Budget 2012: The ‘Granny Tax’

George Osborne delivered the two Eds the best kind of political surprise in this year’s budget by announcing a squeeze on pensioners.

However, the so called ‘Granny tax’ is much more a political label than a raid on pensions. Current income tax allowance for those under the age of 65 will rise by £1,100 to £9,205. Those older than this threshold but under 74 currently receive £10,500, and those above 74 receive £10,660. From the 2013 tax year these allowances will be fixed, both in cash terms and eligibility. As such, those who belong to either of the two higher age cohorts will not receive additional allowance. The purpose of this is to keep these higher rates static in cash terms until the working age tax-free allowance catches up. From that point, there will be a single band of tax free allowance regardless of age. Is this really bad policy or just bad politically?

The political dialogue has jumped onto HMRC’s own assessment which reveals that 4.41 million people will be worse off in real terms come 2013′s tax year to the tune of £83. This represents 40% of all pensioners. Of the other 60%, 50% are not taxed, while the top 10% do not receive the additional allowance.

After a reverse calculation, the average income of this subgroup (the 40%) stands at 57% more than an individual receiving the maximum basic pension with pension credit. The Budget is not hitting the poorest pensioners by any means.

I don’t see why we should complicate the system with multiple tax allowances based on age. The simplification of the tax regime is a good thing, and that is only ever going to come with the closing of the gap between the different threshold limits. Any benefits associated with age should just be added to income. Simple. This measure was always going to be open to political attack regardless of which government proposed it – as closing the gap would mean that pensioners would be doing relatively worse off than the rest of the population.

The government could not justify a progressive bridging aid to make up the ‘shortfall’ for existing pensioners and those near-retirement without paying out to the bottom 50% who are not affected by this ‘cut.’ If they did, the Coalition would have been attacked for providing a tax break to Middle-England pensioners, which would have cost the Treasury around £1 billion a year.

What has been overlooked in this discussion is that HMRC’s calculations are compiled using the Retail Price Index, mainly because personal allowances are required to increase as a percentage of this index by law. The current Retail Price Index is 3.7%.

Going back to last year, public pensions were switched from being linked to the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index. The government explained the reason for the change by arguing that the CPI was a better reflection of the basket of products that pensioners’ spend their money on. However, the major difference between the indices is that the latter does not factor in housing costs such as rent and mortgages. Indeed, the RPI excludes the spending habits of those dependant on state pensions in its calculation, reinforcing its credentials as a working-age index. The rational argument behind the adoption of the CPI revolves around the assumption that pensioners would have already paid off their mortgages by the time they retire.

The CPI is currently at 3.4%. The Office for Budget Responsibility believes that by 2016, the CPI index will be running half the rate as the RPI, so if this is what pensioners are spending money on, they will be relatively better off than the population as a whole. If we adjust for inflation from RPI to CPI, the loss to taxation by inflation is an average £76 for these pensioners, or £1.46 a week.

The row over CPI or RPI has been smouldering even as recently as this month, but the point is, if you’re linking pensions to an index because it is most appropriate, then there is no logical argument why the tax threshold for the same group should be measured by the other.

Building upon this point, do any of these indices actually mean anything in regards to pensioners? A better solution, and one that is advocated by the GMB, is for the creation of a specific index designed around pensioners’ spending habits, that will exclusively apply to pension calculations. The introduction of such an index could bring to an end the kind of political nightmares Osborne has found himself in.

Alex Adranghi is Chair of the Young Fabians Future of Finance Network

Why do we defend the rich?

This Wednesday, Chancellor Osborne is set to unveil a Budget that promises to pit the rich against the poor in a manner not seen for decades.

One by one, individual policies have been brought into the light of public scrutiny and debated over by the great and the good: a cut to the 50p tax rate for those earning over £150,000, regional salary rates for public sector workers, and a freeze in the minimum wage for those under 21.

The expected budgetary measures conform to the Coalition’s guiding mantra that we must all share the burden of reducing the deficit. However, take a closer look at what is being proposed- and the spin doled up by the press- and it becomes clear that this budget is a recipe for making the poor poorer and the rich richer.

