Bring Back National Service............and the Birch........and Zero Tolerance..........and David Blunkett?....and Jack Straw?

The past week has seen a cornucopia of opinion and counter opinion in relation to the shocking events that swept so many cities in this country. From Melanie Phillips blaming the "liberal intelligentsia" (Melanie darling you are SO last season!) or the delightful Nadine Dorries citing the "moral vacuum"....ah yes dear, so that's what you are blaming for your own lack of moral fortitude is it? Now let's check out your alleged behaviour - hmmmm, adultery, lying and stealing? Not bad to be going on with. But of course, you haven't been caught looting Louboutins from Selfridges, no you were able to loot the public purse without breaking a single window! Rather like your millionaire pal George "we're all in this together" Osborne - you just don't get irony! This is in marked contrast it has to be said to the brave and perceptive Peter Oborne, whose analysis in his Telegraph piece this week was characteristically spot on. Ah, now there's a man the right could do well to look to for their moral compass.

Up and down the country, sorry England, sentences are being dished out like smarties. Sentences that on the face of it appear to betray a knee jerk response to a phenomenon that has at least unsettled and at worst shocked us all.

As a party we are committed to evidence based practice, now, more than ever, we need to demonstrate that this is what distinguishes us from our Tory partners. The likes of Phillips and Dorries may, rather like Cameron and May, want to absolve their class from any responsibility by dumping it in part on those immoral nasty liberals, but let's consider the facts. We have had decades of totally illiberal political leadership! Thatcher - liberal? Major - liberal? Blair - liberal? Brown - liberal? Cameron.........ah yes, claimed to be a liberal once, but prick him and does he not bleed pure illiberality?!

So this morning, as the dust of the last turbulent week (is it only a week?) settles - we have the unedifying spectacle of a prime minister, clearly out of his depth, calling for.......you've guessed it ZERO TOLERANCE. Oh and then we have that novel idea, being touted in the Express that the real answer is NATIONAL SERVICE (that'll sort them out, give'em some discipline in their lives........er......I joined voluntarily and look at me!). So let's look at what happens after people come out of the armed services - disproportionately homeless, disproportionately street drinkers, disproportionately suffering from mental health conditions. Now if our prime minister's argument is to be extended to its logical conclusion, given that our "feral youth" are the products of dysfunctional parents and a sick society, presumably there are some of our service personnel who are the product of our dysfunctional and sick armed forces??? But, maybe they're right, much better to train our "feral youths" to beat up and kill foreigners in Afghanistan Iraq or Libya than let them loose over here.

Having spent the best part of my life working with and for young people (and scarily that is now a very long time!) I have lived through many moral panics. The last week is no different. And frankly isn't that different from moral panics about youth throughout the ages. Even Socrates described the youth of his day as having contempt for authority, being disrespectful to their elders, tyrannising their teachers. But, what is different in every case is the environment in which such behaviour takes place - the values which people accept or reject - the messages our young people are getting from the society in which they either participate or feel disaffected from. And given this government's belief in "nudge" theory and behavioural economics, it seems extraordinary if they do not consider this as part of what must be a proper inquiry into what happened.

So it seems to me that what this country desperately needs is a truly liberal response to what are clearly complex problems. I may have been a little reticent in expressing my anxieties about the coalition, but surely this is a golden opportunity for us to stand up and challenge so much of this knee-jerk rhetoric? Most of us agree that short sentences don't work, and many Liberal Democrats (including myself) are ambassadors for Make Justice Work, the campaign which highlights the wastefulness of short term sentences and promotes more intensive community sentencing. We also agree with using restorative justice as an alternative to custodial sentences, surely given what as happened and the evidence of how effective this approach is, our leadership should be making this point? Being faced with the consequences of your criminal behaviour can be not only far more difficult for a young person to cope with, but also is far more likely to get them to reform their ways.

