Safety first

Much to the dismay of the security staff at Labour Party Conference, like thousands of other women, I carry a personal alarm in my handbag. Discovered as I entered the secure zone, said illegal item had to be reported to the supervisor and then confiscated. I tried to reason that should I want to interrupt a speech in the main hall I could do so just as effectively shouting at the top of my lungs but they remained unconvinced and the alarm was removed from my possession. Irritating but I could understand where they were coming from.

However, what was more irritating was when I went to collect my alarm before going home. After a lengthy search the alarm was produced but rather than trusting that I was in fact leaving the complex and heading home, I had to be escorted out of the secure zone and my alarm was only returned once I had passed through the security barriers. They wouldn’t even trust me to with it as I went through the gate, rather they had to squeeze it through the barrier once I had exited, ensuring me and my illicit alarm were not reunited until firmly evicted.

If I was a braver individual I would have tugged the cord and flung the shrieking alarm (which for male readers who may be unfamiliar with how these things work, once triggered can’t be silenced) back into the secure zone. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the adult in me prevailed and realising the security incident and ensuing lifetime ban from Conference that would have resulted from my act of rebellion, I let the opportunity for revenge pass.

All the same, a woman should not be made to feel like a criminal for carrying a personal alarm, perhaps something Conference organisers could remember for next year?

We need common sense not ideology in education

In this guest post, Young Fabian Martin Edobor challenges the Tories’ flagship schools policy.

Official figures have revealed that only 153 schools have actually signed up to Michael Gove’s academy plan, despite the Education Secretary claiming last month that 1,114 schools across England had applied to become academies.

Despite the clear lack of support, Gove used emergency parliamentary procedures to rush through the Academies Bill during the final days before Parliament broke up for recess. MPs from both the Labour and Conservative parties have attacked Gove for using these measures, as the Bill has not yet been fully scrutinised. Due to the small number of schools which have actually applied to become academies, Michael Gove should not have used emergency procedures. Instead this Bill should have been, reviewed and scrutinised in parliament.

Ed Balls, the Shadow Education Secretary, has demanded an explanation from Gove on why he misleadingly claimed that over 1,000 schools had applied for the academies programme. It is time for Gove to apologise to Parliament for his misleading figures.

The government is rushing through educational reform, which has not been properly thought out. Gove is trying to introduce a free market model of education in a time of austerity. Clearly ideology is overriding commonsense.

My speech to conference

Reflecting on my experience as Cheltenham’s Parliamentary Candidate at the last General Election I wrote this speech to be delivered on the conference floor.

James Green. I was Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate in Cheltenham at the last election.

There are thousands of people in Cheltenham right now who feel let down.

The Liberal Democrats won the seat on the back Labour supporters who voted tactically to keep the Tories out. Throughout the campaign they pitched themselves as the only real left wing opposition to the Conservatives in the town.

Conference, how times have changed.

The Liberals are now the face of coalition cuts that will see departmental budgets reduced by 25%, of a VAT rise that will hit the poorest hardest, and, most fundamentally of all, of a Tory ideological drive to shrink the state.

We have become the only opposition in Cheltenham and across the country. The only home for those who oppose the Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

In opposing of course we must expose the Liberals. And that could pay dividends.

At the General Election I held my deposit by 0.1% of the vote but I’m confident that if there was a by-election today Labour would win Cheltenham by a landslide.

But on a serious note, exposing the Liberals will never be enough in itself. It’s vital that we avoid falling into the trap of attacking the Lib Dems while allowing Cameron to rise above the fray.

Conference, we must focus our fire on the driving force of this coalition, the Tories, and on exposing the impact of their regressive and ideologically driven cuts.

But at the same time our history tells us that we can’t rely on the unpopularity of the government alone to win. The public demand and deserve an alternative progressive vision for the country.

This must be credible.

Our approach to tackling the deficit will be seen by the public as the test of our credibility. Of course we should oppose cuts where they are wrong but we must face up to the structural issues within the UK economy which come not only from the bank bailout but also from an ageing population.

It must be ideological.

Conference, we know that that Tories want to shrink the state but you can’t fight ideology with policy alone. We must offer the public a powerful set of ideas rooted in the political and economic realities of today.

And finally it must be authentic.

