Making the positive case for international development

In this article, Young Fabians member Rory Weal tackles the negative spin on International Development.

When the Coalition came into power in 2010, it took over a thriving department for International Development. Thirteen years of Labour government investment had seen monumental successes in the field of foreign aid that should make every party member proud. Since 1997 Labour helped lift 3 million people out of poverty each year, helped to get some 40 million more children into school and improved water or sanitation services for over 1.5 million people. Since 1997 the UK development budget has tripled.

Prior to the election, the Tories promised to continue this progress. In their 2010 manifesto they even pledged to enshrine in law an aid pledge of 0.7 per cent of national income in the first session of the new parliament. When the coalition came to power, the Department for International Development said the legislation would be tabled before the present parliamentary session ends in April.

But progress on international development hasn’t been quite as simple as that. The government has buckled under perceived public pressure. A thoroughly misleading and nasty campaign by the right wing press has shifted the debate entirely. As this article in a December edition of The Daily Mail shows, we are told to be up in arms over the fact that hard-working tax payers’ money is being spent on filthy rich Indians who have a space programme: that’s right, a space programme! The press are keen to tell us all about how the Indian government has invested in flying to the stars, but don’t seem so keen to report that 68 in every 1,0000 children in India die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable diseases such as diarrhoea. Nor are they keen to mention how only 15 per cent of the rural population has access to a toilet. And neither do they point out that investment in hi-tech industries of the future such as that of the space programme will boost jobs and growth and, in time, help alleviate poverty and remove the need for aid.

In another article, The Daily Mail asserts that because Brazil is richer than the UK, it is nuts to continue to give them foreign aid. This is a prime example of the underhand and deceptive ways in which foreign aid is reported in the press. Brazil does indeed have higher GDP than the UK ($2,253 trillion in contrast with $2,172 trillion), yet it also has a population over three times greater than that of the UK’s, meaning that GDP per capita in Brazil is actually just $10,000, as opposed to $36,000 in the UK. Brazil still suffers from dire poverty and continues to desperately rely on our aid. Some 16 million Brazilians still live in extreme poverty, having to survive on 70 reais ($44; £27) or less a month.

So, in the face of a right wing backlash, earlier this month the government decided to ditch its plans to enshrine a 0.7 per cent foreign aid commitment in law. In light of this, it’s important that progressives make the case for continued foreign aid investment in countries such as India and Brazil. The Labour Campaign for International Development is one excellent means to do this. But we must also reframe the debate, and appeal to people’s sense of compassion when talking about foreign aid. We have a moral obligation to help the poorest in the world, and no number of Daily Mail articles will change that.

Rory Weal is a Young Fabians member

Eye on Washington: Royal Rumble

If you believe the American media, Mitt Romney should have had this wrapped up by now. With 123 delegates, he has just short of half of the total number available from states declared so far. This is a far larger lead than that enjoyed by the frontrunner in 2008. John McCain had 95 projected at this stage, with second place Romney at 83.

Today, the question is: what is different this time round? Second place is virtually tied – Gringrich (45), Santorum (44) and Paul (37). There is no-one who directly threatens Romney’s front-runner status. However, there is deep distrust of Romney amongst conservatives . Other serious candidates are not backing down. They are all fighting each other to try and clamber up the ladder to a successful party nomination. Republicans have been murmuring whether a new candidate is needed to rescue them.

Romney is their centrist candidate, which may be difficult for us on this side of the pond to believe. The others have no hope of challenging Obama, not only because they are even further away from the centre ground than Romney, but also because their continuous posturing to differentiate themselves from each other is turning into a freak show. This helps the Democrats tremendously, as whoever emerges victorious from the Republican Royal Rumble will be ‘damaged goods’ in the public eye.

There is no alternative to Romney that will be accepted because the party itself is splintering. The only candidate who is taking action to counteract this fracture is Ron Paul, who has subtly shifted his campaigning away from the front-runner, towards contender-of-the-week Santorum. This not only strengthens Romney by encouraging infighting among the trailing pack, but since the negative campaigning originates from Paul, it forces Santorum to draw his resources away from Romney in the effort to defend himself. Paul is in good shape, raising $4.5 in January, and he is on track to outperform the competition in the last quarter of 2011. Will we see Ron Paul at the Treasury or even Vice President? We know for certain it won’t be in the State Department.

Santorum by comparison does not have a great deal of financial resources, and such distractions from Paul could be fatal to his nomination hopes. While all this is going on, Gingrich is raising more capital than Romney, and I expect Gingrich to make a charge in the near future.