Reducing the top-rate of tax for the top earners in this country benefits the 275,000 tax payers who earn over £150,000 a year. It is true that those living on an income at the lower end of this spectrum are not the ‘super rich’, and that many are professional men and women like doctors and business executives who power the economy and serve society. However, it is also true that an income of £150,000 a year is seven and a half times greater than the median wage earned in this country (£20,801, calculated in 2009). To put this another way, anyone with a disposable income of £1million (approximately 13,000 Britons) has the funds available to furnish 48 individuals with the median salary for an entire year. The tax cut will pump anything from 2.4 to 6 billion pounds back into the pockets of this wealthy elite. The rich will get richer.

Meanwhile, the proposed measures to alter the wage rates of public servants depending on where they work will affect millions of workers in the North-East, North West, York & Humber, and Midland regions, where take-home pay is between 9% to 15% less than the UK average. A quick exercise in basic reasoning suggests that if you further reduce the earnings of people living in the poorest regions in the UK, they will have less money to spend on goods and services in the region, further depressing economic growth. The poor will get poorer.

Freezing the minimum wage for workers under 21 will have a similar effect. Young people will have to subsist on a poverty wage of £4.98 per hour while the costs of education and transport continue to spiral upwards. The minimum wage already does too little to provide workers with a decent standard of life- by making it discriminatory to the very section of the population suffering the highest level of unemployment, the Coalition is sending a strong message that it does not have a place for young people in its recovery programme.

What is interesting is that the press and the government seems to be continually siding with the rich over the poor, presenting strong arguments to abolish measures ‘oppressing’ the 1% of the workforce while rubbishing claims that this budget will persecute the 21% in the public sector, or the hundreds of thousands of economically active young people.

Why is this? Maybe it’s because we are pre-programmed to affiliate with the rich rather than the poor. After all, they’re the successful ones we all want to emulate. They’re the ones living the lives we so desperately strive for.

Adam Smith, enlightened political theorist and darling of liberal economists the world over, recognised this ‘natural’ affiliation himself, stating in his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

“When we consider the condition of the great…it seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state which, in all our waking dreams and idle reveries, we had sketched out to ourselves as the final object of all our desires. We feel, therefore, a peculiar sympathy with the satisfaction of those who are in it. We favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. What a pity, we think, that any thing should spoil and corrupt so agreeable a situation!”

Smith recognised that, as bizarre as it sounds, that people are attuned to pity the rich- because we sympathise with them. Their successes are our successes. Their struggles are our struggles.

The plight of the poor is shuffled out of public view because we do not want to feel the guilt that comes from observing their sorry situation. We don’t want to feel bad- and that’s natural. Unfortunately, it also means that we’re far more willing to back calls to take the boot off the neck of millionaires than ask for similar respite for those earning the median wage or less.

It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with Smith’s theory. What matters is that there are many people out there happy to side with the rich over the poor. It will take intensive advocacy and determined campaigning to reverse this trend, but the struggle will be worth it if we can change the headlines to champion those who are truly in need.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Demonising the disabled

This week, the Coalition’s sinister attack on Britain’s disabled population was laid bare for all to see. On March 15^th, it was reported that 37% of claimants assessed so far for the new Employment and Support Allowance were rejected and ordered back to work, with a further 34% retaining the benefit but mandated to enrol on back to work programmes. At a stroke, over 100,000 people previously classified as too ill to work were suddenly tossed into the jobs market, and over 52,000 deprived of state support for good.

The announcement was music to the ears of the right-wing press. Unsurprisingly, the headlines made out that all the rejected claimants were fraudsters who had been milking the taxpayer for years. The Sun led with the header: ‘590,000 on sickness benefit are fit as a fiddle’, while the Mail Online chose to disclose the fact that the benefit costs £4.8 billion a year in its coverage not once, but twice.

A few seconds of level headed reflection should be enough to disregard The Sun’s claim. How could there be over half a million lying, stealing, benefit parasites in the country? By that logic, over 5,400 of The Sun’s own readers are such cheats, presumably chuckling away in their pirated wheelchairs as they read about their own disgraceful excesses. In fact disability benefit fraud accounts for only 0.5% of all claims, slaying that particular myth for good.  As for the size of the cheque used to pay for the allowance, it appears paltry when set alongside the £15.5 billion lost every year because of youth unemployment, and the  £13 billion lost annually from tax avoidance by individuals.

