Letter from the Editor: It's inequality, stupid, in the jobs vs justice election

Hillary Clinton launched her campaign last week with a very direct pitch to America’s lower middle class. “The deck is still stacked in favour of those at the top,” she said. “Everyday Americans need a champion. I want to be that champion.”

This was striking because, nearly seven years after the financial crisis, the current favourite to be American president framed her argument not in terms of generating wealth, but sharing it. James Carville, adviser to her husband two decades ago, notoriously said “It’s the economy, stupid”. Hillary’s motto could be “It’s inequality, stupid”.

Inequality has risen to the top of the agenda in both America and Britain. After the Budget in March, one comment by Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, dominated headlines – his referral to a “roller-coaster” ride for public finances in the next parliament. But for me the much more striking observation was this: “Looking only at changes introduced by the Coalition, the poorest have seen the biggest proportionate losses.”

By imposing too severe an austerity regime, the Coalition delayed Britain’s recovery and caused unnecessary harm. Now, however, both Tories and the Lib Dems undoubtedly have a strong argument on the economy. Productivity may lag, but growth is up, and employment – even accounting for part-time work and zero-hours contracts – is soaring, along with consumer confidence. And yet as that quote from Johnson shows, the poor are suffering disproportionately. Our news coverage today carries these parallel stories: good macroeconomic numbers, and praise for George Osborne from abroad; but also a million people using food banks.

Maybe that helps to explain the polls. The story of this election campaign so far is that Ed Miliband’s strong performance, especially in the debates, has surprised many voters, and that the spike in Tory support we all expected hasn’t materialised. I still expect it to, albeit very late, because I think there are a lot of shy Tories – and Lib Dems, for that matter – who will change their minds late on.

But perhaps the underlying story is that the Tories have underestimated the extent to which Britons are angry about inequality. Their pitch to the electorate is about generating wealth to increase the size of the national pie. Labour’s pitch is about making sure you get a decent slice. We are basically, in other words, in a jobs vs justice election, with a dollop of various nationalisms on offer besides. Plus the Lib Dems of course, whose pitch is jobs and justice, and who are more optimistic than you might think.

In both Britain and America, the coming era could see a re-prioritisation of the poor. I’d say that was long overdue.