Why We Need Young Councillors

By Ryan Jackson.

This March I attended Young Labour’s annual national youth conference in Leicester and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of delegates who were involved in one way or another in local politics. I was quietly re-assured by the number of young elected councillors – re-assured that local branches were actually selecting younger candidates.

However, one would expect to find young councillors somewhere at a political conference (for young people), surely?

I believe that there is still a message to convey to our local party branches about who is ‘fit’ to be selected as a council candidate, and ultimately be a councillor. Inevitably, there is the ‘experience issue’.

The experience issue is one that I can understand, however it’s also one that is too often used in a prejudicial way. What does one define as ‘experience’ – experience good enough to represent your local townsfolk? If there’s one unique thing that young people do have experience of – it’s of being a young person in their respective local authority.

There is an abundance of experience on every local council, and every bit of it is valuable. But is this ‘experience’ good enough when around a third of your population is under the age of 30? Can we say that our local authorities are representatively making decisions that affect us? Statistics from my own local authority, Wakefield, show that 36% of the population is under the age of 30.  As a crude age-based calculation, that should equate to around 23 councillors being under the age of 30 if the council were to be representative of age. Wakefield falls drastically short.

But in reality, councils need to be representative in many ways. Being a Labour councillor shouldn’t just be for retirees or public-sector workers. (Though of course, the importance of the experience that these people bring should never be underestimated.) Young people in politics really do want to change the world and it’s that drive, determination, and passion to serve that should be equally as important.

Yes, the role of a councillor has its many challenges. And for a young person, just being a candidate can have its fair share of challenges too. But it’s these challenges that we should overcome together, with the help and guidance of our local parties as well as our individual resolve. We’ve seen in young Labour councillors such as Josh Newlove of Tranby in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Kate Taylor of Devonport in Plymouth just what a refreshing impact younger members can make, and I’d be proud to have either of them represent me in my local council chamber.

As the chair of a local Young Labour group, I hope more young people than ever before not only get the chance to, but are selected to stand and represent our diverse party in our local authorities. I want to go into the next set of district and city council elections backing a good number of formidable young candidates who passionately want to serve their local communities and help shape the future of our councils.

Ryan Jackson is a Young Fabians Member and Chair of West Yorkshire Young Labour.

Why Labour should pay no attention to social mobility

By Colm Flanagan.

Everyone agrees that social mobility is ‘a good thing’ – last year all three party leaders gave speeches on the topic, and it appears to be at the heart of what Cameron’s ‘strivers’ are about. Conventional wisdom would tell you it is the new centre ground, or perhaps just the old centre ground that never went away, and if we don’t make social mobility ours, and win the argument on it, we’re doomed to fail.

But unlike other issues which there is cross-party consensus on, such as universal access to contraceptives, and free tap-water in restaurants, it is not clear that everyone means the same thing when they talk about social mobility, and there is a risk that it could mean something almost exactly opposite to what the Labour Party should be trying to achieve.

At its very worst, pursuing social mobility means you accept that there are some fulfilling, stimulating, well-remunerated jobs, with reasonable hours which scarcely impede family life, are physically undemanding and give good pensions – doctors, say. On the other hand there are jobs which are undesirable in every single possible way – pay, conditions, status, the lot – and that’s just the way it is.

All social mobility is in this universe is ensuring that a higher proportion of the sons and daughters of people in category B get jobs in category A, without ever addressing the issue that jobs like those in category B exist at all. Proponents of this approach rarely acknowledge that this will invariably mean consigning the children of parents in category A to jobs in category B, as it is never advocated that more high quality jobs are created, so some displacement of accountants’ children to the scrapheap must be necessary if social mobility is to take place. Rarely too, is it articulated that all the best ways of making a living are not actually salaried jobs obtained through good qualifications and a string of internships, but the best job is to simply own stuff which produces an income, whether that be a trust fund or property – most of the benefits of working with none of the downsides.

No, in this world of social mobility, the sum of human happiness is not increased by one jot, but people are happier with the system, because they feel now success has been earned and deserved, rather than inherited, and, in theory, it works better, because category A jobs are more important and need people of higher calibre to perform them.

