Talk of the 99% and the 1% is Disingenuous

By Chris Grezo.

In some ways, the Left is a victim of its own success. Thanks to the toil of progressives over the decades and centuries, policies that were once thought of as radical nonsense are now part of the basic consensus across the political spectrum: free education for children, state pensions, universal healthcare, votes for non-land-owners, national insurance, the weekend, social housing, sick pay and so on. The last two centuries of Western history have been marked by victory after victory for progressives.

But of course with each victory won, there is one less battle to be fought, and one less segment of society that needs the Left. A good example of this is the demise of the Liberal Party in the 20^th Century. Once the largest party in the UK, it shrank and dwindled to nothing after its main goal of votes for women was achieved. The liberal men and women who had supported the party no longer needed it, as they had attained what they wanted, and the party became irrelevant.

Where once the Left was clearly aligned with the vast majority of the population, it now finds itself more frequently fighting the corner of minorities. When it comes to the simple, tangible issues, the majority have what they want out of politics. You can no longer be fired for having a working class accent, your boss isn’t allowed to pinch your bottom, you won’t starve to death if you lose your job, you don’t have to doff your cap to aristocrats, there’s a legal minimum wage, and so on.

Many of the battles that progressives have left are more nuanced than in the past, or affect less people. Take the need for better regulation of the financial sector. This is not a clear, simple issue like universal healthcare. Almost no one really knows what is meant by “better regulation”, and it’s not a very tangible issue, despite its importance. It’s very hard for an ordinary person to feel the passion about financial regulation that an ordinary person might have felt about universal healthcare in the 1930s. Or take the poor treatment of disabled people by our current right wing government: the sad fact is most people aren’t affected by this, and it won’t change their voting habits.

The reality is that in 2013, only a third of the population feel strongly about contemporary left-wing issues, about a third feel strongly right wing, and everyone in the middle doesn’t really care. In some ways, this is something the Left should celebrate. The fact that people are so comfortable that they don’t need to think about politics is a sign of how things have changed for the better over the last century. But obviously this isn’t a very satisfying state of affairs for us left-wingers who make up a third of the population. There are important goals yet to be achieved: we need more social workers to stop kids being abused, better educational opportunities for the underprivileged, better treatment of the disabled,  a penal system that reforms prisoners, and many other important changes. But with so many people benefiting from previous progressive victories content to slumber in front of their TVs, it’s difficult to rally the crowds or get anyone to listen.

 And so left-wingers long for days gone by, when it was the masses against the classes, the people against the elite, everyone pulling as one. This leads to the wishful thinking of the so-called “99%”. Many left-wingers use this rhetoric to try to get everyone on side, to kid themselves that “the people” all want left-wing policies. Difficult debate is avoided: it’s instructive to note the increasing use of the phrase ‘super-rich’ instead of ‘rich’. The phrase is used because arguing for more tax on the super-rich offends almost no one, because the term applies to almost no one. But that’s just a cop out; higher taxes on the 1% are not going to solve all our problems. Left-wing policies require a lot more sacrifice than pressing a magic button labelled tax-the-super-rich.

Even moderate left-wing policies require higher taxes not only on the super-rich, but on the rich, and the upper-middles classes too. If, like me for example, you would like to decrease class sizes in failing inner-city schools to give the kids there a fair chance at life, you are committed to spending a very large amount of money. And that’s just one of a huge range of policies us left-wingers want. Many of these policies require sacrifices on the part of the top half of society to help the bottom half. And that’s why a huge chunk of the population hate these policies: because they don’t want to make that sacrifice. Contemporary left-wing issues are not about surfs who make up 99% of the population battling against the oppression of the Lords in their manors – those days are gone. Contemporary left-wing issues are about the fact that a family earning £100K a year while living in the leafy suburbs don’t want to shorten the length of their skiing holiday to pay for extra teachers at a grubby inner-city school that they’ve never heard of. And it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. We are not the 99%, we are the 30%.

Chris Grezo is a Young Fabians Member.

“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.

The difficulty with class politics in 21st century Britain

By Sam Blyth.

I read with interest the news that Ed Miliband wants to make Parliament less middle class and more representative of the country as a whole. This is a welcome announcement but one that has been bandied about for years with little progress. Part of the reasoning behind this is the difficulty in determining what middle class really is. It has been debated countless times as first people aspired to move in to that middle class bracket before, more recently, there appeared to be a surge in the opposite direction with many proclaiming themselves of working class origin – a strange anomaly at a time of austerity, perhaps in recognition of the need to be more humble and less boastful at a time when the country faces the prospect of a Coalition inspired triple dip recession.

