A damning critique of our divided country?

A story that is bound to run and run today is the major review into health inequalities that has found that the poorest can expect 17 fewer years of healthy life, and that health inequalities cost £33bn a year in lost productivity.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot led the Government-commissioned review finding that the equivalent of up to 2.5 million years of life are being lost through people dying prematurely in England each year.

However it is once again the connection between health and being unemployed or poorly educated that is the most worrying.

Life expectancy in Britain is now 77.4 years for men and 81.7 years for women but coming from a deprived background can reduce that by seven years

The report recommends a series of measures including that income tax system should be revised, with possible cuts to encourage more people on low incomes to work.

It also said that action is needed in six key areas, including giving every child the best start in life, creating fair employment and encouraging people into work, and working to prevent people falling ill in the first place.

Brave words from Tom Harris

I take my hat off to Tom Harris for his post yesterday on the return of morality.

Close your eyes and you might well think that it is a leader in the Daily Mail but he is being honest with what he thinks are major problems in society

He writes

I’m a Labour MP, so some will undoubtedly be surprised, and shocked that I’m writing this. But I can no longer pretend that the army of teenage mothers living off the state is anything other than a national catastrophe.

and he continues

teenage girls do not become pregnant accidentally because of ignorance, because of a lack of understanding of how their bodies work. They become pregnant because they have absolutely no ambition for themselves. They have been indoctrinated with the lie that they’ll never amount to anything, and have fulfilled that prophesy by making no effort to achieve any qualification.

Brave words but I am afraid they are very true

Yes there is a problem but it is not the fault of Labour

Yes there is no doubt that we have a problem with society and the young and Andrew Lansley's analysis that

number of young people admitted to hospital for treatment because they have abused alcohol, cigarettes and drugs has soared.
Cases of sexually-transmitted diseases and abortions among schoolgirls have also rocketed

is probably correct.

But to use this as a political tool to attack Labour is not correct.This has been a growing problem in society.It didn't start in May 1997 and it won't end when the Party leaves office.

What the Conservatives forget is that the parents of these children are the product of Mrs Thatcher.The society that she created in which work became the number one priority and the family was pushed down came after the recession that she created in the 1980's.She produced an economy which forced people to work longer hours,forced both parents to work beacause of House Price inflation and put the emphisis on greed and personal gain.

These children are not the product of New Labour.

Gordon returns

So Gordon returns to work after his tour to Southwold and Scotland for a few days before flying off to Beijing.

The next few weeks are going to be the most important in his political life culminating his speech at the Labour conference in Manchester on the 23rd September

Today he is hit by two broadsides,the Tuc release a report today that says that while disposable income for the wealthiest in society has gone up the gap between rich and poor has more than doubled over the last 30 years

The report also claims inequality dramatically affects children's chances in life, with babies born to poor mothers more likely to develop health problems in later life, and working-class pupils half as likely to get five good GCSEs as their wealthier classmates.

Meanwhile Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne writing in the Guardian claims that Brown's

main instrument for tackling poverty - the redistribution of wealth - has failed.

adding

We know that redistribution alone, as the sole policy tool to tackle poverty, has failed," Osborne writes. "There are 900,000 more people in severe poverty than in 1997 and child poverty has been rising for two years in succession."

Whether it is too late for Labour to turn this around will also become apparent over the next few weeks.Eric Pickles interviewed this morning by the FT certainly thinks so

“The analysis is that it is now impossible for [Labour] to win the election, but it’s perfectly possible for us to lose it,” he asserted. Asked if he thought Labour was finished, he replied: “I do.”

The accusations particaully from Osbourne are pointed right at Brown central territory and his response must be spot on and calculated to knock the Tories back.If not then Pickles will be proved correct

Life in a Northern Town

With the news that the author of the Policy of Excellence report on Northern Towns,Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, is leaving these shores for Australia complaining that the cost of living in London is too high,maybe this will bring an end to the dissection of the report in the media.

Before that though,It is worth reading John Rentoul in today's Independent.The report released earlier this week has come i for a fair amount of criticism,but John looks at the Tory reaction to it.

No doubt Cameron was alarmed that the Policy Exchange report might offend the residents of northern cities, who might think, if he did not repudiate it, that he agreed with it. So he rejected it as vividly and colourfully as possible. Not because he feared his support in the North was more fragile than in the South, but because he thought it might be damaging to him. Oh, and also, possibly, because he disagreed with it.

And also points out that the

striking thing about the Policy Exchange report is that its analysis is broadly correct. It specifically said that Liverpool, Rochdale, Bradford and Sunderland were not "doomed". The report went on, however: "We cannot guarantee to regenerate every town and every city in Britain that has fallen behind. Just as we can't buck the market, so we can't buck economic geography either."

and

The crowning paradox is that cutting stamp duty would do precisely what the Policy Exchange report advocates: make it easier for people to move house and therefore promote labour mobility in Britain. Which would make it easier for people to respond to market signals and move to where the jobs are, in the South-east, or to where the cheap houses are, in the North. As Tim Leunig, a co-author of the report, put it: "Internal migration has always been an important part of a dynamic economy."

Edwina probably won't be visiting Northern Towns

I see that Edwina Curry has joined the debate about Norhern Towns.

She has dismissed David Cameron's comments as

hunting votes beyond the Tory heartlands and is dangling the prospect of yet more government handouts as bait.

and reckons

the report is uttering only home truths, unpalatable though they may be to politicians of every hue.

and continues

If government efforts to help northern cities since the 1950s had succeeded, then there would be no gap in living standards, or employment, or educational achievement, or health - yet the gaps have persisted and in many cases widened.
You hope to live a long life? Try Hampshire, not Hull. You dream of a three-car household? That's Surrey, not Sunderland.
You seek energy, creativity, cutting-edge employment? Head for London, not Liverpool

.

Expect here to become a persona non grata in Liverpool

Think tank will embarrass Cameron

Many of this morning's papers are picking up on the story that a think tank with close ties to David Cameron has concluded that Northern town should give up ant regeneration ideas and instead encourage people to move South.

The Independent reports that the Policy Exchange will conclude today that

A future government should build three million homes in and around London, Cambridge and Oxford to prompt Britain's biggest mass internal migration since the 19th century.

The paper adds that

Policy Exchange was founded by Michael Gove, the Tory education spokesman. Its policy director is Anthony Browne who is about to begin working for Boris Johnson and is tipped for a role at No 10 if the Tories win the next election.

However it does attract people from other political walks of life.Recent speakers have included Hazel Blears and Nick Clegg as well as George Osbourne and David Cameron.

The group though have been embroiled in controversy before.Its report about the hijacking of British Islam was found to have numerous inconsistencies in its evidence,so much so that the BBC decided against running a report on an issue that many of the front pages had featured.

The cult of Ubuntu

What you might say is Ubuntu.

Tory Education spokesman Michael Gove delivered a speech earlier in which he alluded to Bill Clinton's use of the word which means ""I am because you are"

According to Gove

Each of us is defined, and enriched, by our relationship to others. It's the strength of our relationships, the warmth of our friendships, the time we have with our partners, parents and children, the respect we're given in the workplace and by our peers, the achievements we forge collaboratively and collectively, which generate real happiness and fulfilment. We are fully ourselves because others believe in us.

He was setting out policy on schooling the family and inequality but it will be remembered for the attack on Lads magazines.

Over at Conservative Home they preview this part of the speech

I believe we need to ask tough questions about the instant-hit hedonism celebrated by the modern men's magazines targeted at younger males. Titles such as Nuts and Zoo paint a picture of women as permanently, lasciviously, uncomplicatedly available. We should ask those who make profits out of revelling in, or encouraging, selfish irresponsibility among young men what they think they're doing."

But back to Ubuntu which Gove is quick to return to for Labour

there is really only one relationship which matters. The relationship between the individual and the state.
The Labour conception of society is a thin, and impoverished, one in which there appear to be only two primary centres of decision-making, the central state organises and the individual is expected to respond appropriately.
Individuals are assessed by the State as economic units in need of upskilling, taxing, monitoring or redeploying as appropriate – according to priorities set, and policed, centrally.

Cameron the new Obama? And is the Guardian behind him?

What can be made of David Cameron's exclusve to this morning's Guardian?

Perhaps he is trying to set himself up as the Barack Obama of the Uk.

referring to Obama's speech, in which the US Democratic presidential candidate warned that absent black fathers were behaving like teenagers and shirking their responsibilities to their children, Cameron said: "I think he's absolutely right. I mean I think it's a very brave thing to do. And it will have a huge influence that he has said it. I've had a number of meetings with black church leaders who make the same point. They are concerned about family breakdown and social breakdown, and want to see what I call a responsibility revolution take place."

reports the paper.

Another item to add to his responsiblity agenda no doubt and the choice of the Guardian to air them?

Under its leader entitled Cameron 2.0 the paper says

There is a dimension of politics, David Cameron observes in his Guardian interview today, that is a bit like completing the first level of Tomb Raider. Get past level one of the 1990s computer game, says Mr Cameron, and in political terms you have persuaded the voting public that you are a normal person who inhabits the same world that they do. Now you can move on to level two, where you can speak - and be listened to - about the issues that really matter.

adding that

Not even Mr Brown, who can still be strangely complacent about Mr Cameron's persuasive skills, should doubt that the Tory leader, with his steady 20-point opinion poll leads, is now firmly installed on level two

Is the paper coming out in favour of Cameronism?

Mr Cameron has also decided to take the calculated political risk of upping the ante on the social agenda

but

most households and most communities in this country are not broken - and most voters know it. This argument over welfare and poverty has barely begun. Labour's record on social justice and communities may not be perfect, but it is not abject either

Two years is a long time

Why Labour has already lost Glasgow

As one by election comes to an end,another probably far more important one looms.

Writing on Ft.com Harry Reid sets the scene

I think Labour has already failed the real test of Glasgow East. The state of the constituency is a testament to political failure on a depressing scale. The statistics are dire. Male life expectancy is 63, which is 14 years below the UK average. Unemployment runs at 25 per cent and about 40 per cent of the constituents live on benefits. About 40 per cent of the children live in workless households. Sadly, “household” is not always the most appropriate term. The teenage pregnancy rate is 40 per cent above the national average.

and reminds us that

These appalling indices point to those living the dependency culture on the margins of our society. Yet just a few generations ago Glasgow was the greatest industrial city of the British empire. At one time it produced half the world’s ships and a third of its railway locomotives. It could be argued that many people in the UK enjoyed a prosperity that was in part built on the gargantuan efforts of industrial Glasgow.

Of cause Labour cannoy be completely to balme for the statistics,The Tory government of the 80's can be blamed to some extent for the loss of the industrial base.Nevertheless it is a sad indicement of the country that these pockets exist in the 21st century and not just in Glasgow but other cities in the UK.

Cameron-a step too far ?

It is difficult to know what to make of David Cameron's broken society speech yesterday.First of all what a strange place to launch it,Glasgow East where whatever the trials ad tribulations of Labour it would be difficult to find many Tory supporters.

The media have predictably picked up on his comments that

those “who are poor, fat or addicted to alcohol or drugs have only themselves to blame.”

This is what he actually said

We talk about people being "at risk of obesity" instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it's as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather.
"Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make

And really this is the clear blue water between the two parties.The Conservatives will say that we are all capable of social movement,Labour says that it is not the case and sometimes circumstances overwhelm that premise.

Mike Smithson wonders whether

In the hard world of politics there are enough things in the speech for his opponents to latch onto which when separated from the overall theme might not look so defensible.
I just wonder whether the appalling spate of bad news and poor ratings for Brown and Labour has made the Tory leader a bit too confident. Dangerous.

The Mirror maybe has got it right in its editorial

David Cameron's carefully polished mask has slipped.
It is difficult to think of comments which could cause more offence. Or which so clearly demonstrate how out of touch the well-heeled Mr Cameron has become.
In one step he has gone from hug-a-hoodie to kick-a-granny.
By attacking the poor, he attacks the millions of pensioners struggling to get by in the face of rising fuel and food bills.
By turning on the unemployed - or the idle, as Mr Cameron prefers to call them - he ignores the fate of those laid off by fat-cat bosses through no fault of their own.
The man who dared to boast he was the heir to Blair is now exposed as the son of Thatcher.

Government begins consultation on social care

Perhaps we can get back to some sensible political debate after a weekend of ex political figures cashing in on their autobiographies.

Gordon Brown is set to launch a discussion on social care

According to BBC online

He says that without radical reform, the care system in England alone faces a £6bn shortfall within 20 years.

Brown will say

We know too many people fear the prospect of selling their homes and using assets which otherwise they would pass on to family members and friends [to pay for care in old age] ... We can, and must, look to give people the opportunity and the support to save for their old age in a way which insures them and protects their houses and their inheritance."

And Health secretary Alan Johnson has acknowledged that there is a massive funding gap in social care

the cost of maintaining the current, often inadequate level of personal care services was set to double to more than £24bn in 2026 as a result of rapid growth in the number of frail older people. Without new sources of funding, the government expects "a £6bn funding gap for social care" to emerge within 20 years.

The Independent meanwhile carries a report that the fightback is under way

Gordon Brown is preparing a string of initiatives to help parents, families and the low paid as he launches the Government's fightback against dismal poll ratings and a stream of damaging revelations by senior Labour figures.
Reforms in the areas of education, health and housing will form the centrepiece of the Government's draft Queen's Speech, expected later this week.

The White Working class

The BBC launched its white Britain series of programmes last night with a newsnight devoted to the subject.

A survey by the beeb has concluded that the white working classes feel extremely unrepresented and are pessimistic about what is happening to the country.

Bob Piper says this is not surprising as

Even amongst Labour MPs representation from amongst those who have ever held down a job that could be defined as working class (and I don't mean a Christmas job at the post office whilst plodding your way through Oxford) are an endangered species. These days your typical front bench spokesperson or prospective parliamentary candidate will have gone to University, been employed as a researcher for a political party, worked for an MP or a think tank, and been shoed-in to a safe seat somewhere as an MP.

The debate that followed the report centred on the problems of immigration and the feeling that the white woprking classes feel second best to the immigrant popultaion, a fact that has been exemplified in recent years die to the influx from Eastern Europe.

What was concerning about the ensuing debate was that it quickly turned into the English working class verses the rest.More Margaret Hodge was caught in the crossfire as Labour was blamed for brushing this under the carpet as a sop to political correctness.

Fair play to Newsnight for at least getting these views aired and invited Nick Griffin on the programme.

But what the discussion missed was not the racial issue in itself but the fact that outr attention is diverted by the immigration issue where it should be on the white C2,D's and E's.

There is a white underclass that has for all intent dropped out of main stream society.They live in confined areas and survive on the benefit culture.Perhaps the BBC survey has identified part of the problem.Instead of worrying about immigration,let's worry about those already here and how they can get back into mainstream society