The investment banker who helped to raise £50 billion for firms such as Eurotunnel, Railtrack and EuroDisney, had a reputation for solving impossible problems.

"If it was horrid, I got given it," he says.

There can be few things more horrid than the welfare system. "It's a mess nobody understands or can manage," he says.

He took three weeks to research and write the first draft of his report.

"I didn't know anything about welfare at all when I started, but that may have been an advantage. I was genuinely shocked that the analysis was such a blob, nobody had come up with anything clear. In a funny way the solution was obvious." ...

Mr Freud's big idea is that the private sector be put in charge of the long-term unemployed. Companies taking part would receive a huge fee for getting somebody to stay in a job for more than three years but nothing if they fail.

There will be bonuses for hard cases, and no special treatment of disabled people or lone parents with children at school.

"There are about 3.1 million people not working, I think we can get about 1.4 million back to work," Mr Freud says.

Telegraph 02 February 2008

'Going on the sick'

So, on the basis of three weeks research, David Freud claimed he could get 1.4 million people off benefits and into work. The fact that this leaves nearly 2 million where they are is glossed over.

Bear in mind - because papers like the Daily Telegraph won't tell you - Invalidity Benefit claimants have had their claims double-checked regularly by DSS doctors since Peter Lilley's reforms dating from 1992. I can vouch for this truth since a friend went through this system until his sixtieth birthday; it was tough, but if you were genuinely unable to work you kept your benefit.

This fact will not put off either party from going further and further down the road to US-style workfare.

So how is the US system coping now the recession has pushed up the unemployment rates?

The New York Times reported:

The program that responded most readily to the recession, food stamps, has done so in large part because it serves the working poor and jobless alike.

In the 12 months ending this February, the rolls grew 17 percent. One in 9 Americans now gets food stamps, and the recovery package temporarily raised the average benefit about 19 percent, to about $500 a month for a family of four ...

Much of the recovery act spending expires in two years. What happens then?

No one envisions a return to the time of unconditional aid.

Even critics of the tougher welfare system credit it for raising employment rates ...

“It worked better than, I think, a lot of people anticipated,” Mr. Obama said at a campaign event last year. “One of the things that I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to have work as a centerpiece of any social policy.”

But progress had stalled even before the recession began, and two sets of problems had emerged.

One is that the neediest people — the addicted, disabled or mentally ill — often fell through the cracks, finding neither welfare nor work.

Another is that most low-wage workers were failing to advance ...

NYT 31 May 2009

28m on food stamps

Food stamps are a continuing reminder of widespread poverty

Pareto Efficiencies and Social Cohesion

There you have it: "the neediest people — the addicted, disabled or mentally ill — often fell through the cracks"!

To sum up: the globalised state expects you to work, but, in the interests of Pareto efficiencies, it exports a wide range of jobs to countries where labour is cheaper, thus unbalancing the economy and restricting the range of jobs which might otherwise be available.

Further, as the dispute at the Lindsey Oil Refinery demonstrated, it expects you to compete with workers from other countries in your own country, and on terms verging on those suffered by agency workers.

Even the CBI seems to have realised that there is something wrong here:  [Times].

The combination of the minimum wage - which is too low - and Brown's contemptible decision to abolish the 10p tax band, have further reduced incentives to work. [IFS]

Workfare and Cartesian Dualism

Finally, I want to emphasise the plight of the mentally ill, who are at the very sharpest end of globalised individualism.

The LSE Depression Report (2006) found that there were more mentally ill people on incapacity benefits than the total number of unemployed people on benefit.   [LSE]

Paedar Kirby quotes from the work of Beinfeld and Korngold:

The mind is separate from the body, the disease from the person who has it ... people become the 'objects' rather than the 'subjects' of their own activity ...

This dominant Western psychology of the self ... has led to the emergence of a psychotherapeutic model that is largely based on individualistic assumptions.

In such a schema, 'individuation' and a strong separate ego are seen as the key to mental health.

This constricted sense of self highlights our division from one another, and allows for the objectification of others and ourselves.

... The ideological framework informing much of the psychological treatment given to those who are labelled 'mentally ill', identifies their behaviour as 'abnormal' ... the moral and political dimensions of the deviant behaviour are not addressed.

Illness in such a world view is an individual matter.

There is no language of social suffering that can speak to the moral and political experience of both sufferer and the suffering community ... Denial of the desire to live in harmony with the natural world leads to alienation, numbness, anxiety and depression.

[VaV page 156, pbk edition 2006]

David Smail    'Mind-forg'd manacles'

Alan Milburn set for third return to Government as David Cameron adviser

The leading Blairite has been offered the role of "social mobility tsar" by the Prime Minister, with a remit to examine ways of boosting the chances of underprivileged children.

Mr Milburn, who stood down as an MP at the last election, conducted a major review on the issue for Gordon Brown but his recommendations were not acted on amid concerns they were too radical ...

In January last year, he began chairing the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions set up by Mr Brown and made up of 18 leading business and political figures, including a senior Lib Dem strategist and adviser to Mr Clegg, Neil Sherlock.

After announcing he was standing down as an MP in June, he produced a hard-hitting report in July with recommendations to improve social mobility, with proposals for schools, universities, internship practices and recruitment processes.

But many of his plans were abandoned by Labour ministers. Proposals to give parents with children in failing schools credit vouchers to go to a state school of their choice were rejected along with a plan to close the government's careers advice service and hand the money direct to schools ...

Telegraph  15 Aug 2010    Collaborators    

Clegg defends Milburn's social mobility role

John Prescott: Alan Milburn is a 'collaborator'

Alan Milburn's consultancy company

Onwards and endlessly upwards

Social mobility tsar Alan Milburn to attack Labour

Getting on, getting ahead

David Blunkett set to join Tory war on dole cheats

Former Labour Cabinet Minister David Blunkett is poised to give the Coalition a major boost by helping it tackle poverty, benefits abuse and the pensions crisis ...

Known for his no-nonsense views on scroungers, hooligans and the feckless unemployed, Mr Blunkett is considering working for Mr Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice ...

Like fellow Labour Right-wingers Mr Field and Mr Hutton, Mr Blunkett had frequent clashes with Gordon Brown over state benefits and other issues.

While his socially conservative views upset Mr Brown, they won him many Tory admirers ...

In 2005, Mr Blair wanted to give Mr Blunkett special responsibility for dealing with anti-social behaviour by young thugs but the move was blocked by John Prescott ...

Mail on Sunday     Collaborators    Crackdown on Welfare

DNA Bioscience

Nanny Visa

New Schools Network: questions for Michael Gove

The reality of Dave's 'big society' in action.

