I’m not privy to what appeared on Labour’s media grid at the start of the week, but I doubt it included John Prescott telling a fellow Labour peer to ‘bugger off’ following an article in the New Statesman which appeared to attack the Labour leader, or by a massive, and ill-informed row after a Labour frontbencher made a sweeping and negative generalisation about all members of one particular race.
It felt more like one of the weeks in a general election when the wheels come off the wagon, and no matter what the war book says, the media focus on something else. Politicians punching voters, the ears belonging to a small child called Jennifer, a mildly xenophobic old lady in Lancashire, that kind of thing.
To call the rows generated by Glasman and Abbott a bit of a distraction is like saying there’s been a bit of a breeze this week. The evidence of broken tiles and uprooted trees tells a different story. Both rows have been done to death, so I won’t disinter them. But what an age we live in when a daft remark on Twitter, by a woman once paid thousands by the BBC to say provocative things every week, can lead the news bulletins.
The really annoying thing about the Abbot & Glasman act was that Labour had some serious things to say this week. Indeed, in terms of substantive politics, this is has been one of the most encouraging few days since Ed Miliband was elected as leader of the Labour party. Three interventions, by three of the most radical progressives on Labour’s frontbench, give us a confidence that there are those in Labour who are serious about winning the next election.
First was Liam Byrne’s article in The Guardian to mark the start of the year which marks the seventieth anniversary of William Beveridge presenting his famous report into social insurance to parliament. Byrne intends to use the anniversary as a peg to hang a series of speeches and visits on the theme of welfare reform. I wrote yesterday on LabourList about the politics of welfare reform.
Making the system of benefits fairer and more efficient is one of those areas, like immigration, which dominate the political conversations of just about everyone except politicians. Anyone who has canvassed a Labour area recently knows how salient welfare reform is with the voters. The vast political trap that looms ahead of us is that the Tories end up looking like the party of welfare reform, and Labour seems like it only wants to defend the status quo. That would put us offside with the voters, and doom our prospects at the next election.
As Byrne has been at pains to stress, the other side of the argument is the need for jobs and growth in the economy. But Labour also needs an answer to the millions who believe the benefits system rewards the least deserving and punishes those who want to get on.
Next, the shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg made a speech to the North of England Education Conference which launched a School to Work review chaired by Barry Sheerman MP, and floated the idea of a longer school day to prepare pupils better for the world of work. Twigg told the conference that 21st century schools are often ‘still organised like factories’. He said:
‘The workers down tools when they hear the bell ring, and are strictly separated into production lines, focused on building the constituent parts of knowledge, maths, science etc. At the same time, students are rigidly separated. Taught in batches, not by ability or interest, but by their own date of manufacture. While noble in its origins, this 19th century form of industrial education feels distinctly ill at ease with the demands of a modern, globalised economy, which demands collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship, and an appreciation that developing value comes not from a more efficient forms of production, but more skilled ones.’
This is music to the ears of working parents, for whom a 3.30pm school pick-up makes doing a full day’s work impossible. It’s a surefire vote winner, as well as making sense from an educational point of view. In some of the toughest areas, it would also help cut antisocial behaviour and the activities of gangs. It’s popular, it makes sense, and it’s good for parents and their children: I’m sure the NUT are already painting banners.
The third intervention this week is shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy’s warning that Labour must be credible, not populist, on defence cuts. He said:
‘It is important to be both credible and popular when it comes to defence investment and the economics of defence. There is a difference between populism and popularity. Credibility is the bridge away from populism and towards popularity. It is difficult to sustain popularity without genuine credibility. At a time on defence when the government is neither credible nor popular it is compulsory that Labour is both.’
The background briefers were keen to stress that Murphy was only talking about his brief, and the need to cut £5bn from the defence budget, but his words should apply across the board. No one serious in Labour is advocating a ‘no cuts’ approach. But for our deficit reduction plans to be taken seriously, each shadow team should be identifying savings in their departmental area to prove we mean it.
Byrne, Twigg and Murphy are part of a generation born in the 1960s, schooled in politics in the 1980s and 1990s, who climbed the ministerial ladder in the 2000s, and this week showed the depth and vision to lead Labour into the 2010s. We have a long way to go. But hard-headed economic credibility, with innovative ideas for public service reform, provide a useful start. If we can persuade Labour’s foot-in-mouth brigade to give the next generation the space to develop their thinking and make their case, we may be back in the game.
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Paul Richards writes a weekly column for Progress, Paul’s week in politics
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I’ve always been a big advocate of a longer school day as it in no way prepares you for later life and this was before I had kids. By the way Liam Byrne was born in October 1970 so isn’t a 60’s baby (and just missed out being concieved in the 60’s!)
A wide ranging piece designed to capture key issues for the year ahead – albeit omitting to mention the pressing matter of the full frontal attack on the NHS, which like all the other measures currently being taken by the Coalition are statedly designed to dismantle the Beveridge/Bevan model and replace it with….well, not a lot. Thus we have a society which is becoming increasingly wine glass shaped – the 1-5% richest occupying an increasingly bulbous tulip shaped top as they wallow in a vintage which offers them 49% more affluence during a 12 month period when below them the stem of the squeezed middle reduces in width and height as the base of the poor and disadvantaged expands and flattens. This is clearly not a sustainable model, but it is one which deep and inconsidered cuts and a lack of growth investment will perpetuate.
