How Osborne abandoned social mobility

By Louie Woodall.

The words and deeds of this government have rarely been in alignment. However, the gulf between aims and actions is at its starkest when it comes to the goal of greater social mobility.

This mission is supposed to be at the heart of the Coalition’s strategy for creating a fairer Britain, one where a child’s life chances are not dictated by the class and income of their parents.

Yet this laudable policy was grossly absent in last week’s budget. Despite the bluster that this was a budget designed to reward hardworking people, the policy announcements that look like routes out of poverty at first, on closer inspection are nothing more than dead ends.

Take childcare. The government trumpeted its additional spend of £150 million on childcare vouchers as proof of its commitment to remove barriers into work for hard-up families. But an analysis of the distributional impact of the policy reveals that fully 80% of the earmarked funds will go to parents  already in the top half of the income scale. Worse, part time workers will receive nothing under the scheme.

What about Osborne’s celebrated help to buy mortgage guarantee scheme? This was the one part of his Budget speech he singled out as a means to boost social mobility:

“The deposits demanded for a mortgage these days have put home ownership beyond the great majority who cannot turn to their parents for a contribution. That’s not just a blow to the most human of aspirations – it’s set back social mobility and it’s been hard for the construction industry. This Budget proposes to put that right – and put it right in a dramatic way.”

Going beyond the strange idea that home ownership = social mobility in the first place, again the benefits are skewed in favour of the better off, (those earning above the median wage)- and even they will struggle to make use of it.

Housing charity Shelter explains that the mortgage guarantee fails to tackle the problem unaffordable homes at its roots, Robbie di Santos says:

“The trouble is, while this makes it easier to get a deposit, you’d be borrowing 95% of already very high house prices, which are way out of kilter with what ordinary people earn. Our calculations – again based on local house prices and local double income households – suggests that the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee would bring the average local home within reach of the average double income household in only 16% of the country.”

Are these the actions of a government committed to a fairer distribution of opportunity across the income scale?

It certainly doesn’t look like it to me. Some argue that faith in social mobility as a weapon against rising inequality is misplaced, and that we should measure our progress in becoming a fairer and more civilized society by how far apart the richest and poorest stand on the income scale rather than by how easy it is to get from one end of that scale to the other.

However, if we understand social mobility as a mechanism for empowering the very poorest to escape the poverty trap, than it does have the potential to change lives and transform society.

Sadly, in the Budget this government has proved it is far, far away from working towards such an end.

Louie Woodall is Editor of Anticipations.

Lawyers Tackling Global Poverty

The spring issue of Anticipations will be hitting doorsteps in the next couple of weeks. In this issue we turn our attention to International Development. Here John Bibby, Head of Communications and Policy at Advocates for International Development, takes a look at the role lawyers can play in helping to tackle global poverty.

By John Bibby. 

Ask someone to say what they think people working to tackle global poverty look like and, in general, they will name someone distributing food aid in a famine or doctor treating cholera in a refugee camp. Or – in the run-up to the G8 they might focus on politicians. Rarely, though, would anyone think to mention a qualified solicitor sat at their desk in the offices of a City law firm or barrister in their chambers.

This is now, thankfully, changing. An increasing number of politicians, policy makers and development organisations are beginning to see that the law can be both a barrier to development, where it is poor or unenforced, and a weapon for development, where good laws are upheld. In turn, an increasing number of lawyers are seeing the contribution that they can make with their legal skills. At Advocates for International Development (A4ID), which was established by a group of UK lawyers in 2006, we have seen interest from lawyers offering their skills on a pro bono basis increase every year.

Much of the support that A4ID lawyers provide is not particularly glamorous. They are – by and large – sat at their desks in City offices or chambers. But the support that lawyers provide through A4ID does empower others to work in disaster areas by, for example, giving charities greater clarity about their liabilities and legal risks when sending employees and volunteers to hazardous environments or supporting them to open new offices in unfamiliar legal jurisdictions with different regulations.

This does not mean, however, that the support that lawyers can give in the fight against global poverty is just isolated to back office facilitation. Lawyers working with us are also making an impact on the world stage through, for example, supporting the ongoing and arduous negotiations on the International Arms Trade Treaty, advising governments in the developing world on bilateral investment treaties and providing the basis for campaigns for legal reform by conducting in-depth comparative research.

