No chances fro the young thanks to Gove

Last year, in a thoughtless and deliberate attack on students, the government announced they would be cutting the £560 million Education Maintenance Allowance, This scheme was introduced by the last Labour government and provided up to £30 a week for low income students, allowing them to stay in school or college after age 16. Payment was determined in the first instance according to eligibility – depending on the income of the parents, but if the student was found to fall within its criteria, weekly payments could then be paid if they attended all classes/ lectures during the week. This week, Michael Gove announced a fundamental U-turn in the government’s policy by revealing they will replace it with a £180m bursary targeted to the poorest students. In a pathetic attempt to justify his about face, the education secretary defended the huge cut by asking whether: “…it is socially just to be paying 45% of students a cash incentive to stay in learning when we could be concentrating our resources on removing barriers to learning faced by the poorest.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has actually already answered his question. They found EMA increased the proportion of eligible 16-year-olds staying in education from 65% to 69%, and increased the proportion of eligible 17-year-olds in education from 54% to 61%. So clearly the answer is “yes” – a point that has been made by students since the government went on their attack on further and higher education. Even accounting for the ‘deadweight costs’ (people who would have stayed in education regardless of the allowance), the costs of the scheme are exceeded by the higher wages recipients go on to earn in the future.Neither should Michael Gove use the high proportion of students who receive the EMA to justify concentrating it on ‘the poorest’. While it is undoubtedly a good thing the government are continuing to provide for the 12,000 or so most disadvantaged students, the full EMA was only ever given to those children from households earning up to £20,817 and no child from a household earning over £30,810 received any cash at all. In other words, EMA was always targeted for poorer families and never designed to be a universal benefit. This was already a more targeted transfer than – for example – child benefit. It was also a more conditional transfer than other benefits, because it could be removed if the student failed to attend school or college, so it was more likely to lead to the government’s intended outcome. So the evidence suggests unequivocally that the answer to Michael Gove’s question is ‘yes’ – EMA was socially just. The same is going to be far less likely when it comes to the government’s scheme. Their intention is to pay those school students who are in receipt of free school meals. What Gove is missing is only somewhere between a quarter and a half of the 16 percent of children who are eligible for Free School Meals are in the bottom 16 percent of the distribution of household income. Even worse, according to Child Poverty Action Group, only just over 6% of poor pupils receiving free school meals remain at school to take A levels, compared to around 40% of students overall. Some students choose to leave school and go on to further education. According to Gove’s announcement some of these students will be eligible for his allowance and the money will be distributed on a discretionary basis by the college. In other words, every college could easily have different criteria to determine eligibility – and with a much smaller purse available, it is inevitable many of our ‘most in need’ young people will be left by the wayside. The Tories have pretended they have some kind of commitment towards young people. Just before the last general election Citizen Dave, the people’s toff said: “I am determined to ensure that the next Conservative Government provides a radical and exciting new opportunity for all the nation’s young people.” Well since he has been in power the opportunity he has offered is for the young to live in penury and with 25% of them having no hope of a job. Even those with aspirations for advancement and going to university will find their costs tripled thanks to the Tories. Nothing exciting or new there, Dave – it’s time to take another look at what you are doing.

What is happening to Labour?

What is happening to the Labour Party? News today that members of the public registering as individual supporters could be given the vote in leadership elections and at Party conference is an outrage. It makes a mockery of all those people, like me, who have religiously paid our annual subscriptions for membership of a political organization. It makes a travesty of those members of trade unions who have, over the years, consistently supported the Party by paying the political levy.

Peter Hain, the architect to the plan says the plans “… are designed to give Labour the chance to leapfrog the other parties and become a new party for a new political age.” So, the late 1990s we had the “New” Labour project – and that failed, and now we are going to have the “Squeaky clean, very New” Labour Party and guess what folks … it will fail too.

Those in favour of this approach argue it is because union affiliated membership has halved over the years and this will give ordinary working people a ‘say’ in the running of the Party. How short is the human memory? Last Saturday, 500,000 angry people marched through London calling for this Tory government to bring an end to the cuts. These people are our life-blood, our electorate – and many were students, pensioners, trade unionists and socialists – we cannot dismiss them so readily.

Hain goes on to say “If unions could rebuild their membership, they would speak with a stronger voice in society. Despite improved union recognition rights under Labour, they have been unable to do so.”

This is a fundamental bending of the truth. Since the May elections, trade union membership has dramatically increased and continues to grow. Daily, workers are recognizing they need the protection of working together under a trade union banner to protect their jobs, their pay and their rights. With each new member coming through the door, Labour has the chance of a new recruit. The fact the Party has been unable to attract large numbers of supporters says more about how we present Labour to the public than the demise of unionism.

Miliband has argued “The Tory-led government and its current alliance of power with the Liberal democrats does not change my belief that there is a progressive majority in this country.”