Miliband’s comments have made me question where I fit in to a class structure that still evidently appears to have a grip on 21^st century Britain. I work in a ‘skilled’ profession, I have a Masters degree from a well renowned university, I go abroad on holiday, I have aspirations to buy a home at some point in the not too distant future even though the rent on my current flat and consistently increasing house prices in London, where I live, means that this is becoming less obtainable by the day. All of these things in the traditional parameters of class definition would suggest that I am well and truly middle class.

But what about my upbringing? I grew up in inner-city Coventry. My mother and father worked night shifts when I was growing up so that they could provide for my brother and me. My uncles and grandfather all worked in the factories of the industrial Midlands. I went to a city comprehensive. On my father’s side at least, my brother was the first in the family to go to University, I was the second. All this taught me two things – one that I had a loving, caring family and second that I was from a working class background and proud of it.

So, what does that mean I am? Middle class or working class? Somewhere in between probably. And this is the problem that Miliband’s well-intentioned comments create. The country’s class structure is too fluid to be able to truly define those Victorian terms any more.

Don’t get me wrong, diversification of Parliament is great. But defining a working class candidate is a lot more difficult than defining a minority candidate, a LBGT candidate or a female candidate. Personally, I believe we should do away with shortlisting based on the above criteria and instead have open primaries where the best person regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or class will come out on top. I think the voters will appreciate that system more which can only be of benefit to Labour in the run up to 2015.

Sam Blyth in a Young Fabians member

Votes at 16

By Caroline Mortimer.

It’s the age old argument.  Young people don’t care about politics so they should have no say in who our politicians are. The ideal electorate is rational, thoughtful and takes their time to research their options before going into the polling booth.

So the argument goes that because young people can be irrational and uninterested they should be denied the same civil rights as others. However, if you are going to disqualify 16-18 year olds based on this basis alone, you’d have to disqualify half the British population.

The argument against lowing the age of enfranchisement is based on a notion of youth inferiority. For all our talk about the decline of deference since the end of the Second World War the notion of ‘respecting your elders’ remains hard to budge.

While there is some sense in the idea that young people don’t know anything they just think they do, history tells us age rarely brings wisdom.

In truth, young people being incapable of making adult, rational decisions is just an excuse for their continued marginalisation from public life.

Conservative MP Chloe Smith, the current Constitutional Affairs Minister, said whilst responding to the debate,

“We ought not to be looking to amend something as important as the electoral franchise without a clear case for that change.”

One in five young people are unemployed. 76 per cent of people under 20 earn less than living wage. This year, university tuition fees went up to £9000 per year. According to the Prince’s Trust one in ten feel they ‘cannot cope with everyday life’. If there was ever a time to push through this sort of reform, this would be it.

Young people are supposedly becoming the ‘Lost Generation’. The government has to act now if we are going to avoid the twin demons of long term unemployment and debt. However it will continue to be blinkered by short term political opportunism if it continues to be unanswerable to this precarious section of society.

‘No taxation without representation’ was the clarion call of the Boston Tea Party back in the eighteenth century which ushered in a new way of thinking about popular enfranchisement.

The call has been replicated in Britain with the argument that if a young person is subject to the law of the land, can fight and die for it overseas and gets taxed to uphold it, they should have a say in what laws are made.

This is met with derision by the anti young enfranchisement lobby by conducting a hypothetical scenario where a ten year old goes to the shop and pays tax on the sweets they buy. However this focus on VAT is misdirection.

In strict economic terms, VAT is considered a voluntary tax (even though it doesn’t seem that way) on luxuries which are deemed non-essential (this is why you pay VAT on sweets but not on fruit and vegetables). You don’t have to pay it if you don’t want to. Income tax on the other hand, is non voluntary. It is levied by the state and no one can avoid it by not buying certain goods.

Therefore the only way to have some control over how much you pay is through political enfranchisement.

Equally it is unlikely that ten year old child is spending their own money. Apart from the anomalies like child actors and paper rounds most people start work at 16 these days, most ten year olds get money from their parents or carers, and ergo it is them that is ultimately paying the tax.

Similar to the Boston Tea Party proclamation, Clause 12 of the Magna Carta signed in 1215: ‘No scutage or aid shall be imposed without the common consent of the kingdom’ is what should lie at the heart of this. This decree was supposedly what started the long road to parliamentary democracy in this country.

