Lisa Whitehouse, 1 April 2026 7 mins read
It is nearly sixty years since Cathy Come Home first aired on the BBC. Written by Jeremy Sandford and directed by Ken Loach, this hard-hitting, documentary-style portrayal of a couple who, through no fault of their own, spiralled into homelessness and destitution, sparked national debate about the then housing crisis. The message arising out of the play was clear and unequivocal. The protagonists, Cathy and Reg were, in a manner reminiscent of the Victorian trope of the ‘deserving and undeserving poor’, worthy of our sympathy.
The changed neoliberal narrative: no rights without responsibilities
A lot has changed over the last sixty years, to the extent that we might now question whether Cathy Come Home would provoke the same response it did back in November 1966. The rise of neoliberalism post-1979, Brexit, and the growing popularity of right-wing political parties (among so many other things), have seen policy, rhetoric, and the media (print and social), cast certain categories of individual, such as single mothers, immigrants, and welfare recipients, as different, deviant and dangerous in the eyes of hard-working ‘responsible’ taxpayers.
Some have argued that this is a tactic used by proponents of neoliberalism to maintain support for its aims, categorising the welfare state as a cause of, rather than a solution to, poverty. The use of exclusionary and ‘othering’ language to depict those who are ‘them’ and not ‘us’ deflects attention away from the failings of the state and instead recasts it as a failure of individual responsibility. This responsibilisation narrative arises out of the reconfiguring of the relationship between the state and its citizens, particularly in respect of the provision of civil entitlements.
The creation of the welfare state in the UK, initiated by the Beveridge Report of 1942, was intended to create a system that supported citizens from the ‘cradle to the grave’. Some governments have, however, since the 1970s, sought to transform the state’s role from the guarantor of a universal entitlement to social rights, to a paternalistic and supervisory one that demands that citizens earn civil entitlements by conforming to expected standards of behaviour.
This new narrative insists that there should be ‘no rights without responsibilities’, thereby bringing an end to the perceived passive receipt of welfare benefits and justifying the exclusion of some from the social safety net if they fail to act ‘responsibly’. This reconceptualization of citizenship has been criticized on several grounds including its failure to recognise the impact that structural disadvantage and inequality, such as the shortage of affordable housing that led to Cathy and Reg’s downfall, have on the ability of individuals to act responsibly.
In this new era of individualised responsibility, it is possible that Cathy and Reg might be portrayed as undeserving, feckless, architects of their own downfall, and a drain on the responsible taxpayer. This narrative is not new. Smiles’ best-selling book of 1859, for example, promoted the moralistic view that debt, destitution and dependence were due to the failure on the part of the individual to exhibit the Victorian virtues of hard work, perseverance, and temperance. Smiles advocated ‘self-help’ as the remedy for poverty, encouraging, particularly young working-class men, to elevate themselves out of poverty through hard work, thereby ensuring their own happiness and wellbeing.
And yet, of course, we know that poverty is not a choice. Rather, it is influenced by individual and structural factors, many of which are beyond the control of the individual. Insecure and low-paid employment, high housing costs, individual life events, and an ineffective and sometimes punitive welfare system are just some of the causes of poverty.
The state’s complicity in facilitating inequality
It might be assumed that the state is best placed to tackle some of these structural constraints. However, what becomes apparent from a review of some public policy initiatives post-1979, is that rather than attempting to address structural inequality, the state has been complicit in facilitating it. A cynic might even suggest that the state has engaged in performative and populist policy-making that sets some individuals up to fail.
Take the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS), otherwise known as the ‘bedroom tax’. This reduces the rent that can be covered by welfare payments if social tenants reside in properties considered larger than they need. As of November 2025, 12,000 Housing Benefit claimants had a reduction to their weekly award amount due to the RSRS scheme. Up to date figures on the proportion of households in receipt of the housing element of Universal Credit who received a reduction due to the RSRS are not available, but to give some idea of the scale, in November 2020 it was 240,000.
The RSRS was intended to achieve behavioural change, encouraging or forcing households to move to smaller dwellings. However, this assumes that social tenants have a meaningful choice over where they live when, in reality, social housing has been decimated by policies such as the ‘right to buy’. Described as one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’, the policy allowed social tenants of sufficient standing to buy their council-owned home at a significant discount. Since its introduction in the early 1980s, around two million council properties have been sold, contributing to, what is now, a chronic shortage in and long waiting lists for social housing.
Importantly, however, the state was aware at the time it introduced the RSRS that there were insufficient properties of a smaller size to accommodate households subject to the deduction. For some of these households, this will have increased their dependency on the state, with evidence suggesting that many sought discretionary housing payments to cover the shortfall in their welfare payments. It would seem, therefore, that the state’s attempt to encourage welfare recipients to move to smaller accommodation has instead led to the state subsidizing those households to remain in their current home.
The unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies?
A less cynical view might suggest that inequality outcomes are the product of ambiguity neglect, a failure by policymakers to appreciate the potential for unintended consequences arising out of policies. These outcomes can often be generated by perverse incentives whereby citizens are incentivised to act in a manner that contradicts the intended outcome of the policy.
It is argued here, however, that in relation to aspects of policymaking since the late 1970s, a more apt label might be ‘perversity neglect’, constituting a failure by policymakers to appreciate the potential for perverse outcomes arising out of policies. In turn, rather than being incentivised to disrupt policy outcomes, individuals are subject to ‘perverse disincentives’ that hinder or prevent genuine attempts to comply with the intended outcomes of policies.
To take one example from the housing context, a policy intended to encourage social tenants to take responsibility for paying their own rent (by removing the direct payment of the housing element of welfare payments to landlords) led to some being unable to pay their rent (and therefore at threat of eviction) because of the mandatory five week waiting period before receipt of the first welfare payment.
Reckless policymaking driven by populist political agendas
The question arises as to whether the state’s complicity in generating structural inequality is intentional. That would, of course, be difficult to prove, but it can be argued that, if not intentional, then the state it is at the very least neglectful, if not reckless, in failing to appreciate the potential for perverse outcomes or, once aware of such, failing to address them. The answer offered up by research into ambiguity neglect is that the state should conduct evidence-based decision making prior to implementing policies, and post-implementation, to assess the outcomes of such, to identify and if necessary address unintended or perverse outcomes.
Some might argue, however, that neoliberalism and governments that engage in populist policymaking are not concerned with the outcomes of policies, or the likely success of the measures they give rise to, but rather with the perception that those policies engender (e.g. ‘stop the boats’). The perception that the welfare state rewards idleness, for example, has been used to justify the imposition of conditions on welfare claimants in order to make welfare ‘like work’. The outcome of the conditional nature of welfare can, however, in some cases, perpetuate poverty and dependency, including discouraging some claimants from entering into work in order to avoid having their welfare benefits reduced.
It is therefore questionable whether there is any motivation or sufficient public support for (particularly neoliberal) governments to avoid or remedy perversity neglect, particularly when there appear to be no ‘deserving poor’.