Words that work about people who don't

The Conservatives have pleased Simon Heffer with their welfare proposals. And I agree with them too. But I am very concerned with the language.

Conducting his early work for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America my friend, Republican pollster Frank Luntz, discovered very different reactions from voters depending on the language being used to describe Gingrich's ideas.

One finding, just to give an example, was that far more people supported "not giving" benefits to certain people than supported "denying" benefits to the same group.

Luntz made these sorts of langauge issues the subject of a recently published book - Words that Work.

Now look at David Cameron's words in the News of the World to describe his new policy:

Far too many are able to work but simply don't. We all know there are jobs available. That's a disgrace. We'll end the something-for-nothing culture.

Wouldn't it have been better - a more modernising approach - to talk about "helping people into work". The policy might be tough but the language should surely have been about enabling.

Maybe I am wrong, but I'd like to think they did a little polling first on the best way of putting things. Did they?

Comments

[Hadleigh Roberts]

I think you're right. Not only is D.C.'s every word polled and focus grouped, that kind of language rings with the message "Think of me as tough and serious and radical"

[Percepied]

Daniel, you do no favours for your argument by using that quote in isolation from its context in the rest of the Cameron article.

Although his focus is on those whom he asserts don't want to work, Cameron starts his article by separating out the newly unemployed or long term sick - implicitly those that have legitimate need for benefits and assistance - and contrasting them with those that have no aspiration toward work and whom seem content to take benefits but offer nothing in return.

There is undoubtedly resentment toward that group, and this is reflected both through the paper Cameron uses to make his remarks, and in the language he uses toward those that are happy to stick their hand out for taxpayer money.

I am not convinced that displaying a more modernising approach to the problem through his use of language would add any value in this instance.

[Edward]

I agree with your general drift, Danny, but think you may be wrong here. Any great leader has to have a syntax which not only resonates but is also genuine. To only use language which plays well with the polls is to lose that genuine element and to fall victim to the "uber-modernisation" trap. Did Thatcher focus group her language?

[Colin MacIntosh]

I think that a lot of people will appreciate Cameron's language in this case. It was certainly a shock to hear this sort of language on the radio, but for many it would be a welcome shock. Cameron will be seen to be taking a hard line in an area where a hard line needs to be taken, if people are deliberately not working. Why use a word like 'enabling' when people aren't allowing themselves to be enabled!

Such provocative language must surely have been deliberate, and a conscious move away from the rather limp 'hug a hoodie' image that he has found himself saddled with. Regardless of my opinions on his policies, I will welcome a departure from modernised politics of euphimism.

It's great when politicians say what they think for a change, and in the end it's more likely to resonate with what voters think.

[jimmy]

There's presumably also political merit in sounding tough on some subjects.

[Ian]

Don't Cameron's words appeal to the grass roots Tory voter? The fuzzy pale blue paint is very thin and only just hides the deep blue undercoat!

[Michael]

There are two things wrong wih your argument: firstly, it is disingenuous to describe the policy as enabling people to work. It is not. It is insisting that they earn a living. Secondly, and following on from that, Cameron is right to use language that marks a shift away from a culture of state nannyism and towards one in which the state encourages personal responsibility.

[Michael fitzGerald]

Margaret Thatcher knew that if you want to be blunt you need to be factual and say "there are x thousand vacancies and y thousand unemployed, we will fill these jobs" Tony Blair knew how to charm and avoid figures . David Cameron, in this example is being neither

"Far too many" "We all know" is dangerously close to the level of analytical skill of Boris Johnson

[Dave Parting]

Why do we have to use language such as 'Helping people into work?"

It is this nonsense that has got the country into this mess, we all know that there are tens of thousands of people who just do not wish to work, so Incapacity Benefit is the easy career option.

I say fair play to Cameron for using straight talk, not double talking spin.

Lets say no to Bleeding Heart Liberals!

[Louise Stanley]

If Cameron hopes to cut taxes he won't be able to afford these grandiose schemes. He talks and talks and talks, and he talks himself into logical impossibilities like this latest white elephant. Where is the money coming from, David? Mrs Thatcher reformed the economy before she reformed the welfare system; this is something Cameron will only be able to do when he knows how much he has coming in, and if he plans to slash taxes elsewhere he will not be able to afford this agency of his. Never mind that it also goes against most Tory principles of "the state should do less and do it better". Not even the Tory grassroots would vote for this mess.

He talks tough, but after recent chaos in the system and complete bureaucratic failures, these plans only add to bureaucracy, rather than remove it. Having been unemployed at times, I found that the bureaucracy involved in the Job Centre meant that when I found a part-time job I still had to go back and sign on until I got my first payslip and decided that although I was only working 12 hours instead of the "minimum" 16, the timing was such that I could not take more work and signed off of my own accord. When that job came to an end, I didn't sign back on again until I had exhausted my savings because I didn't want to have to suffer the bureaucracy of the Job Centre machine while looking for another in my chosen field. I have found jobs in the past not thanks to the Job Centre breathing down my neck but thanks to personal study, availability and training. This is how most people find jobs, not through litter-picking on a scheme which would add huge extra tax burdens to those who hope a Tory government might cut some of Labour's excess levies.

