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.

“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.)

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.

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.

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.

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’.

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.

“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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“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

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.)