John Rentoul: The right to speak truth unto prejudice - John Rentoul, Commentators - The Independent

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The Earth is flat and the Sun revolves around it: two theories that were assumed to be true long after the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming. Richard Thaler, the author of Nudge, the popular work of social psychology, recently asked for other examples of "things we once thought were true and took forever to unlearn". Sometimes it seems as though British politics exists simply to provide Thaler with case studies. Howard Flight, the MP who was forced out of the Commons by Michael Howard at the 2005 election for making a prediction deemed unhelpful to the Conservative cause, last week embarrassed the current Tory leader, who has just nominated him to return to Parliament as a member of the House of Lords. The soon-to-be Lord Flight suggested that state benefits encourage claimants to have more children. "We're going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it's jolly expensive, but for those on benefit there is every incentive," he told the Evening Standard. Both parts of that statement are demonstrably true, but the social psychology of groupthink requires everyone to perform their allotted roles in rituals as formalised as those of the Roman Catholic Church that condemned Galileo. First, journalists report a "gaffe" – a word of almost theological definition, which is not used in normal English. Opposition politicians and commentators then condemn the maker of the gaffe, often for things that he or she has not said but for an implication or extrapolation. The third stage of the ritual involves disciplinary action and attempts to avoid it. In this case, Flight went through the full sequence of available responses, from "my words were taken out of context" (which they weren't) to an "unreserved apology" and a retraction. That proved enough to avoid stage four of the ritual, and to persuade David Cameron not to withdraw his nomination to the peerage. Flight was held up to ridicule mainly because the word "breeding" recalled the speech by which Sir Keith Joseph destroyed his hope of leading the Conservative Party in 1974. That was when Sir Keith warned that "our human stock is threatened" by the "high and rising proportion of children" being born to adolescent mothers in "social classes four and five". What was offensive about that was the idea of eugenics – improving the race by selective breeding for strength, health or intelligence. Flight said nothing of that kind. Yet the mere shadow of word-association diverts debate about tax and benefit policy into a gotcha ritual of heresy-hunting. He said that policy designed to alleviate child poverty has a perverse effect in encouraging people on benefits to have more children than they otherwise would. This has been demonstrated by several academic surveys, not least a recent one by the unimpeachable Institute for Fiscal Studies. In December 2008 it published a paper entitled "Does welfare reform affect fertility?" It was barely reported in the press, for reasons in which social psychologists might be interested, because it found that, since Labour increased child-related benefits in 1999, "there was an increase in births (by around 15 per cent) among the group affected by the reforms". It is not eugenicist to point out that this can have undesirable consequences. Or, as Flight put it, rather mildly, "that's not very sensible". A large part of the problem is that Tony Blair made a promise to "end child poverty" which was not deliverable but which could not be criticised because that would be to be "in favour of child poverty". It was, we can see now, a stupid pledge – one that Blair decided to put in his 1999 Beveridge lecture only 40 minutes before he delivered it, I am told. As a result, instead of focusing on the underlying causes of poverty, the government was driven to throw money at families with children in order to move them above an arbitrary definition of low income. This is not the only example of the British media-politics nexus getting something very wrong for years, for high-minded motives. The crisis of the euro has proved what should have been obvious: that it was a bad idea to lock together currencies of very different economies. We were warned, by people often belittled as obsessive or xenophobic, that to bend the rules to let Italy join the euro was asking for trouble. That Greece's membership was a political gesture that would end in tears. That the peripheral countries would struggle to sustain their membership of the currency union if there were an economic crisis. And so it came to pass. Yet Blair wanted to stage a referendum on Britain's adoption of the euro as late as 2003 (not that he actually would have done, because there was no prospect of winning it). As far as I know, it is still formally Labour and Liberal Democrat policy that Britain should join. Another issue is immigration, where any discussion of its possible adverse consequences is constrained by the prejudices of the liberal media. Yet when YouGov asked people to name Blair's greatest failure, rising immigration came top of the list, not the Iraq war. It is, therefore, the richest of ironies that Howard Flight also said, in the interview in which he spoke the unspeakable truth: "We have reached the state of an elected tyranny of the professional politician. Partly because of the media scrutiny, MPs feel they cannot say anything except the blandest nonsense." The question is: what other widely held assumptions will turn out to be wrong in decades to come? What evidence that contradicts the conventional view of the world is being ignored? What other political taboo subjects should be opened for debate? To get the thing started, I nominate "affordable housing". But there must be many more. Answers on a postcard, or its digital equivalent, to Richard Thaler at his Edge website.