Originally it only applied to a handful of privileged barons but it is the great enduring legacy of British history that this enfranchisement was incrementally increased to cover all men and then all women. Let’s not stop until it until it includes young as well as old.

Caroline Mortimer is a Young Fabians Member.

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.

Buckling up for NHS duel in 2015

By Adebusuyi Adeyemi.

When things fall apart, you can half expect some form of trouble-shooting to go down. Like the old westerns, the heroes stride into town, gather intel, draws guns at dawn and then saunters off into the sunset. In the world of computer hackers, the FBI browse hacker forums, recruit the best and the rest is declassified, possibly to be memorialised in a Hollywood film. However, with the NHS, well intentioned ‘heroes’ [read governments] often trouble-shoot in the wrong saloon, forget to consult the sage old bar managers or replace town sheriffs with bank managers. Envisaging and creating problems where there are few.

For example, the latest changes to the NHS from the Coalition Government have given way to a deficiency in experience at the NHS – particularly in managers involved in strategic planning. The new organisations will take time to get settled, notably, new clinical commissioning groups that may not be able to keep a grip on systems such as finances. For instance, the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement is just one of the many bodies that helped the NHS to improve performance but is now being dissolved. Things may fall apart even further. Don’t let the mid-term reviews fool you.

Besides being the title of the award winning African novel, when things fall apart is often the signal for trouble-shooters to start loading their pistols. But things aren’t always mended as soon as they fall apart. You live with my dad long enough you’ll realise that. You may also realise how long you can go watching ‘Downtown Abbey’ with a blue hue on a broken TV, but that’s by the by! It is not necessary everyone accepts the miss-firings of the coalition government, then hold up badly hit targets to the towns’ people. However, one must work in the trappings of a democratic society and one suspect’s opposition leaders see no electoral benefit in this fight right now. Although Ed Miliband challenged David Cameron over NHS spending last month, a real fight may be some way away. Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham did slam the Coalition’s record on the NHS but latest developments hint strongly at waiting for further mishaps from the coalition government before taking this issue up in earnest.  What exactly will fall apart even further?

Well, these latest NHS debate(s) have not matured yet, least because policy changes have not yet bought new evidence to analyze. This may explain why it hasn’t made headlines recently. Nonetheless, for those outside of the politicking, this should mean looking for the upcoming risks and the opportunities to make the best of a bad situation.

More liberal minds focused on the value of public service and collective action (a la ‘One Nation’) may say the expression “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply to conservatives walking around with hammers. Sage NHS minds may agree (if they’re not the one and the same) and say the NHS hasn’t been helped with £1.6bn being diverted away from patient care to back-office restructuring.

It’s critical the best is made of a potential worsening situation and one of the opportunities this restructuring may provide is for reduction of health inequalities. At the risk of over-extending the Old Western metaphor, local authorities have been given bigger wagon wheels (i.e. greater roles). So, as a King’s Fund mid-term report puts it, ‘this could lead to greater efforts to tackle the wider determinants of health and reduce inequalities’.

It appears David Cameron was more concerned with changing the Tory brand and so made promises on the NHS he has no strong desire to fulfil. In the noisy and continuing debate over NHS reform, left-leaning minds with a genuine regard for a progressive NHS would do well to keep their trouble-shooting hats on and stay on the rodeo. Every commentator has a different take on how the new NHS will work and which new bodies will have the most power when it all kicks off in April 2013.

The Young Fabian Health Network aims to support the formulation of policies that will reverse any damage done by 2015, so let’s make our voices heard. Members of the Young Fabian’s Health Network have the passion, experience and ideas to lead this. If you have an opinion, do get in touch either giving your thoughts in the comments section below or dropping us a line at healthnetwork@youngfabians.org.uk. The Health Network works best by pooling the ideas and thoughts of many different stakeholders together, so buckle up and think about getting involved. Yeehaw!

Adebusuyi Adeyemi is Chair of the Health Network.

Why are young people locked out of economic and political systems?

At the Young Fabian Jobs Plan held in Manchester yesterday, Victoria Desmond explained how and why youth unemployment must be tackled now. Here, she describes how young people’s economic and political troubles are closely entwined.