In fact, before we waste a second on social mobility, we should be doing two things. First, we should be looking at the politically easy, but technically difficult question of how we can create more category A jobs. This was Ed Miliband’s focus in the second half of his speech on social mobility to the Sutton Trust last year, where he focused on Britain’s need to create career paths for the 50% of young adults who don’t go to university.

But it also means making the politically difficult, but technically easier decision, of spreading the pros and cons of jobs more evenly, so we no longer live in a two track society. Once this happens, it will still be important to have social mobility policies in place, because nobody should be pushed into becoming a lawyer if they would get a lot more satisfaction from being a mechanic, or a dinner lady if they would prefer to be an optician, but it wouldn’t be such an urgent issue – it would be a matter of individual preference rather than a matter of social justice.

I cannot express strongly enough how inconsequential social mobility is while our economy is so deeply unfair in so many other ways. The entire debate about social mobility looks like a Tory game of musical chairs, a hollow Ponzi scheme where the hope of your children bagging one of the glittering prizes means you put up with a system which keeps you poor.

If you want to continue to pursue social mobility and hold it dear as an aim, fine, don’t let me stop you. Make ability the sole barrier of entry for every profession, instead of the shaky system of guilds, contacts and luck which exists today. Just don’t coming crying to me when your children weren’t bright enough to make it in your ruthlessly meritocratic society and their lives are miserable.

Colm Flanagan is the Young Fabians’ Political Education Officer.

This is one of several views that will be debated at the Social Mobility roundtable:

Young Fabians Social Mobility Roundtable with Rt Hon. Alan Miliburn, former Labour Cabinet Minister & Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty. 

The Young Fabians are delighted to announce an exclusive opportunity to partake in a roundtable discussion on social mobility with the Rt Hon Alan Milburn, who currently serves as the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to have your say on this crucial issue and help inform the debate on how we ensure the next generation can do better than the last. The event will take place in Parliament on Tuesday 26th March between 6:45pm-8:15pm.

We have 20 spots available for this roundtable (10 male & 10 female), so if you are interested in partaking, please email the Young Fabians Networks Officer Rayhan Haque at rhaque@youngfabians.org.uk.  In your email, please can you state in no more than 150 words, what social mobility means to you and one idea that you think will make a big difference to creating a more socially mobile society.

“Boys like blue and girls like pink” do toys negatively impact on how children grow up?

“Boys like blue and girls like pink” do toys negatively impact on how children grow up?

Discussion event: Tuesday 12th March, 19:00

Committee Room 6, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

The first of a number of joint Young Fabian/Fabian Women’s Network events to be held this year, the discussion will look at the effect of toy and gender stereotyping on how children grow up, their behaviour, confidence and career choices.

Guests will include Kate Green MP, as well as Dr Laura Nelson, who led a successful campaign to stop toy labelling by gender at Hamley’s and Liz Jordan of the campaign “Let Toys be Toys”. This will be an informal and discussion based event, so come along and have your say!

Contact s.j.hutchinson@googlemail.com to register your place.

It’s time to speak up for the male victims of rape

By James Hallwood.

Reports from Syria of routine rape against men and women is a reminder of the unspoken prevalence of the rape of men and boys in areas of conflict. Yet for the harrowing nature of this, and despite how widespread it is, awareness and support are truly minimal. Often categorised as ‘torture’ rather than ‘rape’, so many men around the world are silent victims of unbelievable acts of sexual cruelty.

Given that rape against males is a regular component of wars across all continents, it is surprising that there has been so little research into this. Dr Lara Stemple of UCLA School of Law has been at the forefront of raising awareness at the prevalence of the sexual abuse of males in war zones and has done much to ask why international institutions are seeing rape as a crime that only affects women.

76% of male political prisoners in 1980’s El Salvador attested to sexual torture, 80% of men in a concentration camp in Sarajevo reported being raped, 21% of men seeking help at a London centre for Sri Lankan torture victims spoke of sexual abuse, 22% of men in Eastern Congo had suffered from sexual violence. A clinic dealing with refugees in Uganda gave the shocking figure that 8 out of 10 women had been raped and 10 out of 10 men had suffered the same crime. Men are routinely raped in Iranian prisons while the disgusting actions by Lynndie England in Abu Ghraib show abuse against men can just as easily be committed by women and the West, no-one has a good record on this.

