Grant Shapps (a likeable chap) has read Mr Cameron’s script. As the housing spokesperson, he’s cross about homelessness, specifically about the damage that housing insecurity and temporary housing does to children. He’s not wrong to be outraged, but don’t you just wish that the top Tories would talk to the middling Tories, like Cllr Alison Latham and Cllr David Hopkins, about getting on board with the new cuddly Cameroonies? Then they could stick to the script, not embarrassing their party with chatter about how building new houses would make Milton Keynes a destination for every housing benefit claimant in the country, and whitter about how desperately-needed new homes would be the sink estates of tomorrow.

Dear Cllr Mitchell and friends at the county council,

I see your party’s leader, Mr Cameron, has today accepted that inequality between the rich and the poor matters. He even noted in the Guardian (which you may not have seen, so I’ll quote), “there are parts of affluent Oxford, for instance, which rival parts of Liverpool in terms of deprivation”. We’ll forgive him a little hyperbole, but it’s close to the mark.

Mr Cameron (thankfully) doesn’t have any power to put his proposals into action. But you do, running schools, youth services, Sure Starts and social care services for our city. Perhaps, following Mr Cameron’s lead, you could take some action to start implementing the vision: withdrawing the threat to funding for the advice centres on Blackbird Leys and Rose Hill, for example. Picking up the funding slack at the Dovecote Centre for families on Blackbird Leys, maybe. Opening up a bidding cycle for new voluntary youth provision for young people on our estates, perhaps. Or even just making sure someone from the county council turns up at meetings of the regeneration partnership on Rose Hill, like all the other agencies do, perchance.

None of these are state interventions, which I know you’re dubious about. None will change the world, but they’d be a start. And Mr Cameron needs a bit of a boost right now, I gather.

I remain, etc.

While I’m on the subject of the Tories’ social justice commission report, I can’t leave uncommented upon the chapter about the better involvement of the voluntary sector in fighting poverty. My worry isn’t that this appears in the report - after all, Tories are supposed to think private philanthropy is better than democratically-controlled taxpayer-funded universal provision, it’s sort of what they exist for.

No, my dismay is the enthusiasm with which many not-very-bright medium and large charity (sorry, “third sector”) CEOs will greet this. For those of us that work for campaigning charities to change the things that are wrong with the world as we see it, there is something vastly miserable about watching our sector forget that:
1. charitable provision will never replace the state adequately (that is, if you have any concern about services being provided consistently to everyone in every area, which you should);
2. charitable provision is not in and of itself high quality, simply as a result of the sector from which it originates;
3. it’s elections which guarantee a political voice to millions of working people, not NGOs helping marginalised people of whatever stripe to participate, though that top-up participation is valuable;
4. if sustainable funding is what you are after, the Tories see NGO provision as a way to spend less money, not more, so your battle cries of “respect the COMPACT!” and “for a long-term funding settlement with full-cost recovery!” will go unheard. (Well, did you really think that a shrinking state would give masses more money to NGOs, rather than in tax cuts?!)

I’m not in practice against charities taking on state contracts or delivering public services (though I have red lines around charitable delivery of coercive services such as prisons and making funding allocation decisions, both of which I think require democratic accountability). But I do think that the sooner that the leadership of the sector recognises that it is deluded if it thinks of itself as inherently better or more responsive than the state and realises that the main distinguishing feature of a charity is that, independently funded, it can advocate for structural change, the better for the variety of disadvantaged people we’re supposed to serve. Charities exist to solve the problem they were set up to tackle: our aim should be to put ourselves out of business.

Apologies if this last post is intelligible only to other regular readers of Third Sector magazine. Once again, none of these points reflect the views of either the Oxford city Labour group, nor of my employer.

So, the excitement of the day has been about the Tories’ publication of their policy commission report on what they call “breakdown Britain”. And their policy prescription to end poverty in the UK? Well…

Reinstatement and full public use of the term ‘marital status’ and associated terms ‘husband’, ‘wife’, ‘spouse’ and ‘marriage’, sending a clear and unambiguous signal about marriage.

Okay, so that was a cheap shot, but it says so much about the report that frankly embarassing nonsense culled from the letters page of the Daily Telegraph (”SIR: the other day, I was filling in a form for the Government, and did you know, my wife has become my PARTNER! It’s political correctness gone mad! I remain…”) has made it into the final version of policies that the party is recommended to adopt.

I will admit to feeling torn about this: much as when the Tories began to be reasonable rather than red in tooth and claw about women’s issues and lesbian and gay rights, the campaigner in me is pleased that they are seriously engaging with the issues (and don’t be mistaken: this is a serious engagement with the issues, and the Tories giving up on bashing poor people, if this is what this is, is to be welcomed). But at the same time, as a Labour member, I know that their prescriptions are going to be wrong - how could they not be, starting from such as dismal view of the world? - but may be enough to fool people who care about poverty in the UK into thinking that they’re reasonable, and electable… and that way lies ruin.

