A Few Facts about Teenage Pregnancy
Right, it’s time to give Derek Draper a lesson in how to do a proper rebuttal.
Yesterday, Don Paskini took Tom Harris MP to task for adopting the time-honoured gutter tactic of picking on teenage mums to curry favour with the Daily Mail crowd – time of post, 9:20am.
Almost exactly one hour later, a trackback arrived from Stuart Sharpe, who accuses the Don of being an ‘apologist for the welfare state’ – yes, it’s that tired old canard, yet again – before going on to offer up this comment on the Don’s post:
If Tony Blair was talking about it 10 years ago, everything must be perfectly fine, and Tom Harris’s points are completely invalid. Never mind that in those ten years the teenage pregnancy rate has continued to climb exponentially. Never mind that Tony Blair talking about something rarely ever amounted to Tony Blair doing anything about it.
All of which makes Stuart wrong on just about every substantive point of his argument. continue reading… »
On liberty: laughter and forgetting
1) Traditional civil liberties have been eroded in recent years.
2) Amongst those concerned about the erosion of civil liberties are quite a few posh people.
3) Therefore, civil liberties are an issue only of concern to the elites and not ‘ordinary people’.
I would have thought the failure to apply elementary logical thinking in this formulation was pretty obvious – yet this is exactly this sort of argument I’m reading on what seems like a daily basis in the blogosphere.
Or it just feels like it. I’m getting a bit fed up with it, to be honest. Apart from anything else, it’s a little selective, isn’t it? The decidedly plummy tones of the New Atheists don’t seem to prompt the same dismissal. Only toffs are concerned about things like the extension in police powers and not ‘ordinary working class people’?
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Tom Harris MP and teenage mums
One of the many sad and pathetic things about Tom Harris MP slagging off teenage mums on his blog is that he obviously believes he is being brave in doing so.
Harris is a Member of Parliament, his argument draws on comments which Tony Blair made a decade ago and in content and tone he is regurgitating the prejudices found in national newspapers and conversations amongst the rich and powerful on a daily basis. You might have thought this would be sufficient support to take on the mighty lobby group that is 16 year old girls who have children.
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Girls need real role models
Last year I read a piece by Polly Toynbee about ‘girlification’ and its part in the backlash against feminism. By ‘girlification’ she means the relentless way young girls are targeted from the minute they’re born with pink toys, pink clothes, pink accessories, princesses, Barbies, Bratz, makeup and heels. The way they’re encouraged to judge each other on the way their look and how much they weigh and pick at ‘flaws’ in their own appearances from a progressively younger age.
As I don’t have children of my own I don’t get year-round exposure to this sort of thing but you can’t fail to miss it at Christmas, when the television is filled with adverts for the year’s ‘must-have’ toys and gadgets. Boys get to be superheroes, pirates and soldiers, work with their hands and go on adventures. Girls get to be princesses and learn to be ‘just like mum’ by playing with toy kitchens and home appliances.
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How do we deal with poverty?
Over at CentreRight, Jill Kirby eviscerates the ’shamelessly cheerful’ Harriet Harman for attending the launch of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report into poverty, inequality & government policy.
She interprets the report like so:
As we stare into the pit of a plunging labour market, there is not much for the Government to be proud of. While she wages war on Mandy, staking out her place as the true champion of equality, Hattie would do well to apologise – on behalf of all her colleagues and especially her erstwhile friend and mentor Gordon Brown – for the wasted years, the wasted billions and the wasted opportunities. Opportunites to create a pro-work, pro-family welfare system with reduced dependency and genuine (not grade-inflated) educational opportunities for all. It’s no good telling us you cared, or asking us to let you try more of the same. You had your chance (and our money) and you blew it. You might at least say sorry.
There’s a little too much tubthumping here for this to be a fair analysis.
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Claimants’ Charter
In the Second Reading debate of the Welfare Reform Bill, the Secretary of State James Purnell indicated that he would be prepared to look at the idea of a ‘Claimants’ Charter’, setting out the rights that those claiming state benefits and accessing employment services can expect.
Citizens Advice, the Disability Alliance, Child Poverty Action Group and Gingerbread have put together a draft Claimants’ Charter. I’m posting it for discussion as it is a draft and they welcome comments on it, but also request that if you agree with it, please contact your MP and ask them to support its inclusion into any future legislation on welfare reform (regardless of what you or they think about the rest of the Welfare Reform Bill).
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Cambridge University’s lacking equality
Cambridge – bastion of male dominance – still! So I’ve referred the buggers to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission for investigation.