It is clear that these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. Societal stigma is enough to silence many of these men. Just like many female victims of rape, the men who survive these ordeals are often deserted by their spouses. An aid worker helping men recover from rape reported how wives of victims responded:

“They ask me: ‘So now how am I going to live with him? As what? Is this still a husband? Is it a wife?’ They ask, ‘If he can be raped, who is protecting me?’ There’s one family I have been working closely with in which the husband has been raped twice. When his wife discovered this, she went home, packed her belongings, picked up their child and left. Of course that brought down this man’s heart.”

The strong gender roles enforced in many societies make being a male victim of rape all the more taboo: Men fear no longer being perceived as ‘men’.

Abandoned by family and society, many of the male victims of rape are unable to ask for help, not just in dealing with the psychological scars but with the very literal injuries sustained from repeated sexual abuse. Many men are subjected to constant gang rape, penetrated with blunt objects and forced to give oral sex to soldiers. Survivors are often limited to a restricted diet, bleed incessantly and, worse still, fear asking for help in case they are arrested for homosexual behaviour. At this very moment, men are suffering and dying from these horrific injuries in silence.

International institutions should be able to step in where national governments fail, but they have so far seemed reluctant to do so. Dr Stemple applauded United Nations’ Resolution 1325 call to support women and girls in conflict zones but pointed out that much of its work neglects to look at sexual violence against men and boys. Failing to have a gender neutral definition of rape meant that male victims were operationally invisible. After much campaigning this definition was changed, but there is much still to do to change the culture of organisations that deal with rape.

Dr Stemple cites a literature review of 4000+ organisations that deal with rape in war zones: only 3% mention male victims in their informational material, and few are equipped to deal with the particular needs of men who come to them for help.

Across the globe men and women, boys and girls, are victims of the most disgusting sexual crimes imaginable. Few of the victims report this, many face stigma and shame, and the help any of them are offered is usually minimal at best.

It’s time that governments, international bodies, charities and people openly accept– in war zones sexual abuse rarely distinguishes between men and women, our response should likewise be to help all victims of these heinous crimes.

There remains a blanket of silence when it comes to the taboo of male victims of rape. More awareness, more research and more support is needed.

The perpetrators rely on the shame and particular stigma of being a man forcibly subjected to other men, we must break the silence: It’s time to speak up for the men who are raped in war zones.

James Hallwood is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

(Wo)men’s housework: are we getting anywhere?

By Katrina Gajevska.

Statistics show that gender equality has not progressed across all areas of life. With considerably more women at university and in employment these days, housework and childrearing still conform to the pre-emancipation patterns. In 2004, University of Ulster research showed women did 17 hours of housework per week compared to 6 done by men, excluding childcare. In 2006, a study at the University of Oxford showed domestic work still fell disproportionately on women and in 2012, almost half of women did 13 hours of housework per week or more according to The Guardian. Men, on the other hand, were only occasionally involved.

Childcare affects a woman’s economic independence even more dramatically. Whilst fathers’ professional lives remain largely unshaken, working mothers either reduce their employment, drop it altogether or run two jobs at a time. For those who take the third option, decreased activity at work, inability to put in additional hours and less time for networking ultimately lead to loss of experience and lower income. Some women additionally face the threat of redundancy or marginalisation, as employers, fully aware of their family commitments, are reluctant to retain or promote them. This exacerbates the pay gap and few women are able to reach for top positions. According to a leading female architect Zaha Hadid, ‘‘Society has not been set up in a way that allows women to go back to work after taking time off. Many women now have to work as well as do everything at home and no one can do everything“.

The reasons for domestic inequality are often claimed to be pragmatic rather than ideological. First, given that men usually earn more, it seems rational for them to retain full-time employment. Second, it is often remarked that women simply enjoy domestic work more and are better at it. If so, why not stick with it?

The first consideration is largely self-fulfilling: women earn less in part because they are assumed to contribute less efficiently due to their family roles. However, other factors also contribute to disparities in earning power. Most industries (with a few exceptions) are still dominated by men at higher levels; women face gender prejudice and a glass ceiling and are less encouraged in their careers than men. Thus the set of factors which cause one pay gap perpetuates another.

