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Northern Ireland Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness united this week in calling on the people of Northern Ireland to pray as former DUP First Minister, Ian Paisley was admitted to hospital following a suspected heart attack. Uniting in their concern for the health of the man who was an architect of the DUP/Sinn Fein partnership at Stormont, a spokesperson for the current First and Deputy First Minister responded:

“The First Minister and the deputy First Minister have both been in contact with the Paisley family. They have offered their best wishes to Dr Paisley and his family and call on the community to give prayerful support to Ian and his family at this time.

“The First Minister and the deputy First Minister would appeal for the Paisley family to be given the space and privacy they deserve and that their wishes are respected.”

The next moderator of the Presbyterian Church, the Rev Roy Patton meanwhile said of the former Free Presbyterian leader:

“We have had our differences in the past but it would be inappropriate to dwell on those differences at the present time but rather recognise the qualities that Dr Paisley has brought to his ministry, his faith, his pastoral work and his desire to serve in the ways in which we all seek to serve.

“We want to convey to Dr Paisley and to Baroness Paisley and to the family our support and our prayers.”

Meanwhile, as the debate over the future of unionism in Northern Ireland continued to rumble on, Ed Curran warned of the dangers of a two party system emerging at Stormont. Writing in the Belfast Telegraph he observed:

“Surprise, surprise. Peter Robinson has been to his first gaelic match, Martin McGuinness is heading for Windsor Park and the Ulster Unionists have scored another own goal.

“What a shame that attending a sports event in the 21st century should require any religious, political or cultural heart-searching; that a First Minister taking his seat in the stands should still be considered historically ground-breaking and talked about as if he had embarked on a trip to the Moon and back.

“Life is changing in Northern Ireland – and for the better. Not so long ago, any unionist leader who dared to enter a GAA turnstile would have been orange-carded out of his party before he could say Mickey Harte. The big winners in Armagh nine days ago were Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and community relations.

“Meanwhile, back at the ranch at Stormont, all is not well yet again with another shade of unionism. But do we really want to see the end of the Ulster Unionist party? Do we really want Northern Ireland dominated by two monolithic power-blocks, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein?

“As the battering-rams of the media attack the gates of the Ulster Unionists, we should not forget one thing: Northern Ireland would not be the place it is today if it were not for the UUP and the SDLP.

“We are in danger now of talking ourselves into a two-party state – unionist and nationalist with a small, ineffective and compliant group squeezed in the middle. Surely, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP have played too significant a part in the development of the new Northern Ireland to allow that to happen?

“Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness are transforming themselves into latter-day moderates, but is it not time that the UUP and SDLP began to fight back and re-assert their important alternative voices in our society?”

Scotland The Scottish Government successfully secured its budget for 2012/13, with an additional £382 million earmarked for 2012-2015 for additional capital spending with support from the Lib Dems. In sketching out the debate that ensued at Holyrood, the BBC’s Scottish Political Editor, Brian Taylor wrote on his blog on Wednesday:

“An intriguing set of responses from opposition parties in the Holyrood chamber this afternoon to John Swinney’s final budget proposals – intriguing not because of their similarity but because of their mutual differences.

“Mr Swinney is adamant that he has done the best with limited resources, emphasising capital expenditure, providing extra money to limit the cuts in housing and reversing to some degree the extent of the cuts faced by colleges.

“Taking the lead from their spokesman Ken Macintosh, a succession of Labour MSPs lined up to attack the budget package in its entirety.Insufficient, misplaced, wrong priorities, not a budget to tackle youth unemployment. In response, Mr Swinney, Bruce Crawford and SNP backbenchers challenged Labour to say what they would cut to meet their spending commitments. So far, so predictable.

“But the criticism from Gavin Brown of the Tories was more nuanced, more modulated. He said that all the extra largesse on offer from Mr Swinney had originated with the UK government (chief proprietor, Mr Brown’s party.) And he condemned in particular the continuing (albeit reduced) levy on large retailers. It would, he said, make Scotland more uncompetitive.

“Then we heard from Willie Rennie of the Lib Dems. Would he too laud the level of cash made available by the UK government? To the contrary, he praised Mr Swinney for coping with a very tight settlement in tough times. His entire speech was a model of gentle, emollient oratory. He praised the partial concession on colleges. He praised the effort to improve the housing market. To be clear, he stressed that the Lib Dems would have done certain things differently, but his tone was one of cautious praise, rather than strident condemnation.”

