Do not subject welfare to the politics of hatred !

There’s been a lot of ideology thrown around about the welfare issue over the last few weeks – coupled with an equal reluctance to address what appears to be the fundamental question: how can we afford to retain the current post- war model of welfare at its current level ? I know that even appearing to question this shibboleth of the left will set Labour readers quivering with rage – but welfare should not be a shibboleth: it should be practical, have clear aims & be fit for purpose in the 21st century. If we don’t drain the debate of ideology we will never achieve this.

The problem is this – the original Liberal model of welfare was designed by the Lloyd George government to support those in need. It was means tested & this later came to be seen as a problem, partly because the shame involved prevented people applying, partly because of the difficulty of designing a model of assessment detailed & manouverable enough to be fair.

Post World War Two, a more comprehensive model of welfare developed where universal provision became the modus operandi in pensions & health as well as child benefit.

But there has been one fundamental change in UK society since the 1940s that has had an unforeseen impact on this system; not the credit crunch, but our ageing population.

The welfare state is funded by national insurance & taxation. This model of funding assumes that more people are in work than out of work & it assumes more people of working age than retirement age. But there is no pot of savings built up through our regular payments – what you & I pay now pays the pensions of those now in receipt of benefits. This system will no longer work when we have more people aged over 60 than the working population aged 16-65 put together.

Moreover, instead of living to 65, many people now routinely live into their eighties. That means more pensions & more care & more hospital treatment (apart from expectant mothers the majority of expense in the NHS is on the over 60s). We also have fewer children and therefore will have fewer workers in the future. These are issues that the Turner report attempted to address. Government has known about them for a long time, but apart from the so-called ‘death tax’, there has been no real attempt to address them. And they need to be addressed on a practical & non-ideological basis.

I do not believe that we can any longer afford universal provision across the current range of benefits. Longevity was an unforeseen impact for the architects of the welfare state. If we had lived into our eighties in the early nineteen hundreds, Lloyd George would not have designed the pensions system in the same way – nor Beveridge in the 1940s made the same recommendations.

So where’s the solution ? If we increase social mobility it will reduce the numbers of working age on benefits or low wages and increase the amount of tax revenue – but it will not take away the problem.

My personal belief is that it is people like me – the middle classes – who should be prepared to sacrifice our entitlement to benefits (health care & social care & pensions excluded) to make their provision more affordable for those really in need.

I am entitled to Family Tax Credit, but don’t claim it. I could afford to give up Family Allowance. I know many well off pensioners who feel they don’t need their free bus passes or winter fuel allowance, just as there are equally many who do.

It is not the innate right of the well off to have universal benefits in a system where cutting levels for all will only make the poor suffer. That's just self interest & selfishness. If the coalition goes that way just because Cameron made an electoral promise to middle England then that is simply irresponsible government – as irresponsible as the Private finance Initiatives which mortgaged our futures or the huge public debt amounting to £22,400 for every man woman & child in Britain..

It’s a grave error to seek to make political gain out of welfare. Labour were wrong as the century turned to continue to fight for the rights of the middle classes to such benefits. There’s no easy choice here – but ideological debate fuelled by the politics of hatred is no way to make the sums add up; let’s have a grown up analysis of how to direct welfare to where it is most needed & at those for whom it was originally intended.

EMAIL LOBBYING CAMPAIGN URGING LIB DEM MPS TO VOTE AGAINST THE ACADEMIES BILL

I AM RUNNING AN EMAIL CAMPAIGN FOR LIB DEM SUPPORTERS TO EMAIL OUR MPs, URGING THEM TO VOTE AGAINST THE ACADEMIES BILL. It is important that you are a Lib Dem voter, activist, party member, councillor etc because the point is to heighten awareness of how strongly SUPPORTERS feel about this piece of legislation.

To take part in the campaign, please follow the instructions below:


PASTE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES INTO YOUR ADDRESS BAR THEN PASTE THE LETTER BELOW ONTO YOUR EMAIL ALTERING AS REQUIRED.

I SUGGEST YOU MAKE THE HEADER SOMETHIHNG NOTICEABLE LIKE: PLEASE VOTE AGAINST ACADEMIES ON MONDAY .

hemmingj@parliament.uk
horwoodm@parliament.uk
simon@simonhughes.org.uk
chris@chrishuhne.org.uk
hunterm@parliament.uk
julian.huppert.mp@parliament.uk
danny.alexander.mp@parliament.uk
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gordon.birtwistle.mp@parliament.uk
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andrew@andrewgeorge.org.uk
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Dear Lib Dem Colleague,

I am writing as a Lib Dem……………………………………………………. voter / activist / Councillor/ Parliamentary Candidate…………………………………… to voice my concerns over the proposed fast track academies legislation & to ask you to vote against the bill to be passed on Monday.

This legislation is being rushed through Parliament without proper scrutiny & without the support of the relevant select committee.

These are controversial measures & as coalition partners they are not something we have signed up to. At the very least I urge you to do all in your power to prevent the precipitate passing of these measures by ensuring that changes cannot be made as early as September.