Nye Bevan put it best when he said, “the first duty of the progressive representative is to reflect the views of those he represents authentically. Because then people know that you are seeking to represent them because they are your inspiration.”

Conference, the quality of life, the public services, the support offered to those who inspired us all to get involved in politics are under threat.

I’m relishing the fightback.

James Green, Anticipations Editor and former Parliamentary Candidate for Cheltenham

Labour leader’s speech live webchat

And the winner is…?

Heading up to Manchester for Labour conference, I’m wondering what the result of the leadership election is going to be, and thinking about the last minute predictions from un-informed bookies and pundits.

I hope, if everything has gone correctly at the ERS, that only a few people know the actual result yet, and I suspect that votes are still being verified. So it’s a bit frustrating to see the media trying to prejudge the outcome.

When I arrive in Manchester I’ll be going straight to my hotel and then to the conference hall for the leadership announcement. The 4pm start time will no doubt slip to something more like 5pm, or later, as always seems to be the way with events at party conference. But I don’t mind waiting, the result of the leadership election will probably decide if Labour returns to power again at the next election and may well determine when that election is.

A shift to the soft-left by Labour’s new leader would please some in the Party, but I know that this would not be the right thing for Labour or the country. Over the last thirteen years in government, Labour showed that it could use its democratic socialist values to inform policies that benefitted the whole country. Yes there were certainly times when that didn’t happen and we have been reminded throughout this leadership conference of those mistakes such as Iraq, so I won’t list them all here.

But while the leadership contest has rightly been a chance for party members and supporters to share their views on the Labour Government’s record and in particular what they were unhappy with. The election of our new leadership today in Manchester is the time to stop that sustained critique of our record, and to focus attention on the positive change that Labour initiated in government. The public do not need us to rubbish our record, coalition ministers are already doing that and in particular Labour’s economic management. Our new Leader need a robust response to the charge from Nick Clegg and David Cameron that public spending caused the financial crisis and that Labour’s mismanagement of public spending led to the challenging financial decisions that everyone now recognise need to be taken in order to reduce the deficit.

This should be a matter of urgency for the new Leader as they will be facing David Cameron at the despatch box on the 20th October to challenge the coalition on its brutal and ideologically driven Spending Review. The decisions taken by coalition ministers to cut budgets across government by up to a quarter will leave many voters un-touched, but for many people the cuts will be felt instantly. For example, research by the Fawcett Society showed that the cuts will disproportionately hurt women.

I’m almost certain that many people in the Labour Party will want to continue voicing their unhappiness with Labour’s record in Government. They will not want to stop attacking ‘new Labour’ or the people who led Labour in Government. They will want to attack their colleague’s in the Party for moving to the centre-ground in British politics, and they’ll want our new Leader to ditch the new Labour brand.

But I hope that our new leader recognises that Labour didn’t secure a majority in 1997, 2001, and 2005 by simply appealing to a small group of voters who are the true core of Labour. And that to win back power from this centre-right coalition Labour needs to stay firmly in the centre ground.

Some Labour shadow ministers have tussled this week over the need to reconsider our position on reducing the deficit. It’s also important that the new Leader has as sensible and well thought out position on this, that offers voters a real sense of what Labour would do if elected to restore people’s trust in our economic management.

I’ll be sitting in the hall with everyone else hoping that the right candidate is elected, one who will defend Labour’s legacy and lead us back to power.

David Chaplin
Chair, Young Fabians

Carwyn Jones – my political hero

In a guest post to mark the election of Labour’s new leader, Carwyn Jones, Leader of Labour in Wales and Welsh First Minister shares his political hero, Nelson Mandela.

My political hero is without question, Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has dedicated his life to bringing peace, equality and freedom for his people – a vision that even twenty seven years in prison could not diminish.

In his quest to make South Africa the equal society it is today, Mandela never waivered from his principles. Even when offered his own personal freedom – a whole five years before actual release from prison – he declined the offer, as it would have meant the ANC would have remained a banned organisation under the apartheid regime. In his own powerful and inimitable words, he told the South African government, “only free men can negotiate.”

During the five years he served as President of South Africa, he remained committed to reconciliation within his country and building the multi-racial democracy we see today.

Mandela has showed all of us that hope will eventually triumph.

