Although we have faced a global economic recession, the lasting routes out of it will be local and regional. Every region must have a strategy for re-building and re-balancing its economy, based on local strengths and comparative advantages. Although national policies for supporting the macro-economy are critical, jobs and industries need a local framework.
In Yorkshire, we have a huge pride in our industrial past. From cotton to coal and steel and to retail and finance, our industries have powered the nation and enriched the region. As we plan for the recovery we need to build a future of which we can be equally proud. The Victorian buildings which adorn our towns and cities are a testimony to the riches and the confidence of that era. Our purpose now must be as bold and as permanent – to put Yorkshire back in charge of its own economic destiny.
The 18 years of Tory government and the recessions of the 1980s and 90s hit Yorkshire families and businesses hard. One of its most invidious effects was to rob communities of the sense that they could build a better future for themselves. The true test of the success of our local economic strategies today will be whether it can return to local people true sense of control over their own economic future. That’s why in 1999 Tony Blair and John Prescott set up the Regional Development Agencies, to promote enterprise and drive economic growth in every region.
In Yorkshire and elsewhere the RDAs have been a success. Just look at the facts: the independent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, released earlier this year, showed that, on average, every £1 spent by the RDAs generates an extra £4.50 for their regional economies. Not a bad rate of return by anyone’s reckoning. A regional strategy is important because every region will be feeling the impact of the recession in different ways.
Last autumn was a devastating time for many businesses and families in Yorkshire as the bottom fell out of our financial sector, especially with 18% of jobs in Yorkshire in financial and professional services. West Yorkshire was particularly affected – most obviously through the collapse and subsequent take-over of what were two of the region’s flagship businesses – Bradford Bingley and HBOS. The current unemployment rate in Yorkshire and Humber is 8.6%, representing 226,000 unemployed people. The national unemployment rate is 7.9%.
But, efforts to keep jobs in Leeds through intensive dialogue between the banks, Yorkshire Forward and central government has kept unemployment below what it could have been. Working with Business Link, Yorkshire Forward is also supporting businesses get the advice they need. That has made a big difference to two businesses I met with recently – like the printing business in Bramley who have had help securing funding to keep business in-house, and the plastering business whose Business Link health check has helped give the bank confidence about that businesses strategy – and so renewing their borrowing agreement.
RDAs can do this work in a way that Whitehall never could. RDAs are closer to the businesses they are supporting, and so are better able to provide what business needs. In construction, manufacturing, tourism and distribution Yorkshire Forward is supporting industry and jobs. But, a regional economic strategy is not just for the recession and recovery – it’s for the long-term. With Labour the Yorkshire Humber economy increased by 60% since 1997, from £54.8bn to £87.4bn in 2007. With a population of over 5 million the Yorkshire and Humber region is the same size as Scotland or Denmark and home to nearly 300,000 businesses. But we could and must do better.
The long-term strength of the region and our ability to compete depends on our skills and infrastructure, yet our region underperforms the UK in terms of skills by quite a margin. In an increasingly globally competitive economy, this is more the case than ever. Increased investment in apprenticeships – 22,000 in Yorkshire next year, the expansion of diplomas, and most important of all, every 11 year old starting secondary school this year will be staying in education until 18 – in school, college, training or an apprenticeship. And, recognising the importance of Higher Education, we had more people than ever start at university this year. Yorkshire’s universities produce 54,000 graduates annually, about 10% of the total in England. These investments will matter a lot in my constituency, Leeds West, where only a third of sixteen year olds got 5 A*-C grades including Maths and English last summer and where the number of young people going to university is among the lowest in the country.
Skills matter for the jobs of the future. There is huge potential in Yorkshire and Humber to be a world leader in green industries and green jobs, which is undoubtedly going to be one of the biggest growth sectors in the world in the coming years. With the right investment and skills, green industries could create 40,000 new jobs. Already, the Humber Economic Partnership and North East Lincolnshire council are at the heart of the development of the offshore wind industry, not least because the deep water of the Humber and the flat land around it mean that a lot of the turbines would be put down close to the Humber estuary. South Yorkshire should also be part of the clean coal of the future. As in the past, Yorkshire has the capacity to power our nation – but only with the right long-term investment and vision.
Government have been engaged in a number of discussions, facilitated by Yorkshire Forward, to ensure that Yorkshire has the infrastructure to enable that to happen. It is crucial for the UK’s energy policy that our energy industries are built up to make us world leaders. The RDAs are enabling that to happen. And, although unfashionable right now, the region must build on its strengths in financial services. Financial and Professional Services account for 18% of employment in Yorkshire. At its heart is Leeds, the leading financial services centre outside London. Those industries currently employ 240,000 people in the Leeds city region, and we have to ensure that we develop our strengths and do not lose the expertise. And, although the fallout from Bradford and Bingley and HBOS has hit the region hard, the rate of job losses is easing and the commitment from Lloyds Banking Group to Yorkshire as one of the three major retail hubs of the new bank shows the ongoing strength of our region as a financial centre.
But despite our advantages, it is not inevitable that Yorkshire and the Humber capitalises on its potential. The economy is at a turning point, and the policies we pursue today will shape the economies and communities of the future. To scrap Yorkshire Forward, as the Tories propose, would rob Yorkshire of the opportunity to shape its own destiny. Strong regional economies to support local businesses and jobs are essential for thriving, sustainable and proud communities and that requires regional leadership and vision.