Why do I have concerns about this Bill ? They are outlined below:
Contrary to the claim that people are going to get much greater powers over services in their area, the expansion of academies and free schools (so-called) will have the opposite effect.

1) It takes powers away from local education authorities which consist, it should be noted, of elected members locally accountable.
2) It is a centralising measure which will have the effect of depriving local authorities of money, leading to a reduction in the quality of services provided to other schools.
3) To whom will the new bodies running the academies and free schools be accountable? How will they be accountable?
4) What about the back-up services currently provided by LEAs eg local inspectors and financial advice?
5) Who will monitor how the new schools use the money they are given, eg use of the pupil premium?
6) What about the salary levels of teachers and other school staff? Will these schools be free to pay as little as they can get away with?
7) Who will decide on the admission numbers and admission policies of the schools? Will there be an appeals process for parents whose children are refused admission?
8) Has any thought been given to the knock-on effect on existing schools in the area? How many will lose children and become unviable?

The record of existing academies is mixed - some good, some bad, some indifferent. In other words, just like LEA schools. Altering the purpose of academies (originally designed to increase funding for failing schools) by encouraging a two tier education system which will remove funding from LEA schools runs counter to the manifesto commitments we fought on in the election & the way this bill is being hurried through will lead to the passing of measures which are ill thought through & the implications of which could damage the education system of this country forever – something for which WE as Liberal Democrats will be held accountable.

I therefore urge you to vote against the passing of this legislation in its current form on Monday.

Yours sincerely,

DON’T ACCEPT THE LABOUR AGENDA: BUILDING AN ALTERNATIVE DISCOURSE

I think it is really important for those of us who have just experienced the 2010 general election to not allow the agenda for the left to be set by Labour.

Their response to losing is not to investigate the mistakes made in government ( although Ed Balls thankfully does finally seem to be doing some self investigation ) or how they could change their own decision-making processes & communication with the grass roots ; or to choose a leader who represents something different from their last 7 years of poor government, but instead choose to deflect criticism by aiming their guns at the Liberal Democrats, whipping up a frenzy of self righteous concern about appalling damage to the benefits system ( read taking away tax credits from well off middle class families & questioning the relevance of a universal system of child benefits for the same) & conjuring up the succubus of Margaret Thatcher.

We need to be encouraging a discourse that gets its fact straight – because for those of us on the Liberal left it’s quite easy to get sucked in to this distorted Labour world view - & we need to be able to stand back to understand what is really going on here. It’s basically political positional game –playing & it’s offering a fundamentally refracted picture of what is actually happening: it's defining the future by what happened in the past.

Why is it so important to get this right ? Because if we don’t the tone of the first chapter of this government will have been set before it’s too late to challenge the hypothesis upon which the argument has been constructed: & as today’s budget (which by removing 900,000 low income families from taxation; removing those earning less than £21,000 from the public sector pay freeze; affecting the income of single parents & low paid families by only £20 p year, pensioners by £2 per year compared to middle class families at £438 per year – a budget which as promised protects the poor against the vast majority of the cuts) proves - it’s a false hypothesis.

How do we know it’s distorted ? Well, take a look at how the ex- government operated: an ex- cabinet that is now full of recrimination at the removal of a loan to the Sheffield Forgemasters, but which itself refused to bail out Jaguar or Vesta & which systematically dismantled the Post Office; an ex- government which is complaining about a review of public sector pensions & pay – which it also wanted to freeze; an ex-government which is now free to criticise any form of cuts to public spending, although as Will Hutton rightly said in the Observer this week it had “already committed to a greater & faster reduction in the budget deficit than any British Government in modern times” in the pre budget report before the election.

An ex-government that is already seeking the platform for its re-election before the first steps of the new coalition have even taken effect – within less than 8 weeks of it taking office – prejudging the issue because the process of negative spin in opposition is proving just as effective as the process of positive spin did in government.

What matters as far as Labour is concerned is setting an ideological agenda – raising the spectre of Thatcherism as a means to rally back the disaffected because as a party it is totally bereft of ideas & of solutions .



It’s important here to remember what it was that the voters were running from : a government that chose in Blair to remould itself around the Thatcher agenda by making public services operate on the private business model; that sought to deliver services by developing a growth model which was fundamentally unsustainable (& which essentially caused the recession) because it was built on debt . Two kinds of debt : private debt with its subsequent failure of regulation, & public debt through the ubiquitous & pernicious PFI – that albatross around the neck of the Treasury that is partly responsible for the increases in the structural debt of the UK on a year by year basis. Criminally irresponsible policies which failed to recognise the fundamental truth of all markets – one which was painfully revealed even to the 17th century pioneers of venture capitalism: after rapid expansion they collapse.

This is the fundamental difference between Liberal Democrats & Conservatives : we believe in sustainability through regulated growth in a local as well as a global economy & we believe in redistributive measures as the way of tackling the debt crisis. Taxing the banks; taxing the profit of the banks & capital gains; making the wealthy who have profited from Labour’s lack of regulation pay to protect those of us who have suffered from it. Strangely - all policies which have found their way into today's budget !

