tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-334510962024-03-14T18:49:17.058+00:00donpaskiniTraditional enemy of free speech. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and circumstances are a product of the author's imagination. Any similarity to people, dead or alive, to events or places, is entirely accidental.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.comBlogger960125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-58789711171306937642023-07-22T11:21:00.000+00:002023-07-22T11:21:42.322+00:00Keir Starmer's speech to National Policy Forum: full text<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Full text of Keir Starmer's speech to National Policy Forum, 22nd July 2023 (check against delivery)</i></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">"<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">As we learn from Thursday's by election results, and prepare our policy platform for the next election, whenever it might be, we have to remember that our party has changed and our campaign has always been different. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">The reason we began this improbable journey after that awful defeat in December 2019 is because it's not just about what I will do as prime minister. It is about you, the people who love this country, the citizens of our great nation, accepting that we cannot change it.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. And we know that false hope is worse than no hope at all. As your leader, I will never offer false hope of a better future.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">(APPLAUSE)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">For when we have faced impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: </span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we won't. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we shan't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">It was the creed unwritten and yet shaping the destiny of a nation: No, we can't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: No, we can't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who built an empire on which the sun never set: No, we can't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a miner from South Wales who believed healthcare should be free for all, and all those in our great movement who believe that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than alone: </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't, to justice and equality.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't, to opportunity and prosperity. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't heal this nation. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't repair this world. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No, we can't.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">And so, tomorrow, as we take the campaign across the country, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Leicester are not so different than the plight of the car owner in Uxbridge, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to the crumbling school in Fife are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of Liverpool, we will remember that we are not as divided as our politics suggest, that we are one people, we are one nation, and that we have to take the tough choices not to help any of these people until our fiscal rules are met.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in our island story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;">No. We. Can't." </span></span></div>donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-74980815045108408812020-04-24T21:00:00.003+00:002020-04-24T21:00:42.700+00:00My friend Sabir<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I learned today that my dear friend, comrade and fellow councillor Sabir-Hussain Mirza has passed away from the Coronavirus.<br />
<br />
I first met Sabir when we were both selected as council candidates for Lye Valley ward in Oxford in 2002. The whole council was up for election and we were chosen to stand together. We were an unlikely pairing: neither of us having stood for election before, Sabir a community activist and taxi driver, and me a final year student who arguably should have spent more time revising and less time knocking on doors.<br />
<br />
Sabir was warm, friendly and charismatic. We immediately hit it off and spent the next few months going round introducing ourselves to voters across the ward. And on election day in May 2002, Sabir topped the poll and I came second - a tribute to the respect he had across the community, and also to the fact that 'M' comes before 'P' on the ballot paper.<br />
<br />
Over the next four years, we worked together as fellow councillors - helping constituents, working to improve the local area and supporting each other through some mind-numbingly tedious meetings called "the Cowley Area Committee". We did a lot of good together, and Sabir's kindness and decency was a constant source of inspiration. I was very lucky to have a fellow councillor who was so talented, was trusted and respected by so many people, and so easy to get on with.<br />
<br />
Sabir was a great host, and I remember many a happy afternoon or evening at his house on the Cowley Road. I learned a lot about Kashmir where his family was from. I discovered that Sabir had enormous respect for those who were dedicated to public service, no time at all for those who were in it for themselves and a keen eye for the difference between the two. I can still hear his voice and remember him talking about some pompous character or other, telling an ancedote about them, and then dismissing them with a cry of "that XXXX, he is such a bullsh****r", and roaring with laughter.<br />
<br />
Sabir served as a local councillor for eight years, but that was only a small part of the contribution he made to Oxford and its communities. He was active in bringing people from different faiths together, along with his friend and neighbour Martin who often popped in when we were round at his. He was chair of the mosque and the Muslim Council of Oxford, and was a community leader in the true and proper sense of that word - someone who gave his time in service to others and earned respect as a result.<br />
<br />
In 2004, it was my turn to be up for election on my own. It was the aftermath of the Iraq war, which Sabir and I had campaigned against. Across the city, voters wanted to send a message to Tony Blair and Labour councillor after Labour councillor got voted out. But in Lye Valley, Sabir worked tirelessly to support me and persuade people to stick with Labour. Together, we persuaded enough people who had previously supported us, plus local residents who weren't natural Labour supporters but valued the work we did, to get me re-elected.<br />
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Two years on, it was Sabir's turn to stand again for election. I still have some of the old community newsletters we did from that election - with thrilling articles such as "Hollow Way road hedge cut back" with a beaming picture of Sabir beside a nicely pruned hedge (the result of months of campaigning to get the local golf club to undertake its responsibilities). It was the top target for the Liberal Democrats and they put everything that they had into the campaign (for younger readers, the Liberal Democrats used to be a political party which were very effective in winning local elections). They were very confident of beating Sabir, which made it all the sweeter when Sabir got more votes than we'd got in 2002 or 2004 and held them off by 21 votes.<br />
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The last Lye Valley Labour newsletter I have is from the summer of 2006. It has a picture of Sabir, me, and our two county councillors Val Smith and Barbara Gatehouse. As time goes by, I realise more and more what a privilege it was to serve with three such remarkable people. It breaks my heart to think that none of them are still with us.<br />
<br />
The fact that Oxford is such a flourishing, diverse and welcoming city is not an accident, something that happened by chance or coincidence. It happened because of those who worked tirelessly to bring people together across communities, to strive for social justice and to use their talents to help others, while at the same time enjoying life and laughter. As a citizen of Oxford, a representative of the Labour Party, and as a leader in the Muslim community, Sabir embodied these values to the full.<br />
<br />
After I left the council and moved away from Oxford, we didn't see so much of each other. But each time we did, we would get chatting and it would be as if I'd never been away. I knew Sabir as a true friend, one who I knew would always be rooting for me and on my side, someone who spent his time helping others, and someone to laugh and share happy memories with. I am going to miss him terribly.<br />
<br />
Farewell my brother. Rest in peace.</div>
donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-16620816530043100742016-10-10T20:57:00.000+00:002016-10-10T20:57:02.624+00:00Brexit: the four key tests<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A suggested approach to Brexit for the Labour Party:<br />
<br />
- We respect the result of the referendum. We are concerned that the incompetence of the Tory government and their UKIP allies will mean that they fail to negotiate a deal which reflects the will of the British people.<br />
<br />
- To get the best deal for Britain, we recommend setting key tests for the outcome of Brexit negotiations. This approach served Britain very well when we decided not to join the euro.<br />
<br />
- There should be four tests: on the impact on sovereignty, immigration, public services and the economy. We will support a deal that meets these tests. Any deal which fails to meet these tests has not respected the democratic will of the British people.<br />
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- These tests are set out below:<br />
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<ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #191919; font-family: myriad-pro, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 11px; margin-top: 0px;" type="square">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 11px;">
<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">We end the supremacy of EU law and the European Court.</b> We will be able to kick out those who make our laws.</div>
</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 11px;">
<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Europe yes, EU no.</b> We have a new UK-EU Treaty based on free trade and friendly cooperation. We will take back the power to negotiate our own trade deals.</div>
</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 11px;">
<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">We spend our money on our priorities.</b> Instead of sending £350 million per week to Brussels, we will spend it on our priorities like the NHS and schools.</div>
</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 32px;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 11px;">
<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">We take back control of migration policy,</b> including the 1951 UN Convention on refugees, so we have a fairer and more humane policy, and we decide who comes into our country, on what terms, and who is removed.</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-45067332398693552382016-06-28T07:21:00.004+00:002016-06-28T07:21:40.385+00:00Labour's response to the Brexit crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This will probably be out of date in about ten minutes, but here's the outline of the policy platform which I think Labour should announce under their new leader to get Britain out of this mess. This is based on the analysis and strategy outlined by Duncan <a href="https://medium.com/@DuncanWeldon/britains-political-economy-is-changing-labour-needs-to-become-relevant-efd53bc2cf75#.a51fizd9s" target="_blank">here</a></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Need to bring people together, we can only get
through this crisis if we all pull together.