Although the myth of male incompetence at housework was dispelled a long time ago, many still think women naturally prefer domesticity. Yet a great deal of female attitudes to housework can be well explained by gender ideology and adaptive preferences: the practice of conforming one’s beliefs and desires to social expectations as a result of conditioning. An equally important explaining factor is the natural desire to minimise cognitive dissonance, i.e. the tendency to eliminate conflicting desires (in this case, that of living in an equitable relationship) in order to accept situations which cannot be changed. Upbringing and lack of alternatives can therefore account for women’s behaviour.

Much can be done to equalise domestic arrangements, but we must be aware of two traps policy makers and campaigners commonly fall into. First, even those policies designed to help women gain more independence ultimately assume that they are primarily responsible for domestic work. Note that the ‘flexible employment’ policies work on the assumption that women should be able to combine earning some income with housework – rather than that it should be equally shared so that wives can pursue full-time employment. Second, the popular rhetoric of men helping in household chores also misses the point. To say that men should ‘help’ at home obviously implies assistance, rather than co-responsibility. It implicitly concedes that women are the primary domestic workers who need a bit of relief – and that this ‘extra’ help exhausts men’s roles at home.

What we need is to shift the target of family policies to both sexes. The state should not encourage women to take flexible working arrangements if it does not encourage men to do the same. Paternity leave should be extended to 9 months (as with women) and companies should be actively encouraged to facilitate flexible work for men. Evidently, much of the change required is cultural. However, we should not be afraid to use the state apparatus to shape people’s mentalities. We have been doing it for thousands of years already.

Katrina Gajevska is a Young Fabians Member.

Prostitution: A Left Wing Issue

By Rebecca Hewer.

In the past thirty or so years policy interventions concerning prostitution have focused on the women who sell sex. Whether it’s prostitution as public nuisance, prostitution as public health risk or prostitution as an inevitable accompaniment to the scourge of drug use, our policy makers have done much to address the supply of sex, but little to address the demand.

There are a number of explanations for this trend. Prostitutes are the more visible community and are thus easier to target. Prostitutes are more likely to be marginalized, whilst the men who frequent them are often respected members of their communities. Many believe that purchasing sex is merely the expression of normal male sexuality and that to penalize men for following their basic animal urges would be prudish and overly authoritarian.

Things may, however, be changing. Albeit slowly. Many local authorities now include prostitution in their violence against women strategies. In Scotland, Labour MSP Rhoda Grant, is proposing a bill that would criminalize the buyers of sex. And in England and Wales, a relatively recent amendment to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it illegal for a man to buy sex from a woman who is being forced to sell it, regardless of whether or not he is aware of said force. The relative impunity of the buyer may, therefore, be drawing to an end.

There is by no means, however, a consensus on the matter. The subject polarizes the feminist lobby. There are those who believe prostitution is a legitimate form of employment and should be legalized in order to allow vulnerable women to become economically independent, whilst others argue that all prostitution is exploitation born of the culture of objectification which so oft prevents women from obtaining equality. Some might say that the debate transcends normal political distinctions. I, however, disagree. For me, opposing the legalization of prostitution and advocating for the criminalization of the purchase of sex is a left wing issue. And here’s why:

1. The belief that someone should have the right to buy sexual services is indicative of a commitment to market principles. It’s the idea that all things can be commodified, given a price and sold – that the worth of something is always measured by how much we are willing to pay for it. In the market, money reigns supreme and all other, more humane, considerations are represented as ideological drivel incompatible with the ‘organic’ existence of capitalism.
2. Much of the debate is predicated on the idea of ‘choice’: the idea that the right of the individual to choose should take precedence wherever possible. Individualism trumps communitarianism. This debate hinges on the mythical idea of the happy and empowered prostitute, who willingly sells sex. Why, we are asked, shouldn’t she be allowed to do so? And we reply: because she does not exist in a vacuum. The vast majority of prostitutes are vulnerable, subject to coercion, and daily the victims of violence. They need our protection. We do not legislate for the one, we legislate for the many. We should not run a society in the best interests of the lucky minority, but in the interests of the vast majority. And why prosecute the buyers rather than the sellers? Because we should not persecute the vulnerable, the poor, the exploited but we should hold the influential and wealthy accountable for the harm they cause by abusing their positions of power.
3. The criminalization of the purchase of sex is integral if we wish to achieve the aims of the wider equality agenda. The success of the sex industry is predicated on the objectification, commodification and sexualisation of human beings. People are marketed by use of their defining characteristics: their race, their disability, or their age. A woman who is pregnant can expect to make more money than a woman who is not – because pregnancy is seen as a more finite commodity demanding a larger price tag. And this dehumanization entrenches ideas of worth which harm the road to equality we all so much wish to travel.

Prostitution may not be an issue that feminists can agree upon, but it should be one the left can agree upon. The sale of sex is the most troubling form of wage slavery we will ever encounter. The sale of human beings can never be made acceptable. There is no way to incorporate prostitution into mainstream society whilst striving for equality and there is no way of protecting the vulnerable without prosecuting the powerful.

Rebecca Hewer is a Young Fabians Member.

We Need Quotas for Low-Income MPs

By Chris Grezo.

The time has come for political parties to set themselves targets for how many MPs they take in from low income backgrounds. The under-representation of people from low income backgrounds in parliament is at least as important as the under-representation of women, and perhaps something similar to All Women Shortlists (AWS) or A-lists could be used to remedy the problem.

What is the argument for a parliament that more accurately reflects the demographics of the nation? The short answer is that a body made up almost entirely of rich old white men is less able to understand the views and needs of the many other types of people who live in this country.

An example: as a man, I’m never going to understand the sense of dread a woman can feel walking home late at night. I’ve read up on crime statistics, yet still I was shocked to discover that my female friends were taking a longer route than myself between our homes because the nearest station is eerily deserted late at night. My inability to predict this problem, despite being the kind of boring person who reads crime statistics and thinks about feminism, shows why there is a need for more women in parliament: men, no matter how well meaning, lack the subjective experience to fully and completely represent the perspective of women.

I believe there are also benefits for men in having more women in parliament: greater diversity of voices acts as safety mechanism to prevent group-think. Studies have shown that large numbers of opinions, when averaged out, can be more accurate than the individual opinion of an expert (everyone’s small biases cancel each other out), but this only works if there is diverse opinion. One way to ensure this, and to ensure that our government makes good decisions, is to make sure MPs come from diverse backgrounds.

Studies show the value of ensuring parliamentary diversity. A survey by the World Bank found that governments that included more women were less corrupt, and a study on the effect of Labour’s AWS policy has shown that issues such as domestic violence, childcare and women’s health now get more parliamentary attention than they used to.

The counterargument to all of this is to say that quotas discriminate against rich white men, which is inherently wrong as all that should matter is who is best for the job. But this argument assumes that background has no effect on how appropriate for the job an individual is. I disagree with this because I genuinely believe that a rich white man is less able to understand the needs and views of a low income black woman than, say, a low income black woman. So strictly speaking I view quotas for parliament as actually reinforcing meritocracy, by rebalancing the selection process in favour of the qualities that matter to the job, instead of qualities such as networking and schmoozing ability, being a convincing liar, ruthlessness, oratory skills and so on.

Parliament is making headway in including more women and people from ethnic minorities. Women make up 22% of parliament now and non-white individuals, who account for 8% of society, now make up 4.6% of MPs. These figures are worryingly low but they pale in comparison to the under-representation of people from low income backgrounds: 33% of the British workforce are manual workers, but only 6% of MPs come from such a background. Compare this with the fact that finance makes up 3.6% of the UK workforce but a whopping 27% of the Conservative Party. Our representative democracy is not representative.

Some may argue that people on low incomes don’t have the level of education to be MPs. But consider this: in Germany the law requires that all companies with more than 2000 employees have workers on their management board. This law was initially enacted in the 1950s, then expanded in the 1970s. Not only has this not adversely affected German business, but Germany’s success in industry is now held up as a shining example to all other European nations. It could well be that, in addition to ensuring fairer treatment of workers, this law has resulted in more long-term orientated and more practical companies whose management actually understand what it’s like on the front line.

If we want parliament to work, it needs to be made up of people who understand what it’s like to be an ordinary citizen. It’s worked in German business, why shouldn’t it work in British politics?

Chris Grezo is a Young Fabians Member.