This ex-Labour government did not produce redistribution; inequalities of wealth expanded during those 13 years under the mistaken belief that so long as most people also got richer when the rich got richer, then that was better than all of us.

Playing to the comfortably off middle-classes led to a clear impact: under New Labour the poor got poorer. So it’s particularly rich that in targeting the middle class recipients of benefits originally designed for the poor that it’s the Lib Dems who are being pilloried by Labour now. Because this is where the majority of cuts will fall now – on the middle classes. So who are Labour trying to defend here – the middle classes or the poor ? Don’t fall for it – don’t let them shape the agenda.


The only way those of us on middle class incomes ( & no I do not need child benefit & I do not claim child tax credit - although I needed both when I was briefly a single parent) can afford to receive these benefits is if benefits for people in genuine need are cut, if we are all taxed more or if the benefits to us as middle class earners are cut. Tell me one thing – why should WE be holding the state to ransom just for a few extra hundred pounds in the pocket that we will be repaid through tax cuts on the first £10,000 of our income anyway ?

Under new Labour the poor got poorer & child poverty was not alleviated despite large amounts of spending on the welfare state. This is where the Liberal Democrats are far more radical than Labour – we believe in local, tailor-made solutions designed within communities, perhaps involving charities & voluntary organisations supported by the state, & geographically varied solutions rather than a one size fits all centralised model.

Centralisation was another defining problem of the ex-government & redefining the role of the state so that it can deliver without it is the main challenge of our times & one that Labour is aeons away from addressing. It was this target driven, top down, rigid culture that you voted against this May.

So what about Thatcherism ? Well – the UK today is hardly the same country with the same problems that Thatcher inherited & the coalition does not even come close to the 1979 cabinet: Danny Alexander is not Keith Joseph; Vince Cable is most certainly NOT Norman Tebbit ;& although Ken Clarke is still, unfortunately, Ken Clarke, his later years in the Major administration (pro Europe, rebuilding the economic damage wreaked by Lawson) were far more liberal & constructive than his early years spent slashing the education & health budgets. Idiosyncratically un-Thatcherite I’d say.

The condition of Britain in 2010 is different in both good & bad ways. The UK HAS fundamentally changed - & not being a tribalist I’m prepared to say that much of this is down to the first 6 years of New Labour.

British industry however was thinned down by Thatcher & never rebuilt by Blair & Brown – the main difference in our economy is overdependence on the financial sector – unleashed by Thatcher in 1988’s ‘big bang’ & only encouraged by 10 years of a Brown chancellorship & by the policies of Brown’s coterie – Ed Balls & the Milibands.

This same lack of regulation fuelled the housing crisis , failure to address which is Labour’s greatest let down after 13 years in office & one which makes the slating of the coalition in abandoning regional spatial strategies particularly rich in hypocrisy. Surely the first responsibility of any Labour government following the right to buy fiasco was replenishment of the depleted housing stock ? In 13 years they failed to do this. What’s the point of earning even a half a decent salary if you can’t afford a place to live ? It’s an area where the ex-government simply got its priorities wrong.

Lack of available affordable housing stock stimulated high demand in the smallest private units, fuelling rising prices & lining the pockets of solicitors, estate agents & the banks. Labour chose not to regulate this industry by linking house prices to inflation or through setting a ceiling on debt by limiting mortgages – they did the latter only when it was too late. A signal failure over 13 years to address the single most important issue to people on low incomes.

So before you listen to the arguments that the coalition is somehow a reincarnation of the monetarist daemon just remember what Labour did wrong – what their senior party members - & that includes ALL former ministers - failed to challenge, & how the Liberal part of this new government has committed it to redistribution; has confirmed it will NOT support the rich at the expense of the needy, but instead will make practical choices about the finances that deny the false syllogism: that to cut means to inevitably damage the worst off. When it’s the middle classes who have benefited most from universal payments that is simply just not true.

Thatcher’s cuts were ideological (remember the Miners’ strike) & starved the British economy of the oxygen of recovery. But whatever you may think of George Osborne, Vince Cable is not Margaret Thatcher – the reforms planned at the Department of Business seek to make investment in the economy work hardest with local variations which will respond to local need –regional enterprise boards & partnerships , increased credit to small firms, lower corporation tax.

Progressive government is not protectionist of the rich; & before you take on board hook line & sinker Labour’s flawed analysis, just remember how much they stand to lose if they do not reconquer the left/middle ground: as Mervyn King said before the election – whoever becomes the government risks being banished from power for the next generation. That is the ground Milliband & Balls are laying – the Labour confidence trick – full of spin, bereft of substance. It ill behoves us on the left to swallow the argument before the evidence can be tested.

I would encourage you therefore to judge everything by the old adage –‘ by the evidence of their deeds shall ye know them’. Measure every current accusation, every media spun scare tactic against the evidence of Labour’s record in government . If it wasn’t sorted in 13 years, what makes them better qualified to sort it now ? Measure the impact of the current changes 3 years down the line – to do so now is both unfair & precipitate. There is no room to abuse the coalition 6 weeks in for trying something different .