I confess I am not so sure. I think at the moment, many people are far more right-leaning than he gives credit for and in his naiveté, assumes Labour is on a roller coaster ride to sudden electoral victory. Well, we thought we would win under Kinnock and we failed. We should have won under Foot and we collapsed totally. The historical evidence tells us the British people are far more conservative. The right have long argued Labour is the natural party of opposition and the Tories, the natural party of power. It should be the job of Labour to reverse this, by educating and informing the electorate about socialist ideals and principles.

Giving a vote to members of MumsNet (however worthwhile the organization) is not the answer, nor is the notion of allowing floating voters who, on a whim, call themselves Labour supporters the opportunity to change policy. I have canvassed on doors before now and heard Labour supporters call for the return of hanging, tough immigration restraint and the castration of paedophiles. Do we truly want this kind of influx into our party?

Miliband must stamp on this report and throw it out. There can be no place for these principles in our great Party and should be shunned at all costs. If we fail, we might as well say goodbye to all vestiges of being a socialist party.

Instead, we should be helping to build trade unions and party branches so they become an effective resistance to this government’s uncaring, right-wing ideology. We should be a political vanguard pushing the cause of socialism on every front.

Above all, we must never lose our dedication to socialism and the trade union movement.

Libya - an expensive price for Tory jingoism

Every day the government tell us the country was close to collapse when Labour left power. They insist the only way out of this ‘mess’ was the introduction of some of the most stringent cuts the country has seen since the days of Margaret Thatcher.

Already thousands have been affected and have either been reduced to short time or worse, have been made redundant as companies try to cope with a changing economic climate where the rate of inflation is now beyond the estimates the government made and a number of skill sectors find themselves either stagnant or in decline.

Meanwhile, unemployment exceeds 2.5m and more are likely as the year progresses. The Tories keep saying there isn’t enough money, so they cut essential services like Sure Start; they take away essential financial support for college students and they increase the cost of going to university threefold. In case that wasn’t enough, they sell off our beloved NHS and allow private enterprise to cream off profits from our sickness and ill-health.

They say we have no money in the coffers, but we have the funds to fire missiles on the people of Libya. The Ministry of Defence, in marked contrast to the Pentagon and the French armed forces, declines to say how many bombs or missiles have been fired from RAF Tornados or how many Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from HMS Triumph (a Trafalgar-class submarine which the MoD declined to identify until David Cameron named her in the Commons). However, defence sources say a total of seven Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired from Triumph, compared to at least 168 fired from US submarines and ships.

Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said Tornado aircraft on Thursday launched “a number of guided Brimstone missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles which were threatening the civilian population of Ajdabiya”. He described Brimstone as a “high-precision, low collateral damage weapon optimised against demanding and mobile targets”. This was the first time the Tornados had fired weapons at Libyan targets since Saturday, the first night of the campaign.

Four Tornados were involved, probably firing no more than two bombs or Storm Shadow missiles each. The following night, the Tornados’ bombing run was aborted because a number of civilians, later identified as including western journalists, were found to be in the “intended target area”, the MoD has said. It is possible that no more than about eight bombs or missiles had been fired from RAF Tornados before the Brimstone attacks on Thursday night.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said on Thursday that the RAF had flown 59 missions over Libya. The large majority have been reconnaissance missions. They have also included what the MoD emphasizes were the first Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft deployed in what it described as “hostile airspace”. The 10 Typhoons are only suitable for air-to-air combat, according to the MoD. The ground attack version apparently is not ready to take over the Tornados’ role – though defence sources point out that the high profile the Tornados are enjoying will make it much harder for the government to scrap them as soon as it would otherwise like to.

Now, if we take these estimates of weapon use – and they seem reliable, if not rather conservative, this would imply 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles have been fired at a total cost of £15m, four Storm Shadow cruise missiles costing £750,000 each – a total cost of £18m in missile use. Add to this the estimated 60 to 150 fly hours used by our aircraft for the 59 missions they have flown and this adds at least a further £4m to the cost.

Then you have our naval involvement. The Ministry of Defence has been reluctant to reveal how many ships are engaged in military activity, but we know of at least one submarine and there are almost certainly going to be others. Assuming only two ships are involved and only one of these is a submarine, then this increases the cost so far by a further £32m.

In other words, we have probably already spent betwee£25m and £60m on fighting this war in Libya. Looking at the situation over there logically, it is probable that our forces will be engaged in military activity for a few more weeks, because Gaddafi has made it abundantly clear he will not stand down. This could involve the use of our land forces to quell any resistance he might offer – all at an extra cost to the UK tax payer.

Now, before readers accuse me of over-exaggerating the costs, these figures are extremely conservative estimates, based on the very small amount of information coming from the MoD. The actual cost could be much higher.

