PausingFlately ….. re your 2009 point, IMO politically there really needs to be political honesty about the effects of the deepest and longest recession in 100-years and acknowledge them versus the options available to ANY government, not only in 2010 - when there was NOT any plans in place to address UK welfare/benefits/unemployment problems to build upon - but now as well.
For a start, politicians have to make up their minds whether SPENDING went up or down over this parliament (and figures show it went up), whether they will cut the bill over the next parliament - and whether they have more than economic soundbites to solve the social consequences from the worst recession in 100-years.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11012262/Labour-being-hypocritical-over-housing-benefit-bill.html
(August 2014) “Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, will highlight forecasts which show that the real-terms cost of housing benefit to people with jobs is set to increase from £2.6?billion in 2009 to £5.3?billion this year and to £6.1 billion by 2018.
She will say that the Tories have failed on their pledge to cut welfare spending.”
In early 2010 the government was still like a rabbit in headlights, telling us they would increase taxes e.g. National Insurance, and keeping an expensive Quango ridden state as it was - and the way to grow the Private Sector (and jobs) suffering from that recession, was to up the wages of workers, with other business tax rises in the wings. Where were any solutions then (and now) in their manifesto to “the cost of living crisis” (fall in wage growth) evident after any major recession, never mind the worst for 100-years?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8615297.stm
All very well for short term votes and (maybe) the large companies, but how many more small to medium sized businesses like shops, that form the back bone of our economy, would have gone under? There is not 1 in 7 shops empty NOW (10,500 in London alone?) in the midst of a real recovery in the Private Sector, because small to medium businesses could/can afford higher wages.
Where would the economy have been today if the Coalition had listened to Labour ridiculing their policies on reforms and tax cuts to help businesses for 2years at PMQT, and followed Labour’s lead with policies designed to over spend and over tax the UK economy to ‘growf’ - certainly not with the current rise of 1.8 million new jobs over this parliament.
So the point is that appears Welfare and Benefits unreformed since Tax Credits and all their over/under payment teething troubles HAD to be reformed by any government over spending by £157 billion - and having seen our population/jobs grow by over 2.5 million in a few years, effectively telling those without the skills all these people apparently brought here, they were consigned to the welfare/benefits scrap heap.
On long term social issues, on a 'spot the trend' we had over 500,000 16-24 years olds unemployed in 2004, over 700,000 in 2007, and over 900,000 in early 2010. Was this really a rich versus poor ‘class’ issue, or policy incompetence from a government that did not have the first clue how to maintain the sustainable economy they inherited in 1997, back then the fastest growing economy in Europe.