What a curious beast is the New Schools Network, the "independent charity" that championed the plans for "free schools" now being rushed through Parliament by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Click on the group's online form to "Sign up for more information" and a message appears:

"We may pass relevant details to the Department for Education so they can provide assistance. If this is a problem please email us on info@newschoolsnetwork.org."

How many other "independent charities" pass your details to government unless you email to object?

Then again, how many other charities get £500,000 from the government to implement the very policy they've been lobbying for? ...

The Other TaxPayers' Alliance     Tory Education 'Reform'

Gove fails to respond to our Freedom of Information requests

New Schools Network lacks transparency

Nursery World

New Schools Network

David Cameron launches next stage of 'Big Society' plan

And there's the catch - projects will get an 'expert organiser and dedicated civil servants' to make sure they don't take 'people power' too seriously. It's more Hazel Blears than Ivan Illich.

Mr Cameron used a speech in Liverpool - one of the areas to benefit - to hail the potential for shifting power from the state to individuals.

But he insisted he was not "naive enough to think that if the Government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more".

"The truth is that we need a government that actually helps to build up the Big Society," he added.

The other three areas picked to receive initial help with projects are Eden Valley, Cumbria; Windsor and Maidenhead, Berkshire; and the London Borough of Sutton.

Each will get an expert organiser and dedicated civil servants to ensure "people power" initiatives get off the ground and inspire a wider change, the Prime Minister said.

Independent  19 July 2010    Plato v Illich

Big tents don't have room for all

But what if the Big Society doesn't work?

We can all see you're conning us, Hazel

'Prize draw' to encourage voting

John Hutton to head public sector pensions commission

Ex-Labour cabinet minister John Hutton has been appointed by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition to head a commission into public sector pensions.

Chancellor George Osborne said the projected rise in the cost to taxpayers of public sector pensions was "unsustainable" and must be tackled.

Mr Hutton's review would come up with "early steps" by September, with full proposals in time for 2011's Budget.

The chancellor said Mr Hutton would be "clear and unbiased" in his review.

Mr Osborne added that Mr Hutton's involvement meant that the proposals would have had cross-party input ...

BBC NEWS  20 June 2010    Reflection on the Renewal of the Labour Party    

Celebrate huge salaries, minister tells Labour

Demos sees big role for supermarkets in regenerating poor communities

A spokesperson from Demos was interviewed on Radio 5's "Morning Reports" slot after 05:00 today.

His main concern appeared to centre around 'poorer' people getting their five fruit and veg every day!

(More 'Nudge' than Ivan Illich.)

The give-away is the prospect of 'local people' running their local services cheaper than the state.

Note, also, ASDA's concern about property taxes, as in can you lower them please, Dave?

Demos thinktank argues for tax breaks for supermarkets if they can turn sink areas around ...

Demos argues that the presence of mainstream retailers such as Tesco or Asda can encourage a sense of pride on struggling estates, raise aspirations, create jobs and give access to affordable food as well as raising perceptions outside the area.

The supermarket giants should even be offered time-limited tax breaks to help end the "brand deserts" that stigmatise and isolate deprived communities, according to Demos.

The presence of mainstream retail brands, the report argues, has helped to transform Castle Vale and Balsall Heath in Birmingham, areas which had been renowned for high levels of deprivation and crime.

Balsall Heath is one of the areas that is said to have inspired David Cameron's "Big Society" policy ...

The report also suggests that "micro-mayors" serving 1,000-1,500 people should be elected annually to resolve problems such as littering or anti-social behaviour.

The mayors would be funded through a small local levy.

Other suggestions include allowing local people to take over and run services such as Sure Start, parks, health centres and employment services, and giving cash back to those communities that could show they could run a service more cheaply than the state ...

Asda said its stores played a leading role in helping to regenerate communities, including offering work to local unemployed people, and it would welcome incentives to expand its activities.

Jonathan Refoy, the company's head of property communications, added: "As well as the need for local and national planning policy to give more weight to support the significant contribution new store development can bring to communities, it is also important that property taxation encourages investment."

Guardian  07 June 2010    Plato v Illich

Civic Streets

Labour's Frank Field to head poverty review

... the Review on Poverty and Life Chances will look at whether measures need to be reformed, how children's learning is affected by their home life and recommend action to reduce poverty for the least advantaged "consistent with the government's fiscal strategy".

He will work with officials from a number of government departments, including the Treasury and Home Office, as well as Work and Pensions.

Mr Field told the BBC he will look at new ways of measuring poverty and of measuring how effective public spending is in helping to tackle its root causes ...

BBC NEWS  05 June 2010    Benefits_Welfare    Collaborators    Inequality: Does it Matter?

Victorian Contrasts

Welfare 'trapping' people in poverty

We must not 'park' people on benefits, says Duncan Smith

It's important to offer IDS full marks for realising there's a problem, even if he cannot bring himself to recognise it's one his predecessor - Margaret Thatcher - made infinitely worse when she took the country on a journey to neoliberalism. (Pinochet with strike-breaking police rather than air force jets.)

IDS's speech to The Heritage Foundation in March 2009 provides many clues as to where he is coming from.

Britain is 'broken' - in social terms - and needs:

... a strong family, a completed education, good employment opportunities and freedom from drugs and other addictions ...  [BB]

Only one problem: there aren't the 'good employment opportunities' any more because, as Thatcher's chief economic adviser Alan Budd admitted:

"' ... the 1980s policies of attacking inflation by squeezing the economy and public spending were a cover to bash the workers ... (to create an) ... industrial reserve army' which would undermine the power of labour ... The result: wages stagnated."   [DH]

The implementation of article six of the Washington Consensus since the 1980s has been so successful that IDS has brazen cheek to inform us that he will be "addressing the root causes of poverty at every level"!

So there's going to be full employment under the coalition, is there, Mr Duncan-Smith?

I don't think the IMF and the guys from Davos will be onside with that one, it would seriously damage profits.

The creation of unemployment is policy. Attacking benefit 'scroungers' is simply another deployment of the third face of power.

[IDS] wants to transform his Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) from one which pays out benefits to one with a mission to reduce poverty and remove the barriers to social mobility and equal opportunity.

He will promise to tackle a "culture of dependency" by addressing the root causes of poverty at every level.

The scale of his challenge will be highlighted in a "state of the nation" government report published today showing that: 1.4 million people have been on an

• out-of-work benefit for nine or more of the last 10 years;
• income inequality is now at its highest level since comparable statistics began in 1961;
• social mobility is worse than in the US, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark;
• and a higher proportion of children grow up in workless households in the UK than in any other EU country.