At the moment there is talk of some 3000 arrests and no doubt there will be many more, like Cameron and Johnson in their youth, who will escape justice. Do we honestly believe ALL of these rioters were criminals? Or is it more logical to conclude that there was a hardened criminal element but that many more, particularly young people, were drawn in by the mob mentality? Those young people more than any will be far more likely to respond positively with being confronted with the enormity of the consequences of their behaviour. What's that saying about acting in haste and repenting at leisure? (both young people and politicians). Don't we know that our prisons are universities of crime?

What we need now is true political leadership, a recognition that if we truly are "all in this together" we all have to take some blame for what has happened as well as some responsibility for finding solutions. There are a good few things I disagree with Nick Clegg on (!) and we have had many arguments about, however, my primary reason for supporting his leadership was that I knew him to be a true liberal, I knew that on youth issues in general and youth justice in particular, he absolutely got the need to have a liberal approach. Nick Clegg, Simon Hughes, Lynne Featherstone (another two who absolutely gets it!) and our parliamentary team have never had a better opportunity to show that leadership, to take that opportunity we allegedly joined the coalition to promote - an opportunity to ensure we try that which has never been tried in living memory - that truly liberal response.

Apocalypse Now, Apocalypse Later

You know when you eat something bad and feel like you want to throw up? For ages you think you couldn't feel any worse - then you actually do throw up and its horrendous. That more or less encapsulates how I have felt since the coalition was formed. That sick feeling in my stomach started on that infamous Tuesday evening when the coalition nuptials took place and has continued, getting worse with each new announcement - leaving me devastated this Tuesday with the budget - and culminating in the meeting of CHYPS (Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services) I went to last Thursday.

When I warned at the special conference that we would find ourselves locked into all sorts of things that would turn our stomach, I had no idea how prophetic my words would turn out to be, nor how quickly they would be fulfilled. I find myself surrounded by Lib Dem friends beaming with delight, constantly pointing out how much of our manifesto is included in the coalition agreement and the budget.........but to me its a bit like this. The doctor tells you what a wonderful job he has done in mending your broken leg while totally ignoring the fact that he has chopped the other one off! Oh yes, a modest increase in CGT is to be welcomed, but a devastating increase in VAT? Oh yes, great to give an additional £150 to poor families, or to take so many more out of paying tax, but what a joke when those same people will find themselves far worse off with benefit cuts and additional regressive taxes - and for so many, no job at all not to pay taxes on!!!!

Some of my dearest Lib Dem friends think I have made a mistake speaking out and should try to be a little more diplomatic, well frankly that is a bit like saying you should let your enemy overrun your country, raping and pillaging at will, with just the odd polite "would you mind stopping please?"

Of all the budget measures this week, for me the most worrying is something that has gone relatively uncommented on. That is a the promised 10% cut in housing benefit for those unemployed for over a year - so not only are we going to rub your nose in it, we are going to tip a load more shit over you while we do it. The massive cuts in the public services, particularly in some areas like the North East where 60% of all jobs are in the public sector, will not only take away people's livelihood, possibly for years to come, but they will also face the double whammy of either losing their homes because they can't pay their mortgage, or losing their homes because they can't pay their rent.

So, back to last Thursday. I had been invited, as chair of the Youth Policy Working Group, to go and speak to the heads of young people's services from across the country. Like me they were gobsmacked that there was virtually no mention of young people in the coalition agreement. Given we had some key commitments to young people in our manifesto, votes at 16, equalising minimum wage, additional educational, training and job opportunities for that lost generation of nearly a million "NEET" young people, statutory youth service, the fact that none of this appeared in the agreement is deeply worrying. Not only that, but sending the opposite signal by cutting the Future Jobs Fund. Nearly everyone there reported having to make massive cuts, usually around 30% and this is BEFORE the budget measures kick in. There is a very real fear that in many areas the Youth Service and Connexions will disappear altogether. The fact that youth services are non statutory means they are top of the hit list - and after all, young people can't vote until they are 18 and then they are less likely to vote anyway.