Be objective – measure up the facts against the performance. Do not accept the agenda currently being set by Labour – it is not straight; the syllogism is flawed – there is a strong ulterior motive - & it just does not add up; use your brain – refuse to believe it.

Holding the mirror to Labour: what political reformers most need to fear .

On Thursday I am going to have to plead the virtues of coalition to a combined campaign group of Greens, Respect, Lib Dem, Labour & Citizen party activists as part of the campaign group Fair Votes 4 Dorset. It is something I can only approach with discomfort.

Among the left, the repeated accusation against the Liberal Democrats for entering the coalition is one of betrayal; of selling out. But what makes me even more uncomfortable is what these accusations suggest about whether or not we are mature enough as a political culture to accept the outcome of electoral reform as a system. Because that’s the thing about coalition government: if we want electoral reform we are going to have to learn to live with it.

Why is it so threatening ? Is it because the history of UK politics has been until recently the history of class struggle ? Is it because politicians are loyalists & obsessives, intensely focused people who don’t lead normal lives, & because radicals are used to being positioned on the outside, powerlessly looking in ? Or is it because of tribalism ? Tribal politics makes working with anyone else almost always intensely uncomfortable.

In the immediate aftermath of the General Election I had some interesting tweets from Labour activists: one of them predicted that the Lib Dems were about to be assimilated by the Tory party & we should joyfully expect annihilation at the next election.

So I’m intensely uncomfortable about assimilation too. I’m on the left of my party – what Kinnock would describe as a Lloyd George Liberal – strongly refusenik, non conformist & commuitarian.

But if we are to convince the public & the other parties that coalition means anything other than assimilation & that coalition government is good government, then it will be precisely because it involves challenging the tribalism of British politics.

Why does coalition work ? Because when you abandon tribalism you are left simply with problems – and the choice of whether to turn your back on them or to explore a variety of solutions. That usually involves something that is practical rather than political. Evidence based politics that is about doing things that will work rather than about ideology; guided by political principle but not dictated by it. And it always involves some form of compromise – but then none of us can be self righteous or arrogant enough to claim that we have all the best ideas in every policy area, surely ?

But in discussing PR we have to look beyond coalition - we also have to ask, ‘what sort of a country is it that we want?’

We may say we want fairer voting & more democracy in a variety of places: the anomalous House of Lords; for elected Mayors; for local government. More power for District, Borough, Town & Parish Councils to influence the lives of local people. Power for organisations & services to innovate, develop & respond to local need. A devolution, empowerment & self determination agenda.

People who engage in politics are by and large interested in activism, in community, in volunteering their skills for the benefit of others. But these qualities are not merely restricted to politicians & they always involve a decision to make an impact on your own life & on that of your community.

What vanished from British culture during the course of the 20th century was precisely that sense of community & self determination. I won’t call it responsibility because that smacks of Cameron’s ‘big society’ - an ill defined spin of an idea. People want control over their lives & they want to influence them for the better. In our historical journey from industrialisation to consumerism community got lost along the way. Why ? Because the centralisation of power in the state & the decline of local market systems transferred all power to the centre.

So what kind of society do we want ? Well, peak oil indicates to us that reliance on globalised trade may well not last beyond our lifetimes. Local markets & economically as well as environmentally sustainable solutions are going to have to be recreated.

The centralisation of the State & the global economy have over the past 500 years taken away local self determination. Only in some less developed parts of some European countries can we in the West see how local small scale agrarian & industrial systems can deliver prosperity effectively – in regions of France, parts of Spain & Italy. Being a small country & the first to industrialise & develop global trade, we lost this local infrastructure long ago.

So what does the sustainability agenda have to do with voting reform ? This: people are profoundly dissatisfied with their lives because they have no power; localism gives access to a smaller, more clearly defined political arena than that of the state; a smaller environment – one where it is possible to genuinely & effectively influence the local economy & well being. One which is much more accessible to groups currently excluded from the political process – one which , given the current debate at a national level, is much more accessible , for example, to women.

Instead of the vast mechanism of central government, there will be a series of interconnecting honeycombs – interdependent but with independence - & yes, monitored at some level by the state so that exploitation & corruption don’t occur; but by & large self monitoring: it’s called local democracy – and we don’t do it well in Britain.

Changing our voting system is one of the steps we have to take to reverse the historical decline in the ability of ordinary communities to determine their own lives. Why ? because with a wider variety of parties in Parliament & local government we encourage a pluralism of ideas & a greater ease with sharing an agenda in politics.

I believe that single party government produces bad government – it produces a hierarchy rather than a honeycomb. Both Margaret Thatcher & Gordon Brown & his henchmen represented all that was wrong with this system. But returning Parliament to a place of genuine debate, where an ordinary MP can influence the political agenda & encouraging dissemination of power down the hierarchy of government from central to local levels creates participation & it creates involvement.

Until this election I had never believed this involvement was really possible – it was more of an idea. Now I do . Not just because the British people voted for a hung parliament, but because talking to voters on a daily basis in the 4 months running up to the election I discovered something I’d never expected to see – the British people engaged in & feeling deeply about politics.

something about the nadir of the expenses scandal & enduring that last 5 years of poor government had exploded their habitual cynicism & positively energised them. Again & again I saw repeated a real anger ‘I certainly won’t be voting for Gordon Brown’ – and that was from Labour voters: it largely explains the result here in South Dorset 4 weeks ago.