Mr Duncan Smith will say:

"A system that was originally designed to help support the poorest in society is now trapping them in the very condition it was supposed to alleviate. Instead of helping, a deeply unfair benefits system too often writes people off.

"The proportion of people parked on inactive benefits has almost tripled in the past 30 years to 41 per cent of the inactive working age population. That is a tragedy. We must be here to help people improve their lives – not just park them on long-term benefits." ...

"For many people, the move from welfare into work means they face losing more than 95p for every additional £1 they earn. As a result, the poor are being taxed at an effective tax rate that far exceeds the wealthy. We have in effect taken away the reward and left people with the risk. That must and will change." ...

Independent  27 May 2010    Blog    No such thing as society

IDS ... a worrying ignorance about welfare

Tax credits scheme may be scrapped

Iain Duncan Smith declares war on 'bust' benefits system

Coalition government sets out radical welfare reforms

IDS: I will tackle root causes of poverty

Plan to link retirement age to life expectancy

Dave's Big Society: RIP

Big tents don't have room for all

Whatever the differences, Cameron and Osborne still behave as if they are the heirs of Blair. They both prefer the choreography of politics to the details of policy ...

The deeper point which emerges from Steve Richards' commentary, is that politics is, well, just not political any more.

Nor should this surprise us.

The details of the lead item today - 'Coalition to rush through £6bn of cuts' - reveal that the new government is failing to think outside the box.

Government is now a managerial job, struggling to make a grotesquely over-large centralised state function, if not well, then without too many crashes.

It must be a great feeling if you get to play with the levers for the first time, as Blair did in 1997, and the Dave 'n Nick duo are currently.

Later on, however, "stuff happens", which is also what we should expect since it is vanishingly unlikely that such a massively shambolic sprawl could ever be effectively controlled. But the coalition is not there just yet.

The rush to cut £6bn suggests an operation akin to the Captain of the Titanic not just shifting the deckchairs, but throwing them overboard in the hope that a lighter ship might stay afloat.

The opportunity to make a sea change, by both localising the management of the public services, and injecting real grass-roots democracy into that managment, could both widen Blair's very narrow concept of 'stakeholders' to include all of us, and also result in shed-loads of bureaucats getting well-earned P45s.

The difficulty, of course, is that democratic management of schools, hospitals and the police would run counter to the commodification of services, and offend the supremacy of the market

So, moving government from Plato Mode to Ivan Illich Mode is not at all what politicians and the commentariat have in mind.

The commentariat's role symbiotic role with politicians - alternately massaging or trashing their fragile egos - would lose it's purpose; and the policians ... well, they might just have less to do, like ensuring the differing local authorities have equality of funding.

Independent  18 May 2010    Broken Forms of Politics    Plato v Illich: Towards the DIY State

Coalition to rush through £6bn of cuts

New Tory campaign poster – let's cut benefits

Let's punish the victims of the Washington Consensus; let's get back to comfort zone

This is the new Conservative's campaign poster. Not much of the big society message here and it is going down rather well on Conservative Home.

"It's good to see the party getting specific about what 'change' means," blogs Tim Montgomery.

The first person in the comments is wildly enthusiastic: "Wow. That's a tough message. I like it."

The Spectator and New Statesman blogs are looking at the wider context, and what it means for Conservative party.

"You can expect plenty of handwringing about whether this message is too tough, or whether it represents the Tories shifting rightwards in the aftermath of the Lib Dem surge," says Peter Hoskin in the Spectator.

George Eaton in the New Statesman see consequences of the party's internal tensions being played out across poster sites across the country.

The change of tone is, he says, evidence that communications chief and former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has won out over the more optimistically-orientated strategy director Steve Hilton, a key supporter of Cameron's big society.

This is certainly a lot tougher than what we have been used to seeing from the Tories of late.

Guardian  20 Apr 2010    Election 2010    Welfare to Workfare

Conservative Home

Working party

A poster that cuts to the chase

New Tory poster swerves to the right

Pathways to Work

Central control or choice? The divide is clear

People Power or Corporate Power?

Rachel Sylvester writes as though there is a straight choice between New Labour's centralist control - "the guy from Whitehall knows best" - and David Cameron's 'Big Society'.

If only it were that simple.

Poke around under the bonnet, and the Tories proposals involve more competition, and privatsation, of what used be the public services.

Reference to Edmund Burke's 'little platoons' serves further to obfuscate the agenda.

The suggested public sector 'co-operatives', and parents/teachers setting up their own schools - proposals which create the impression of radical empowerment - will quickly be snuffed out by the corporate providers - from Sweden or the USA - who stand to make a 'nice little earner' in the process.

So much for individuals 'running their own lives'. The policy on schools and schooling illuminates the real line of travel - which is not radically different from that pursued by Tony Blair.   [MG]

David Cameron’s defining belief, as he explains overleaf, is that individuals are better than the Government at running their own lives.

He wants to promote “people power” and his favourite catchphrase is that “there is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same as the State”.

On education, the Tories want to give parents vouchers that they can use anywhere, and the power to set up their own schools.

Police chiefs would be elected and public sector workers able to stage management buyouts of their divisions.

Voluntary organisations and charities would be brought in to run public services.

The idea is to create a market under which, as Oliver Letwin puts it, “hospitals compete for patients, schools compete for pupils, welfare providers compete for results in getting people out of welfare and into work”.

It’s the Burkean philosophy of putting faith in “little platoons”, local communities and families, rather than the State ...

Times  13 Apr 2010

Conservatives to let private firms run state schools at a profit

Tories challenge teachers to start their own school

Class, say hello to Miss Hawn

Back

Will you accept?

The Tory manifesto he unveils today invites people to be their own boss - setting up co-operatives to run public services, to run their own school, to vote for their police chief, to vote to veto excessive council tax rises alongside much more familiar promises.

It is an attempt to capture what the Cameroons see as their big idea - what they call the "big society" - a rather more sellable concept than the previous "post-bureaucratic age".

The idea is that power will be given to the users of public services and to voters to exercise more direct control over how services are run.

The Tories' "big brain", Oliver Letwin, sees it as powerful an idea as privatisation once was.

Just as we now regard the idea of questions being asked in Parliament about why someone's phone line hadn't been installed (this actually happened) he believes we will soon regard it as bizarre that Whitehall runs or heavily controls all schools, hospitals, councils and police forces.

The big question about the "big society" is whether people will welcome this invitation and it's Kennedy-esque call to arms?

Or will they prefer the idea that ran through Labour's manifesto yesterday that government is there to help you? ...

