Passengers And Taxpayers Deserve So Much Better

Lilian Greenwood writes:

Today Andy Sawford is highlighting the fact that, when it comes to the railways, this Government has a problem: East Coast.

In 2009 Labour took East Coast into public ownership when the private operator walked away from the franchise, unable to deliver on its promises.

Since then it has proved to be one of the best train operators in the industry – achieving record passenger satisfaction and punctuality; investing all its profits in better services and stations; and returning more than £800 million to public coffers.

In 2014 it even managed to cut fares in real terms – something that hasn’t been matched by any private franchise.

East Coast has proven that a public operator can work in the best interests of passengers but the Tories’ ideological 1993 Railways Act prevents a public sector operator in all but the most restricted circumstances.

Andy’s Bill seeks to put that right – by allowing a public sector operator to be able to take on lines and challenge the train operators on a level playing field – and has our full support.

I’ve no doubt that the Tories’ dogmatic opposition to the public sector means they’ll oppose this Bill, but what about the Lib Dems?

They supported a public sector operator in opposition but are now helping to push through the privatisation.

Having accidentally published a document on their website this summer which revealed they were planning on supporting a public sector operator, they dropped the policy at their conference.

Will they prove once again that they simply can’t be trusted?

In 2012 the Government’s West Coast franchise competition fiasco cost the taxpayer more than £55 million, led to the loss of hundreds of millions more in lost premium payments and damaged the rail industry.

Passengers and taxpayers deserve so much better.

Britain’s fragmented rail industry is up to 40% less efficient that the best performing European networks and fares have risen on average by 21% since the last election, with some passengers hit with stealth fare rises of up to 162% this autumn.

The Tories and Lib Dems are wedded to the status quo; only Labour has a plan for reforming the railways.

Labour will review the Government’s failed franchising process and put in place a system that is fit for purpose; legislate to allow a public sector operator to be able to take on lines; devolve decisions over the running of regional and local services so that areas can bring together trains, buses, ferries and trams into a single network; tackle the monopoly market for rail rolling stock; create a new ‘guiding mind’ for the railways; and address the cost of living by capping annual fare rises on every route, simplifying fare structures and creating a new legal right to the cheapest ticket.

Andy’s Bill is just the first step to a railway where passengers are put first.

See also here:

The Tories’ ideological decision to reprivatise the East Coast railway line was criticised yesterday — by a right-wing Tory Lord.

Lib Dem transport minister Baroness Kramer had defended the government’s decision to put the publicly owned line back up for sale in a Lords debate yesterday.

But the decision to ban state firm Directly Operated Railways from making a new bid to run the franchise from March came under friendly fire.

Lord Forsyth, who is on the economic right of the Tory party, pointed out it went against the supposed capitalist principle of allowing the best company to win contracts.

“Surely you would recognise that the whole point of competitive tendering is to get the best value and the best deal for the taxpayer and if you are right that a state-owned company wouldn’t be able to compete, why is that a reason to exclude it from the process?” he asked.

Extremely Tough

Ian Lavery writes:

For communities up and down the country the last few years have been extremely tough.

The current Tory – Lib Dem coalition are seemingly intent on finishing off the job Margaret Thatcher started during her disastrous premiership laying waste to communities throughout the UK.

There is absolutely no doubt that ordinary men and women have been targeted by this government.

Along with their friends in the media the coalition have systematically undermined the key principles of the welfare state, demonised those most in need of the safety net and sold off services regardless of the consequences.

The much heralded recovery, based solely on employment figures is nothing but a con in communities like the one I represent.

We can no longer base the prosperity of the nation solely on the numbers of people in work as the rise of the low paid economy now shows.

In my constituency, Child Poverty haunts families and brings shame on us all. Almost a quarter of all Children live in poverty with some areas seeing in excess of 40%.

Most worryingly is that of those living in poverty 60% are in a family with someone who works.

Financial pressures continue to stalk low and middle income families with the cost of living crisis embedded in communities.