After the election the results were all people in the pubs & on the streets could talk about. They were intrigued. They were even talking about how things might have been different with electoral reform !

So if now IS the time to seize the day, what do we need to do & how can we make the changes that so desperately need to happen ?

There’s one main obstacle to achieving electoral reform in this country & it’s not, as you’d expect, the Conservatives: they’ve been brutally honest about this all along, they don’t want change & they’ll campaign hard & vote against it. The real obstacle to electoral reform that we have to plan for & deal with , the real danger to genuine reform of our political system, comes from the Labour party.

Why ? We’re back to that word again - tribalism; & its accompanying dementors - centralisation; stratification; paralysis of ideas. Despite all the talk of going back to roots, we are watching in the leadership race, a contest based virtually entirely on the very dramatis personae that propped up Brown agenda.

The problem lies in the contradiction between the two very different sides of the Labour movement that I will call 'radicals' & 'authoritarians'. It is manifested in two points of view expressed in the newspapers in the past week.

As Alan Johnson in the Observer, May 23rd puts it:
The Lib Dems missed a golden opportunity genuinely to re-shape politics in this country by failing to negotiate seriously with us on constitutional reform.
It is time for Labour to end the ambivalence that prevented us from honouring our 1997 manifesto commitment to a referendum, offering the British people a choice between the current system or a proportional alternative……….

So what now? The Labour leadership election has spawned much necessary internal contemplation and will produce more rhetoric about empowering the electorate. Here's how we turn the platitudes into policy.

The new government is committed to a referendum on a new voting system. It will contain two options — the current first-past-the-post system and the alternative vote. It will be the first time in the history of our democracy that its citizens will have a say in how their votes are translated into political power. What possible argument can there be against adding the recommendation of the Independent Commission on the Voting System, AV+ as a third option? It retains the constituency link, extends voter choice and is broadly proportional.

I hope that all the opposition parties, backed by a popular movement throughout the country, unite to press the Tory-Lib Dem government to give the public the option of genuine electoral reform in a referendum. If not, I will certainly be making the case within my own party to submit legislative amendments to that effect.....

Martin Kettle however in the Guardian on May 28th paints what I fear will be the more likely picture:
…..the AV referendum will be a moment of historic choice for Labour. Its future will hang on the decision it makes. On the one hand …it can support a move towards greater electoral fairness…even though the effect of a yes victory will be that labour must change into an alliance making party if it is to govern again……

On the other hand, Labour could abandon AV under the smokescreen of antipathy to a reduction of Commons seats…..it can campaign for a no vote & hope that someday a new Tony Blair will emerge….to deliver an overall majority under a continuing first –past-the-post system.

On past form, lacking the steel to face up to hard issues…Labour will jump on board the no campaign…..but a Labour party with strategic sense & principle would do the opposite....


That is why what is happening in the Labour party at the moment is so important to our campaign. I believe we should be encouraging what Alan Johnson suggests – campaigning with Labour for inclusion of AV+ in the referendum. But I think we are far more likely to get what Martin Kettle predicts.

Remember that tweet: you will be assimilated & you will face annihilation at the next general Election.

After all that is what the rump of the Labour party really wants. Why ? Because just like the Conservative party, New Labour is all about power. Obtaining, holding & maintaining power at the centre & doing whatever it can to preserve it. Its preferred aim is to re-establish itself as the Leviathan of the left, regardless of its centralist & antiquated ideas: alteration of this is the change the Labour party least wants to make happen.

The Labour that would support PR is the Labour of the co-operative movement; the early trade unions & early dissenters & social reformers – a Labour party that left leaning Liberals would quite happily support. But not New Labour : not this Labour party.

So as electoral reformers what must we do ? Because the only way we’ll get this change is with their support. They have the resources, the man-power ,if they so decide, to make this change happen. Without it only 25% of the vote will support the change this country desperately needs to see.

For me that’s the central issue – we have to turn the mirror onto the Labour movement, just as they are doing now with the Liberal Democrats, & ask them to face the same hard truth: what kind of a party are they ? What has happened to radical Labour ? Can it possibly survive the authoritarianism in the party ?

Radical Labour has far more in common with Respect, with the Greens & with radical Liberals than it does with authoritarian Labour – but I have to be honest with you, I don’t hold out much hope - & why – because it too is the victim of tribalism. It will be too hard for Labour to give up.

It’s the curse of always believing that you are the underdog – that you have to fight hard against everyone, all the time, in order to survive – even your friends. And of course, if you are working class, or disadvantaged in any way at all, that’s true . But it’s also the fatal legacy of the class struggle in British politics. It makes even the thought of coalition government unpalatable.

That is why we must support this coalition at the same time as supporting electoral reform: so that the coalitions of the future are not restricted to a version of ‘small state’ versus ‘controlling state’ politics, - the power of the market against the power of the state - but so that we can include a precious third option, the option of genuine, devolved democracy & radical power-sharing reform.