The value of this support goes beyond a mere pounds and pence donation, but it is also important to recognise that by doing it on a pro bono basis, lawyers are saving development organisations money. In fact, since 2006 lawyers working through A4ID have provided over £25 million of legal support to charities, organisations and developing country governments, which could instead be spent on making a difference on the frontline.

Despite the progress that has been made in changing perception, however, there is still much more potential for the law to be used to tackle poverty. Every single aspect of the fight against world poverty – from AIDS to fair trade and climate change to gender equality – has a legal perspective that deserves recognition and exploration. If lawyers continue to embrace this agenda then the solutions to seemingly intractable global problems will be easier to find, but if neglected then the work of otherwise well-meaning development organisations, donors and charities will only ever be a sticking plaster.

John Bibby is the Head of Communications and Policy, Advocates for International Development.

Feminism and Fabianism

By Louie Woodall.

Young, male, middle class. Feminism is not something that looms large in my mind, nor many of the male friends I made at university. I am guilty of selective blindness to the dark web of misogyny that runs through our society, one moment railing against the blatant sexism evident in adverts and TV shows, the next being caught out by my friends for lazily indulging in the same crass stereotypes that I claim to oppose.

So it was in hopes of an education that I joined the Fabian Women’s Network debate on the ‘hyper sexualisation’ of British society, featuring a key note speech by shadow Public Health Minister Diane Abbott.

The topic of discussion was a new one for me. I understand what the objectification of women means (as anyone who’s watched a Lynx advert can guess) and what ‘lad culture’ is (having rifled through a fair number of men’s magazines in my time). Yet hyper sexualisation, or what Diane Abbott called ‘pornification’ was news to me.

What I learnt is that hyper sexualisation is a side effect of the dominance that consumer culture holds over both our public and private lives, and the ultimate expression of the gender inequality that underlies it.

The market has long claimed sex as something to be bought and sold, but modern capitalism has so utterly commodified the female form and female sexuality that it is difficult to disentangle their identity from the pernicious demands of commercial society.

Abbott elaborated on some of the worst examples of ‘commodity sex’- children’s pencil cases emblazoned with the Playboy logo, girl’s t-shirts bearing the slogan ‘Future Porn Star,’ and extreme plastic surgery that reshape the most intimate parts of the female anatomy.

Sex is now something to be processed, packaged and sold. Crucially, not for the benefit of women, but to cater for the tastes of men- or, at least, what their presumed tastes are. It’s not to attract female consumers that car, gadget, music, and food adverts feature naked or semi-naked women. It’s to attract me.

As our collective tolerance to sexualized images has increased, advertisers and retailers have pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable. Revealing clothing is marketed to pre-teen girls. ‘Lads’ mags’ feature ever more explicit images on their front covers while being displayed at child’s eye level.

As more and more of these hyper sexualized images and attitudes circulate, pressure builds for young women to replicate the male fantasy reflected in such adverts and adopt the attitudes of ‘lads’ themselves in order to fit in. Unsettlingly, it’s becoming increasingly common for girls to release this pressure on each other through ‘slut shaming’ and other types of bullying that punish those who look or act sexually available, in a grim parody of the abuse young men often heap on their female peers.

In such an environment, a woman’s choice is too often between conformity and outcast status. The hyper sexualisation of society, then, does not just reinforce sexist attitudes that have been there since before the sexual revolution, but fundamentally limits women’s freedom to be who they want.

Deborah Mattinson, another of the panel speakers, elaborated on this by sharing polling data revealing that a significant proportion of young working class women thought their best bet for getting on in life was through marrying a footballer or appearing on a reality TV show. The fact that we live in a society where these options are the limit of aspiration for thousands upon thousands of women is nothing less than shameful.

However, the challenge is how to combat the hyper sexualisation of society without denying women’s freedom of sexual expression. Turning back the clock to an age where women cannot talk about sex freely and publicly is not an option. The goal should be a world where women are not ‘sluts’ if they have sex nor ‘frigid’ if they don’t. A world where a career  as a lap-dancer, glamour model, or premiership arm candy- is neither held up as the pinnacle of success, nor attacked as the domain of sluts and bimbos.

