Remploy, the government owned company providing employment for disabled people is to close 36 of its 54 factories with the loss of 1700 jobs.
Minister for disabled people Maria Miller said the sites were not financially viable and that the decision to close them was ‘difficult but important.’ She went on to sat that each job at Remploy was subsidised by £25,000 of taxpayers’ money whereas the Access to Work programme, the government’s preferred method of helping disabled people find work, required a subsidy of just £3,000.
The decision to close so many factories in one fell swoop was made on the basis of findings in a report written by Liz Sayce, chief executive of Disability UK, speaking to the BBC this week Ms Sayce said that is was important that the factories slated for closure ‘should be given the chance to show if they are viable.’ Good luck with that; a government in the mood to cut spending at all costs seldom changes its mind.
Shadow minister for the disabled Anne McGuire said that making a decision with such serious consequences on the basis of ‘a report by an individual is frankly not acceptable.’
Liam Byrne, shadow minister for work and pensions, said that closing Remploy factories was ‘the wrong plan at the wrong time.’ The Conservatives had, he said, promised to protect jobs at Remploy whilst in opposition, adding ‘now we know the truth. People with disabilities will never trust a word they say again.’
Phil Davies, national secretary of the GMB trades union said ‘I never thought I’d see the day that an organisation set up to provide sustainable employment for disabled people would be shut down.’ It was, he said, ‘an attack on the most vulnerable members of our society.’
The government has set up an £8million fund to help former Remploy workers but, as Anne McGuire told the BBC, ‘there are tens of people in each of the constituencies where these redundancies are going to be made chasing each job.’
Even by the standards of this increasingly out of touch government closing so many factories in one hit seems like a cruelly low blow struck against the people least able to be resilient. Liz Sayce may genuinely have written her report with good intentions and believe fully that the factories under threat should be given the chance to prove whether they are viable; it will never happen though.
A government that has systematically starved Remploy of support since taking office is hardly likely to support something that would expose the cynicism of its policies.
Defending the closures Iain Duncan Smith said that segregating disabled people form the rest of the workforce was a Victorian idea that had no place in the modern world. In doing so he seemed to wilfully ignore the fact that without the supportive environment provided by Remploy many disabled people will struggle and probably fail to find fulfilling work.
If anybody id guilty of holding Victorian attitudes it is Iain Duncan Smith and the rest of the government. Their attitude to the disabled, single parents, the unemployed and just about anyone outside their own charmed circle is let them sink or swim and if they drown who cares?
Quite a lot of people actually, people who may not be naturally aligned to the left but will still agree with Phil Davis that disabled people will never trust the Tories again and with good reason. Neither come to that should anyone else, this government is operation on the principle that everything it gets away with is a spur to trying something even more short sighted, selfish and damaging next time.
The growing number of people being left high and dry economically and socially by a government that its even its own members secretly admit has no direction or vision for the future will not forget what has been done to them in the name of balancing the books; they must not forgive either when it comes to casting their votes.
A slow train to nowhere
The days of above inflation rises in ticket prices for rail users are to end; more money is going to be spent on rolling stock and refurbishing dilapidated stations. Put out the bunting, get the champagne on ice; things are looking up at last.
Oh no, hang on a minute, the sting in the tail is a whopping £3.5billion cut in government funding for the railways; which probably means all the things promised above will be delayed until the twelfth of never.
Transport secretary Justine Greening said in parliament that the government was going to set about ‘building a more efficient and affordable rail network that serves its passengers better, encourages the rail industry to thrive and ultimately invigorates Britain’s economy.’
Fine words, but, unfortunately, ones that will never be turned into actions, instead what we’ll get are job cuts and a deteriorating service. The whole sorry mess will stumble on as before in the hands of greedy train operating companies and overseen by dim politician who have no idea what they want the railways to do; but they want them to do it more efficiently.
Pigs in the dock
Have you seen the new TV advert for the Guardian that turns the story of the three little pigs into a fable about freedom of the press?
It’s a brilliantly conceived piece of marketing and just a little bit bonkers.
I couldn’t help wondering what some of the other members of the fourth estate would make of popular fairy stories, Goldilocks and the three bears say.
The Daily Express would probably have the protagonists discovering that porridge either caused or cured cancer before hinting that Goldilocks looks (nudge, nudge) a bit like a certain princess with whom they are unhealthily obsessed.
The Daily Mail would be up in arms about British bears being forced out of their homes by porridge scoffing immigrants, all the fault of the EU, the welfare state and the BBC it seems.
The Sunday Sun, which isn’t the News of the World under another name honestly, would probably take the prize though with the banner headline:
Goldilocks: my porridge fuelled nights of passion with three hot bears.
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Cameron’s Tories ARE complacent; but can Labour be courageous?
This week the UK came a little closer to falling off the economic cliff into a double dip recession.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed that our gross domestic product slowed by 0.2% over the last quarter of 2011, over the same period manufacturing shrank by 1.2%, productivity in the construction sector by 0.5% and in utilities by 4.1%. The bad times are back and they’re getting ready to roll.
Chancellor George Osborne said the figures were ‘disappointing’ but not ‘entirely unexpected because of what’s happening in the world.’ Just one of those things then eh George?, nothing at all to do with, as TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber put it, the government’s economic strategy having gone ‘horribly wrong’ and as a result ‘failing to tackle the deficit, causing unemployment to spiral out of control’ and potentially ‘dragging the country back into recession.’
At Prime Ministers Question in the commons this week Labour leader Ed Milliband accused David Cameron of showing ‘total arrogance’ in his handling of the economy and asked just what would it take to shake government out of its ‘complacency’ over the situation we find ourselves in. In reply the prime minister recited his usual litany about Labour’s reckless spending being a recipe for wrecking the economy, driving up interest rates and making things ‘much worse.’
So is David Cameron complacent about the economic pain being experienced by individuals and families across the land? You bet he is; and so are the rest of his party.
The complacency can be seen in Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith blithely saying that families who have their housing benefit taken away ‘may have to move somewhere else’, as if social housing wasn’t just a little more rare than powdered unicorn’s horn. It can be seen in the fatuous (pun very much intended) Eric Pickles telling local authorities they have a ‘moral duty’ to keep council tax down even though vital public services are under threat due to savage cuts in government funding.
Most of all though the complacency of this government can be seen in the elegantly self satisfied person of David Cameron himself standing at the despatch box batting away any suggestion that it might be time to think again about how far and how fast the cuts are being made like the captain of the Eton first XI. Granted he has known his share of misfortune, but this Oxbridge educated scion of inherited wealth has no idea of what it feels like to lie awake wondering how to pay the bills and it shows in his every word and deed.
I’m not sure identifying this fact at PMQ’s means all that much though. Ed Milliband might have started turning better performances there of late but his weekly squabble with the PM is pretty much divorced from the experience of most Britons. Anyway denouncing the government’s cuts rings a little hollow when you have committed to following their spending plans if you win the next election; more cynical triangulation than principled opposition.
The uncomfortable truth is that on a straight fight over economics Labour has little chance of beating the Tories. What Labour need to do is to start talking seriously about an alternative to the dreary status quo of British politics.
They need to make common cause with the growing number of people who are looking for another and fairer way of organising society. The communities who are clubbing together to buy their village pub or using derelict land to grow organic vegetables; the young people who were so energised by the ‘occupy’ movement because for the first time in their lives it treated them like engaged partners rather than passive consumers.
Doing so won’t be easy; Ed Milliband or his successor will have to match the complacency of the government and the cynicism of the media with genuine political courage and an understanding that to bring about meaningful you have to be prepared to play the long game. If this doesn’t happen and instead Labour continues looking for a way of delivering kinder cuts that those on offer from the government then identifying the complacency of its leadership is meaningless.
A bulldog amongst butterflies
Andy Murray has gone back to being a ‘surly Scot’ as opposed to a ‘plucky Brit’ after his defeat in the semi-final of the Australian Open at the hands of Novak Jockovic.
For some reason the public have never warmed to Andy Murray, perhaps his aggression, ambition and the fact that he plays tennis like an Australian or an American; meaning to win, rubs us up the wrong way. We seem to prefer our tennis stars to be well spoken suburban social butterflies rather than snarling British bulldogs.
The things that seem to annoy us most about Andy Murray though probably give him the best chance of winning Wimbledon, better certainly than those of the other British player who all fluttered out to the competition on day one.
It’s never too late to learn Harry.
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp told the court trying him for tax evasion this week that he couldn’t spell and that he writes like a two year old. This isn’t, of course, in itself an excuse for committing what is a serious offence, but, perhaps, it should make us look upon him a little more kindly.
