Re: Welfare system is a key public health measure

Re: Welfare system is a key public health measure
Dear Editor,

As authors of the Editorial, we write in response to the rapid response by Professor Woody Caan.

We are very grateful for this commentary. We agree with Prof Caan that destitution is both a cause of health inequalities, but add that the threat of destitution constitutes an extrinsic mortality cue – an environmental indication of threat to life – that serves to harm health among a large proportion of the working population that is subject to gross financial insecurity.[1] Job loss among even middle income households leads to loss of property, to perpetual indebtedness and/or renting and various transgenerational forms of disadvantage.[2] Britons on incomes that would previously have been regarded as comfortable and secure are now faced with extreme financial precarity.

The policies that have caused damage to Britain’s economy, health and society in general over the past 45 years or so have been developed and implemented overwhelmingly by Oxford Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) alumni, including Lord Lawson, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, David Cameron, Danny Alexander, Phillip Hammond, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves, while other Oxford alumni include Tony Blair, George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer. Oxford PPE commentators on these policies in the media include Evan Davies, Simon Jenkins, Oliver Kamm, Robert Peston, Nick Robinson and Toby Young.[3] We note, in this regard, that one of our author group is also an Oxford PPE graduate. Cantabrigians are fewer in number, but include former Deputy PM Nick Clegg and former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.

In terms of age group, there have been clear generational differences in voting patterns and policy preferences. Older voters are simultaneously more likely to be protected from financial volatility by virtue of housing equity (not having mortgages) and capital.[4] Their working environments were different both in terms of relative reward for work rather than wealth and in security of employment. They are also much more likely to consume right-leaning or right-wing media. Since 1997, there has been an overwhelming rightward concentration of support among older people.[5] As such, many of the most harmful policies and associated rhetoric developed by Oxbridge alumni have indeed been supported by older voters.

One of the big social problems posed by private education and Oxbridge graduation is that they confer legitimacy on subsequent policy positions that may not be warranted by the evidence and may simply reflect the material interests and lived experience of the parties involved. It is not surprising that consensus on economic policy has been achieved between the Oxford PPE alumni above, regardless of individual party and protected characteristics, despite the overwhelming evidence to indicate that the policy trajectory adopted is harmful to Britain’s long-, as well as short-, term interests.

References
1. Nettle D, Chevallier C, de Courson B, Johnson EA, Johnson MT, Pickett KE. Short-term changes in financial situation have immediate mental health consequences: Implications for social policy. Social Policy & Administration [Internet]. [cited 2024 July 28];n/a(n/a). Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/spol.13065
2. Common Sense Policy Group. Spend to Save Britain: A Common Sense Approach to the 2024 Budget. Newcastle upon Tyne: Northumbria University; 2024.
3. List of University of Oxford people with PPE degrees. In: Wikipedia [Internet]. 2025 [cited 2025 Sept 9]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_University_of_Oxford_...
4. Johnson M, Johnson E, Nettle D. Are ‘red wall’ constituencies really opposed to progressive policy? Examining the impact of materialist narratives for Universal Basic Income. Br Polit. 2022 Oct 18;18:104–27.
5. Baker C, Pollock L, Cracknell R. General election 2024 results [Internet]. 2024 [cited 2024 July 23]. Available from: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10009/

Competing interests: The authors are members of the Common Sense Policy Group

AI use: None declared