Last time round Romney dropped out of the race after ‘Super Tuesday’, a day in which a number of states ran caucuses and primaries simultaneously. He won his home state Michigan over McCain, so doing so again is the very least he needs to do to have any hope of preventing this selection process turning into utter chaos.

Alex Adranghi is a Young Fabians member

Ways out for ‘Workfare’

In this post, Young Fabians member Daniel Craw explores a possible solution to the current ‘workfare’ scandal

This week several objections to the government’s Work Programme have been bandied about. This wheeze gives job seekers an unpaid work experience placement. If they drop out then they lose their benefits.

I don’t want to get into the philosophical arguments about whether the principle behind losing benefits is right or wrong; the way the Coalition sees it is that if you get Job Seekers Allowance (JSA), you don’t get it for free so you’re expected to take work that is given to you. I should imagine Labour would broadly agree.

Instead I want to look at the relative merits of these objections to the Work Programme and suggest that it could be resolved by actually paying people.

Here are the objections outlined in this article by ‘The Guardian’:

1. There are “complaints that jobseekers are being used as taxpayer-subsidised labour”. I’m not sure whose complaints the Guardian are referring to here, but I don’t think it’s the same majority of public opinion who support welfare reform and oppose taxpayer-subsidised indolence. If we’re going to have subsidies, it’s probably better that they support labour.
2. Private sector employers get to profit from the unemployed. Surprisingly (to me), until recently only public sector and charity organisations took people on under the programme. Having the private sector involved is surely essential: if you want the private sector to deliver economic growth you have to prepare the unemployed to fill private sector jobs – whenever they actually get created. However, it does look a bit shabby if corporations are using free labour as a way to enrich themselves. You might call it ‘predatory capitalism’.
3. It’s not actually voluntary if people lose their benefits. Tesco feels uncomfortable with the work experience being compulsory and sold as voluntary (Employment Minister Chris Grayling: “Our work experience scheme is voluntary”) and suggests removing the threat of benefit withdrawal. Without wishing to get into a discussion of whether there should be unconditional social security, my interpretation of JSA is that when you sign on you accept its conditions, and you are therefore compelled to take work experience.
4. It’s slave labour. If you help out an organisation for free because you enjoy doing so and you agree with its objectives and it was entirely your decision to do so, then it’s voluntary. If the activity is anything else – and especially if it was arranged by the JobCentre or whichever contractor is doing it in your area – then it’s work, and you should expect to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage for it. If an unscrupulous retailer finds that they’re able to get a kid on JSA to perform a menial job that requires no training for free rather than actually employ someone then that does nothing for the unemployment rate and undermines the concept of the minimum wage.

What I don’t understand is why people on the Work Programme do not get their benefit topped up to the minimum wage by the employer for the work they do. I think this solution would address all the objections we’ve heard:

1. Taxpayer’s money is still used to subsidise work not indolence
2. Employers still get benefits but not at the benefit recipient’s expense
3. With the minimum wage carrot now complementing the stick of losing benefits, the scheme would still be compulsory, but the DWP would not lose any more friends by saying so – to suggest that the current system is otherwise is disingenuous
4. While it may still be forced, it isn’t slave labour

There is an issue in that economic theory suggests that you won’t get as many placements as you do under the scheme to date, but at least participating companies won’t be embarrassed into withdrawing completely, thus reducing the number of placements anyway.

Daniel Craw is a Young Fabians member

A veto on behalf of the charter?

In this post, Young Fabians member Alex Adranghi highlights the need for an impartial response to the situation in Syria

The furore over a Syrian resolution in the United Nations has been swept up into a battle over vetoes laid down by Russia and China.

Naturally I’m upset at the developments in Syria over the past year, especially having spent some time in Syria a few years ago as a student at the University of Damascus, and experiencing so much of what the great people of this country have to offer the world.

Despite this, the media coverage, as with Libya, has been far from  impartial, and now they have gone a step too far in painting Russia and China as pariah states with the use of their vetoes.

What has been overlooked is that the vote was forced to take place, with Russian UN Ambassador saying “the work we have been doing in the Security Council has not been finalised.” The Telegraph reports that the west miscalculated and forced the vote in the belief that Russia was playing for time, and would not veto it without their proposed amendments.

Their amendments placed demands on the ‘insurgents’ similar to those imposed on the Syrian regime. They fear that explicitly supporting the uprising would amount to regime change, like that experienced in Libya. Russia and China’s concern seems to be not whether it is best for Assad to go or not, but whether that is a question that the United Nations can answer at all.