It must have taken courage to admit to his literacy problems in a court of law knowing every word he said would be reported by the media. If the verdict goes the way the evidence revealed so far suggests Mr Redknapp’s reputation and chances of managing England will be wrecked. He might though be able to go some way towards rebuilding the former by fronting a campaign to encourage other men of his age to get help with their literacy problems.
Isles of piffle
I made a new year’s resolution not to write a single word about the Olympics, January isn’t over and I’ve broken it already.
When it was announced this week that the theme for the opening ceremony it to be the ‘Isles of Wonder’ and will feature a parade of NHS nurses, the world’s largest bell and probably a London bus too my heart sank faster than an elevator with its cable cut. The whole farrago will doubtless be embarrassing, pretentious and utterly forgettable. Just like the opening ceremony of every other Olympic games in fact.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed that our gross domestic product slowed by 0.2% over the last quarter of 2011, over the same period manufacturing shrank by 1.2%, productivity in the construction sector by 0.5% and in utilities by 4.1%. The bad times are back and they’re getting ready to roll.
Chancellor George Osborne said the figures were ‘disappointing’ but not ‘entirely unexpected because of what’s happening in the world.’ Just one of those things then eh George?, nothing at all to do with, as TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber put it, the government’s economic strategy having gone ‘horribly wrong’ and as a result ‘failing to tackle the deficit, causing unemployment to spiral out of control’ and potentially ‘dragging the country back into recession.’
At Prime Ministers Question in the commons this week Labour leader Ed Milliband accused David Cameron of showing ‘total arrogance’ in his handling of the economy and asked just what would it take to shake government out of its ‘complacency’ over the situation we find ourselves in. In reply the prime minister recited his usual litany about Labour’s reckless spending being a recipe for wrecking the economy, driving up interest rates and making things ‘much worse.’
So is David Cameron complacent about the economic pain being experienced by individuals and families across the land? You bet he is; and so are the rest of his party.
The complacency can be seen in Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith blithely saying that families who have their housing benefit taken away ‘may have to move somewhere else’, as if social housing wasn’t just a little more rare than powdered unicorn’s horn. It can be seen in the fatuous (pun very much intended) Eric Pickles telling local authorities they have a ‘moral duty’ to keep council tax down even though vital public services are under threat due to savage cuts in government funding.
Most of all though the complacency of this government can be seen in the elegantly self satisfied person of David Cameron himself standing at the despatch box batting away any suggestion that it might be time to think again about how far and how fast the cuts are being made like the captain of the Eton first XI. Granted he has known his share of misfortune, but this Oxbridge educated scion of inherited wealth has no idea of what it feels like to lie awake wondering how to pay the bills and it shows in his every word and deed.
I’m not sure identifying this fact at PMQ’s means all that much though. Ed Milliband might have started turning better performances there of late but his weekly squabble with the PM is pretty much divorced from the experience of most Britons. Anyway denouncing the government’s cuts rings a little hollow when you have committed to following their spending plans if you win the next election; more cynical triangulation than principled opposition.
The uncomfortable truth is that on a straight fight over economics Labour has little chance of beating the Tories. What Labour need to do is to start talking seriously about an alternative to the dreary status quo of British politics.
They need to make common cause with the growing number of people who are looking for another and fairer way of organising society. The communities who are clubbing together to buy their village pub or using derelict land to grow organic vegetables; the young people who were so energised by the ‘occupy’ movement because for the first time in their lives it treated them like engaged partners rather than passive consumers.
Doing so won’t be easy; Ed Milliband or his successor will have to match the complacency of the government and the cynicism of the media with genuine political courage and an understanding that to bring about meaningful you have to be prepared to play the long game. If this doesn’t happen and instead Labour continues looking for a way of delivering kinder cuts that those on offer from the government then identifying the complacency of its leadership is meaningless.
A bulldog amongst butterflies
Andy Murray has gone back to being a ‘surly Scot’ as opposed to a ‘plucky Brit’ after his defeat in the semi-final of the Australian Open at the hands of Novak Jockovic.
For some reason the public have never warmed to Andy Murray, perhaps his aggression, ambition and the fact that he plays tennis like an Australian or an American; meaning to win, rubs us up the wrong way. We seem to prefer our tennis stars to be well spoken suburban social butterflies rather than snarling British bulldogs.
The things that seem to annoy us most about Andy Murray though probably give him the best chance of winning Wimbledon, better certainly than those of the other British player who all fluttered out to the competition on day one.
It’s never too late to learn Harry.
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp told the court trying him for tax evasion this week that he couldn’t spell and that he writes like a two year old. This isn’t, of course, in itself an excuse for committing what is a serious offence, but, perhaps, it should make us look upon him a little more kindly.
It must have taken courage to admit to his literacy problems in a court of law knowing every word he said would be reported by the media. If the verdict goes the way the evidence revealed so far suggests Mr Redknapp’s reputation and chances of managing England will be wrecked. He might though be able to go some way towards rebuilding the former by fronting a campaign to encourage other men of his age to get help with their literacy problems.
Isles of piffle
I made a new year’s resolution not to write a single word about the Olympics, January isn’t over and I’ve broken it already.
When it was announced this week that the theme for the opening ceremony it to be the ‘Isles of Wonder’ and will feature a parade of NHS nurses, the world’s largest bell and probably a London bus too my heart sank faster than an elevator with its cable cut. The whole farrago will doubtless be embarrassing, pretentious and utterly forgettable. Just like the opening ceremony of every other Olympic games in fact.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
How many jobs will robbing workers of their rights create Vince? None.
Business Secretary Vince Cable, one of the sadder Liberal Democrat barnacles clinging to the hull of the coalition, has launched a ‘call for evidence’ on reforming employment law.
Up for grabs are ideas such as allowing businesses to cut the consultation period for making redundancies from ninety days to just thirty, making it harder for workers to take their employers to an industrial tribunal and the introduction of ‘protected conversations’ between managers and staff. This last means that employers would be allowed to discuss sensitive issues such as retirement or performance with staff without, as Dan Watkins of Contract Law told politics.co.uk this week, ‘fear of their every word being used against them in a tribunal.’
Perish the thought; actually the thought I seem to have had most about ‘protected conversations’ is that like ‘protective custody’ any exercise of power needing to be disguised by a mealy mouthed euphemism is unlikely to be a good thing. As Brendan Barber of the TUC put it ‘protected conversations’ could provide the ‘perfect cover for rogue bosses to bully at whim without fear of being found out.’
Am I the only person out there who thinks this call for evidence seems more like a fishing trip to see what the government can get away with?
If so some of the things they’d like to get away with are very nasty indeed, take for example the proposal put forward by Adrian Beecroft, a big time donor to the Tories, that ‘unproductive’ employees should lose their right to claim unfair dismissal. The Lib Dems managed to kick that idea into the long grass a while ago; I doubt it will stay there though.
The purpose of this assault on hard won rights for working people is dressed up under the dubious term ‘reform’ is, according to Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce to create a situation where ‘firms won’t have to waste time and money and can focus on running their business and delivering growth.’ Yes, naughty workers always wanting their pesky rights and gobbling up money their bosses could be paying themselves.
Hang on a moment though, will turning the clock back on employment law really kick start the economy? Chukka Umunna, shadow Business Secretary doesn’t think so and told the press this week that ‘watering down people’s rights at work is not a substitute for a credible plan for growth.’ He may have the misfortune to labour under the tag of being the ‘British Obama’ and being named as a potential future leader of a party that has lost its way big time, but on this issue Mr Umunna has a valid point.
There are a great many things the government could do to help businesses, simplifying the tax system in return for companies investing a slice of the money saved in long term job creation; speeding up the planning system for companies that move to areas where jobs are scarce for example. You might notice something about these ideas; they all involve an element of working in partnership; both sides giving a little to meet in a mutually advantageous middle.
That approach is something successful businesses and healthy societies understand implicitly. If the relationship between employers and employees is one of ‘us’ and ‘them’ with both camps armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight sooner or later everybody loses out.
Anyway should we be dismantling rights for people in work, and for those looking for work thanks to the harshest welfare reforms for decades, in the name of promoting growth; might growth itself be something of a chimera? Natural resources and human capability are finite; the real challenge of the century ahead is to find a way of sharing what we have fairly rather than endlessly chasing after more.
Yet again the government has proved to be drawing its policies from a 1980’s playbook. Demonize the unions, shout at the poor that they just aren’t trying hard enough and attack anything connected to ‘rights’, the public will lap it up; maybe not. Times have changed, if small businesses are going to drive the recovery, and they surely are, then promoting partnership working will matter more than making it easier for bosses to fire staff on a whim.
That the government led by David Cameron can’t see that explains why they can’t some up with a Plan B for the economy and why what we need to get Britain back in business isn’t fewer rights for workers; what we need is a new government.
