The Guardian reports on Robert Halfon’s speech to the Centre for Policy Studies and the 1900 Club, in which he urged the Conservative Party to embrace radical reform and the language of compassion to appeal to working voters.
“Halfon said welfare reforms such as universal credit had been rolled out without any explanation about whether it would be a potentially good reform. The new system treated people as “digits on a machine, ignoring the hardship through the six-week period it takes to receive the first payment”, he said.
The MP said he believed voters could have been won over in the case of some welfare reform policies such as the bedroom tax, if the government had made a passionate case about overcrowding. By framing it as cut and creating hurdles for people with disabilities to claim their exemption, Halfon said it “allowed the left to claim the moral high ground”.
“I remember as a minister I was not allowed to use the word social justice as the ‘in word’ was ‘social mobility’, which to me always sounded like a Vodafone television advertisement,” he said.”
Click here to read the full piece.
Robert Halfon’s speech is available to listen to on the CPS website.
Date Added: Tuesday 10th October 2017
