An anecdote: I was told by a teacher the other day that he was having to explain to his class the reasons why free swimming for under 16s had bee n removed. He’d tried to be balanced and explain about the deficit, but the class weren’t buying it. “So why bring it in in the first place then?” He explained about obesity etc and that there had been a change of government. The response: “Labour got it right though”.
Obviously I agree but, it prompted two thoughts or questions.
Firstly I’d be interested to see a demographic breakdown of how the cuts are affecting different age groups. For all pensioners are – rightly – concerned about their benefits and pensions, I would suspect the hardest hit are the young, under 18s and 18-25s. It would be hard for the analysis to quantify but U16 swimming, cuts to education, future jobs fund, freezing child benefit, loss of the Child trust fund, threats to sure start, all seem to hit children hardest. That definitely doesn’t seem fair, since this is the generation that is already set to inherit a pensions crisis and housing that is out of reach of ordinary
workers.
Secondly are the Conservatives/Libdems are setting up a generation who think they don’t matter to politicians. If so this is an obvious opportunity for Labour, and a responsibility as if they don’t vote when they turn 18 they may never vote, much less end up politically active. Having said that young people are so aware of issues from poverty to climate change today that hopefully they will be getting themselves involved!
And if any of them want to start a petition or campaign on free swimming in Reading, there’s one councillor who will support you right here…
UPDATED: 3.15pm, removing typos
Surely teaching children to swim is also a safety issue? Not all parents have access to pools or are confident enough to teach their youngsters to swim, however, anyone can fall into a river or lake by accident.
Makes me realise just how lucky I am to have grown up in a country where a fortune is spent on schooling. Wish I'd appreciated it more at the time when I was actually going to school!
Fair point Kittster, there've been some tragic cases over the years.
“I would suspect the hardest hit are the young, under 18s and 18-25s”
You mean, the ones who are going to suffer the most from the uncontrolled and unskilled immigration that the UK has suffered in the last 13 years courtesy of Labour. They are going to suffer due to the wages being pushed down yet being taxed to death to pay for your party's gross mismanagement of our country's economy. That's assuming that they can even get jobs to begin with.
“I would be hard for the analysis to quantify but U16 swimming, cuts to education, future jobs fund, freezing child benefit, loss of the Child trust fund, threats to sure start, all seem to hit children hardest.”
I guess that the first word in the above quote is wrong and you actually mean 'it'? Now let's see, 'cuts to education', if by cuts to education you mean not decorating schools etc then how is that a bad thing? You don't need brand spanking new schools to teach kids in, you need good teachers (which we don't have thanks to Labour) and the equipment available. If the schools decide it's better to decorate their staff room instead of spending it on books etc then that's no one's fault but the school's.
“future jobs fund”, if that's being scrapped then good! That was another waste of money and all it did was massage the unemployment figures.
“freezing child benefit, loss of the Child trust fund”
Good. Others shouldn't pay for other people's kids. If you can't afford to have kids then you shouldn't have them, simple. You shouldn't rely on others to pay for them. The child trust fund should never have been formed in the first place, all it did was encourage irresponsible people to have more and more kids.
“That definitely doesn't seem fair, since this is the generation that is already set to inherit a pensions crisis and housing that is out of reach of ordinary workers.”
Oh it's fair. I'm also going to inherit a pension crisis thanks to Labour robbing me of my pension and I also can't afford to buy a house due to Labour's mismanagement of the economy and socialist Bill repealing the Glass-Steagall Act which has resulted in banks being unwilling to give mortgages out unless you have a big deposit.
“Secondly are the Conservaties/Libdems are setting up a generation who think they don't matter to politicians.”
If they are then they're only following Labour's lead. All Labour cared about was importing voters regardless of what the indigenous population thought and regardless of their job prospects/quality of life you sanctimonious little bitch.
Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed response. I do disagree with your analysis however, in particular about the economic impact of immigration. I do agree that the younger generation are going to find a big hole in their pensions. The reason for this is surely the ageing population though? Britain, like lots of rich economies is seeing a fall in the ratio of workers to pensions meaning there are fewer to pay for the pensions (however you fund pensions ultimately the value of the pension links to what is produced in the economy). I assume you don't blame Labour for a falling birth rate?
Ironically immigration has actually helped to mitigate that so far.
We can argue to the cows come home about who's fault the economic problems of the country are and who's policies will help solve them. My view – that the recession was the fault of the financial system, something that the leadership of all parties prior to 2008 failed to recognise. I also believe that Labour's policies based on returning the economy to growth and stimulating jobs are the ones that make sense, and that cutting too soon and too deep is actually a recipe for high and persistent unemployment. I'm not arguing the case here, just stating my opinion.
PS I agree with you that the repeal of the Glass-Seagal act was a big mistake, at least not replacing it with something more modern. My understanding of this is that it had been massively eroded over the years by successive US administrations from Regan onwards, so this was the final straw rather than a one off decision by Clinton.