Up for grabs are ideas such as allowing businesses to cut the consultation period for making redundancies from ninety days to just thirty, making it harder for workers to take their employers to an industrial tribunal and the introduction of ‘protected conversations’ between managers and staff. This last means that employers would be allowed to discuss sensitive issues such as retirement or performance with staff without, as Dan Watkins of Contract Law told politics.co.uk this week, ‘fear of their every word being used against them in a tribunal.’
Perish the thought; actually the thought I seem to have had most about ‘protected conversations’ is that like ‘protective custody’ any exercise of power needing to be disguised by a mealy mouthed euphemism is unlikely to be a good thing. As Brendan Barber of the TUC put it ‘protected conversations’ could provide the ‘perfect cover for rogue bosses to bully at whim without fear of being found out.’
Am I the only person out there who thinks this call for evidence seems more like a fishing trip to see what the government can get away with?
If so some of the things they’d like to get away with are very nasty indeed, take for example the proposal put forward by Adrian Beecroft, a big time donor to the Tories, that ‘unproductive’ employees should lose their right to claim unfair dismissal. The Lib Dems managed to kick that idea into the long grass a while ago; I doubt it will stay there though.
The purpose of this assault on hard won rights for working people is dressed up under the dubious term ‘reform’ is, according to Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce to create a situation where ‘firms won’t have to waste time and money and can focus on running their business and delivering growth.’ Yes, naughty workers always wanting their pesky rights and gobbling up money their bosses could be paying themselves.
Hang on a moment though, will turning the clock back on employment law really kick start the economy? Chukka Umunna, shadow Business Secretary doesn’t think so and told the press this week that ‘watering down people’s rights at work is not a substitute for a credible plan for growth.’ He may have the misfortune to labour under the tag of being the ‘British Obama’ and being named as a potential future leader of a party that has lost its way big time, but on this issue Mr Umunna has a valid point.
There are a great many things the government could do to help businesses, simplifying the tax system in return for companies investing a slice of the money saved in long term job creation; speeding up the planning system for companies that move to areas where jobs are scarce for example. You might notice something about these ideas; they all involve an element of working in partnership; both sides giving a little to meet in a mutually advantageous middle.
That approach is something successful businesses and healthy societies understand implicitly. If the relationship between employers and employees is one of ‘us’ and ‘them’ with both camps armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight sooner or later everybody loses out.
Anyway should we be dismantling rights for people in work, and for those looking for work thanks to the harshest welfare reforms for decades, in the name of promoting growth; might growth itself be something of a chimera? Natural resources and human capability are finite; the real challenge of the century ahead is to find a way of sharing what we have fairly rather than endlessly chasing after more.
Yet again the government has proved to be drawing its policies from a 1980’s playbook. Demonize the unions, shout at the poor that they just aren’t trying hard enough and attack anything connected to ‘rights’, the public will lap it up; maybe not. Times have changed, if small businesses are going to drive the recovery, and they surely are, then promoting partnership working will matter more than making it easier for bosses to fire staff on a whim.
That the government led by David Cameron can’t see that explains why they can’t some up with a Plan B for the economy and why what we need to get Britain back in business isn’t fewer rights for workers; what we need is a new government.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Were August’s riots just a taste of what is to come?
This week the first academic analysis of the riots in London, Birmingham and several other cities at the end of the summer was published; I doubt David Cameron will care all that much for what it has to say.
In ‘Mad Mobs and Englishmen’ Steve Reicher and Clifford Scott of, respectively, the universities of St Andrews and Liverpool predict that a refusal on the part of politician to pay attention to the real causes of the riots could make such social disorder more likely. They reject the knee jerk reaction that ‘straightforward criminality’ was solely to blame for the riots, claiming the real trigger was a sense of grievance and lack of opportunity felt by a growing number of young people.
Speaking to politics.co.uk Professor Reicher said the riots began because ‘police failed to engage with local communities’ and that when politicians responded by calling for ‘water cannon and curfews’ to be deployed next time they risked ‘making a bad situation still worse.’ He went on to say that politicians could learn ‘much about our society if we stop, listen and learn from what people did on those four nights in August.’
His concerns were shared by Mark Seddon, director of the People’s Pledge campaign, who said in an interview given to politics.co.uk that more unrest on the streets was possible if nothing was done to address the ‘democratic deficit’, adding that there was a real risk that ‘the state response will become more violent as the riots become more violent.’
Elsewhere director general of the CBI John Cridland warned this week that the UK economy was in a ‘bad place’ and that efforts by businesses to turn things around were being hampered by the speed with which the government was implementing its austerity policies. As understatements go that deserves some kind of prize, this week number of people out of work rose to 2.62 million, 1.02million of whom are aged 16 to 24; far from curing our economic woes austerity seems to be making things worse and could cause government borrowing to reach £100 billion above target by 2015.
In a speech to the Social Market Foundation reported by the BBC this week Labour leader Ed Milliband said that given the harm being done to the economy and to society by their policies it would be ‘the height of irresponsibility for the government to carry on regardless.’ He went on to urge them to ‘change course for the sake of our young people, change course for the sake of the country.’
Even the dear old Church of England got in on the act with eighteen bishops signing a letter printed in today’s Observer calling for the government to reconsider its plans for welfare reform because they risk tipping thousands of families into poverty. It is the sort of comment the church should have been making when the Occupy protest camp first appeared on its doorstep; but better late than never.
The unfortunate truth though is that none of this, not the reasoned analysis of academics, or the politely heartfelt concerns of senior clerics, or the appeal from the leader of the opposition to put the good of the country ahead of party politics will penetrate the shell of indifference surrounding the government. David Cameron and George Osborne have painted themselves into a corner over the economy and fixing ‘broken Britain’ and lack the strength of character to find a way out.
Instead we are treated to comments such as the following from Tory Party Chair Michael Fallon who told the BBC that ‘rather than speculation whether businesses are good and bad Ed Milliband should set out a credible plan to clear up the mess Labour left behind.’ Yes that’ll solve the problem, another spat at the despatch box between George Osborne and Ed Balls over who is to blame for the deficit; it won’t be at all like playing pass the parcel with a time bomb will it?
In his conference speech David Cameron twittered on at length about ‘leadership’; I doubt he knows what the word means, he certainly hasn’t shown any. If he were serious about solving the problems afflicting our society and economy he would be working to bring the three main political parties, business leaders, the unions and anyone else with a stake in Britain’s future together to address the problems we face and to find a solution that is to the benefit of everyone.
That is what real coalition government is about, not using scare tactic to prop up a first past the post electoral system that disenfranchises millions of voters and using the introduction of IER to rob millions more of their vote altogether; not roaring like a lion at the people tagged as the ‘underclass’ by the tabloid press then mewling like a kitten frightened by a thunderstorm whenever he deals with the city or the banks. He lacks the courage and understanding of the fears of ordinary Britons to do so and so in its place we will get instead is a vicious cycle of riots and retribution that in the end will harm everyone.
In ‘Mad Mobs and Englishmen’ Steve Reicher and Clifford Scott of, respectively, the universities of St Andrews and Liverpool predict that a refusal on the part of politician to pay attention to the real causes of the riots could make such social disorder more likely. They reject the knee jerk reaction that ‘straightforward criminality’ was solely to blame for the riots, claiming the real trigger was a sense of grievance and lack of opportunity felt by a growing number of young people.
Speaking to politics.co.uk Professor Reicher said the riots began because ‘police failed to engage with local communities’ and that when politicians responded by calling for ‘water cannon and curfews’ to be deployed next time they risked ‘making a bad situation still worse.’ He went on to say that politicians could learn ‘much about our society if we stop, listen and learn from what people did on those four nights in August.’
His concerns were shared by Mark Seddon, director of the People’s Pledge campaign, who said in an interview given to politics.co.uk that more unrest on the streets was possible if nothing was done to address the ‘democratic deficit’, adding that there was a real risk that ‘the state response will become more violent as the riots become more violent.’
Elsewhere director general of the CBI John Cridland warned this week that the UK economy was in a ‘bad place’ and that efforts by businesses to turn things around were being hampered by the speed with which the government was implementing its austerity policies. As understatements go that deserves some kind of prize, this week number of people out of work rose to 2.62 million, 1.02million of whom are aged 16 to 24; far from curing our economic woes austerity seems to be making things worse and could cause government borrowing to reach £100 billion above target by 2015.
In a speech to the Social Market Foundation reported by the BBC this week Labour leader Ed Milliband said that given the harm being done to the economy and to society by their policies it would be ‘the height of irresponsibility for the government to carry on regardless.’ He went on to urge them to ‘change course for the sake of our young people, change course for the sake of the country.’
Even the dear old Church of England got in on the act with eighteen bishops signing a letter printed in today’s Observer calling for the government to reconsider its plans for welfare reform because they risk tipping thousands of families into poverty. It is the sort of comment the church should have been making when the Occupy protest camp first appeared on its doorstep; but better late than never.
