Monthly Archives: December 2011

Why school canteens are more important than you think

Blog, Education

contribution by Paul Pennyfeather

My school canteen v Southern Fried Chicken. According to The Guardian, the battlelines are being drawn. Schools are going to get the freedom to offer price promotions and compete with takeaway food outlets.

Though the scale of his success may be disputed, Jamie Oliver’s campaign has ensured that school food is a political issue.

Yet there remains a major gap in this debate: the canteen itself. When students choose to hang around in the playground with a pack of crisps they are rejecting the place as much as they are the food.
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What exactly is London’s problem with Liverpool?

Blog, Conservative Party

London has a Conservative mayor who famously accused Liverpool of displaying a ‘deeply unattractive psyche’, and even of ‘wallowing in its victim status’. But as a cockney myself, I reckon scousers can be forgiven for feeling that little bit chippy.

Nor is Boris Johnson’s attitude any novelty within his party, as is demonstrated by today’s revelation that back in 1981, top Tories Geoffrey Howe and Sir Keith Joseph advised Margaret Thatcher to abandon that beastly city altogether.

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An attack on the left? No, the Labour right is offering concessions

Blog, Economy

contribution by John Clare

Yesterday, Ben Jackson and Gregg McClymont published their pamphlet: Cameron’s Trap – Lessons for Labour from the 1930s and 1980s.

The report, which received some publicity in the press, seemed quite controversial, and coming out of Peter Mandelson’s think-tank, has been perceived as a right-wing attack by Sunny Hundal and Eoin Clarke.

But from being a right-wing diatribe against Ed Miliband – when you read the actual report, it is in fact a rather banal statement of commonly accepted truths interlaced with some significant concessions to the left-wing of the Labour party.
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Council to spend £150k on Queen’s Jubilee while making cuts

News

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is spending around £157,000 just on building a Queen’s jubilee fountain and a monument, despite cutting jobs and services from its local area.

It has also been revealed that Bath & North East Somerset Council are spending £80,000 on a ‘jubilee picnic’, also while making local cuts to services.

Research by campaign group Republic out today reveals that councils have admitted to allocating tens of thousands of pounds for lavish celebrations, despite cutting jobs and services.

More than 250 local authorities responded to a freedom of information request asking what plans were in place to mark the jubilee, and how much they were estimated to cost. Around 45% said they would not be marking the jubilee at all, while the rest were had either not firmed up their plans or were planning some celebratory gesture.

Republic’s research found:

- Tunbridge Wells Borough Council is spending an estimated £62,000 on a range of jubilee events including a jubilee-themed “Tunbridge Wells in Bloom” competition.

- The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames holding an exhibition on Richmond’s royal connections at a cost of £49,600.

- Kensington and Chelsea is setting aside £27,000 for various jubilee activities, including sending a framed photograph of the Queen to every school in the Borough.

Last year Windsor and Maidenhead council axed 70 jobs, while Bath & North East Somerset cut 150 jobs and reduced funding to youth services and the voluntary sector.

Republic spokesperson Graham Smith said:

Those councillors that have committed public money to mark the jubilee should be ashamed of themselves. How can they justify these unnecessary and unwanted projects when public services are being cut and jobs lost? It’s morally and economically indefensible and their local residents would be right to feel angry about this waste of limited public funds.

No doubt crowds will turn out for jubilee events, but the vast majority of the public simply aren’t interested in these celebrations.

Details of the research can be found here.

Republic will be staging protests around many jubilee celebrations, with the main protest being staged at the Thames jubilee pageant.

Why I support Cameron’s plans for a minimum price on alcohol

Blog, Health

contribution by Representing the Mambo

It feels like I’m the only person who thinks that Cameron’s plans for a minimum price for alcohol, possibly similar to the type being mooted by the Scottish parliament, is a great one. And a surprising one, given the government’s normal commitment to doing exactly as their corporate paymasters desire.

Cameron is prepared to slap down his cabinet colleagues who want a voluntary code of practice. Many of his perpetually restless MPs are up in arms about the decision. (All the more reason for us to support it, surely?)
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The ‘Labour trap’ and how Policy Network is ignoring voters

Blog, Economy

I was taking a break from blogging but the Guardian’s front-page today has pulled me out of hibernation, albeit temporarily. I find the Guardian’s political team’s willingness to breathlessly report on whatever Policy Network say a bit annoying, especially as they go on to ignore what others are saying.

That a pamphlet from Policy Network (established by Peter Mandelson!) says that Labour should not oppose the coalition’s cuts is predictable stuff. The Black Labour pamphlet a few weeks ago pretty much said the same thing. Furthermore, this new pamhlet is full of so many bad assumptions I don’t know where to begin.

But I think a short response is necessary, as these are quite big issues.
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How the growing intake of private patients will change the NHS

Blog, Health

Yesterday the government said it was planning to let NHS trusts raise half of income from private healthcare.

There are a few important points to keep in mind regarding this accouncement.

1. Some private income is useful
The private patient income (PPI) cap was imposed to limit the private income of NHS trusts. The cap includes the income from actual physical, in-the-flesh, patients, but it also includes income from other services like providing pathology or income from intellectual property.
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How Ed Miliband could learn from Barcelona’s footballing

a) Section, Labour party, Westminster

contribution by Sean McHale

Watching El Clasico a few weekends ago, I quickly become infuriated by the actions of Victor Valdes. I’ve never liked Real Madrid, and within 30 seconds of the opening of the match, Victor Valdes had hit a wayward past straight to a Real Madrid attacker which resulted in Barca going a goal down.

Minutes later, I urged him to kick it long in the presence of another on-rusher, instead, he passed it ten yards, playing a one-two removing his side from what had looked a difficult situation. In the second half there was the odd dangerous ball played by Valdes, but 95% of the time his passes reached their required destination.

After the game I lamented Valdes for his mistake and criticised Barcelona for being too ideological at times, the one flaw, as I saw it, in their near-flawless philosophy. Yet, what I had failed to realise was that it was these moments of high-risk, as epitomised by Valdes, which characterises the very core of their philosophy.
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Five points about employment regulation everyone should know

Blog, Economy, Law

1. Employment protection legislation tends to discourage employers from hiring during the growth phase of the economic cycle but it also discourages layoffs during the recessionary phase.

Over the cycle as a whole, the effect is neutral, but EPL tends to promote greater overall stability, with smaller employment swings from boom to bust.

This isn’t an eccentric lefty position; here’s John Philpott, chief economist for the professional body for HR managers saying there is “little significant impact one way or the other on structural rates of employment or unemployment”.
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The Labour party’s City problem

Blog, Economy

contribution by Robin Ramsay

Sitting in the pub, a friend of mine said he couldn’t understand what was going on in the Labour Party at the moment. I said something to the effect that they had a problem: almost everything they believed about economic policy for the past 25 years was wrong; and imagine how difficult this makes things for the current leadership.

They cannot say, “We’re terribly sorry: we’ve been wrong for the last 25 years. We plumped for the City and ignored the manufacturing base.”

Politicians don’t do this.
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