Following my input was a brilliant presentation predicting the future for the sector, central to which was a warning of the apocalypse to come. The fact that given the 25% cut in public sector and the fact that cuts would not be evenly spread, unprotected services like the youth service were very vulnerable - the predicted cuts in the long term being up to 50%. Equally as vulnerable will be the voluntary sector, for whom 50% of their funding comes from the public sector. Ironic really, given the Tory mantra of the "Big Society" which will rely so heavily on the voluntary sector.

The impact of these cuts cannot be underestimated. And this is where I am afraid I totally find myself parting company with Nick Clegg and Vince Cable. Nick rightly points out that we have a responsibility to our children to get out of this mess - but the irony is that by cutting services to the most vulnerable, by decimating youth services, the very children and young people he wants to protect will have their life chances blighted before they even start! Even more ironic is that we know all this is likely to cost more in the long run. We know crime rises when youth provision is cut. We know that if we don't provide adequate children's services more children are likely ultimately to end in care, or worse. We know that poor housing, poor nutrition, social exclusion, means worse health outcomes and a greater burden on the NHS. Only this week a report by David Stuckler warned the budget cuts would increase the death rate and today we hear that poorer families will be hit 6 times harder. Or Professor Joseph Stiglitz quoted in the Indy saying this strategy will ensure the recession is longer, slower and harder than it needs to be. Calling this a progressive budget is a bit like calling the Pope an atheist.

I for one am praying for our backbenchers, lead by Simon Hughes, to rebel - to at least push for amendments to the budget that make it fairer. To challenge the notion that it has to be like this, this is not the universal view of economists after all. Lets face it, this approach has far more to do with neo-liberal ideology than economic necessity. As someone who rejects the simplistic solutions of both left and right, I am frankly far more interested in what works. Yes, make cuts, there is slack, there are the trappings of a Big Brother state, the unnecessary targets and bureaucracy, the quangoes, the attempts at social engineering, the ASBOs, Trident.......oh forgot, we won't even consider Trident. But for goodness sake, don't cut the roots off the very measures that contain the prospect of recovery. Don't condemn another generation to the very thing you bleat about, namely a welfare dependent culture. Don't get hoodwinked by the ideology that cares more about monetary than human cost.

My worry is that the debate is being framed around the merit of cuts or tax rises, rather than the far more fundamental question about what sort of society we want to be part of, my worry is, that when the dust has settled and cleared, when we discover we have cut off our noses to spite our face, no amount of hand wringing and apologies from Osborne and Cameron will disguise the fact that it was us, the "progressive" Liberal Democrats, who held their hands while they destroyed our future. Broken society? We've seen nothing yet.

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.........

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"

Mandelson and Osborne.......much to choose?

A must read this morning.

Am I turning into a Tory?

Wednesday, having been remiss in the washing clothes department, I scoured the bottom of the wardrobe. I went to work in a smart pair of black trousers, a high necked pink jumper and flat shoes. What has this got to do with the price of eggs? I hear you ask! Well, two of my colleagues independently commented. They had never seen me dressed so conservatively - what was happening?! Perhaps it was also a subliminal reaction to hearing George Osborne on the Today Programme and finding myself unable to disagree with much he said. Am I metamorphosing into a Conservative? Have I had it wrong all these years, is it the Tories who are the real progressives? Are they, as George Osborne claims, the ones to deliver a fairer society?



Well, listening to him I have to say, even though there wasn't much to disagree with, motherhood and apple pie and all that, I still couldn't help finding myself squirming at that underlying Etonesque arrogance that has always been the trade mark of so many Tories. So I was interested to read this article by Steve Richards in the Indy, comparing the tactics of New Tories with those of New Labour in the 90's. "Mr Blair made intoxicating speeches in the mid-1990s that seemed to develop an argument when he was actually avoiding one. Mr Osborne follows a similar path."