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Originally Posted by Zichao

This has been demonstrated by several academic surveys, not least a recent one by the unimpeachable Institute for Fiscal Studies. In December 2008 it published a paper entitled "Does welfare reform affect fertility?" It was barely reported in the press, for reasons in which social psychologists might be interested, because it found that, since Labour increased child-related benefits in 1999, "there was an increase in births (by around 15 per cent) among the group affected by the reforms".

Aha! I remember when I stated the same some time ago either here or on that other forum, Psyche got really pissed off at me (Contra might have too). Good to know I was right all along...

Though, I am not sure that money is the main objection for middle classes (time constraint and lack of help for professional/working mothers more likely), although, again, it'd depend somewhat of how you define middle classes...

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The crisis of the euro has proved what should have been obvious: that it was a bad idea to lock together currencies of very different economies.

John Rentoul, I like your article but please double-check things like that with qualified economists. If the difference between local economies was the issue, how come the British Pound hasn't imploded due to the difference between, say, London and, say, NewCastle or Manchester or pick-your-Northern-England-shithole. To say nothing of the differences between London and Scotland...

"Affordable housing"? Is there a debate? There's not enough of it coz supply is not allowed to react to rising prices. I thought that was pretty standard knowledge and I don't think it's wrong...

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Yup, I'm afraid I still think this is all rubbish. It rests on the presumnption that the incentive is so powerful as to overcome all other pressures, which I consider ridiculous.

This IFS study needs to be cited more explicitly, as Labour's major innovation was the introduction of the universality of child benefit. One might have expected, if the incentive argument were valid, that extending the benefit to the middle and upper classes for the first time would have triggered much higher birth increases among those classes than simply incrementing the benefit received by the those at bthe bottom would.

Thus the interest in this topic, and its popularity in Tory circles, is indeed rightly regarded with suspicion. It is of a poiece with their convictions that those who are wealthy are wealthy due to their inherent virtues, and those who are poor likewise.

A much less exctibale observatio - even taking the IFS claism at face value - would be the rather commonplace observation that population increases when resources do. That happens in all places and in all times. It might even lead one to argue that it demonstrates the fragility of the poorest, as minor changes are significant in the same way that opening new land to production might be to agricultural societies.

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what other widely held assumptions will turn out to be wrong in decades to come?

Well one of them, I expect, would be the view that Rentoul has anything remotely interesting to say.

What exactly is the benefit of Howard Flight?

The Tory politician's remarks about child benefit should cause offence to all right-thinking people

o Barbara Ellen
o The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2010


I'm not sure many of us could remember sacked Tory frontbencher and imminent new peer Howard Flight until a few days ago, but then came that illuminating comment on child benefit changes, which he subsequently apologised for. "We're going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because its jolly expensive, but, for those on benefit, there is every incentive. Well, that's not very sensible."

Since which, I feel that I know a couple of interesting things about Howard Flight, quite separate from the fact that his name sounds as if it has been lifted from an old Commando comic. One is that he thinks nothing of bandying around the notion of "breeding", as if poorer folk's families were out-of-control "litters" any decent country vet, sorry, imminent peer of the realm, would wish to put a stop to.