You might ask why we are doing it – why are we spending so much of our money at a time when we are so hard up? It’s a good question. Fundamentally, the answer has nothing to do with humanitarianism, or the upholding of democratic principles. Since when have the Tories developed a penchant for supporting popular uprisings? They were silent when Castro fought Batista and they said little to support Ho Chi Minh when he took on the might of the US military. Similarly, Cameron and his cronies have never offered any kind of encouragement to ETA and the Basque separatists, or the IRA and their opposition to British colonialism.

No, the answer lies in oil! Osborne needs that to flow again so he can count on the UK economy growing again. If it doesn’t, inflation will increase and unemployment will rise. Indeed, without oil flows starting again there is a very real danger Labour could be proven right and we could slip into a double dip recession. Already Greece, Ireland and Portugal have become vulnerable and other countries could also fall.

The bottom line is this. We need to pull out of our involvement in Libya – we simply can’t afford it. If we can’t give our pensioners a decent income and offer them a robust health service, then we surely can’t afford the luxury of a jingoistic foray in the deserts of Libya.

Unfortunately, as always, the UK ignores the please from the left – until the body bags start coming back. We saw them coming from Iraq and we see still coming from Afghanistan. There is a very real danger we will soon see them coming from Libya.

We must do all we can to prevent another serviceman or woman dying on foreign soil.

We need to take the abuse out of politics

When I was about 13 or 14-years old I was an anarchist. Oh, I don’t mean the bomb-throwing bearded type with a cloak and a suspicious look type, or even the crazy, violent ‘I want to break up the G20 talks’ type. No, I was more the ‘I want to shock my parents’ type. You see, my parents were both lifelong Conservatives, with very traditional values and beliefs, so my radicalism came as quite a shock to both of them.

Nonetheless, and to their eternal credit, they never prevented me from exploring anarchist values and beliefs, or reading Proudhon and Kropotkin – as a far as a 13-year old is able to understand them anyway.

I vividly recall one night my mother raising the subject of my political beliefs and discussing the comparison between anarchism and ‘traditional’ political beliefs. That night we argued and tussled over key philosophical and political points until about 3 am. By the time I went to bed she had given me one of the greatest gifts of my life – and it is one I still cherish today – the ability to recognise the merits in another person’s argument.

You see, I cannot understand this 21st century notion of ‘trashing’ people – it just seems rude and uncaring to me. Why do we do it? Well, I am sure dome do it because it makes them feel good, while others do it because they feel if they win they feel stronger – a kind of return to the caveman mentality.

Why am I talking about this today? Well I have been reading through a lot of the left-wing press lately and some of the comments being made about David Cameron and George Osborne … and they disturb me.

You see, as regular readers will know, I am no fan of either of these two men. I find their political values and beliefs totally contradict everything I believe in. However, I am convinced they believe in their brand of Conservativism equally as strongly as I believe in socialism. I would argue whilst I think he is wrong, Cameron truly believes his ‘austerity measures’ will make Britain a safer, stronger, better place. And when he talks about the Big Society, he truly believes a politics based on the acts of individuals working together in local communities is far better than state intervention and public ownership of the means of production.

It is my opinion David Cameron is totally of the opinion anyone can achieve success, if they are willing to work and sacrifice. It is his view in such instances, the state should not intervene and ought to offer support to help the little man or woman become bigger.

He holds there will always be those who are advantaged and there is nothing wrong with acquiring money and property, as long as it is done legally and morally. If this results in some people being disadvantaged, then this is just the nature of capitalism. If they become poor, the state should prop them up for a time, but there must be an underlying principle of having to earn the support of the state.

He does not believe these things out of some malevolent belief demanding he protects his own self-interest although, as a human being, I am sure he includes himself in the pack of those whom he wants to help. There is nothing evil about any of the Conservative leadership – they are dedicated people, committed to their own personal values – and it may surprise some readers, but I do totally respect all of them, some more than others.

This does not mean I agree with anything they say, far from it, I think their views are dangerous, divisive and cruel. I hold modern Conservativism as practiced by this government will destroy the livelihoods of thousands of people and reduce this country of a society of “them” and “us”.

But I do respect Cameron – he has a brain and a good one, he is a highly competent politician and daily demonstrates he is a master of his craft and he is an idealist. I have always been drawn to idealists, perhaps because I am one myself. We each want different things for this country, but we have a vision of how this country should be.

It is wrong to ridicule the Tory leadership; it will do nothing to forward the socialist cause and makes a mockery of the left argument. Instead, socialists need to recognise that in Cameron we have the most dangerous of enemies – a thinker with a philosophical path for the future for this country. This makes him the most dangerous kind of Conservative – and he should be treated accordingly.

Socialists need to review their arguments – remove the personality politics and keep attacking the issues. On blogs lately I notice how more right-wingers continue to attack me personally – even though I am careful to refrain from personal abuse. The right are starting to worry, because they know they are losing the argument – and like every kind of frightened animal, when it is in a corner it will use any means of attack before it gives in.

The left can and will win – we just need to keep up the pressure