After week’s meanwhile in which the SNP appeared to be gaining momentum for its plans for independence, new polling revealed that things might not be as rosy for them as might first have seemed.  Outlining the findings of new polling, Robbie Dinwoodie, Chief Scottish Political Correspondent at the The Herald explained:

“TNS-BMRB had just started sampling on January 25 based on the wording it has used since the first SNP administration announced its referendum proposals in 2007. It offers two options: To agree that the Scottish government should negotiate with the UK so that Scotland becomes an independent state, or to disagree with that proposal.

“The survey of 998 adults, between January 25 and February 1, indicated 35 per cent would vote Yes in agreement, down four points on last August, and 44 per cent would vote No, with 21 per cent undecided, down two.

“The poll also repeated a three-option snapshot first taken in October 2011 asking for preferences between maintaining Holyrood’s existing powers, giving the parliament more powers, or full independence.

“Support for the status quo has risen from 29 per cent to 32 per cent, backing for more powers has fallen from 33 per cent to 30 per cent, and backing for independence drops from 28 per cent to 26 per cent.”

Wales David Cameron’s attack on Labour’s handling of the health service in Wales during PMQs this week meanwhile attracted sharp criticism from the Welsh Government, with a spokesperson for Health Minister, Lesley Griffiths declaring:

“The prime minister got his facts about Wales totally wrong. He is clearly rattled by the onslaught on his NHS reforms in England – reforms which are in a complete and utter shambles.

“With GPs, the BMA, nurses, midwives and trades unions and even some in his own party lining up to slam his proposals, it begs the question, does the name ‘Custer’ mean anything to the prime minister? By contrast the Welsh government is proud to have a mandate from the people to run the health service – something the prime minister doesn’t enjoy.”

Dr Stefan Coghlan, chairman of the BMA in Wales responded:

“Consecutive Welsh Governments have diminished the role of the private sector from the NHS, and the purchaser/provider split no longer operates. Doctors in Wales have welcomed this direction of travel and the attempts to ensure NHS Wales follows the principles set out by Aneurin Bevan in a modern setting.

“A health service that remains loyal to Aneurin Bevan’s founding principles for the NHS, remaining free at the point of delivery is the right decision for patients, and the right decision for doctors – it meets the needs of everyone. It remains the BMA position that the Health and Social Care Bill should be withdrawn in England; with an overwhelming amount of professional opinion saying this is deeply flawed, damaging and unnecessary legislation.”

Plaid Cymru leadership hopeful , Simon Thomas pulled out of the race to succeed Ieuan Wyn Jones, giving his backing instead to the former Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones as her running mate. Explaining his decision, Thomas concluded:

“Achieving the third in a crowded field has been more difficult. As the most recent Assembly Member in the contest I have had a lot of ground to cover and make up. It’s been gratifying nevertheless to see a great deal of support for me. However, the most signal feature of the current election in Plaid Cymru is the fact that so many branches, constituencies and members are undecided and are seeking real direction.

“It has become clear to me that the majority of our members want a leader who will focus on building our nation’s economy, sustaining its environment and growing the support for independence in a credible way.

“One thing is for certain, Plaid Cymru will not achieve government or electoral success by playing Fisher Price politics with people’s hopes and dreams.

“Both Elin and I offer such a vision. I believe that by combining our experience, talents and different types of appeal we can work together to give the party the kind of direction and leadership it clearly needs. Elin has succeeded in gaining considerable support. I congratulate her on that, and today I announce that I will withdraw my candidacy in order to support her has her deputy on a joint ticket. I ask the party now to trust the next credible generation of Plaid politicians to take us forward under Elin’s leadership.”

See also:

• Sinn Fein plans next moves towards Irish unity - Kevin Meagher, 10th February 2012
• A seperate Scotland will be worse off if it keeps the pound - Matt Pitt,  10th February 2012
• Credit rating agencies weigh in on independent Scotland - Alex Hern,  6th February 2012
• Polls apart? The news for the SNP might not be as good as it looks - Ed Jacobs, 6th February 2012
  

Mark Thompson is a Liberal Democrat blogger who blogs at the Mark Reckons blog

In engaging with the debate about drugs policy with politicians and ministers you regularly find that they will claim there is no contradiction between encouraging abstinence of substances and reducing harm. They insist that their policies are compatible with harm reduction.

