A level playing field?

Today's blog has been echoed by the Leader of the Labour party, which is particularly astute of Ed Miliband as I’d only written the first line before he gave his speech this morning about the growing inequality in British Society over the last 30 years, under successive Tory and Labour governments.

My thoughts were inspired by this article in The Guardian by Gary Younge, where he expertly analyses the current State standoff in Wisconsin as symptomatic of a hidden class war in US society. I urge you to read it for yourself, but they key point he makes is

“Inequality of income and wealth has been more readily accepted in the US because equality of opportunity has long been assumed”

and also

“The idea of a class system where only a handful can ever be truly wealthy intrudes awkwardly on a culture rooted in notions of self-advancement, personal reinvention and rugged individualism, even if it is closer to reality. Old habits die hard. The weekend protests were organised under the banner "Save the American Dream".

Now obviously the sort of ‘deal’ where you accept profound inequality in life as long as everyone gets the chance to succeed, is anathema to me. And as Gary Younge points out, that deal doesn’t work in the US anyway – people are harbouring some terrible illusions. But it did get me thinking about inequality over here. Because I’m equally unhappy about a society where your chances in life are pre determined by the status of your birth, and the opportunities you will be presented with as a result. This has been brilliantly exposed in Andrew Neil’s recent documentary ‘Posh and Posher’ whereby basically, if you’re part of the establishment, you’re going to do OK – and if you’re not – it’s going to take 2 or 3 generations to get upwardly mobile.

Which is why – a little to my own surprise – I’m beginning to favour positive discrimination.

I like the fact that Simon Hughes is thinking about positively discriminating against Universities who don’t give more chances to state educated children.

I like the fact that a while ago one of the London medical schools was considering making entry easier for children from lower achieving schools on the basis that an ‘A’ at some schools must be considerably harder to achieve than an ‘A’ at Eton – and thus may be worth considerably more.

I’ll be looking out for further examples of this – I’d welcome feedback if anyone has any good ones.

I want to live in a society where we don’t accept huge inequalities either as a price worth paying, nor as a predetermined fact of life. But one where we ensure we level the playing field, so we can all succeed together.

Has this bloke put his finger on what is the real problem with the Big Society?

I blogged the other day about how I wanted to like the idea of the Big Society but that there were some fundamental things stopping me doing so - the main one being that no one can really explain what it is

But now I've read this rather good article from Mark Ravenhill which makes me think that maybe the real problem with The Big Society is it's implied endorsement of what seems to me to be frequently idealogical action, by claiming any act of charity as implied support for a cut in that particular sector, or even cuts in any and every sector. And while everyone, even Labour, accepts that many cuts have to be made, no one agrees with every particular cut or action.

Do voluntary work in a hospital - you must support cuts to the NHS

Volunteer to clean graffiti off walls where you live - you must support cuts to local street cleaning

Go and read to children in schools - you're suddenly advocating cuts to the primary schools budget.

Of course, none of those actions actually imply support for those particular cuts; but wouldn't it be dreadful if people stopped doing them in case anyone should think they basically support the cuts being made. And maybe it's that nagging doubt which makes me uneasy about the concept of 'The Big Society' per se.

Addendum

Here's an excellent example of how doing one thing doesn't necessarily mean that you endorse an organisations entire philosophy per se. The brilliant Johann Hari actually tweeted an endorsement of an article in The Daily Mail. Now that's something no one could have seen coming.

Ed Miliband: whoops, your briefs are showing.

He's doing it again.

That Ed Miliband.

He's got a strategy: get the Lib Dems.

He's got a creative expression of that strategy: I don't agree with Nick

And it seems it's a strategy he's sticking with, according to this in The Guardian

That seems to me to be putting party communications strategy above a constitutional change he's meant to be in favour of.

Not very statesmanlike

Not a great strategy

and wouldn't he be better off attacking the 'No to AV' campaign for things like this disgraceful advertising campaign or these distortions of the facts rather than attacking his own side of the fence on the AV campaign.

Then he might make a contribution to getting AV approved. Instead of attacking his own side.

You can put me in a box when I'm dead. Until then will you just leave it.

You Gov published a poll the other week about where the public see the political parties on the left right spectrum. They had us bang slap in the middle. Which (interestingly) You Gov interpreted as being in the worst possible place, as left leaning voters put us right of centre, and vice versa, so we end up in a kind of averaged out no man's land.

(As an aside I'm not sure if they are right about this. I wonder if in fact people have for some time seen us as left leaning, we go into coalition with the Tories so they presume we've 'gone' right, and what really happens is no one has a clue where we sit so they stick us in the middle. But that isn't what this post is about so I digress...)

Anyway, we tend to indulge ourselves with plenty of introspective navel gazing about where we sit on the left right spectrum. The average comments feed on Lib Dem Voice is always descending into a 'Progressives vs. Orange bookers' fist fight, and jolly good fun it tends to be as well.