Unfortunately we can only achieve this if we bring the Labour movement with us.. I’m not by any means suggesting that you should all go out & join the Labour party ! But yes, those of us who are union members need to think about how we use our vote & I am saying that I will be supporting whoever has the reform of the Labour movement at heart & whoever commits to the vision proposed by Alan Johnson.

MORE CHAOS IS NOT WHAT EDUCATION NEEDS: WHAT’S WRONG WITH GOVE’S ACADEMIES

In the 1980s the Conservatives chose to break up local authority control over education by allowing schools to opt out & achieve grant maintained status – all at the same time as standardising & monitoring pedagogy in the form of tests & the national curriculum. Most of the changes were furthered & supported by the subsequent Labour government, a new piece of legislation every year for 13 years ……….beleaguered teachers having to reinvent the wheel every two to three years as each new policy wonk invented the next great solution to the low standards primarily caused by the inability of central government to leave well alone & give professionals the time & money to get on with what they do best: teaching our kids.

And I can tell you - & I met one at the Portland Academy meeting only this week – there are thousands of inspirational, creative, genuinely child centred, innovative leaders in our schools. But what they need is money & curriculum support – not academy status.

Andrew Adonis is such a policy wonk & his plans for the Portland Academy have led to the more hare-brained aspects of the scheme –redesigning an education system which combines 6 tiers age 0 – 21 plus community education under one umbrella - recognised as hare-brained by professionals & the community alike, because you can’t just make change happen by throwing money, buzz words & nice ideas at social deprivation - you have to plan it in detail & understand how it will work on the ground ! Adonis has been such a policy wonk then - unfortunately so also is Michael Gove.

Swedish Free Schools, recently condemned by the Swedish education secretary for having failed both in terms of breaking up the existing school system & in producing declining standards, & academy status given to outstanding schools rather than failing schools , will both lead to the privatisation of education in this country , reintroducing the two tier divide between high & low achieving institutions ( why not go the whole hog & call them Grammars & Secondary Moderns), in that worst of all worlds where there is a huge reduction in funding for those at the bottom of the pile.

It is a huge failure in the coalition for the Lib Dems not to have challenged this. Our manifesto supported sponsor led schools & local schools led by community groups or charities, but specifically NOT academies or free schools taking money away from local authorities. We did not want funding to bleed from the mainstream sector. We may holler & shout about the adoption of the pupil premium – but the levels of finance have not been set & there’ll be far less in the pot for state schools once this privatisation is finished. It’s a retrograde & dangerous step & I will do everything I can to campaign against it.

And where does that leave the proposed Portland Academy? No one knows !

If the rationale behind it was to reverse disadvantage, there is a different rationale dictating government policy now. A different academy model in Portland would have certainly worked – not all through but 11 to 18 with primaries joining at a later stage where they wanted & freedom of choice for each individual school community; a federation not a corporation. And a properly planned funding stream with a huge amount of work on growing & developing the local economy could have transformed the island. At best now I fear it will be put on the back burner.

State education has a role to play in delivering social justice – but not for advantaging the already advantaged. Leave that to the private system: if we have to have one it’s better left that way.

And yes I am angry – two Labour education secretaries have screwed up here & now I fear for the future of education not only in Portland, but for the whole country. Only the Liberal Democrats can influence this policy now: for God’s sake let’s do something about it.

Ros has been a member of the NUT & an examiner & teacher in secondary & further education for 22 years.

DON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN by CONSERVATIVE AND LABOUR PRETENCE

Of course it's aways nice to see a range of longstanding Lib Dem policies adopted by other two - pupil premium; high speed rail; tax on non- doms & even localism ( a policy that goes back to the days of Joe Grimmond); green new deal & now reform !!!



As Nick Clegg said yesterday , Labour "have systematically blocked at every turn every single reform: party funding reform, they have blocked reform on lobbying...."

The Tories are also promising during this campaign things they actively blocked when there was a chance to make them happen - the power of recall for errant MPs for example, taking big money out of politics, clamping down on lobbyists.

According to www.publicwhip.co.uk which records how MPs vote in Parliament South Dorset's Labour MP also has an unenviable voting record - voting with the Government against 16 year olds being given the vote , an item which Gordon Brown now claims will be put to a free vote !- as well as being absent for every vote on MPs' expenses, and of course voting for the war in Iraq & against a whole range of inquiries into the war.

Brown is finally committing to a fixed term parliament - strange he has only said this now when we have spent the last 2 and 1/2 years waiting with baited breath for him to call an election.

No-one will be fooled. The electorate know that only the Liberal Democrats will provide these reforms - only by electing enough Lib Dem MPs with the power to insist on reform in a hung parliament will any of this come about.

In 13 years Labour have had plenty of chances - but its record on the lack of reform in the House of Lords speaks for itself - as, I would say, does the rest of its record since 2003 !

