Behold, the onward march of the state. Describing the current occupants of No 10 as statists might sound provocatively counterintuitive. Ever since the neoliberals began reshaping Britain in their own image, from the 1970s onwards, state-bashing has become a kind of national religion. Critics of austerity such as myself have slammed today's Tories for rolling back the state in ways Margaret Thatcher would have dismissed as too radical. The Lib Dems are fellow travellers: when Nick Clegg became their leader, he promised to "define a liberal alternative to the discredited politics of big government". Projections by the Office for Budget Responsibility suggest day-to-day spending on public services will drop to levels unseen in Britain for decades.
And yet, in so many ways, this government has promoted the growth of the state through its policies. Take what the government and its allies call "welfare dependency". Last week it was revealed that, since the Clegg-Cameron love-in began, wages have tanked and the number of people in work claiming housing benefit has jumped by 59%. There were 650,561 workers claiming housing benefit when the coalition was formed. That soared to more than 1 million last year, costing the taxpayer an extra £4.8bn. Overall, 4.3 million are now thought to claim in-work benefits. The state has grown because we are subsidising employers who are paying wages workers cannot live on and private landlords charging rents tenants cannot afford.
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