I have come across evidence that this simply is not true.

The UK Cannabis Internet Activist website has been trying to engage the Department of Health in a discussion about running a campaign designed to reduce harm caused currently by the propensity of those taking cannabis to smoke it with tobacco. They have launched a campaign called Tokepure which encourages people to not do this and is trying to educate people about the issue.

Predictably though, the government is not interested in helping with this campaign.

Derek Williams of UKCIA wrote to Anne Milton the responsible minister via his MP and received the standard templated reply explaining the government’s position on drugs and explaining that there is not to be a campaign run from government along these lines.

Mr Williams replied, explaining in his own words:

“…The very obvious reasons why getting cannabis users to drop the tobacco would be a good idea, supporting my case with reference not only to population studies of cannabis users, but also to information put out by her own department.”

The reply Mr Williams received from Ms Milton included this snippet which is instructive:

If, as Mr Williams suggests, we were to advocate that people smoke cannabis without tobacco, we would be … putting people at risk of harm.

This seems quite bizarre. Mr Williams went out of his way in his correspondence to make it clear that he would be happy with a campaign that simply told people not to mix tobacco with cannabis, not a change in government policy to cannabis use itself which Mr Williams fully accepts can itself be harmful. His point is, it is more harmful still to use cannabis with tobacco.

Further correspondence yielded a further reply from Ms Milton:

Cannabis can damage both physical and mental health and it would be irresponsible for anyone to suggest there is a “safe” way to smoke cannabis.

This would appear to completely miss the point. Mr Williams is not saying smoking cannabis without tobacco is safe. He is saying it is safer. Surely this is a trivial and obvious point?

The thinking behind her position becomes clear later in this second reply though:

The Tokepure argument is clear – that people should be advised that smoking cannabis and tobacco together is more harmful than smoking cannabis without tobacco – as is the government’s position – that cannabis and tobacco, whether smoked together or separately are dangerous and should not be used.

The thinking however is hopelessly muddled. The two things are not contradictory. Both cannabis and tobacco can be harmful (or in the minister’s words “dangerous”). That does not negate the fact that smoking them together is more harmful.

Sadly what this reveals about government drug policy and its approach to harm reduction is that it is driven by dogma.

For all the claims that its policies are compatible with harm reduction this is shown to be untrue here. Smoking cannabis with tobacco is more harmful than just taking cannabis. That is a fact. Yet because of the “just say no” approach the government takes it refuses to acknowledge this for fear of “the message it would send out”.

It is worth bearing this in mind the next time a minister claims they are in favour of reducing harms caused by drugs. Their record suggests that in practice this is not the case.

You can read Mr Williams’s full exchange with Ms Milton and his thoughts on it here.

See also:

• The current approach to drugs has gone to pot - Mike Morgan-Giles, November 19th 2011

• Legalising drugs would help reduce the deficit - Stuart Rodger, August 6th 2011

• On drugs policy, the government should do what the evidence tells them - Dr Michael Shiner, June 5th 2011

• Johnson defends Government drugs policy - Shamik Das, November 2nd 2009

• Government should listen to its advisers on drugs policy - Mark Thompson, September 14th 2009

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• The coalition lost its third cabinet minister since the election today, with Chris Huhne resigning to fight charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The former climate change and energy secretary was charged this morning, along with his former wife Vicky Price. He is alleged to have transferred speeding points to her in 2003.

Announcing his resignation, Huhne strenuously denied the allegations, calling the CPS decision “deeply regrettable” and insisting:

“I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree.

“To avoid distraction to either my official duties or my trial defence I am standing down and resigning as energy and climate change secretary.”

Reacting to his resignation, Friends of the Earth praised Huhne for having “championed the environment”, one of the few ministers to try and ensure the government lived up to David Cameron’s pledge to be the “greenest government ever”.

FoE director Andy Atkins, who also warned Huhne’s successor Ed Davey to “stand firm” against the chancellor’s “anti-green agenda”:

“Chris Huhne has championed the environment in an administration that’s shown little enthusiasm for keeping David Cameron’s pledge to be the greenest Government ever.