The unfortunate truth though is that none of this, not the reasoned analysis of academics, or the politely heartfelt concerns of senior clerics, or the appeal from the leader of the opposition to put the good of the country ahead of party politics will penetrate the shell of indifference surrounding the government. David Cameron and George Osborne have painted themselves into a corner over the economy and fixing ‘broken Britain’ and lack the strength of character to find a way out.
Instead we are treated to comments such as the following from Tory Party Chair Michael Fallon who told the BBC that ‘rather than speculation whether businesses are good and bad Ed Milliband should set out a credible plan to clear up the mess Labour left behind.’ Yes that’ll solve the problem, another spat at the despatch box between George Osborne and Ed Balls over who is to blame for the deficit; it won’t be at all like playing pass the parcel with a time bomb will it?
In his conference speech David Cameron twittered on at length about ‘leadership’; I doubt he knows what the word means, he certainly hasn’t shown any. If he were serious about solving the problems afflicting our society and economy he would be working to bring the three main political parties, business leaders, the unions and anyone else with a stake in Britain’s future together to address the problems we face and to find a solution that is to the benefit of everyone.
That is what real coalition government is about, not using scare tactic to prop up a first past the post electoral system that disenfranchises millions of voters and using the introduction of IER to rob millions more of their vote altogether; not roaring like a lion at the people tagged as the ‘underclass’ by the tabloid press then mewling like a kitten frightened by a thunderstorm whenever he deals with the city or the banks. He lacks the courage and understanding of the fears of ordinary Britons to do so and so in its place we will get instead is a vicious cycle of riots and retribution that in the end will harm everyone.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Far from being ‘all in it together’ pay for Britain’s top directors shows they aren’t even on the same planet.
Pay for directors of the UK’s top companies has risen by 49% according to a report complied by Incomes Data Services (IDS). The average pay package for a director of a FTSE 100 company now stands at £2.7 million, this takes into account salary, benefits and bonuses and the rise is higher than that given to the chief executives of the same companies. They, the poor dears, have had to struggle along on just 43% more pay than they received last year; how have they coped eh?
Pay for most employees has risen by 2.6% over the same period and many workers have seen their pay cut or remain static. Consumer price inflation is currently running at 5.2%; for most families balancing their budget has become a circus act performed on a high wire without a safety net.
David Cameron, who has been in Australia all week attending the Commonwealth heads of government jolly in Perth, said the findings of the report were ‘concerning’ and called for greater transparency when it comes to setting pay levels for senior managers. Labour leader Ed Milliband said the levels of pay awarded to directors were evidence of the ‘something for nothing culture’ that had infected business.
Trades union leaders took a more robust line, Len McCluskey of UNITE said the government should ‘consider strongly giving shareholders greater powers to question and curb these excessive packages.’ TUC leader Brendan Barber accused directors of using ‘tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people’s living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay.’
If you were in need of evidence that we have passed through the looking glass into Wonderland the IDS report provides chapter and verse. On a weekly basis we are lectured by ‘business leaders’ of one stripe or another about the need for pay restraint and the importance of imposing brutal austerity measures on public spending as they vote themselves massive pay rises and cry for huge bonuses on top.
The reason for this, we are told with finger wagging imperiousness is that they are ‘wealth creators’, sorry; run that one by me again. The economy has stalled, unemployment is soaring and productivity figures are at an all time low; just what are this shower doing to create wealth? At best they seem to be shifting what little wealth there is into their own pockets.
About all of this the best David Cameron can find to say is that he is ‘concerned’, granted I don’t expect our PM and his Downton cabinet to string a ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ banner on the gates of Downing Street before leading a march on the stock exchange; but a somewhat more robust response does seem in order. Out in the real world people have moved beyond being ‘concerned’ to being alternately terrified and furious.
When Ed Milliband spoke about ‘predator’ and ‘producer’ forms of capitalism in his party conference speech he was accused, shamefully by some members of his own shadow cabinet, of not fully understanding economic realities. Now it looks like he might just have had a point, if not quite enough in the way of nerve when it comes to matching words to policies.
Even the union leaders, although they have proved the continued relevance of their movement, haven’t quite got the message yet. It isn’t enough just to point out that the casino capitalism of the past thirty years has failed, doing little to create wealth and even less to distribute it fairly, we need to have a genuine and for all parties often troubling debate about the sort of country we want the UK to be.
Do we want growth at all costs? Are we happy to see social mobility continue to decline for the sake of paying a little less tax? In short do we really want to all be in it together or just out for ourselves?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of the questions listed above or the dozens of others that could take their place; but, like most people outside the charmed world of the Westminster bubble I can’t see how we can deal effectively with the problems Britain faces if we don’t start asking them soon.
Pay for most employees has risen by 2.6% over the same period and many workers have seen their pay cut or remain static. Consumer price inflation is currently running at 5.2%; for most families balancing their budget has become a circus act performed on a high wire without a safety net.
David Cameron, who has been in Australia all week attending the Commonwealth heads of government jolly in Perth, said the findings of the report were ‘concerning’ and called for greater transparency when it comes to setting pay levels for senior managers. Labour leader Ed Milliband said the levels of pay awarded to directors were evidence of the ‘something for nothing culture’ that had infected business.
Trades union leaders took a more robust line, Len McCluskey of UNITE said the government should ‘consider strongly giving shareholders greater powers to question and curb these excessive packages.’ TUC leader Brendan Barber accused directors of using ‘tough business conditions to impose real wage cuts, which have hit people’s living standards and the wider economy, but have shown no such restraint with their own pay.’
If you were in need of evidence that we have passed through the looking glass into Wonderland the IDS report provides chapter and verse. On a weekly basis we are lectured by ‘business leaders’ of one stripe or another about the need for pay restraint and the importance of imposing brutal austerity measures on public spending as they vote themselves massive pay rises and cry for huge bonuses on top.
The reason for this, we are told with finger wagging imperiousness is that they are ‘wealth creators’, sorry; run that one by me again. The economy has stalled, unemployment is soaring and productivity figures are at an all time low; just what are this shower doing to create wealth? At best they seem to be shifting what little wealth there is into their own pockets.
About all of this the best David Cameron can find to say is that he is ‘concerned’, granted I don’t expect our PM and his Downton cabinet to string a ‘Capitalism is Crisis’ banner on the gates of Downing Street before leading a march on the stock exchange; but a somewhat more robust response does seem in order. Out in the real world people have moved beyond being ‘concerned’ to being alternately terrified and furious.
When Ed Milliband spoke about ‘predator’ and ‘producer’ forms of capitalism in his party conference speech he was accused, shamefully by some members of his own shadow cabinet, of not fully understanding economic realities. Now it looks like he might just have had a point, if not quite enough in the way of nerve when it comes to matching words to policies.
Even the union leaders, although they have proved the continued relevance of their movement, haven’t quite got the message yet. It isn’t enough just to point out that the casino capitalism of the past thirty years has failed, doing little to create wealth and even less to distribute it fairly, we need to have a genuine and for all parties often troubling debate about the sort of country we want the UK to be.
Do we want growth at all costs? Are we happy to see social mobility continue to decline for the sake of paying a little less tax? In short do we really want to all be in it together or just out for ourselves?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to any of the questions listed above or the dozens of others that could take their place; but, like most people outside the charmed world of the Westminster bubble I can’t see how we can deal effectively with the problems Britain faces if we don’t start asking them soon.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Austerity isn’t working.
The party conference season is over and the political circus has packed up the bunting along with its hangovers and trooped back to Westminster as the leaves begin to turn. If there is a nip in the air this year it has as much to do with the state of the economy as the arrival of autumn.
Unemployment figures released on Wednesday show that the number of people out of work has risen by 114,000 to 2.57 million, reaching its highest level since the mid nineties. Part time workers have been hit hard as have the young with youth unemployment rising to 991,000, meaning that 21.3% of 16 to 24 year olds are without a job.
Alan Clarke, an economist for Scotia Capital, told politics.co.uk the spike in unemployment ‘shouldn’t come as a surprise because the economy is growing at half the pace it needs to unemployment stable.’ Things are likely to only get worse with huge cuts in the public sector workforce and a failure on the part of the private sector to make up the jobs lost with fresh recruitment.
Labour leader Ed Milliband has called for an emergency budget to deal with the effects of the looming economic crisis saying the government needed to show a ‘greater sense of urgency’ and that its deficit reduction plans risk sending ‘our economy into a tailspin.’
In a speech made at a college in Southend this week he called for a plan for jobs to be implemented that would feature, amongst other elements, a one off tax on banker’s bonuses the proceeds from which would be used to create 100,000 jobs for young people; investment in large infrastructure projects that would create jobs and demand for services and tax breaks for small firms that take on extra staff.
