The Power Pledge - Fixing it not Fiddling it!

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Shock Attack at Public Meeting by Sulking Tory MP - Updated

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Updated today - an amusing postscript :-)

Taking on Nadine Dorries Obama style!

My new fundraising advert has just gone live, you can see it here. Thanks to Message Space - who made it for me and Mark Pack, who suggested me, I hope to raise substantial funds to take on Nadine Dorries in Mid Beds. They have already launched for Anthony Calvert (standing against Ed Balls) who has so far raised over £10,000. Jag Singh from Message Space says:"YouFundMe is about opening up political funding to the ordinary public, because British politics is too dominated by a few big donors which skews politics and undermines the public's trust.YouFundMe provides the technology platform for candidates to advertise themselves and raise money for their campaigns outside their party structures and outside their constituencies. To donors it provides an easy, secure way of immediately supporting candidates.Public confidence in parliament and politicians is at a low, YouFundMe offers candidates the opportunity to engage far beyond their usual spheres, make their case and collect donations from people who trust and believe in them.We've already helped one candidate (Antony Calvert in Morley & Outwood) raise more money than any other candidate in the UK via small donations, and we're confident our platform will assist Linda in her campaign.YouFundMe is a project open to candidates from all registered UK parties (except the BNP)."If you want to support my campaign, please donate, how ever small your contribution it will all make a difference! Feedback from Nadine's first "Nadine Unscripted" event in Streatley last night, where only 7 people turned up, suggests she is already worried about the inroads the Lib Dems are making in Mid Beds. She has written off Labour as a paper candidate, but I am glad to see she recognises where her real opposition lies.On the doorstep even solid Tory voters are telling me they are fed up with having an MP who seems to care only about feathering her own nest, and Labour voters are telling me they are disillusioned with Labour - many will be voting Lib Dem for the first time!So - if you want to see REAL change on May 6th - and a clear out of all those MPs who are more concerned about furthering their own careers than representing their constituents - you know what to do - Click here!

The Queen Travelling on Easyjet?

The Queen on Easyjet? Well, times is hard...............

Full story here

"Free to be Young" Lib Dem Youth Policy Launch

Sadly today I am Edinburgh for a roundtable at the Scottish Parliament, so not at the Salmon Youth Centre in Southwark with Lynne Feathestone to launch our Youth policy paper "Free to be Young". I had the great privilege to take over from Laura Willoughby as chair of the working group that produced what I think has turned out to be a brilliant paper! OK, we didn't get everything we wanted .........basically anything that cost anything (!) like 10,000 extra youth workers, but the principles that underpin our policy give us a sound foundation, and in my view the strongest policy position of all the parties.

Our starting point is freedom - our young people need to be given the freedom to grow and thrive. Labour is just interested in trussing them up in a straight jacket to force them into a mould of their making, or to demonise and blame them for society's ills. The Tories offer a "ladder of opportunity" - but don't tell you that the bottom rugs are broken and only the few rather than the many will manage to get onto that ladder. I believe we offer a genuine alternative - a ladder with no broken rungs but also a safety net for those who for whatever reason may from time to time "fall off" the ladder.

Our policy has already attracted attention from Children and Young People Now who were especially interested in our pledges to put Youth Service on a statutory footing and to create a cross departmental junior ministers committee to ensure a more joined up approach to youth issues. Also the response from my colleagues in the youth sector has been really positive - especially appreciating our theme of freedom. Please let me know what you think, you can read it here. I also hope you will join us for the debate at Spring Conference.

Special thanks must go to Laura, who did all the groundwork, to Debbie Enever, one of our many unsung heroes in the policy department, who did all the donkey work, pulled it all together and did the brilliant design, and to Lynne who has been amazing to work with, she is so supportive and encouraging and also such a fabulous advocate for young people . She also supported me to the end (along with Simon Hughes) in trying to get an agreement on the 10,000 extra youth workers, a battle I believe we will win in the end! But I am pleased about putting the Youth Service on to a statutory footing, this is something we in the sector have been calling for for decades (please note my old CYWU now Unite sparring partner Doug Nicholls - will you be advising your members to vote Lib Dem now?!). This won't produce the extra youth workers but it will go some way to arresting the hemorrhaging that is going on across the country as youth services are among the first to feel the cuts. Counter productive in the extreme and something that will end up costing us more in the long run, both financially and humanly.

