UK ‘in a bad place’ with voters offered visions of the past, claims Blair
BRITAIN NEEDS a “new political coalition” to steer the country away from populism and offer policies which face up to the problems of the future, Tony Blair has said.
The former prime minister said the UK was “in a pretty bad place” because voters were being offered “two visions of the past” in a clash of left-wing and rightwing populisms. And he warned that the right was likely to win any such struggle, sending the country down “a very dark path”.
Mr Blair was speaking at the launch of a think-tank report which found that child poverty rose by three per cent last year, sparked by a cut of up to £150 in the income of Britain’s poorest families.
He blamed “fatalism” and “policy stupor” for reversing the advances on child poverty and social mobility achieved during his administration between 1997 and 2007. He said that in a time of fear and pessimism in the wake of the financial crisis, too many politicians were trying to “ride the anger” of the public, rather than set out solutions to social problems and the challenges of technological change.
Mr Blair made no mention of his successor as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in his address to the Resolution Foundation in London. But he said there was a need to “change the political conversation” in the UK.
The Resolution Foundation report found that middle-income households have seen their income growth fall to 0.9 per cent, the lowest level since 2012, while incomes in the poorest 30 per cent of households fell by 0.3 per cent.
It blamed benefit cuts for the decline, including a three per cent cut in the value of tax credits and child benefit.