The diagnosis, 2007
Yvonne Roberts’ year-end piece for the Guardian was sceptical of the “Broken Britain” gloom but conceded the numbers. UNICEF had Britain bottom of 21 rich countries for child wellbeing. Teenagers drank more, learned less and were more often mentally ill than their European peers. One child in ten was poor in 1979; one in three by 2007, and half of them lived with a wage earner.
Her fix: “improved benefits”, tax credits “generous enough”, “a minimum wage that’s realistic”, children’s centres, a £4bn cheque to lift 3.8m children out of poverty by 2010, and “a major redistribution of the country’s wealth”. Iain Duncan Smith’s alternative, family and personal responsibility, she called “crass”.
That is the statist prescription in one paragraph. Wages too low, so mandate them up. Benefits too thin, so thicken them. Families failing, so build state infrastructure around the family. Gap too wide, so redistribute.
The purchase
Every item on the list was delivered, by both parties, in the nineteen years that followed.
| 2007 asked for | Britain delivered |
|---|---|
| A realistic minimum wage | £5.52 an hour in October 2007. £12.71 from April 2026. More than doubled in cash terms. |
| Improved benefits, generous tax credits | Tax credits reached £30bn a year. Working-age and children’s welfare is £145bn in 2025-26. Health-related benefits up from 1.1% to 1.8% of GDP. |
| £4bn and a target | Child Poverty Act 2010 wrote the targets into law. Repealed 2016, “missed by a country mile”. New strategy, December 2025. |
| Redistribution | Gini coefficient for disposable income down from 38.6% to 32.9%. |
| A state to pay for it | Spending up from 40.2% of GDP to 45.0%. Tax at 35% of GDP, the highest since the 1960s, heading for 38%. |
Labour, Coalition, Conservative, Labour. Every one of them kept buying.
The result
| Measure | 2007 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Children in poverty, after housing costs | 30.7% | 31% in 2023-24 on the same method. 27% on DWP’s new method. |
| Poor children with a working parent | “Half” | 72%. |
| Young people with a probable mental disorder | Rising | 1 in 9 in 2017. 1 in 5 by 2023. |
| UNICEF child wellbeing rank | Last of 21 | 21st of 36. Teenage life satisfaction joint second from last. |
| 16 to 24s not in education, work or training | Not on the list | 957,000. 44% cite a health condition, up from 26% in 2015. |
Inputs moved exactly as demanded. Outputs did not move, or moved backwards.
Why more state bought less
The wage floor rose and the cost of living outran it. Poverty is measured after housing costs. Britain mandated pay for nineteen years and built no houses for thirty. Rents, childcare and council tax ate the rise. That is how half became 72%.
The benefits bill went to sickness, not childhood. The 2007 ask was money for children. What grew was money for incapacity, fastest among the under-25s, who were those children. In 2007 the worry was that British teenagers were unhappy. In 2026 the state pays them to be.
“Austerity” was not a smaller state. It was the same state, repointed. Sure Start was on Roberts’ list and the Institute for Fiscal Studies says it worked: three GCSE grades for poor children, fewer hospital admissions, fewer special-needs plans. There were 3,290 centres and £1.8bn a year at the 2010 peak. Over 1,340 closed and the budget was cut by two thirds. Youth services, early intervention and council budgets went the same way. Yet total spending never fell below its 2007 share of GDP and now sits five points above it. The money did not leave. It moved: out of prevention and into cash transfers, incapacity benefits, pensions and the NHS. Britain did not try less state. It tried a state that pays for the damage instead of preventing it, and every party since 2010 signed off the reprioritisation. We set out the transfer line by line in The Austerity Lie.
The money did not leave. It moved: out of prevention and into paying for the damage.
Honesty: three true things at once
Some of the 2007 gloom was wrong. Teenage drinking fell from 71% to 35%. Smoking, drugs and teenage pregnancy fell hard. The vices went; anxiety and a sick note replaced them.
Inequality did fall. The Gini went from 38.6% to 32.9%. That is what damns the poverty figure: the gap closed and the bottom did not rise.
The 2024-25 poverty figure is on a new DWP method and is not directly comparable. On the old method, 2023-24 was level with 2006-07. Either way, nineteen years and several hundred billion pounds bought a flat line.
The point
Two diagnoses in 2007. The Guardian said the problem was money and the answer was the state. Duncan Smith said family, work and responsibility, and was called crass. Britain chose the first, and every government since kept choosing it. The cuts after 2010 changed what the state bought, never how much.
The child of 2007 is the 24-year-old of 2026: more likely to be mentally ill, more likely to be on a sickness benefit, more likely to be neither working nor studying, and no less likely to have grown up poor.
Not your parents’ fault. Not Gen Z’s fault. A policy regime, built from 1997, preserved after 2010, re-adopted in 2024, that treated a broken society as an underfunded one. The funding arrived. The invoice is 45% of everything the country makes.
Britain bought the whole 2007 shopping list. It is still waiting for the goods.
Sources & method
- Yvonne Roberts, “Broken Britain?”, Guardian, 26 December 2007. The 1979, 2007, “half” and £4bn figures are as stated in the article, citing JRF and End Child Poverty.
- Child poverty 30.7% in 2006-07: Commons Library, Poverty in the UK: Statistics. 4.5m / 31% (2023-24) and 4.0m / 27% (2024-25, new method), 72% in working families: CPAG; DWP HBAI written statement, 26 March 2026; TUC.
- Child Poverty Act 2010 and the 2016 repeal of targets: Commons Library CBP-7891.
- Probable mental disorder 1 in 9 (2017) to 1 in 5 (2023): NHS England, November 2023.
- UNICEF Report Card 7 (2007): Innocenti. Report Card 19 (2025): UNICEF UK.
- Minimum wage: Low Pay Commission report 2007; HM Treasury April 2026 rates.
- Spending 40.2% of GDP in 2007-08: Commons Library CBP-8046. 45.0% in 2025-26, tax 35% and 38% by 2030-31: OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook, November 2025.
- Health-related welfare 1.1% to 1.8% of GDP: IFS. £145bn working-age and children’s welfare 2025-26: OBR. Tax credits £30bn: Full Fact.
- NEET 957,000, Oct to Dec 2025: ONS, February 2026. 44% with a work-limiting condition: Health Foundation.
- Sure Start evidence, centre count, closures: IFS; Commons Library CBP-7257.
- Gini 38.6% (2007-08) to 32.9% (2023-24): Commons Library CBP-7484.
- Teenage drinking 71% (1999) to 35% (2019): Oldham et al, 2020.
Method. Relative child poverty, after housing costs, throughout, as in the 2007 article. The DWP 2024-25 series break is stated in the text rather than smoothed over. The minimum wage comparison is cash terms.