Youth unemployment is at epidemic levels. One million 16- 25 years olds have no job. This has the potential to leave a long-lasting impact on the lives of an entire generation, but also has implications for the wider economy. Long term unemployment has detrimental effects on productivity and output, diminishes skills and wastes talent. As young people, we are the ones most affected by the economic crisis; however we are also the ones least likely to engage in the political system, and be engaged by politicians.

Many commentators such as Guardian journalist Shiv Malik go as far as to name us the “jilted generation”; not only are we ignored by the system, but we are wilfully locked-out of the policy debate by those in power.

At a time of acute economic difficulty, this is unacceptable. However, many young people do not make the connection between economic issues, in terms of pay or employment, and political participation, or realise that political participation is vital for the promotion of economic interests.

Alternatively, many young people simply perceive economists and politicians to be in cahoots with the ‘bad banker guys’ who bankrupted the system. Simply put, the majority of young people think that economics relates to money and banks, whilst politics relates to a remote, and disconnected distribution of power in the hands of elites.

Helping young people develop a better understanding of the connection between economics and politics is paramount. The problem that this alludes to is both educational and representational; a key reason why young are locked out of economic and political systems is simply lack of knowledge. Young people should grasp that they are already at a disadvantage because of these systems but that the opportunities to become more engaged exist.

They could be helped to this realisation if the mainstream media bothered to connect questions of economic disadvantage with issues of political representation. News outlets rarely present issues such as the living wage as both a political and economic project that has a real impact on young people’s lives.

Perhaps we can make up for failures of the mainstream media by embracing our status as the ‘socially connected generation’. Of course, there are many accessible forms of engagement; for instance we can follow our elected representative on Twitter, I can ‘like’ the “We hate David Cameron” Facebook page, and I can sign a petition in less than a minute to support the latest campaign fad.

Engagement with social media is important, but we have to accept that there are limits to what it can achieve. Sometimes we miss the obvious fact that those who engage politically on social networks are the same people who engage in the political system anyway.

In addition, when young people who do not usually get involved in politics do take part in an online campaign, they too often limit their participation to a quick tweet or a one-off email. They contribute too little and get back even less from the experience. In light of this, a question we should ask is: ‘when do social networks trivialise political debate to such an extent that it actually harms the cause of further engagement?’

Despite technological advances, it remains the responsibility of political organisations to engage the younger generation. We all know groups that have long mailing lists and comfortable membership numbers, yet still have a problem in getting these people to move from more casual or passive engagement to proactive commitment.

When push comes to shove, political organisations need people to attend events, campaign on the streets and devote time to recruiting new members. Otherwise, a terminal decline in participation is inevitable. People who are already engaged must remember that they have a social responsibility to attract new members – particularly younger members – to ensure future generations reap the benefit of a thriving political culture.

This also means rethinking the terms, themes and direction of campaigns toward younger audiences. We also have to take a critical look at ourselves in the mirror and ask: ‘are we the ones to blame for disenfranchising a generation?’

It’s easy to list the problems facing young people today. Finding serious policy solutions that can be framed and presented on young people’s terms is ultimately the best way to address the twin issues of political disengagement and economic vulnerability.

The father of Burmese heroine Aung Sang Su Kui once said: “you may not think about politics, but politics thinks of you.” The answers that we are looking for are not to be found in a convoluted political thesis or a miracle equation.

The key to solving the lack of active engagement is to go back to basics. Remind people of this simple quote. Perhaps if they feel more connected to political and economic systems they will be more inclined to engage. We need to start talking to a wider audience in a more accessible language, stop debating with ourselves and turn our attention to the people who don’t think that politics is for them.

When they start believing politics can bring real change, the seeds of engagement will be planted and perhaps then my generation can stand up for itself and make our voices heard.

Victoria Desmond is a Young Fabians member

Policy Commissions 2012: What is Community?

At our first roundtable policy discussion for the Better, Stronger, Closer Communities Policy Commission, we went – to borrow Sir John Major’s ill-advised phrase – back to basics.

 As part of the Young Fabians research on ‘Generation Crisis’, we’re exploring ways to try and strengthen our communities, ensuring they are places where different generations come together and integrate.

This is not so much Sir John’s infamous ‘country of long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids cycling to holy communion through the morning mist’ (that would probably require the Doc’s DeLorean to recreate), more Tony Blair’s vision of a stakeholder society, ensuring everyone has a stake in their local community.