Peter Hain and Kate Bell are right - this would actually discourage people from seeking support in the first place and not only exacerbate the poverty trap but the black and grey economies where people would turn to lucrative crime or cash-in-hand jobs. People find jobs better when they are training for the right one rather than on some expensive litter-picking squad. It would also mean penalising people without the mental stability to find or keep a stable job; or people who find their own voluntary work (e.g. in schools as teaching assistants) prior to finding a job in that particular area.

It is a stupid, unworkable policy and whatever Cameron says he will do in office, it is implementation that counts. If he cannot show more sensitivity to the real world and the ability to implement these policies he claims to have, he will not win against the might of the Labour machine, however many bad days it has had recently. This is stupid policy made up on the hoof, and I speak as a Tory voter.

[Tim]

I've been a long term (new deal) benefit claimant, a benefits assessor, a research assistant to a front bench spokesperson on welfare and now work for an organisation with specialist expertise and knowledge on the functioning of the welfare system and its impact on families.

The comments on this blog show how Cameron's message has been constructed by his PR team, led by former Saatchi and Saatchi ad man Steve Hilton, to appeal to misunderstandings and prejudices about the benefits system and claimants.

For example, Dave Parting suggests that, for many, Incapacity Benefit is a career option. I can understand how that idea could be picked up from press antagonism towards benefit claimants, but it is factually wrong. To receive the benefit you have to go through one of the harshest medical assessments in Europe. Levels of fraud for IB are actually very low. There is a bigger problem in that many people who should be entitleed to it and are seriously ill or disabled are denied it and have to spend months or years tied up in the bureacratic, inefficient, stressful and humiliating appeals process.

As a tactic for appealling to voters by exploiting their misunderstandings, prejudices and selfish tendencies to blame vulnerable groups, it might work. But it will not work to actually help more people into sustained quality work, or to end the deep and complex problems of intergenerational poverty.

It still amazes me how people fall so easily for PR - but of course pyschology and sociology are not allowed any space on the school curriculum so people are ppoorly equipped to defend themselves against this kind of manipulation.

It is a shame too that Daniel suggests the problem with Cameron's announcement is that it actually needs more PR polish, rather than that it lacks an evidence base and is dishonest in excluding any mention of the increase in child poverty under similar polcies in the US. With Cameron effectively calling for a return to the work house and victorian values, we are clearly still a long way from a new era of moral leadership from politicians.

[Dan]

Here here Dave As in the previous commenter, not David Cameron. But fair play to him as well. He's right - it is a disgrace. 1 in 10 people in Scotland are on incapacity benefit! Now, are 1 in 10 Scots incapacitated?

That would be a problem. Cameron's saying what we're all thinking, unlike Brown, who's still using the same new-Labour vocabulary we're all sick to death of, and Clegg, who as a Lib Dem doesn't know what to say to think. Oh yeah ... uh ... global warming! Bad!

[Dan]

Tim, come on now and don't insult the people here by telling them they're being manipulated by PR. They know what they believe, and it's that overdependence on government welfare is inherently bad. And they are right!

This isn't about prejudices or misunderstandings - you have to break this down into fundamentals, and the fundamental fact about this, and all welfare, is that it is the citizens who are taxed to tarnation to pay for it. We don't hate benefits claimants, we don't spite them because they're poor, and it's not the press's fault! But nothing material in this world comes for free.

No-one's saying people who're seriously ill or disabled on IB should have to go through appeals, but you can get IB for work-related stress! 1 in 10 Scots claim it, quite simply because in so many cases, particularly for, say, single parent families, it is so much easier, so VERY much easier, than getting a job. We need to incentivise people to work, and this seems as good a way as any.

You seem to be a Labour supporter (an employee, even?) though I may be wrong. But we've seen enough Blairite and Brownite propaganda and PR that is just plain wrong these last 10 years to last a lifetime. David Cameron may have his own PR team too, but he's a politician, and political parties are essentially massive Public Relations (and policy) teams. Public Relations is basically what politics today is. That doesn't mean that it is all inherently wrong or deceptive.

As far as I'm concerned, Cameron's onto something.

[David Dee]

I think that Cameron can use whatever language he likes.
But whether people will accepts his talking about getting the unemployed back to work, coming from someone who has had all his 'work' handed to him either by the intervention of his family, his in-laws or various 'god-parents', remains to be seen.

[Paul]

There are millions fraudulantly claiming Incap.Benefit.
It is easy to get,just go to a friendly anything-for-a-quiet-life G.P.,claim to be depressed,and bingo,you get an extra £20 per week for life,with noone checking that you are searching for employment.Nice little earner,while working in the black economy too!.
The rules might be alittle stricter now, but that only apply to NEW claimants

[Simon Stephenson]

Maybe Mr Cameron is saving his most powerful oratory for dealing with the far more socially divisive issue of those who, although in work, acquire far more value out of the system than any reasonable estimate of their true contribution to it.

Lest we forget, a fortnight's payment of Incapacity Benefit is equivalent in £££ to about half an hour of a management consultant's time. In overall terms, who's more likely to be the bigger nett consumer of resource?

On second thoughts, perhaps Mr Cameron isn't going to deal with this issue at all.