IS ASHCROFT TRYING TO BUY SOUTH DORSET ? THESE QUESTIONS NEED ANSWERING

Should elections be bought ? If the Conservatives in South Dorset only received £29,000 from their non-dom party vice-chairman billionaire donor Lord Ashcroft in 2005, and as they claim, that was only 2% of their funding, then did they really spend £1.45 million on the last general election campaign here ?

I wonder how much they are planning to spend this time ?

A number of issues arise from this scandal – and it is a scandal in the real sense of the word – because it raises very ugly questions about how politics works in this country, that a political party can promise that its major donor will become resident in the UK in order for him to be given a peerage, and then, once he has become a law-maker he evades complying with the conditions on which the peerage was given, avoiding paying tax as a consequence. An ugly question therefore is – does this mean that the British taxpayer is now bankrolling the Conservative campaign ?

But more alarming even than this is the lack of transparency shown by party leaders. It would appear that William Hague, Shadow Foreign Secretary , the man who might be responsible in a few months for taking us into future wars, firstly avoided asking the relevant questions, then was prepared to give an assurance based merely on supposition, and when he did find out the truth three months ago, persisted in evasive denials in a series of public interviews in which he assured the questioner that there was nothing untoward about Lord Ashcroft’s behaviour. If we thought there were problems about WMD, we have, I fear, far more of a treat in store for us.
His party leader appears to have taken the view that ‘what I don’t know won’t hurt me’ & that it is perfectly acceptable for his party to be in receipt of millions from a non dom resident of Belize, who has also failed to pay tax there & whose income the president of the country estimates is more than its gross domestic product . Someone who is prepared to bankroll a party that claims it cares about the poor in this country, yet who pays nothing towards the upkeep by the state in an impoverished Caribbean tax haven, despite it being in the lowest quartile on the poverty scale of international

I WORRY ABOUT MICHAEL GOVE

The thing that worries me about the Tory shadow education secretary, is how little he appears to understand state education.

Whether it’s suggesting that all secondary teachers have first class degrees or that the most successful schools should ‘opt out’ to become academies, he shows clear misunderstanding of how the system works and how it is experienced by those using it.

He has been rightly pilloried regarding the degrees. Good teachers combine academic knowledge, the ability to enthuse, rapport with and respect for their pupils, with emotional awareness of what is going on in the classroom, for themselves, the class and individual students.

About 4 years into my own teaching career I realised that what inspired my pupils at secondary level was not the subject, but my relationship with them & the fact that my empathy, & understanding of them as individuals was at least as important as my ability to stretch their minds and transmit knowledge. It was this awareness that led me to train as a psychotherapist.

Now many people at the pinnacle of academic achievement do not share the above qualities, and would not therefore prosper in the environment of a state school – where they would also need to establish firm boundaries & a strong sense of order & discipline. Helped always if your charges know that you respect and like them ! You have to be prepared to be tough, to know who the likely miscreants are & you have to be able to second guess the kinds of behaviour that are likely to happen – all the time, every minute of the day, wherever you are in school.

Needless to say, those who go into the profession need to be able to handle stress – and I want to be quite clear that being a parliamentary candidate is much less stressful & onerous than teaching in a modern comprehensive !

The above qualifications cannot be squashed neatly into the box labelled first class degree. They are character based. And it’s usually more accurately the case that the less academic are the more well liked by their charges.

State education will not improve by being modelled in the form of private education in terms of degree level or in terms of school type – because the service users are different. What we do need is the same kind of resourcing, both to employ the best teachers in the hardest to reach schools (funding that will follow the pupil, as in the Lib Dems’ Pupil Premium) and to provide the relevant environments for good quality learning experience.

But with the cuts in real terms currently being proposed by the Conservatives, I can’t see that happening. Neither can I see the currently proposed powers to give parents and charities the opportunity to create their own schools – in many ways an excellent idea – being any more than a way of siphoning off money from the majority, a form of grant maintained foundation trust. We must be very careful of half-baked ideas which are based upon ideology rather than a real knowledge of the facts. As Polly Toynbee has correctly noted (Guardian 6.3.10) “Through social ignorance they assume the newsworthy 2% living profoundly dysfunctional lives, represent all the poor.”

A report which claimed – 3 times - that more than half of teenage girls get pregnant in poor areas (real figure 5.4 %) exposes what Toynbee rightly calls the “social cluelessness among those who would govern a country unknown to them”.

She’s so right I will almost give her the last word – “The chasm yawns between [Cameron’s] critique and his remedies – marriage, a few small schools and volunteers.” The possibility of Michael Gove gaining control of our state education system should set the alarm bells ringing. I welcome the freedom offered to parents and the educational advantages to be offered by small schools – but it is not enough.

DON'T TRUST THE TORIES ON THE NHS: OUR LIVES IN THEIR HANDS

In our latest tabloid, South Dorset Lib Dems have highlighted how those Tory MPs not constantly under the cosh of cuddly Cameron, have revealed the real thinking behind what might happen to the NHS in Conservative hands.

Leading Conservative Daniel Hannan, described the NHS as a “sixty year mistake” when touring the US last summer. Then it was revealed that leading Conservatives described the NHS as “no longer relevant in the 21st century” in a book co-authored by one of David Cameron’s close colleagues. Clearly the preference would be for the kind of private health insurance enjoyed by those who can afford to pay for it in the US with only the very basics available to the poor. A return to the two tier nightmare of the 1992 election campaign ?