BBC NEWS  13 Apr 2010

Tories to put 'faith in people' first

The Conservative plans aimed at winning the election are based on putting “faith in people” to run their own schools and other services ...

Key commitments in the Conservative programme will include:

• Enabling public sector workers to take ownership of the services they deliver through the formation of co-operatives;

• Power for constituents to sack their MP if they are found to have committed serious wrongdoing;

• Allowing people any "good" education provider to establish a new academy school;

• Help for for first time homebuyers, permanently raising the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 and making it easier for social tenants to own their own homes;

• Power for residents to veto high council tax increases and instigate referendums on any local issue if they can gain support of 5 per cent of the population;

• The creation of directly-elected police chiefs who will set budgets and strategy for forces;

• A new community "right to buy" scheme enabling people to protect community services that are under threat such as post offices or pubs:

• A right to request government data.

• The manifesto also pledges barriers on immigration from countries joining the EU, an annual cap on non-EU migrants and a tougher points system for skilled migrants.

Telegraph  13 Apr 2010

'Broken Britain'    Election 2010    Tory Education 'Reform'

Cameron is giving us more questions than answers

Cameron's parent school promise

Conservative manifesto: a genuine vision

Tory manifesto will change Britain for better

I’ll put you in driving seat

A deceptively modest tax break

Here is a potential government ... wanting to send a moral message ...

We should not be deceived. The implications of what the Conservatives are proposing go far beyond the initially modest bonus of £150 a year ...

Independent  12 Apr 2010    Election 2010    Plato v Illich

Tories to offer tax breaks for married couples

Another day, another spending promise, and more bureacracy. Are you serious about debt, Dave?

The Conservatives are proposing to give four million married couples and civil partners an annual £150 tax break ...

It would apply to basic rate taxpayers earning under £44,000 where one partner does not use their full personal tax-free income allowance.

The £550m a year cost would be funded by a levy on banks ...

The IFS said 32% of all married couples were likely to qualify for the rebate but it was unsure people would choose to get married or stay together because of what was being offered.

"The incentives to marry - or not to divorce - provided by a policy whose maximum benefit is £150 a year must surely be weak relative to the other costs and benefits involved," it said.

It also suggested the plan would be "costly" to administer and there were simpler ways to help married couples on low and average incomes.

BBC NEWS  10 Apr 2010    Election 2010

Election 'being dominated by vested interests'

Is it right to reward matrimony?

Customers could pay the price

Tories to hit banks for marriage tax breaks

Michael Caine backs Tories' youth citizen service plan

Veteran actor Sir Michael Caine has backed David Cameron's plans for voluntary "national citizen service" for all 16-year-olds.

Under the proposal, all teenagers of that age would be able to join a two-month summer residential scheme, with outdoor activities and community work.

The Conservative leader said it would be "in the same spirit" as the old military National Service ...

Mr Cameron added that the aim was to give young people more shape and purpose in their lives.

"Show me a gang taking drugs and I'll show you a group of people who have nothing to look forward to," he said. "The problem is their lives lack shape."

Sir Michael said it would help youngsters "forgotten in this country" ...

BBC NEWS  08 Apr 2010    Election 2010    'NEETS'

You might think so reading today's Dacre. But there's a catch - well, several actually.

First off Dave is going to train the 5000 'community organisers' - to, er, 'professional standards'.

Second, public services will be 'opened up' to 'charities and private companies', who will be paid 'by the results they achieve'.

Who exactly judges, and who sets the targets?

What part will the recipients of all this, er, 'voluntary' activity play in judging the results?

It's not clear. One thing is certain, this is manifestly not a bottom-up empowerment scheme.

Apppropriately, it's All Fools' Day.

Our Big Society

Cameron echoes Kennedy in crusade to empower communities

David Cameron ... said he wanted every adult to be a member of a neighbourhood group as he pledged to create an 'army' of 5,000 trained community organisers to help people tackle social problems ...

Britain's 500,000 civil servants will be expected to undertake regular community service under the Conservative proposals.

Public sector workers - particularly those in deprived areas - will see their commitment to community service become a key element in staff appraisals.

That will produce 'a culture change' designed to turn the civil service into a 'civic service', the Tories say, and set an example to the rest of the country to encourage a huge expansion in volunteering ...

The Conservatives are also proposing a new 'national citizens service', putting 16-year-olds on a two-month programme in which they will 'learn to be socially responsible'.

And they say they would create an annual 'Big Society Day' to celebrate the work of neighbourhood groups and encourage more people to take part in social action projects ...

The Conservatives would break open public services to charities and private companies, paying them by the results they achieve, devolving power down to neighbourhoods and making government more accountable ...

The community leaders he promised would be employed by charities and local groups rather than by the state, but would be trained to professional standards by the Government ...

Daily Mail  01 April 2010    David Cameron

Gertrude Himmelfarb

Vision and hope to heal land mired in moral squalor

Tories renew pledge to allow public sector workers to form co-operatives

We're living in broken Britain, say most voters

In an infocussed way many realise there's a problem, but the cause - pursuit of the Washington Consensus - is shrouded from view.

Voters are deeply pessimistic about the state of Britain today, believing that society is broken and heading in the wrong direction, a Populus poll for The Times has found. Nearly three fifths of voters say that they hardly recognise the country they are living in, while 42 per cent say they would emigrate if they could ...

Voters’ main fire is directed at political institutions: 73 per cent say politics is broken in Britain and 77 per cent say there are far fewer people in public life that they admire than there used to be.

The poll suggests anger at MPs who have had to repay expenses. A third say that they will vote against their local MP if he or she had been required to repay money ...

Times  09 Feb 2010

The market cannot mend our broken society

Benefit informers could be given share of cash saved

As many bloggers point out, there are no similar proposals for a 'crackdown' on tax dodgers.

Proposals to encourage people to inform on benefit cheats are being examined by Labour's manifesto team ...

The idea has been put to Ed Miliband, Labour's manifesto co-ordinator, by Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, as a way of making life harder for benefit cheats.

It has also been discussed by Downing Street as it looks at ways to bolster its Respect agenda, designed to persuade sceptics that the state is on the side of hard-working families.

Although some will see the proposals as wildly impractical or socially divisive, others say they will encourage white, working-class voters to stay loyal to Labour.

No 10 is said to be attracted to the idea as symbolic of a tough contract on fairness in which Labour offers support for those genuinely in need on the condition that they play by the rules.

In Labour's successful byelection campaigns in Glenrothes and Glasgow North-East, Murphy was struck by how much Labour voters wanted to hear a message that emphasises "firm but fair rules" ...