This bleak picture is being pounced upon by some to peddle their politics of hate and fear.

The rise of UKIP, a party who claim to keep alive the flame of Thatcherism, can be directly attributed to the disastrous policies her government introduced and that have been continued.

It is no good fighting fear with fear. Not being as bad as the others is not good enough.

As Martin Luther King said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

We need to offer hope to those struggling in the modern world.

From the ashes of the Second World War, with overwhelming public support, the Labour Party working together with ordinary men and women, created the Welfare State.

Combat in the battlefields of Europe was over but a war on the evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness remained.

The eradication of these evils remains a work in progress.

We must once and for all bury the legacy of the recent past started under Margaret Thatcher.

It is time that compassion, human decency and cooperation were put back to the forefront of our political system and that the Welfare State is renewed from the ashes of Thatcherism.

Debates like those that were thrown up in Scotland have shown that there is a huge disconnect between people and politicians.

Arguments like that over the Barnett formula and whether England or Scotland gets more mean absolutely nothing when people do not see the benefits in their own lives.

If people are living in abject poverty, regardless of funding formulas, something is entirely wrong.

Making sure everyone has access to a good job, quality health care, a secure and affordable home, a good education and a secure retirement are goals that would find support amongst the vast majority of the population.

To achieve this is not some pie in the sky pipe dream. We live in the sixth largest economy in the world yet we have people from children to pensioners living in poverty.

The measure of a developed nation should be how the least fortunate are treat and I’m afraid on that history will judge us poorly.

It is time that everyone shared in the economic success of the nation, it is not enough to be thrown the crumbs from a few at the top table and for people to be expected to be grateful.

As a country we need to work together to ensure that no area is ever left behind. Communities like the one I represent have a proud history of standing shoulder to shoulder for the common good.

We owe it to those who went before, we owe it to ourselves and we owe it to our future generations to make sure this tradition lives on.

The Myth of Britain's Soft Touch

James Bloodworth writes:

The mayor of Calais has been sounding off like a Daily Mail editorial. On immigration, Britain is a ‘soft touch’ and its benefits system acts like a ‘magnet’ for migrants, Natacha Bouchart told the Home Affairs Committee yesterday.

Ms Bouchart, speaking via an interpreter, said:

“You have a much more favourable regime in Britain than other countries. The second thing is the entitlement to benefits of £36 which are given to asylum seekers or migrants, which is a huge amount for people who have nothing in their lives.”

This echoes the narrative of much of the UK press as well as of UKIP, the Conservative Party and sometimes Labour.

But how true is it? Apart from anecdotes and hearsay, what actual evidence is there to suggest that migrants are flocking to the UK for our supposedly generous benefits system?

It is common currency on the right that Britain has the most generous welfare system – if not in the world, then at least in Europe.

Yet this is a myth, according to the Economic and Social Research Council’s Centre for Population Change (CPC), with a number of other EU countries as generous as Britain in terms of social security per head:

(click to zoom)

This data is also from 2007, before many of the rules about migrants claiming benefits were tightened by the coalition.

The data from 2010 also shows that, in terms of social security spending per inhabitant, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands all spend more in real terms than the UK on social security:

(Graph: BBC)

There are really two separate issues here that are very often conflated. One is Asylum seekers and refugees trying to come to the UK and the other is EU citizens exercising their legal right to come and work here.

Last year a European Commission report concluded that there was no evidence of systematic or widespread benefit tourism by EU nationals migrating within the EU, including to the UK.

The statistics bear this out. According to a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)report from 2011, 6.4 per cent of those claiming working aged benefits were non-UK nationals, meaning British nationals were two-and-a-half times more likely to be claiming working age benefits than non-UK nationals.

And anyway, EU migrants can’t simply sign on to claim Jobseekers Allowance as soon as they arrive in the UK – they must wait for three months; and even them they have to pass a tough Habitual Residence Test set before they can make a claim.

And what about the coalition’s welfare reforms that will apparently make a life on benefits impossible for any British citizen? Why would it be any easier for an EU citizen to milk the system?

