Now here’s something to laugh at - David Cameron and Nick Clegg were together at an event yesterday to launch a government drive on youth unemployment.
The prime minister and his deputy will announce a £60m package to boost work prospects and vocational education.
They will commit in their appearance in London to tackle "structural barriers" to young people starting a career.
The launch comes a year after Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron walked into Downing Street together.
The government said it would provide funding for 250,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years and 100,000 work placements over the next two years.
More than 100 large companies and tens of thousands of small businesses had pledged to offer work experience places, ministers added.
Mr Cameron said: "It's time to reverse the trend of rising youth unemployment that has held back our country for far too long and help our young people get the jobs on which their future - and ours - depends.
"But government can't act alone. We need employers who are prepared to give young people a go.
"So I'm delighted that over 100 large companies and tens of thousands of small and medium sized enterprises have already responded to our call for work experience placements so that tens of thousands of young people can take those vital first steps in experiencing the world of work."
Mr Clegg said: "We all have a responsibility - government, business, charities, education providers - to work together to find a solution."
But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the proposals failed to match the guarantees given by the now cut Future Jobs Fund.
"The best thing the government could do is stop their deep rapid spending cuts that are running the whole economy into the ground, with the young as the worst victims,"
How absolutely true, but come on Brendan, surely you can do better than that? Almost a quarter of young people are without work and despite their best efforts the government have not been able to reverse the trend. Work experience is all very well, but it isn’t paid employment and it isn’t permanent. Moreover, the government are pitching their money on the private sector being wiling and able to pick up the tab of employing all these young people, but with inflation likely to rise to 5% over the coming year, industry is going to be hard-pushed to be competitive anyway – and that’s without the additional staff numbers coming from youth.
Citizen Dave and Tricky Nicky need to get their acts together and recognise there is a very real problem affecting an entire generation and it will not go away unless the government are prepared to invest in programmes that can help young people secure permanent and sustainable employment. Half-hearted measures that pay lip service to the needs of the young are an embarrassment and need to be treated with total scorn. These measures will do nothing to address the number of young people unemployed and it will give little to allay the fears of those set to leave school in June.
What baffles me is how few people see the lack of care Citizen Dave and Tricky Nicky have for the people of this country. Dave is the worst kind of Tory – a Thatcherite with a PR face. On face value he looks squeaky clean, but when you aren’t looking he’ll rip your heart out and laugh as he’s doing it. As for Clegg, he is just a puppet following his master’s will, but make no mistake, he knows what he is doing and, even worse, he agrees with Tory policy.
Showing posts with label Nick Clegg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Clegg. Show all posts
Friday, 13 May 2011
Monday, 25 April 2011
Why the Coalition is safe - A response to Sunny Hundal
Over the last couple of weeks we have started to see signs that all is not well in the Coalition between the Lib Dems and the Tories – or is it? Nick Clegg says he is angry with David Cameron and the Tories over the issue of social mobility and Chris Huhne has been blowing off steam about the way his Tory friends in the “No to AV” campaign have lied about the referendum.
Even the media have been caught by this apparent ‘new’ hostility between the partners and led Jackie Ashley at the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie at ConHome to speculate there may be an early election. According to Sunny Hundal over at ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ this is highly unlikely but it could have other consequences.
In Hundal's analysis the honeymoon is over and a degree of Coalition trust has been broken. They’ve also called each other ‘liars’ at the highest level – so the bar has been set higher. Also he argues the Tory betrayal over electoral reform may push more die-hard Libdems into the arms of Labour if they keep that promise in their manifesto.
But there isn’t going to be an election and this apparent war between the Lib Dems and the Tories is an entirely cosmetic exercise to make us ‘see’ there are differences between the two parties. Why? Because in case we have all missed it there are local government elections on May 5th and the Lib Dems are scared stiff they are going to get massacred.
This scares the pants off Clegg but doesn’t really affect Citizen Dave because he is hoping the Lib Dems loss could be his gain – and if he can show on May 7th that his party has held its own then it will silence a number of critics. Is this price the Lib Dems will have to pay for lying down with a snake, sooner or later you get bitten.
On top of this the Tories may have signed a Coalition Agreement, but they will still try and wreck anything they don’t like with complete shamelessness. So far this has included education and local cuts. In the future this is also likely to include the NHS (where they will press ahead and ignore the Lib Dems), the environment (despite Chris Huhne’s best efforts) and of course electoral reform.