Guardian  08 Feb 2010

New scheme to clamp down on benefit fraudsters

£800m benefits overpaid in error

Recession widens gap between strong and weak regions

Recession has bitten hardest in cities already ravaged by long-term industrial decline, exacerbating the divide between Britain's strongest and weakest regions, according to a thinktank report published today ...

The difference between the strongest and weakest 10 cities, measured by the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance, has increased by 70% since the downturn began.

In Hull, which has suffered the largest increase in joblessness since the downturn began, more than 6,000 people have been added to the unemployment register and there are now an estimated 16 jobseekers for every vacancy. In Cambridge, the least-affected city, the recession has added just 705 people to the unemployment total.

Adam Lent, head of economic and social affairs at the TUC, said the report's findings showed that any new government should intervene more actively to support jobs and investment in cities that will otherwise be left even further behind ...

( ... the centre's director, Dermot) Finch warned that politicians must beware of believing they can create jobs, by investing in high-profile regeneration projects or trying to attract new industrial sectors from scratch. Instead, with money tight, they should focus on fostering the right climate for private sector job creation – by smaller scale projects to improve transport links, reclaim land, or boost local skills, for example ...

Guardian  18 Jan 2010

Gulf between rich and poor cities widens

Dermot Finch - Blog

UK cities 'will take years to recover from recession'

Oliver James

Welfare to Workfare

Our immigrants' success is not down to Labour

To anyone who remembers the jail riots of 1990, today's shambles brings back memories ... Twenty years ago, home affairs journalists could not open their post or pick up a phone without hearing polite but persistent protests from the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders.

Its once condemnatory voice has grown strangely quiet of late. A spokeswoman told me that the silence was a result of an internal reorganisation.

The charity's former allies have a blunter explanation.

Harry Fletcher from the probation worker's union said Nacro has gone soft because it has become dependent on the state.

Local and central government had funded its training programmes for prisoners for years, but now it was entangling itself further with the government it once criticised by forming a partnership with a private prison corporation to bid for contracts to run jails in London and Liverpool.

It was straining credulity to imagine that it could argue for fewer people to go to prison when its new business model relies on the judiciary sending a steady stream of customers through the cell doors ...

Ministers wanted to break public sector monopolies and harness the energy and idealism of charity workers. Charities were equally anxious to escape the time-consuming and frustrating task of badgering private citizens for money and take instead the wads of cash the fairy godmother in Whitehall dangled in front of them ...

More often, they just get caught up in the state's debilitating compliance culture. "Government is obsessed with evidence-led, outcome-driven work," sighed the director of Fairbridge, which helps young people find work. "They demand statistics on every little detail of our operations, from the ethnicity of our clients to their postcodes." But the real problem isn't bureaucratic or even financial but, as the example of the prison reformers shows, existential. Can a charity that relies on the state remain a charity?

In 2007, thinktank Civitas produced a report which revealed the growing dependency of apparently independent institutions. Save the Children, Oxfam, Shelter and the British Red Cross received between 30% and 70% of their money from government. Barnardo's was 78% state funded, Action for Children 88%, while the National Family and Parenting Institute was almost a fully owned subsidiary.

The election of a Cameron government will accelerate the process ...

Observer  15 Nov 2009   

There were 1.2 million households whose total welfare benefits were worth £15,000 or more in 2007/08, the Department of Work and Pensions said. In 1997/98, the figure was 600,000.

And there were 300,000 households who received £20,000 from the state – more than the take-home pay of a worker on the average salary. That is three times the figure when Labour came to power in 1997.

Official figures this week showed that the average annual salary is now £25,800. After tax, that is a take-home salary of around £19,725 ...

The figures for welfare payments include child benefit, incapacity benefit and Jobseekers’ Allowance. They do not include tax credits, which can be worth thousands of pounds a year.

Figures released this week show unemployment stands at 2.461 million.

But the number of working age people considered to be “economically inactive is much higher and stands at 8 million. That total includes 2.6 million people claiming incapacity benefit ...

David Cameron ... has asked Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, to review the system.

Last month, Mr Duncan Smith wrote a think-tank report saying that claimants should be allowed to keep more of their welfare payments when they get jobs, increasing the rewards from employment ...

Telegraph  12 November 2009

Proposals to allow low-paid people to keep benefits longer and to streamline the system have been published by a think tank set up by Iain Duncan Smith.

The Centre for Social Justice says the system makes it hard for people to earn more at work than they get in benefits.

The ex-Tory leader proposes merging 51 benefits into two and subsidising the low paid, at a cost of £2.7bn a year ...

The report says claimants taking a job paying less than £15,000 a year are currently worse off than if they remained out of work.

People are being put off from going for jobs, it argues, and benefits should be removed gradually by lifting the income threshold at which they are phased out.

Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC ...

"We believe that if you want to end child poverty, if you want to help people then you need to be able to help the worst off best, and you need to be able to help them do the most important thing in their lives - which is that we believe every household should have work."

The report says the proposals would cost £2.7bn a year - on top of the £74bn already being spent on benefits.

But Mr Duncan Smith said the potential savings in terms of administration, as less staff would be needed to run the system, and the social cost of worklessness - including health and crime, were "dramatic".

The report estimates it could be £3.4bn a year ...

BBC NEWS  16 September 2009

Iain Duncan Smith urges welfare reform to get jobless into work

More than half a million households could be moved off welfare and into work under plans that would eventually save the taxpayer £700m a year ...

In a major report, Duncan Smith will outline plans to transform the "static" welfare system by removing barriers that discourage the unemployed from seeking work ...

Duncan Smith will outline a three-point plan to ensure that benefits are withdrawn at a later stage, setting in place a new system that it is claimed would encourage 600,000 households to work:

• All 51 benefits for people on no income, or low incomes, would be rolled into two: a universal work credit, integrating jobseeker's allowance and income support, which would go to those taking part in welfare to work schemes, and a universal life credit, absorbing housing benefit, working tax credit and child tax credit, for those with low or no earnings.

• A single universal benefit withdrawal rate of 55% on post-tax earnings. This would see benefits clawed back by the state at a slower rate than currently.

• The "earnings disregard" – the process that allows benefits to be withdrawn – would be increased more generously for larger households, to help families.

Duncan Smith will predict that his plan will cost £2.7bn a year but will eventually save £3.4bn after one to two years – a net saving for the taxpayer of £700m ...

Guardian  15 September 2009

Benefits plan to 'make work pay'

Call to simplify benefits claims

Drug offences have increased in virtually all the top 25 most deprived areas of the country, with some seeing rates rise four fold.

