Only lazy politicians use the phrase 'hard working families'

There are sound bites, and there are sound bites too far, writes Dick Skellington

The Protestant work ethic is always with us, and is rearing its ugly head again. I was listening to a recent radio interview with Theresa May, the Home Secretary.  In 90 seconds she used the phrase 'hard working families' no less than six times. I was in danger of throwing something at the radio. Since the Coalition came to power I have lost count of the number of Government ministers, from both sides of the Coalition, who have blurted out the phrase 'hard working families' at every media opportunity. They may be on message, but I believe this message is wrong. The phrase 'hard working families'– like the oft-spoken mantra about the legacy of debt inherited from the Labour period of hegemony – is at best misleading, and at worst dangerous. 

Not all families are hard working, not all families can be, and not all hard working people live in families. Ministers habitually pour out the phrase as if all they ever think about are families, rather than the various kinds of other households, who may work even harder. Also a lot of people who work hard are not wealthy, and a lot of people who are wealthy do not word hard. The more you think about the phrase the more the false notes really begin to grate. 

Persistent use of the phrase by Ministers plays a huge part in reinforcing the divide-and-rule tactic often employed by Governments in trouble. Governments love scapegoats, and one of the implications of 'hard working families' is that all those people who are not in hard working family environments are less deserving. 

The phrase has long been associated with the Conservatives, but more recently was taken up by Gordon Brown during his New Labour premiership. In 2005, when Brown was fighting the General Election, the BBC News website conducted an interesting analysis of the phrase 'hard working families', rooting its populist adoption in the widespread use of unforgiving political rhetoric about welfare 'handouts' to 'scroungers'. 

Back then commentators were pointing out that the effect of its use is to marginalise people living in single households, such as lone parents. There were those who questioned too the wisdom of using language which suggests that couples with children were more hard working than those without children. At the end of the election campaign, one lone parent reminded Brown to ensure he 'consider everybody, in every class and every financial situation'. 

Despite this, the Coalition has upped the ante on the adoption of the rhetoric of hard work. The result is often hysterical shifts in tone even in one speech. Theresa May is a habitual offender. In March she gave a keynote speech entitled We Will Win by Being the Party for All and used it to champion 'people who work hard and want to get on'. Those who were not so aspirational were condemned to the margins of her priorities.  It really is astonishingly dumb politics to use an inclusive sound bite and then rush headlong down an exclusive blind alley.

Wikipedia, not always the most reliable source on such issues, does contain some useful observations about the phrase 'hard working families'. The phrase is an example, it argues, of 'glittering generality' in contemporary political discourse. Its origins are found in tabloid newspaper discourses of the mid '90s, and, for those of you who can remember the drab 2005 general election campaign, it emerged with such regularity during that campaign that many people begged politicians to put it in the trash bin.

A key assumption behind the phrase is that working is good for us. To work is to get by, to pay your taxes, to keep your family afloat. Many people work hard but are paid so poorly that even a national wage can't stop an increase in poverty among working people in the United Kingdom. Indeed, there is recent evidence from the Resolution Foundation that hard working families are actually worse off since the Coalition came to power, so on one level, bleating on about appealing to their needs could be seen as hypocritical. This assumption also ignores the fact that parenting, or caring for relatives, are in themselves intensely hard working achievements. Mums and carers are not what Theresa May is thinking about when she uses the phrase. 

I might be running against the current mood in the nation – a nation whose shires just legitimised the United Kingdom Independence Party, who are also championing 'hard working families', in the May local elections. In the end though, whatever your political party of choice, the persistent use of the phrase 'hard working families' may rebound on its exponents. The next General Election might be won by the party which appeals to all the country, not just one section of it, and a focus on 'hard working families' may alienate those other groups pushed into the margin of political priorities. Its lazy use is bad politics, but I doubt if it will stop in the current climate of a blame culture in which some families seem more deserving than others.
Dick Skellington 28 May 2013

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

Cartoon by Catherine Pain