But have no fear because all these splits will not be enough to break the coalition and on May 7th we can expect Clegg and Cameron to walk hand in hand back into the Cabinet Room to plan more anti-working class measures.
Sunny Hundal believes the Coalition will become “paralysed by civil war.”, he is wrong. Once the AV referendum and the local council elections are over the supposed rifts will suddenly heal and we will once again see the two parties united.
It is easy to see why. The Lib Dems are nothing more than the left wing of the Tory party. They sit comfortably on the same benches and can fairly comfortably nod in agreement over most policies. Essentially there is very little to pick and choose between them. This is the very reason why they must be annihilated on May 5th.
Working people have the chance to voice their full opposition to both the Lib Dems and Tory policies by voting conclusively for Labour candidates. In some wards the incumbent has been an independent, but look carefully at their voting record and in most cases you will see a Tory in disguise. It is time to push them aside and built a firm and effective opposition to this Tory led government. If Labour can dominate local elections this year and the County elections next then it could substantially slow down Tory cuts to local services.
We have a wonderful opportunity to stop this government in its tracks – I hope we use the chance wisely.
Even the media have been caught by this apparent ‘new’ hostility between the partners and led Jackie Ashley at the Guardian and Tim Montgomerie at ConHome to speculate there may be an early election. According to Sunny Hundal over at ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ this is highly unlikely but it could have other consequences.
In Hundal's analysis the honeymoon is over and a degree of Coalition trust has been broken. They’ve also called each other ‘liars’ at the highest level – so the bar has been set higher. Also he argues the Tory betrayal over electoral reform may push more die-hard Libdems into the arms of Labour if they keep that promise in their manifesto.
But there isn’t going to be an election and this apparent war between the Lib Dems and the Tories is an entirely cosmetic exercise to make us ‘see’ there are differences between the two parties. Why? Because in case we have all missed it there are local government elections on May 5th and the Lib Dems are scared stiff they are going to get massacred.
This scares the pants off Clegg but doesn’t really affect Citizen Dave because he is hoping the Lib Dems loss could be his gain – and if he can show on May 7th that his party has held its own then it will silence a number of critics. Is this price the Lib Dems will have to pay for lying down with a snake, sooner or later you get bitten.
On top of this the Tories may have signed a Coalition Agreement, but they will still try and wreck anything they don’t like with complete shamelessness. So far this has included education and local cuts. In the future this is also likely to include the NHS (where they will press ahead and ignore the Lib Dems), the environment (despite Chris Huhne’s best efforts) and of course electoral reform.
But have no fear because all these splits will not be enough to break the coalition and on May 7th we can expect Clegg and Cameron to walk hand in hand back into the Cabinet Room to plan more anti-working class measures.
Sunny Hundal believes the Coalition will become “paralysed by civil war.”, he is wrong. Once the AV referendum and the local council elections are over the supposed rifts will suddenly heal and we will once again see the two parties united.
It is easy to see why. The Lib Dems are nothing more than the left wing of the Tory party. They sit comfortably on the same benches and can fairly comfortably nod in agreement over most policies. Essentially there is very little to pick and choose between them. This is the very reason why they must be annihilated on May 5th.
Working people have the chance to voice their full opposition to both the Lib Dems and Tory policies by voting conclusively for Labour candidates. In some wards the incumbent has been an independent, but look carefully at their voting record and in most cases you will see a Tory in disguise. It is time to push them aside and built a firm and effective opposition to this Tory led government. If Labour can dominate local elections this year and the County elections next then it could substantially slow down Tory cuts to local services.
We have a wonderful opportunity to stop this government in its tracks – I hope we use the chance wisely.
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Sunday, 24 April 2011
Clegg’s phoney war on social immobility
by Susanna Bellino (vice-chair of Kingston and Surbiton CLP and chair of Labour Friends of Italy
David Cameron’s comments a few weeks ago about Oxford university’s lack of black students might have annoyed its dons and PR team but he made a valid point. Granted he skewed the statistics but the truth remains that only 27 black undergraduates – approximately 1% – made its undergraduate intake that year.
The results of a freedom of information request by David Lammy MP revealed, among other startling facts, that Merton College, Oxford, had not admitted a single black student for five years. And although it pains me to say it, my own alma mater doesn’t fair much better – despite its more liberal reputation, white students were more likely to be successful than black applicants at every Cambridge college except one.