In a speech in London, Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, warns a world of drug gangs, deprivation and organised crime, like that depicted in The Wire, is now rife in the UK.

It is the latest attack on Labour’s record in tackling poverty and crime as the Conservatives continue their raid on their opposition core support.

It is part of a week of speeches and reports designed to prove to working-class voters that only the Conservatives are willing to tackle social inequality.

Figures show 22 of the 25 most deprived areas saw drug offences rise between 2002/03 and 2007/08, with half witnessing increases above the national average.

Salford, Greater Manchester, saw offences increase 312 per cent while Hackney, north London, saw them rise 259 per cent.

Mr Grayling said "culture of deprivation, harm, addiction and failure that is a feature of the worst US urban areas” is now crossing the Atlantic ...

Telegraph  25 August 2009

Tories claim poor being let down

Tory vow to fix 'broken Britain'

Tories attack school poverty gap

Citizen and the state

Truancy on the rise in England

Children imprisoned on remand

Family breakdown a national tragedy

Make it harder to get married

Government targeting teen binge drinking

In a land without morals

Benefits are administered not only by the Department for Work and Pensions, but also by HM Revenue and Customs, local councils and some other Government bodies.

DWP manuals on how to apply benefits run into 14 volumes and 8,690 pages.

A separate four volumes, totalling 1,200 pages, cover the housing and council tax benefits is operated by local authorities while HMRC has a further 260-page manual devoted to tax credits.

Tax expert David Martin, the report's author, gave the example of a woman with a disabled son, eligible for a series of different benefits, who had to complete 10 application forms containing over 1,200 questions to get the support to which she was entitled.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The welfare state has gone from being a safety net to stop people falling into poverty, to being a fishing net which entraps people in its complexity.

"Radical simplification would make it fairer for claimants and cheaper for taxpayers, because billions less would be wasted on bureaucrats and form-filling."

A DWP spokesman said: "We are making strides in simplifying a complicated system. It is not possible to have a one-size-fits-all approach when you are trying to support people's individual needs."

Telegraph  03 Aug 2009

Centre for Policy Studies

Couples would be required by law to "reflect" on their marriage and explore the possibility of reconciliation, under plans put forward by Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice ...

The new proposals are for a three-month delay before divorce proceedings could begin.

The proposals form part of a major new report called Every Family Matters which aims to bolster family life with new legal measures.

The CSJ is Mr Cameron's favourite think tank and he has adopted many of its ideas. A previous report calling for tax breaks for married couples two years ago became official Tory policy.

Mr Cameron has repeatedly said he wants an incoming Tory government to restore the status of marriage in the tax system ...

Telegraph 12 July 2009

Mr Justice Coleridge, a Family Division judge, said the consequences of family break-up for the wider society are now so great it can no longer be treated as a purely private matter.

Action is needed, he said, to achieve a "fundamental change" in individual attitudes and behaviour to re-establish marriage as the "gold standard" for relationships.

The problems are so great that no one political party on its own could resolve them and only a national commission drawn from a wide constituency would have any any chance of success, he said.

Judge Coleridge sparked controversy last year when he said family relationships in Britain were in "meltdown", likening the problem to a "cancer".

In his speech to the Family Holiday Association at Westminster, he blamed unrealistic expectations about relationships for the extent of the disputes and breakdowns which "overwhelmed" the family courts.

"What, I hope in all humility, I am drawing attention to is the endless game of 'musical relationships', or 'pass the partner', in which such a significant portion of the population is engaged, in the endless and futile quest for a perfect relationship which will be attained, it is supposed, by landing on the right chair or unwrapping a new and more exciting parcel," he said.

With many children growing up "scarred" by the effects of their parents' break-ups, he said that it could no longer be seen as just a matter for the individuals involved.

uk.news.yahoo  17 June 2009

The social ills caused by family breakdown cannot be ignored

Justice Coleridge's reading of the situation – whereby men and women are too keen on sexual adventure, and not keen enough on married life – is too simplistic.

Many things are wrong, but a huge part of the problem is that great emphasis has been put on minimising the difficulties mothers may face in obtaining childcare so that the can stay in the labour market, and little emphasis has been placed on the idea that for families to thrive and be happy, parents generally have to expect to spend quite a bit of time at home, looking after each other, as well as the kids ...

Deborah Orr, The Independent 18 June 2009

Family breakdown is now a national tragedy

Sexualised primary pupils worry Ofsted

Ofsted inspectors investigating an increase in exclusions from primary schools have discovered "worrying" levels of sexual behaviour among very young children.

An inquiry into schools that have repeatedly suspended pupils as young as four has unearthed high incidences of children touching other children inappropriately and using sexually graphic language as well as swearing, attacking staff and throwing furniture.

The growing rates of exclusions could be reduced if pupils receive the right support but some schools do not have the "capacity" to deal with the psychological problems some children face, the report suggests. Ofsted is "urgently" appealing to the government to produce advice for schools on identifying sexual behaviour and when to refer a child to social services in case that child is at risk of abuse.

The inquiry, published today, followed figures released in parliament at the end of last year which revealed that more than 4,000 children under the age of five were excluded from school or nursery in 2007, the majority for violence against other children or a member of staff.

Last night the Department for Children, Schools and Families confirmed that in 2007, the last year figures are available for, 41,300 children were excluded temporarily from primary schools - a rise of 10% since 2004.

Guardian 24 June 2009

Nursery pupils excluded for being sexually explicit in class

Schools 'need not expel under-7s'

Ofsted

Concerns over number of children imprisoned on remand

The number of children sentenced to custody in England and Wales more than tripled between 1991 and 2006, according to the Prison Reform Trust; proportionally, more under 18-year-olds are locked up here than in any other country in western Europe ...

Guardian 17 June 2009

Government unveils plan targeting teen binge drinking

The government today launched a national crackdown on teenage binge drinking in a bid to curb antisocial behaviour during the summer holidays. The children's secretary, Ed Balls, announced that 69 youth crime priority areas across England would share £1.4m to help the police and children's services prevent drunken bad behaviour by teenagers and offer support to their families ...

Guardian 17 June 2009

Truancy on the rise in England as 4.3m days of school are missed

An estimated 60,730 pupils skipped class on a typical day, analysis of the statistics shows. Primary school pupils missed 12m school days in the autumn term of 2008 – with or without permission – 5.61% of the half-days in the term. This compares with 5.36% of the half-days in the 2007 autumn term and 4.75% of half-days in the 2006 autumn term.

Secondary school pupils missed 15m days – 7.34% of half-days in the 2008 autumn term. This compares with 7.27% of half-days in the 2007 autumn term and 7.28% of half-days in the 2006 autumn term.