A new political economy

In this guest post, Young Fabian James Silverwood makes the case for a new political economy.

Any contribution to the ideals and values that will shape the 21^st century must inevitably deal with the economic and political fallout of the global financial crisis. We have just witnessed the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. The coalition government have responded with a vision of political economy that resonates more firmly with Thatcherite laissez-faire policy than the progressive mantle they claim to hold.

A wealth of academic literature has arisen over the previous thirteen years assessing the policy implications of the New Labour project. Three main hypotheses have generally arisen. Firstly, that New Labour was a modernised version of social democracy in line with the sort of revisionism that has always been central to the social democratic project. Secondly, that New Labour was an abject capitulation to the political legacy of Thatcherism and Neo-Liberalism. And finally that New Labour had become a hybrid of both ideological positions.

Space won’t allow further exploration of this theme but the legacy of New Labour will shape the Labour Party’s response to the most pressing issue to shape the first few decades of the 21^st century: political economy. Whilst not adhering to the argument that New Labour was merely a continuation of Thatcherism, despite huge and much needed fiscal expansion in public services, events suggest that New Labour especially on economic matters was hugely influenced by the preceding years of Thatcherism and neo-liberal theories of the market. Gordon Brown’s much vaunted emphasis on monetary stability and fiscal responsibility was placed before the altar of the City of London and financial services. The risk-based approach to regulation of the financial services industry and the belief that they could be made to work in the public interest was repaid with economic instability, social injustice and electoral defeat.

In his book, the Spectre at the Feast, Andrew Gamble notes that the politics of recession often leads to the questioning of current orthodoxies and a ruthless reassessment of former beliefs and assumptions. If the crisis that unfolds is deep and long enough then it can result in major political turbulence. As Gamble notes, this happened in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, leading to the New Deal and eventually the Keynesian Welfare State. Similarly, the crisis of the 1970s lead to the re-emergence of neo-liberalism as the dominant political ideology.

An interesting facet of the global financial crisis is the speed with which neo-liberalism has reasserted itself. The right have successfully dominated the narrative that has emerged from this recession. What should be considered as a failure of neo-liberalism and markets has been re-written as a crisis of over-extended government and fiscal irresponsibility. To beat the crisis and rebuild our economy, the right argue, we need to roll back the state and in so doing liberate the private sector. Yet this view isn’t borne our by the facts. In an economy of corporate and consumer indebtedness and a financial sector that is still paralysed by its own speculative activities it is a fanciful proposition to say the least.

However, Gamble notes that while recessions lead to the questioning of orthodoxy that does not necessarily mean that prevailing economic policy will be replaced. He is worth quoting at length,

“Forces arrayed against neo-liberal order look comparatively weak, and there is as yet no compelling alternative vision of how the global economy might be ordered, what the steps might be, and what an alternative political economy to neo-liberalism might look like”

Constructing an alternative vision of political economy is the most important task facing the Labour Party. To achieve this Labour must address the following issues:

• Labour must challenge the market excess, especially in providing a more thorough critique of how markets fail.
• We must reappraise the priorities of UK financial institutions, working to support a new era of economic growth built on investment in higher value added manufacturing and green and creative industries.
• We should make the case for new forms of public and private ownership models and redress the deficits in corporate governance regimes to focus on long-term growth potential, product and technical capabilities. This will lay the foundations for an increase in UK exports.
• We must increase UK exports by moving into higher value added production. This will not automatically lead to a fairer or more equal society and appropriate steps must be taken to distribute both resources and opportunity evenly as possible.
• We must press for the unilateral implementation of a financial transactions tax on the City of London whilst using influence abroad to extend the scheme internationally. Funds could be split 50-50 between domestic needs and those of developing countries. Domestically the funds raised could be used to provide capital to the new banking system, fund vital infrastructure investment and launch a sustained and concerted effort to eradicate poverty in the UK.

As Will Hutton noted in the summer of 2009 the £1.3 trillion Labour invested to support the banking system, “creates a once-in-a-generation political opportunity to challenge the terms on which Britain approaches both the structures of capitalism and its management.”

The political and economic impact of the global financial crisis will shape the 21^st century. The way we respond will define the future of the Left. Get it right and it could provide electoral success, economic renaissance and a more equal society. Get it wrong and it could be eighteen more long years of Thatcherite politics.