Condemn racist violence, reiterate all current people in UK are welcome
here and announce plans to work with Labour councillors to start right now on new
efforts to bring together people from different backgrounds to improve our
communities. We have nothing to fear,
but fear itself<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>British people voted for Leave based on the
claims that (a) continued access to markets and increased opportunities for
economy, (b) cuts in immigration and (c) extra money for the NHS. There is a mandate to trigger article 50 when and only
when Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage present their plans to keep these promises<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>We all know they won’t do this, because they
lied and lied and lied again throughout the campaign. So we will set out a positive alternative for a strong United Kingdom where everyone has more opportunities,
listening to people but being honest about choices<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>We will prioritise stabilising and growing our
economy, getting investment back into our businesses, stopping the brain drain
of talented people and backing the industries of the future<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>In order to keep our economy growing, we will
need to keep free movement of people, and anyone who tells you otherwise is not
being honest<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>But we will enable people to take greater
control so that everyone benefits from a growing economy. Rather than decisions about your future being
taken in Brussels or London, we’ll make sure there are the resources to build
the homes, provide the school places and create the jobs that we need in all
parts of Britain, and you will have more control about what matters to your
community</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We believe the referendum was a mistake but respect the will of the people. But people can turn their backs on their
mistakes just as once they turned their back on their friends. A Labour
government would regard itself as having a clear mandate never to press the
button on Article 50. Only a general election mandate could reverse a
referendum result and that is Labour's commitment</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Over the next few weeks, we will be listening to
people and developing our manifesto for the election to come. But we can make one specific pledge
today. Once we have stabilised the
immediate economic crisis, we will spend the extra £350 million per week on our
NHS which the Tories and UKIP promised but which only a strong Labour
government can deliver</span></div>
</div>
donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-18808712673321631402016-03-21T12:28:00.001+00:002016-03-21T12:28:28.063+00:00Be useful, be kind: the future welfare state<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It would take a heart of stone not to enjoy Iain Duncan Smith's resignation and the ongoing collision between the promises that the Tories made at the last election and reality.</div>
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However, none of this makes it any easier for those of us who would like to see more decent and humane ŵelfare policy. <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/03/revealed-secret-report-labour-s-2015-defeat" target="_blank">Recent research</a> by Britain Thinks for the Labour Party summarised what swing voters think about welfare policy. Their hope is that the government will reward people who contribute and 'sort out the scroungers'. Anyone who thinks these attitudes are restricted to swing voters should have a look at <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/tough-people-poverty-%E2%80%93-new-report-shows-public%E2%80%99s-hardening-attitudes-welfare" target="_blank">this research</a> by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.</div>
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How to respond to this?</div>
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Firstly, even before their budget fell apart, we know that the Tories won't achieve this. Their welfare reforms have created a system in which people experiencing tough times are more and more likely to be caught out and punished by arbitrary rules, while people who just want to play the system continue to get what they want.</div>
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Secondly, the approach of telling voters that they are wrong to be concerned about benefit fraud and scroungers and trying to educate them to think differently isn't working.</div>
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Thirdly, the best ideas come from the people who use ŵelfare services, rather than think tanks and the political elite. Compare and contrast policy disasters such such as the Work Capability Assessment and Universal Credit, to the living wage or the ideas of the Spartacus Network.</div>
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So let's start by assuming that when people say that they want a system to reward contributors and sort out scroungers, that our goal should be to come up with ideas to make that happen rather than telling them why they are wrong. This will require different policies from those of the government, and we should listen to people at the grassroots as they will have the best ideas.</div>
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Swing voters dislike a system which seems to be all about what people can take, and where there seems to be no relationship between what people do for others and what they receive. Similarly, those who need support are frustrated by a system which often seems to put barriers in the way who want to help others, with arbitrary assessments and inadequate help which isn't suited to their needs. To get support, you need to understand how to work the rules to show what you can't do and make sure that your problemsare seen as sufficiently serious.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was recently reading All our Ŵelfare, Peter Beresford's excellent book on the welfare state. He defines welfare as being about 'how we look after each other in society'. He also makes a powerful and compelling case that rather than experts assessing what people need, people should be able - with advocacy and support - to identify what support they need to do the things that they want to do. Rather than starting with what people can't do, this approach starts with what they can do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
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So here's a suggestion. What if welfare services in future started not with a diagnosis about whether people are eligible for support, but instead was organised around two questions:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What do you want to do to help other people?</div>
<div>
What support do you need to be able to do this?</div>
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<br /></div>
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In other words, the welfare state becomes about what people can give, and enabling them to give more, not what they can take. Rather than the toxic divide between "taxpayers" and "scroungers", this draws on the ideas and priorities of people who use services to respond to the swing voters.</div>
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This also recognises that paid employment is one way to contribute and help others, but that raising a family, volunteering to help others with the same health condition and many other activities are also ways of contributing to our general welfare. That's something we've known for many years, but which some in the Labour Party with their tokenistic talk about different benefit levels for people depending on how long they have worked seem to have forgotten. </div>
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It would also make the welfare system open to and useful for many more people - people who are self employed or running a small business and who want help to be able to develop their business, hire more people and so on, as just one example. It would recognise that people with disabilities aren't passive victims, but that it is all of our responsibility to change society to help them to fulfil their potential.</div>
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This intentionally isn't a detailed shopping list of policies. A system designed on these principles will keep some of the existing system and get rid of other bits, and involve people who provide and receive services in deciding what works and what needs changing.</div>
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It is easy to see how a system like this would do more to reward contributors. That would, after all, be its starting point and main aim. But how would it sort out the scroungers?</div>
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Firstly, it would be much tougher for people who are only interested in what they can take, or in taking benefits as a lifestyle choice. At the moment, they just need to learn the rules and jump through the hoops. It is much tougher to do this if the starting point is about what you can do for other people, rather than what you can take from the taxpayer.</div>
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But more than that, here's a real life example of what it might mean:</div>
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Down on Benefits Street in the north west of England, there lived a Hard to Reach Scrounger. Every year, he received thousands of pounds in benefits from the taxpayer, and hundreds of thousands more indirectly in support from a whole range of different professionals for his various problems. Every day, he would call 999 several times, and the police would have to come out and respond to whatever the drama of the day was.</div>
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So one day, the police tried a new approach. Rather than waiting for him to call 999, they sent someone round and had a chat with him. They found out more about his life, about his skills and about how he had had a breakdown which meant he had quit his job and got into the problems he was experiencing. Then from this, they worked with the other professionals to put together the support he needed for his drink and drugs addictions. Then they helped him to get a job. </div>
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They needed someone with construction project management skills for the Jobs, Friends, Houses project they were running where people coming out of prison were hired to refurbish homes: learning new skills and doing something useful. He used to be a project manager and had the skills they needed. Now instead of being a scrounger, he is working hard and using his skills to help others.</div>
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There is no tick box or one size fits all solution to helping people to help each other. Any system will need to be complicated and flexible because people's lives are complicated and what works for one person won't work for another. But treating people with respect and supporting and challenging them to help others doesn't just reward contributors. It also turns scroungers into contributors.</div>
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President Obama recently summed up his hopes for his children in four words: "be useful, be kind". If that is good enough for the children of the President of the United States, it sounds like a good aim for the welfare state too. A system which enables people to be useful and kind to each other, and which itself is useful and kind: surely this is a worthwhile alternative to the mess which Iain Duncan Smith has left behind.</div>
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donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-53457979352387575032016-03-10T13:33:00.003+00:002016-03-10T13:33:55.014+00:00What can Labour Iearn from Lego?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">Alison McGovern, one of Labour’s most thoughtful and interesting MPs, recently wrote a blog calling for <a href="https://medium.com/@Alison_McGovern/adjusting-to-hope-what-progressive-britain-is-like-now-ca96c854b569#.9pg33grtn" target="_blank">universal free childcare</a>. As she explains, </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">“universal childcare – where parents would have access to free, good quality care for children during working hours – would make a seriously radical change to the choices available to families." </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0980392); background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">I agree completely. This would benefit parents, businesses, help to tackle poverty and improve the life chances for children. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One problem, though is that universal free childcare would be a big new state programme.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Alison is worried about this, because the British Social Attitudes survey shows that younger people distrust the state and are more individualist. She asks, </span><span class="" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“i</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">s this [lack of access to affordable childcare] a modern problem to which we are offering a big centralised state solution?”*</span></div>
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Perhaps we could learn something from Lego, who in recent years have faced a similar dilemma. In Lego's case, big data analysis and surveys showed that their customers increasingly demanded instant gratification and had shorter attention spans. It seemed like Lego might go the way of social democracy, popular in the mid to late twentieth century, but out of tune with what people want in the twenty first. But after talking to Lego fans in more depths, they found out that the analytics only told part of the story:</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"At that moment, it all came together for the LEGO team. Those theories about time compression and instant gratification? They seemed to be off base. Inspired by what an 11-year-old German boy had told them about an old pair of Adidas sneakers, the team realized that children attain social currency among their peers by playing and achieving a high level of mastery at their chosen skill, whatever that skill happens to be. If the skill is valuable, and worthwhile, they will stick with it until they get it right, never mind how long it takes. For kids, it was all about paying your dues and having something tangible to show for it in the end."</span></div>
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More detail <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lego-engineered-remarkable-turnaround-its-business-howd-lindstrom" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> - the whole story is definitely worth a read.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And so they responded by making their products more intricated, more detailed, and going against the conventional wisdom about what customers wanted. And last year, they became the biggest toy company in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This offers a possible solution to the dilemma which Alison is grappling with. Labour doesn't need to choose between dogmatically sticking with outdated ideas which aren't relevant to the modern world or junking our principles. We can be aware of the big trends in society, and also learn from people when they seem to be telling us something different from the surveys and polls. Then we can synthesise this information, and apply our values to develop effective and practical solutions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In other words, if people are telling us that universal childcare would really help them out, that is probably telling us something important about the limitations of surveys on how people are rugged individualists and hostile to the state. This combination of big data analytics and conversations with people at the grassroots offers the best way of staying relevant and meeting people's needs, whether you're selling toys or trying to bring about social change.</span></div>
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*Alison argues that universal childcare doesn't have to be a big state solution, because it can be delivered in a localised way. Quite apart from the surveys which show how people dislike the "postcode lotteries" that would occur, if people don't like the centralised state, they aren't going to be any keener on big new programmes delivered by local councils or new quangos. Localism is a diversion from the real political challenge here, not a solution to it.</div>
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donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-44932601676686972072016-02-27T19:07:00.000+00:002016-02-27T19:39:44.953+00:00Ed Miliband: my part in his downfall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There has been a lot written about why Ed Miliband and Labour lost the last election. But most of it seems to be people explaining what others got wrong, or #whylosingmeansiwasrightallalong. <br />
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I think we need something a bit different to help us learn and win next time. <span style="font-size: 17px;">So here, for your viewing pleasure, is my story of what I got wrong about the 2015 election. Here's my part in Ed Miliband’s downfall.</span></div>
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I met Ed Miliband only once. In the run up to the 2010 election, Ed was touring the country showing a film about climate change for reasons which must have made sense at the time. He was planning to go to Stroud to show the film, but the local Labour MP had just been endorsed by UKIP and it was decided that Ed needed to go somewhere else. So I helped put together a visit for Ed to show it at short notice to a group of supportive but bemused Labour activists at the Asian Cultural Centre in East Oxford. </div>
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As it turned out, this was quite a good metaphor for his leadership – doing anything to avoid talking to potential UKIP supporters, and instead doing awkward publicity stunts. But I digress.</div>
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When Ed came to Oxford, what he saw was something which looked like the future of election campaigning and seemed to offer him the path to power. The local campaign was based on the idea “the more people we talk to, the more will vote for us”. By mobilising hundreds of volunteers to talk to tens of thousands of voters, Labour was able to identify and turn out its supporters and persuade people who were not natural Labour supporters to back us.</div>
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This approach to campaigning had been tried and tested at local, European and at the General Election in places across the country between 2006 and 2010, and been shown to work. Academic research from the US confirmed its effectiveness. I wouldn’t claim credit for coming up with this idea, but I certainly thought it would work in the 2015 election.</div>
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A political strategy built around mobilising volunteers to speak to voters has a number of implications. If the key to success is getting enough people to volunteer, that enables a more left wing set of policies than a policy platform aimed at centrist, swing voters. If a political party can run a strong enough localised campaign with lots of personal contact with voters, then it is possible to bypass the national media and get to people directly rather than by building relations with Rupert Murdoch and other press barons.</div>
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I'd love to claim that the reason my brilliant idea didn't work was because of how other people implemented it. But that just wasn’t true. All over the country, led by a superb team of party organisers, people implemented this strategy brilliantly. It was constantly refined, developed and achieved far more than anyone could have asked for.</div>
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On General Election day, I ran a committee room in a marginal constituency. Just in the ward where I was involved, we had over sixty volunteers – more than the Tories had in many marginal constituencies. In that ward, an urban, working class area, we had a 5% swing from Tory to Labour backed by the best local campaign which anyone could remember. <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0" x-apple-data-detectors-type="calendar-event" x-apple-data-detectors="true">At 9.59pm</a>, I didn’t know if it would be enough to win the constituency, but if replicated across the country, I was sure it would definitely be enough to see Ed into power.</div>
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We all know what happened next across the UK. In the constituency where I was campaigning, what happened was in the wealthy rural areas, there was a big swing away from Labour and to the Tories, more than enough to cancel out our local work and then some.</div>
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So, what went wrong? I think there are a few different things.</div>
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Some of the assumptions were wrong. Intensive local campaigning didn’t work as a substitute for a national media strategy, a set of policies which appealed to swing voters or a leader who people could believe in. It was wishful thinking to see this as a replacement for getting these basics right.</div>
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We didn’t get the most out of it. At a local level, one of the most powerful things about talking to lots of people is that it generates lots of great ideas for what to prioritise and how to explain things in a way that resonates. The ability to listen to millions of people should be a great resource for policy development, but it didn’t seem like it was used in this way.</div>
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Doing it right might be too resource intensive. It is probably no coincidence that many of the places where Labour ran effective local campaigns are university towns. The presence of a university means that there is a higher than average number of potential volunteers, and urban areas are easier to canvass than rural areas. Doorstep contact is also most effective when the conversations are followed up. For MPs, this is relatively straight forward, for prospective candidates, this can be a significant expense in time and money.</div>
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Our localised campaigning was better, but so was that of the Tories. In 2010, the Tory local campaign was hopeless. In 2015, we were facing incumbent MPs who had mostly spent five years building their profile and support, and who were backed by more money than Satan.</div>
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I’m sure there is more to it than that. But at least that starts to suggest some of the things we might look to do differently in future. It is still the case, I think, that the more people we talk to, the more will vote for us, even if it turns out there aren’t enough of those people to make Ed Miliband Prime Minister. But inspiring volunteers to speak and listen to voters should sit alongside the other basics of a good campaign strategy rather than be a short cut to replace these. We should experiment to find ways of doing this kind of campaigning in areas where it is harder to mobilise volunteers, and look at how to make it less resource intensive. And there should always be a clear link between the people we listen to and the policies we develop.</div>
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If any Labour activists are reading this, I’d be fascinated to read your equivalent to help Labour to do better in future. What did you get wrong about the last election, what can we learn from it, and what was your part in Ed Miliband’s downfall?</div>
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donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-87043004881511554202016-01-19T20:08:00.001+00:002016-01-19T20:08:53.580+00:00Why Labour needs a new leader<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It should not be controversial to say that things are not going very well for the Labour Party at the moment. Some thoughts from the perspective of a leftie Labour supporter about what's going wrong and what to do about it.</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Jeremy Corbyn's unexpected victory in the Labour leadership election came before the organisation and wider infrastructure was in place to build support for socialist ideas and values, or he had the chance to learn the basic skills needed to be leader. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As a result he and his advisers have been a target for the press, internal opponents within Labour and the Tories, and the majority of the public have already decided that he is not fit to be </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">prime minister.</span></div>
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At present, the Labour Left's energies are soaked up by coping ineffectively with day to day crises, and working towards winning a vote at conference on Trident which will not bring the day of nuclear disarmament a single day closer. Meanwhile, support amongst activists and voters is being eroded by the poor opinion poll ratings and failure to hold the Tories effectively to account.</div>
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Jeremy Corbyn's unpopularity is also damaging wider social movements as well as the Labour Party. For example, the effectiveness of the peace movement will be affected by the fact that its most prominent advocate is someone who a majority of people do not trust to keep us safe. This makes it harder to persuade people to support unilateral nuclear disarmament or other similar causes.</div>
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On current trends, what will happen is that Labour will limp along until 2020, and then suffer a heavy election defeat which makes left wing ideas impossible to put into practice in government for another generation.</div>
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There's a reason why Labour's most successful leaders have been elected part way through a parliamentary term rather than just after an election. It is better to split the five years so that one leader creates space for new ideas and soaks up the initial attacks, and then someone else who has had a chance to think and prepare can come in, introduce themselves effectively to the voters, keep what's been popular and neutralise the weaknesses.</div>
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I think that the implications of all this for the Labour Left are that our priorities should be:</div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Prepare for Jeremy Corbyn to step down from the leadership next year. It is not in his or anyone else's interests for Jeremy to fight the next election as Labour Party leader and be blamed for our heavy defeat. If, instead, he steps down at a time of his choosing, he will become a much respected elder statesman and known as the man who put the good of the movement ahead of his own personal ambition.</span></div>
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In the mean time, focus on promoting those socialist ideas which have majority support amongst the public, and downplay those which do not. We need our ideas to be seen as common sense, reassuring, and relevant to people's day to day lives.</div>
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Develop a cadre of future leaders, and ensure that they have the opportunity to develop their skills, experience and profile. Invest in our policy development and organisational infrastructure so that by 2020 we have the ability to mobilise millions behind policy goals which can be implemented in government.</div>
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Strengthen the Left's strategic position by building bridges and seeking unity. Back Dan Jarvis as the obvious outstanding candidate to be the next leader, drop the attempts to change policy on Trident, and in exchange ensure that popular left wing ideas feature heavily in Labour's manifesto for the next election, that rising left wing stars get the opportunities to become MPs and shadow ministers, and that the Labour has an open and welcoming culture which makes use of the skills and talents of its members to win power in 2020.</div>
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donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-10487291829601468132015-07-21T07:45:00.001+00:002015-07-21T07:45:37.141+00:00The tax low paid workers and make them homeless bill<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I thought it might be useful to offer some ideas for opponents of the government’s ‘Tax low paid workers and make them
homeless’ bill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Firstly, describe the government’s
plans according to their impact, rather than using their marketing speak.</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">George Osborne’s plans will reduce tax relief for low paid workers and
make more people homeless. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">So call it the ‘tax
low paid workers and make them homeless bill’, rather than the ‘Work and
Welfare Reform Bill’, which is a collection of meaningless buzzwords intended
to obscure and confuse people about what its impact is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Secondly, spell out an alternative.</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> As the name “tax credits” suggests, they are a way of providing tax
relief for low paid workers. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Rather than cutting
those, we could look at the other £100 billion plus of tax reliefs which don’t
go to low paid workers, and make some choices about what to prioritise. Liz Kendall, Stella Creasy and the Resolution Foundation have already
done some good work here, and we should get on with that review as soon as
possible so we are ready to pose some choices in time for committee stage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">As for the government’s various plans to increase homelessness, the
choice here is ‘make more children homeless and give more taxpayers’ money to
bed and breakfast owners’ or ‘spend roughly the same amount of money on
preventing children from being homeless’. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This isn’t even a question of head versus heart, it is a question of
spite versus maths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Thirdly, make sure the campaign is led
by the people who will be affected. </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Every time a Tory minister goes on the TV to sell these policies, put up
a low paid worker as the Labour spokesperson to ask why Tory MPs are reducing
tax relief for people who work in low paid jobs while giving themselves a pay
rise. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Challenge George Osborne to tell a family to their faces about why he’s
decided that they’ve got to lose their home.
Make him live with the fear that he might have to explain to one of
these ‘hardworking people’ that he likes to talk about why he’s chosen to
punish them for their ‘lifestyle choice’ to work hard and try to provide for
their family.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Lastly, find the common ground which
unites us, rather than divides us.</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The system we’ve got of giving tax relief to low paid workers and preventing
homelessness was built over many years by the combined efforts of Andy Burnham,
Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall and their supporters. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Let’s all step away from the circular firing squad and work together to win
this argument.</span></div>
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donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-42271680498179261572015-05-25T11:11:00.000+00:002015-05-25T11:11:12.296+00:00Remembering Val<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My friend and inspiration Val Smith passed away recently, after a battle with cancer. Val was a remarkable and special woman. Here are some of my favourite memories of her: <br />
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<b>Popping out for a pint of milk and a piece of casework</b> <br />
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When I first got involved with the Labour Party, I heard tales of a legendary councillor who was so well known and well respected on the estate where she lived that when she went out to the shops, someone would spot her and ask for help to sort out some problem or other: their housing repairs, their immigration status or the noisy neighbour making their lives miserable. <br />
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But this was no legend, it was just how Val lived her life. I had the great privilege to see her in action, and whenever people asked for her help, she’d always listen patiently, offer good advice and do her best. Even if all she really wanted was to pick up some groceries. <br />
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As a local councillor for more than twenty years, and the office manager for her husband Andrew, the local MP, Val was a champion for people who’d had a raw deal and needed someone on their side to help them. Her version of social justice was a realistic, practical and rooted one. Val was particularly proud of Blackbird Leys, where she lived for nearly forty year and represented for twenty seven. As the old saying goes, on the Leys everyone knows someone who’s been helped by Val Smith. <br />
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<b>The search for calm</b> <br />
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I worked for Val for two years in Andrew’s constituency office. All that Val ever wanted from her work was a nice, calm day. Unfortunately, as anyone who’s ever worked for an MP or worked in politics will know, calm days are few and far between. Lack of calm could be caused by things such as a day spent on the phones to the Immigration Advisory Service, Pete hiding under his desk to avoid a particularly demanding constituent’s calls, or the time when I left the dial up broadband on overnight. <br />
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Managing a group of young men in our early twenties, the state in which we left the office at the end of the working day was often a particular source of uncalmness for Val. She would usually be the first one into the office in the morning to see what a mess we made: not a calm start to the day. Pete and Laurence would arrive at work to hear Val explain what she thought about this in no uncertain terms. This experience was not improved for them when I would then turn up to work a bit later, to be greeted by Val (who by this point had worked off her irritation on them and was in a good mood) like a long lost friend. <br />
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If the general working day was a disappointment in terms of calmness, the run up to elections was even worse. Boxes of leaflets everwhere, mess and chaos, Andrew injuring himself on a door while out canvassing...election campaigns provided an endless supply of dramas and annoyance for Val, who ultimately just wanted to spend her day helping people and then get back home to spend time watching Midsomer Murders with her cats. If at the end of the working day we hadn’t got through all the letters or there was still work that needed to be done, Val would just take it back home and make sure it all got done in the evenings or at weekends. <br />
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I wish that the people who wrote spiteful articles and went on about how MPs shouldn’t employ family members could just have spent a little time working with Val to see how wrong they were.<br />
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<b>“You’ll never get me out of my car”</b><br />
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As well as working for Val for two years, I also served alongside her as a councillor for four years. Her passion was for reducing homelessness and improving housing in Oxford. Anyone living in a council home which was improved as part of the Decent Homes Standard, or about to move into one of the new council homes which are currently being built has a lot to thank Val for. Val was a brilliant councillor. She was kind and welcoming to new councillors like me, and a great role model. When she spoke in council and Labour Group meetings, she was thoughtful and a voice of common sense and reason. <br />
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Val was involved in the Oxford Labour Party in the 1980s, and so had a high threshold for dealing with daft ideas. She was targeted by the “Independent Working Class Association” who denounced her as “a traitor to the working class” during the 2000s before they made the discovery that given the choice, working class people would rather vote for Val than the IWCA. But while Val experienced the highs and lows of local politics with good humour and great dignity, just occasionally she felt the need to try to steer discussions back towards Planet Earth. <br />
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During one particular discussion in the Labour Group about how much to put up car parking charges up by, I remember Val’s impassionated plea: “Let’s get real about this. You are never going to get me out of my car.” Val was a great champion for social justice, a campaigner against homelessness, and proud to serve on the County Council’s Adoption Panel. But she knew that a rooted Labour Party also needed to be aware of motorists and not lose touch with the majority of our supporters. <br />
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<b>The special signal</b> <br />
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The election count in 2005 was nerve wracking. Nationally, there had been a big swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats (younger readers: ask your parents what a “Liberal Democrat” was). The results had been counted and the candidates were about to gather on the stage for the announcement of the results. Val saw Andrew give a little wave, and she looked devastated. The wave Andrew had given was the special signal which they had agreed, so that Andrew could let Val know before the results were announced if he’d lost, so that she had a chance to prepare herself. <br />
<br />
Except that, in the heat of the excitement, Andrew had forgotten what the special sign was. In fact, he was just asking his campaign team to come up, because the tallies showed that he had won by just under 1,000 votes. We were all delighted when the results were read out, but none more so than Val. What had happened in 2005 was that amongst the people in Oxford who were voting on national policy issues, Labour had lost the argument to the Liberal Democrats. However, amongst people who were voting on which was best locally, and who would make the best local MP, Labour had won massively. Overall, this proved just enough for Andrew to be re-elected. <br />
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Five years later, the Lib Dems were back for a re-match. I arrived in Oxford for the final two weeks of the campaign. Andrew’s campaign team were exhausted and facing the prospect that all their hard work would count for nothing in the fact of ‘Cleggmania’ (younger readers: etc etc). When all around seemed dark as night, it was Val who kept Andrew going, made sure we ignored the polls and focused on what needed doing locally. On election day in 2010, Labour beat the Liberal Democrats comprehensively, including winning over 85% of the vote on Blackbird Leys. <br />
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Andrew spent seven years as a Cabinet Minister, responsible as Chief Secretary to the Treasury for planning Labour’s investment in public services and as Secretary of State at the DWP for the largest ever falls in child and pensioner poverty. Child poverty rates fell throughout Andrew’s time in the Cabinet, and have been rising ever since he left the Cabinet. This was a true partnership: Andrew in Whitehall helping take 600,000 children and one million pensioners out of poverty and Val in the office in Cowley and at home on the Leys making sure that local constituents got great representation and service. None of it would have been possible without their combined talents. <br />
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* <br />
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It is possible to take people like Val for granted, to assume that they will always be there with their kindness, good advice, and her humour. In a fairer and more just world, Val would be able to enjoy her retirement, time in France relaxing with Andrew, and time with Mirai, her granddaughter. And in a better world for the Labour Party, Val would have a big role to play in the debate about our future. <br />
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She wouldn’t need to read articles about how Labour might win back the support of working class voters, or pamphlets about how Labour could combine our passion for social justice with an appeal to the majority. We can learn so much more from Blackbird Leys than Oxford University about what Labour should do next. <br />
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I will miss Councillor Councillor Councillor Val so much. I’d planned to finish this piece with some rhetorical flourish, urging anyone who cares about social justice to learn from her example, her quiet determination to do good, her commitment to her working class community. But I can just imagine Val reading something like that, giggling a bit and rolling her eyes, as if to say: “what on earth are you boys on about now.” </div>
donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-51401978371398195912014-03-21T20:06:00.001+00:002014-03-21T20:06:20.564+00:00Why should "Teenage mistakes" matter in politics?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Recently, the BBC announced that Duncan Weldon would be Newsnight’s new Economics Correspondent. Naturally I was delighted. I known Duncan since he was eighteen, and this is a job which he’ll be brilliant at. A former hedge fund manager, economist, and political adviser, he’s shown that he knows how to take difficult and incomprehensible economic policy issues and communicate them in a clear and accessible way, winning praise across the political spectrum.
More importantly, Duncan started his journalistic career right here at this very blog http://don-paskini.blogspot.co.uk/2008/03/wealth-creator-writes-about-gold.html , demolishing the nonsense about teh evils of Gordon Brown selling off our gold!!! It is a very encouraging precedent for aspiring journalists to start off writing for me and end up on the telly reporting for the BBC.
But when Duncan was appointed, I also knew what would happen next. And sure enough, someone has dug up an article which he wrote when he was nineteen about something stupid he did when he was sixteen, all as part of the vicious political ‘game’ of politicos who were at Oxford together and who have risen through the political and media ranks since, all trying to destroy their political opponents by any means however cynical or trivial. He’s explained what happened on his own blog - http://duncanseconomicblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/my-teenage-mistakes/ , and to describe it as a storm in a teacup is to do a disservice to weatherbeaten crockery.
The real story here isn’t ‘teenager does something stupid’. It’s the extent to which politics and the media is a closed circle where what people did at university more than a decade ago is fair game to be used against them, because it is such a closed and elite circle where what someone wrote in Cherwell student newspaper is something that still matters.
Some of the people shopping this story around the papers and feigning outrage at youthful flirtations with the far right will have been at the OUCA sing songs where they sung songs such as ‘Dashing through the Reich’ (if you don’t know what OUCA is, then trust me, you really really aren’t missing much). A lot of the coverage of politics in national newspapers isn’t actually for the benefit of their readers, but is code for different sets of politicos to attack each other, to the bemusement of anyone outside the bubble.
I always hoped that some of the brilliant people who I knew at Oxford and who are still good friends, such as Duncan, would go on to fulfil their potential and make full use of their skills and talents, as indeed they have. But I also assumed that they would be a few alongside a much greater number of exceptional and talented people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Instead, most of the talented people w are shut out from politics and the media and the game of politics rages on. That is why Duncan is being attacked today, and why at some point soon the equivalent will happen with some Tory rising star who today is enthusiastically sticking the boot in while secretly hoping that their turn to take a public beating won’t come.
Really and truly, not just in this case but for political allies and enemies alike, this kind of stupidity and fake outrage about what people do when they are teenagers needs to stop.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-17336169836943437002011-03-03T11:36:00.004+00:002011-03-03T12:45:09.340+00:00Lessons from HackneyLast night Hackney Council passed a budget with £44 million of cuts, amidst protests from anti-cuts campaigners. Having looked at their budget, I think councillors <a href="http://hackneycentrallabour.blogspot.com/">have done very well</a> in extremely difficult situation - unlike in many other councils, no youth facilities will be closed, no libraries shut, no reduction to key services like recycling or street cleansing, no restrictions on care to be provided to our oldest and most vulnerable of residents, and the council is maintaining services such as support for victims of domestic violence and youth crime intervention work which the national government had cut funding for.<br /><br />There is an irony in watching protesters who say all political parties are just the same with one breath, while with the next protesting against the Tory/Lib Dem decision to end Labour's policy of giving more money to the most deprived areas.<br /><br />Hackney councillors will face an even harder job next year, with a further £26 million in cuts needing to be made. I think it is worth revisiting <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/01/21/freezing-taxes-in-hackney/">an article I wrote in 2009</a>, in response to Hackney's decision to freeze their council tax.<br /><br />There are good reasons for trying to keep council tax low - particularly in poor areas where it was historically amongst the highest in the country. But it is one of the few ways that local councils can raise money, as the following example shows:<br /><br />If Hackney Council had decided in 2006, instead of freezing their council tax, to raise it by 1% per year, then they would have raised roughly £900,000 per year, at an extra cost to the average household of £10 per year (more for people in higher value properties, less for people in lower value properties, and nothing for people eligible for council tax benefit).<br /><br />Over four years, this would mean that the average household would be paying an extra £50 per year, and the council would have an extra £3.65 million to spend on local services. This year and next year, it would also have received an extra £90,000 from central government in council tax freeze grant.<br /><br />If, instead, councillors had raised council tax by 2% per year, then the average household would be £2 per week worse off (more for wealthier households, nothing for the poorest households), and the council would have approximately £7.5 million in extra revenue, including council tax from residents, extra council tax benefit and council tax freeze grant.<br /><br />*<br /><br />Now, obviously, an extra £3.5-£7 million in revenue wouldn't prevent all the cuts, and higher council tax would make life even tougher for many people, particularly lower paid workers and pensioners who are just above the threshold for receiving benefits. But, crudely, the overall impact of small annual increases in council tax would be that young professionals in the trendy bits of the borough would now be paying more taxes to provide services for people with long term illnesses to receive social care, young people to be able to go to enjoyable and safe activities on the estates, and victims of domestic violence to get support when they need it.<br /><br />Labour councils are still boasting about having taken the "tough decision" to freeze the council tax. I think most councillors are doing their best now in desperately tough times, but a really tough and correct decision would have been to raise council tax while Labour was in power, in order to help protect our communities when this bunch of sub-Thatcherite extremists took over.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-2473788865461081852011-03-02T11:00:00.000+00:002011-03-03T13:49:11.465+00:00Is there a "new politics of identity"?The Searchlight Education Trust's<a href="http://www.fearandhope.org.uk/"> "Fear and Hope"</a> research is very interesting, and points out a number of challenges and areas where further investigation would be useful. I'm less convinced, however, by the claim that there is a "new politics of identity". Or, rather, I think the case is not yet proven.<br /><br />For their research, the authors commissioned an opinion polling company <a href="http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-310111-Searchlight-Fear-and-Hope-survey.pdf">to ask people a whole load of questions about identity politics</a>. The shock horror finding reported in the press was that 48% would definitely or would consider voting for a party which would "defend the English, create an English Parliament, control immigration, challenge Islamic extremism, restrict the<br />building of mosques and make it compulsory for all public buildings to fly the St George's flag or Union Jack."<br /><br />But before answering that question, people had been asked more than fifty questions on immigration, what they think about different religions, the extent to which different religious groups cause trouble, the extent to which different religious groups are similar in terms of habits, customs and values, freedom of expression, national identity and much more. This will have put people in a particular frame of mind when they got round to answering the question about support for a new non-violent far right party. <br /><br />For example, we don't know how many people found the questions on identity really boring and stopped completing the survey part way through, or starting clicking answers at random (I've done this with YouGov surveys on brand awareness). If a large number of people who started the survey dropped out part way through, then it would suggest that claims about a "new politics of identity" are somewhat overstated.<br /><br />This is not to dispute that the findings are interesting, but to measure the impact of the 'framing' of the questions, it would have been interesting to compare how many people would support a non-violent far right party if asked about it as the first question, rather than after answering several dozen questions on related subjects. We can see, for example, that the poll found that more people identified with the Tories than with Labour, and higher levels of identification for UKIP, BNP and the Greens then other polls have found.<br /><br />An interesting comparative piece of research, which someone like the TUC might consider commissioning, would be to conduct a similar kind of poll but with a different set of questions.<br /><br />For example, I wonder how many people would express definitely or possible support for a party which pledged to "defend ordinary working people, crack down on bankers' bonuses, protect British manufacturing from unfair competition, withdraw from the European Union, reduce excessive spending cuts by taxing the rich and renationalise the railways" after being asked lots of questions about bankers' pay, whether ordinary people get a fair deal, whether Britain benefits from the EU, whether they support spending cuts such as closing libraries and whether they think privatisation is appropriate for public services. <br /><br />I reckon you could get at least 50% support for that party (let's call it the Bony Tenn Party) if you'd asked the right questions, which could then be used to argue that the time has come for the return of the Alternative Economic Strategy.<br /><br />Searchlight might well be right that identity politics is increasingly important and that Labour is "marooned" in its response. But they need to do more than one big opinion poll to make that case convincing.<br /><br />Shorter version of this post - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U">what Yes Minister said</a>.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-81846968257449716052011-03-01T12:10:00.003+00:002011-03-01T13:00:01.090+00:00Three questions to ask your councillorOne of the keys to effective local action is making sure that campaigners think ahead and get decision-makers to respond to them, rather than waiting for decisions to be announced and then complaining. In that spirit, here's three questions to ask your local councillor:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. What have you done to make sure your council obeys the laws on promoting equality?</span><br /><br />Some anti-cuts campaigners have been urging councillors to defy the law and set illegal budgets, to which nearly all councillors have responded by explaining why it is important to obey the law.<br /><br />But obeying the law doesn't just mean supporting enough cuts to balance a budget. If these cuts are decided on<span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">"without due regard to the statutory equality needs in the performance of its functions as required by s71 Race Relations Act 1976, section 76A Sex Discrimination Act 1976 and section 49A Disability Discrimination Act 1995", then they can be quashed by a judge.<br /><br />As a general rule, any decisions about funding cuts should be supported by a full equalities impact assessment. Councillors don't have to carry these out themselves, but they need to ensure that council officers have done this properly. This applies both to councillors in power, who need to make sure that they are not complicit in breaking the law, and to those in opposition, who should use these laws to scrutinise decisions effectively.<br /><br />I think this is a much more fruitful approach for anti-cuts campaigners to adopt - rather than urging councillors to act illegally, we should instead urge them to obey the law. Councillors have a decent argument that it would be harmful for them to set an illegal budget. They have absolutely no good excuse for waving through cuts without considering the impact on equalities.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. What are you planning to do about the government's plans to increase council tax for millions of low paid households?</span><br /><br />After years of pious talk about how unfair they think council tax is, the Tories and Lib Dems plan to impose council tax rises on up to 5.8 million of the poorest people in Britain in 2013. They have announced that they will cut the budget for council tax rebates by 10%, while leaving it up to local authorities to set their own criteria for eligibility (which goes against their plans to simplify the benefits system).<br /><br />So local councillors will get the choice - do they cut services even further in order to prevent tax rises on those least able to pay? Or they could start work now to get the government to abandon these proposals (and maybe even get our shadow ministerial team to take an interest).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. How will you work with anti-cuts campaigners to win council tax referenda?</span><br /><br />From 2012, any rise in council tax beyond the amount set by central government will have to be agreed in a referendum. Although there is a vocal minority who are protesting against cuts, recent surveys have shown that at present a majority of people favour deeper cuts to many local services such as housing and homelessness and adult social care.<br /><br />If councillors don't want to preside over a system where each year they get to make deeper and deeper cuts and provide an ever more restricted range of services because they would lose a referendum on raising council tax to maintain services, then they need to work together with anti-cuts campaigners. There will never ever be a majority for a referendum on raising council tax, but with the right preparation there can be a majority for maintaining decent services rather than cutting them even further.<br /><br />Many of those who have turned up to anti-cuts protests are exactly the people who councillors should be desperate to work with - people who are passionate about local services and who want to see them defended. There is a big danger that they get disillusioned by taking part in ineffective protests and just give up. Instead, councillors need to develop a strategy to build relations with them and involve them for the future. I'd hope, for example, that some of the young people whose first political experience was protesting at a Town Hall over the past couple of months would be standing for election for Labour at some point over the next few years.<br /><br />This strategy involves trying to listen and find opportunities to reverse cuts to services like youth clubs which have got people engaged in anti-cuts campaigning; identifying people who are passionate about their community and helping them to be effective in campaigning for new services; and finding ways of developing joint campaigns with anti-cuts campaigners, for example on the changes to council tax benefit mentioned above.<br /><br />*<br /><br />One of the frustrating things about seeing increasing antagonism between councillors and anti-cuts campaigners is that there is so much where they are on the same side. Hopefully, these three questions are the start of a dialogue which reminds us how much unites, not divides, us.<br /></span></span>donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-60362357733738330872011-02-28T17:00:00.004+00:002011-02-28T17:20:29.566+00:00Cameron praises social enterprise saved by Future Jobs FundI've been watching the documentary about the <a href="http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/">"People's Supermarket"</a>, a co-operative supermarket in north London which is owned by its members, all of whom pay a fee to join and agree to work in the shop with <a href="http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/our_mission.html">the aim</a> of creating "a sustainable food cooperative that responds to the needs of the local community and provides healthy, local food at reasonable prices".<br /><br />On 15th February, David Cameron <a href="http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/2011/02/24/prime-minister-david-cameron-and-his-big-society-idea-pays-a-visit-to-the-people%E2%80%99s-supermarket/">went to visit it</a>, hoping to associate this social enterprise with his plans for the "Big Society".<br /><br />One thing which the documentary mentioned was that while the supermarket was trying to establish itself in the first few months, it was able to employ some young trainees through a government scheme. Without these trainees working alongside the members, the supermarket would have collapsed and gone out of business.<br /><br />David Cameron and his allies often claim that the aim of the "Big Society" is to replace the "Big State". They argue that because government has got so big, it crowds out these kind of initiatives and prevents people from getting on and being self-sufficient.<br /><br />But as the People's Supermarket experience shows, reality is somewhat different. Far from being crowded out, this social enterprise was able to get help from the government when it needed it. It was able to hire trainees on short term contracts with the government paying their wages, in order to get time to establish itself and get more members involved, while also giving young unemployed people a chance of a job.<br /><br />The name of the "government trainee scheme" which supported the People's Supermarket was <a href="http://www.retailgazette.co.uk/articles/14022-average-spend-up-at-peoples-supermarket">the Future Jobs Fund</a>. The Future Jobs Fund, of course, was one of the first programmes which David Cameron's government cut.<br /><br />The People's Supermarket avoided being a victim of Cameron's cuts by no more than a few months. Rather than turning up for photo opportunities and claiming that this is an example of his Big Society, he should learn the lessons and bring back the Future Jobs Fund.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-108118470044498772011-02-23T09:44:00.003+00:002011-02-23T10:24:27.544+00:00How to stop David Cameron's Corporate Welfare plansDavid Cameron <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/8337239/How-we-will-release-the-grip-of-state-control.html">has announced</a> that the latest version of the Big Society is that just about all public services will be opened up to be run by the private sector. He says that these "are more significant aspects of our Big Society agenda than the work we're doing to boost social action".<br /><br />The Big Society started off with the idea that people would run services for themselves, but it became clear that this wasn't going to work, so Big Society 2.0 was that it was all about promoting charities. Then it became clear that many of these "Big Society" charities were being wiped out by the cuts, and anyway, they were very ungratefully complaining about the government.<br /><br />So having given up on the people and the voluntary sector, the Big Society is now all about getting the private sector to run services. Unlike the users of public services or the voluntary sector, the private companies can be relied upon not to complain about the government, and will be suitably grateful for large sums of government money coming their way.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-economic-liberalism-and-public-service-reform-2-23167.html">There are any number of reasons</a> why this is a bad idea, but I just wanted to focus on a very revealing quote by the architect of this Corporate Welfare programme, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/21/david-cameron-public-services-shakeup">who is reported as claiming that</a> "responsibility for fixing the deficit can be transferred from the central state to the customer by transferring responsibility for the cost of services via a market to purchasers of public services."<br /><br />Get that? If you use public services, the responsibility for fixing our budget deficit now falls on you, not the government.<br /><br />I firmly believe that this is an even less popular idea than the original Big Society one, and one which more people should know about. It also highlights a key feature of the Corporate Welfare programme, which is that it is bound to lead to service users and taxpayers getting ripped off.<br /><br />I've run some consultation meetings over the last few weeks about the government's NHS reforms. Out of all the different proposals, the two which worried people most of all were firstly that services which people rely on might be got rid of as a result of the changes (for example local hospitals closing), and secondly, that these private providers will run rings round the doctors who are commissioning services and exploit loopholes in contracts to increase charges for services which are currently free, or demand more money to keep a service going. This is, after all, the business model for the many of the American companies which will be bidding to win healthcare contracts (along with denying sick people the chance to claim on their health insurance to pay for their medical care).<br /><br />The government proposals which protect users of public services and taxpayers if a service gets taken over by the private sector and closed down or loopholes get exploited can be summarised as:<br /><br /><...><br /><br />Crucially, we don't have to wait until the next election in order to stop and reverse some of the most malign aspects of these plans. The Tory Corporate Welfare plans will attract all sorts of people looking to make money from government contracts. Some will have a genuine belief that they can run a service at a higher quality and lower cost, while others will believe that they can make money by cutting costs, and deliver the bare minimum required of them (as with cleaning in hospitals or safety on the railways).<br /><br />What Labour should do is announce that they are very concerned about the lack of protection for service users and taxpayers, and announce that a future Labour government would put in place legislation which allows every corporate welfare contract to be reviewed. In cases where it is clear that the taxpayer is being ripped off or service users are getting a worse deal, the contracts will be declared null and void, and the contractor will be liable to fines equal to a proportion of the profits they made from the contract. (The mechanism could be something like 5% of service users have to request that the contract be reviewed, in which case the service is reviewed by a citizen's jury).<br /><br />The advantage of this is that the threat of it will be enough to protect people from the worst of the corporate welfare parasites. Companies won't bid to take on contracts and provide the bare minimum, or exploit loopholes to charge patients for services if they know that there is a risk that they could end up losing the contract and getting fined if the Tories lose the next election. <br /><br />This would highlight the way that the Tories are putting the producer interest of a small number of private companies ahead of the needs of taxpayers and service users, whether in the NHS or now across almost every single other public service. Those who are confident that they can provide better services have nothing to fear, while those that want to get rich on government handouts should look elsewhere.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-57672881335671114922011-02-21T17:38:00.003+00:002011-02-21T17:41:50.215+00:00Attack the Tories, get voting reformSome thoughts on the voting reform referendum.<br /><br />The No campaign’s claim about the £250 million cost might not be accurate, but is <a href="http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-YouGov-No2AVCampaign-210211.pdf">a pretty effective campaigning message</a>. I really don’t understand the Yes campaigners crowing about how it is a ‘gaffe’ or sign of how the No campaign is in trouble. It’s going to be mentioned in every single article on the subject in right wing newspapers from now til polling day.<br /><br />The reason that the cost is a more effective message than those coming from the Yes campaign about <a href="http://www.yestofairervotes.org/blog/entry/ten-reasons-to-support-av/">“make your MP work harder”</a> is that it recognises that most of the people who will be voting in the referendum won’t think that voting reform is a big priority. For what it’s worth, I think the claim that AV will make MPs work harder is just as inaccurate as the claim about cost[1].<br /><br />It’s relatively easy to predict turnout levels in the referendum. It will be around 50% in Scotland, 40% in the northern cities, Wales and the Home Counties and other places with local council elections, and about 10% or less in London and other places where there aren’t any other elections. Most people filling in the ballot paper won’t have gone specifically to vote on the issue, but to vote to choose their MSP, AM or local councillor, and then will fill in Yes or No in the referendum as an after thought.<br /><br />What both campaigns need to focus on is thinking about how to appeal more effectively to these crucial swing voters. Compared to the UK population as a whole, the people that will decide the referendum will tend to be older than the national average, more likely to live in a town in northern England or Scotland, less interested in the details of different voting systems, and more likely to support Labour or other left of centre parties. The Yes campaign needs to win amongst groups such as Labour-voting pensioners in Glasgow or Manchester.<br /><br />The good news for the Yes campaign is that Matthew Elliott of the Taxpayer’s Alliance and his Tory chums are not exactly people who are well placed to appeal to the majority of these undecided voters. But the Yes campaign risks losing their advantage by sticking to a not very compelling general anti-politician message and paying too much attention to people who have already made up their minds with detailed arguments about technicalities. Worse still and actively counter-productive are smug articles like this one from Andrew Rawnsley which classily calls low income voters <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/20/andrew-rawnsley-electoral-reform">“the Thicko Vote”</a>.<br /><br />The absolutely crucial task for the Yes campaign is to make sure that every single one of the people who goes to vote for centre left parties and against the Tory government in the local elections gets the message that the way to protest against this government is to vote Yes in the referendum. This message might annoy a few committed Liberal Democrats, but the Yes campaign has already got their votes anyway. What it needs a clear and simple message about how voting reform will damage the government, and it needs to make sure that majority of anti-Tory voters have heard this message by the time they go to vote. What it doesn’t need is wealthy journalist “supporters” insulting undecided voters.<br /><br />[1] What AV will do is incentivise parties to target supporters of other parties who always vote to get second preferences, rather than focusing on ensuring that all of their own supporters turn out to vote.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-41250833704129797252011-02-17T18:09:00.004+00:002011-02-17T18:24:40.282+00:00Welfare reform: harder than it looksThe FT has a good run down of today's welfare reform changes. <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2011/02/top-ten-facts-on-universal-credit/">Key points:</a><br /><br />1. Spending on benefits will increase by £2.6 billion, which will give more money to 2.7 million people.<br /><br />2. Incentives to work for the average claimant will decrease, particularly for people working more than 30 hours a week; receiving tax credits; and not claiming housing benefit or council tax relief.<br /><br />3. The government still has no idea how the new Universal Credit will interact with childcare costs or council tax benefit. In particular, their plans for council tax benefit will make the benefits system more complicated, as every local council will be able to set its own different criteria for eligibility.<br /><br />4. Some people will be hit really hard - 100,000 will lose more than £75 per week, and 1.7 million will receive less money. That's on top of the cuts to housing benefit, unemployment benefits and disability benefits which were previously announced.<br /><br />*<br /><br />It is revealing that after all these years of studying the system, Iain Duncan Smith and chums' landmark welfare reforms have managed the feat of increasing spending on benefits, increasing marginal tax rates for the average worker, making some parts of the benefits system more complicated and taking more money away from thousands of low paid workers and disabled people.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-90838921837182210152011-02-17T13:23:00.003+00:002011-02-17T13:50:34.706+00:00Participatory budgeting and the fear of crimeI pass this email from a friend on without further comment:<br /><br />"Last year, my charity was involved in a project with the local council and police around participatory budgeting. The Home Office allocated funding to spend on projects to tackle crime, on the condition that the decisions about how to spend the money were made by local people.<br /><br />The council, police and voluntary sector worked together to engage residents, despite a very tight timeschedule for engaging people and getting them to decide how to spend the money. One thing which was interesting from this work was that, given the choice, people chose to prioritise help for homeowners to prevent burglary, more activities for young people, more bikes for the police, and outreach work with street drinkers as their top priorities for cutting rather than CCTV or other anti-crime initiatives.<br /><br />We've just had the latest results from the Residents' Survey since this work was done. The percentage of people who thought that crime was one of the top three problems in the area fell from 29% to 20%, the percentage of people who felt that levels of crime was the reason why their area was not a nice place to live fell from 63% to 39%, the percentage of people who felt safe in their local area in the evening and at night increased from 54% to 71%, and the percentage of people who felt safe in the borough at night increased from 46% to 62%.<br /><br />Clearly, this can't all be put down to the participatory budgeting work. But these results are encouraging, particularly as in other areas levels of dissastisfaction increased, so that it can't just be put down to generally increasing satisfaction. You might expect that the government would be keen to develop the learning from this and the other pilot areas where this work took place, given their rhetoric about putting people in charge and devolving power to neighbourhoods.<br /><br />But if you thought that the government would want to support this work, then you would be wrong. One of the first things which they did last summer was to cancel this programme, cut the budget, stop work to share learning from the pilots, and redeploy the civil servants who had been managing the project to work instead on developing policies for the Big Society.<br /><br />Just think, if they had been prepared to build on what the previous government had done in terms of giving power to people, then by now they might have developed a really effective approach which local areas could use to help reduce the fear of crime. But because they pretended that they were doing something entirely new, scrapped existing projects and started from scratch, they've achieved nothing and created a national joke."donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-85361416362869014682011-02-16T15:57:00.002+00:002011-02-16T16:40:18.887+00:00Government plans “Community Right to Privatise”The government’s <a href="http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/decentralisation/localismbill/">Localism Bill</a> includes a new policy called <a href="http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/1835810.pdf">“Community Right to Challenge”</a>.<br /><br />Under this proposal, charities, parish councils and local authority workers will get the power to submit an Expression of Interest to run services which are currently delivered by local councils. The idea is that this will allow people who have good ideas about how to run services better or at a lower cost to be able to do so.<br /><br />Now you might think that, as the stated aim of this policy is to increase the number of services run by voluntary and community groups, that the way it would work is that the council would either accept the expression of interest, in which case they transfer the service to the relevant charity or co-operative, or they would reject it.<br /><br />Here’s what is actually <a href="http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/localgovernment/pdf/1835810.pdf">planned</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“If an Expression of Interest is accepted, the relevant authority must carry out a procurement exercise relating to the provision of that service. This should be appropriate to the nature and value of the contract. So where the contract is for a service, or it is of a value to which the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 apply, the authority must follow the procedures for advertising, tendering and awarding contracts set out in those regulations. Where the service is of a nature or value that the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 do not apply (i.e. where it is listed in the regulations as being exempt, or is below the threshold of £156,000) then the authority will need to decide what sort of exercise to run – just as it will already do when contracting out a service. Other organisations may bid in the procurement exercise that follows a successful challenge relating to the provision of the service – these could include other relevant bodies, <span style="font-weight: bold;">or private sector organisations</span>.”</span> [my emphasis - DP]<br /><br />So the government says that the aim is to transfer services to local community and voluntary groups. But once these groups have gone to the time and expense of developing expressions of interest, they then get to compete against private sector companies in a procurement exercise. I wonder who will really benefit from this?<br /><br />One thing which we know, and the government admits, is that small, innovative community groups are at a disadvantage when competing in procurement process against private companies and larger charities which are more distant from local communities.<br /><br />If I worked for a private company which wanted to make serious money out of the Localism Bill, I'd already be preparing to make use of this legislation by working out how to get local authority workers or astroturf community groups to submit expressions of interest and open up contracts to bid for. Just as in the welfare to work field, more and more public money would end up going to a handful of private prime contractors, while small, innovative community groups lose their funding and have to cut or stop their work.<br /><br />There's a very simple fix to this problem, if the aim is to encourage local community groups to have opportunities to run more services. Just amend the process so that only non-profit groups can take part in the procurement processes created by the Right to Challenge. But under the rhetoric of "more power for communities", the legislation as currently written is bad for users of public services - who can expect lower quality services and no protection if they fail, bad for community groups, and good for companies looking to make a profit out of public services.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-80820291469099740492011-02-15T13:37:00.003+00:002011-02-15T15:03:50.186+00:00The couple who could save the Big SocietyAs the latest relaunch of the Big Society <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/camerons-big-society-relaunch-runs-into-big-trouble-2215053.html">flops</a>, some people are calling for David Cameron to appoint someone senior who can champion the Big Society within government.<br /><br />And as it happens, I know just the people, a couple whose track record, passion and commitment makes them uniquely qualified to make Big Society work.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/08/05/gord-to-do-volunteer-work-on-hol-115875-21572067/">*They volunteered on local community projects during their holidays - unlike the minister in charge of the Big Society or 92% of government MPs.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.gordonandsarahbrown.com/campaigns">*They work closely with a wide range of charities, from better educational charities to decreasing maternity mortality to human rights and expanding access to the internet.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://piggybankkids.org/about-us">*She set up a children's charity which works to give every child the chance of a healthy and happy start in life</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Brown_%28wife_of_Gordon_Brown%29">is a patron of two other charities, and co-authored a book to raise money for charity.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/05/24/dont-cut-the-future-jobs-fund/">*He helped tens of thousands of young, unemployed people develop their skills by working for charities and community groups.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2011/02/14/the-big-society-bank-and-the-myth-of-lending-risk/">*He helped innovative start up charities and social enterprises get new kinds of funding and helped charities win contracts to deliver increasing numbers of public services.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/1013996/voluntary-sector-employment-rising-labour-force-survey-figures-show/">*He helped increase the number of people who work for voluntary groups by more than 200,000</a>, and <a href="http://www.volunteering.org.uk/News/mediacentre/2009+Press+Releases/Dramatic+increase+in+number+of+volunteers+as+recession+takes+hold">oversaw huge increases in the number of people who offered to volunteer</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BA2Jz7xIXw">*He received a rapturous reception and standing ovations when he spoke at a conference organised by David Cameron's favourite community organising group, Citizens UK.</a><br /><br />*<br /><br />If, as David Cameron says, the Big Society really is his passion, then he should take advice from two people who have a successful track record in so many areas of the Big Society - from setting up charities to volunteering, creating opportunities to deliver services differently to community organising. <br /><br />But instead of seeking their advice, his cuts are destroying the society which Gordon and Sarah Brown helped build.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-51104377671240084762011-02-15T12:18:00.003+00:002011-02-15T12:56:14.050+00:00Is Labour's future conservative?<a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/02/13/in-the-battle-to-reshape-labour-a-new-force-is-emerging/">Marc Stears argues</a> that Labour's emerging new identity, championed by people like Jon Cruddas and Lord Glasman and supported by Ed Miliband "is encouraging the Party towards a celebration of tradition, locality and even some forms of social conservatism. It is urging a shift away from the focus on the left on material redistribution and the need for public services always to be delivered directly by the state.<br /><span id="more-21859"></span><br />The emerging new identity, on this account, will be more localist and less statist than we have been used to. It will also be more focused on questions of belonging and identity and less concerned with issues of material equality."<br /><br />Stears urges that we support this tradition, against the "liberals" "who worry that this new identity is dangerously conservative and contains too little to attract many of the minority groups with whom Labour has come closely to identify," and the "progressives" "who see the new identity as backward-looking and nostalgic. Labour, to them, should be about equipping Britain for global economic competition, through dynamic technology and transferable skills, rather than seeking to re-establish community life at a local level."<br /><br />*<br /><br />I'm all for building deep roots in communities, moving away from decisions being taken by a Westminster elite and so on. But I would humbly suggest that this will involve a greater, not lesser, focus on material equality and high quality public services.<br /><br />At a time when benefit cuts are making life even tougher for millions of low paid workers, disabled people, carers and the increasing number of unemployed people while bankers get back to business as usual, at a time when the NHS is under threat from being broken up and handed over to private health companies, when the government's policies will increase crime by slashing police numbers and youth services alike, this is the moment for Labour to talk about "belonging and identity" rather than greater equality and defending public services?<br /><br />I think it is quite sad that Jon Cruddas and his allies have concluded that "Labour's future in England is conservative". There is a lot which this government and market forces are trying to destroy which should be conserved, from forests to Sure Start centres. But there is, now more than ever, a need for greater equality, good quality public services, and an active state. Abandoning that in favour of this week's new buzzwords is wrong in principle and wrong in practice.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-44997099146066453562011-02-02T12:36:00.003+00:002011-02-02T13:32:48.543+00:00More fun with the Big Society<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/01/big-society-lord-wei-volunteering">Big Society, the gift that keeps giving:</a><br /><br />"It could become the allegory of the "big society" age. The man appointed by the prime minister to kickstart a revolution in citizen activism is to scale back his hours after discovering that working for free three days a week is incompatible with "having a life".<br /><br />Lord Wei of Shoreditch, who was given a Tory peerage last year and a desk in the Cabinet Office as the "big society tsar", is to reduce his hours on the project from three days a week to two, to allow him to see his family more and to take on other jobs to pay the bills...<br /><br />The role is voluntary and Wei had to to give up jobs in the charitable sector when he was appointed to avoid a conflict of interest. Whitehall sources said that when he was invited to take the role he had expected it to be remunerated but was told only the night before that it was a voluntary post and there would be no salary."<br /><br />Meanwhile, Lord Wei has <a href="http://natwei.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/good-society-a-lament-for-the-left/">decided to use some of his free time</a> to <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll">concern troll</a> lefties on his blog:<br /><br />"There remain however risks ahead for this new consensus on society. First is Ballsonomics, that lingering belief that high spending and a big state in parts of Labour which has the potential to crush good society. The second is that in the move to decentralise power as part of the big society you simply recreate local versions of big government or other overweening institutions. The third is that Good Society ultimately becomes a cover for Big Government – direct (web-enabled and/or street-based) action that leads not to self help and mutual support but to a form of lobbying in which the assumption remains still that government should do everything."<br /><br />Those wicked lefties, crushing the good society with their lingering belief that funding charities and community groups is preferable to taking away their funding! How dare the people come together to demand that councils keep libraries open rather than using the powers which we give them to do exactly what we want them to!donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-864476830311582982011-01-27T16:46:00.002+00:002011-01-27T16:50:36.189+00:00The 2010 election explained<a href="http://yorksranter.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/nice-caveats-shame-about-the-point/">This:</a><br /><br />"I suspect the dividing line between the Continuity Blairites and everyone else on this[economic policy] is as follows: <em>Gordon Brown, <s>Alistair Darling</s>, and Ed Balls actually realised how awful the Tories would be</em> and that there was a real risk of a double dip recession, and that therefore it was necessary to fight the “language of cuts”. Balls did get to cut loose on this towards the end of the campaign. I suspect Labour would have done better to define against them on this. <p>However, conventional wisdom demands that Brown be seen as an egghead with no grasp of campaigning. The media-savvy eye catching initiative peddlers, however, were the ones who ended up campaigning on a line of “cuts! cuts! cuts! but not like those evil Tory cuts!” which wasn’t clear or convincing."</p>donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-76017880711001918052011-01-26T10:00:00.001+00:002011-01-26T10:00:01.336+00:00Why the Big Society failed...and what Labour should learn<a href="http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/news/Cameron39s-39Big-Society39-in-crisis.6684350.jp">Philip Blond and Steve Hilton had a ‘crisis meeting’ last month about the Big Society…</a><br /><br /><a href="http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2011/01/big-society-message-that-wont-sell-and.html">…Frontline workers “haven’t a clue” what the Big Society is meant to be about, and are “shocked to learn how little money is attached to it”. </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/philip-pullman/this-is-big-society-you-see-it-must-be-big-to-contain-so-many-volunteers">…Phillip Pullman launches a withering attack on it in front of hundreds of people campaigning to stop library closures.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/public-policy/the-big-society-debate-must-move-on/comment-page-1/#comment-8038">…The Chief Exec of the Royal Society for Arts writes that “if the Big Society doesn’t get more substantive and granular quickly, it will feel like the only credible thing to do is knock the whole idea.” </a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/patrick-butler-cuts-blog/2011/jan/25/domestic-violence-charities-face-100-cuts?CMP=twt_gu">…Charities which provide vital and innovative services are cutting their services</a> <a href="http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2011/01/25/citizens-advice-bureau-facing-closure-in-birmingham-as-council-pulls-funding-65233-28051974/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter">or even closing completely.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.worldbytes.org/the-big-society-in-action/">…A group of young volunteers get involved with a community group to produce a film mocking the Big Society.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/2011/01/25/tory-mps-turn-on-big-society-architect-steve-hilton-115875-22873820/">…Tory MPs describe the Big Society as “intangible and incomprehensible...odd and unpersuasive”.</a><br /><br />Its critics mock it, volunteers and charity workers despise it, its creators are briefing against each other, and its core supporters in the Tory Party and the think tanks are turning against it. The only remaining question about the Big Society is not whether or not it will succeed, but how long it will be before the government quietly drops the term. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cones_Hotline">John Major’s Traffic Cones Hotline</a> lasted three years and three months, and it would be a surprise if the Big Society staggered on much longer than that.<br /><br />Problems with the Big Society are too numerous to mention, but to highlight just a few – its supporters can’t explain what it means, it has become associated primarily with closing libraries, it is very easy for opponents to mock, the people who have to deliver it don’t understand or support it, and the few detailed proposals are being appallingly badly implemented. Any one of those problems could be lethal for a government programme – let alone all of them together.<br /><br />The only thing which the government could do now to save the Big Society is to throw some money at it – reverse the library closures and the cuts to charities, fund their community organiser training programme properly (rather than training people and then expecting them to be able to fundraise for their salaries), <a href="http://sociability.org.uk/2011/01/25/5-bigsociety-ideas/">invest in the infrastructure, create a level playing field for government procurement</a> and build the capacity needed to ensure, for example, that their neighbourhood plans don’t get dominated by a vocal minority.<br /><br />But even given the political will, the fact that the Big Society could only be saved by the Big State chucking money at it highlights the flaw at the heart of the whole idea. Anyway, if the government wants to spend some money on new projects to win back public support, why would they risk these projects flopping by associating them with the Big Society?<br /><br />*<br /><br />It is worth remembering as the Big Society collapses into chaos and ridicule quite how popular it was amongst the political elite when first announced. A whole “Big Society industry” sprung up over the summer, soaking up thousands and thousands of hours of civil servant and policy researcher time in conference after conference, seminar after seminar. Labour thinkers from Demos’ Open Left project to Jon Cruddas argued that it was a brilliant strategic move which posed a deadly threat to Labour, and would define the future of political debate. Others called for Labour to embrace “the Good Society”, or “take back the Big Society”.<br /><br />Instead of taking back this mess, I think Labour’s approach should learn from the Big Society in the following ways:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">First, ensure the “Big Society” fiasco does maximum political damage to the Tories.</span> Labour's team should invest just a little time in making sure that the Tories aren't able just to drop the term and walk away, and that “Big Society” becomes to David Cameron what “Cones Hotline” was to John Major – a well known policy disaster which also highlights a wider message about the government’s mistaken approach.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Second, impose the “Philip Blond test” on all new policy ideas for Labour’s policy review.</span> The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Blond">Philip Blond</a> test is simple – if Philip Blond would support the policy proposal, bin it. This has the advantage of (a) weeding out daft ideas and (b) avoiding the risk that Philip Blond tells all his friends in the media that Labour is listening to him.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Third, make sure that they understand the policies that they adopt, and can explain them to others.</span> This should be obvious, but was in many ways the biggest failing of the Big Society. The people on the ground who could have made the Big Society work were alienated by the insulting, top down way that <a href="http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2011/01/big-society-message-that-wont-sell-and.html">millionaire, out of touch politician David Cameron</a> announced that his Big New Idea was that they should do what they had been doing anyway, except with no money.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fourth, listen to people outside of the political elite who can show how their ideas work in practice.</span> The people who fixated on the potential of the Big Society and who thought it was a work of strategic genius missed the big story, which was that the Big Society was popular with political insiders, and a disaster with everyone outside of the Westminster bubble. It is easy to imagine Labour repeating the mistakes of the Big Society by, for example, adopting the new wheeze from someone like <a href="http://www.compassonline.org.uk/">Neal Lawson</a> as our Big Idea, spending a year trying to explain it to people who are largely hostile or indifferent, and then getting slagged off in the newspapers by Lawson for failing to implement his brilliant ideas correctly.<br /><br />Instead, we should pay attention to the people whose ideas actually have been shown to work in practice – people who work and volunteer in community groups, councillors, public sector workers and so on.<br /><br />Just to take one example from thousands, <a href="http://www.community-links.org/linksuk/?cat=854">David Robinson</a> has some brilliant ideas about how early action can prevent social problems from happening, rather than public services just picking up the pieces after the problems have been caused. He is worth listening to because the charity he founded has run projects which cut crime by 50% and which has the best record in Southern England in helping unemployed people get jobs.<br /><br />At the moment, too much attention gets paid to people whose only credentials are that they have a think tank in central London and good media contacts. Instead, Labour needs to listen to the people who can show that their ideas work in the real world.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lastly, recognise that even popular ideas about how to improve communities get tainted by association with politicians.</span> Donating money at cash points was a popular idea – until it was suggested by government as part of the Big Society. As Julian Dobson <a href="http://livingwithrats.blogspot.com/2011/01/big-society-message-that-wont-sell-and.html">notes</a>, “you’ll find very few people ready to buy a message about society promoted and preached by a government that’s generally perceived to be undermining society.” It's not just the Tories, living wage campaigners worry about their campaigns being weakened if they come to be associated too closely with the Labour Party.<br /><br />Rather than Cameron’s top down approach, Labour needs to develop a different way of doing its business, building from the grassroots and making sure that the people who are going to have to carry out our policies understand them, support them and were involved in designing them.donpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.com5