Equalities Week: The Olympic Legacy

For the first event celebrating Young Fabians Equalities Week, Dame Tessa Jowell MP, Lisa Nandy MP, and Tim Hollingsworth, Chief Executive of the Paralympic Association, were asked what was next for equalities following the Olympic Games.

London 2012 was a proud celebration of diversity.

Men and women, white and black, able bodied and disabled- all enjoyed equal status under the glow of the stadium lights. Now, as the fantastic achievements of the summer games recede into memory, we must ask how the equalities enshrined for a brief moment in the Olympics and Paralympics can be embedded into wider society.

All three panellists agreed that it was disingenuous to talk about a ‘legacy of equalities’ from the games, especially in relation to the disabled.

“We shouldn’t talk about legacy from the Paralympic Games,” said Tim Hollingsworth, “because it suggests immediately that you’ve got to that stage where you want to be and now you want to sustain it. I think this is a journey, and I think the journey we’ve begun is in the foothills of a mountain that needs to be climbed.”

The collective euphoria felt after Mo Farah’s double gold medal-winning runs, or Ellie Simmond’s heroics in the Aquatics Centre, risks making us complacent about equalities without cause by confusing an emotional response to specific events with a fundamental change in underlying attitudes. As Tessa Jowell remarked:

“I think that we’ve got to a more equal place, but I think its precarious, that type of progress that is achieved so quickly is precarious.”

However, it is possible to use the increased status that ethnic minorities, the disabled, and women enjoyed during the games as a springboard to make the case for ’structural equality’- factoring in the need for equal treatment within our institutions and infrasture.

Transport for London pledged to make the 2012 Games the most accessible ever for disabled people, spending £2 million on providing step-free access at all London Overground stations alone. This is a big step in the right direction, but accessibility needs to be rolled out beyond London.

Lisa Nandy thinks the way towards strucutual equality is by making it compulsory for all public sector contracts to include clauses on accessibility:

“The logic of the Olympics is that you use public procurement as a way of moving forwards on those issues [of access]. But having met with transport ministers since the Games, there is still an attitude that there is too much bureaucracy and too much red tape [involved], and we’re [ministers] not prepared to do anything about it.”

The battle for equal access is clearly far from won.

On the essential need for British women and ethnic minorities to acheive equal status in society, the Olympics provides a new generation of role models for everyone to look up to. Yet it is important to remember that British atheletes did not choose a sporting career in order to spend all their time acting as ambassadors for their gender or racial background. We cannot delegate the work of fighting prejudice to a select band of celebrities. It is up to each of us to tackle sexism and racism wherever they spring up.

However, what we can do is hold up medal-winners like Jessica Ennis, Lizzie Armitstead, Nicola Adams, and Anthony Ogogo as examples of how ridiculous it is to discriminate against minorities, immigrants, and women when they acheive so, so much.

London 2012 may be over, but we must not forget the lessons it’s taught us.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Gay Tories: an oxymoron?

The phrase ‘gay Tory’ simply makes no sense. This is not because it juxtaposes two groups whose interests are as far apart as Iran and the US, but because it suggests that many gay people are shamefully ignorant of their party’s credentials as one which tried to block the repeal of section 28 and one where MPs view gay marriage as more terrifying than European integration.

I shudder to think that people who vote thinking that the Tories offer them a better deal economically (although this is untrue) are voting against their own self-interest.

The Tories have given the job of Women and Equalities Minister to Maria Miller, a woman who voted in favour of Nadine Dorries’ attempt to limit abortion and force women to have the ‘impartial’ counseling of church groups, and who has voted against every single bit of legislation on gay rights that Labour introduced- when she bothered to turn up, that is.

If it were up to her (until her recent and miraculous U-turn, à la Theresa May), gay people wouldn’t be able to adopt and wouldn’t be covered under the Equalities Act. In fact, until last week, she’d been silent on gay marriage.

Many gay people like to think that the drive for equality is over, that Gay Pride is redundant and everything has been achieved. They are wrong. The civil rights campaign is not over. It can’t be: anyone who has canvassed in some of the UK’s poorest housing estates or has dealt with MPs casework and seen the effects of cuts to local services, of cuts to Citizens Advice bureaux, cuts to EMA and Building Schools For The Future, will know that.