These figures are in stark contrast to Oxbridge’s American counterpart, Harvard, where 11% of students were black. Affirmative action no doubt plays a large part in this but Oxbridge does run its own access programmes although – if rumours are to be believed – aiming these schemes at a comprehensive school in Hackney might better achieve social mobility than running them at Marlborough College.
For once, we can’t blame the coalition for something. Oxbridge’s unrepresentative undergraduate intake and the general trend of the lack of upward social mobility in the UK has long been an issue. When I went up to Cambridge in 2007, 57% of the student body were state school educated – a decent enough figure perhaps but we need to consider that in 1997, 55% of the student body were state school educated – hardly an improvement.
So, who’s to blame for this gaping inequality? Social scientists will point to a number of factors including economic circumstances and an entrenched class system that is forever perpetuated. Whatever the cause, surely policy must be formulated to achieve equality of opportunity since it can’t be left up to institutions to serve as engines for social justice. They’ve got enough on their plates trying to keep up with their American equivalents in achieving academic brilliance on the international stage.
The coalition, Nick Clegg in particular, seems keen to eradicate social immobility. In August last year, Clegg articulated his plans to “promote social mobility and the next steps” his government would undertake to overcome them. He declared his vision of good government :
“governing for the long-term means thinking not only about the next year or two, or even the next parliamentary term. Governing for the long-term means recognising that the decisions of one generation profoundly influence the lives and life chances of the next”.
And in early April, he launched the government’s social mobility strategy, a move which was overshadowed by the internship row.
So does coalition policy match the rhetoric?
Raising tuition fees, abolishing the education maintenance allowance (despite a half-hearted u-turn) and cutting Sure Start suggest that instead of encouraging social mobility, the coalition is placing more obstacles.
Tripling tuition fees to a maximum of £9,000 doesn’t increase social mobility – it doesn’t even stagnate it. Granted universities that charge £9,000 are required to spend 10% of this income on access schemes for poorer students. But there is a real worry that pupils from the poorest backgrounds will be discouraged from applying. I left university with a £12,000 debt still largely unpaid. But a debt of £27k+ – who needs that hanging over their heads as well as the possibility that a degree – even an Oxbridge one – doesn’t guarantee you a job?
When the fees legislation was passed in December, we were promised that universities would charge £9,000 only in “exceptional circumstances”. But of the 50 or so universities that have announced their intentions, 35 intend to charge top fees, including a number of former polytechnics, and the rest will charge £6,000+.
So, if Clegg was as committed to improving social mobility as he would have us believe, maybe he shouldn’t have voted for an increase in tuition fees. Good intentions and positive rhetoric can only go so far and education has always been key in breaking through class barriers.
Maybe he now regrets entering into a coalition that has made it harder in an ever competitive world for a state schooled student to even dream of gaining a place at one of the world’s leading institutions. He should do, if he doesn’t already.
David Cameron’s comments a few weeks ago about Oxford university’s lack of black students might have annoyed its dons and PR team but he made a valid point. Granted he skewed the statistics but the truth remains that only 27 black undergraduates – approximately 1% – made its undergraduate intake that year.
The results of a freedom of information request by David Lammy MP revealed, among other startling facts, that Merton College, Oxford, had not admitted a single black student for five years. And although it pains me to say it, my own alma mater doesn’t fair much better – despite its more liberal reputation, white students were more likely to be successful than black applicants at every Cambridge college except one.
These figures are in stark contrast to Oxbridge’s American counterpart, Harvard, where 11% of students were black. Affirmative action no doubt plays a large part in this but Oxbridge does run its own access programmes although – if rumours are to be believed – aiming these schemes at a comprehensive school in Hackney might better achieve social mobility than running them at Marlborough College.
For once, we can’t blame the coalition for something. Oxbridge’s unrepresentative undergraduate intake and the general trend of the lack of upward social mobility in the UK has long been an issue. When I went up to Cambridge in 2007, 57% of the student body were state school educated – a decent enough figure perhaps but we need to consider that in 1997, 55% of the student body were state school educated – hardly an improvement.
So, who’s to blame for this gaping inequality? Social scientists will point to a number of factors including economic circumstances and an entrenched class system that is forever perpetuated. Whatever the cause, surely policy must be formulated to achieve equality of opportunity since it can’t be left up to institutions to serve as engines for social justice. They’ve got enough on their plates trying to keep up with their American equivalents in achieving academic brilliance on the international stage.
