Under Labour, the goal is to spend more not improve lives

A fascinating quote by Andrew Little:

English was seen as a compassionate conservative “and there’s probably something in that,” Little said.

But he also favoured smaller government, so his flagship “social investment approach” – which targets cash towards those most in need to avoid greater costs later – simply moved money around rather than adding cash to social services.

This sums up more than anything all that is wrong with Labour.

Social investment is about spending more money at an earlier stage so people live better lives, and become more self reliant. So it is about spending more on education, health, welfare, getting them into a job, training, rehabilitation, drug counselling etc so that they end up a productive member of society who can look after themselves and their families.

This of course means that you avoid the costs of someone being non-productive and on welfare, in prison, unable to read, a drug addict etc.

But Little says that this is simply moving around. That the real aim of government shouldn’t be to have people more self-reliant, but instead to spend more cash on social services. They see spending as the desired outcome.

Labour builds an electoral majority by having as many people as possible reliant on state spending. That is what matters to them.