Special thanks also to Faiza and the team at NCVYS who kindly provided many of the photos we were able to use in the document. Please visit their website to find out more about the residential opportunities they offer to young people.

Will there be an interesting "independent" standing in Lib Dem Bedford?

Strong rumours reach me from different sources that an interesting candidate, with connections to persons unmentionable, intends to put their name forward as an independent parliamentary candidate in Bedford. I understand that this is in order to scupper the parliamentary ambitions of Tory candidate Richard Fuller. Poor Richard is already looking a tad beleaguered following the trouncing of the Tories in the Bedford Mayoral elections - with a local party publicly tearing bits out of each other, he certainly doesn't seem to have the solid committed team on the ground.

So, apparently said candidate will declare at the weekend.............I await with baited breath. All looking increasingly positive for our Henry Vann :-)

The true cost of locking up our children

Today, as a Make Justic Work ambassador, I am off to watch the first screening of "The Fear Factory" in Leicester Square, followed by the launch off the latest NEF report "Punishing Costs". I havc no doubt I will emerge fired up and angry about a system that does nothing to reduce crime and everything to destroy young lives.

NEF Press Release below:

Locking up children and young people for non-violent offences is costing the
taxpayer millions, while doing little to reduce the amount of crime, says a new
report from leading independent think-tank nef (the new economics foundation).
The report, Punishing Costs, launched today Monday 1 March 2010, calls into question the
plans of both Labour and Conservative politicians to invest in new prisons. At a time when
almost all public services are facing drastic cuts, it is more vital than ever to scrutinise
spending on prisons. The report shows how the number of young people and children in
prison could be drastically reduced, and how a change in the pattern of public investment
can increase the safety of our streets.

The launch of the report is set to coincide with the first public screening of The Fear
Factory, a timely new documentary that exposes the history, mechanics and extent of fear
mongering that has led to the UK’s criminal justice crisis. The film has given rise to a
coalition of over 40 organisations, including nef, which calls for an end to the political arms
race on law and order.

The report found that:
! England and Wales imprison proportionally more under-aged children than
almost all other Western European countries. Relatively minor offences can result in
custodial sentences: research by Barnardo’s showed that 82% of 12-14 year-olds in
custody had never committed a violent offence.

! Serving a prison sentence makes it more likely for children to continue offending
after they have been released.

! Time spent in prison also makes it more likely for children to be unemployed in
the future, to have lower income, be disconnected from education and have unstable
living conditions

! Holding a child in prison costs about £100,000 a year. The report also shows that
the harmful consequences of imprisonment result in at least £40,000 of further indirect
costs to the state. These include continuing crime and higher unemployment after
release.

The authors make recommendations about how to change the situation, to deliver better
value for taxpayers, safer streets and a better deal for excluded young people:

! Devolve budgets for prison places to local authorities. At the moment, prison
places are paid for by central government. Transferring the costs to local governments
– together with more power over how they can arrange youth justice services locally –
would remove the perverse incentive to put young people in prison. The councils would
be allowed to keep some of the savings created from reducing custody, which could be
reinvested in the reduction of crime.

! Local authorities can reduce the use of imprisonment by 13% without need for
controversial legislative change or a large increase in public spending. The
policies considered include better co-operation between local agencies and courts, and
using interventions of restorative justice that allow offenders to repair the damage they
have caused in the community. These changes can result in over £60 million of
savings in England, and over £2 million for some local authority areas.

“Prison costs the public purse about six times more than sending a child to Eton,” said
Aleksi Knuutila, researcher at nef and author of the report. “What really makes our
obsessive use of prisons even more of a tragedy is that those resources could have been
used to tackle crime much more effectively. The resources we now waste on locking
children up could be spent on measures that would really keep our streets safer. All the
research shows that prison is failing to rehabilitate offenders and isn’t steering them away
from crime. At a time when public services are being cut everywhere, we need to ask
whether our spending is really delivering on safety in our neighbourhoods.”

"These important findings support the case for diverting vulnerable young people away
from prison whenever possible," said Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust.
"Currently many children who are not a threat to public safety are put behind bars. A policy
of budget devolvement would encourage local authorities to deal with minor offending
locally, instead of relying on a central prison system. Community measures have been
shown to reduce offending much more effectively than any length of prison sentence. We
urgently need to change the pattern of public investment. Currently we spend a lot dealing
with the consequences when social problems turn into crime. The suggestions in this report
would free up scarce resources which could then be directed towards the welfare of
children and their neighbourhoods - stopping crime before it starts and reducing the need
for prison.

