Government ministers often talk about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, usually in the context of foreign policy, where soft power is diplomacy and hard power is military.

Government ministers often talk about ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power, usually in the context of foreign policy, where soft power is diplomacy and hard power is military. Here at home, soft power could be seen as the ‘messages’ they send, and measures they take which look good but which may not achieve very much in the long run. Hard power emanates from the Treasury, as the decisions made there, decisions about where the nation’s wealth goes, are what really shape people’s lives, particularly for those in lower income groups.

In the coming weeks and months, as Iain Duncan Smith’s Welfare Reform and Work Bill is steered through Parliament, there will be a lot of talk about poverty, and child poverty in particular. Ministers and supporters will use soft power, make all the right noises, look earnest and express concern as they explain how they are going to tackle poverty. But the actual policies pursued by those same politicians, the way they use their hard power, will be making the rich richer and creating more poverty.

A report by the Fabian Society and Landman Economics says,

“since 2010, Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians have designed policies which give to the rich and take from the poor, mainly by cutting benefits and income tax side by side.’ It continues, ‘The decisions taken since the election are projected to increase the proportion of people living in poverty in 2030 from 20 per cent to 22 per cent – an extra 1.4 million people. However, the story is particularly striking when it comes to child poverty, partly because the cuts this year have singled out lone parent families for pain. Before the election we projected that the proportion of children in poverty would rise from 19 per cent to 24 per cent over the next 15 years. Now the figure is 28 per cent. As a result the number of children in poverty is projected to rise from 2.5 million today to 4.4 million to 2030.”

So whilst all the government’s hard power is being used to make the rich richer and push more children into poverty, the soft power will come into play to divert our attention and conceal what is happening. Words to disguise actions. 

Every effort will be made to assure us that poverty, and in particular child poverty, is not about money. Poverty, we’ll be told, is about social factors, with the subtle implication that poor people are largely responsible for their own plight. We have to be convinced that when child poverty grows, as it inevitably will, it is a result of social/personal factors, not a result of money being deliberately taken from parents.  We’ll be told that what makes people poor is not economic injustice, exploitation, and a dysfunctional housing market etc, but five pathways to poverty, which include family breakdown, educational failure, addiction and debt. It seems blindingly obvious that all these social problems may largely be the result of poverty, not the cause of it, but we’ll be assured otherwise.

Consider relationship breakdown as a cause of poverty – common sense tells us that it is much more difficult to maintain harmony in a home where money is tight, but we don’t need to rely on common sense. A recent study by Relate found that, ‘Finances are a critical issue, with parents much more likely to cite money worries as one of the top three strains on relationships (61 per cent) than those without children (47 per cent).’ So if we want to help families stay together, easing their money worries would be a very good start, and making them poorer seems guaranteed to cause family breakdown.

‘Educational failure’ is another red herring. Many of the people in poverty who visit foodbanks are working, but don’t earn enough to survive. To say that if they’d done better at school they’d have a better job and be prosperous is to completely avoid the issue. If they are working, their job needs to be done, and if it needs to be done it should pay a real living wage on which they can at least feed their families. Or are we saying that if you do an essential but low-paid job, like a care worker or hospital cleaner, poverty is all you should expect?   

To cite debt as a cause of poverty is, again, to ignore the blindingly obvious fact that many people borrow because they can’t live on their incomes, and more and more people are being pushed into debt by government. This month, a survey of landlords showed that, “Nearly 90 per cent of social tenants receiving Universal Credit are in rent arrears because of a seven-week wait for the first payment.” It also revealed “some landlords reporting tenants turning to loan sharks to cover their costs during the seven-week wait for the first Universal Credit payment.” This is government policy forcing people into debt.

So in the coming weeks, expect the government and its supporters to make lots of concerned noises about poverty, whilst at the same time deliberately implementing policies which will create more of it. Never has it been more important to judge a government by its actions and not by its words.

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 © Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden