Cameron: Sure Start budget “going up”; the reality? Sure Start is under threat

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; the reality? Sure Start is under threat http://bit.ly/i28pzq

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @Claire_Phipps: RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; the reality? Sure Start is under threat http://bit.ly/i28pzq

RT @leftfootfwd Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

@BBCLauraK It was @leftfootfwd who got their first on Sure Start cuts http://bit.ly/i28pzq

RT @leftfootfwd: Cameron: Sure Start budget "going up"; The reality? It's under threat: http://bit.ly/gset2r reports @DanielElton #PMQs

So an amount higher than last year but lower than a notional figure for this year is a “cut”?

What nonsense you speak.

[...] today, mocked by Ed Miliband over the ‘Big Society’, found wanting on Sure Start (as broken by Left Foot Forward earlier this afternoon), and now shown to have selectively quoted John Healey [...]

Billy Bragg has referred to socialism as ‘organised compassion’. If that’s the case then Conservatism must surely be defined as selfish egotism. Time to call it a day Cameron and take your little u-turning back-stabber with you. Lets get back to what really matters community, respect and some awareness of the world and people around us. Lets send a message in May with the ballot box.

They said this with schools and the NHS, and both have turned out to be incorrect.

So why should we be surprised?

@LondonStatto
The evidence is not that the funding for SureStart is “an amount higher”, he was talking about a completely different thing (the EIG). To make it worse the number getting bigger did not exist last year (because the EIG did not exist). How can something that does not exist get bigger??

The only possible way to compare last year and this year is to look at aggregated funding and that has fallen by 10.9%!!

Cameron is a lying toad.

What a useless article. Is the figure going up or not?

Save Our Surestart hahahahaha

Anon,

Perhaps this statement from the 4children website will clarify matters”

“The charities are calling on Local Authorities to prioritise funding for Sure Start Children’s Centres – whose budget was protected in cash terms in the Government’s Spending Review, though the ring-fencing of the money was removed.

The national survey suggests that over the next 12 months:

250 (7%) will close or are expected to close, affecting an estimated 60,000 families
2,000 (56%) will provide a reduced service
3,100 (86%) will have a decreased budge
Staff at 1,000 centres (28%) have been issued with ‘at risk of redundancy’ notices

http://www.4children.org.uk/information/show/ref/2302

While the EIG rose marginally from 2.2 to2.3 billion, (in the context of present inflation levels hardly and increase) the constraints from the multiplicity of services supported by the EIG will most likely face a pretty significant cut in operational terms. Given that the impact of these cuts will affect working class families the most, and in consideration of your previous posts in which you claim a strong affinity and membership within the working class, particularly NMW earners, I really don’t see what it is you are laughing at.

scandalousbill – You really don’t see why I’m laughing do you?

This article is about the Surestart budget not “going up”. IT IS.

It maybe under threat in the future – what isn’t? – but to keep constantly publishing speculative articles like this one shows how totally useless Labour are. Where’s the “Double Dip” recession? The only reason they seem to be doing well is because of the total ineptitude of the government.

You have tuition fees that will be better for students and they screw that announcement up. The banks are paying more in taxes and they screw that up.

The government need Alistar Campbell.

People are even blaming the government for decisions that are being taken by local councils and it is going to backfire on the Labour Party I guarantee.

I always go back to Kinnock and his speech against Deggsy and Co because that’s coming back and I’m afraid that with the clear limited ability of Ed Miliband the whole thing is going to be a bag of spanners.

I laugh because it’s pathetic.

I was initially brought up on the council estate in Hattersley, (my grandad was a Labour councillor in Manchester and my parents jumped the housing list) got 2 o’levels first time round, 4 in total, then a City & Guilds followed by an HND in the Royal Navy.

My working class credentials are flawless. Yours?

Anon,

You say:

“This article is about the Surestart budget not “going up”. IT IS.”