Throwing newspapers........excusable due to pressures of being PM - throwing water bottles.......must be made an example of - 1 year in prison

I received the following today -

Seventeen people - all Muslim - have already been given extremely harsh and disproportionate custodial sentences to the alleged offence of violent disorder. Last week, a 19 year old aspiring to be a dentist, was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing a water bottle in the direction of the Israeli embassy. Despite the judge's admission that the young man had an excellent character and the bottle thrown did not hurt anyone, he wanted ‘to send a message of deterrent to the rest of the community'.

The court has also failed to take into account any evidence of police brutality - including beating up protesters and refusing to allow them to leave - and had used the controversial "kettling" technique.

The sentences - primarily targeted towards the Muslim community - will only serve to alienate and criminalise British Muslims, deterring them from engaging in their democratic right to protest.

Tories in pre election meltdown..............

Many thanks to my dear pal Paul Walter for drawing my attention to this via Twitter. OK, I admit it, my iphone has changed my life! I am discovering a cornucopia of "things you always wanted to know but never dare ask" - following not only my favourite Lib Dems, but the likes of "I am trying really hard not to morph into a Lib Dem" Kevin Maguire, "if you think you're hard enuf" Charlie Whelan, "honest guv" Andrew Rawnsley "I used to be Linda Jack's fave MYP" Richard Angell and "one day I'll get a life" Chris Paul. Actually Chris.....just teasing......you are doin good, for anyone not following him - he will do your donkey work for you - well worth following even if he does your head in with his anti Lib Dem rhetoric from time to time :-)



So. Burbler extraordinaire lead me to this unbelievable piece of Tory reeeeealpolitik on Conservative home. If anything ever exposed their shallow, value free, excuse for a serious response to the very real problems this nation faces......this is it. Seriously - we need to get this on our billboards toot sweet!



A little analysis - when you plaster this all over your flagship website.............er...........Mr Mannering - get over here fast!



(1) Don’t panic! The Tories are still 7% ahead in the ConHome Poll of Polls. We’re almost certainly further ahead – where it counts - in the marginals



Ok......."almost certainly" code for - we really don't know. The totally hilarious assertion in this bit is "all the right policies are in place" - er right............would the Tories know a policy if it jumped up and bit them on the bottom? Have a look at their website and play spot the policy - or more exciting - spot the policy that will still be the policy int morning...



(2) Clarify the economic message. In the vote of Tory members I tested four descriptions of the party’s economic message. The official description, supplied to me by George Osborne's office, came bottom in the voting.



Yes, Mr O, he who fades into insignificance against Mr C.........even your loyalist supporters despair that the media rates our Mr C higher than you :-(



3) Raise the dangers of a hung parliament..............er, flippin 'eck, don't let the Lib Dems get a sniff of power, people might realise they really are the "real alternative"!



(4) Deploy the party's very sensible immigration policies. We may have overplayed it at the 2005 General Election but we are in danger of underplaying it this time. Now here they refer to the "sensible" policies of Chris Grayling - linking to this - One of the other crucial ingredients in the Tory commitment to end Labour's uncontrolled immigration policy is the introduction of a cap on the inflow from outside the EU. It may be impossible to set the cap exactly because the party has rightly promised to consult with business and the key public services on their needs for specialist and seasonal workers. We could, however, announce an overall target for net immigration. A commitment, for example, to limit net immigration to an average of 50,000 per year - within an annual flexible rage of 30,000 to 70,000 would be indicative to voters while allowing employers flexibility to influence the inflow of economic migrants.
The announcement should be made soon - to avoid being made in the heat of an election campaign - and ideally after a couple of good opinion polls. The worst time would be after a bad opinion poll and the announcement would then risk being presented as a panic measure. - You couldn't make it up!



5) Stop announcing new policies (unless we have a pledge as potent as the 2007 inheritance tax policy up our sleeves!) and focus on the best ones we already have. The Tories have loads of policies but we can’t go into a campaign with two hundred bullet points. We need to highlight just a few key pledges. Doesn't this just say it all?! The "potent 2007 inheritance tax policy" - yeah right - let's take care of the rich and the poor will take care of themselves a reverse of the take care of the pennies mantra if ever I heard it. And loads of policies................where, please, are they hiding? Certainly not on the Tory website,

.