Just as the words of Paul’s article on Labour List yesterday indicated, the above also screeches ‘votes at any cost’ based upon doorstep responses from an electorate who is badly in need of educating far away from the vitriol of the press. When Tom Watson tweeted for a summary statement re 2011 I responded ‘ a year when the wellbeing of the many was seen as expendable for the riches of the few, aided and abetted by the media’. His response was that he felt that this was sadly quite right.
As David Miliband has reminded us ……Deficits aren’t “immoral.. sometimes deficits are necessary to serve the society you live in”. Surely this is why we wish to be in government – to serve, not simply for the sake of power at any cost even if it entails huge suffering in a sector of the population which Labour has hitherto acknowledged as being a key part of society. Nor in sustainable socio-economic terms is it vital for us to be in the so-called ‘black’.
In June 2012 the first National Health Insurance Bill was adopted and in tandem with a range of public health measures the health of the nation improved exponentially. Last Christmas I penned the Fairy Tale of No Work ~ at which point I felt it to be warning of a distant point of horror. Now the content seems to be stampeding towards us at full tilt. Time is not on our side.
Simplistically falling into the ‘scrounger/’take the piss’ totem is not going to serve any good or decent purpose. Rather this is our chance to re-define the semiotics of knee-jerk Daily Mail reactions which are seemingly leading certain elements of the party by the nose. Seemingly the BBC now uses a Daily Mail rule of thumb, to our national disadvantage and discredit. If Labour opts for this lax and lazy approach to policy making rather than undertaking nuanced informed research in consultation with those of us who have real on the ground experience of these matters then the party will be failing in its duty of care to the sick and the vulnerable. We just have to take a look at the innovative work being done in Lambeth to see that inclusivity works.
Yes – there is a need to review and reform, but not in tune with a misconceived sweeping aside of the duty we have to those who require civilised support mechanisms to live their lives in a constructive way. Many, many of the nation’s disabled contribute to society -purely because ( as Boris of all people has now recognised ) they receive a DLA allocation and other vital allowances. This makes us a vital part in the country’s economic wheel. Also note that the ratio of benefit unclaimed : fraud is a very sizable counterbalance and we have one of the lowest financial support allocations per se. I know I keep saying this – but please remember, disability and sickness can strike out of the ether at any time. This is not a crime. Please do not depict it as such. One day it will be you.
There seems to be a hope here that the Labour party is beginning to fall into line with the vast majority of the voters for whom it seeks to speak.
Now, if only we can institute state funding of Parties, and rid ourselves of the malign influences of our arrogant union paymasters, we might widen our appeal enough to gain power.
Much depends on labour’s ;perception of themselves. Here Steve misses an important event of last week and that was the Party’s concern about how it is being presently portrayed by the BBC. As a BBC addict i invariably watch the 10 o’clock News 9 with the Jon Snow anecdote at 7 on Channel 4. However last night i watched ITV News at 10. The difference was striking and indicated how often Ed and Co miss crucial pol;itical tricks. Austin, the news leaders followed Cameron around the country, not in slavish admiration like Nick Robinson but with clear political analysis. He fastened in on the failure of Plan A and the evidence in all places visited was that there is disquiet about the real Tory economic performance. A classical example of the was the solar panel factory owner who took Cameron apart. After Glasman and Abbot I was in dispair at our performance. The reality appears to be that despite olur best efforts to the contrary reality might be catching up on the Tories.
Murray Rowlands
By ‘most radical ‘, Paul means ‘least radical’.
I should add that no mention is made of the extremely successful out of school/after school programme which was a key part of the Blair/Brown growth strategy – designed specifically to offer younger children a range of sociable learning activities, separate from the main school day but within or nearby to the school premises and enabling parents to continue their working days without concern or interruption. For older children homework clubs with sports and drama activities were demonstrating increasing success. These clubs were always hugely popular with the children who attended – also providing local employment for the trained workers, ensuring that teachers’ timetables were left intact. These were emerging as a key contributor to sustainable local economies, but typically, many of these places are now being disbanded which has resulted in parents ( particularly women ) discontinuing their employment and children losing out on positive development opportunities. Rather than extending the formal school day and elongating the teaching timetable, the answer lies in returning this once thriving programme to the status of a core policy.
aaah ….if we could only rid ourselves of the malign influences of our arrogant Capitalist paymasters !
the morning breakfast club and the after school club had nothing to do with keeping kids safe while mothers were working oh no it about making sure they eat well
More precisely – there were two strands of funding. The largest element of funding – initially set up via minimal ‘pump prime’ funding under the Major govt which then developed into a significant budget during the Blair and Brown years , was to establish a sustainable network of independently managed out of school clubs which covered both before and after school hours and holiday provision, usually from 8 – 6. Funding for this provision was statedly to enable more parents, primarily women, to access or return to work and training – and developed into a hugely successful nationwide UK programme, also linked up with the tax credits scheme which enabled staff to be paid a reasonable wage and the provision to be of excellent quality.
Breakfast clubs were different and were set up under the aegis of schools in communities where children were found not to have a decent diet at home and a good breakfast was seen as a way of helping them achieve more through the school day. Schools charged a minimum fee of 50p – £1.00 and were not linked into tax credits.
“oh no really that’s terrible,and was that one of those cruise ships that only does a yard to the gallon” ?