Before we could get on to questions of how to (re)create this, though, we had to establish what a 21st century community looks like, and how it has evolved over the past fifty years, fuelled by an increasing number of younger people moving away from home for education or employment, and aided by social media and the exorbitant price of property, which means many younger people are now well into to their thirties before buying their first home and settling down in one place.

The fact is, for whatever reason, communities have changed, and from our discussion, it was clear that the very concept of what constitutes a community has evolved. Whereas in decades past communities were traditionally based upon geographical links, that is not necessarily the case nowadays. As long as there is some sort of shared entity or passion amongst members – be that a sport, hobby, political party or band – communities can exist where members have no geographical ties.

Of course, some communities are still based upon where we live, but these tend to be very specific, and often dominated by one age group. Communities based on university friends, for example, whilst ostensibly set around a shared geographical link, lack the sort of inter-generational integration that would exist in many neighbourhood communities. Furthermore, communities established at university are prolonged with the advent of social media, so four friends who study together but end up in different parts of the country can ensure their community survives through Facebook, and Twitter, long after they have ceased living near one another.

Indeed, 21st century communities do not even require a physical presence. Some will have one, such as a regular meeting place or activity, but others might exist purely online, conglomerates of like-minded people united through their broadband cables.

What was also clear from our discussions, is that we all belong to many different communities, and these can overlap, and even clash, the reconciliation of which sometimes necessitates a member leaving a group – or being forcibly removed from it! Fluidity, though, is a key component to our communities, and means that people are constantly moving between different groups.

In certain communities, there are a clear set of rules which members must sign up to. Sometimes these will be written rules, sometimes merely implied. Sometimes the rules will dictate to what extent members can play an active role in the community, sometimes they will prohibit membership entirely if they are not adhered to. Sometimes the unwritten rules might preclude people from joining the community without them even knowing it.

Most communities will have one element that all members must subscribe to – one central belief, value, ideal or interest that unites all who are part of the community – but aside from that (and a regular monetary contribution to enable membership to continue in some cases) members can generally dictate their level of involvement in the community.

In the Labour Party, for example, there is an implicit rule that members subscribe to some form a centre left or left-leaning progressive politics, and members must pay their membership fee. After that, however, members can choose their level of involvement. If they can resist the constant cajoling of their CLP secretary, they can choose to do no more; they may decide to leaflet, canvass, run a street stall or hold a fund-raiser; they may seek elected office as a councillor, MEP or MP; they might even seek election as leader of the Labour Party. But it is their choice. As long as they adhere to the basic requirements, the level of involvement they have is entirely up to them.

At times, our discussion felt more philosophical than policy-based, but what was clear is that our attachment to groups within society remains as strong as ever, it is just that societal and technological change has shifted our concept of what constitutes a community, so most people could name numerous communities to which they belong without mentioning their own neighbourhood.

The challenge for policy makers is to harness this attachment to our own geographical communities, strengthening our neighbourhood communities and bringing different generations together in a way that few other communities do. These are the challenges our policy commission will be considering in forthcoming discussions.

Tobin Byers is a Young Fabians member and Co-Chair of the Better, Stronger, Closer Communities Policy Commission

Life in the Future of Finance Network

Alex Adranghi lets us in in what is involved in running a Young Fabian Network.

Since January I have had the privilege of serving as the Chair of the Future of Finance Network.

The Network, which is in its third year, is the special interest group for finance and economics, mixing the industrial, academic and political worlds into a delightful cauldron of ideas.

As with all three Young Fabian Networks, the work is planned and carried out by its Steering Group. These committees are open to all those who are interested in participating in the year’s activity.

While the Network’s Steering Groups have always put on their own events, this year the Networks have found their own centre of gravity, developing programmes under their own stream with oversight provided by the Young Fabians Executive Committee.

The Future of Finance Network has a very active core. We divide ourselves into topical groups that we call ‘threads’. The idea with threads is that they act as self-contained units that take on specific responsibility for a certain topic, and then develop events and activities around this set theme. These groups are themselves led by a Convenor who oversees the activities.

The group is very supportive of each other’s endeavours – we are an inclusive family. This wonderful culture means that there is always someone there to help out with a problem, whether it’s securing speakers, searching out interesting think-tank reports, or developing event formats. This makes each success the Network undertakes a true team achievement.

As Chair, my role is to facilitate the work of Steering, interface with the Executive Committee, and secure contributions from other individuals and organisations. My day-to-day role involves being there to help others overcome obstacles, provide alterative options, and advise on difficult decisions. In short, my job is to try and make the volunteers that put together our programme happy, and satisfied with their investment of personal time into our projects.