(6) Hague is a golden asset. No Comment.



(7) Remind voters on a daily basis of Labour's failures. Yep


(8) Put someone in 100% charge of campaign co-ordination. I’m hearing lots of stories of too many chiefs in the Tory campaign (all able) but no overall chief. We don’t (alas) have Lynton Crosby co-ordinating this campaign but we need someone in absolute charge and able to give the campaign 100% attention. Who is that? George Bridges? The question needs answering and kinda now. WOT?!


(9) Cameron can show that he's stronger than Brown by being the election's straight-talker.

Straight talker...............are you havin a laugh??????



(10) This election is a choice between decline and recovery. Well, not entirely sure about this, but if this is the case, it would be really interesting to stack up the Os-spawn solution with the Capable solution.........

Brown - the real problem is with the behaviour he admits.

Unexpectedly stranded at home and unable to attend a trustee meeting of Re:generate in Derby, I have had more time to follow Twitter and listen to the unfolding story of Mr Brown. Interesting just how party political this has become - OK, I know there is an election coming, allegedly........but I would like to think if this kind of allegation was made against Nick Clegg we would welcome an investigation even if we regarded the allegation as ludicrous.

It seems to me Brown has a real problem though, all he and Mandelson have denied is him hitting anyone. He admits to throwing things when he gets angry - I work in a big, open plan office - I have never seen anyone throwing anything, however frustrated they are. I have worked with bullies (one of whom was sacked for her bullying), I have represented many union members who were being bullied, but in spite of their aggressive and intimidating behaviour, none of these people was ever accused of throwing anything. Mandelson, it seems to me, compounded the problem with his interview on Andrew Marr yesterday - he "took his medicine like a man" - er right. So he, as more or less an equal of Brown, thinks because he could take unspecified behaviour, which presumably was unpleasant (hold your nose and swallow hard), everyone else, whatever their position, should do the same. Bullying is invariably the abuse of power by someone more powerful than the recipient. It is not about intention it is about impact. Brown may not have intended to upset anyone when he shouted or threw things around, that's not the point.

I can only imagine how intimidating it may be to be in an office with someone who is getting so angry they have started throwing things, be they newspapers or brick bats. If it happened in my office, even if it were my Director, I would expect some sort of action to be taken. It seems to me that what this shows us about Brown is his total lack of self awareness and emotional intelligence. If he thought that he had the right to behave like that, if he never stopped to think about the impact his behaviour may be having on those around him, if he had no notion of the great responsibility of his office and the great privilege it affords him, then I for one completely understand why so many of his colleagues have lost their trust in him.

But I am equally appalled at the actions of the National Bullying Hotline. It takes a huge amount of courage for anyone to report workplace bullying. Let's not forget it is only in very recent years it has been taken seriously. I can remember being laughed at by councillors in Bedfordshire when I raised the issue, what I was describing only happened in schools! If anyone from Brown's office did call, they called because they didn't have the confidence to approach anyone internally and because they were presumably worried about anyone internally knowing what was going on. To have that trust betrayed by the people they turned to in their time of need is inexcusable.

This country faces unbelievable challenges, the most pressing of which, from my perspective, is the growing inequality and unfairness. I have no doubt that Gordon Brown is a man, despite the clear failure of his government, who is very exercised by this. I have no reason to doubt what he says about his concern to tackle poverty in this country and across the world. How tragic then, that it appears, having been given the opportunity to really make a difference that only a handful ever get, he seems to have become so arrogant as to think he can behave as he pleases, regardless of the impact on others. Fairness is about how we treat each other as individuals, as well as a society.

It is really not good enough for Mandelson and Brown to try and create a smokescreen and claim this is all a politically inspired operation to undermine the Prime Minister - it may well be, but surely, the adult thing to do would be to immediately promise an investigation. After all, as I have already intimated, most responsible adults, however frustrated, would throw little more than the odd inappropriate comment around the office.

More evidence that Tories are same old same old

Full of fresh ideas "New Tories". Only this morning, just in time for the Sundays, time to consider over our tea and toast - a brand new investment opportunity for the hoy palloy - cheap shares in our nationalised banks.