Building the happy society

In this guest post, Young Fabian Adam Leeder makes the case for redefining what we mean by progress.

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What could be a greater idea for the 21^st century than a wholesale redefinition of how we define progress?

Increasingly, academics and legislators are questioning the definition of what where we want to go as a society, which has been held for decades.

Consistently, studies show that a wealthier society is not a happier one. Since the 1970s, when Richard Easterlin published his famous ‘Easterlin paradox’ – that as we become wealthier we are becoming more discontent – politicians of all stripes have become increasingly interested in whether we need to factor in happiness because a wealth increase doesn’t cover it.

So if a booming economy doesn’t make us happy, then why don’t we start defining progress in a more holistic way?

However, for this new definition of progress to truly become one of the big ideas of the 21^st century it has to overcome some simple questions. First, why both to change our current definition? How might that change work in practice?

First, why should we care about measuring happiness? Can health outcomes and education outcomes alone tell us whether the government of the day is providing its citizens with a better life? It is true, these things are important. Yet they are not questions that hold universal answers. What one person deems a good education, may not hold for another person – do we continuously test our young people or indulge in more holistic education?

By contrast, everybody wants to be happy. If, as people working in and around politics, we want to strive for a goal then surely we should seek out the ultimate goal – a happier population.

A more immediate prompt to care about happiness is the recent Unicef report which ranked the UK as having the lowest level of child happiness across 21 industrialised countries. Unhappy childhoods frequently lead to social problems in adulthood. That means we need to act now.

Secondly however, even if we deem it worthwhile to factor Gross Wellbeing Product (GWP) then such thinking is pie-in-the-sky if we can’t make it happen.

Of course measuring how happy people are is inherently subjective. However, a number of noted authors and institutions are now starting to build measurement systems that can accommodate how happy our population is.

Joseph Stigliz’s commission report ‘What is Social Progress’, which was established in France at the request of Nicholas Sarkozy, has produced interesting findings. The report was based on the firm principle that progress must be measured by the overall quality of people’s lives and offered up some good practice for doing so.

Similarly, the Office of National Statistics have also started to develop some measures.

We are far from having a definitive measure – there probably never will be one. Yet hard work is clearly underway to producing the best possible measure we can have. Political weight must be thrown behind those efforts.

It is clear that a shift in the direction of GWP is already underway. Lord Layard was hired as the previous government’s ‘happiness tzar’ and Ed Balls’ Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning programme when he was Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families both show steps in the right direction.

By developing sound measures for happiness, this ultimate aim of how we define progress can be put at the top of the agenda for policy makers in the 21^st century. What could be a greater goal toward which to direct our political efforts.

The problem of graduate unemployment hasn’t gone away

Graduate unemployment is affecting thousands of young people around the UK, here Young Fabian member Benjamin Knight argues that young people biding their time as interns should not be taken advantage of whilst waiting for a ‘proper’ job…

Graduate unemployment is still a chronic problem in the UK but seems to have dropped down on the governments to do list. Current figures show that a shocking one in four graduates is unemployed. Given the rising trend in graduates opting to do internships, often unpaid, the true figure of graduates not earning is surely much higher. If left alone, the consequences will be dire for all.

Heading off to University in 2005 I felt many things – optimistic, nervous, excited and even lucky. Lucky because I was going to university the year before tuition fees were raised, so I thought I was quids in. Fast-forward three years (and my how they flew!) I then had the pleasure of graduating at the height of a global recession. Naturally this has made me rethink my previous good fortune.

The job market for today’s graduates can be a rather cruel place. Not only are graduates competing with each other, but the recession has forced experienced workers to take demotions or go after the lower paid/entry level positions – positions that would otherwise be going to graduates. This is likely to become much worse after the Coalition has taken its axe to public sector jobs in October, and further benefit reductions could hurt those on Jobseeker’s Allowance, already doing everything they can to try and find work.

Recently I have noticed that whilst there are lots of good jobs to apply for, the level of competition is staggering – it is not uncommon to be competing against up to 250 other applicants for a single position. From the employers view, this makes replying to each candidate and keeping them informed of their success or otherwise practically impossible, and as a result it is very unlikely that an individual’s application is ever even acknowledged. This constant experience of being ignored or rejected can make the whole process of applying for a job quite disheartening.