Second, and I say this softly and caringly, it appears that Howard Flight may be a bit thick, what we horrid guttersnipes in my comprehensive playground used to call a "der-brain". Flight appears so stupid he doesn't seem to know how much child benefit is or even what it is; nor does he seem cognisant of what those terribly nice chaps giving him the peerage are getting up to.

Does Mr Flight realise that, after the first-born, each subsequent child brings in £13.40 a week. Is this the vast sum (barely two packets of Silk Cut) prompting "those on benefits" to procreate with impunity? Does Flight mistake "child benefit" for the whole amount a family with children are able to claim? In which case, does Flight realise that, with the new welfare cuts, the majority aimed like cannons at "those on benefits", the poorest and weakest will be struggling like never before? If so, how can it be that "those on benefit have every incentive"? Name one.

Douglas Alexander called Flight's comments "shameful and revealing" and he's right. Flight may not be some self-styled tsar of eugenics, we may not be in Keith Joseph "our human stock is threatened" territory or witnessing some confused, underclass evocation of Enoch Powell ("rivers of Carlsberg!"), but, in 2010, this is toxic enough.

It's been interesting watching Flight's comments being played down, brushed away like lint from a dinner jacket. Listen to the desperate nitpicking and semantics: "He used the word breeding for the middle classes" (we all know what he meant). The old "can't a chap say what he thinks anymore?" argument stinks out the place like so much cheap cologne.

Flight's comment was hideous. Not only did it reveal that there is still this notion of the right and wrong kind of babies being born, but it exposed a persistent Tory mindset that is as much "all in it together" as I am dancing the rumba in sequins on Strictly every Saturday night. Worse, it taps into the ugly part of the national psyche that requires a whipping boy.

What better way to stir up the exhausted, beleaguered British public than relentlessly to refer to the "feckless, gormless benefit scum", squirting out babies for government handouts: "Look at them getting something for nothing, while you work so hard for what you've got."

At least Ed Miliband seems to realise that those who are exploiting the system, while needing to be dealt with, are a minority. This government seems to want working people to feel swamped by "those on benefits", surrounded as if we're in a wagon train besieged by whooping Red Indians. It is as if we are being brainwashed into abandoning class hatred for those "above us", while bristling with class contempt for those "below us".

Despite all this, "Thickie Flight" will be soon plonking his ermine-clad form down in the House of Lords. Is this very sensible?

What exactly is the benefit of Howard Flight? | Barbara Ellen | Comment is free | The Observer

Originally Posted by contracycle

Yup, I'm afraid I still think this is all rubbish. This IFS study needs to be cited more explicitly...

http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0809.pdf

In 1999 the UK government made major reforms to the system of child-contingent benefits, including the introduction of Working Families’ Tax Credit and an increase in means-tested Income support for families with children. Between 1999-2003 government spending per-child on these benefits rose by 50 per cent in real terms, a change that was unprecedented over a thirty year period. This paper examines whether there was a response in childbearing. To identify the effect of the reforms, we exploit the fact that the spending increases were targeted at low-income
households and we use the (exogenously determined) education of the woman and her partner to define treatment and control groups. We argue that the reforms are most likely to have a positive fertility effect for women in couples and show that this is the case. We find that there was an increase in births (by around 15 per cent) among the group affected by the reforms.

[...]

First, we have shown that more generous government support coincided with an increase in births among the group most affected by the reforms. This increase cannot be explained by differential trends or by macro factors. We have also provided supporting evidence of a decline in use of contraception among the group affected. Our results indicate a sizeable response in childbearing among the group affected by the reform. The probability of having a birth increased by 1.3 percentage points among the low education group, equivalent to a 15 per cent increase. This equates to
nearly 45,000 additional births (compared to annual births of 670,000), although some of this may be a change in the timing of births rather than in the quantity.

Second, we have shown that examining the fertility effects of welfare reform must take account of potential differences across women. In-work tax credits such as WFTC and EITC have potentially ambiguous effects because they may raise the opportunity cost of having children. We argue that the pro-fertility effect is likely to be stronger for women in couples, and provide evidence to support this, consistent with earlier findings from the US.