All day the mood music has been about marriage. You know I’m not one to worry about the nanny state, so I don’t believe that the way to argue against promoting marriage is to worry about what the state should or should not get involved in. I think we’re better off talking about how incredibly cheeky it is to pretend that you’re interested in ending poverty, whilst preparing the way for a cash bung to people who don’t need it - Chris D puts it better than I can. It’ll take £4bn or thereabouts to halve child poverty in the UK by 2010 - Labour’s target, which the Tories have signed up to, by the way. But these proposals for tax breaks and increased WTC for married couples will cost about £6bn, and given the depth and breadth of poverty in lone parent families, giving it all to married couples is literally taking desperately needed food out of the mouths of babes. Some of it may go where it’s needed; most of it won’t, and not only will the young people that need it not benefit from it, what will the Tories cut in order to pay for populist vote-grabbing marriage promotion?

And what a shame that the genuinely good stuff in the report (increased carers allowances, increased benefits for severely disabled people, stopping payment of HB in arrears, more help to pay for childcare for disabled children, suggestions for practical support for struggling families) and the stuff that we need to have a debate about (whether we should pay parents to stay at home with their children, whether childcare tax credits should pay family members to provide care, how to ensure that getting people into work doesn’t mean getting them into the first minimum wage job and leaving them there) is obscured by numpty nonsense about marriage, plus a daft dogmatic proposal about stopping state nurseries competing with private ones, when we’ve barely got enough nuresry places as it is. Oh well, what did we expect?

One of the things I love about this blog is that it is my personal space to talk about the issues that matter to me, so you’ll understand that none of these points reflect the views of either the Oxford city Labour group, nor of my longsuffering employer. I’m glad that’s clear.

Via Iain Dale, I came across this article in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday by Caroline Righton, the Conservative candidate for St Austell and Newquay. Quite why a Tory blogger would want to flag up an article showing what women in their party still have to put up with, I don’t know. Some choice quotes:

Afterwards, much politically incorrect reaction from elderly local Tories who, although resistant to concept of A-list, are secretly intrigued. ‘What did you do, dearie, take all your clothes off?’ asks one. I’m secretly cheered he thinks it would have made a difference.

Apart from a couple of smiling faces, they look unforgiving. I spot several heads shaking in disbelief when I’m clapped. This makes it all the more difficult to discern which of the elderly gents is responsible for sending a text to my mobile phone, saying: ‘Gr8t legs– U gt my vote.’

It’s six years since Fawcett found that “overt discrimination and sexual harassment during the selection process are significant factors in the failure of women to get selected for safe or winnable Conservative seats” (pdf). Then, the researchers heard tales of female candidates being told “I lay awake all night thinking about you”, and “what will your husband do for sex when you’re in Westminster all week?” Is this really very different? Excuse me for thinking that Tory women shouldn’t have to put up with this, and excuse me for feeling sad that this woman in question, Caroline Righton, seems to think these sort of deeply unacceptable comments are just par for the course, even something to be laughed at. She got selected despite them - other women have not. I’m sure parts of my own party are no better; but at least our women have more self-respect than just to accept it.

It’s been a pretty exciting day, all told, and I’m quite pleased with the new Cabinet. I wanted to flag up Unity’s comment over at Dave Osler’s place, which I thought made some interesting points about the impact of the changes on the Tories:

The Justice/Home Secretary combo of Straw and Smith is an effective downgrade in importance for the Home Office [...] That effectively pushes Basher Davis down the pecking order in terms of profile, which ain’t going to go down well with him.
Splitting education leaves Cameron with the option of giving Two Brains half his old job or moving him on, right after the grammar school spat, which makes it difficult to move him without there being some negative briefing as payback for pissing off the Thatcherite faithful, unless he gets a plum job, which’ll piss the Thatcherites off even more.

Two interesting stories about how the Tories really haven’t gone all cuddly:

“…just 46 per cent of Tory MPs agree that gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, with 54 per cent disagreeing. For comparison, 83 per cent of Labour MPs and 92 per cent of Lib Dems agree. [...] there is a 52 to 48 per cent split among Tories on whether “the diverse mix of races, cultures and religions now found in our society has improved Britain”. [...] And while Labour MPs are virtually unanimous in agreeing that “one of the things that would most improve life in Britain today is people being more tolerant of different ethnic groups and cultures”, that is the view of only 67 per cent of Tory MPs.”

33% Tories would refuse to go to their friend’s civil partnership.
49% Tories oppose the right of a woman to end her pregnancy.
65% Tories think immigrants have been largely bad for Britain

How do you find out what young people want? It’s a question that preoccupies lots of well-meaning politicians. On the estate I represent on the council, the answers are always the same: more sport, somewhere to hang out such as a youth cafe or a well-lit youth shelter, someone to talk to about any problems I have, something for girls to do, a safer and better environment on Rose Hill so I’m not ashamed to bring my friends here.

