Debt, bad; work, good: ‘pub bore’ beliefs that seal a miserable fate for the poorest | Kenan Malik

Politicians and the media often present policies as moral duties, when they are nothing of the sort

I can't live on the never-never and neither can this country... Austerity was a necessary evil... The unemployed will only work if they are forced to."

No, not the sound of the pub bore, but some of the often unstated assumptions that underlie policymaking and the reporting of such policies. Two very different reports published last week, one from the BBC, the other from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), reveal, the one explicitly, the other implicitly, the significance of these submerged beliefs in shaping our lives and our perceptions.