Want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness: are Beveridge’s five evils back?

It’s 75 years since the Beveridge report paved the way for the welfare state, and the UK is again plagued by the problems he aimed to eradicate – from insecure jobs to malnutrition

This November marks the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge report – the founding document of the modern welfare state and the answer to the question: what would Clement Attlee do? The Attlee government’s radical agenda, after all, basically enacted every recommendation made by eccentric patrician liberal reformer Sir William Beveridge, who exceeded his simple brief – to survey the country’s social insurance programmes – with a wide range of suggestions aimed at eradicating what he called the five “giant evils”: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.

Whatever Attlee thought of him, Beveridge was no socialist. He thought taking the burden of healthcare and pension costs away from corporations and individuals and giving them to the government would increase the competitiveness of British industry while producing healthier, wealthier, more motivated and more productive workers keen to buy British goods.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2xwav7W