Fellow members of the audience offered some examples of what could be done. There was a strong demand for more female role models, who could be held up as examples of what women can accomplish beyond stripping off or starring on television. There were also calls for the regulation of goods that contribute to the premature sexualisation of girls (Playboy pencil cases, anyone?)  and better support from faith groups, communities, and schools in providing sex education to young people.

Yet there is a mountain to climb. The healthy balance between liberation and exploitation will not be achieved through faith alone. It requires political action to become a reality.

As I boarded a train home, I picked up a discarded newspaper to read. On the front page was an advert for a feature on how to be healthier in 2013. It used the image of a naked woman’s bum to make its point.

Yes indeed, there is a long way to go.

Louie Woodall is Editor of Anticipations.

Generation Crisis? Panel At the Fabian Conference

By Louie Woodall.

At last weekend’s sell-out Fabian conference, the Young Fabians launched their flagship policy pamphlet, Generation Crisis? Luciana Berger MP, Sunny Hundal (Liberal Conspiracy), Shiv Malik (The Guardian), Dermot Finch (The Princes Trust), and Joel Mullan (Young Fabians Executive) sat on a panel to debate the findings.

Political discourse revels in creating divisions both real and imagined. Rich v poor, private sector v public sector, workers v shirkers.

One of the most potent fault lines yet to be exploited is that separating old and young. Britain’s youth are reaping the withered harvest of neoliberalism sown by their parents and grandparents, facing years of paying off debts they did not incur, and threatened by a looming environmental catastrophe caused by climate change.

On the other hand, the youth of yesteryear enjoyed in their time free university education, relatively full employment, a benevolent housing market and the security of a universal welfare state.

Panel and audience alike examined the causes and consequences of the crisis engulfing the young generation, and attempted to find a common solution to avert disaster.

The key lesson learnt is that we must not let the pressures built up by unequal treatment of generations to boil over into open conflict. Mudslinging and divide-and-rule will not help forge a new deal for young people.

Instead, we need to have a full and thorough conversation across the different age groups to reconsider how the state and the market distributes its benefits to young and old. The obstacles in the way of a new settlement are not limited to the policies of the current government- in fact, Dermot Finch suggested that there were definite structural issues that stack the odds against young people achieving in 21^st century Britain.

Sunny Hundal argued that if we want to protect benefits for the young, savings will have to be made elsewhere. However, this need not mean robbing the old to pay for the young.

As today’s announcement on a new state pension reveals, this government is prepared to strike at both old and young people in its mission to cancel the deficit. The difference is that the pensioner caucus is strong, cohesive, and unafraid to pick a fight with politicians. On the other end of the spectrum, the youth lobby is riven by party allegiances and patronized by adults

Dermot thought that if young people put aside partisan interests and fought together for the equitable treatment of their generation through an institution the equivalent of Age UK, that this could make a real difference.

The audience, however, argued that the only sure fire way to ensure young voices were heard was to get them involved in politics and make them vote. Luciana Berger recounted an eye-opening personal experience when she talked with 150 Year 8 school pupils and found that not a single one of them knew who the Prime Minister was.

A report for Age Concern revealed that 18-24yr olds accounted for only 7.1% of the total turnout at the 2005 General Election. Compare this to the massive 42.6% share of the turnout recorded by the over 55s. No wonder politicians feel they can bully young people with policies that discriminate against them

However, if the problem is a relatively simple one of political engagement, the solution seems bizarrely complex. Should we campaign for votes at 16? Make voting compulsory? Or should parliament and local government inspire youth participation by sanctioning under-30 shortlists?

This debate, and the others touched upon by the panel, will go on and on, for the issues they address affect the destiny of us all.

Louie Woodall is Editor of Anticipations.

Interview with Double Oscar-Winner Glenda Jackson MP

Watch the video of the interview here:

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Drama and Politics.

By Marielle O’Neill.

Is drama necessary to politics and is politics necessary to all good drama? Is the ability to control drama the key to being a successful leader?

All good leaders are brilliant communicators. In order to be elected, candidates have to make you believe in them, believe in their political vision and believe they will best represent you. But would good politicians make good actors? Who better to ask than Oscar-winning actress and MP Glenda Jackson?

Glenda Jackson was, of course, a hugely successful actress in film, theatre and TV long before being elected to Parliament. Before making her mark in politics, she drew wide-spread acclaim doing everything from Shakespearean dramas to comedy sketches on Morecambe and Wise. In the course of a glittering career, Glenda won two ‘Best Actress’ Oscars- her first in 1971 for her performance in ‘Women in Love,’ and her second in 1974 for ‘A Touch of Class’.

