The only joker on Lords reform is Jack Straw.
New Labour share remarkable similarities with Old Labour in that they’ve never been prone to widespread theoretical debate indeed – the ongoing prevarication and confusion over House of Lords reform is veering perilously close to being farcical. The idea that this Labour government should be in favour of any reform that removes power from the executive should bring a tear to the eye.
They’ve has never been sure about how precisely the membership of the House of Lords should be determined, and on what basis or according to what criteria although any attempts to strengthen the House of Lords in relation to the House of Commons have invariably been resisted by most Labour leaders. They have however, unhesitatingly accepted that the executive’s policies should ultimately prevail in the House of Commons, the more confident the chamber becomes in blocking government legislation, the more interest there is on the Labour side in limiting its powers. Lords reform – in Labour’s eyes is that so govern unimpeded ahem “efficiently”, rather than about adding further democratic checks.
Likewise, reforms which might either enhance the role and influence of backbenchers in the House of Commons have also been brushed aside “I’m sorry that has not been terribly clear but please don’t be suspicious. It’s just quite complicated,” Harriet Harman told MP’s that were itching to have some meager amounts of power back.
Assuming we take Straw seriously however, there shouldn’t be any doubt that he transition to an elected House, if and when it takes place, will be a complex process. As the White Paper on Lords reform notes the Commons votes and the work of the cross-party group have established a number of points of agreement. These points aren’t agreed by all MPs and certainly not by the majority of members of the Lords – never mind the division on the issue within the Labour party. The only reason that it could have been raised now, and so drastic is to create dividing lines ahead of the election.
Jack Straw noted himself that “Lords reform can come with a heavy political cost”, including “disruption to the legislative programme” For any government, tackling the most serious recession in half a century should be a much higher priority; the Government is open to serious criticism if they allow Parliament to occupy itself with these matters at the cost of postponing urgent measures of social and economic reform it’s time to attack the Government, while maintaining that Lord’s reform is of the upmost priority in the future to allow partnership with the Commons in holding the government to account, not as a rival for power. Once we’ve sorted out Gordon’s mess of course.
Side Byrne’s – 8th March 2010
Matt Wardman has an interview about Micropayments for Bloggers.
Creative Tory unveils the trailer for episode five of ‘Election Wars’.
Matthew Taylor and his Conservative Madrasa horror.
Declan Lyons ponders on the DNA database debate.
Bryony Victoria writes on why we shouldn’t know the details of the Jon Venables case.
What to do with EMA?
When Michael Gove was interviewed in the Guardian he was met with one of the many myths that Ed Balls likes to propagate about Tory policy – that they would abolish EMA, and he happily reaffirmed our commitment to it.
“10. Why has only one Conservative MP signed the early day motion supporting the Education Maintenance Allowance? Many students believe you will scrap it.
Shane Chowen, National Union of Students, London NW1
Ed Balls keeps saying that we are committed to scrapping the EMA. I have never said this. We won’t.”
Now, I personally disagree with him, but as it is it isn’t Tory policy, the hysteria and using it as a campaign issue against the Tories is inapppropriate However EMA is a program we should be considering cutting or reforming in favour of other ways of achieving social justice.
The graph below shows that while there has been an increase in thepercentage of 16-18 year olds in education or training since the EMA was launched,from 75.7 per cent in 2004 to 79.7 per cent in 2008, but over the same period, there has also been a decrease in the proportion of 16-18 year olds in employment, from 14.7 per cent to 10.0 per cent. At the same time, the number of 16-18 year olds not in education, training or employment (NEETs) increased from 9.6 percent to 10.3 per cent between 2004 and 2008.
At a cost of £500 million, it’s a policy thats failed to achieve what it set out to do, and possibly damaged the overall prospects of the few that were taken out of possible employment or training in favour of higher education – after all it hasn’t raised average performance at all for female students and by just one quarter of one A-level grade for male students. Given the failure of the policy to increase participation or attainment, it’s no surprised we see a hash of a policy come from Ed Balls to cover over the cracks in the education system.