It is easy for the government to use statistics to paint the picture it wants the public to see- that of a nation being sucked dry by selfish individuals feigning illness to avoid work. The Coalition seems to be on a mission to portray disability as a myth, a great lie, an impossibility in an age of advanced healthcare. By eroding the very meaning of the term ‘disabled’ by devising the new claims assessment, the government is encouraging society to brand thousands of sick, injured, and even dying people as good-for-nothings, who have shirked their societal responsibilities by refusing to look for work in a country where millions of able-bodied, highly educated, experienced people are struggling to land a job. It is a disturbingly warped version of reality being portrayed, but one that increasing numbers of people seem willing to accept.

This has to stop. It has to stop. A right-wing government in alliance with a right-wing press is actively bullying the most vulnerable people in our society and imposing oppressive legislation that effectively takes the country back to an age of savagery- where the weakest are forced to rely on nothing more than their diminutive physical capabilities for survival.

It is the duty of the Left now more than ever to debunk the toxic myths surrounding disability benefits and call a halt to the witch hunt that this government has launched on the sick and vulnerable. The counterattack has to start now, before public sympathy is lost, and before people start dying in the workplace.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Eye on Washington: Beyond Super Glue Day

As Obama’s man David Axelrod put it, “Instead of ‘Super Tuesday’ it became ‘Super Glue Day’ for them”.

After the rush of primaries in ten states across America came to an end, the results show that Mitt Romney has done enough to keep the chasing pack at bay, but has not completely lost them in his rear view mirror. Romney came away with a total of 415 delegates; Santorum proportionally keeping in tow with 176 .

The Kansas caucuses on Saturday played into the hands of the more conservative Santorum, boosting his delegate count to 217.  Attention has now turned to the next big prize – a winner-takes-all in California on June 5. In order for Romney to secure the nomination by then, he would need to acquire a 60% share of the remaining delegates up for grabs between now and then. This would require a better performance than the one witnessed on Super Tuesday, in which he grabbed nearer 50%.

Furthermore, the upcoming states of Mississippi and Alabama are southern, conservative states likely to play into the hands of Gingrich and Santorum.

On the other side of the sandwich of possibilities, in order for second place man Santorum to win the nomination he will need over 50% of the remaining delegates between now and the convention, and 15% above and beyond the average polling level he has been scoring during his best stretch of the campaign.

Such figures suggest that Romney will inevitably achieve the nomination, but with the contest being drawn out until the very end, unless the chasing pack unify around a single anti-Romney candidate who may be able to command the majority of future delegates. At present this looks like Santorum, although Gingrich may strike back with his plans in the Southern states to place himself in a bargaining position with Santorum.

What is for sure is that if a candidate drops out, the rules are complex in regards to who their delegates then pledge their votes to. These calculations depend on party rules, which vary on a state-by-state basis. Some redistribute the votes amongst the remaining candidates evenly, and others release their delegates from any pledge, giving them the freedom to vote for who they want. Often, these ‘freed’ delegates end up voting for the contender who wins their retired candidate’s endorsement.

It remains to be seen whether any chasing candidate can build up a bloc of delegates to muscle the nomination. Much depends on these delegates’ perceptions of how Santorum and Gingrich perform in the upcoming contests. Once again, the election has become a case of wait and see.

Alex Adranghi is a Young Fabians member

Why men need to engage with International Women’s Day

James Hallwood is the Young Fabian Equalities Officer:

International Women’s Day should speak as much to men as it does to women. The challenge for equality and the pride in women’s accomplishments should be relevant to all genders. Men should feel involved with the topics explored on IWD and, importantly, should be welcomed in doing so.

A successful equalities agenda relies on an appeal beyond the immediate group concerned. One doesn’t have to be a woman to be able to empathise with the needs of women, just as one doesn’t have to be gay to support gay rights. And just as straight families attend Pride parades so too should men feel at ease in joining in with IWD.

It can be too easy to think of the women’s movement dualistically, as something inherently opposed to a men’s movement. As if a growth in women’s rights somehow detracts from a man’s, or on the other extreme that men alone are the cause of women’s problems. Neither of these are the case.

Driving up the rights of women does not detract from men’s, but can very often lead to enhancing their rights as well. Just as maternity leave set the precedent for paternity leave, so too can the growth of women’s rights across the globe benefit the brothers of the women we champion.