But is a talent for the dramatic arts essential to politics? Glenda says; “There is a link. When I was first elected people said to me, ‘you’ve simply exchanged one form of theatre for another’ and I said rather glibly, ‘Well, if I have the Commons is remarkably under-rehearsed, the lighting is appalling and the acoustic is even worse.”

She adds; “But the link for me is that the best drama tries to tell the truth, tries to find and tries to tell the truth. Essentially the prime example, of course, is Shakespeare. It doesn’t matter where he sets the play, doesn’t matter what the story is. Essentially all he’s ever asking is who are we, what are we, why are we; admittedly in the most brilliant form ever known to man. I think that is what the best politics is trying to find.”

If there is one essential quality needed to be a successful actor or politician it’s charisma. Lack of charisma costs politicians elections- ask Mitt Romney or Gordon Brown. Similarly charisma can save a politician’s political life- ask Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Obama’s charisma likely gave him the edge over the bland and unappealing Romney. Bill Clinton is the perfect example of successfully using personal charisma for maximum political gain. It’s doubtful someone with less charisma and weaker persuasive skills could have survived the Lewinsky scandal.

However Glenda offers a different view on this most outrageous of political scandals, suggesting Clinton weathered the media storm around his infidelity by making a sincere apology. “I think that is something people recognise. There was a genuine antipathy, I don’t think it was limited to America, of what possible business is it of an electorate what goes on behind closed bedroom doors, even though in his case it wasn’t a closed bedroom door, it was an office door”.

Would good politicians make good actors? I can’t help but feel Bill Clinton would have made one of the finest actors America has ever seen. He deserved an Oscar for his ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky’ performance. Similarly Tony Blair’s ability to convince many sections of the public to go to war with Iraq on the basis Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction while in possession of desperately flimsy evidence, hints at great acting potential.

Fascinatingly, when asked if Blair would have made a good actor, Glenda said, “No because you would always know when he wasn’t telling the truth.” In regards to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, Glenda explained “They could both perform but there’s a difference between a performance and acting”.

I would personally argue Blair’s acting ability was an asset for the first part of his political career, as his performance skills enabled him to rise to the leadership of the Labour Party and become Prime Minister. However, his talents had a limited shelf-life and by the time of the Iraq War, many people had seen through his act.

Glenda Jackson is one of only twelve women in history to have won two ‘Best Actress’ Oscars. She keeps with illustrious company in gaining this distinction, claiming a place alongside Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep.

However, unlike most actors for whom winning an Oscar is the be-all and end-all, Glenda takes a most refreshing and modest attitude to having won the awards saying, “Well, it’s due to I didn’t win them, I didn’t do anything for them. There was nothing that I did, over and above what I’ve always done, I mean, you know, you do a film and you do the best you can, but you don’t win them. People who win I suppose in a sense are the people who voted for you because their choice is the one that had the biggest number.”

Glenda elaborated; “What do they mean? Someone said it’s like winning a gold medal. No it isn’t. At the Olympics everyone starts at the same point, they know exactly where the finishing line is and you either get there first or you don’t. Acting isn’t like that. If the part isn’t there, if that aspect isn’t there; you know we’ve all seen loads of stuff but there are people who should have got Oscars and never did. Because the part wasn’t showy enough.” Glenda added, “They certainly don’t make you act any better.”

Glenda Jackson says her decision to give up acting and stand for Parliament is not so shocking as it might first appear as she has been politically active all her life: “My political life, my political engagement if you like, didn’t just begin when I sat on those green benches.” I think as political activists we can all relate to this; you don’t have to be elected to Parliament to be fully committed to politics.

I asked Glenda if there were any acting roles she particularly identified with. “I didn’t identify in that sense,” she responded, “the point about every part you play; you can’t be judgemental, you have to see the world through that character’s eyes.” However when looking back at our work, we all have things we would like to have another go at. “The only two that I would have wanted to have another crack at was ‘The Three Sisters’ and probably ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’. You could mine them forever and never find it all.” I asked if this was because of the complexity of the roles. Glenda said, “Absolutely. And words are very ambiguous you know.”