The was, Mr Milliband said, ‘an economic emergency’ and that through its economic policies the government had shown itself to be out of touch ‘with what is happening in Britain’s factories, its high streets and its homes.’
The response from Tory MP Matthew Hancock, a former advisor to Chancellor George Osborne, was both predictable and cynical. He told the BBC that Labour had ‘abandoned the Darling plan and now freely admit they would just keep spending on the taxpayers credit card’, he added to this a jibe that just as ‘you wouldn’t bring Fred Goodwin back to run the banks, so why would you bring Ed Balls back to sort out the economy.’
I am, it is fair to say, not the most enthusiastic of cheerleaders for Red Ed, not least because most of the time he is barely pink at best; but his assessment of the damage being done to the economy and society by an arrogant and out of touch government is spot on. Quite how wide the gulf between the antics of our leaders and the experience of most Britons has become is amply demonstrated by the behaviour of Liam Fox and Oliver Letwin.
I don’t much want to join in the schoolyard game of nudging and winking that has been played by the press all week over the relationship between erstwhile Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Adam Weritty, a close friend who pretended to be one of his ministerial advisors in a political equivalent of saying ‘I’m with the band’ as a way of blagging stuff for free. What angers me and I suspect most people is the though of the not so fantastic Mr Fox and his VBF trotting the globe at the public expense while at the same time service people returning from Afghanistan were being handed redundancy notices along with their campaign medals.
As for the antics of ‘Posh Ollie’ Letwin, who it was revealed this week likes to read his ministerial correspondence in the park and then drop it in the bin because carrying all those confidential papers back to the office is the most awful fag, it is all too clear what has been going on. This is the latest incident in the gaffe prone career of a man who thinks his, alleged, intellect frees him from having to apply common sense to what he says or does. There are occasions when eccentricity can be a sign of brilliance; here though it is just a symptom of pathological self indulgence.
Far worse that this is the divorce from reality that has been occasioned by the vanity of the Prime Minister and the cynical ambition on his Chancellor, which could, in time, prove to be every bit as damaging as the decade long feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
David Cameron spends his time strutting the world stage pretending to be a world statesman whilst ignoring the growing problems in the UK, apart that is, from when he feels the urge to do his patronising ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ routine in the name of the ‘big society.’ George Osborne is sticking to his damaging deficit reduction plans not out of an intellectual commitment to their economic accuracy, which by the way seems to be disproved at least twice every week, as a cynical belief that if rather than when the coalition collapses and the Tory grassroots decide it is time for Citizen Dave to spend more time with his ego he will be ideally placed to sweep to power as the heir to the Iron Lady.
This is a government charged with leading our country through the worst economic crisis the world has faced since the thirties and at its heart is a toxic mix of arrogance, entitlement and jockeying for position. Across Europe young people are rioting in the streets because they have had their future stolen, but the political elite are carrying on as if nothing has changed. An austerity package implemented by these people is a recipe for disaster.
Years ago I used to drink in a bar that had by its exit a sign reminding leaving customers ‘You are now entering grim reality’; maybe it is time someone put a similar sign up in David Cameron’s office. He could get his new friend Tracy Emin to make one out of her old knickers if he likes anything so long as the message gets through that life for most people is getting harder by the day. Time to face the facts Dave, austerity isn’t working and you are leading a complacent government into an dangerous era.
Unemployment figures released on Wednesday show that the number of people out of work has risen by 114,000 to 2.57 million, reaching its highest level since the mid nineties. Part time workers have been hit hard as have the young with youth unemployment rising to 991,000, meaning that 21.3% of 16 to 24 year olds are without a job.
Alan Clarke, an economist for Scotia Capital, told politics.co.uk the spike in unemployment ‘shouldn’t come as a surprise because the economy is growing at half the pace it needs to unemployment stable.’ Things are likely to only get worse with huge cuts in the public sector workforce and a failure on the part of the private sector to make up the jobs lost with fresh recruitment.
Labour leader Ed Milliband has called for an emergency budget to deal with the effects of the looming economic crisis saying the government needed to show a ‘greater sense of urgency’ and that its deficit reduction plans risk sending ‘our economy into a tailspin.’
In a speech made at a college in Southend this week he called for a plan for jobs to be implemented that would feature, amongst other elements, a one off tax on banker’s bonuses the proceeds from which would be used to create 100,000 jobs for young people; investment in large infrastructure projects that would create jobs and demand for services and tax breaks for small firms that take on extra staff.
The was, Mr Milliband said, ‘an economic emergency’ and that through its economic policies the government had shown itself to be out of touch ‘with what is happening in Britain’s factories, its high streets and its homes.’
The response from Tory MP Matthew Hancock, a former advisor to Chancellor George Osborne, was both predictable and cynical. He told the BBC that Labour had ‘abandoned the Darling plan and now freely admit they would just keep spending on the taxpayers credit card’, he added to this a jibe that just as ‘you wouldn’t bring Fred Goodwin back to run the banks, so why would you bring Ed Balls back to sort out the economy.’
I am, it is fair to say, not the most enthusiastic of cheerleaders for Red Ed, not least because most of the time he is barely pink at best; but his assessment of the damage being done to the economy and society by an arrogant and out of touch government is spot on. Quite how wide the gulf between the antics of our leaders and the experience of most Britons has become is amply demonstrated by the behaviour of Liam Fox and Oliver Letwin.
I don’t much want to join in the schoolyard game of nudging and winking that has been played by the press all week over the relationship between erstwhile Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Adam Weritty, a close friend who pretended to be one of his ministerial advisors in a political equivalent of saying ‘I’m with the band’ as a way of blagging stuff for free. What angers me and I suspect most people is the though of the not so fantastic Mr Fox and his VBF trotting the globe at the public expense while at the same time service people returning from Afghanistan were being handed redundancy notices along with their campaign medals.
As for the antics of ‘Posh Ollie’ Letwin, who it was revealed this week likes to read his ministerial correspondence in the park and then drop it in the bin because carrying all those confidential papers back to the office is the most awful fag, it is all too clear what has been going on. This is the latest incident in the gaffe prone career of a man who thinks his, alleged, intellect frees him from having to apply common sense to what he says or does. There are occasions when eccentricity can be a sign of brilliance; here though it is just a symptom of pathological self indulgence.
Far worse that this is the divorce from reality that has been occasioned by the vanity of the Prime Minister and the cynical ambition on his Chancellor, which could, in time, prove to be every bit as damaging as the decade long feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
David Cameron spends his time strutting the world stage pretending to be a world statesman whilst ignoring the growing problems in the UK, apart that is, from when he feels the urge to do his patronising ‘somewhere over the rainbow’ routine in the name of the ‘big society.’ George Osborne is sticking to his damaging deficit reduction plans not out of an intellectual commitment to their economic accuracy, which by the way seems to be disproved at least twice every week, as a cynical belief that if rather than when the coalition collapses and the Tory grassroots decide it is time for Citizen Dave to spend more time with his ego he will be ideally placed to sweep to power as the heir to the Iron Lady.
This is a government charged with leading our country through the worst economic crisis the world has faced since the thirties and at its heart is a toxic mix of arrogance, entitlement and jockeying for position. Across Europe young people are rioting in the streets because they have had their future stolen, but the political elite are carrying on as if nothing has changed. An austerity package implemented by these people is a recipe for disaster.
Years ago I used to drink in a bar that had by its exit a sign reminding leaving customers ‘You are now entering grim reality’; maybe it is time someone put a similar sign up in David Cameron’s office. He could get his new friend Tracy Emin to make one out of her old knickers if he likes anything so long as the message gets through that life for most people is getting harder by the day. Time to face the facts Dave, austerity isn’t working and you are leading a complacent government into an dangerous era.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
As the economy stumbles its time for some REAL blue skies thinking from Downing Street
The sun is shining, the politicians have skipped town for the summer recess and the silly season is upon us, which must be why the latest wheeze from Steve Hilton, the Prime Ministers ‘blue skies’ advisor has received so much media coverage.
Steve Hilton is what you might call the ‘holy fool’ of the Cameron government, a trendy type given to wearing t-shirts to the office and, allegedly, going barefoot through the corridors of power. Anyway his big plan for kick starting our moribund economy is, drum roll if you please; scrapping maternity leave.
The thinking, such as it is, behind the plan is that businesses are put off hiring female workers because they might one day want to have time off the have a family. I’m sure this is true too; well it is if the businesses in question are trading in a 1970’s time warp. Its all very well your wanting to be CEO of ICI, but how are you going to have your hubby’s tea on the table when he gets home if you get the job, really my dear you haven’t thought this through at all.
Not thinking things through, it seems, is an experience with which Steve Hilton is all too familiar himself. As a government insider told the Financial Times this week ‘some of his ideas are great but a lot of time is spent at an official level trying to deconstruct his maddest ideas.’