Russia believes that changing the balance of the national dialogue amounts to domestic interference. This seems fairly reasonable. Both sides have argued that the other’s proposals do not reflect the reality of the situation in Syria. We don’t really have a clear impartial picture of what is happening inside the country, and the UN would be wise to deliberate more carefully before passing any resolution.

Interestingly, there is another major player in the United Nations that also strongly supports the need for resolutions to be based on impartial observations– The United States of America. In 2002, the United States announced that it will not back any Security Council resolution against Israel that did not include a condemnation of the ‘terrorist’ groups hostile to that state. This position has become formalised over the years, and is now referred to as the Negroponte doctrine. This was last used in 2011, and in this instance the United States vetoed against all other members of the Security Council. Was this not an even greater act of defiance towards the international community than that being displayed today by Russia and China?

Every call for the events in Syria to be treated impartially, should be matched by a call for events in Israel to be treated similarly. For every interest in Tartus there is a Bahrain. I really do fear that the media coverage here in the ‘free world’  is encouraging ‘tunnel vision’ and crude simplifications of the complex world of international relations. For that we all lose, as it makes a mockery of the public, which leads to a cheapening of politics. Before we know it, politicians are forced to take a stance because of a national psyche – like America to Israel, Argentina to the Falklands, Russia to its neighbours. Then the cycle tragically begins again.

Alex Adranghi is a Young Fabians member

What is ‘pre-distribution’?

A new buzzword is being whispered in the corridors of parliament and the inner sanctums of progressive think-tanks.

That word is ‘pre-distribution’, and those who utter it suggest it could not only win Labour the 2015 election, but build the elusive ‘moral capitalism’ that all parties seem to crave.

The idea behind ‘pre-distribution’ is that the government takes action to arrange how the market allocates its rewards. In essence, it simply relocates the focus of government intervention. Instead of redistributing the wealth of the economy after it has been generated, governments would act to channel it in a more equitable way in the first place.

According to the Smith Institute, ‘pre-distribution’ has a proud history. In the post-war period, trade unions, collective bargaining, and corporate governance arrangements all acted as agencies of ‘pre-distribution’, ensuring that the wealth of the free market was fairly shared out.

These agencies died out in the wake of deregulation and legislation that robbed unions of their economic power. Today, ‘pre-distribution’ is seen as something that the government should take responsibility for, through effective law-making and the careful regulation of business.

The Policy Network describes “policies governing financial markets, the rights of unions and the pay of top executives” as areas in which a ‘pre-distributive’ approach could reap dividends.

Abolishing banker’s bonus and linking the salaries paid to executives to those paid to the lowest earners within companies are two simple ways in which the wealth generated by the market can be channelled away from the pockets of the already super-rich and spread more fairly across the labour force.

A radical overhaul of banking regulation based on ‘pre-distributive’ principles could also have a long-term impact on how the financial powerhouses allocate their capital. Current proposals recommend that the ‘big four’ banks in the UK separate their high-street retail banking services from their investment banking activities. However, these reforms do not incentivise banks to invest in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or into those struggling areas of the economy- like the green sector- that desperately need a boost of finance capital to capture market share.

This could be remedied if banks were mandated to use a percentage of their profits to create regional ‘mini-investment banks’ to furnish struggling local businesses with the loans they need to tackle the current economic turbulence. Such services could be set up very quickly- each bank could choose to convert a single high-street branch in each town it has a presence into a ‘mini-investment bank’ for one weekend a month, until more permanent arrangements can be made.

The virtue of ‘pre-distribution’ is that it does not rely on unpopular policy devices like taxation and benefit provision, the standard tools of ‘redistribution’. Yes, Labour has to continue to work to change the culture of resentment that prohibits governments from making the case for higher taxation and an equitable welfare system. Yet at the same time this does not prevent the party from tackling the inherent inequalities of capitalism from a different angle.

A word of caution, however. ‘Pre-distribution’ cannot be held up as the holy grail that modern social democrats have been searching for. Some may believe that championing pre-distributive methods to reallocate wealth is enough to satisfy the short and long-term goals of the Left. However, it cannot distract from the fundamental aim of progressives throughout history- to engineer the transfer of economic and social power from entrenched elites to the public at large.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Eye on Washington: Winner Takes All

Two weeks, and two primaries later, we’ve seen dynamics of the GOP nomination race violently flip flop from Romney, to Gingrich and back, getting more polarised as the campaign progresses.

Gingrich took a decisive lead with South Carolina, returning four times the slice of the pie he achieved in New Hampshire. This week Romney reversed that with a win in Florida. What is clear is that this is fast becoming a two horse race. Both Sanctorum and Paul have been left to fend in a second division. This is ultimately good for the Republican

Party in that the debate will help establish a clear leadership candidate.