“He should be commended for insisting on tougher climate targets and fighting for a Green Investment Bank – but his department’s incompetent handling of solar cuts has put 29,000 jobs at risk.

“Leaving consumers to compare energy tariffs as a way to tackle soaring bills is woefully inadequate. What we really need is decisive Government action to get us off the hook of expensive fossil fuels and invest in clean British energy instead.

“The new energy secretary must stand firm against George Osborne’s anti-green agenda and make the case that protecting our environment is a way to boost not hinder our economic recovery.”

Shadow energy and climate change secretary Caroline Flint, meanwhile, said the resignation was a “much-needed opportunity for the Government to change course”, adding:

“David Cameron promised this would be the ‘greenest Government ever’. But on his watch the Green Investment Bank has been delayed, thousands of jobs and businesses in the solar industry have been put at risk and the UK has fallen from third in the world for investment in green growth to thirteenth…

“With record energy bills, we need a government that is prepared to stand up to vested interests in the energy industry and put the public first. Otherwise people will be right to conclude that Ed Davey is just as out of touch with families struggling with the cost of living as the rest of this government.”

In addition to Davey replacing Huhne at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Norman Lamb steps up to take over from Davey as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Jenny Willott becomes an assistant government Whip.

Huhne and his wife are due to appear in court on February 16th.

• Elsewhere today, Ed Miliband delivered a keynote speech on banking reform in Canary Wharf this morning.

Miliband’s speech followed the recent scandals of RBS chief Stephen Hester’s million pound bonus; the stripping of Mr Fred Goodwin’s knighthood, and Network Rail’s plans to reward executives with bonus schemes that could double their salary over the next five years.

Looking ahead to how a better banking system should run, he said:

“There are three principles to restore the link between banks and society.

“Transparency – so that banks publish the details of all their large bonuses. We have called on the government to implement rules we legislated for to make banks reveal how many employees are earning over one million pounds, so that consumers can take this into account when choosing where to bank.

“Accountability to employees so that companies put some of their ordinary employees – maybe a teller normally at high street bank window – on the committee which sets executives’ top pay. If you can’t look one of your own employees in the eye when you receive a huge bonus, you should not get it.

“And accountability to shareholders. When banks that are majority-owned by the taxpayer, David Cameron must exercise some shareholder oversight on top pay. He says he believes that shareholders should exert their influence over pay at the top. All I ask is that he should practice what he preaches.

“After transparency and accountability – is responsibility. That means ending the culture of excessive bonuses. It is corrosive. It enriches individual bankers, but weakens the banking sector as a whole.

“Nobody begrudges rewards for genuine risk-takers. Nobody begrudges exceptional rewards for exceptional performance. That is how capitalism should work. But exceptional rewards for exceptional performance means the kind of huge bonuses which have caused such controversy recently should not be handed out for just doing your job.

“They should not be a one-way bet.”

Miliband also set out how a British Investment Bank – an idea proposed by Will Straw on this blog last month, and endorsed by Lord Mandelson last week – could provide government banking for entrepreneurs when the market fails.

He said:

“The market on its own does not work for small businesses.

“All the most successful economies around the world recognise this: from Asian capitalist states like Singapore, through active industrial states like Germany, to supposedly free market states like the USA.

“And they make sure that the state helps finance to reach the small and medium sized enterprises which need it.

“This isn’t about picking winners. It is about the state getting the market moving, like our most successful competitors have been doing since the fifties. It’s no coincidence that in Britain we haven’t done as much to develop a Mittelstand like Germany.

“Or fast-growing young companies like Apple and Intel – both of which got growth funding from the US government’s Small Business Investment Company programme.

“When it comes to competing internationally, our small and medium sized companies are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. One nation banking means the private sector and the state need to work together in partnership to get the system working for small business.

“It means we will need a much more diverse and competitive banking system which is more rooted in our communities. And it means looking at the case for a British Investment Bank which would provide government backing for entrepreneurs when the market fails.”

As Will wrote today:

“IPPR’s recent report (pdf) with Lord Mandelson on globalisation advocates a National Investment Bank. The remit we suggest is narrower than Miliband’s. Building on an idea (pdf) developed by venture capitalist Gerald Holtham, we suggest that the bank should invest in ‘marketable services’ which would develop a rate of return for the Exchequer.