Mr Hilton mad, surely not? Wanting the government to invest in technology to blow away the clouds and make the UK a sunnier and happier place is sanity incarnate. The road to madness surely lies in supporting the barmy ‘Big Society’ project, oh hang on a minute, turns out Steve Hilton does support it and really has got the t-shirt to prove it; maybe he is barking mad after all.
There is no doubt that the UK economy needs something to lift it out of the doldrums. This week the Office for National Statistics published figures showing that growth had slumped to just 0.2%, even taking into account the effects of the Japanese earthquake, the Royal Wedding and a wet summer things look pretty bad.
At least they do to everyone but the two men who matter most, David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne. The Prime Minister is reportedly worried by the poor performance of the economy; the Chancellor though seems able to see sunshine and flowers where the rest of us see only trouble and strife.
On Tuesday he told the press that ‘the positive news is that the British economy is continuing to grow.’ Well up to a point Chancellor, in roughly the same way that someone who has only gone down twice can claim to be still swimming rather than drowning.
The opposition has poured criticism over the government’s raising of VAT to 20% and the breakneck speed with which it is cutting public spending.
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said that the Chancellor’s ‘rash decision to hike up VAT in January and to cut further and faster than any other major nation has caused confidence to fall and the economy to flatline since the autumn.’
Brendan Barber of the Trades Union Council said ‘A target of eliminating the deficit in just four years always looked as if it came from what others might call ‘right wing nutters’ than sensible economics.’ Making along the way a thinly veiled reference to Business Secretary Vince Cable’s accurate, if not exactly diplomatic, assessment of the Tea Party and their contribution to the debate over America’s own debt problems.
He went on to add that the UK economy needs a ‘Plan B based on growth and investment’ if we are to avoid another catastrophic recession.
None of this criticism seems to have reached the ivory tower inhabited by the Chancellor who believes despite all evidence to the contrary that ‘our economy is stable because the government has taken the difficult decision to get to grips with Britain’s debts.’
Could it be that Steve Hilton isn’t the most deluded man in Downing Street after all? The austerity sold to the British public as the only option to avoid the fate of Greece and Ireland turns out to be holding back the growth without which we cannot hope to clear our debts. Who’d have thought it eh? Not the Oxford educated man in charge of the country’s economy it seems.
The problems faced by the UK economy are real and require a radical solution; some real blue skies thinking if you like. They require us to address the long avoided question of which matters most, economic growth or the health of our society?
If it’s the former, fine cut away; but don’t call out for help if you fall ill, lose your job or become a victim of crime because there will be nobody there to help. If it’s the latter then we will all have to accept, in the short term at least, having fewer gadgets but a much stronger society.
John Maynard Keynes famously said that when the facts changed he changed his mind. The facts of the economic picture have changed, if inflexible ideology beats common sense and the ability to strike a compromise next week causing the world’s largest economy to sneeze the rest of us might just catch pneumonia.
A Downing Street advisor with the ability to think clearly, about blue skies or anything else, would be advising David Cameron to show some real leadership and order his Chancellor to follow Keynes’s example and change his mind about how to deal with the economy before it is too late.
Steve Hilton is what you might call the ‘holy fool’ of the Cameron government, a trendy type given to wearing t-shirts to the office and, allegedly, going barefoot through the corridors of power. Anyway his big plan for kick starting our moribund economy is, drum roll if you please; scrapping maternity leave.
The thinking, such as it is, behind the plan is that businesses are put off hiring female workers because they might one day want to have time off the have a family. I’m sure this is true too; well it is if the businesses in question are trading in a 1970’s time warp. Its all very well your wanting to be CEO of ICI, but how are you going to have your hubby’s tea on the table when he gets home if you get the job, really my dear you haven’t thought this through at all.
Not thinking things through, it seems, is an experience with which Steve Hilton is all too familiar himself. As a government insider told the Financial Times this week ‘some of his ideas are great but a lot of time is spent at an official level trying to deconstruct his maddest ideas.’
Mr Hilton mad, surely not? Wanting the government to invest in technology to blow away the clouds and make the UK a sunnier and happier place is sanity incarnate. The road to madness surely lies in supporting the barmy ‘Big Society’ project, oh hang on a minute, turns out Steve Hilton does support it and really has got the t-shirt to prove it; maybe he is barking mad after all.
There is no doubt that the UK economy needs something to lift it out of the doldrums. This week the Office for National Statistics published figures showing that growth had slumped to just 0.2%, even taking into account the effects of the Japanese earthquake, the Royal Wedding and a wet summer things look pretty bad.
At least they do to everyone but the two men who matter most, David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne. The Prime Minister is reportedly worried by the poor performance of the economy; the Chancellor though seems able to see sunshine and flowers where the rest of us see only trouble and strife.
On Tuesday he told the press that ‘the positive news is that the British economy is continuing to grow.’ Well up to a point Chancellor, in roughly the same way that someone who has only gone down twice can claim to be still swimming rather than drowning.
The opposition has poured criticism over the government’s raising of VAT to 20% and the breakneck speed with which it is cutting public spending.
Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said that the Chancellor’s ‘rash decision to hike up VAT in January and to cut further and faster than any other major nation has caused confidence to fall and the economy to flatline since the autumn.’
Brendan Barber of the Trades Union Council said ‘A target of eliminating the deficit in just four years always looked as if it came from what others might call ‘right wing nutters’ than sensible economics.’ Making along the way a thinly veiled reference to Business Secretary Vince Cable’s accurate, if not exactly diplomatic, assessment of the Tea Party and their contribution to the debate over America’s own debt problems.
He went on to add that the UK economy needs a ‘Plan B based on growth and investment’ if we are to avoid another catastrophic recession.
None of this criticism seems to have reached the ivory tower inhabited by the Chancellor who believes despite all evidence to the contrary that ‘our economy is stable because the government has taken the difficult decision to get to grips with Britain’s debts.’
Could it be that Steve Hilton isn’t the most deluded man in Downing Street after all? The austerity sold to the British public as the only option to avoid the fate of Greece and Ireland turns out to be holding back the growth without which we cannot hope to clear our debts. Who’d have thought it eh? Not the Oxford educated man in charge of the country’s economy it seems.
The problems faced by the UK economy are real and require a radical solution; some real blue skies thinking if you like. They require us to address the long avoided question of which matters most, economic growth or the health of our society?
If it’s the former, fine cut away; but don’t call out for help if you fall ill, lose your job or become a victim of crime because there will be nobody there to help. If it’s the latter then we will all have to accept, in the short term at least, having fewer gadgets but a much stronger society.
John Maynard Keynes famously said that when the facts changed he changed his mind. The facts of the economic picture have changed, if inflexible ideology beats common sense and the ability to strike a compromise next week causing the world’s largest economy to sneeze the rest of us might just catch pneumonia.
A Downing Street advisor with the ability to think clearly, about blue skies or anything else, would be advising David Cameron to show some real leadership and order his Chancellor to follow Keynes’s example and change his mind about how to deal with the economy before it is too late.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
A tale of two countries with one big problem; lifting people out of poverty
A survey carried out for the universities and College Union (UCN) and reported by the BBC this week has highlighted huge local variations in educational achievement across the UK, making Britain, in educational and economic terms, two different countries.
In Glasgow East 35% of adults have no qualifications compared to just 1.9% in the north London constituency of Brent. There are more adults without qualifications in a single Birmingham constituency (Hodge Hill) than in Cambridge, Winchester, Wimbledon, Buckingham, Romsey, Leeds North West and four other constituencies put together.
The message is stark, in the north too many people are held back from finding paid work, let alone reaching their full potential by a lack of qualifications than in the south east with a certainty that the vicious circle of low achievement and low incomes will be handed on to their children. As Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU told the BBC on Friday: ‘There is a real danger that children growing up in places where it is not unheard of to have no qualifications will have their ambition blunted and never realise their full potential.’
Although the survey finds that the areas with the best qualified workforce are generally in the south even here there are pockets of low achievement and correspondingly high levels of disadvantage. London is described as a ‘city of contrasts’ with many high achievers in wealthy areas, but significant pockets of low attainment in parts of the old east end such as Romford, Hornchurch and West Ham.
The deep regional divide in educational achievement, say the UCU, underlines the importance of improving access to education and foolishness of allowing universities to raise their tuition fees made by the coalition. In a reply reported by the BBC the Department of Education said it was using its reforms to target support towards the most disadvantaged children and was working to make qualifications more rigorous and compatible with the needs of employers.
The UCU are right to criticise the failure of a largely privately educated government to improve access to higher education for those people who don’t have the odd £9000 a year lying around to spend on putting their offspring through university. To this might be added the cruel and thoughtless decision to scrap the Educational Maintenance Allowance late last year.
