Henry Haslam is the author of The Moral Mind and The Earth and Us.
It was in 1957 that Harold Macmillan said in a speech that “most of our people have never had it so good”. By most financial metrics, our living standards have increased a great deal since then. We are a very prosperous society, compared with most countries in the world and compared with our own past.
Does it seem like that? First, there is the evidence of our eyes. Our roads are becoming ever more congested, and not with the cheapest of cars. There is a wide range of foods and other things to buy, and most people don’t confine themselves to the cheapest options. We have just seen the usual Christmas spending spree. It may not have been as busy as retailers would like, but it is still not the sign of a society that is short of money.
Then there are the statistics. The mean weekly expenditure for all households on recreation and culture in the financial year ended 2023 was £65.40 (for the lowest gross income decile group it was £20.30). This compares with £63.50 (£35.40) for food and non-alcoholic drinks. These figures indicate an unequal society, with significant levels of deprivation, but not an impoverished society.
Harold Wilson, Macmillan’s successor as prime minister, took a different line, telling us that we were badly off. Perhaps he wanted to convey the message that he was on the side of the poor. He would have known that the poor, as now, were fairly few, so they didn’t have many votes. He therefore told all the people in the middle, where the votes are, that they were badly off too and that he was on their side.
Similar messages have been adopted by other leaders ever since: we have recently had the ‘credit crunch’, the ‘squeezed middle’, and the ‘cost-of-living crisis’. The resulting policies, over the years, have spread government largesse so widely that they don’t actually help the poorest as much as they should.
Can we not say that these messages from the two Harolds epitomise the contrast between the Conservative and Socialist viewpoints? Macmillan’s message encourages us to appreciate our good fortune and be thankful for it. This can lead to a spirit of generosity, a can-do approach to problems, and a willingness to fund the public services that we require.
The Wilson message, in contrast, encourages us to feel that we are not getting the good fortune that we deserve and to look to the Government to put things right for us (by increasing benefits, lowering taxes, growing the economy, or whatever).
We are indeed a prosperous society. If we recognise this – as many people do in how they live their lives – we can be less concerned with the size of the economy and more concerned with what it achieves. We could worry less about the level of taxation (the basic rate of income tax was 23 per cent when the Conservatives left office in 1997 – and the economy was running well) and focus more on raising enough money to fund the government responsibilities that we think are important (defence, NHS and others).
However, too many people do not share in this prosperity. Part of the reason relates to the levels of pay and benefits, but a lack of foresight in money management often has a part to play. It is remarkable how many people have little or no savings. When the unexpected happens, they are unable to pay their way.
Addiction to gambling, drinking, drugs – or just shopping – is a frequent cause of financial problems. Such problems are not solved by handing out more money but by the supportive role offered by debt advisors, with their long experience in enabling debtors to straighten out their finances.
It’s the role of the enablers that is the key here. Governments have spent huge amounts of money trying to eradicate poverty, but poverty remains a serious issue. Enablers help people to resolve their own problems.
Enablers can also have a part to play in helping people who are out of work because of mental health problems. For many of them, keeping a steady job can be a good way of dealing with their problems, but what if it was the stress of the workplace that caused the problem in the first place? Here, the right kind of supportive advice and encouragement can enable the jobseeker to find appropriate employment.
Unlike top-down government programmes, enablers work with individuals and families as they build up their own lives.