I am old enough to remember the Ask Sid campaign. What I particularly remember is my socialist aunt, responding to the letter she received from British Gas asking if she wanted to buy any shares. She wrote back to tell them no thank you, she didn't want to buy shares in a company she already owned.

And therein lies the rub. These "fresh" Tory proposals demonstrate just how out of touch they are. Well yes, of course, for those with the spare cash to invest, they may benefit from cheap shares and a bit of a windfall. But for those who have been hit hardest by the credit crunch and the failure of the banks, there is nothing. They may have already lost their homes, their jobs, the little savings they had.

Now I may have a little more time for the Tory proposal if it was to sell the shares for the best possible price, in order to invest in making this a more equal society so that everyone who has suffered because of the greed and incompetence of the banks gets at least a little redress. But unfortunately that would betray what appears to be the only belief they have left, namely that "to he whom much is given, he shall have more" as opposed to "to he whom much is given, much is required".

In Praise of Jenny Tonge

The news that Nick Clegg has today sacked Jenny Tonge is sad news indeed. It further clouds what is and always has been a desperately clouded issue. I have read what Jenny said to the Jewish Chronicle about allegations of the IDF organ harvesting in Haiti"To prevent allegations such as these - which have already been posted on You Tube - going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti." Frankly, in my view, Nick has totally over reacted, which is disappointing given his unblemished and brave record of standing up to the Israeli lobby. He says - I quote from the BBC article - "The comments were wrong, distasteful and provocative and I recognise the deep and understandable distress they have caused to the Jewish community," Nick thus plays into the hands of the Zionists - if Jenny caused distress it was surely to the Israeli community? The British are being accused of colluding with torture, do we worry about that causing distress to the Christian community? Oh yes, we also have a sizeable Muslim community, so does Israel, and numerous other faiths, so does Israel.

Jenny has not accepted the allegations, she has merely suggested they should be investigated. Of course they are outrageous allegations, but so was the suggestion that this country may have colluded with torturers. Of course it is beyond belief that human beings, sent to help a country in distress would do such a thing, but human beings do do terrible things to each other, be they Israeli, American, Iraqi or British, particularly when they have been able to dehumanize those they hurt. Now, of course, I am not suggesting I believe these allegations, just challenging the idea that we assume some people are automatically beyond reproach. If such allegations had been made against Iranian forces for example, would that have evoked the same reaction?

In all of this the danger is that we lose sight of the very real outrage that the world sits silently by and allows the Israeli state to behave with impunity in violating not just the human rights of the Palestinians but of its own citizens. That we do this and continue to support a state which even Desmond Tutu has said is worse than apartheid South Africa, shames us all.

Jenny has been a brave and courageous voice challenging this. I know her to be a woman of huge integrity and compassion - she speaks out of the agony of witnessing what is happening virtually unchallenged in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself. I for one admire and value her contribution. If her frustration sometimes results in her speaking out of turn - at least it is only her words that are causing offence.............unlike the bombs and bullets that have maimed and killed countless innocent Palestinians in their homeland that is STILL illegally occupied.

I am thankful that there are Israelis, many of whom happen to be Jewish, and Jews, many of whom happen to be Israelis, who are at the forefront of challenging Israeli policy towards Palestine. They give the lie to the notion that this has anything at all to do with anti-semitism, they give me hope that ultimately, just as the Berlin Wall came down, just as today we celebrate the release of Mandela and the end of apartheid, one day we will celebrate a meaningful and lasting peace in Israel Palestine - but that peace will continue to allude us until we recognise that there can be no peace without justice and until we recognise that the Israeli state and the Jewish religion are not synonymous.

Will Boris oust Dave?

Having spent the last few weeks charging around all over the UK, I am now paying for it by enforced bedrest due to gammy leg/back. The only benefit being that I have been more able than usual to catch up with blogs and tweets. This tweet from Charlie Whelan caught my eye - My pal Graham Sharpe from William Hill contacts me again. Money piling on to Boris to replace 'vulnerable' Cam. Hague still favourite.