And yes there is a typo, “it' not “I”, although I would find it hard to quantify too!
“I do disagree with your analysis however, in particular about the economic impact of immigration”
I'm currently reading a book on the economic impact of immigration, in particular 3rd world immigration, to Europe. That book completely disagrees with you and if the football is boring tonight then I shall give you some facts and figures. I expect you will completely ignore this as it doesn't fit in with your ideology.
” I do agree that the younger generation are going to find a big hole in their pensions. The reason for this is surely the ageing population though?”
I don't know about your pension, but Gordon Brown stole mine, not the ageing population. Last time I checked he was Labour. I don't see the public sector workers being stolen like mine was though, why is that?
“I assume you don't blame Labour for a falling birth rate?”
Correct, I don't blame Labour for a falling birth rate amongst the indigenous population. What I do blame Labour for is the uncontrolled immigration that is going to result in the UK being a white minority country by about 2050 due to the newly arrived having a very high birth rate, much higher than the indigenous population. For example, Pakistani and Bangladeshi women have on average 5.6 kids (I'll find the source tonight in the book) once they're living here.
“Ironically immigration has actually helped to mitigate that so far.”
See above. And that certainly isn't for the better.
“My view – that the recession was the fault of the financial system,”
Whilst the financial sector weren't blameless, neither were the government. The difference between us here is that I can see that the government were to blame as well as the financial sector whereas you don't believe that at all due to being blinkered. I believe that it was Labour that deregulated the banks, yes? Yes it was. Remember Clinton was a socialist too.
Saying that was a final straw as such is just wrong. That Act being repealed meant that people who didn't work, would never work, could never afford a house etc were able to buy one. That it an incredibly irresponsible thing to enable, that would never have happened if the Act wasn't repealed. We wouldn't have suffered nearly as much as we have had it not been repealed as our banks wouldn't have been exposed to the toxic debts. It is also worth nothing that the banks didn't force the government to create a million or so non-jobs such as the cheerleader officers up at Falkirk Council, they also didn't force the government to make living off of benefits a lifestyle choice.
“I also believe that Labour's policies based on returning the economy to growth and stimulating jobs are the ones that make sense”
Labour's idea of creating jobs is by creating non-jobs in the civil service. I'm sure that you are well aware that the public sector wages are paid for by the wealth generating private sector. Hence creating jobs in the public sector just means that we have more debt. The incentives that should instead be used to create jobs is by reducing corporation tax, offering incentives for industries to set up in areas of high unemployment (such as no tax for x years, no NI on those employees etc). That will stimulate the economy a lot more than creating unnecessary jobs in the public sector.
By the way, what do you make of Diane Abbot's quite simply racist comments from yesterday? Had that been a white politician then there would've been calls for him or her to resign. Double standards don't you think?
Apologies if this has come through more than once – computer threw a hissy fit.
Apologies for the delay I enjoyed the football and had a busy weekend and work, however the day off has enabled me to find said sources.
First off the supposed economic 'benefits' that immigrants bring to our economy. A House of Lords report from April 2008 said that mass immigration has seen wages fall and up to 100,000 youngsters have been unable to find work. I guess this is backed up when you look at the 'NEET' unemployment figures. The report also mentioned that bringing in immigrants en masse didn't reduce the unemployment and it didn't bring considerably extra tax revenue into the coffers as often cited as they also claim benefits and draw state pensions.
You can add to this a report by Oxford University's Professor David Coleman, who was at the time a leading professor in his field of demographics. In a report he wrote in 2007 he said that the wider costs of immigration is £8.8bn per year. The main costs to us taxpayers are: £1.5bn to run the asylum system (waste of money when it's probably fair to say that 90%+ are sham applications), £280m to teach English to immigrants (the cost here should be £0, you want to learn it then do it off of your own back, you don't want to learn it then don't come here) and at least £330m to treat illnesses such as HIV (so that would be stretching the NHS then). Of course left-wing nut jobs didn't agree with this so ran a campaign to get him sacked for giving some figures. In fact, rather comically, they even branded him racist. If he's racist then I dread to think what Diane Abbot is? Another figure given, which is probably excessive, is £88bn per year as given by Arthur Kemp in his “The Immigration Invasion” book.
Moving onto the birth rates. An Office of National Statistics (ONS) report from August 2008 said that more than half of all births were to non-UK mothers, including London (54%), Slough (56%) and Luton (51%). These were all dwarfed by the London borough of Newham which was at 75%. I do make one apology from my previous post, it was not 5.6 for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women, it was 3.9 for Bangladeshi women and 5 for Pakistanis. This is compared to an average of 2.5 children per mother for all non-UK mothers. I think it is a fair assessment to say that these figures would've increased since that report was released and what Labour's open door immigration approach is doing is to turn the UK into a white minority country. Guess what, they won't vote Labour once they're a majority in this country.
So, what do you make of Diane Abbot's comments from last week? Or are you just trying to brush it under the carpet?