As part of our ongoing battle to secure more funding for Rose Hill’s young people, the city council recently commissioned a report about what young people on Rose Hill want, what’s available now, and what opportunities there might be. It’s a fascinating piece of work, and highlights some of the real problems: that we have a county council which spends just £53 per head per young person on youth services, compared to a national average of more than £100; that the number of NEET young people on Rose Hill estate is comparable to the numbers on some of the toughest estates in Tower Hamlets, where the consultant working for us has just completed a similar project; that unlike Tower Hamlets, there’s not a single youth support team specifically working with identified at-risk teenagers on Rose Hill, as there’s a shortage of youth workers wanting to work in the evenings. (Forgive me, but if you’ve trained as a youth worker, perhaps you might have thought that evening work came as part of the territory?!)

I need to say that our youth workers on the estate are great: they get no funding apart from one or two of their salaries, and have to fundraise for everything else. We would have many more problems than we do if it wasn’t for Maggie and her team’s hard work, and nothing I say here is to criticise them. They work incredibly hard - but all they can do is attempt to divert young people from trouble, with no-one to call on to provide in depth support to young people at risk. The more I think about it, the more furious I get.

I’ve given up arguing for what we thought might be a reasonable deal: county council funding so that the youth club can open every night for a few hours. It wasn’t clear to me what the problem was: the police say it’s utterly vital, we have two massive surveys of opinion on the estate talking about how there’s nothing for young people to do, and the city would have put some money in too. But it’s not going to happen - the county are impervious to argument, and if they haven’t an answer, they just don’t call you back or reply to your letters or emails.

But this year, £5 million is coming to Oxfordshire County Council for the service to replace Connexions, the youth advice service, and another £1 million or so is coming for specific young people-led projects. It’s all new money, and fantastically, it’s all been ringfenced by government for youth services of one sort or another. I’d like the leader of the council, Keith Mitchell, and the portfolio holder for children’s services, Louise Chapman, to tell me exactly how much of that cash is coming for the 387 young people aged 13-19 on Rose Hill who they have so far failed. And while they’re at it, I’d like a breakdown of wards in Oxfordshire, ranked by disadvantage, and a breakdown of how this extra money is being allocated to make the most difference. Cos until I started shouting last autumn, Connexions had never run any services on Rose Hill estate, and I’m convinced they don’t do any work on any of the other estates either, just sit holed up in their office on Gloucester Green in the city centre. And cos I don’t trust the county council not to spend it in bloody Henley and bloody Wallingford and bloody Bloxham, when it would make so much difference to spend it on the young people of Rose Hill, and Blackbird Leys, and Barton, and Wood Farm. Our coppers know this: just ask Inspector Phil Standish, whose team deal with young people getting into trouble every day on Rose Hill. The local community knows this. And yet, for partisan political reasons, money keeps getting put into leafy rural villages in pretty Oxfordshire, leaving our estates with no bloody resources. It’s a scandal - not one the Oxford Mail will cover as once again they failed to get a journo to area committee - but a scandal nonetheless.

But, you know, what do you do when you’ve a county council who manifestly fail in their responsibilities and don’t give a two hoots about young people on Rose Hill? As a city councillor, you fund whatever you can, however you can, through the city council. Just before Christmas, six young people came to the residents’ and tenants’ association. They wanted to talk about what should be different on Rose Hill. Lots of their ideas were way beyond what’s possible (though they shouldn’t be - why can’t we have a swimming pool on Rose Hill? Barton has one), but one wasn’t. And tonight at the area committee, we found the money for a small thing: floodlighting the streetsports area so it’s usable all year round. £12k, but it’s exactly what the young people who came to that committee meeting said they wanted. I’ll text them all tomorrow and tell them. One thing accomplished, but once again the city council picks up the pieces for an incompetent uncaring rural-dominated city-hating county council leadership. I’m almost angry enough to say that I’ll stand for the county myself next time, not that it’ll make a blind bit of difference.

Occasionally, I post up comments which deserve a wider audience. Here’s Sid Whitworth, talking about why we need a recession to combat climate change:

“I will be campaigning at this year’s Big Green Gathering under the banner: Global recession - the only solution to global warming.
I have been campaigning on environmental issues for three years and have come to realise that government and local council efforts to curb carbon emissions have totally failed. Renewable energy and fuel efficiency initiatives have also failed. Friends of the Earth are now a corporate-friendly group with few ideas other than continuing to extol the good of recycling (waste continues to grow) and using low-energy light bulbs (energy demand continues to grow).
Past experience has shown that it is only during recessions that emissions dip.
You cannot build your way out of climate change. You can only cut back and use less. Sorry guys. It’s a fact. But what politician is going to promise you less, hard times, unemployment, other than Churchill?”

This is the guy last heard of standing for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. We’ll trust his remedies for the big problems of our day, then, eh?

Cllrs Paul Sergeant and Tia McGregor, having left the Lib Dems to become independents, are now set to become Tories, according to the Oxford Mail. So, Oxford’s not a Tory-free zone any longer.