Now, Tory adviser Julia Manning wants to end the availability of minor treatments on the NHS.

In her report, Manning, who last week hosted a “Cameron Direct” town hall meeting for the party leader, wrote: “‘Diagnostic drift’ or ‘disease-mongering’ are draining the NHS of precious resources.

“Examples of this include varicose veins, acne, short stature, IVF, cosmetic surgery and moderate increases in blood pressure or cholesterol.”

The most controversial proposal is to end IVF on the NHS, which is already heavily rationed by health authorities as well as the introduction of further prescription charges.

Manning, currently on the shortlist of Conservative parliamentary candidates, has proposed that free prescriptions should end for painkillers and cold remedies, and that alcoholics and drug addicts who repeatedly turn up to A&E should be fined.

As director of the 2020Health.org think tank she is a close adviser to the Tory leadership, and has claimed that ending free treatment for minor or “lifestyle” illnesses could save £20 billion a year — about a fifth of the annual budget. “Examples of this include varicose veins, acne, short stature, IVF, cosmetic surgery and moderate increases in blood pressure or cholesterol.” she said.

This beggars belief. When we have seen how hard Obama and the Democrats have had to fight over the course of several administrations to get even universal private health care through the statute books , how can we even think of rationing health care in this way.

But the real learning point is not to believe the spin. There is a wide gap between what the Tories actually believe on health, and what they say they are going to do. It’s a case of ‘I’m alright Jack’ for those who can afford it – and a free- for- all for the rest of us. Whatever appears to be on offer – see your way through the gauze of manicured publicity: leopards don’t change their spots

DON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN BY DORSET'S TORIES

DON’T LET DORSET’S CONSERVATIVES OBSCURE THE TRUTH

Toni Coombs’ explanation of the reasons behind schools’ closures in the Purbecks (Letters Telegraph 28.12.09) is reductive to say the least . It is a defeatist rationale, which in assuming that the worst will happen, risks condemning an area which is both vibrant and potentially economically resilient, to stagnation.

Illustrative of this is the current battle being fought in Swanage. One of the largest towns in Purbeck (population 10,000) , Swanage lost its both its secondary schools in a 1970s switch to the three tier system. The town gained a middle school, and 14-18 education transferred to Wareham (population 5,600) – 12 miles away.

Now, following the Government instigated review of surplus places, middle school provision is being taken away throughout the Purbecks – with no offer to reinstate secondary provision in Swanage. Other towns in Dorset which use the two tier system, including the much smaller towns of Beaminster and Lyme Regis, have retained their secondary provision.. There is some lack of equity here .

The argument which attributes closure of the schools entirely to the prevalence of second homes in the Swanage area is disingenuous because, according to research based on different statistics to those used by Dorset County Council, almost uniquely among towns in Purbeck Swanage is actually growing: there is an increased birth rate & a recent expansion in the number of families with young children coming into the town.

Newly Liberal Democrat led Purbeck District Council is proposing the development of over six hundred new homes in the town, (40-50% of which are to be affordable) in future years. All the evidence suggests therefore that the school aged population in Swanage will substantially increase in future years.

The strength of this interpretation is boosted rather than diminished by the response of the community. Education Swanage, a highly competent and eloquent group of parents who have banded together to put the case for secondary provision in the town, are proposing that the smaller part of a split site Purbeck Secondary be sited in the town where it could take advantage of the unique opportunity offered for the study of Earth Sciences by the proximity of the World Heritage Coast and Purbeck Stone Centre. Research conducted by these parents has been of a professional quality item by item to rival that of Dorset County’s officers – but they have repeatedly been given short shrift by Dorset County Council.

David Cameron claims that the new Conservatism supports localism, but here is an example of a visionary and eloquent local community being rebuffed again and again by a Conservative County Council as it presents alternative plans which are financially viable and which deserve to be taken seriously.

In fact, this short-sighted schools’ review will amplify the very effect that it proffers as a cause – desertion of Swanage and its vicinity by families with young children , thereby encouraging its infiltration by second home owners - whereas forward thinking and upfront investment by the council in building a new secondary, working alongside the District council’s excellent programme for employment and housing regeneration, will attract more parents with children to the town, ensuring that it has a working, full time population.

In a rural county where there is plenty of poverty, economic regeneration needs foresight, joined up planning between local authorities, vision to see the opportunities and fortitude in finding and exploiting relevant sources of revenue. All of these have been singularly lacking in Dorset County Council, but are amply visible in the creative vision and determination of Education Swanage, a group which I continue to support wholeheartedly in their endeavours to retain secondary education in their town.

At the other end of the county, it’s a different story. Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, (population 4,406, school population 1,106) has been rated outstanding in two consecutive Ofsted inspections. Lyme is fortunate in having a visionary Development Trust, which, working with local authorities and the international scientific community is seeking to transform the economy of the town by capitalising on its Jurassic Coast location: the role of the school is central to this development………….if only we could see the same in Swanage.