In my experience there is nothing more dramatic than an Election Night. The most exciting political campaign I’ve ever worked on was Glenda Jackson’s own in 2010. The race in Hampstead and Kilburn was the closest in the country; Glenda won by only 42 votes!

Hampstead and Kilburn was one of the only constituencies where it was a genuine three horse race between Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Election Night was absolutely thrilling. Alfred Hitchcock himself couldn’t have conjured up a more suspenseful atmosphere. This was an election where literally every vote counted. I knew Glenda would win. Politics if nothing else makes a believer out of you. But this really was the stuff of great drama.

So, does Glenda feel that drama and politics are intertwined? “The real drama doesn’t come from politicians, it comes from the press, it comes from a 24/7 media furore. To go back to what Harold Macmillan said, when someone said to him what the big thing about being Prime Minister was, he replied: ‘Events, dear boy, events’. The events now are almost second by second.”

Marielle O’Neill is Editor of the Young Fabians Blog and Deputy Editor of Anticipations.

Originally published in the Winter 2012 editor of Anticipations, the Young Fabians magazine.

Fear vs Faith

By Louie Woodall.

It’s the season for looking forward to a new year and planning for the future. For both Labour and the Conservatives, all efforts will be focused on building a failsafe electoral strategy for 2015.

Good strategies make good use of dividing lines between parties. Labour did it in 1945 by promising a New Jerusalem over the Conservatives’ failed policies of the Thirties. The Conservatives did it in 1979 by claiming ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ and promising to trounce the trade unions. In the most divisive of campaigns, the defining battle boils down to one between fear and faith. Fear that one party will wreck the country if voted in, against faith that the other will chart a steady course through choppy waters.

Under the encroaching shadow of the 2015 election, the fear versus faith divide will resonate more than ever. Will the electorate keep faith in the Coalition’s monomaniacal quest to eradicate the deficit, swallow the pain of five years of fiscal contraction and vote Dave and chums in for the rest of the decade? Or will the fear of further economic deterioration, falling incomes, higher prices, and the savaging of the state safety net spook voters back to voting Labour?

Both Cameron and Miliband’s New Year’s message gave us a peek of how this divide may play out in the years to come. Each leader put optimism at the heart of their speeches, praising the indomitable British spirit and expressing their personal faith that the country can and will do better than in 2012. Few daggers were drawn against the opposition, although both tested out lines of attack that will undoubtedly resurface time and again in 2013 and define whether faith or fear will win the day next election.

For his part, Cameron implored the electorate to keep faith in him. “I want to reassure you of this: we are on the right track. On all the big issues that matter to Britain, we are heading in the right direction.” This was language designed to comfort, to soothe fears that billions of pounds of cuts next year will not trigger a triple-dip recession, or cause unemployment to spike again, or lead to thousands more being cast on the street. Right in the face of evidence demonstrating that for the majority in Britain, things are getting worse, not better, Cameron channelled Thatcher and declared that he, too, was not for turning.

Ed, in contrast, took his opportunity in the New Year’s message to talk about those who wouldn’t be sipping the champagne at midnight. The “forgotten 50% who don’t go to university,” the thousands (with incomes, with jobs) drawing on food banks to survive, and the small business owners struggling in these turgid times.

Frustratingly, he had nothing to say about those on benefits, who can neither find work nor afford to live on the state support they receive. Hopefully we will hear more about their plight in weeks and months to come. And while he did not directly play on fears that the Coalition is dragging Britain into disaster, the references to food banks, youth joblessness, and a “bad government,” helped nudge listeners into reflecting on the failings of the last two and a half years.

In fact, he went further than just nudging. Ed’s message attracted attention to the spectre of poverty that will haunt thousands more Britons in 2013. While Labour must be careful not to become a party of doom-mongers (after all, this hardly worked wonders for Cameron in 2010), it is right to point out that we live in harsh times, made unnecessarily harsher by the machinations of a right-wing government. Playing on people’s fears is not a dirty trick- it is a strategy that works- and as faith in the Coalition continues to ebb, Ed and Labour should not hesitate to reveal the true cost of the policies Cameron & co have inflicted on the country and will continue to inflict if a Tory majority is returned 30 months from now.

Louie Woodall is Editor of Anticipations.

In Defence of Fabianism

By Louie Woodall.