Nick Clegg and the Labour Death-Rattle

And now a Tory prepared to heap praise on Nick Clegg. Matthew d'Ancona in yesterday's Torygraph predicts that the Chilcot inquiry will be Labour's death-rattle, in the course of which he refers to Gordon Brown's imminent appearance saying "Gordon, thanks to the nimble political footwork of the ever-more-confident Nick Clegg, is now committed to taking the stand before the general election."

Brendan Barber - in Praise of Nick Clegg?

OOOOOOOOOHHHHH - and another one! The Labour apparatchiks are falling over themselves to praise our man. Could it be the penny is at last beginning to drop? I do hope so. As a great supporter of and believer in, the trade union movement, I am not a Lib Dem by accident. I look forward to the day when my old pals wake up and smell the coffee, "New Labour" has betrayed the movement - at every turn.

So Kevin Maguire is succeeded by none other than TUC general secretary Brendan Barber in heaping praise on Nick Clegg over the Cadbury take over. Now, as I have mentioned before, my only dealings with BB were when we spent a good few hours at Transport House in a roundtable trying to resolve an interunion dispute - this was around 7 years ago - the dispute is still unresolved (!). But one thing that struck me was that he was an incredibly fair man, a good listener and someone who wasn't going to be railroaded by anyone.

Apparently Nick met with him a couple of weeks ago and I have no doubt that will have prepared the ground for Mr B to be so publicly appreciative of his intervention in PMQs yesterday. I hope what he has realised is that he and Nick may not have a meeting of minds on many things, but in him we have a leader with great integrity who will not be guided by the latest focus group or vested interest, be that of union or big business. I hope that he will have realised that Nick is someone who will stand up against unfairness, injustice, oppression and downright greed and dishonesty. I hope he may, perhaps in an unguarded moment. recognise that the interests of those many of his members (myself included) he seeks to represent, may be better served if he hitched his wagon elsewhere.

Kevin Maguire - in Praise of Nick Clegg?

One thing I like about Kevin Maguire is that he has a rare quality of being a Labour hack prepared to give praise where praise is due. Yesterday was one such day - a perceptive blog from yr man - my favourite bits - on Osborne "Shakespeare was still writing tragedies when Invisible Tory George Osborne last had the confidence to hold a press conference" on Nick Clegg "Labour tribalists sounded foolish mocking Nick Clegg's questions about why state-owned RBS is bankrolling Kraft's takeover of Cadbury. Many Labour MPs silently agreed with the Lib Dem leader. If today had been an election TV debate, Clegg would've won the public vote on this one"

Hungry and Scared.......

.......the Indy has this story about 9 year old Haitian Wideline - when asked about how she felt, living in squalor in an orphanage, having lost her parents, her only possession the tartan dress on her back - she said - hungry and scared.

One of the frighteningly numbing effects of disaster is that we can lose sight of the human impact - the 70,000 - 200,000 - 1,000.000 lives lost are all nameless, faceless, remote, other. Coming face to face with the countless survivors, like Wideline, reminds of the humanity of all. If we feel powerless in the face of injustice, inequality and poverty in our own land, how much more when we hear of the unbearable tragedy unfolding on the other side of the globe...........

I have never been to Haiti - my connection has only been through Haitians who have emigrated here and friends who have visited - one friend narrowly surviving a gun attack in what was an unbelievably lawless society. A society where even near neighbours like America, have chosen to draw the curtains and turn their heads to avoid having to address the reality of a society in melt down.

If Haiti teaches us anything it surely has to be the awesome truth of the words of John Donne - that no - no man is an island.

Whilst we could do nothing about the earthquake - we could have done something about the poverty, we could have invested in the infra structure of the country that would have mitigated against the worst effects of this disaster. We could have surely done more to support the development of a healthy and effective society. We have a graphic demonstration of what happens when we walk by on the other side.

I have never ever before heard of a similar disaster, be that natural or man made, which has resulted in that unbelievable number of so many orphaned children. Be that Tsunami, Earthquake, Typhoon, Hurricane. These children who will determine whether Haiti rises from the ashes of this tragedy - or slips off our radar again and into a malaise of hopelessness and despair.

Shadow Cabinet, FPC and Virgin Trains!

Ooops! Blank post courtesy of Virgin Trains - back in Bromsgrove now so let's hope this works.................