Ed Balls announced that bonus payments for teenagers who stay in education after taking their GCSEs are to be scrapped in a bid to save around £100m.
The money saved will be used to provide the EMA for an extra 80,000 16- to 19-year-olds from 2010/11.
From 2011, poorer pupils who qualify for the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) – a payment of between £10-£30 each week – will no longer receive an extra £100 for every six months they stay in education.
As young people will have to participate anyway, it can have no positive incentive effect on attendence, and it can only lessen the effect on attainment since the overall EMA payment is going to do down.
What there is a far better case for public spending, in terms of improving the results of the poorest children is targeting it towards a primary level (With a pupil premium being Conservative policy) , since it’s that the most deprived fall behind and stay there, as I’ve talked about before when addressing Labour’s innumerate teachers. Abolish EMA to help save education. (And stop me getting so drunk on a weekend.)
Has Mandelson just presented the opportunity to bankrupt the Labour Party?
Lord Mandelson has called for the Conservatives to pay back Lord Ashcroft’s money.
Figures show that since 2001, Labour have taken over £10 million from eight reportedly ‘non-dom’ donors, I can only assume this means they are in the process of writing cheques to them.
• Lord Paul – £69,250 in donations to Labour, including £45,000 to Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign. A close friend of Gordon Brown and appointed to the Privy Council last summer, he has admitted to being ‘non-dom’.
• Lakshmi Mittal – £4.125 million in donations to Labour.
• Sir Ronald Cohen – £2.55 million in donations to Labour. Cohen was appointed chair of the Social Investment Taskforce, which was announced by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
• Sir Christopher Ondaatje – £1.7 million in donations to Labour.
• Sir Gulam Noon – £532,826 in donations to Labour.
• William Bollinger – £510,725 in donations to Labour.
• Mahmoud Khayami – £985,000 in donations to Labour including £5,000 to Hazel Blears’ deputy leadership campaign. He has helped bankroll two flagship schools, one of which Gordon Brown opened, and was personally thanked for a donation by Tony Blair.
• Dr David Potter – £90,000 in a donation to Labour. He has previously delivered a lecture at Downing Street.
I must say this is quite a surprising Labour policy. Given that the Labour campaign budget is only eight million we should take Peter Mandelson up on his offer wholeheartedly – This could well bankrupt them.
Politicians have a duty to make a reasoned case for immigration.
The 2008/09 economic recession represents a severe shock to many workers in destination (and other) countries, possibly the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While there is no serious suggestion that this shock has been caused by migrant labour, it has nevertheless stoked the flames of anti-immigrant rhetoric, as local workers search for ways of saving their own jobs. Governments are under enormous pressure especially in Britain where both main political parties, including sadly my own are gunning for it to be an issue at the next general election with a race to the bottom of who can impose the strictest controls. They face conflicting pressures: significant levels of resistance to increased immigration in public opinion on the one hand, and sound economic and social rationales for the relaxation of entry barriers on the other and the media do nothing to contribute to the discussion. (The only time I’ll agree with Hundal, sorry guv.)
One of the main proposals for further restrictions are to place restrictions on accession EU countries The massive inflows associated with European Union accession led neither to the displacement of local workers nor to increased unemployment in the UK and simulations following the European Union accessions of 2004 suggest that output levels in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which allowed large-scale inflows from the new member states of Eastern Europe, would be 0.5–1.5 percent higher after about a Decade, and the net fiscal figure for the United Kingdom at the present time is ± 0.65 percent of GDP. Public services are often cited as a reason for reducing the influx or placing charges but recently we introduced a landing fee, at level of £50 which to me seems seem oriented more towards assuaging popular concerns than towards raising revenue to cover fiscal costs.
Rather than cave into protectionism and xenophobia against the evidence politicians from both my own and opposition parties need to set the record straight – immigration isn’t to be feared, and they shouldn’t be afraid to stand up and say so lest we allow foes like Nick Griffin be victorious in shifting the ideological debate – just as ideology can be shifted in a good way, like the advent of New Labour in the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher, the day can be seized by those we know have no reason. We live in a parliamentary democracy – it’s time to have a proper reasoned debate like one.
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.