It’s because of the appallingly wide gap between what the university pays men and women. The university’s own Equal Pay Report shows that men are paid on average nearly a third more than women – £37,157 compared to £28,247.
There are two reasons for the gap.
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Don’t blame the children!
I’m deeply shocked by news reports that DisAbled CBeebies presenter about Cerrie Burnell. Despite already having had small roles in Eastenders, The Bill and Grange Hill, the BBC has received an unbelievable nine formal complaints about Miss Burnell recently.
Why? Simply because Miss Burnell was born with one arm! What difference does that make? Any sensible person living in 21st century England would instantly ask.
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What do Alfie & Chantelle tell us about modern Britain?
In a limited sense, the rightwing commentariat are bang on the money; yes, the case of Alfie Patten, Chantelle Steadman and the daughter born of their one-off adolescent legover does tell us much about morality in Britain today. It’s just that it doesn’t point to quite the things they would have us believe.
The evasion tactic these writers habitually employ – essentially, laying everything from teenage knife crime to the death of Baby P at the door of some inchoate ‘liberalism’ – does not and cannot wash in these instances, because by definition, every aspect of contemporary British culture is of rightist provenance.
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Call on The Sun to support social workers
Following the conclusion of the trial of the carers of Baby P, The Sun led a major campaign against the social workers who worked with the child.
In an open letter to the newspaper, Community Care magazine’s Daniel Lombard asks its editor, Rebekah Wade, to rethink its agenda on social work issues, which could ultimately damage child protection efforts and children’s social work overall.
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So much for racism and the BNP at Lindsey
Fantastic news, which I’ve only picked up this morning via the comments section of Phil’s A Very Public Sociologist site. The BNP, whose website is spouting a lot of crap about how their councillors are being called in, in preference to the union of the wildcat strikers, were actually turned away from the picket lines. The video below gives more information.
Now that’s how to institute a no-platform policy: from below.
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This crisis is not the Blitz
What’s going on right now is not the Blitz, and nor is it a national plague resulting from our laziness and incompetence. In some ways, the rhetoric of economic responsibility is reassuring; we are individually powerful enough to affect whether or not we sink or swim as a nation.
But what if you have no economic clout whatsoever? I certainly don’t. There is, in a practical sense, absolutely nothing you can do to stop or reverse the recession, other than trust Gordon Brown and James Purnell and their captain-of-industry mates – who helped cause this mess in the first place, which is rather important.
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Who cares about the white working class?
For a good decade, ‘class’ was something of a swear word in British politics, almost taboo. The government seldom talked about class, preferring terms such as ‘hardworking families’ and ’social exclusion’.
Some commentators argued that this was part of a broader strategy to woo middle-class voters and occupy the political centre, which has come at the cost of alienating core working-class voters.
However, if a small, but significant, number of statements made recently by senior Labour politicians are anything to go by, the Labour Party is taking heed of this loss of support, and their tone might be changing as a result.
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Anti anti war
A few thoughts on yesterday’s Gaza rally at Trafalgar Square (photo link at the end):
Actually, my main thought about yesterday’s rally pertains to the lack of inspired political leadership we have on this, and so many other, issues. I have a great deal of sympathy for the people of Gaza, but absolutely none for the self-appointed champions of their cause at this end. Absorbing their rhetoric is a bit like inhaling cement. I stand at protest after protest and wonder why the far left simply can’t connect with the human race, or learn.
But anyway – this is meant to be a brief report, not a pointless bitch, so let’s have a bit on the day’s speakers:
Lindsey German – a woman I keep thinking I want to admire for her intellect and commitment – graced us with a speech that I interpreted as a bloodthirsty ode to Hamas’ right to pursue its end of the nightmare: “This ceasefire is not a ceasefire in any meaningful sense if the Palestinians don’t have the right to defend themselves… they have to have that right to defend themselves when they are under such attack… self defence is no offence, and that applies to the people of Gaza more than to anyone else in the world today…” etc – further proof (as if we needed it) of the SWP’s genius for missing the point entirely as it sprints to salute extremism. continue reading… »
Welfare reform: chuck the nutter in the gutter
The tendency not to want to believe in mental illness festers across the Western world, and particularly in Britain, the nation that gave us Shakespeare, concentration camps and the stiff upper lip.
From the friends and families of sufferers to the upper echelons of government, the suspicion that mental health difficulties are forms of weakness – simple personality flaws that could be eradicated if more of these mentalists would jolly well buck up – informs policy and influences behaviour. We need to look this institutional prejudice in the face and call it what it is: outdated, destructive and desperately unhelpful.