And later Richards argues -



"Like some of his other senior colleagues, Mr Osborne has read the New Labour manuals assiduously and probably knows off by heart the speeches delivered by Blair and Brown en route to their 1997 landslide. They declared that the new divide in the mid-1990s was not between high and low taxation, but fair and unfair taxation. It sounded like a moment of definitive change. But what did they mean by fair and unfair tax? What did they regard as levels that were too high? An apparently defining argument hid a thousand more important debates.


Mr Blair opened the door to Mr Osborne in other ways too. Towards the end of his leadership, he argued Labour had become too obsessed about the means in politics rather than the ends. But it is the means that are the cause of the divide between parties. Mrs Thatcher argued that her policies produced fairer outcomes compared with Labour. The arguments were over the means. No party claims that it wants an unfair society. In suggesting that the means are unimportant Mr Blair gave the Conservatives the freedom to argue that their approach is progressive because they seek fair outcomes. Every politician in Britain seeks fairer outcomes.


One of the reasons why Mr Osborne's speech is politically clever also relates to Mr Blair. The ultra-Blairites will agree with every word, the vaguely defined means as well as the ends that no one would disagree about. Out of genuine conviction as much as pragmatism, the heirs to Blair, Cameron and Osborne, cause mayhem in the Labour Party. Whether revisiting the politics of the mid-1990s is a successful route to power is another matter."



Absolutely! This is why I am uncomfortable, of course outcomes are important, but they are dependent on the means and getting the means wrong because of an underlying flawed premise, will result not only in failure but also in the kind of unfairness we have seen in both Tory and Labour Britain.

View from the top updated....................with a little help from Polly Toynbee!

Having spent most of my working life in drafty decrepit youth centres and on badly lit street corners (as a detached youth worker I hasten to add!)............the grandeur of Canary Wharf never ceases to amaze me. Cheek by jowl with some of the most deprived areas in the country, this fantasy city looms out of the mist (aka smog)..........a private estate, squeaky clean, towering metallic structures housing a virtual small town of 70,000 plus people. The virtually relocated "city" doesn't on the surface appear to have suffered due to the credit crunch. The classy jeweller still sells pieces for £1000's, the caviar bar is still packed, more and more posh shops are opening, rather like The Truman Show, everything seems just a little unreal. Yesterday I had a meeting at Barclays, where their meeting rooms on the 30th floor have stunning views (sadly it was raining so the pic isn't that good), set amongst all the other towers, HSBC, Citigroup, Bank of America..........the list goes on. Here, in the heart of the "city" the place where many of the decisions that have lead to our current problems are taken, the lack of connection with the reality of people's lives is palpable. The fact that for the past few years the only politician warning of our present reality is Vince Cable is something we should be very proud of. It is a fact that the media had often gone to Vince for a comment rather than George Osborne (who he?!). Let's hope that it isn't just the Tories that get the message that they don't have the competence to deal with the economy, but the country at large. However badly Darling is doing, I fear our present problems would look like a walk in the park if Mr O ever took over as Chancellor.

Since penning this piece my pal Martin alerted me to this article by Polly Toynbee which says what I was trying to far more eloquently!

"Focus groups with the super-rich, most of them in the top 0.1% of earners, commissioned for a book I have co-written with David Walker, threw up more questions than answers. How did these people succeed in setting their own terms with government? They were ignorant about the society they live in and indifferent to any but their own kind, and it is now plain that their own financial incentives encouraged wild risk-taking in banks and funds. Alan Sugar-style brutishness rules the roost, though most of these yahoos are not entrepreneurs at all, but market followers who receive their bonuses irrespective of whether results are good or bad.

Adept at frightening the Treasury, they fight even modest attempts at curbing tax avoidance or taxing non-doms, and the Treasury often retreats. Questions will be asked about who ruled Britain in this decade, just as in the worst days of over-mighty trade unions."