As the Fabian Society prepares for their showcase New Year conference in January, now is a good time to ask what the oldest think tank in Britain can offer the Labour Party through 2013 and beyond.

How are the Fabians relevant today? In decades past, the organisation was associated with a distinctive brand of socialism; an evolutionary approach that opposed the violence and turmoil of the Marxist-Leninist model.

‘Fabianism’ championed such causes as the minimum wage, a national health service, and a welfare state in the twilight years of the 19^th century, ideas that formed the cornerstone of Labour policy from Macdonald to However, Fabianism seems to attract a bad press these days. Rendered outmoded and obsolete in the wake of trendy new ideologies like Blue Labour and One Nation, the Fabians are looked down on as the stuffy, statist grandfathers of the labour movement- a liberal elite as out of touch as Cameron’s conservatives.

Perhaps we are the victims of our own longevity. Founded in 1884, it is hard for the Fabian Society to expound modern ideas while weighed down by the shackles of history. The existing constitution proudly identifies us as a socialist society, while founding patrons Sydney and Beatrice Webb wrote a glowing report of Stalin’s Russia in the 1935 omnibus Soviet Communism, a New Civilisation.

Today, Fabianism has become indelibly associated with an obsession with the state and the centralization of power. New Labour is not impressed with the Fabian’s rejection of the market as the cure for social ills. Blue Labour, meanwhile, believes that Fabianism suffocates the ability of civic activists to provide local solutions to local problems.

Unfortunately, the Society does not seek to rebuff its detractors, and is in danger of surrendering Fabianism to its critic’s assaults. This year, it even commissioned a pamphlet on the Blue Labour theme of ‘relational politics’ by Jon Wilson, an academic intimately involved with the movement.

Perhaps this is an evolution in response to changing times. The Fabians fear that championing socialism in the 21^st century threatens its influence in the modern Labour Party. Redefining itself as a space on the left for all those with progressive ideas
might get around this stigma, but undermines the unique contributions Fabians have, and continue, to bring to the party.

Returning to One Nation, it would be a mistake to attribute all the good ideas it’s generated to Blue Labour. On themes like a national industrial policy, a revitalized welfare system, and intergenerational justice, the Fabians have just as strong an influence as the Friends of Glasman.

In addition, while the new philosophies agitating to direct Labour’s future bring a wealth of new ideas on how politics should be conducted, they have little to say on how a modern state should function. Important aspects of statecraft like the funding of public services, the redistribution of wealth and provision of benefits are sidelined by those who fear talking about spending money and see equality as more about mutual respect than a fairer allocation of resources across the population. Right now, Labour is in danger of losing any coherent statement on political economy in the blue fug of ‘radical conservatism.’

Furthermore, beneath the Blue Labour rhetoric on the importance of community, local politics and ‘institution building’ is a
thoroughly negative conception of the state as something to be pushed out of the mission to protect and provide for the vulnerable. The problem is that the state actually isn’t very good at promoting localism or institution building- just look at the recent PCC elections.

What it is very good at is moving money around- vast quantities of it. The redistribution of wealth is an imperfect, but effective, mechanism for cultivating social equality. More importantly, it is something that can be measured, quantified, and felt in society. The difficulty is in making a strong case for it, and justifying the transfer of private gains to public goods.

This kind of challenge occupied the Fabians intensely in years past.

It is time it did so again.

Louie Woodall is Editor of Anticipations, the Young Fabians magazine.

Tomorrow’s world

Do we have a feral youth? It’s a question that many have asked since riots erupted across the country over the summer. Images of young people destroying their own communities, presented a challenge to those of us who have long rejected the stereotype of the feral hooded youth. Yet, while no analysis can excuse such wanton violence, it would equally be wrong to reduce these events, as the Prime Minister has, to “criminality pure and simple.” Labour’s former Home Secretary Charles Clarke was right to rebut David Cameron’s over-simplified conclusions in an article for The Evening Standard. “Criminality”, he argued, “is neither ‘pure’ nor ‘simple’.”

This is surely correct. As IPPR Director, Nick Pearce, outlines in the essay in our Autumn edition of Anticipations, “unless you believe that the riots were simply random acts of criminal violence, then some attempt must be made to explain why they happened and what can be done to prevent them happening again.” Of course we need a robust response and should not shy away from punishing those who have broken the law. However, it is also important, as Pearce points out, not to ignore the fact that most of the areas affected had high rates of youth unemployment and low levels of educational attainment.

