Never believe the Tory propaganda. There is a reason why it was Labour which set up the NHS…namely, we believe in state action in order to counter the appalling effects of the untamed market on ordinary and poor people if everyone is left to fend for themselves. The Tories opposed virtually every piece of reforming legislation during the last century.

Are Tories really committed to making Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe as Oliver Letwin is reported to have said? Give me a break. They opposed all the measures Labour brought in to extend maternity pay and benefits, extend paternity rights, give people the right to request flexible working, etc. At the time they argued that business simply couldn’t afford to make working life more compatible with family life. Funny how they’ve changed their tune now that mumsnet is on the scene. It’s pathetic and laughable and it would be funny were it not so vitally important that schemes like SureStart, state-run, yes, I repeat, state-run, taxpayer-financed schemes are not axed.

We only need to tweak these Tories a little more and the sheep’s clothing will fall off. My prediction – between now and the election, the mainstream Tory party will not be able to resist forcing the leadership to show their true blue colours. Matthew Parris’s column in The Times shows just what a challenge these NuTories are facing – http://video.aol.ca/video-detail/how-wrong-can-an-interview-go/218220525/?icid=VIDURVHOV02. So get ready for demands for cuts to public services, talk of privatising the NHS, anti-EU rhetoric, pro-business anti-family measures, and all the rest of it. Perfect fodder for our election campaign as people realise that it is only Labour who can be trusted to stand up for ordinary people, in ordinary jobs, on ordinary incomes, living in ordinary houses.

And for all the Tories reading this – I go to a Dad’s club on Saturday mornings at the local state-run Children’s Centre. It’s superb. And the other dads who are there will no doubt support the party committed to maintaining the service not cutting it. Elections are about more than airbrushed posters and focus groups. They are about ordinary people’s experience of life and their view as to which party has the interests of wider society most at heart. That is certainly not the multi-millionaire Tory shadow cabinet.

“The fact that SSLPs had been in existence for only three years when children / families were studied and perhaps not even entirely bedded down and therefore not fully developed, further cautions against drawing too strong conclusions from the first phase of the Impact Study designed to provide early insight into the effects that SSLPs might be having on children and families.” Early Impact of Sure Start Local Programmes on Children and Families, November 2005.

They use that report because the 2008 report, which supersedes the 2005 report, found clear evidence of improvements that could be attributed to the efforts of Sure Start. Why use an old defunct report? Because it ostensibly supports their claim of ‘failure’… at least if you ignore the context.

LFF does not take the quotes out of context as you claim.

“David Cameron is committed to the idea behind SureStart and those centres which serve that purpose. The online campaign, backed by the Labour party, is simple scaremongering.”

Ask anyone working in a Sure Start if they agree with this and they’d laugh in your face. I should know, I’ve worked for Sure Start for 5 years in 4 of the most deprived areas in Britain as measured by the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (all in the Top 5%) and we’ve all talked about the Tories poor understanding of Sure Start.

For example, his pledge to raid the Sure Start outreach budget to fund ‘Sure Start Health Visitors’. Firstly, there are no such thing as Sure Start Health Visitors. The Health Visiting Service may often be based within Children’s Centre and do work alongside Sure Start Workers occasionally but they do not do the same job as a Sure Start Outreach Worker or a Sure Start Family Support Worker. The hint is in their job title. They are solely interested in health related issues. They also tend not to have much contact with children over 12 months old which is a problem if they’re supposed to do Outreach work for Sure Start who work with children up to 5 years old (and older now) and with their families.

They won’t help isolated parents to become involved in their community and make friends. They won’t work with families to overcome problem behaviour in their children or to find permanent housing or to flee to a women’s refugee to escape domestic abuse. They won’t encourage and help parents to access adult education to gain basic skills like the ability to read or do simple maths. Some of them would like to but I know they won’t do these things because firstly they simply don’t have the time to do them, secondly it isn’t part of their job description or what they were trained to do and thirdly they come to Sure Start Outreach Workers when they meet a family who needs this kind of support.

Most importantly though, they won’t run the dozens of different groups that Sure Start Outreach Workers do. They won’t run Baby Massage, Breastfeeding Cafe, Positive Parenting, Babysplash, Talking Toddlers, Music Makers, Women’s Conversation Group, Dads Drop-in, Stay & Play, the Cooking Groups for beginners or for parents and toddlers, the Parent’s Voice group, the Holiday Activities during half-term or many other. These groups are all Outreach groups. These groups are the whole essence of Sure Start. They all improve the lives of the children and their parents in small (and not-so-small) but significant ways and all of them contribute to the Outcomes identified in the Every Child Matters framework.

David Cameron and his chums in the media would have us believe that Sure Start Outreach can be done by Health Visitors. That is a lie told to people who are ignorant about how Sure Start works. Cutting the budget for outreach (which is effectively what he will be doing) will kill Sure Start.

BTW, if it looks like I’m having a go at Health Visitors please believe me I’m not. They do a wonderful job under difficult circumstances. It’s just a totally different job than what Cameron seems to think it is.