It would also be fair to castigate the political establishment as a whole for its attitude to supporting the areas of the country that were his hardest when the old heavy industries collapsed in the seventies. For eighteen years the Tories largely ignored everywhere north of Watford gap because hardly anyone in the north votes Conservative; then under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the same areas were ignored again because that people there vote Labour could largely be taken for granted. Talk about a double whammy.
The blame for this sorry situation though shouldn’t just be laid at the door of the politicians; the educational establishment must take its share too. For years the focus has been on getting ever more people into university with the equally important task of providing decent vocational training has been largely ignored.
While we’re at it a large brickbat should be thrown at the nation’s employers who sing a gloomy chorus about the poor skills demonstrated by school leavers whilst being as quiet as church mice with laryngitis about their own failure to provide decent apprenticeships.
If we’re going to apportion blame though then a large slice has to land on the plate of the great British public too. We have all, to some extent, colluded in the culture of stupidity that seems to have the strongest grip on those areas of the country that most need to value education. Dim footballers are held up as role models for boys who think that reading a book makes you a geek and therefore beneath contempt; reality television force feeds girls the dangerous delusion that what they look like on the outside matters more than what is inside their heads.
In parts of the country that have been battered by the changes undergone by the economy over the past thirty years parents have to realise that education matters, however hard it may be to do so they have to drum into their children’s that being illiterate when you’re forty is way less cool than being thought a geek for trying hard at school.
Despite the best efforts of New Labour and now the coalition to persuade people otherwise education is best organised and delivered by the state because this is the only way of ensuring fairness; but the willingness to learn has to come from the participants and if it is missing the system fails. In the sort of working class communities that have been hit hardest by economic change in recent years there used to be a proud tradition of valuing education both as a way out of poverty and of broadening horizons the owners of capital would like to keep a narrow as possible, it is a tradition they must rediscover if they are to prosper again.
In Glasgow East 35% of adults have no qualifications compared to just 1.9% in the north London constituency of Brent. There are more adults without qualifications in a single Birmingham constituency (Hodge Hill) than in Cambridge, Winchester, Wimbledon, Buckingham, Romsey, Leeds North West and four other constituencies put together.
The message is stark, in the north too many people are held back from finding paid work, let alone reaching their full potential by a lack of qualifications than in the south east with a certainty that the vicious circle of low achievement and low incomes will be handed on to their children. As Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU told the BBC on Friday: ‘There is a real danger that children growing up in places where it is not unheard of to have no qualifications will have their ambition blunted and never realise their full potential.’
Although the survey finds that the areas with the best qualified workforce are generally in the south even here there are pockets of low achievement and correspondingly high levels of disadvantage. London is described as a ‘city of contrasts’ with many high achievers in wealthy areas, but significant pockets of low attainment in parts of the old east end such as Romford, Hornchurch and West Ham.
The deep regional divide in educational achievement, say the UCU, underlines the importance of improving access to education and foolishness of allowing universities to raise their tuition fees made by the coalition. In a reply reported by the BBC the Department of Education said it was using its reforms to target support towards the most disadvantaged children and was working to make qualifications more rigorous and compatible with the needs of employers.
The UCU are right to criticise the failure of a largely privately educated government to improve access to higher education for those people who don’t have the odd £9000 a year lying around to spend on putting their offspring through university. To this might be added the cruel and thoughtless decision to scrap the Educational Maintenance Allowance late last year.
It would also be fair to castigate the political establishment as a whole for its attitude to supporting the areas of the country that were his hardest when the old heavy industries collapsed in the seventies. For eighteen years the Tories largely ignored everywhere north of Watford gap because hardly anyone in the north votes Conservative; then under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the same areas were ignored again because that people there vote Labour could largely be taken for granted. Talk about a double whammy.
The blame for this sorry situation though shouldn’t just be laid at the door of the politicians; the educational establishment must take its share too. For years the focus has been on getting ever more people into university with the equally important task of providing decent vocational training has been largely ignored.
While we’re at it a large brickbat should be thrown at the nation’s employers who sing a gloomy chorus about the poor skills demonstrated by school leavers whilst being as quiet as church mice with laryngitis about their own failure to provide decent apprenticeships.
If we’re going to apportion blame though then a large slice has to land on the plate of the great British public too. We have all, to some extent, colluded in the culture of stupidity that seems to have the strongest grip on those areas of the country that most need to value education. Dim footballers are held up as role models for boys who think that reading a book makes you a geek and therefore beneath contempt; reality television force feeds girls the dangerous delusion that what they look like on the outside matters more than what is inside their heads.
In parts of the country that have been battered by the changes undergone by the economy over the past thirty years parents have to realise that education matters, however hard it may be to do so they have to drum into their children’s that being illiterate when you’re forty is way less cool than being thought a geek for trying hard at school.
Despite the best efforts of New Labour and now the coalition to persuade people otherwise education is best organised and delivered by the state because this is the only way of ensuring fairness; but the willingness to learn has to come from the participants and if it is missing the system fails. In the sort of working class communities that have been hit hardest by economic change in recent years there used to be a proud tradition of valuing education both as a way out of poverty and of broadening horizons the owners of capital would like to keep a narrow as possible, it is a tradition they must rediscover if they are to prosper again.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
A light in our darkness- maybe.
If you’re willing to ignore the mutterings of the pessimists who say it will only turn out to be the headlamp of an oncoming train it seems the UK might be beginning to see a little light at the end of the long, dark recessionary tunnel we entered when Northern Rock collapsed in the Autumn of 2007.
This week the Institute of Chartered Accountants reported that its index of business confidence had risen to 4.8% and predicted that the UK economy would grow by 0.05% in the second quarter of 2009. Chief Executive Michael Izza said: ‘This quarter’s business confidence monitor suggests the UK recession is at an end,’ although he warned against ‘underestimating’ the challenges ahead it looks like the good times may be about to start rolling again.
An impression further confirmed by the announcement by Ben Bernake of the US Federal Reserve that the world’s largest economy looked set to join Germany, France and Japan in emerging from recession before the year is out.
So, I ask myself, why aren’t we all out dancing in the streets or at the very least dusting off our credit cards and heading for the shops? The answer is because it isn’t that simple.
Growing confidence amongst business professionals and the emergence of major economies from recession are good things but real people care about and are influenced by much more than just the economy stupid. A number of other factors mean that the good times aren’t going to start rolling any time soon for a large number of Britons.
If, like me you live in a town that has lost the industries that were its sole reason for existing over the past thirty years the recession didn’t begin in 2007, it began around the time Denis Healey went to the IMF with his cap in his hand.
You will also have received the figure released this week that 3.3 million homes in the UK have no adults in work not as an indictment of a too generous welfare state, but as a stark reminder of how many lives are blighted by poverty and a lack of purpose.
While it is good news that business leaders feel more confident and that Lord Turner has started the debate about tightening the way the city of London is regulated, although it would be a mistake to think said debate should end with his rather student union proposals for banning ‘socially useless’ banking activities, real steps will have to be taken to mend our fractured society before the man and woman in the street feel a similar boost in their confidence levels. As Churchill might have put it, this isn’t the beginning of the end of the recession so much as the end of the beginning of our journey along a long and difficult road.
Big Brother, we’re not watching you.
There is at least one thing about which the joy of all right thinking people can be unconfined this week, Big Brother the granddaddy of all reality television programmes has been axed. Makers Endemol said the 2010 series would be the last citing falling ratings and the dismal nature of the current crop of contestants.
Lets not be under any illusions Big Brother isn’t and never was any kind of social experiment; it was a tawdry freak show. A few of the freaks, the late Jade Goody being the most prominent example, made sizeable fortunes and achieved a larger than expected place in the nation’s affections, but they were freaks none the less and we all demeaned ourselves by taking an interest in their antics for so long.
One question remains though, what will all those self obsessed nonentities out there who want to enjoy the trappings of fame and fortune without having to trouble themselves with either working hard or having any discernable talent do now their prime outlet has disappeared? I hear there may be several hundred vacancies at an establishment very similar to the Big Brother house situated in Westminster up for grabs next May.
Poetic Justice.
The conference season will soon be upon us, made a little more interesting this year by the impending general election. Never mind fending off a challenge to his leadership from Foreign Secretary and part time Jerry Lewis impersonator David Milliband Gordon Brown looks certain to lose the election and with it the place at the top table of British politics he has dedicated his whole adult life to achieving.
A haiku published on the New Statesman’s reliably amusing competitions page summed up his predicament and that of his party perfectly, it reads as follows:
Sound of no music
Fills the upturned half-lit hall:
Yesterday’s party.
Talk about many a true word being spoken in jest.
