Cuts are popular but that doesn’t make them right

More cuts are coming

Something strange is happening at the heart of British politics. After what felt like decades of Tory promises that never materialised, we now live in an age where the more canny approach is to not offer anything instead.

Gone are the days of Boris Johnson promising a “roaring twenties”, and instead we are back to a language of compromise, cut and what we can manage. Having taken this approach to the general election, Sir Keir Starmer has carried it into Government, with the defining theme of his premiership being “we would if we could”.

The Labour party would like to compensate the Waspi Women. It would like to abolish the two-child benefit cap. In an ideal world there would be no limitations on the winter-fuel allowance. Cutting foreign aid is a painful decision. But alas. Sorry. If only.

If you focus purely on the political reaction, it’s going terribly. Labour has betrayed the working class, our pensioners, the rich, your dog, your neighbour, and Canada. But in reality, it’s a lot more complicated.

While many of Keir Starmer’s decisions have been unpopular, such as the winter fuel changes, a lot of what the Labour Government has done is popular with voters.

Consider the plans to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, with this boost funded by cuts to Britain’s foreign aid budget. This is, as numerous charities have made clear, a decision that will kill people. The world’s poorest will suffer as a result, with Russia and China swooping in to reap the benefit. However. YouGov polling shows two-thirds of Britons are in favour of the decision, with just 20 per cent opposing it. It’s going to have horrific consequences, but the country supports it.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under pressure to get the economy growing (Picture: Dan Kitwood) | Getty Images

It’s the same for the issue of welfare, with "radical" reforms to the welfare system expected, in the shape of drastic cuts to support for the most vulnerable. Downing Street is having to calm backbenchers about it, and facing loud criticism from charities but, again, polling shows 63 per cent of the public think they're handling the issue of welfare benefits well. It's more split on levels of support, with 26 per cent thinking there's too much, and 27 per cent too little.

The point is, the UK Government is making decisions that are controversial in terms of their consequences, but not in terms of their popularity.

Now one could argue doing the right thing is more important than popularity, but that’s not how this works. If politics was about what was right, we wouldn’t have left the EU, Trump would not have won a first term let alone a second, and people would resign when caught misbehaving.

The problem facing Labour is that doing a bad thing that’s popular is OK once, but taken as a collective, it portrays them as an unfeeling government, one balancing the books off those with the least to give. The financial circumstances are terrible, but looking like you care is still important.

We are approaching the Spring Statement, where more tough decisions are expected. The UK Government can get away with a few in isolation, whatever the impact. But more cuts, as a collective, will be far harder for the public to swallow.