The response of our government in boom times had been to quietly shunt the sick onto a government poverty package and tell us to be grateful. However, as incapacity levels continue to rise, the DWP’s new Work to Welfare policy threatens to shunt us just as quickly back to the jobcentre, telling us that we’re scroungers who were actually making it up all along. This comes in the teeth of a recession. Nice timing, Purnell.
Many of the 40% of Britain’s 2 million IB claimants who are unable to work due to mental health difficulties already have a few problems with paranoia. But, as the noted social theorist Kurt Cobain observed, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not after you.
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Daft conservatives
We’ve approached the time of year when grown adults like to set aside large parts of the day just to make lists. We list the best/worst things to have happened to us, the best/worst things we have bought, our top 10 love/hate figures or our highest/lowest expectations for the year to come. In this same spirit, ToryHome have decided to list what makes a conservative. It’s a fairly innocuous, predictable read, but alongside statements which veer from vague (”Taxation has dynamic effects”) to platitudinous (”Love of country is fundamental to all conservatism”) to downright cryptic (”Man is a fallen creature”), they include this:
Economic liberalism needs social conservatism
Well, I can understand why, in the interests of coalition building, you’d want the flat-taxers in the same boat as the flat-earthers, but their agendas are far less aligned than this five word declaration makes out.
In its fullest expression, social conservatism is restrictive and censorious: it burns ‘heretical’ literature, pickets outside theatres, demands the banning of video games and enforces prohibition of gambling and recreational substances. Classic economic liberals would balk at such authoritarian measures because people should be allowed the freedom to consume what the market provides. No true classicist would want the state to subsidise marriage, and some would even consider abandoning the expensive, losing ‘war on drugs’.
At their core, social conservatives believe unfettered markets can be damaging, and economic liberals stand against against restrictions on markets. Sure, with lashings of compromise and a moderate, piecemeal application of both sides’ agendas, they can often play along nicely, but to suggest some kind of symbiotic relationship between the two is just daft.
Why regional minimum wages are a bad idea
Over any holiday, online reading material tends to accumulate. Christmas 2008 has been no exception even though no few blogs are on vacation. One that I really wanted to challenge was the post over at Mil’s place entitled, “The Petri Dish Philosophy of Politics“. Mil makes the argument that we should import regional minimum wages into the UK, allowing say Birmingham or Manchester to experiment with a higher minimum wage.
The problem is that, as often as not, what we grow in a Petri dish is harmful.
Regional minimum wages exist in the US, where there is a federal, a state-by-state and in a few cases a city-based minimum wage. The San Francisco Chronicle carries an article about how the SF minimum wage is about to climb to $9.79 per hour, against the wishes of local employers, but much to the appreciation of SF workers. Economists on the other hand think it helps keep the unskilled unemployed.
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Our asylum seekers shame
You’ll have to forgive the wonkish legalese, but there’s a principle in international law called non-refoulement, which forbids the expulsion of refugees back to states where they might be subjected to persecution. Deeply ingrained within the 1951 UN convention (of which Britain is a signatory), it arose from the widely-felt shame of failing to provide an adequate safehaven from Nazi genocide, and a resolve that it must never happen again.
Increasingly, though, it’s hard to reconcile our country’s commitment to this deeply important principle with the reality of our actions.
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Basic income: good in Namibia, bad in Libertopia
Namibia is piloting a Basic Income Grant, in which every Namibian citizen gets N$100 per month until they are eligible for the state pension, with no conditions and no strings attached, paid for through higher taxes on those in need or not in poverty. It seems to have been very successful, helping progress towards all eight of the Millennium Development Goals. It helps people pay their school fees and healthcare fees, and contrary to what critics suggested, hasn’t led to people sitting around doing nothing.
So why not, as many people on here and elsewhere, from both the right and the left have suggested, introduce a Citizens’ Basic Income in the UK? After all, no one believes that the current welfare system and society, with its bureaucracy, means testing, high levels of poverty and great cost, is perfect.
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One idea to make Britain fairer
The Fabian Society’s annual conference, which is being held in January, has a final session where selected people will be allowed to present one idea To Make Britain Fairer (interpret that how you want). Usually, the audience then votes for it. This year LC contributors Conor Foley and Dave Hill will be speaking at the conference.
Let’s assume that many of you think (and I certainly do) that a lot of current liberal-left ideas on issues around ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ are outdated and not really that radical. If you were asked for one idea, what would it be?
(You can also send your idea to at the Fabians if you want to enter their ‘Dragon’s Den’ session)
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» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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