As a political communicator, I cannot help but find language a rich resource of insight into the preconceptions and moral priorities that underpin public policy. One of the most interesting aspects of Big Society discourse, for example, is its seamless combination of communitarian “let’s do it”, “we’re all in this together” language with individualist ideas of responsibility, merit and a reward/punishment moral accounting system. Of course, all language hides a moral system, with ideological elements that are accepted as common sense. And naturally, there is no such thing as common sense, or rather, there is nothing common about it. Our ideas of what constitutes common sense are very much tied in with the moral and ideological conventions we subscribe to.

Take poverty and inequality for example. They are universally deplored as unacceptable and in Big Society discourse their eradication is as much a priority as in leftwing traditions. Poverty is a moral issue, an immoral state of affairs or a moral failure – in that it is morally unacceptable for deprivation to exist in our broadly shared ideas about society. That may sound nurturing and communitarian, but a closer look reveals a different story. Welfare in Big Society discourse is a trap (this is actually a commonly used metaphor) and welfare dependency very much an individual issue. That is, a failure of the individual as opposed to a systemic deficiency. Here’s how deprivation is explained in the DWP’s Social Justice blueprint from March 2012:

« Though low income is a useful proxy measure, it does not tell the full story of an individual’s well-being. Frequently, very low income is a symptom of deeper problems, whether that is family breakdown, educational failure, welfare dependency, debt, drug dependency, or some other relevant factor.»

This is a story of individuals erring from the moral path of small-c conservative righteousness, which would stipulate strongly fused family units, educational accomplishment, economic self-reliance, thrift and a healthy and wholesome lifestyle. Therefore it follows that economic deprivation is a symptom of individual moral failure, as opposed to being an effect of societal inequality of opportunity.

Why does this matter? It matters because the moral assumptions underpinning the DWP’s current outlook may well end up monopolising the welfare debate, as they are pretty much unchallenged in mainstream political debate, at the level of narratives. Which means the idea of individual merit is likely to become a prevalent explanation of economic success and deprivation. And this will affect the way we look at poverty and the amount of sympathy we are willing to allocate to it for generations to come. We may one day not so long from now be talking about the “undeserving poor”. I can accept this, although it goes against my own ideological bias, as long as we are aware of it happening, and conscious of the moral choice we are making – for it is a moral choice, as opposed to something self-evident, belonging to the realm of common sense. This is why peeling the layers of the language of politics is a satisfying and worthwhile pastime.