Matthew Paris on ‘Avantage acquis’
Nick Robinson pointed out during the last parliament that it causes governments far more hostility and lost political capital if they take money which people would have received away before it arrives than if they take money away which people already have.
For example, when the coalition government put the pension age back it took trillions away from people but nobody lost anything they already had and there was comparatively little fuss.
By comparison the so-called "bedroom tax" which is, of course, nothing of the kind, was thought to be a minor tidying-up completing something Labour had already started - and it became the number one symbol of austerity.
George Osborne obviously already gets this, which is why limiting child benefit et cetera to the first two children is being applied only to new claimants from 2017 - indeed, with enough delay to risk a 2016 "Osborne baby boom."
Matthew Paris wrote a good article recently on this same principle, what the French call ‘Avantage acquis,’ in the Spectator at
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/matthew-parris/9577092/greeks-just-want-to-keep-what-theyve-got/
For example, when the coalition government put the pension age back it took trillions away from people but nobody lost anything they already had and there was comparatively little fuss.
By comparison the so-called "bedroom tax" which is, of course, nothing of the kind, was thought to be a minor tidying-up completing something Labour had already started - and it became the number one symbol of austerity.
George Osborne obviously already gets this, which is why limiting child benefit et cetera to the first two children is being applied only to new claimants from 2017 - indeed, with enough delay to risk a 2016 "Osborne baby boom."
Matthew Paris wrote a good article recently on this same principle, what the French call ‘Avantage acquis,’ in the Spectator at
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/matthew-parris/9577092/greeks-just-want-to-keep-what-theyve-got/
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