There is a problem with the women in this culture. Yes, I know, there are problems with men, too. Believe me, I have heard about them for the last forty years. Some of it true and fair, much of it neither. It was a necessary dialogue just the same. So is this. To understand this we need a brief look at history. Women, in the past, were denied voting rights, couldn’t own land and didn’t have much access to employment that would give them the freedom to make it on their own. This needed to change, and of course, did, as can be confirmed with a cursory glance at the world around you. I laud those changes. But the problem was in how we got here. The reality is that the gender roles of our history were traps for both men and women. Women were relegated to home and children; men to sacrificial roles as protectors and providers. It wasn’t a conspiracy. It was just a matter of survival, and for many thousands of years it worked quite well to that end. But once men made the environment safe enough for women to metaphorically “leave the cave,” it was only natural and right that men change and allow that to happen. And ladies, we did. This is the simple but accurate truth of the matter. Men and women developed gender roles that facilitated the survival of the species. And once those roles were not necessary, they did begin the often complicated path to change. The problem here is that your knowledge of these historical events is largely shaped, convoluted rather, by feminism. Feminists taught you that your history with men was of unremitting evil; that you were chattel, slaves to men who held all power and shut you out with extreme intent. They even gave it a name. Patriarchy. It is a word that has become synonymous with oppression. But feminists were loathe to remind you that “Women and children first,” was the patriarchal mantra, and that much of the social norms, even when misguided, were a product of a code adopted for the sole purpose of preserving your life. It wasn’t always fair, but the unfairness wasn’t always yours. Men died by that code, and trained their sons to do the same. The fact that we still do is the subject for another essay. So what happened? As feminist distortions were increasingly embraced, and intertwined with the legitimate need for change, men did what they usually do. They reacted to the message and not the messenger and unblocked the entrance to that cave. Many of you spit on us on the way out. Many of you still do. It has to stop. This isn’t just about decency. And it is not just about the chasm of mistrust that separates us from each other, or the legions of the walking wounded from this godforsaken gender war. It is about our future. The vilification of men that you have accepted as appropriate now translates to catastrophe for our sons, for your sons. The problem is that what we say, think and feel about people invariably translates into what we actually do to them. Nowhere is this more evident than with our sons, in the here and now. If you take an honest look at the academic environment to which our boys are subjected, you will see that their masculinity itself is under attack with ideology that teaches them they are inherently flawed. Christina Hoff Sommers documented this in her highly recommended book “The War Against Boys.” She writes, “The pedagogy is designed to valorize females, such as teaching history in a woman-centered way. Boys are to be inspired to revere Anita Hill and to “enjoy” quilting. At the same time, schools discourage activities that are natural and traditional to boys, such as playing ball together.” She goes on to say, with sad accuracy, “Most parents have no idea what their children are facing in the gender-charged atmosphere of the public schools.” What Sommers didn’t add to that but I will is the fact that most parents have no idea about this because they choose not to. As girls and girls programs increasingly flourish, boys are falling to the sidelines in ever growing numbers. The results of that are chilling. Boys are more likely than ever to drop out of school and engage in delinquency and other problems. They are representing less college graduates every year. With this diminishing education and wholesale marginalization, they are on a fast track to being the “second sex,” that position that so many feminists touted as the greatest evil of human history when they claimed it applied to women. This is the lasting legacy of spitting on men. Your sons will not be the exception. Young men now grow up to be destroyed in corrupt family court systems where women are encouraged to and even praised for using children, their children, like pawns in order to drain the father of assets. And those same children also have their badly needed connection to their fathers severed in the process. When those exploited, abused children start quite naturally to act out and get in trouble, we blame the father who was removed against his will, for of all things, being absent. And the “freedom” women gained on this frenzied path of vengeance and victimization? It doesn’t appear to have settled well. Women are growing increasingly violent. They are matching men in domestic violence, blow for blow, and they are causing the lions share of injury and death to children in the home. But we don’t speak of these things. We are not supposed to. In your position as the identified victim, and mine as the identified perpetrator, there is supposed to be an indelible silence on these matters. For the most part, there is. That silence is destroying us. And it is a silence that is maintained with the collusion of shallow, weak men and misguided, self-serving women, which is to say most of the culture. The only answer I can think of is for men, and for women, to change. Perhaps you will consider this before concluding that men’s rights activists are whiners or woman haters or products of bad mothers. You might actually decide that most men’s rights activists are men who above all else, seek justice. For their children, for themselves, and ultimately for you. I hope that a few of you will read this and consider it the next time you hear someone say “men are pigs,” or when you hear a woman refer to her first born child as “the insurance policy,” or before you nod your head in unconsidered agreement with whatever negatives about men happen to be making the rounds. All of this will be visited on your sons, and their sons. I hope too, that some of you look at your sons and think, and ask yourself what kind of world in which you really want them to live. When your sons choose wives and marry, I hope you consider the agony they will go through when “taken to the cleaners” and robbed of their children in the family courts. You will be forced to stand by powerlessly and watch them have their hearts ripped out. As always, it will look much different to you when the system you help maintain with your silence crushes your son, and not just some obscure, unknown male whom you quietly think is getting what he deserves. It will happen to more than half of them. The best prevention for this last one is to teach our sons to choose carefully; to scrutinize a woman before committing his life and work to her; to evaluate her morals and values as a woman prior to putting a ring on her finger. or even whether it is wise any more to marry in the first place. But how can we do this if we keep teaching them that such evaluations are the stuff of misogyny? Indeed, how can we do this if scrutinizing women at all is such a taboo? And therein lies the rub, ladies. It is indeed time, just as it was for men, for women to be held to scrutiny, and to account. More importantly, it is time for women to do this on their own. I’ll do my best to provide a fair and compassionate mirror in my writings. It is always up to you whether that mirror is a place you want to look.