Finally, we have added some support to the growing evidence that effects vary by birth order, and are typically stronger for first births than for subsequent births. One implication of this is that the reforms had an effect on the fertility decisions of households who were not (yet) receiving the benefits. However, McKay, 2000 and 2001, shows that there was a fairly high level of awareness of the new benefits even among those who were not receiving it, which may have come about as a result of the extensive television advertising and/or through word-of-mouth.

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as Labour's major innovation was the introduction of the universality of child benefit. One might have expected, if the incentive argument were valid, that extending the benefit to the middle and upper classes for the first time would have triggered much higher birth increases among those classes than simply incrementing the benefit received by the those at bthe bottom would.

No, that's a ridiculous idea. Of course, the people for whom the benefit matters are going to be the one for whom that benefit represent a meaningful change in income. Altering the behaviour of people who couldn't give a toss because almost ANY level of possible benefit is still going to be negligeable is far harder and unlikely to center around money.

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Thus the interest in this topic, and its popularity in Tory circles, is indeed rightly regarded with suspicion. It is of a piece with their convictions that those who are wealthy are wealthy due to their inherent virtues, and those who are poor likewise.

Projecting your own class hatred here. Besides which, even if they were such 'divine right' orientated people, it doesn't preclude they might be right in this particular instance.

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A much less excitable observation - even taking the IFS claims at face value - would be the rather commonplace observation that population increases when resources do. That happens in all places and in all times. It might even lead one to argue that it demonstrates the fragility of the poorest, as minor changes are significant in the same way that opening new land to production might be to agricultural societies.

Well, yes. I think that's exactly the argument being made and exactly what the Tory guy said. By boosting the income of the "lower classes" AND linking that income to an increase in fertility, you are incentivising such people to reproduce... Something you may and likely do not want and somewhat different from the objective of reducing child poverty.

Personally, I think that making social housing (a very precious and rare resource in this country) conditional/influenced by the number of kids a woman have is probably the worst regulation in terms of unintended social consequences. And, again, I say that having no problem with the initial reason behind the law - Ensuring that single mothers are not outright persecuted, forced into prostitution etc.

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One is that he thinks nothing of bandying around the notion of "breeding", as if poorer folk's families were out-of-control "litters" any decent country vet, sorry, imminent peer of the realm, would wish to put a stop to.

So we start with an ad hominem. Then comes this when the quote, barely a paragraph above, states clearly "the middle classes are discouraged from breeding" i.e. the term 'breeding' (a bit crude, I'll give you that) is used in reference to middle classes, not to "for those on benefit" exclusively. So that's that.

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Does Mr Flight realise that, after the first-born, each subsequent child brings in £13.40 a week. Is this the vast sum (barely two packets of Silk Cut) prompting "those on benefits" to procreate with impunity? Does Flight mistake "child benefit" for the whole amount a family with children are able to claim?

After further ad hominem, we get a valid point. And my reply would be that, yes, Flight was probably packing it all in. A family/individual will look at the overall picture of its incentives before trying to make a choice, not just any single one.

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If so, how can it be that "those on benefit have every incentive"? Name one.

Preferential access to housing. I think that's still on? If not, then, I admit I may well be wrong as to the severity of the incentives.

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but, in 2010, this is toxic enough.

To say that humans react to incentives is toxic enough in 2010. Fuck me! Send all micro-economists to the gulag! They're all, regardless of political affiliation, thinking incentives matter...

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"He used the word breeding for the middle classes" (we all know what he meant).

Sorry. Started replying before seeing that. Ah so, now, instead of listening to his own words, we're going to project our own hatreds. Look, the truth is, if you're a decision maker at the top of a state, people are a stock, they're indeed breeding (regardless of their class). It;s a function of being the sheperd of the people, if you want.