I am also facilitating training workshops and activities outside of London – keep an eye out for further announcements soon on both these fronts. Beyond that, I am a Convenor myself, running the new Anatomy series of interactive roundtables with the next one coming up soon.

We have a lot of exciting projects in the works including: developing fiscal rules for the Labour government, financing affordable and social housing, drafting strategies to keep the City internationally competitive, and discovering what young people desire from the financial industries. The Convenors – Melissa Higgs, Yoni Smith, Jonathan Orde and Lauren O’Toole, have been exceptional in developing their programmes and leading their teams and I encourage you all to keep an eye out for more of their events later in the year.

If you’re interested in participating in our programmes, I highly recommend you sign up to the Network mailing list. For the adventurous, you can join the Steering Group and help develop and run our programme – and you don’t have to be in London to do that!

To do so, get in contact with me at financenetwork@youngfabians.org.uk. Our next steering meeting will be held at Queen’s Ice and Bowl, London, W2 4QL on Tuesday 14 August, followed by a bowling social.

Alex Adranghi is a member of the Young Fabians

Well-being in an era of low growth

In this member post, Charlie Samuda gives us an update from the Future Shocks Policy Commission.

The 2012 YF Policy Commissions are addressing the problems of ‘youth in crisis’. Each of the commissions will deal with a specific political challenge faced by Britain’s young today.

The focus of the Future Shocks commission goes a little beyond the now to the problems this generation will face when they stop being young. Decades of slow growth, a growing population, an ageing demographic and environmental degradation – none of these are simply current issues, and none can be solved over the course of the next Labour government, nor the one after that. But we need to identify the shocks that are waiting over the horizon in order to develop policies that can mitigate the impact of these events before their effects are felt.

The first discussion to be tackled by our policy commission was the long-term consequences of the economic slump on social mobility and individual well-being. The event featured Danny Dorling, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield, who has written widely on social injustice in the UK. The stark conclusion of this discussion was that without policy intervention, the likelihood was that- with the exception of the very highest earners- this and future generations would suffer a deteriorating quality of life.

Taking the longer-term view, Danny pointed out that not only was it likely the gap between working- and middle-class households would grow, but also that there would be an even greater divide between those on middle incomes and those at the very top of the earnings scale. He also claimed that the more salaries increased, the harder it would be to fulfill the goal of full employment. Imagine a senior executive takes on ever longer hours; sure his salary increases, but he doesn’t feel any more fulfilled or work any more productively. In addition, the additional extra work he takes on prevents his organization taking on extra staff.

The difficulties preventing young people getting on the housing ladder have been well documented. However, if you look a little further into the future it is also easy to imagine a world where buying a house (and the security that comes with home ownership) is only open to those with very large amounts of capital, with the remainder of society being trapped in the uncertainty of renting. This thus magnifies the importance of inherited wealth. Those young people who will be able to buy in the future will not be those who only need ‘a bit of help from mum and dad’, but those who have significant levels of wealth passed over to them from a previous generation. It is not hard to imagine the secondary social consequences of such a starkly polarized housing market. The policy group discussed possible remedies in this area that could be achievable over the longer-term, and besides the obvious need for an extensive house building programme, a progressive tax on land was identified as a potential solution.

Finally, the future of skills and education was discussed. Looking at the next 20-30 years, the participants raised concerns about the increasing narrowing of skills occurring in the UK jobs market. We seem to be heading towards an economy where there is only a single – graduate – pathway to a career that provides a decent quality of life and financial security. Instead we should be developing a broader skills base that gives young people the option to be flexible with their further education. One policy proposal was for the government to grant a young person the right to 2-3 years higher education, redeemable up to the age of 30. This education voucher could be used for vocational or job specific training once the individual had identified a career choice they wanted to pursue. This would change the current system where education is ‘front loaded’ before young people enter the jobs market.

The aim of the policy commission is to identify solutions that enable governments to build resilience against these future shocks. With this discussion we are pleased to have begun this conversation. Our next event will discuss the challenges of building a sustainable economy in a carbon constrained world – where a changing climate and deteriorating energy security will shape policy choices. This event will take place on Tuesday 24th July, at 7pm in the Exhibition room at the Geography Department of University College London (entrance on Gower St).

We look forward to keeping to policy conversation going.

Charlie Samuda is a Young Fabians member