Returning briefly to my previous entry, in South Carolina, the predicted Colbert protest vote through campaign surrogate Herman Cain, registered only 1.1%, with 6,326 votes. This was enough to be classified in the results, which is an achievement in itself. After the suspense of the build up to the vote, Colbert’s fictional exploratory committee was hastily dismantled after accomplishing its goal to raise awareness of the bizarre role of the Super PACs.

Florida also gave some insight to the politics within the Republican party itself. The state party voted to pull their primary forward, aiming to benefit from an early influence in the race. The idea was to bank more revenue from advertising, with the hunch that this race was going to come down to momentum of the candidates rather than counting individual votes at the national convention. The state paid a price with this rebellion to party line, with the national party wiping out half of the states delegates at the national convention. This is just short of the total number of delegates of Iowa and South Carolina combined. What would you think if you were an ordinary Republican from the sunshine state?

This penalty resulted – by state party regulation – to Florida keeping a winner-takes-all delegate allocation, which again broke national party rules regarded holding winner-takes-all prior to April 1. In response, all the national party could muster is to give the Florida delegates, inconvenient hotels, and the worse seats at come the national convention – which will be held in Florida. I kid you not. Gingrich announced he is appealing this decision, but it’s not the hotel or the seats he cares about.

I am starting to see faint comparisons with the last Labour leadership election. Here, as in then there are two leading candidates, one has popularity with core grass roots, while other is criticised to be too far towards the centre, but is seen by many as more electable chief executive. It will be interesting to see which way they will choose.

Alex Adranghi is a member of the Young Fabians.

It is time for Europe to rediscover its vision

Europe is losing its way. Under the pressure of the economic crisis, the vision and sense of purpose that once underpinned European integration have given way to a bruising battle for survival, argues Andrew Noakes.

It is true that ‘more Europe’, not less, is a large part of the answer to Europe’s present troubles, but as a stronger union emerges from the ashes of the eurozone crisis, we must not let simple survival become the new mission of our continent. There is far more to the European project than that.

European integration has always been underpinned by a sense of high purpose. After the end of the Second World War, it was about bringing the promise of peace to a continent reeling from war and genocide; then, it became about prosperity and encouraging the emergence of democracy and liberty in the post-communist space. Now, as the union (or most of it, at least) embarks on a new round of integration in the form of the fiscal compact, we must decide what will be the new vision for our union in this century.

I propose that a major part of that vision should be of Europe as a global activist. Wielding the collective power and influence of 27 states, we have the potential to develop a distinctive, European international agenda and to shape global forces and events around it. It would be an agenda that contributes, in careful partnership with other states, to the creation of a stronger and more just world society, where international law, institutions, and regimes (like Kyoto), form the basis of global order, and where they serve the interests of all people, not just the most powerful.

We can regulate the international financial markets that seem to hold us hostage; we can use the collective strength of our continent to tackle the great challenges of climate change and poverty; we can rebalance the power relationship between states, societies, and multi-national corporations; we can deal more effectively with international crises and conflicts, from Israel-Palestine to South Asia and Central Africa; we can encourage the peaceful expansion of democracy and human rights. All of this we can do, and more.

In a globalised world, the European Union is a radical pioneer of global governance and collective power. We can use our combined strength to set an agenda that will empower people all over the world. That is the challenge. That is the opportunity.

Andrew Noakes is Chair of the Young European Movement London

Let’s not blow smoke on climate change

On the 11^th January 1964, Luther Terry, the then US Surgeon General published a report – Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General – that for the first time comprehensively linked cigarette smoking with death.

What should have proved to be a crippling report for the tobacco industry fell far short. It took decades for the true dangers of smoking to be accepted, but why? This commercial and many others like it aired soon after:

The commercials took a noticeable shift from appealing and glamorous to serious and reassuring. It worked. The commercials quoted studies that said people were “not adversely affected by smoking” and similar ‘research’ that flew in the face of scientific consensus. Though they didn’t prove or disprove anything, all they needed to do was sow doubt.

The private institutes that created this false science were being funded by the tobacco industry. It created the appearance of a debate and fortunately for them, people could continue to smoke in the misguided belief that it might not be harming them.

Much of the research came from Dr Frederick Seitz, co-founder of the Marshall Institute. Theinstitute, whilst being bankrolled by the tobacco industry, said that on the basis of their own studies that the science was in dispute therefore it was too soon for the Government to act, or more to the point, it was fine to keep smoking.