In recognising the challenges women face across the world it is also critical to see a role for men in standing by their sisters. Many of the worst excesses brought on women are from highly sexist patriarchal regimes like that of Saudi Arabia. But it would do the movement a huge disservice to simplistically present a worldview of men versus women.

Regrettably, women across the globe are often complicit, indeed often active, in the persecution of other women. The narrative, therefore, cannot be about an innate conflict between the genders; that would not only be false but also damaging to the interests of those women who suffer.

Progress relies on engaging with men at home and abroad – on a simple logistical level double the help benefits the cause, but on a deeper level we cannot hope to tackle deep-seated inequalities without men and women standing together and bettering the world for each other. We need understanding and we need dialogue.

Both men and women suffer from the constraints of traditional patriarchal societies, the enforcing of strict gender roles and emphasis on the differences rather than the similarities between them. Old models and outdated thought require men and women to stand hand-in-hand in opposing them.

Men have to stand up and be counted –sending a strong message across the world to those men that degrade, oppress and mistreat women. Women suffer huge inequalities, often at the hands of men, sometimes from fellow women.

International Women’s Day is less about apportioning blame than it is about looking at the challenges that face women and tackling them, so year on year we move that step further to full equality.

On International Women’s Day we must follow the cause our sisters are leading. Only together can we change things for the better.

Kate Green: Young women inspire me

Kate Green MP is Shadow Equalities Minister:

Young Fabian women will be particularly pleased that the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day which we’re marking this week is “Connecting girls, Inspiring Futures”. It’s good to see this focus on the role and potential of young women.

Young women today make a huge contribution to our society. I’m immensely impressed at their achievements, their ambitions, and their concern for their sisters around the world. Just a few weeks ago, for example, young women from Flixton Girls High School in my own constituency visited parliament to talk to me about their participation in the “Send my Sister to School” campaign. Young women from my constituency ably represent their peers in the Youth Parliament and in the local youth cabinet. Young women are active in local community groups, getting involved in a host of projects and campaigns that cut right across the generations. They work hard, speak out about what they care about, and are a great asset to our community.

When I see how much young people put in, I’m all the more determined that they should get a fair deal from society. It’s why I believe young women (and men) should have a voice in our voting system – I’m a strong supporter of votes at 16, combined with good quality citizenship education in our schools. But it’s also why I want every young woman to be able to fulfil her potential, make the most of her education, go on to get the job she wants, have the relationship she wants, form a family if and when she chooses, and enjoy every aspect of her life.

It worries me that, under this government, women’s choices are going backwards. Disproportionate cuts to services women rely on, including services for women fleeing violence and abuse; jobs that women excel at and are able to progress in being hardest hit by the Government; axing the education maintenance allowance and imposing a huge hike in student fees; increasing childcare costs with decreasing support (and worrying reports about the future of Care to Learn that enables young mums to carry on with their education) ; reductions in street lighting that make our communities feel less safe and take no account of the impact on young women, who are deterred from going out and about; attempts to make it more complicated to access abortion services – all these are limiting the chances, freedom and opportunities of young women.

But I’m really heartened by the number of young women who want to be involved in the fightback, proud to call themselves feminists, organising and campaigning on everything. From Laura Nelson’s brilliant campaign to stop Hamleys from separating girls’ toys and boys’ toys, to the Manchester women who stood vigil to protest at violence against women on a freezing cold Friday evening, to student protests about education cuts and fee increases, we’re certainly hearing young women’s voices.

I’m proud to work and campaign with so many dynamic, determined, principled young women. You inspire, enthuse and energise me, and I truly appreciate your friendship. Today, this special day for all women to celebrate, everywhere, let me take the opportunity to wish a Happy International Women’s Day to you all.

Tackling inequality at home and abroad

Seema Malhotra MP is the founder of the Fabian Women’s Network:

Today is International Women’s Day, and this afternoon I will be speaking up for the needs of women and our aspirations for the progress of women all over the world in the House of Commons debate on IWD.

At an international level, there is still grave inequality and a gender imbalance in the key areas of education, employment, and decision-making. At home in the UK we have gone some way to eliminate gender gaps in access to education: but there is still an uneven playing field in employment and decision-making roles favouring men, as seen by the lack of women sitting in corporate boardrooms and in senior economic positions. We know also that women are being hardest hit under this Tory-led Government, and bearing two thirds of the deficit cuts that will result in fewer women in work and able to support themselves with consequent reduction in power in the home and workplace.