I’m just on my way back from FPC, on the train to Bromsgrove hoping that the train isn’t as late as it was last night, causing me to miss my connection with an hour wait for the next one! Anyway last night I was at Shadow Cabinet where, with Lynne Featherstone being the only woman, I was overwhelmed by the distinct white maleness of the brood. OK, a few women were missing, but it doesn’t take many to result in none.............Let’s hope this Speaker’s Conference really does do something to redress the balance...........but that really wasn’t my point – will return to this favourite theme in the future.

Now I may be accused of many things, but leaking isn’t one of them, so I will resist the temptation to dob Vince in about something quite amusing, or someone else about something not quite so amusing.

Last night and this evening Lynne and I were presenting the Youth Policy Paper – with many radical and fresh ideas, some of which will hopefully become policy, others which will fall victim to the fall out from “savage cuts”.

I turned up yesterday having just read an article in Children and Young People Now about the truly savage cuts that as ever, many youth services across the country are being faced with. In Nottingham it amounts to around £700,000, in Birmingham £1 million and in Oxfordshire they are consulting about a staggering £2.7 million in cuts. This is what truly does my head in. All the parties nationally make commitments about preserving frontline services – BUT – when it comes to the crunch it is the non statutory services that suffer, in particular youth service. I have lived with this for most of my youth service career – year after year of cuts –when we got rid of the Tory government I naively thought things might change. Did they? Did they heck! I used to manage a youth service where once I had paid all the fixed costs (salaries, buildings etc) I had £2,000 a year to spend on work with young people - £2,000 – that equated to about 10p per young person per year!!!

The Youth Policy Working Group has been united in the need to invest more in services for young people. So we have been arguing long and hard for additional youth workers – 10,000 to be precise. There is a reason for this.........a few years ago we had two expert witnesses to our Crime Policy Working Group who both said – what we need is not 10,000 more police on our streets but 10,000 youth workers. One of the arguments our party has for investing in police rather than youth workers is that this is what the people want. They want the police to cut crime. The fact is that young people are not only disproportionately the perpetrators of crime, they are also disproportionately the victims of crime. When I was in Bedford the crime people were most worried about was abduction.....this despite the fact that no one had been abducted for 20 years. There is a notion that more “bobbies on the beat” will help cut crime. But the truth is that a police officer actually comes across a crime once every 8 years!

Anyway, excepting a few notable parliamentary supporters, Lynne, Simon Hughes and Evan Harris – we have failed to convince the parliamentary party, or FPC of our case.

My frustration, whilst I appreciate the need to have some popularist policies, is that they must be evidence based. Also, while it may be true that people are worried about crime, if you look at the results of most citizens’ panels you will see that facilities for young people is also a hugely important issue, often topping the poll!

A few years ago my local authority commissioned a report into youth crime. An academic study was carried out by the local university. The study convincingly demonstrated that in one particular area (an area I managed) of high youth crime, the crime rates went down markedly on the evenings our youth club was open. The report was never formally published because it didn’t say what the politicians wanted it to say – I wonder how many other unread, unpublished reports would say the same thing? Actually, its not rocket science is it? “The Devil makes work for idle hands” hmmmm yes – innit?! If we actually listened to young people for a change we would hear this, again and again, but unfortunately it seems we have lost the ability to think long term or strategically, to recognise that we must invest to save. The real tragedy of this recession is that something that should have been seen as an opportunity will doubtless be squandered – and that squandering will result in yet another generation of young people who have been totally let down by our society. A society that bleats about “feral youth” but then is prepared to allow the environment to exist that reinforces their so called “feral” ways. A society that has not made the connection between effort and reward – that wants everything on a plate and doesn’t see why it should pay for it – a malaise that is being passed on to our children.

OK, I am in rant mode, but I want our party to tell the truth. Tell the truth about what the consequences are if we don’t invest in services now. Tell the truth about how the obscene inequality that exists now has resulted in our children being the unhappiest of all OECD countries, us having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe, close to 1 million young people unemployed, us locking up more children than almost anyone else and the equally obscene human and financial cost of this.