This week the Institute of Chartered Accountants reported that its index of business confidence had risen to 4.8% and predicted that the UK economy would grow by 0.05% in the second quarter of 2009. Chief Executive Michael Izza said: ‘This quarter’s business confidence monitor suggests the UK recession is at an end,’ although he warned against ‘underestimating’ the challenges ahead it looks like the good times may be about to start rolling again.
An impression further confirmed by the announcement by Ben Bernake of the US Federal Reserve that the world’s largest economy looked set to join Germany, France and Japan in emerging from recession before the year is out.
So, I ask myself, why aren’t we all out dancing in the streets or at the very least dusting off our credit cards and heading for the shops? The answer is because it isn’t that simple.
Growing confidence amongst business professionals and the emergence of major economies from recession are good things but real people care about and are influenced by much more than just the economy stupid. A number of other factors mean that the good times aren’t going to start rolling any time soon for a large number of Britons.
If, like me you live in a town that has lost the industries that were its sole reason for existing over the past thirty years the recession didn’t begin in 2007, it began around the time Denis Healey went to the IMF with his cap in his hand.
You will also have received the figure released this week that 3.3 million homes in the UK have no adults in work not as an indictment of a too generous welfare state, but as a stark reminder of how many lives are blighted by poverty and a lack of purpose.
While it is good news that business leaders feel more confident and that Lord Turner has started the debate about tightening the way the city of London is regulated, although it would be a mistake to think said debate should end with his rather student union proposals for banning ‘socially useless’ banking activities, real steps will have to be taken to mend our fractured society before the man and woman in the street feel a similar boost in their confidence levels. As Churchill might have put it, this isn’t the beginning of the end of the recession so much as the end of the beginning of our journey along a long and difficult road.
Big Brother, we’re not watching you.
There is at least one thing about which the joy of all right thinking people can be unconfined this week, Big Brother the granddaddy of all reality television programmes has been axed. Makers Endemol said the 2010 series would be the last citing falling ratings and the dismal nature of the current crop of contestants.
Lets not be under any illusions Big Brother isn’t and never was any kind of social experiment; it was a tawdry freak show. A few of the freaks, the late Jade Goody being the most prominent example, made sizeable fortunes and achieved a larger than expected place in the nation’s affections, but they were freaks none the less and we all demeaned ourselves by taking an interest in their antics for so long.
One question remains though, what will all those self obsessed nonentities out there who want to enjoy the trappings of fame and fortune without having to trouble themselves with either working hard or having any discernable talent do now their prime outlet has disappeared? I hear there may be several hundred vacancies at an establishment very similar to the Big Brother house situated in Westminster up for grabs next May.
Poetic Justice.
The conference season will soon be upon us, made a little more interesting this year by the impending general election. Never mind fending off a challenge to his leadership from Foreign Secretary and part time Jerry Lewis impersonator David Milliband Gordon Brown looks certain to lose the election and with it the place at the top table of British politics he has dedicated his whole adult life to achieving.
A haiku published on the New Statesman’s reliably amusing competitions page summed up his predicament and that of his party perfectly, it reads as follows:
Sound of no music
Fills the upturned half-lit hall:
Yesterday’s party.
Talk about many a true word being spoken in jest.
Friday, 24 April 2009
The Return of politics.
This week Chancellor Alistair Darling used his budget to give a bleak picture of the economic situation. Government borrowing is set to top the £175 billion mark, creating a debt that will eat up 79% of Britain’s GDP by 2014.
He made a prediction that the economy would start growing again later this year which few people listening to his speech in the commons or watching it on the evening news believed. Even if he is proved right the message delivered this Wednesday was a stark one. The party’s over, the debts are being called in and the bad times are going to go on rolling for a lot longer than the good ones ever did.
Despite the best efforts of the junior ministers and tame economists bussed into the nation’s television studios to try and deny the obvious this is almost certainly a budget that will lose Labour the next general election.
It will do so not because of some high minded critique of fiscal policy or a reaction against the profligacy of the past quarter century, it will lose them the election because it sees Labour overturning, with good reason given the struggle Mr Darling is going to have balancing the books, the promise it gave way back in the nineties that it had given up forever on the idea of taxing the rich until the pips squeak.
You, I and just about everyone else know that the seriously rich people who will be hit hardest by the new 50% tax rate for anyone earning over £150,000 will simply move their money offshore, if fact most of their number have probably done so long ago. Who do you think will end up picking up the bill? You guessed it, Mr and Mrs Middle England, and they are not at all happy about it.
At the next election they will either switch their allegiance to the Conservatives or, more likely, stay away from the ballot box in sufficient numbers to let David Cameron sneak in via a hung parliament.
Whatever they do Mr and Mrs Middle England may find once the electoral dust has settled little has really changed, the incoming government will have to go on delivering what are, by modern standards, austerity budgets for most of the next decade. The alternative to borrowing money to prop up ailing banks, keep people in their homes and help the unemployed find work is the creation of another ‘lost generation’ of people with no hope of finding work or living independently of state support isn’t a cheap option or a way of cutting ‘big government’ down to size; it’s a recipe for economic disaster and political extremism.
Although the budget and its fallout could spell doom for Labour at the polls in the short term it could be good for politics in the longer term.
For the first time in a generation or more politicians will have to take tough decision rather than simply talking about doing so, the lack of money to be thrown at short term initiatives designed to distract voters means they will be brought face to face with the electoral consequences of their actions far sooner and will have to learn to be more responsive to public feeling.
Ideology, for a long time seen as an occasionally interesting add-on to the political process suddenly matters again and will only grow in importance as the long road to recovery starts. The left must find a way of squaring its belief the state has a role to play in taming the worst excesses of capitalism with a need to stimulate a moribund economy; the right will have to balance its fundamental belief in the power of the market with a proper compassion for the individuals and communities hit hardest by the downturn.
Most importantly the next government, whoever leads it, won’t enter office with a thumping majority and a tame electorate more interested in shopping than politics, the bursting of the credit bubble has knocked the scales from our eyes, years of scandals over MP’s expenses have killed off much of the trust we once placed in our politicians. It will take more than fine words, carefully crafted photo-opportunities and spin to win it back.
He made a prediction that the economy would start growing again later this year which few people listening to his speech in the commons or watching it on the evening news believed. Even if he is proved right the message delivered this Wednesday was a stark one. The party’s over, the debts are being called in and the bad times are going to go on rolling for a lot longer than the good ones ever did.
Despite the best efforts of the junior ministers and tame economists bussed into the nation’s television studios to try and deny the obvious this is almost certainly a budget that will lose Labour the next general election.
It will do so not because of some high minded critique of fiscal policy or a reaction against the profligacy of the past quarter century, it will lose them the election because it sees Labour overturning, with good reason given the struggle Mr Darling is going to have balancing the books, the promise it gave way back in the nineties that it had given up forever on the idea of taxing the rich until the pips squeak.
You, I and just about everyone else know that the seriously rich people who will be hit hardest by the new 50% tax rate for anyone earning over £150,000 will simply move their money offshore, if fact most of their number have probably done so long ago. Who do you think will end up picking up the bill? You guessed it, Mr and Mrs Middle England, and they are not at all happy about it.
At the next election they will either switch their allegiance to the Conservatives or, more likely, stay away from the ballot box in sufficient numbers to let David Cameron sneak in via a hung parliament.
Whatever they do Mr and Mrs Middle England may find once the electoral dust has settled little has really changed, the incoming government will have to go on delivering what are, by modern standards, austerity budgets for most of the next decade. The alternative to borrowing money to prop up ailing banks, keep people in their homes and help the unemployed find work is the creation of another ‘lost generation’ of people with no hope of finding work or living independently of state support isn’t a cheap option or a way of cutting ‘big government’ down to size; it’s a recipe for economic disaster and political extremism.
Although the budget and its fallout could spell doom for Labour at the polls in the short term it could be good for politics in the longer term.
For the first time in a generation or more politicians will have to take tough decision rather than simply talking about doing so, the lack of money to be thrown at short term initiatives designed to distract voters means they will be brought face to face with the electoral consequences of their actions far sooner and will have to learn to be more responsive to public feeling.
Ideology, for a long time seen as an occasionally interesting add-on to the political process suddenly matters again and will only grow in importance as the long road to recovery starts. The left must find a way of squaring its belief the state has a role to play in taming the worst excesses of capitalism with a need to stimulate a moribund economy; the right will have to balance its fundamental belief in the power of the market with a proper compassion for the individuals and communities hit hardest by the downturn.
Most importantly the next government, whoever leads it, won’t enter office with a thumping majority and a tame electorate more interested in shopping than politics, the bursting of the credit bubble has knocked the scales from our eyes, years of scandals over MP’s expenses have killed off much of the trust we once placed in our politicians. It will take more than fine words, carefully crafted photo-opportunities and spin to win it back.
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