters; US marines were brought in to manage riots prompted by ICE’s detainment strategies; and NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned that “Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years”.
It can therefore feel trivial, almost a benign nuisance, when the British government announced its U-turn on its scrapping of the Winter Fuel Allowance. But something insidious is at play that chokes Britain’s growth and constrains its ability to take meaningful action in the world. Citizenship itself is being eroded.
Pensions and People-Pleasers
I wrote in the Administration of the Possible that policies and their makers are increasingly held hostage by an older generation that is reluctant to uphold their side of the social contract and lacks the political will to truly ignite change. Nowhere is this more clearly evidenced than in the government’s recent U-turn.
Pensioners earning more than graduates in the early years of their career will be provided money to pay for ‘energy bills’. I airmark this because, unlike graduates, pensioners rarely measure their net worth in income and rather measure it in wealth. Decades of savings, investments, and a mortgage-free house (or houses, as the case may be) reduce the relative value of such an allowance. On top of a triple-locked pension, there is a generation of voters, the generation of voters, that can apparently strong-arm the largest left-wing Parliamentary majority in nearly three decades for the sake of their ability to get state-subsidised wine. As Stephen Bush in the Financial Times writes: ‘If Labour couldn’t, with four years to the next election, carry through this change to winter fuel allowance, does the party really have what it takes to deliver any of the cuts that fall upon its own voters? The answer is obviously “no”.’
This is not simply a twisted policy or the haggling of democratic politics; it is the sickly death throes of a state no longer able to decide. The origin of the word decide/decision is the same incision: to cut away. Of all the prospects facing a government, they must cut away the potential to cultivate the actual by making a decision as to where resources are gathered and how they are utilised. As is evident to many today, few prospects have been cultivated precisely because the resources required are demanded by an older, wealthier generation. The would-be beneficiaries, by contrast, are shackled with upholding an outdated system of commitments.
Contracts and Convictions
Our post-war system is premised on sacrificing some of our material gains to those older generations that provided the environment for that success. They could rest easy knowing there was health and social care available as well as a pension provided by the nation. Such a system was devised when the population was young and working but now that it is old and retired – the average age of the UK is climbing – the system does not work. We are increasing our expenses to support a retired population that is living longer and requires more complex care because of it. Without sacrificing their health, some of their benefits need to give.
One of the poignant facts of this conversation is that some of the ideas set out here were inspired by Torsten Bell’s book Great Britain?. Now that he is in Cabinet, however, he lauds his success in increasing the amount of money provided to pensioners.
A basic premise of citizenship is this: sacrifice (financially, socially, physically) for a cause larger than yourself, and you will enjoy benefits larger than those you could achieve on your own. It makes logical sense that the state should prioritise the demographic required for its survival, but party politics skews this towards prioritising the voting base required for their electoral survival. What this currently means is that citizens that do not need support are detracting resources away from those who need to have an interest in the continuation of the country. Young people need to have a house they can call a home, the time to raise children, the economic position to take entrepreneurial risks, and access to finance that is willing to invest in start-ups. Ultimately, they need to know that this country is theirs too.
By eroding the basic premise of citizenship by pandering to the wrong generation, we risk becoming more vulnerable to threats and more likely to have threats materialise. We funnel our resources to causes that do not need bolstering and leave ourselves lacking the ability to face the challenges that do warrant our attention. We subordinate ourselves to spectating horrors instead of shaping events. With U-turns like these, the country is left dizzied, confused, and without direction. Ultimately, we fuel the winter of our discontent.