Despite my rant, and my passionate belief that we really should be investing in our young people’s futures – I do think we have come up with a great policy paper. It will be launched soon and hopefully will get through conference without too much flak (especially since it ain’t gonna cost much!) It is head and shoulders above anything the other parties have come up with and is rooted in our core belief that "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"

For love of Sam

Last night I got an unexpected phone call from a young man I worked with a good few years ago - let's call him Sam. During the time I was working with him he turned up at my office with rope marks on his neck - he had tried to hang himself. I took him straight down to A&E and given there was no specialist unit for young people we were sent to the adult psychiatric unit. Last night he reminded me of what happened, an inpatient, an older woman, coming up and asking him for sex. The whole environment was difficult and very disturbing for him. He got some help, but never really enough. He ultimately ended up in prison on a short sentence. Since then he has been in and out of a number of relationships. He has three children by different mothers and another one on the way. He has no job and his criminal record doesn't help. But he is desperate to get himself a job and be able to support his partner and children. He is at heart a lovely lad, who has suffered terrible rejection in his childhood and just needs the right opportunity to get his life back on track.

I have to confess, I came off the phone a little tearful, as ever pondering, how many other Sam's are there out there? Young men who for what ever reason get themselves into trouble and then, even when they want to turn their lives around, find the support really isn't there to help them. One of the saddest things Sam told me was that one of the good things about being in prison was that he actually got some real help with his mental health issues. They got him on to cognitive behavioural therapy and he was able to come off his medication. But since he came out he hadn't had anything like the same support. And yet the rest of his description of his time inside was horrifying. As someone who had suffered bullying in the past, he was easy prey.

Sam told me that what he really wanted to do was to get involved with a project that helped divert other young people from ending up in prison, but he didn't really know where to start.

At the moment there are even more young Sams out there, nearly 1 million unemployed young people, a good proportion who have other challenges, such as having been in the criminal justice system, being homeless, being failed by school, having disabilities, all factors that will make it even more difficult for them to find a job. Young people whose dreams are not very different from the rest of us, to have a job, a family, security, to be happy.

At a time when we are all being told how difficult it is going to be, how "savage cuts" will have to be made in our public services, lets not forget those who are likely to suffer far more than the rest of us. Young people whose lives may not be blighted just for a few years, but for a generation.

Nick Clegg, Michael White.........True Confessions

While atTory party conference I visited the Politics.co.uk stand and got them to look me up. Their assessment of my blog was that it was excellent, although declaring that the funniest thing about it was the way I swoon over my leader.....for me the funniest thing was that they also described me as the "eminence grise" of conference - yes I had to look up what it meant :-). Well...........I have a confession to make..........its not Nick Clegg I swoon over.......its Michael White. Scary but true! None is his equal. Has any other political commentator his wit or charm? Or dulcet tones? Or classic good looks? Oh yes, if anyone is to make me swoon it has to be Mr W. But I have to confess to having a mixed reaction to his latest missive about our dear leader. On the one hand he is generous in his acknowledgement of the validity of the principles underpinning our manifesto, having listed them he takes issue with our ability to clean up politics but goes on to say - "But overall it's wholesome enough. Fairness matters in healthy societies. Ours is out of balance again and needs a decent tweak. The Lib Dems are sincere in wanting to deliver improvement. It's the politics they may find tricky."

It is his assertion that Clegg is closer to the Tories "because he's a market man, not a social democrat at heart: it's the old Liberal-SDP split, Paddy Ashdown v Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell v Simon Hughes, Vincent Cable v Chris Huhne. Clegg's indignant denials are the "narcissism of small difference" that I take issue with. Whilst he acknowledges that he might be wrong and that "it won't matter much. Whatever Clegg's private inclinations (his Sheffield Hallam constituency is one of Britain's richest), his party is culturally anti-Tory at heart and will nip any temptation in the bud as it did when Jeremy Thorpe was tempted to sustain the defeated Ted Heath in office in February 1974." He has hit on a misrepresentation of Nick that feeds into an unjust perception, fed by the right wing media and hence prevalent amongst many of our potential supporters, that he is "Cameronlite". Yes, it may be reasonably fair to suggest he is a market man, and if that was the sum total of all that he is, I certainly would never have supported him. White, like many before him, has confused values and methodology. Nick, wrongly in my view of course, has a belief that the market can help deliver social objectives. But make no mistake, what drives him is not that blind belief in the market that characterises Tory philosophy, but a belief that we can and must have a fairer society. That we can and must redress the balance through fairer taxes and investment in improving the life chances of all our children. That we can and must fulfil the reason d'etre of our party - to build a fair, free and open society, balancing liberty, equality and community, in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

And that, dear Mr W, is light years away from being a mere "market man".