We must enfranchise the young, those unable to afford £9,000 tuition fees or even the bus journey to school. We must enfranchise the unemployed, those on benefits, bringing them into society and giving them the chance to succeed. This is the new frontier for those who have campaigned for gay rights in the past.

Yet the thinking espoused by some gay people now defies logic. A society that works together is a society that enriches those at the top as well as those at the bottom. Just as gay people can now work without fear of discrimination, no one should allow disabled workers at Remploy to face unemployment. Long excluded from many workplaces, gay people should not sit by and allow women to lose their independence because of cuts to children’s services.

Gay people might not have to worry about many of these issues, but they, like everyone in the UK, benefitted directly from Labour’s attempts to make society richer. If we ignore the fact that Labour enabled gay people not to be discriminated at school by repealing the Tory section 28 and equalizing the age of consent, that Labour allowed gay people to defend their country openly for the first time, Labour’s record is much deeper. In fact, by sharing the fruits of economic development with all, between 1998 and 2011, not only did productivity per hour grow faster than the rest of Europe, but real disposable income per capita rose faster than in the Europe and in the US.

Equality brings riches and as long as the Government believes that some people deserve unfair treatment because they are ‘plebs’, Britain will continue its social as well as economic decline.

So, this is the time for gay people to stand together, not just with other gay people, but side by side with people who are still disenfranchised: single mothers, young people, the unemployed, the disabled, and millions more. People, in short, whom the Tories have kept at arms length.

Alex Glasner is a Young Fabians member

Caring is not something that happens to ‘other people’

As the Government dithers over implementing the social care funding changes recommended in the Dilnot report, much of the focus on social care in politics and the media has been on the funding and quality crisis in formal and institutional care.

However this debate risks obscuring the experiences of informal carers – 12% of the population in 2009/10 – and the devastating effect care can have without proper support

Caring is a financial leveller.  Almost every carer I spoke to as part of my research had faced financial pressures as a result of caring and/or due to someone in the family experiencing long-term illness or disability.  Very few had sufficient wealth to protect their lifestyle, or employers flexible enough to support them to continue to work and care long term.  This has financial effects that are dramatic at the time of caring, but which can last far beyond the period of care.

The costs are multiple.  Some are associated with disability and ill health: extra heating, transport to visit the care recipient, or to go to appointments.  Special diets, equipment, extra washing, incontinence pads.  For those who were getting older, or caring for someone with a long-term condition the threat of residential care loomed large on the horizon.  This can feel an impossible problem, and is poorly understood.  Carers simply cannot plan towards it.  Those caring for children unlikely ever to be able to look after themselves worry about what would happen to their children when they were gone.

And there’s the opportunity cost, lost earnings, doubled if your spouse also has to stop work to care, or is unable to work due to their own ill health. 26% of all working-age carers report having to change their work patterns, although this rose to 40% amongst those providing more than 20 hours of care a week.  Some stop work completely, others reduce their hours, with long-lasting effects on their careers.

Carers spoke of inflexible employers, even in the public sector. Many felt unable to do their job well because it required travelling that would have put the person they were supporting at risk, or they had to leave to deal with emergencies, or make frequent phone calls.  Those caring for children found it hard to find work within school or nursery hours. The battle to get appropriate formal support was often a further barrier to work.

As local authority care is further rationed, cut, or privatised, there will be greater pressure on family carers to step in.  Few carers feel they have a choice to care: it’s a situation they find themselves in, because they love the care recipient, or feel obliged, because there is no-one else.

This then leaves them with even less choice and control over working and their finances. If employment rights are further reduced by the Conservatives, carers will be left even more vulnerable.

Securing social care funding should be the starting point.  We must consider how we can best support carers. How do we ensure people are given a choice between caring and working? How can we provide high quality, affordable alternatives? Access to education and training?  Comprehensive information and advice to help carers navigate the complexities of the welfare state at a time of high stress?  Access to mental health support?

These are complex and urgent questions, and faced with a rapidly ageing population, we can’t afford to delay seeking answers any longer.

Caring is not something that happens to ‘other people’, something that can be planned for, or predicted.  It is something that can happen to any of us, at any time, and we need to place it at the centre of social policy if we want to ensure that it does not have catastrophic effects on families’ lives.

Sarah Hutchinson is a member of the Fabian Women’s Network