The coalition, Nick Clegg in particular, seems keen to eradicate social immobility. In August last year, Clegg articulated his plans to “promote social mobility and the next steps” his government would undertake to overcome them. He declared his vision of good government :
“governing for the long-term means thinking not only about the next year or two, or even the next parliamentary term. Governing for the long-term means recognising that the decisions of one generation profoundly influence the lives and life chances of the next”.
And in early April, he launched the government’s social mobility strategy, a move which was overshadowed by the internship row.
So does coalition policy match the rhetoric?
Raising tuition fees, abolishing the education maintenance allowance (despite a half-hearted u-turn) and cutting Sure Start suggest that instead of encouraging social mobility, the coalition is placing more obstacles.
Tripling tuition fees to a maximum of £9,000 doesn’t increase social mobility – it doesn’t even stagnate it. Granted universities that charge £9,000 are required to spend 10% of this income on access schemes for poorer students. But there is a real worry that pupils from the poorest backgrounds will be discouraged from applying. I left university with a £12,000 debt still largely unpaid. But a debt of £27k+ – who needs that hanging over their heads as well as the possibility that a degree – even an Oxbridge one – doesn’t guarantee you a job?
When the fees legislation was passed in December, we were promised that universities would charge £9,000 only in “exceptional circumstances”. But of the 50 or so universities that have announced their intentions, 35 intend to charge top fees, including a number of former polytechnics, and the rest will charge £6,000+.
So, if Clegg was as committed to improving social mobility as he would have us believe, maybe he shouldn’t have voted for an increase in tuition fees. Good intentions and positive rhetoric can only go so far and education has always been key in breaking through class barriers.
Maybe he now regrets entering into a coalition that has made it harder in an ever competitive world for a state schooled student to even dream of gaining a place at one of the world’s leading institutions. He should do, if he doesn’t already.
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Coalition’s regional growth fund sweetener leaves a bitter taste
by Kevin Meagher
The government yesterday announced the winners from the first round of bidding for its new Regional Growth Fund (RGF) – the funding designed to stimulate private sector jobs growth in the English regions.
A pot of £450 million of government cash will support 50 regional growth projects, which the government hopes will lever-in an additional £2.5 billion of private sector investment, creating 27,000 jobs directly and an additional 100,000 through the supply chain.
Announcing the successful first round applicants, deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg said:
“Today is a step towards rebalancing our economy away from an unhealthy over-reliance on a small number of industries and a few areas. We need to spread opportunity across the whole country, drawing on our many talents.”
Successful projects include a road widening scheme to the A45 in Birmingham, transformation of Manchester’s former Royal Eye Hospital into a biotech centre, while sweet maker Haribo will be supported in extending its West Yorkshire plant, creating 286 new jobs. On average, two thirds of the bids were for project funding of up to £5m.
There is nothing wrong with any of the successful bids in and of themselves. As one source from a regional development agency put it to LFF:
“12 months ago, these were exactly the same kinds of projects we were criticised for spending money on. Now the coalition thinks they are the bees knees.”
However the flaw in Labour’s RDA model was that it was too equitable, with each English region having its own agency, regardless of actual need. The focus on regional growth should have been more narrowly focused on closing the national prosperity gap through aggressively diversifying the economies of the northern regions, which underwent savage deindustrialisation and jobs-shedding in the 1980s.
In that respect, the government deserves some credit for focusing its attention today. Half the successful projects cover the north of England,with London and the south east missing out altogether. The key issue remains one of generating private sector activity in those parts of the country heavily reliant on public sector jobs and therefore hardest hit with government spending cuts.
Today’s announcement is a welcome contribution, but pales besides the resources the regional development agencies had at their disposal over the previous decade. This first round of RGF funding allocates £450m to 50 regional growth projects, however more than 464 bids, totalling £2.8bn were originally submitted, exposing the scale of demand across the country as the government’s spending cuts continue to decimate regeneration projects.
Despite today’s announcement, the RGF actually masks a catastrophic cut to funding for regional economic growth. The fund amounts to just £1.4bn, spread over three years – equivalent to the eight regional development agencies’ annual budget. Also, the coalition’s ideological decision to scrap RDAs (which had delivered a return, on average, of £4.50 for every £1 of public money spent) has wasted much of the last year with an unneeded shuffling of the bureaucratic pack as ministers struggled to develop their successor delivery vehicle, the local economic partnerships.