The difficulties of the job market as it stands have lead to a rise in graduates opting to do internships, often for free and for long periods of time. Whilst this can be a great way for people to gain coveted ‘office experience’ and certainly helps when it comes to writing your CV or covering letters, they are not always the first step on the employment ladder that many perceive them to be. One of the biggest problems is the actual cost of undertaking an internship, in terms of travel, accommodation, food etc. If you are lucky enough to have friends or family in a big city, then this can help negate the cost of doing an internship, but to those who do not, an unpaid internship is simply not a viable opportunity.

Other problems arise when keen, bright interns are asked to do anything and everything their employer tells them to. The lack of a proper job description means that interns are treated poorly or are under utilized by their employers, and they have little ground to make a complaint and so just go along with it, making coffee with a very forced smile.

Whilst we patiently await George Osborne’s miraculous private sector growth spurt, which we are assured will more than compensate for the thousands of public sector job losses, I feel that the government could be acting to protect the rights of interns, and actively helping to improve prospects for unemployed graduates. Firstly, I feel that interns should be paid a minimum wage for their labour (or better yet a living wage, as proposed by Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband), as this would open up access to internships to the less well off. Secondly, employers should be encouraged to give each intern they employ a clear job description outlining their rights and responsibilities, as this would help stop people being taken advantage of.

There are real dangers associated with the current state of youth unemployment, not least in the form of a brain drain as people begin to look abroad in search of better prospects. The current stigmatisation by the Tories and the right wing press of people on benefits is also seemingly gaining ground, and I patiently look to Labour’s new leader to both defend these people , some of society’s most vulnerable, and to provide a clear and practical solution to the tough situation many have found themselves in recent years.

Lib Dem conference and Coalition Government: who’s dragging who round the circus?

Years of ignoring the Lib Dems’ conferences are at an end, the Left should be careful to read the signs in Liverpool and the public’s reaction closely.

By the time you read this Nick Clegg will have made his pitch to the Liberal Democrat faithful that their Coalition with the Conservatives is “the right government for right now”. With the polls where they are, this message is going to be a tough sell and whether it convinces either his party’s faithful or the public is something only time will tell.

Poor Nick’s got a difficult balancing act: reaching out to the public without completely trampling over his party. Clegg has to convince his party that that he hasn’t gone native in Mr Cameron’s company.

Many will have thought that Coalition Government would be about Conservatives instigating policies and Liberal Democrats holding back the nastier Tory tendencies but the reality is proving more complex.

Over the weekend senior Liberal Democrat figures were actively trying to paint their party’s role in Government, behind closed doors at least, as being about ensuring the Lib Dem’s distinctive signature on every policy this Government puts through. On the BBC this weekend Simon Hughes was keen to make sure people understood that “ …there are lots of times when Nick will say ‘No, not now, or not this way’…or they’ll [Lib Dem ministers] be saying we need to go further, faster or differently”. I’m not sure whose fears that is supposed to allay. Its cold comfort for party members already uncomfortable on a whole raft of issues, already the word ‘dictatorship’ is being bandied around by the grassroots.

When you add public opinion that they don’t like large strands of Government policy, the question emerges: is it Cameron’s lot to blame or Clegg’s?

So far the Conservatives seem to be happy to acquiesce Clegg’s political muscle flexing but the future post-conference, especially the post-coalition agreement, looks stormier than ever. Already Saint Vince’s comments on the migrant cap have put him at odds with Teresa May, whilst Evan Harris has decided to put some distance between the ‘progressive wing’ of the Lib Dems and Clegg (though that distinction should probably have been made clearer to Lib Dem voters).

The Lib Dems are now tarred with very cut, every policy, and all the rhetoric of this Coalition Government. Why shouldn’t Labour cover them with feathers call them what they seem to be?

This puts a little pressure on Labour as it journeys up to Manchester. Thousands of new Labour members are actually Lib Dem voters angry at being sold a duff political project and by the end of this conference there are likely to be many more of them ready to  follow their lead.

But it is a very different scenario if uneasy Lib Dems MPs and councillors are, after a week in Liverpool, pushed/shoved/encouraged to search for a more comfortable political home.  What will Labour be ready, or able, to offer them?