Willetts’ promises on careers services bang on the money.
In an interview, David Willetts, the shadow secretary for innovation, universities and skills, said: “The careers service has collapsed under Labour … and it helps explain the problems we’ve got with social mobility in this country. There is a massive information and advice problem here and it’s actually getting worse.”
The Tories plan to set up an all-age careers service that would advise teenagers at school and people throughout their working lives. It would replace the careers advice offered to teenagers by Connexions, the service run by local authorities, and complement both Jobcentre Plus for adults and teacher advice to pupils.
Poor or non-existent careers advice had allowed many people to take A-levels inappropriate to the university degrees to which they aspired or to choose degrees unsuitable for their ideal careers, Mr Willetts said.
The problem is when students don’t get suitable careers advice and end up not picking suitable A-Levels for their choice of university/career/life simply because no-one told them what the implications of their choice were, something. I’ve talked about before where poor students are ‘conned’ into doing degrees that are little value to them, and are let down by the poor career advice offered by Connexions- take note it was a Labour government that abolished the previous successful service.
In theory there should be cross party support for the policy as it’s previously been called for by James Frith on LabourList, but seeing as there’s been no announcement from the government for a measure such as this it’s vital for social mobility, as well as Britain’s competitiveness it gets implemented on way or the other – preferably by a Conservative government.
Is Kevan Jones one of the ‘minions of hell’?
You might have thought that our Prime Minister had learned the hard way that playing the man rather than the ball hasn’t done him much good in the past, but it seems that Labour’s reputation for bullying and smearing those who dare to question its record is about to plumb new depths – for even soldiers are now in the Government’s firing line.
Earlier this year, we heard that the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt – a man who has given a lifetime of selfless service to this country – had been declared by a minister to be “fair game” for political attacks in his retirement. General Dannatt, you see, wasn’t all that happy with Labour’s appalling neglect of the Armed Forces, and dared to speak out about pay, equipment and conditions. Clearly, as far as our increasingly vindictive Government is concerned, this meant that the General absolutely had to be discredited.
Should we find it a surprise he was one of the forces of hell unleashed against Alistair Darling?
Durham MP Kevan Jones said: ‘The Chancellor and the rest of the Cabinet should start talking the Government up, not down. The economic picture is a mixed picture, it is not all black.’
Given that Jones of starting a smear campaign on Brown’s behest, we should be taking Brown’s denial all the less seriously, and more into whether Jones is one of Brown’s ‘minions of hell’.
The most important Brown accusation.
Mr Darling was also unhappy with the “random demands for money” made by Mr Brown after he moved into Number 10, with the Prime Minister making promises of financial assistance “to just about every union, industry or other lobby group knocking on the door”.
Chances are it’s been mentioned before in political circles, but if it has there’s never been much hay made out of it. With the exception of possibly Peter Mandelson and to an extent Jack Straw it is quite obvious that Gordon Brown personally makes every single major decision, and each and every decision was designed to preserve his precarious position as Prime Minister. The money given to the TUC being the most recent - most and expensive pay off showed Gordon Brown is an opportunist, not a national leader, the accusations that need to be made of Brown aren’t for his outbursts, but for his caving in to the slightest bit of pressure out of fear and no doubt there’s more than can be exposed.
A salute to James Purnell.
“One of the realisations for me … has been that you can have a moderate centre-left ideology; it just means being clear about what your values are, what your ideas about society are and what your methods for getting there are.”
I don’t think loyalty to political parties should be found in their manifesto - I will be voting Tory because I know that I will find agreement with their day-to-day governing and, should any issues arise which require major action, that they will act in a similar way to me because we share certain fundamental ideals. The Tory party has many of the right ideas, especially the core values of individual liberty.
There was a broad agreement in the House of Comments that in this day and age there isn’t influence to be found in Parliament, what then are the means we use to produce change in society? Yes Minister, as always comes to mind:
Cathy: As a Cabinet Minister, with all this power, what have you personally achieved?
Jim: Achieved? Well, all sorts of things. Membership of the Privy Council, membership of the party policy committee …
Cathy: No, I mean things you’ve actually done, that makes life better for other people.
Jim: Make life better? For other people? There must be a number of things. Well after all that’s what one’s job is all about, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.
Cathy: Could you give me one or two examples, though?
Typically? Not much at all, which makes me all the happier than James Purnell has stood down, embraced his belief that ‘lefties should love markets’ and now he’s taken his own motto and is pressing on to help those most in need.
There is a place for Parliament in creating a better future, but for party members that won’t be achieved by simply stuffing leaflets through doors, winning elections, then sniping at each other continiously – the sort of thing which puts people off politics. Any party can create the framework for ideas to flourish, it’s up to the people that care about them to make it reality.
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Why do left wing hacks refer to “Conservative economics” as ‘Hooverite’?
Some of the claims are bizarre. Firstly; Hoover didn’t “do nothing.” Neither did he cut early. That’s historically incorrect. From the memoirs of Hoover himself;
“We developed cooperation between the federal, state, and municipal governments to increase public works. We persuaded employers to “divide” time among their employees so that as many as possible would have some incomes. We organized the industries to undertake renovation, repair, and, where possible, expand construction.”
Again, in his memoirs, Hoover states that he rejected “leave it alone” policies. Hoover himself was an interventionist & a spender. I’m interested in seeing evidence that shows historically where Hoover applied laissez-faire policy.
Total Federal Government outlays as % of GNP
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n2-2.html
Secondly:
Notice some things
1929-1933, I.e. Hoover’s presidency, Government spending rises , almost twice as much as in 1928. So much for laissez-faire, eh? And the 1937 “cut” in spending
Tackling nonsense claims the Conservative Party are homophobic.
One thing that drives me mad when looking at blogs and twitter feeds especially from Labour quarters is their insistence that the Tory party are going to take away the rights of homosexuals, heck they’re going to expand rights on asylum, and on giving blood.
The idea Tories “fought against civil partnerships” and other gay rights is completely untrue. Not just because Alan Duncan helped steer the bill through Parliament, but also because the voting figures for Tory MPs show completely to the contrary.
Gay rights have never been party poltical. Indeed, when IDS tried to make gay rights party political, the party rebelled: a fair number actively voted against the whip over gay adoption, and many more abstained – including several shadow ministers
Homosexual “activities” were decriminalised in Scotland in 1981, under a Conservative government, although that was quite some time later than in England. and Tory MP Edwina Currie proposed equalising the age of consent in 1994, but was narrowly defeated by both Tory and Labour votes (including David Blunkett). William Hague supported the amendment.
We also probably have the most active LGBT platform within a mainstream political party, I’d personally like to see Labour partisans tackle them over their claims the Tories are homophobic. (Here’s a clue, they wouldn’t win the argument.)