Some 37,930 pupils in primary and secondary schools are "persistent absentees" – missing at least one day of school every week in the year, the statistics show. A further 339,000 children are at risk of joining them ...

Guardian 18 June 2009

We must get real about knife crime

At this moment in time Britain is facing an epidemic of knife crime. Whether you live in the country or the city you can't turn on the news without hearing about another teenager being killed on our streets.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the incidents you don't hear about? Coming from a council estate in Hackney, I am all too aware of the realities facing our young people. This is not a new phenomenon - it has been happening for a long time. I remember getting knives pulled out on me when I was 15 and that was 11 years ago. I also remember being at secondary school in the early 90s when a kid in our year was stabbed. It was a big deal and everyone was talking about it, but the common conception back then was that if someone got stabbed, although it was not good, there must have been some sort of reason for it.

Nowadays children are getting stabbed for nothing! The murder of Ben Kinsella is one such example ...

Guardian 14 June 2009

It is hard to decide what to object to most, so opaque and randomly synthesised is the draft legislation in the welfare reform bill.

Perhaps it should be the clause allowing for the abolition of the fundamental state safety net of income support, or the privatisation of back-to-work services that will benefit only shareholders.

Maybe it's the requirement that single parents with children as young as three should be available for "work-related activity" or face sanctions, with the adequacy of childcare provision to be judged by a jobcentre adviser.

Others might choose the piloting of "work for your benefits" schemes, which will undercut the minimum wage, offering as little as £1.73 an hour to claimants who have been unemployed for more than two years.

The bill is so lacking in concrete detail and so wide-ranging in scope – from compulsory drug-testing of claimants (opposed by Liberty) to the criminalisation of women who refuse to name the father of their children on birth certificates (opposed by Gingerbread) – that campaigners have been left befuddled as to where to concentrate their energies ...

The language used may be circumspect, but the aims of workfare are all too explicit – to police benefit entitlement and send a message to claimants that long-term unemployment will be punished, regardless of your caring responsibilities, and your physical or mental health.

Guardian 11 June 2009

Welfare Reform Bill 2008-09

Slumping Economy Tests Aid System Tied to Jobs

We will take over the leadership of a country that doesn’t just face an economic crisis – worse than the one that greeted Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – but also a breakdown of British society.

Across a range of indicators – depth of recession, scale of government borrowing, breakdown of the family, and the level of crime – Britain is in worryingly bad shape.

I established the Centre for Social Justice five years ago. It works with all political parties. It has won credibility by pursuing the very opposite of cosmetic change.

We’ve brought together Britain’s most effective poverty-fighting charities in a national alliance. Within this alliance every kind of social challenge is being addressed.

Drug addiction. Family breakdown. Homelessness. Long-term unemployment. Indebtedness.

We’ve awarded these poverty-fighters with privately raised cash. We’ve befriended them. We’ve fought for them when they have become entangled with government bureaucracy.

The best policy conclusions we have recommended to the Conservative Party – and to Britain’s other mainstream parties – have emerged from what we have learnt from them.

Three years ago we published a report that documented the scale of social collapse in Britain. It was called Breakdown Britain.

A year later we produced Breakthrough Britain. Breakthough Britain contained 188 policy recommendations.

They were based on the idea that a strong family, a completed education, good employment opportunities and freedom from drugs and other addictions were the basis of a life free of poverty ...

For David Cameron – for me – and for modern British Conservatism – social policy is central. What I have argued for some time is that this is not an add on but integral to conservatism and for four good reasons.

First, unless Britain starts to mend its broken society the cost of fractured families, of poorly educated workers and dysfunctional adults will make Britain’s economy uncompetitive.

The recent report ‘Bankrupt Britain’ demonstrates that as the economy turns down this becomes more critical, not less.

In the last ten years alone the cost of welfare spending in Britain has spiralled upwards by close to £100bn. The single biggest component of government spending is the permanently unemployed… the permanently ill… broken families… people with addictions.

Then there are the costs associated with crime. Most of the criminal justice budgets have grown by nearly 50% in real terms. This money hasn’t reduced crime but contained the problem. Although a lot more people are in prison we have seen large increases in violent crime and anti-social behaviour. If you look at the prison population you find young men – mainly from broken homes – addicted to drugs – and with a reading age of 11.

Reforming society is not a soft option but without it big government becomes inevitable.

Second, in emphasising social policy we are rediscovering the conservatism of Edmund Burke.

We are not just against big government but ALL forces that crush the social institutions that lie between the individual and the state. These institutions could not matter more for our future and could hardly have been more neglected in recent times.

There will be no sustainable reduction in the size of the state if civil society doesn’t become stronger – nurturing more self-sufficient and vigorous citizens. There’ll be no possibility of light touch regulation if certain moral values are absent from our culture. There’ll be no competitive economy if families don’t encourage their children to learn and excel.

Third, the cohesive society.

Currently 47% of voters see Republicans as out-of-touch. Only 15% see the party as “in touch with ordinary people”.

The groups the Republicans were seen as closest to are big business, rich, well off people, Christians and the armed forces.

You cannot lecture people about freedom if parents think the life chances of their children are set at birth and that they are set for failure.

Talk of liberty is at risk of being seen as a self-serving arrogance from those who already have everything.

This, surely, is at the heart of the American dream. A cohesive society where every parent really believes that their kids have a chance of a better life than them.

The fourth factor is a by-product of the other three.

In emphasising society conservatism isn’t just seen as the party of the wealthy and the strong – a party that is good for me. It will also become a broadly-based party; meeting that natural sense of decent people that their government should be good for them AND good for their neighbour.

Centre for Social Justice 09 March 2009

This is shabby politics.

The government has poured billions into propping up a bankrupt financial system, and only whimpers ineffectually about millions being paid out in bonus packages to bankers courtesy of the British taxpayer.

But while its lavish generosity to one set of citizens seems to have few limits, it is hard at work on welfare reforms aimed at another set of citizens which pare back even further the meagre sums on which they are expected to keep body and soul together.

The only thing these two sets of citizens seem to have in common is their capacity to provoke popular resentment: the bankers and the benefit claimants are used as media bogeymen to frighten good taxpayers.

So the welfare reform bill sails into committee stage in parliament this week at an unseemly speed, inaugurating a system of workfare and considerably expanding conditionality in return for the jobseeker's allowance of just £60.50 a week now offered to the unemployed ...