But this isn’t what the mayor of Calais is actually talking about. It isn’t migrants from Poland and Romania that are camped out in Calais hoping to sneak into the UK – they can already come here legally.

This isn’t about immigration per se; this is about the asylum system.

Many of the people we are talking about in Calais haven’t simply left their country for the sake of a better paying job; they are fleeing war-zones like Syria, tyrannies such as Egypt or hunger that plagues many parts of Africa.

As Ms Bouchart herself put it, most of the estimated 2,500 refugees in Calais are Eritrean, Ethiopian, Sudanese, Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Iranian and Iraqi – hardly bastions of freedom.

It would be fairly far-fetched to claim that these people are fleeing their homelands due to Britain’s generous benefits system.

It is of course arguable that one of the reasons migrants opt for the UK of France is due to accommodation rules for asylum seekers who arrive in the UK.

In the UK asylum seekers have access to accommodation while their claim is being assessed; in France it can take four months for an asylum claim to be registered during which time no accommodation is available.

However it is unlikely that putting an end to this would deter asylum seekers from coming to the UK for the reasons I’m about to set out; but such a policy change would result in destitute asylum seekers sleeping rough in and around London.

Not exactly good policy.

There is, though, one important reason that people often want to come to Britain ahead of other countries in Europe.

It isn’t the benefits system, but has more to do with the international prestige this country (still) has overseas.

Before you scoff, this isn’t jingoistic hyperbole – anyone who has travelled extensively will know exactly what I’m talking about.

When I was travelling in South American a few years ago I met plenty of people who wanted to leave their native country and it was usually because they wanted to come to the United States or Britain.

Not to claim benefits, but to work and make money.

Almost all had the rose-tinted view that in Britain and the US if you worked hard enough the opportunities were there and you could prosper.

Naive perhaps, but very different from wanting to ‘milk the system’.

For those fleeing war zones like Syria and Iraq, it’s fairly obvious why they might think of leaving – and it has nothing to do with signing on.

Similarly, for those who aren’t fleeing persecution the long and perilous journey to the UK isn’t one that’s taken lightly, nor with the aim of coming to the UK to carry on being poor.

It is made because the UK is viewed as a land of opportunity.

In other words, people want to come to Britain because it is a good place to live.

That’s a profoundly positive thing.

The biggest irony of all is that it is right-wingers who claim to understand the human desire to ‘get on’ and aspire to something better.

Someone ought to point out that this instinct isn’t confined to affluent Westerners.

The Death of Liberal Education

Michael Merrick writes:

In our schools, right now, there are many students who spend 60% of their entire time in a classroom studying just three subjects.

Come the end of the year, or perhaps already for some, this will increase, and for those deemed to be falling short there will be up to 18 lessons (perhaps even more) out of 25 spent studying just these same three subjects. 

The same children might also be forced encouraged to attend after school revision sessions, or marched invited to lunch time catch-up sessions, or bribed welcomed to pre-school intervention sessions, all of which will be topped off with a healthy dollop of homework for each of the three subjects.

If that sounds a little unbalanced… well, good, I’m glad, we’re clearly on the same side here. Because it is.

Whilst English and Maths are the top priority, Science is also increasingly given a seat at the High Table of the curricula Elect, particularly since STEM, and our alleged lack of focus on it, became the buzzword of the Prophets of Economic Doom in recent years.

In other words, we force students to spend the majority of their time doing just three subjects, whilst simultaneously puffing our chests out and bragging to the world that we offer our kids a broad, balanced, liberal arts education.

Which, on paper, it might well look like we do, since we still corral kids into an unsustainably large number of exams – but peel back the surface layer and things begin to look a little different.

At school, my least favourite lessons were Science and Maths. Not the teachers, by the way, all of whom I thought were great, but the subjects. Nothing personal really, I just didn’t have all that much interest.

I could do what was asked, I could get grades good enough to keep the hounds at bay, but they just didn’t inspire.

