Tom Harris has published a new and interesting blog, which has sent the UK political blogosphere a-twirl. Iain Dale has called it "Things You Never Thought A Labour MP Would Say: No. 94" (a long-running series apparently!). Tom says that while we should help those who need it, girls having children at age sixteen (or indeed younger) at the expense of the tax-payer, and doing so instead of having a career, and people who don't work because benefit claiming is running into two or three generations in their family, are just plain wrong and should be told so.

Most of the controversy indeed seems to be about whether this is something a Labour MP should be saying these things. The assumption seems to be since Labour (should) want to help the poorest in society, they should turn a blind eye to such benefit-dependency. That's their constituency, so why condemn it? I'm not arguing, as some do, that Labour uses benefits and public sector to shore up its vote; that's absurdly cynical. But it does introduce morality into what was previously a morality-free zone - if you are eligible you receive certain benefits.

Tom isn't suggesting that they be withdrawn. But he is wondering if as a society we should make these "value judgements". And rightly he points out that it' s the upright working class who most resent those who rely on the state when they work and save and pay taxes and take pride in their independence.

What interests me is why condemning benefit reliance is seen to be a right-wing "value judgement" rather than a left-wing one. Why is Iain Dale, a rather nice and liberal Tory but a Tory all the same, surprised that a Labour MP expresses such sentiments?

Surely Labour, if they are interested in concepts like self-development and the progress of the working-class, should welcome these comments. Benefits dependency is an insidious, sapping culture, one which undermines self-reliance, self-respect and the idea of working for the greater good.

It's often suggested that Thatcher undermined these concepts and caught individuals in a vicious cycle of claimancy and dependency. Maybe so. But to suggest that individuals are completely blameless when they choose to have children instead of working, to claim instead of working, is absurd. People make choices; people are autonomous and self-determining. The idea that people are merely expressions of a system or a culture is one of the most heinous errors of the left and goes against the expression of individuality that is the truest vision of socialism. (See for example Wilde's essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism or Marx's Grundrisse).


You need only look at Eastern European architecture or Glaswegian housing estates to see how common this error is - to look at people as aggregations rather than a series of individuals. Such a conception of society sees the individual (specifically the working-class) as a subject, not as a citizen with equal asperations.

Anyone who's come from a real working-class background knows that the thing people hate is being reliant on the state. Sure - provide schools, hospital, transport infrastructure etc. But to provide their living? That takes away self-respect. Those people - those families - who depend on benefits for years, decades even, aren't victims. Benefits are a safety-net, not a lifestyle, and should be awarded accordingly.