But actually, we do ourselves a disservice. Because we play into the hands of the two (currently) bigger parties, by playing on their own territory and the rules by which they judge themselves. Our instincts should be to judge an issue, not by whether something is from the left or right, but whether it promotes the principles of liberty, of equality and community. That doesn't mean turning our face away from an idea because it comes from left or right, conservative or socialist. We just need to decide if it fits with our own values.

I'll be judged against my own criteria and values, thank you very much. Not the one the other political parties think we should be judged on. Let yourself be judged by others standards and measurements...and you end up out of government for a gazillion years.

Nick Clegg bashing by the Press is getting ludicrous now.

I blogged the other day about the loss of jobs in the hospitals at St. Georges, Tooting and Kingston, wondering if this was the Tory's 'tuition fees' moment?

After all - David Cameron personally pledged not to do this.

And the lead on all the NHS reforms is a Tory, Andrew Lansley.

So this is going to be hung around their necks, isn't it...isn't it?

Guess which photo the Guardian ran to accompany the follow up story

This one.



Underneath they ran the words 'Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, talks to nurses in the maternity unit at Kingston Hospital. Last week, the hospital cut 500 jobs'.

Now, I have railed against the perils of 'too much' collective rsponsibility before. But now it seems collective responsibility - when its Nick Clegg - is being thrust upon us.

And today - it gets worse: Nick made a throwaway joke while away on a break about forgetting he was in charge. And what happens? Metro goes to town on it with this

"Nick Clegg 'forgot' he was in charge while David Cameron was away

Nick Clegg has admitted ‘forgetting’ he was running the country while David Cameron visited the Middle East this week."

As if that is any way credible. The only real joke here is the story.

However it does go to underline that the press is basically just now out to get Nick. In recent weeks he's put forward the Freedom Bill, led legislation on mental health, won the battle to get the AV referendum bill through...but Metro refers to the ridiculous story that he is 'putting his feet up (a story beautifully demolished by Olly Grender the other week).

While many in the party still struggle over the tuition fees issue - I'm one of them - if we are to make progress on all the great things we are doing, we have to win the trust back. Not just from people, but also, clearly, from the press. If we can make them love Nick again, we'll know we're on track.

ADDENDUM

Good piece from Charlotte at Virtually Naked on Peter Hain actually - unbelievably - giving a response on the Metro story. Dignifying this sort of reporting really should be beneath him

Oh. Maybe they are listening!

the latest ICM Polling data (lots of detail if you click here)has us at 18%, our best polling since ..well it seems like forever.

Thanks to @robblackie for pointing this out via Twitter

I like this but is anyone listening?

This video appeared on Channel 4's political slot last night and I rather like it. It shows us to be human, warm, caring and it talks about both our values and how we are applying those values to the real world.

And some of the things we are doing are extraordinary. Like taking a million people out of income tax altogether, restoring the earnings link to the state pension and introducing the Pupil Premium.

In fact, it's rather as I hoped being in government would be.

Its also exactly the tactic I hoped would be adopted - wrapping ourselves and owning Lib Dem inspired policies, getting people to recognise our influence in the coalition. For too long in power we have been seen as just a silent partner, a conduit to a Conservative government, rather than a set of independent free thinkers. Now we seem to be asserting our own positioning. Hooray.

But, but, but...

There is a still a big giant elephant in the room. It's called Tuition Fees. Every media reference I hear about the Lib Dems seems to highlight this, and question whether we can be trusted on anything. Indeed, I'd now go further - our need to recapture trust in people's minds is imperative if we are to move forward electorally. I fear most non partisan viewers of the film may have sat in front of the TV with their fingers in the air yelling 'I don't believe you'.

Reasserting our own position on issues is half the battle; winning back trust is the other half.

I'd start by reminding people what Lib Dem policy on tuition fees actually is - it's to phase them out. No one wants to charge students triple their current fees - even the most ardent supporters of the policy accepts that it is driven by economic circumstance, not ideology. We need to continue to plan how we will eventually remove them and communicate this to people.

Secondly we need to make much more of the Simon Hughes role on making university intake fairer. This seems to me the best way in which we can show we are genuine when we say we are dedicated to sorting out this issue.

Thirdly, we need to grasp the fundamentals of this issue. While I don't entirely go along with Julian Astle's view that economic factors make up just 1% of the reason why pupils from disadvanteged homes don't go to University (he rather thinks the Simon Hughes role is poking the wrong end of the issue), his excellent blog makes clear the importance of other factors in preventing people getting into University - and what needs to be done to correct this. Communicating this and getting policy in place to correct this are vital. Partly for the Lib Dems own sake. But more importantly, for the country as a whole.