The Class Politics of the Work/Life Balance

The mouse, it roars! After another day of major Coronavirus announcements getting drip fed to the media, even Lindsay Hoyle was moved to voice his displeasure and put the government on notice. I'm sure Boris Johnson dreads the hour of their confrontation. Unhappily for him, the extension of restrictions - it would be stretching credulity to call it a lockdown since the last wasn't one - raises a whole new set of problems for the Tories.

Thanks to Johnson's holding out on adding India to the red list of countries, the re-named Delta variant is in circulation and the government have lost control. Again. Therefore, the foolhardiness over so-called freedom day is to be pushed back from 21st June to 19th July. Some very minor restrictions will be relaxed in the mean time, such as caps on numbers at weddings and funerals provided there is social distancing, but nothing else changes. The good news, however, is the vaccine roll out is driving down hospitalisation rates and therefore deaths. Too late for some thanks to the usual lackadaisical Tory approach and their getting pulled in different directions by the interests they articulate and serve. But amid the gloom, at least Johnson can console himself with the fact public opinion is onside, especially the solid bloc of his core support. There's little sign Covid is chipping away at his edifice still.

High and dry then? Not quite. The problem with a huge majority, an obscene poll lead, and an opposition that's barely noticeable is the absence of a check on one's worst instincts, and thus the will to overreach manifests. Which is where Dishy Rishi comes in. Even though the government have extended restrictions, the Chancellor is determined not to add another month to the furlough scheme. As planned, the furlough scheme starts getting wound up from the beginning of July. The amount the government will pay drops from 80% of salary to 70% of up to £2,187.50/month, and then from August until the end of September it drops again to 60% of up to £1,875/month. However, employees on furlough will still be entitled to the 80% rate and so businesses are going to have to fork out. This means businesses, mainly small businesses, who can't return to normal and start taking cash are either going to collapse, or let go their hundreds of thousands of employees. Local government grants vary from area to area, and so Sunak is bent on unleashing a wave of unemployment and sucking demand out of the economy.

Economic madness, yes. But not if the primary concern is preserving class relations by reinforcing the discipline of the labour market. Since last year, Sunak has been concerned with cutting furlough and ensuring the "most generous package of support in the world" is anything but. Also gung-ho for a return to workplaces while many companies are contemplating a life of substantial home working, he (and a number of other Tories) feel the worry in their bones that things won't quite be the same after the pandemic. More time at home has, it is feared, tilted decisively the mental balance between life and work. The longer the emergency measures bed down as the new normal the harder it's going to be to turn back the clock and refasten the workplace rubber band on staff who want a bit more from life than the daily grind. It means moves by bosses to restore the ancien regime might be met with grumbles, slack productivity and perhaps, just perhaps, the worst thing of all: collective workplace resistance.

Leading Tories are nothing if not hyper class conscious, even if they clothe their interests and stakes in stuff and nonsense. The keenness to throw hundreds of thousands out of work is a play as old as Thatcherism. Pull the rug from under workers by forming a substantial army of the unemployed before going after others' pay, jobs, and industries. Few in the cabinet, particularly the true believers in hard right economics, know nothing restores labour discipline quite like the prospect of job losses. The uppity consequences of furlough and spending more time away from the workplace can be nipped in the bud, even if it means liquidating a small layer of small and medium-sized business.

Can the Tories get away with it? That same layer of the petit bourgeois have so far been kept afloat by the government and their support has been reciprocated in the polls, but now they're being lined up as sacrificial lambs, just like another key prop of Tory support, the question is whether these turkeys will carry on voting for Christmas. For the Tories, it doesn't matter. Heart strings might get pulled when the Daily Mail interviews some Hard Working Mother who has had to close her shire county teahouse, but with the solid block of retirees to fall back on the government feels it has a freer hand to tread on some toes in its coalition if the greater Tory good is served. And the question of keeping labour discipline on an even keel? Nothing, apart from the the persistence of the party itself is more important.

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