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Not only did it reveal that there is still this notion of the right and wrong kind of babies being born...

That would be because, at a country level, there is definitely a right and wrong kind of babies being born. If I was running a country, I would prefer all the babies being born to be without physical defects, with a tendency to strong health (reduce the health bill), with a great deal of smarts and most of them middle class, if possible (positive effect on violence, teenage pregnancies, education, job growth etc). I don't even want the super-upper-class to breed. They're clogging the system as much as the poor.

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What better way to stir up the exhausted, beleaguered British public than relentlessly to refer to the "feckless, gormless benefit scum", squirting out babies for government handouts: "Look at them getting something for nothing, while you work so hard for what you've got." At least Ed Miliband seems to realise that those who are exploiting the system, while needing to be dealt with, are a minority.

OK, that's fair enough but that's not what that guy ACTUALLY said. And the point about "exploiting the system" is that... well, sometimes you may not be able to tell. Are you going to ask all teenage girls why they got a baby? And how many of them are going to come outright and say "so I can get a house coz that's how my mum did it"...

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[quote=Gilles de Rais;33220]http://www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp0809.pdf

The "affected group" is not specified. As I mentioned, the main change was to universality; even a 50% increase on "not much at all" doesn't translate into a significant effect.

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No, that's a ridiculous idea. Of course, the people for whom the benefit matters are going to be the one for whom that benefit represent a meaningful change in income. Altering the behaviour of people who couldn't give a toss because almost ANY level of possible benefit is still going to be negligeable is far harder and unlikely to center around money.

BUT the whole point is that Flight has ignored whether the increase is significant enough to affect decision making. All I have done is apply the same logic he did, and point out that he didn;t think his own argument through.

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Projecting your own class hatred here. Besides which, even if they were such 'divine right' orientated people, it doesn't preclude they might be right in this particular instance.

Nope, recognising class hatred when I see it, and shining a light on it.

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Well, yes. I think that's exactly the argument being made and exactly what the Tory guy said. By boosting the income of the "lower classes" AND linking that income to an increase in fertility, you are incentivising such people to reproduce... Something you may and likely do not want and somewhat different from the objective of reducing child poverty.

And my point remains that this is a lot less excitable and much more reasonable, and the very fact that it was presented in alarmist terms demonstrates the intent of the argument. After all, why would I NOT want "such people" to reproduce"? That's the key issue that runs through this like a rancid streak - the presumption that it is some way bad thing.

I'd agree it's only tangentially related to childhood poverty, which of course has much more to do with employment and wages; in effect this is little more than a government subsidising poverty pay, i.e privatising profits and nationalising losses.

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Personally, I think that making social housing (a very precious and rare resource in this country) conditional/influenced by the number of kids a woman have is probably the worst regulation in terms of unintended social consequences. And, again, I say that having no problem with the initial reason behind the law - Ensuring that single mothers are not outright persecuted, forced into prostitution etc.

I can't think of anything more fundamental to the purpose of any society than looking after its children.

Originally Posted by contracycle

BUT the whole point is that Flight has ignored whether the increase is significant enough to affect decision making. All I have done is apply the same logic he did, and point out that he didn;t think his own argument through.

As i said, I do think he meant the whole package of advantages that comes with children if you're on low income... and single too, iirc...

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And my point remains that this is a lot less excitable and much more reasonable, and the very fact that it was presented in alarmist terms demonstrates the intent of the argument.

AFAICT, it's exactly the point he made hence my surprise at the hoo-ha. "breeding" wasn't the best term but, then again, "reproducing" can be seen as somewhat animalistic as well...

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After all, why would I NOT want "such people" to reproduce"? That's the key issue that runs through this like a rancid streak - the presumption that it is some way bad thing.

Because it is. You do not want "such people" to reproduce (at least, not in massive numbers) because they're more likely to be a cost to society.