History did, Geography did, English Literature did, RE did, PE did, French did (eventually) – but Science and Maths? Nah. (I know we’re not supposed to say that anymore, but nonetheless it’s true, for me as for many others).

As such, I couldn’t honestly say that I would have had much of a successful time at school, by various measures, if they had forced me to sit through the equivalent of two whole days’ worth of the two things I disliked most, whilst skimping on the subjects I adored.

For sanity, if for nothing else.

If they had then told me that the latter would be sacrificed still further to allow more time on the former – well, I’d have thought it part of a cruel experiment designed to test the stress capacity of an already moody teenager.

It would have ruined school for me. It just would have.

And the pressure of trying to get good grades in the subjects I enjoyed and wished to carry further, whilst having the tables so egregiously stacked against the likelihood of doing so, would have sparked the fires of revolt.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Nor do I see why it should be any different for students today. Which leads to the question: why do we do it?

Only, you already know the answer to that question. As soon as I mentioned the three subjects, the game had been given away.

And so, with a Gallic shrug and a defeated air: we do it because of OFSTED and because of league tables. Or rather, we do it to preserve ourselves and our institutions in the face of OFSTED and league tables. 5 A*s to C, with English and Maths. The End.

Of course, it is easy to look up from the coalface and curse the cowardice and question the courage of those who lead us, to shake our fists and swear that we’d do things differently.

And for those who choose to pursue school leadership, maybe they will, and these experiences will help them discern the costs of sedition.

But the blindingly obvious truth is our leaders are just as human as we are (no, really), trying to make rational choices in a clearly irrational situation, fighting to do the best for their school in the hopeless situation in which they are placed – faced with the external pressures that bear down upon their shoulders each day, we’d probably be liable to make precisely the same decisions.

Everyone imagines themselves a hero until the time comes to be heroic.

Self-preservation might not ever keep the Hollywood script writers in fruitful supply, but one can at least acknowledge the logic that it carves out a space where one can sit quietly, wait out the storm and hope for better times.

In other words, we have to give SLT a break here, and cast our eyes toward the real culprit.

Change is indeed in the offing, of course, and whilst it seems the forthcoming points scheme will help mitigate some of the crazy incentives that have riddled our education system for the last few years, we can also be sure that, like every piece of tinkering that has come before it, it will have unintended consequences that will yoke schools and the teachers doing their best to operate, dignity intact, within them.

Every new idea always seems better than the one it is designed to replace – that we keep on replacing them so frequently tells us something about the quality of the ideas offered as solutions, as much as the ones laid aside as old hat.

And let it not be forgotten that this happened on the watch of precisely he who spoke so emphatically on the value of a liberal education. Oh how they laughed on their way to their twelfth STEM lesson of the week.

And so there must remain a sadness: the kids who have come through this system have just one shot at this. In reality, the latest political wheeze means much more for them than it does for us.

For those sitting in a Maths classroom up to seven times a week, whilst trying to get their Art or History or Geography or RE or Music or Language GCSE on just one hour a week – well, for them, this is it, this is all they have.

That our Enlightened Masters thought they were changing things for the better will cut no mustard with them - they, like those before them, will have been the guinea pigs, and it is their life options that will have suffered for the experiment, they who will have to live with the consequences of that in a way that we never will.

Especially those whose interests and ambitions don’t align neatly with the external incentives and prejudices that, in the name of improving education, have closed those very doors that they might have earnestly desired to walk through.

Steady State

The very phrase "Big Bang" was coined by Fred Hoyle to ridicule the position of, among other people, the Pope.

In the 1940s.

Fox, Partridge

A-ha!

Swamped, Indeed

It is not a caricature. It is not hyperbole. It is not a matter of, "In that case, this would happen."

The actual policy of this Government is that people should be left to drown in the sea, so as to discourage other people from attempting to make the crossing.

The founders of neoliberalism, such figures as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, despised the British Conservative Party.

Not because it was like this. But because it was not like this.

It is like this now.