Austerity has warped our perceptions of the welfare systems that make people proud to live in this country, and the social media spat between television presenter Kirstie Allsopp and author Michael Rosen over a free bus pass is telling.
An increasing number of people simply no longer trust in these systems, nor in our ability to use them sustainably. 14 years of Conservative austerity measures have drilled the following three ideas into their heads so strongly that they’re second nature now:
- The country is bankrupt (or close).
- This is because the government provides more than people need, which is also more than it can afford.
- The problem would be fixed if individuals refused welfare they didn’t need.
Allsopp’s recent response to Rosen on X illustrated these three ideas when she suggested:
People have to stop taking things they do not need, it is wrong and it is bankrupting our country.
The Freedom Pass
Should we thank all workers who reach retirement age with the courtesy of free public transport? London councils have thought so since the Freedom Pass scheme began in 1973. The scheme offers free bus and train travel to all Greater London residents who are over the state pension age (currently 66), or who have an eligible disability. Created by the Greater London Council, the scheme even survived the GLC’s dissolution by the Thatcher government in 1986.
Michael Rosen, renowned author and previous Children’s Laureate, is 79 years old and suffers from partial sight and hearing loss since being hospitalised with COVID-19 in 2020. On 12 November he wrote this tweet expressing his frustration with the process to replace his faulty Freedom Pass:
It’s not difficult to see how this situation could cause problems, especially for Freedom Pass users who applied through the post and could not access the website unassisted. In any case, the tweet was an unremarkable personal anecdote, initially received with sympathy by its small audience.
Allsopp’s complaint
The Freedom Pass scheme is as old as VAT and only fills up seats on services which are already running, so it seems unlikely to be the final straw of London’s finances. Allsopp suggested otherwise, however, when she quote-tweeted Rosen with this response:
She refers in the tweet to the Michael Rosen Day event, where Rosen and publisher Walker Books encourage children to read by offering free resources and activities. Having criticised Rosen for using the pass, she also describes exactly how the Freedom Pass is intended to work: a person can travel for free due to their age, regardless of other factors.
Allsopp appears to disagree with this principle, joining many others who argue that people should only access financial help if they absolutely need it. This mindset recalls the recent Motability reform and the ongoing winter fuel allowance debate.
Rosen’s response was to name other public services he has used, rejecting the suggestion that it was wrong for him to use the Freedom Pass:
Selectivity vs universalism in welfare provision
The difference between Allsopp and Rosen’s attitudes to welfare systems is clear. To Allsopp, they are a safety net to be directed to the select few who need help most, which is a selectivist view. To Rosen, they exist to make life easier for as many people as possible, which is a universalist view.
The most common form of selectivist welfare policy is means testing, where councils employ officers to assess how much support someone needs. Selectivists would argue that this is more effective because it cares for the most vulnerable while saving money from unnecessary handouts, as per the third idea above. However, researchers from both LSE and the Economic and Social Research Council have found that this perceived cost-effectiveness may be counteracted by the costs of means testing and its effects on people’s behaviour, especially their fear of losing benefits.
Comedian Jenny Eclair then gave her view, arguing that the scheme was a deserved reward for retirees’ tax contributions in their working years. But Allsopp replied that the country couldn’t afford this.
Fifty years of uninterrupted Freedom Pass operation suggests otherwise, but why might Kirstie Allsopp be so hostile to the notion of welfare universalism? The answer may lie in the 2008 Great Recession and the following 14 years of Conservative austerity policy.
2008 and the housing market
Allsopp was on the scene for the 2008 financial crisis, which came at the height of her TV success. A Guardian interview from 2006 records her frustration that the Brown government’s housing policies would discourage buyers. She also expresses support for then-leader of the opposition, David Cameron. She was eager to help buyers onto the market, even as house prices rose and rose. Then, in 2008, she and her TV partner Phil Spencer gave advice to those fearing repossession because of the housing market crash. What went wrong?
In these old interviews Allsopp projects a genuine desire to lower barriers to entry for first-time buyers. However, given that irresponsible mortgage lending was a cause of the crisis, the choice to keep pushing home ownership as prices reached unsustainable levels mostly benefitted property investors. Many of these new homeowners, on the other hand, were hung out to dry when the market collapsed.
Recovery through austerity
The housing crash was followed by the global recession, and the government bailed out the banks at great cost. Allsopp’s wish for a Cameron government was then granted in the form of the 2010 coalition. Soon, the UK entered its most recent era of austerity, a predicament which hasn’t really ended, even with Labour in power.
The coalition’s chosen path to economic recovery was to cut public spending. This affected some parts of the country more than others. During investigations into the Cameron government’s implementation of austerity, former ministers have admitted that resources were redirected from Labour-loyal areas towards Conservative-voting areas. This reallocation, which also stimulated local house prices, was part of a strategy to maintain the government’s power through difficult times by prioritising the wellbeing of its strongest supporters.
Brexit and COVID-19
Of course, no other Cameron policy tried harder to appeal to voters than his 2013 Brexit gambit: the promise, aimed at UKIP voters, to hold a referendum if the Conservatives won a majority in the next election. Cameron was later part of the official Remain campaign, so in hindsight the move reads as another sacrifice made to hold on to political power under fire.
Whether Cameron anticipated Brexit or not, the complications and infighting involved in carrying it out dogged the underwhelming recovery that ended in Boris Johnson winning a majority in 2019, just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic to demand emergency spending and wipe any progress clean.
The austerity mindset
In the 14 years of Conservative austerity policies, the first bullet point above (that the country is bankrupt) never truly left the public consciousness. The whole world economy went broke in 2008, and it takes a long time to change an impression like that.
The second point, however, (that the cause in the UK was excess welfare handouts) wasn’t nearly as true as the Conservatives had hoped. Gutting public services and the NHS could only do so much to revive the economy, because while austerity reduced government debt, it failed to stimulate private investment, which the 2010 manifesto had promised. Researchers now believe that Brexit exacerbated this slow investment, meaning the suffering of austerity came without the promised reward of economic recovery.
When Allsopp picks apart Rosen’s personal welfare use, she perpetuates the final and most harmful idea of the three, that the solution is in the hands of individuals. The idea that economic recovery will come at the cost of pensioners making noble sacrifices sustains the myth that welfare was really the problem all along. And yet, the NHS rose from the ashes of war. The Freedom Pass was born in the same year as the 1973 Oil Crisis. These services were born from hardship and tempered by successive crises long before market forces created the 2008 recession. These systems and the people using them cannot take sole blame.
Hope in welfare and joy in retirement
Where does all this leave us? Our public services and welfare systems show no sign of improving yet. Rosen’s response to Allsopp’s tweet, shows, in one sentence, what it will take to resist the acceptance of austerity as a new normal.
Rosen is clearly proud of the NHS, the Freedom Pass scheme and the state school system, and these institutions keep giving us reasons to be proud of them, battered as they are. The recent bus fare caps have begrudgingly shown the Sunak and Starmer governments that when you make it easy for people to use public transport, they will do so. The sighs of relief at the notion of rail renationalisation alone signals that people are desperate for anything besides further decay.
These welfare systems make people at retirement age feel that their tax contributions have been worthwhile, that they have helped build a state which will provide for them in their later years, also providing for their children and family, and keeping them in good enough health their whole lives to enjoy retirement in peace.
UK welfare schemes such as the NHS, state schools, nationalised transport and the Freedom Pass are meant to support us to live our lives without worrying about tightening our belts. It is time to reject the austerity mindset and defend our public services against the next wave of economic hardships we are facing, so that the masses are not made to suffer again for the mistakes of the few.
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