This is not an excuse for violence and it would be wrong to argue that the disorder occurred as a direct result of policies such as the scrapping of EMA. Many of the rioters were not young at all; many more already had criminal convictions. However, it must also be true that only people with no aspirations for, or connection to, their communities are willing to set them alight.

There are important lessons for Labour here.  While New Labour’s focus on modernisation was vital for reforming our public services, the party had too little to say about community itself. This is now starting to be rectified and it is crucial that Labour continues to avoid pandering, as the government has, to those who talk of ‘moral decline’. The party must focus instead on practical ways to strengthen civil society from the bottom up.

London Citizens community organiser, Emmanuel Gotoro, outlines a powerful example of how this can be achieved. The CitySafe Havens initiative, established following the murder of teenager Jimmy Mizen in 2008, successfully brings together young people, police and shopkeepers to tackle local violence and anti-social behaviour. It centres upon the reporting of 100% of incidents and on the idea that strong relationships are the bedrock of community. The CitySafe campaign serves as a pertinent reminder that, far from being feral, many of our most active and civic-minded citizens are young people.

That’s not to say that we should ignore the vital role that the police have to play in all this. Safety and security must always be the overriding priority for any government and Yvette Cooper is right to highlight in this edition’s interview that effective policing is crucial to maintaining this. Cooper offers a devastating critique of the coalition’s approach to law and order, pointing to the evident contradiction between spending well over £100 million on Police and Crime Commissions while at the same time cutting the policing budget by 20%. Strong communities need properly resourced police. Just ask the young people campaigning with London Citizens.

We do not have a feral youth. Most young people are hard working, socially-conscious and responsible individuals – just like the rest of society. The lesson of the riots is not that our young are out of control, but rather that in some parts of the country, in areas of low aspiration, society has grown weak. In our effort to reweave the fabric of these communities we could do worse than look again at the opportunities available to our young people.

Now is the time for a fundamental rethink of youth policy.

James Green is Anticipations Editor and a Fabian Society Executive member

• You can read our online taster edition of the Autumn 2011 edition of Anticipations here. The full edition of Anticipations is only available to Young Fabian members. Joining couldn’t be easier and six months membership costs just £5. Click here for more information on joining the Young Fabians

Guest Post – No faith left?

In this guest post, the Reverend Arun Arora, Team Leader of the Wolverhampton Pioneer Ministries Network Church, argues that the left has much to gain from properly engaging with faith.

In his essay for the current edition of Anticipations, Tony Blair is forthright in his defence of the place of faith in our modern politics:

“Those of faith do great work because of it…In any developed nation you will find selfless care being provided to the disabled, the dying, the destitute and the disadvantaged by people acting under the impulse of their faith.”

The history of progressive forms of social action in this country would support Blair’s analysis. A non-exhaustive list of those organisations founded by people of faith over the past century would include organisations as diverse as: the worldwide Hospice movement, Amnesty International, the Trade Justice movement, Shelter, Alcoholics Anonymous, the Samaritans, Jubilee 2000, the Red Cross, Islamic Relief, Christian Aid, Tear Fund, Cafod to name but a few.

The work of these organisations, and the people who founded them, shares with those on the left a common desire for a society which can be better, more just and more generous. A society where the least, the last and the lost are not overlooked or forgotten, but fully embraced away from the margins to which they find themselves, either through action or circumstance.

Yet despite this shared commonality in both vision and purpose, the place of faith on the Left is under attack by an aggressive secularism that argues faith has no place in the public square and that those holding a faith, or even worse motivated by it, are to be regarded at every turn as deeply suspicious, governed by a form of anti-rationalism that has no place in progressive politics.

For these doctrinal secularists who will not rest until faith is driven out of the public square, the political consequences are to force those of faith to chose between an identity based on faith and a political allegiance with those who would respect that identity.

As Blair notes “the number of people proclaiming their faith worldwide as a significant part of their identity is growing.” To say such people have no place in progressive politics is to place a desire for an atheistic ideological purity over and above the evidence of what those of faith have achieved in delivering common ends.

In both domestic and global terms to simply tell people of faith they are wrong, and to expect the scales to fall from their eyes, is the height of arrogance.