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I'd agree it's only tangentially related to childhood poverty, which of course has much more to do with employment and wages; in effect this is little more than a government subsidising poverty pay, i.e privatising profits and nationalising losses.

No disagreement here but I don't think that's an entirely bad thing in this specific case. If you make low productivity employment too expensive, low productivity people just don't get employed at all. See France.

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I can't think of anything more fundamental to the purpose of any society than looking after its children.

Within reason. And we don't have to do it blindly, saying we welcome any and all children.

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

As i said, I do think he meant the whole package of advantages that comes with children if you're on low income... and single too, iirc...

... by contrast to those advantages held by the married and rich? This still just doesn't hang together.

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AFAICT, it's exactly the point he made hence my surprise at the hoo-ha. "breeding" wasn't the best term but, then again, "reproducing" can be seen as somewhat animalistic as well...

So then Flight's argument was deliberatly picthed to be slanderous, but you are suprised that anyone notices?

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Because it is. You do not want "such people" to reproduce (at least, not in massive numbers) because they're more likely to be a cost to society.

Why, do they eat more? do they need many more clothes? This is where you go completely off the rails. No, I ceertainly don't regard them as a cost to society; I regard those who consume much more than they produce - i.e. the wealthy - to be a cost on society. Poverty is not an obstacle that our society overcomes, it is a product that our society manufactures.

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No disagreement here but I don't think that's an entirely bad thing in this specific case. If you make low productivity employment too expensive, low productivity people just don't get employed at all. See France.

Low productivity? I think you are confusing status with effectiveness. One waiter does more useful work than a bus-load of bankers. This has nothing to do with productivity, and everything to do with suppressing wages for the maximising of profit by the owning class, the solution for which is uis a sufficient minimum wage.

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Within reason. And we don't have to do it blindly, saying we welcome any and all children.

And on what basis do you intend to make that decision? As I always ask when this sort of thing is suggested, who will wait on tables if everyone is rich?

Originally Posted by contracycle

... by contrast to those advantages held by the married and rich? This still just doesn't hang together.

The married and the rich can look after their children and/or pay someone to do so, so their rate of reproduction is less of a direct social concern. As I said, I personally think that the ultra-rich breeding is still a problem because their heirs tend to grab the top spots and thus block social mobility.

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So then Flight's argument was deliberatly picthed to be slanderous, but you are suprised that anyone notices?

I am not english so, for me, the difference between 'breeding' and 'reproducing' is somewhat slight. I've heard both terms used both for humans and animals. "This girl is well bred" or somesuch is a staple of the 19C lit, iirc.

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Why, do they eat more? do they need many more clothes?

No. They just cannot pay for it.

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I regard those who consume much more than they produce - i.e. the wealthy - to be a cost on society. Poverty is not an obstacle that our society overcomes, it is a product that our society manufactures.

Well, since I disagree on that point, it is not surprise we disagree on some conclusions.

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Low productivity? I think you are confusing status with effectiveness. One waiter does more useful work than a bus-load of bankers.

I actually don't care about 'useful' or not. That's a value judgement. I leave these to individual firms. I care about productivity, value added and money. While your example of banker is well chosen right now, I'll transform it slightly and use a marketing executive. A marketing exec is an asset in the State's books because it pays more taxes than it consumes. A poor is the reverse.

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This has nothing to do with productivity, and everything to do with suppressing wages for the maximising of profit by the owning class, the solution for which is a sufficient minimum wage.

High minimum wages have been linked to high unemployment. So, okay, given the amount of factors influencing unemployment, the relationship is hard to prove beyond dispute but I still think that a better way to protect the working poor is to remove high minimum wages, tax profit more and then complement said working poor income with the social income made out of the increased profit tax. It's less distorting for labour as there is less opportunities for arbitrage by companies.

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And on what basis do you intend to make that decision? As I always ask when this sort of thing is suggested, who will wait on tables if everyone is rich?

One thing the world is not about to run out of is poor people, alas.

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