Also, the selection of projects by the panel chaired by Lord Heseltine lacks any real transparency and represents a centralisation of decision-making, with the department of business cherry-picking the RDAs higher-value functions to pad out Vince Cable’s Whitehall empire.
By fronting today’s announcement himself, Nick Clegg will seek to show the Lib Dems are influencing the coalition’s wider economic agenda, providing a riposte to his internal critics like Warren Bradley, the leader of the Lib Dems in Liverpool, who last night called for the Lib Dems to quit the coalition saying he is tired of “defending the indefensible”.
However, the gaping holes in the government’s approach to regional economic growth remain; with too little money, a lack of long-term commitment, messy and unneeded changes in delivery and a lack of transparency and accountability hampering their efforts.
Haribo’s sweet factory may have benefited from today’s announcement, but with growth faltering, there is simply not enough money in the regional growth fund to sweeten the pill of the coalition’s bitter spending cuts.
The government yesterday announced the winners from the first round of bidding for its new Regional Growth Fund (RGF) – the funding designed to stimulate private sector jobs growth in the English regions.
A pot of £450 million of government cash will support 50 regional growth projects, which the government hopes will lever-in an additional £2.5 billion of private sector investment, creating 27,000 jobs directly and an additional 100,000 through the supply chain.
Announcing the successful first round applicants, deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg said:
“Today is a step towards rebalancing our economy away from an unhealthy over-reliance on a small number of industries and a few areas. We need to spread opportunity across the whole country, drawing on our many talents.”
Successful projects include a road widening scheme to the A45 in Birmingham, transformation of Manchester’s former Royal Eye Hospital into a biotech centre, while sweet maker Haribo will be supported in extending its West Yorkshire plant, creating 286 new jobs. On average, two thirds of the bids were for project funding of up to £5m.
There is nothing wrong with any of the successful bids in and of themselves. As one source from a regional development agency put it to LFF:
“12 months ago, these were exactly the same kinds of projects we were criticised for spending money on. Now the coalition thinks they are the bees knees.”
However the flaw in Labour’s RDA model was that it was too equitable, with each English region having its own agency, regardless of actual need. The focus on regional growth should have been more narrowly focused on closing the national prosperity gap through aggressively diversifying the economies of the northern regions, which underwent savage deindustrialisation and jobs-shedding in the 1980s.
In that respect, the government deserves some credit for focusing its attention today. Half the successful projects cover the north of England,with London and the south east missing out altogether. The key issue remains one of generating private sector activity in those parts of the country heavily reliant on public sector jobs and therefore hardest hit with government spending cuts.
Today’s announcement is a welcome contribution, but pales besides the resources the regional development agencies had at their disposal over the previous decade. This first round of RGF funding allocates £450m to 50 regional growth projects, however more than 464 bids, totalling £2.8bn were originally submitted, exposing the scale of demand across the country as the government’s spending cuts continue to decimate regeneration projects.
Despite today’s announcement, the RGF actually masks a catastrophic cut to funding for regional economic growth. The fund amounts to just £1.4bn, spread over three years – equivalent to the eight regional development agencies’ annual budget. Also, the coalition’s ideological decision to scrap RDAs (which had delivered a return, on average, of £4.50 for every £1 of public money spent) has wasted much of the last year with an unneeded shuffling of the bureaucratic pack as ministers struggled to develop their successor delivery vehicle, the local economic partnerships.
Also, the selection of projects by the panel chaired by Lord Heseltine lacks any real transparency and represents a centralisation of decision-making, with the department of business cherry-picking the RDAs higher-value functions to pad out Vince Cable’s Whitehall empire.
By fronting today’s announcement himself, Nick Clegg will seek to show the Lib Dems are influencing the coalition’s wider economic agenda, providing a riposte to his internal critics like Warren Bradley, the leader of the Lib Dems in Liverpool, who last night called for the Lib Dems to quit the coalition saying he is tired of “defending the indefensible”.
However, the gaping holes in the government’s approach to regional economic growth remain; with too little money, a lack of long-term commitment, messy and unneeded changes in delivery and a lack of transparency and accountability hampering their efforts.
Haribo’s sweet factory may have benefited from today’s announcement, but with growth faltering, there is simply not enough money in the regional growth fund to sweeten the pill of the coalition’s bitter spending cuts.
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