What place then for faith and those of faith on the Left?

Progressive politics requires partnership across a shared vision based on achieving betterment through service. It was for this reason that the Labour party has always owed more to Methodism than Marxism. The dialectical approach falls short of the practical love shown to neighbour in community – offered not simply to convert or save souls, but rather to build a society on the foundations of compassion, selflessness and human equality before God. For the faithful the practical expression of their religious devotion is to be found on the same ground upon which the Left has built its temples. That some now argue for the faithful to be expelled from the temple be no surprise. The surprise may yet come in the way in which the faithful can demonstrate how a vision of radical service and transformed living might hold the future as the alternative to unchecked excess and unaccountable greed.

Rather than seeking to pick fights with those we disagree with, the choice before the left is to engage with faith in the manner that faith has been engaging with politics for centuries.

• An online taster edition of the spring edition of Anticipations is now available on the Young Fabians website. The full edition of Anticipations is only available to Young Fabian members. You can join the Young Fabians for as little as £5. For further information and to join visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.

Turning on cabinet colleagues: not good for our health

Following the drubbing his party endured during the local elections and that he received on AV, Nick Clegg has moved to make NHS reform his new number one priority.

Over the weekend, he vowed on the Andrew Maar show to veto the Health Bill unless Andrew Lansley backs down on one of his red-line reforms: forcing GPs to take responsibility for commissioning care.

As I point out in the latest edition of Anticipations, in reforming care commissioning it is vital to ensure that medical practitioners are fully on side. Lansely has failed to convince them and so this element of the reforms must be re-thought. Otherwise the GP-led implementation of the reforms will be chaotic.

The count of health bodies taking aim at the Heath Secretary is growing by the day. In April, the Royal College of Nurses carried a vote of no confidence in the Health Secretary by 99% to 1%. This morning Dr Gerada, the Chairman of the Royal College of GPs, labelled the proposals as “actually risking the NHS and risking the NHS being unravelled irreversibly for ever”.

As the Health Secretary receives blow after blow from industry experts, David Cameron and Nick Clegg appear to have decided to hang him out to dry. Cameron and Clegg have ripped up Lansley’s White Paper- reforms they explicitly both signed up to – and have sidelined the Heath Secretary as Number 10 pushes its own agenda. Lansley is now not even being invited to key meetings as the FT reported earlier this month.

A  senior Tory MP described his colleagues’ treatment of the Health Secretary as “outrageous”. Each passing day makes Lansley’s hold on his job less a grip and more a cling.The bigger the Cameron/Clegg-agreed U-turn ultimately is, the worse his chances of survival. And though still in office, he  is already a lame-duck.

Yes his reforms were ill thought out but surely no minister deserves this kind of treatment from his cabinet leaders who were willing to back him fully when the going looked good.

Lansley’s personal politico-tragedy aside, the real loser from Cameron and Clegg’s coalition posturing is the NHS and its patients. Lansley himself has consistently argued that to allow GPs to opt in or out would create a “two-tier” health service. He believes two systems would hurt care and efficiency. This is what happened with Ken Clake’s ill-fated experiment  with GP fund-holding in 1991 . It would happen again.

Nick Clegg’s approach on this issue is especially damaging. Trying to claw back some of the left-leaning liberals he has been haemorrhaging, he reeled off another ‘let-me-be-very-clear’ statement:  “Let me just be very clear: as far as government legislation is concerned no bill is better than a bad one.” This is completely at odds with his and Cameron’s piecemeal revision of Lansley’s White Paper. Clegg risks it becoming far worse than the sum of its parts.

The only Lib Dem talking sense on the matter is Simon Hughes, deputy Lib Dem leader. He underlined the resolve of many of his party MPs in calling for ministers to “go back to the drawing-board” on health. With Chris Hune’s past misdemeanours catching up with him (again) at the weekend, perhaps Simon Hughes is the Lib Dem rival Clegg should be watching at leadership rumours circulate.

He at least knows that the country, the professional experts and his own party do not want this Bill.

• An online taster edition of the spring edition of Anticipations is now available on the Young Fabians website. The full edition of Anticipations is only available to Young Fabian members. You can join the Young Fabians for as little as £5. For further information and to join visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.

Daniel Bamford is Networks Officer of the Young Fabians.