When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life. On International Women’s Day, I call on all of us to act with renewed urgency to address the gender imbalances across the world, and see greater social and economic progress.

Gender gaps in access to education have narrowed, but disparities remain high in university-level education and in some developing regions, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia. In these regions, only 67 and 76 girls per 100 boys, respectively, are enrolled in tertiary education ¹. Completion rates also tend to be lower among women than men.

Poverty is the main cause of unequal access to education, particularly for girls of secondary-school age. Women and girls in many parts of the world are forces to spend many hours fetching water, and girls often do not attend school because of a lack of decent sanitation facilities.

Studies also show that a mother’s education level is one of the main determinants of under-five mortality rates: a problem which devastates women across the globe. The UK should focus on these fragile states, and provide predictable, long term funding and education. Educated mothers make better choices regarding nutrition and health care for themselves and their children, and overall their children tend to be healthier than those of uneducated women.

Despite progress being made in education internationally, men continue to outnumber women in paid employment, and women are often relegated to vulnerable forms of employment. Even when women are employed, they are typically paid less and have less financial and social security than men- this is true for UK. Women are more likely than men to be in vulnerable jobs- characterized by inadequate earnings, low productivity and substandard working conditions.

An area of grave inequality in balance of power between the genders the can be seen in international Parliaments and Boardrooms: key decision-making positions.

Despite growing numbers of women parliamentarians, equal participation of women and men in politics remains far off. At the end of January 2011, the UN estimated that women worldwide held 19% of seats in single or lower houses of parliament worldwide.

The UK is currently ranked 53rd in the world in terms of female representation in Parliament with 145 female MPs, or 22.3% of the lower chamber ². It is a statistic we must work to change but will take a lifetime. Malawi, Pakistan and Senegal are just some of the countries which have greater female representation in politics.

Boardroom gender diversity is even more appalling. EU figures show that across the EU only 12% of board members at large listed companies are women, well below the 40% threshold targeted by Brussels ³. Latest figures show that one in 10 of Britain’s biggest firms still have all-male boards, and just 15% of FTSE 100 directors are women ⁴.

International Women’s Day is a chance to remind ourselves of the urgent need to address gender inequality at home and around the world, and the part that all men and women have to play in that. The Young Fabians and Young Fabian Women as next generation political leaders can play an enormous part in keeping gender politics a core part of progressive politics, and being champions for change in their lifetime.

1. We Can End Poverty 2015 Millennium Development Goals, UN Summit, 20-22 September 2010, New York
2. http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
3. ‘EU to push quota plans for women on boards’, Financial Times, page 1 (Monday 5th March)
4. David Cameron won’t rule out boardroom quotas http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16958852

Are we facing Generation Crisis?

There is a feeling that this generation are losing out. Last year saw youth unemployment hit 1 million, the number of young people not in Education, Employment or Training rose by 12% and another 500,000 children entered poverty raising the total to 3 million.

Even those currently safe from the economic storm are facing problems their parents would never had dreamed of. The average age of first home ownership is now 39 and applications to university have plummeted 15% on the back of sky high tuition fees and pension reform means our generation working for longer, contributing far more and receiving a lot less than previous generations.

Just look at what is happening to welfare reform which has singled out young people, children now exclusively a financial burden on the State rather than our national future.

Nationally the Government’s economic plan has so far failed on two accounts: to generate growth and employment, and to cut the deficit in any meaningful sense. In fact the Government expects to borrow another £111bn over the next four years, the years of austerity will leave us with £24bn in borrowing – around the same as Alastair Darling forecast in his last budget.

But, after austerity, what? There is a growing feeling among young people that our generation has been sold down the river, that the social costs and benefits have been distributed unfairly between generations and that it is young people today who are being forced to pay. Any necessary pain now isn’t being paired with any promise about tomorrow.

2012 is the year for these questions. Whilst the UK and London gear up for the international showcase that is the Olympics, to showcase all that is best of British, we are wondering what legacy will have been secured after the £9.3bn has been spent and the world moves on? The year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, should be the year not just for celebrating all that is great about Great Britain but also when we mark our commitment to make Britain better.