In addition to the reference from 4children in my previous post, you can look at Cathy Newman’s fact check. In realistic terms, it is not.

http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-is-cameron-sure-about-that-sure-start-budget/5682

The risk of a double dip recession is still present, Tory coalition policies have made the UK more susceptible to Global economic fluctuation and inflation. A rise in interest rates will kill off anything that could be beneficial from the Merlin Project. I think a flat lined growth period is most likely and that it will last beyond the next parliament. Any recovery will be jobless in nature.

As for my background, I was a Steelworker who educated myself to graduate level and currently run my own IT business. As I was not destitute, I was not eligible for any funding. I disagree that students will get a better deal from government policies. A token concern for the lowest income level student does not justify 9K fees. Those in work who wish to advance themselves, as I did, through education, will face a formidable economic barrier.

scandalousbill –

1. There are no upfront tuition fees. That must surely be better?
2. No one from a poorer background will pay the £9k.
3. Payment is only after graduation.
4. The minimum wage to start payment is up to £21k – some students will never pay.

Why should the dustman or steelworker pay to educate some lazy student in Media Studies or pay for classes for David Gilmour’s son? It isn’t fair.

What these things indicate is a bigger problem for the government in that they cannot get their PR right. It’s not the policies. HIP’s, Runway 3, Control Orders, 92 Days blah blah are all better.

What people on this blog do is attempt to advance the very same policies that have just been rejected by the electorate and four years from now they will all be forgotten.

As each day passes Labour looks more and more irrelevant.

It’s over until the party once again becomes one of aspiration and ditches the unelectable Ed Miliband. For sure the scaremongering from Labour is just being totally ignored by a public keener to read about Peter Andre and Jordan.

Until Labour gets another Tony Blair they can keep sniping and being negative but never again will the frowning Yvette Cooper be taken seriously – she tried it again on Sunday about police numbers. What she said wasn’t true and even if it was no one is listening…

Anon,

A debt is a debt, whether its frontloaded or backfilled. I do not feel that the statement you made in bullet 2. “No one from a poorer background will pay the £9k” is exactly true. The National scholarship program provides a one year funding of at least £3000, but this is only a one year payment, not a reoccurring stipend.
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/higher-education/docs/n/11-730-national-scholarship-programme-year-one

However, perhaps other funding measures will take up the slack, there is not much detail on that

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/higher-education/docs/g/11-728-guidance-to-director-fair-access

Why should you or I pay for another person’s education if they or their parents have money? Why should I pay for Surestart when my children have grown up? Why should I pay for roads if I do not drive a car? Why should I pay for the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan or Trident if I am a pacifist? Why can’t Lizzie or Charlie pay for Willies wedding?….

It seems to me that all of the above have a social value that goes above our individual opinions, although we may collectively change them. I believe that Surestart has been shown by independent assessments to be of significant benefit and should be supported

As for your comments of Blair or Brown or Milliband or Clegg or Cameron, none are paragons of virtue, all are politicians and expression of opinion on their capability is simply part of an ongoing discourse which this blog among others promotes.

scandalousbil – It’s clear we won’t agree although I fully concur with your last paragraph.

We clearly differ on the size of the state. I want the smallest state possible and politicians to just get out of my life and to do that one has to pay for personally beneficial services themselves.

Or where does it end? The Royal Family should pay for their kids wedding and after thirteen years in office Labour should have done something about it. As a republican I expected that. Which brings me neatly to agreeing once again with your final paragraph.

As for Surestart just wait and see what happens. I remember Maggie Thatcher claiming she was cutting the state and did nothing of the sort…

(PS. “none are paragons of virtue” should read “none is a paragon of virtue”. I did actually pass English Lang and Lit first time round…)

[...] in March this year, he told PMQs: “We have maintained the money for sure start. We have maintained the money for [...]

@alexhern @trouse11 Sure Start – that cd b the headline story. http://t.co/RbF5zshg http://t.co/3pEmVzle http://t.co/yhDmQJiR

[...] has stepped back from David Cameron’s claims in February the Sure Start budget had been increased: “We have maintained the money for Sure Start. We have maintained the money for children’s [...]