Guardian 23 February 2009

Taxation · Scrap inheritance tax on family homes

· Adapt the taper relief system to reduce the adverse impact of capital gains taxation on saving

· Abolish or reduce stamp duty on shares, cut stamp duty on property

· Raise the threshold at which the top rate (40%) of income tax is paid

· Cut corporation tax to 25p for large firms, 20p for small businesses

Regulation

·Appoint a Cabinet Office minister to be the deregulation secretary, responsible for keeping red tape within a set "budget" for each Whitehall department

·Restore the European social chapter opt out, and produce UK rules on: works councils, part-time and fixed term working, sex discrimination, information, and consultation

·Repeal, consolidate or "significantly amend" working time regulations, data protection and money laundering legislation

·Scrap Home Information Packs

·End mortgage regulations

·Remove the need for licences for small charity events holding raffles or offering bingo games

·Give firms the option of filling in one form for HM Revenue and Customs which would double as the end-of-year figures for Companies House

·Make Health and Safety at Work Act risk assessments "more proportionate"

·Where EU legislation applies, do not put in place additional UK regulations

·Seek opt-outs from EU legislation in areas where UK-only legislation would be better for creating jobs and prosperity

·Consider splitting off the commercial activities of the BBC from its public sector broadcasting duties and responsibilities more clearly than at present

Energy

·Keep North Sea tax competitive, so that oil companies have incentives to exploit what is already well-known or effective and to continue to search for additional reserves which can be brought ashore

·Increase gas import facilities

·Back research into clean coal technology

·Speed up planning process for nuclear plants

Pensions and investment

·There should be no compulsion to buy an annuity with the invested money in any pension fund on retirement

·There should be no maximum age to start drawing down a pension

·Future pension contracts could specify a range of benefits that are guaranteed, to be agreed between employer and employee

·People should be allowed to open a lifetime savings account, with income tax relief on contributions

Transport

·Increase the use of private money to build roads, following the example of the M6 toll motorway

·Re-phase traffic lights to give priority to major roads

·Allow traffic to turn left at a red light

·Remove bus lane restrictions at off-peak times

·Place cycle lanes on pavements rather than roads

·Introduce flexible speed limits, for example temporary 20mph limits outside schools at the start and end of the day

·Make lorries pay by the mile for using roads. This would be balanced by a reduction in either the tax on diesel or the lorry's vehicle excise duty. The review claims that this will enable UK hauliers to compete more effectively with other European drivers who pay less for fuel and vehicle tax

·Decentralise Network Rail, allowing train operators to own the track they run on

·Fit rubber wheels to commuter trains to improve braking and acceleration, allowing 40 trains to run per hour instead of the current 24

·Explore the feasibility and costs of introducing high-speed maglev trains

·Redevelop Heathrow to increase intercontinental traffic

·Streamline the Department for Transport by amalgamating the Driving Standards Agency, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and Vehicle and Operator Services Agency; privatise the Vehicle Certification Agency and Government Car and Dispatch Agency

Education and skills

·Radically overhaul the apprenticeship system, with a greater educational component

·Universities should be encouraged to raise money from the private sector, with tax incentives for people who donate to them.

Public sector efficiency

·Scrap the ID cards scheme

·Abolish unelected regional government

·Reduce the number of quangos

·Cut the number of civil servants, but without any redundancies

Planning

·Develop a "new city" for the Thames Gateway using brownfield land, low-grade farmland and reclaimed land from the estuary

·Replace "restrictive" building regulations with building standards. The policy group claim this will lower the cost of homes

·Introduce a presumption to allow building on brownfield land unless the planning authority can submit good reasons for a development not to proceed

·Establish community land trusts to provide housing for locally-employed people

·Streamline planning procedures so all simple applications are dealt with within three months

The Guardian 16 August 2007

Tories plan £14bn cuts to red tape

JR's Diary

Don't listen to Labour - tax cuts do work

Conservatives to abandon green taxes

Cameron's policy groups: recommendations in brief

Family breakdowns lie at the heart of many of Britain's most pressing problems, a Conservative Party report on social justice is expected to say.

Drafted by a policy group led by Iain Duncan Smith, it will warn about a growing underclass.

Tory leader David Cameron welcomed the report on tackling poverty, describing it as "powerful and convincing".

Mr Duncan Smith warns of an "increasingly dysfunctional society" which breeds criminality.

BBC political correspondent Teri Stiastny said it "paints a gloomy picture of a society where for some family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, debt and failure in education combine".

One of the main problems identified by Mr Duncan Smith is a growing number of co-habiting couples who split up while their children are young ...

BBC NEWS  11 December 2006

'Breakdown Britain'

Gertrude Himmelfarb and the Centre for Social Justice

In her book 'The Roads to Modernity', US neocon Gertrude Himmelfarb examines the life of John Wesley, and the impact of the Methodist Revival in 18th Century Britain:

Although the emphasis was upon the personal giving of charity and good works, the Methodists helped establish and support philanthropic enterprises and institutions of every kind: hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, friendly societies, schools, and libraries ...

"Roads to Modernity" Vintage Books, 2004, p123

It's clear from an over-view of Himmelfarb's writings that Victorian England is, for her, something of an icon for the true neoliberal society; one in which government adopts 'laissez-faire' economic policies, alongside a hierarchical society where a shared religious belief - and charity - played a central role.

The notion, if that's what it is, of a resurrection of Victorian England is, of course, a sentimental fantasy. The global world of 24/7 corporate advertising, consumerism, easy credit, and libertarian drinking 'laws' would have shocked Queen Victoria and William Gladstone.

There are, however, enough indicators that this is the world to which the likes not only IDS, but also Tony Blair would like to return.

Blair's academy schools' policy suggests that, despite the obviously secular nature of 21st century society, his education policy - like his foreign policy - was driven by a desire to inculcate a certain type of religion:   [GDN].

For IDS and Cameron, Enterprise areas are part-and-parcel of the plan to take government out of social policy:

David Cameron today sharpens his commitment to helping the poor by describing those left behind by rising living standards elsewhere in the population as the most urgent political problem facing Britain.

In an article for the Guardian, the Conservative leader says central government intervention is often too blunt an instrument to aid hard-to-reach families.

Instead he endorses proposals published by a Tory task force today for "social enterprise zones" in run-down areas, boosted by tax relief and fewer planning constraints ...

"Social enterprises ... are not, as many on the left claim, cut-price welfare organisations, commercial wolves dressed in the sheep's clothing of charity.

They are fired by the same passion for public service which drives the statutory sector, but they deliver it in a way which is often more effective than the large and lumbering agencies of government."   [GDN]

The Fatherless Family

'The two sides of Manchester'

Breakthrough Birmingham

Breakthrough Manchester

The Message Trust