What should make us worry is the feeling that young people are losing the sense that parliamentary democracy can deliver social change. Fewer young people voted in the last general election than at any time since the war. The riots last August hinted at a worrying growth in social alienation among many young people. And international Occupy movements, having taken these debates out of political institutions and onto the streets, are now being moved on.

We don’t think any of this is good enough.

That is why we’re launching this years Young Fabian policy commissions under the banner of ‘Generation Crisis?’. These commissions will be looking at the key challenges facing our generation now, but also what future challenges our generation should get ready to tackle. We’ll be looking not just at the issues young people in the UK face, but also at the issues that young people are facing around the world and how we can support/learn from them.

The UK faces a turning point: a future where more will have to be done with less. A society where being left behind is a reality, where, unless we take action, inequality will dictate the lives of a generation and their children. A world potentially less confident and less open.

Or something different. That is where you can help.

If you are a Young Fabian member and are interested in chairing one of our commissions this year then please apply here before the 14th March.

If you would like to sign up to take part in the commissions then email Vincenzo Rampulla at vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk and find out how you can make 2012 the year we work out how to stop the crisis.

By Vincenzo Rampulla and Claire Leigh, Young Fabian Executive

The End of Occupy?

The tents are gone, the protestors dispersed.

In the early hours of Tuesday Occupy LSX was scourged from the courtyard of St. Paul’s after a brief clash between the remaining occupiers and their evictors. As London entered the gloomy half-light of morning, police officers and bailiffs working for the City of London Corporation had dismantled the camp and, in the words of the Occupy London Press Team “displaced a small community”.

Occupy LSX has become just the latest casualty in a struggle being played out globally between governments and the Occupy movement. In 2011, Occupy took the whole world by surprise, challenging traditional notions of ‘public space’, confronting the titans of capitalism in their own urban heartlands, and opening up a new political front against corporate greed and austerity.

However, as autumn turned to winter the strength of the movement began to ebb away. Members of the various encampments spotted across the globe started to leave, some because of disillusionment, some because of pressing personal commitments- most of all because of sheer exhaustion. Public interest and support for the movement also waned, as newspapers began to note the slow transformation of the occupations from thriving centres of intellectual, political, and philosophical activism into unkempt shanty-towns. Occupy Wall Street- the original protest established in New York in September- was forced to abandon its encampment in Zuccotti Park after police in helmets and riot gear swooped on the plaza in the small hours of the morning of 15^th November.

Now Occupy Wall Street’s London cousin has succumbed to a similar fate. The most energetic, vocal and public protest against corporate greed was scrubbed from the face of the capital on the same day it was announced that Barclay’s bank must pay the Treasury £500 million in dodged taxes.

This delicious twist of irony serves as a reminder of the purpose at the heart of Occupy, and as a rallying call for the Left. The St Paul’s protest was unique. It consciously grounded the debate about the future of capitalism in a physical space, and demanded public and corporate engagement by claiming ownership of a part of a city that serves as a nexus for the financial, religious, and political forces of the country.

The sheer physicality of Occupy was its defining feature. Some have attempted to highlight the incongruity of such a style of protest, claiming that encampments effectively ‘privatise’ public space, and prevent the free enjoyment of parks, plazas and pavements by all. However, what Occupy has really done is forced a reappraisal of what public space can and should be used for. It should be for political discussion; it should be for people to congregate and communicate; most of all it should be for campaigning. In a country in which political expression has become increasingly monopolised by a professional clique and sectioned off into a handful of buildings buried in the nation’s capital, is there any wonder that people resort to the streets?

The physical presence of Occupy may be gone, but- as the St Paul’s protestors insist- you can’t evict an idea. Traditional centres of progressive change should seek to provide a new home for it. Labour is already responding to some of the questions asked of politics and economics in a post-Occupy Britain. There is a determination to devolve power from the leader’s office and back into representative structures like CLPs and the NEC. The party is striving to reach out to politically active members of the public by sponsoring community organisers like Movement for Change. Labour’s new economic policy is about ethics and fair distribution (in pre- and re- forms) rather than about wooing multi-millionaires in the City.

If Occupy is an idea whose time has come, then Labour needs to stay relevant to the broad range of left-wing thinkers and doers in Britain who need a new place to call their own, or risk losing the support it needs to reclaim the country.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

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