They sound like something from the late-Soviet Union, and in many ways they are. Rent tribunals are coming to a town near you, following the expansion of powers set out in the Renters’ Rights Act. Such tribunals have existed in some form for decades, but in recent months they’ve been beefed up – with predictable results.
Tenants now have a strong interest in challenging even the smallest increase. Since rents are suspended at the former rate pending a decision, and given the shortage of judges to staff these tribunals, the chances of the challenge being dealt with quickly are slim. Tenant groups are already advising their members to try their luck, perhaps in the hope that they will flood the system and render it inoperative. It costs just £47 to submit a claim, which will lead to at least a temporary rent freeze and probably victory. Almost three-quarters of hearings rule in favour of the tenant, so ‘you’ve nothing to lose’ is about right. New tenants are even able to challenge their initial rent after agreeing to it. Unsurprisingly, there has been a spike in applications, which may increase further once enough people cotton on. The rules not only increase the ability of tenants to behave badly, they actively encourage them to do so.
No one in government seems at all concerned about second-order consequences, either for the rental market, through the exodus of private landlords, or the incentivisation of manifestly shifty behaviour. Perhaps this was the point all along. The state now emboldens a vast number of chancers. Regular commuters on the London Underground know not to take the big gates because someone who hasn’t deigned to pay for their ticket will invariably push behind them without consequence. It recently emerged that even people with manageable conditions such as ADHD can qualify for disabled railcards, entitling them to a third off their tickets. We are creating a society where if you don’t milk the system for all it’s worth then you feel almost foolish for not doing so.
Last week’s Budget confirmed the influence of Martin Lewis, whose reputation as a consumer champion rests on a mantra that you should claim every benefit, allowance and relief you’re eligible for. Lewis is only trying to save people money, but it all adds up to the removal of any stigma for milking the system as much as possible. Much is viewed in terms of ‘rights’; rarely duties or responsibilities. This represents a profound cultural shift, which is increasingly not only present in the welfare system but in daily life. It’s no longer just the person who refuses to maximise their benefits who feels a mug, but the commuter who pays full whack for his ticket, or the child who sees a quarter of his classmates apply for extra exam time. ‘Take what you can, don’t give back’ has become the prevailing attitude.
While Britain has always had an issue with some piss-taking at all societal levels, it strikes me as more widespread and, crucially, more shameless than it was in the past. One possible culprit is US claim culture and the ‘lawyerisation’ of society. Think of it as the micro-version of the macro problem of judicial review and its dominance. Nothing can be solved informally, everything must be carried to the fullness of ‘due process’, regardless of the cost or ridiculousness of doing so.
Secondly, the importation of entire communities governed by different social norms, including close-knit and clan-based relationships which are broadly designed to get things out of people in a lower-trust society. It shouldn’t be problematic to observe that these patterns of behaviour exist. It is deluded to believe such habits would magically disappear just because a group of people with centuries of differing cultural norms behind them happen to be breathing English air.
But the greatest fault lies not with Americanised blame culture or migration, but with the state itself. Successive governments have abandoned the social contract. What you could once expect as the bare minimum for protecting an independent civil society is retreating, just as the state’s capacity to create dependence and invade the space of those it does not already control is increasing. It’s almost as if the worse the state gets at doing its job properly, the more heavy-handedly it treats those who attempt to defy it.
‘Take what you can, don’t give back’ has become the prevailing attitude
A while ago, I wrote about my mother’s experience with a rogue tenant who fleeced her out of tens of thousands. Almost more shocking than the behaviour itself was how the state essentially connived in her misery. The local authority advised the tenant to stay put, presumably to avoid housing her. Police refused to help when the tenant caused extreme property damage and even entered my mother’s home, insisting that this was ‘a civil matter’. The authorities constantly worked in the interests of the wrongdoer at the expense of the law-abiding person. We often conceive of grifting in terms of raw cost to the taxpayer, but the effect on society is under-examined. Once you’ve experienced this kind of treatment, it makes you suspicious not just of the state but of practically everyone you didn’t already know well.
The most vulnerable also suffer from the decline of social trust. Widespread welfare grift causes the genuinely needy to be viewed with suspicion. Rather than making the rental market easier to get into, government policy has comprehensively locked out those without existing links or familial connections. Relationships between individuals, contracts once entered into freely, will now be increasingly formalised, with added security (and mutual suspicion) baked in. If the state won’t enforce legal agreements or overrules them, it means less cooperation and greater nepotism. Lost social trust can’t just be measured by the number of security tags on groceries.
In his influential work The Origins of English Individualism, the anthropologist Alan Macfarlane observed that from the Medieval era onwards, English society enjoyed an unusually high level of individualism. It was market-oriented, comparatively mobile and based around the nuclear family. Since weaker kinship structures meant that people couldn’t always rely on extended family for protection, they instead built trust with non-relatives through contracts, the market, the common law and, above all, voluntary association. These norms, present in civil society for centuries, have increasingly given way to ‘anarcho-tyranny’: that toxic combination of heavy-handedness and basic incompetence. Something more precious than we know is being destroyed.
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