The Marshall Institute employed the same tactics to campaign against the harmful effects of acid rain and the pesticide DDT. Again, the truth eventually prevailed but not until great environmental and human damage had been done.

In 1989, the Marshall Institute embarked on their most dangerous project yet. In 1989, theybegan receiving funding from the petroleum industry. This is on their website today:

“Begun in 1989, the Institute’s program involves a critical examination of the scientific basis for global climate change policy. The intent is to promote a clear understanding of the state of climate science and assess the implications for public policy. A major component of this effort is communicating the findings to policy makers, the media and the public policy community.”

It will come as no surprise that their ‘research’ disputes the consensus on climate change. Again, sowing the seeds of doubt has created the impression that there is a real debate. When most of the general public don’t fully understand the science of climate change, tell them that scientists can’t decide on it either then that way they’re less likely to want preventative action. It’s a devastating logic which is being ruthlessly pursued.

A statement from the National Academy of Sciences speaking on behalf of the leading eleven economies began with these words: “climate change is real.” There is the consensus, based on peer-reviewed science, not petroleum-sponsored science.

100,000,000 died of tobacco related disease in the last century. In 1964 there was consensus within the scientific community that tobacco was harmful. The doubt sowed then cost millions of lives. This time it could be billions.

Kieran Roberts is a Young Fabian member and Chair of Manchester Young Labour.

The Future of Education

Amidst the hubbub of leadership questions, short-term poll obsession and questions over the future of the Union, members of the shadow cabinet have been very busy of late laying out exactly the kind of concrete policy views that some have said were previously missing from Labour.

One of the most interesting of these was provided in Stephen Twigg’s speech on reforming the education system. In it, he called for a longer school day, more teacher mentoring, and a focus on “soft skills” to better prepare students for life after school. The announcement coincided nicely with a review of the curriculum currently under way and due to be concluded later this year.

There is a broad consensus on what the outcome of education should be; namely, well- informed, well-rounded young people who have the capacity to advance themselves in whatever direction they choose. Sadly, in too many areas the wealth of a child’s parents still determines their success in life. There are serious debates taking place about the structure of schools and the deliberate attempts to carve them away from local authorities, but in this piece I want to focus on how education is delivered rather than the legal wrapper under which the school functions.

There are two examples of policies which can be implemented and cost very little that can help further both education and social progress. These are introducing debating at the heart of the curriculum and using peer-mentoring as a way to help the continuous professional development of teachers.

Firstly, we should put debating at the heart of our curriculum as a way of encouraging children to develop vital critical thinking and communications skills. People on the left often frown upon the idea of school as a place to teach workplace skills, but it is in work that we spend most of our lives, and as the one million unemployed young people in the country would surely attest, little is more dispiriting and eroding of an individual’s self-worth than the recurring rejection of unemployment.

Rhetoric and debating are typically seen as the purview of elitist independent schools, and as a skill with little relevance to daily reality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Debate is part of the curriculum in many ways anyway, from analysis of history through dissection of English and the understanding of competing scientific theories. The contestation of ideas is a vital part of what it means to get an education.

Teachers often worry about anarchy in the classroom if they allow students to debate, but many programmes both here and in the US have shown that students, when given ownership of a position and the right to advocate for it, are more likely to take their education seriously. Indeed, a major review of education conducted by the Irish Economic and Social Research Institute showed that across a multitude of regions and cultures, interactive classroom learning is the most effective way of teaching students.

With some schools failing to teach students basic reading and writing skills, focussing on oral presentation is an alternative way to engage reluctant students. There is nothing like the fear of making a fool of themselves in front of their peers to make students work hard. Debating also has the added advantage of teaching exactly the kind of “soft skills” that Stephen Twigg talked about. Recent talk of getting Britain manufacturing again is heartening, but Britain’s comparative advantage lies in services, and the more children are able to think and provide in these areas the better their chances in later life will be.

Mentoring for teachers is another area where there have been promising results of late. Teachers do receive training, but it is rarely based on observation of their classroom performance. In a thought provoking New Yorker article, Atul Gawande discusses the parallels between teaching to surgery and how, even as a top surgeon, he sees many opportunities to improve. Teachers should not view mentoring as an imposition, but rather as an opportunity to improve their performance. Experienced teachers should be encouraged to offer their services as mentors, in order to perpetuate best practice among new recruits.

These are just two ways in which education in Britain could be improved. There are many others out there, and politicians should start listening to them. Together, they point the way towards a more open, student-centred and successful school system.

Stephen Boyle is a Young Fabians Member