“This would include big infrastructure projects in the energy and transport sectors but could also cover house building and the roll out of superfast broadband. The policy would turn the much derided Private Finance Initiative on its head by having the public sector lease profitable services to the private sector rather than the other way around.

“With the UK potentially already in a double dip recession and yields on government bonds at historically low levels, currently 2.03 per cent, there has never been a better time for this idea.”

Miliband’s speech today ended another strong week for the Labour leader, who continues to lead on the reforming capitalism agenda. On Tuesday, Labour has called an opposition day debate and vote on bankers’ bonuses, where Miliband will hope to keep up the momentum and keep Cameron on the back foot.

• The health reforms represented another headache for Cameron this week, with the Royal College of GPs the latest professional body to criticise the health and social care bill today.

The RCGP branded the reforms “damaging, unnecessary and expensive”, and said that, despite the amendments, they believed the planned reforms would “cause irreparable damage to patient care and jeopardise the NHS”.

RCGP chair Dr Clare Gerada said:

“We have taken every opportunity to negotiate changes for the good of our patients and for the continued stability of the NHS, yet while the government has claimed that it has made widespread concessions, our view is that the amendments have created greater confusion.

“We remain unconvinced that the bill will improve the care and services we provide to our patients.”

Adding:

“This bill is a burden, it makes no sense, it is incoherent to anybody other than the lawyers. It won’t deal with the big issues that we have to deal with, such as the ageing population and dementia.

“It will result in a very expensive health service and it will also result in a health service that certainly will never match the health service that we have at the moment – or at least had 12 months ago.”

Earlier this week, hundreds of doctors wrote to the Daily Telegraph to warn the bill will “derail and fragment” the NHS. The three hundred and sixty five GPs, specialists and health academics warn that opening the NHS up to “competing private providers” will lead to “fragmentation, chaos and damage to the quality and availability of patient care”.

The letter says:

“The NHS is not in peril if these reforms don’t go ahead. On the contrary, it is the bill which threatens to derail and fragment the NHS into a collection of competing private providers. The Bill will result in hundreds of different organisations pulling against each other, leading to fragmentation, chaos and damage to the quality and availability of patient care.

“As GPs, we agree that clinicians need more involvement in planning the NHS, and that the health service needs to improve. We don’t need a bill to achieve that. Drop the Bill and let’s work on the real issues: improving safety, efficiency, and quality of care.”

And there was further embarrassment for the prime minister over the NHS reforms this week with a senior GP in his own Witney constituency telling the New Statesman that “nobody supports the NHS changes”, warning “things are going to fail, hospitals will close”.

The GP said:

“I would say very few GPs are happy with [the NHS reform] at all… [It’s] not a question of supporting it, it’s a question of going along with it… In my practice, nobody supports the changes…

“People think there should be more clinical involvement in commissioning. But I don’t think many people think that GPs are the right people to commission. They need input into it – but if we wanted to be managers we would have trained to be managers, not doctors.”

Adding:

“Most GPs are incredibly worried about conflict of interest. How can you be a patient’s advocate and look after the money?

“A lot of people think the whole thing’s designed to fail so they can bring private providers in. It’s the one big bit of the economy that hasn’t got private money in it.”

And talking of the effects of the proposed health service overhaul on patients, the GP warns:

“The public have just got no idea what’s hitting them… Things are going to fail, hospitals will close, because the money’s not going to be there. Things will get taken over. And if you’re going to have to make a profit out of it, you’re not going to have the same service.”

Now that even a senior GP in his own constituency has articulated that opposition, will David Cameron finally listen?

Progressives of the week:

The Times newspaper, which this week launched its ‘Save our Cyclists’ campaign. The campaign comes after Mary Bowers, a young journalist at the paper, was hit by a cement truck outside King’s Cross one Friday morning as she made her way to work. Mary remains in a coma.

As George Readings wrote on Left Foot Forward today, the campaign will, fingers crossed, get Transport for London and local authorities across the land to listen and take action to improve cyclists’ safety:

“Unfortunately, her case is all too typical. Lorries make up five per cent of all traffic on British roads but, according to some estimates, are implicated in 50 per cent of cyclist deaths.

“King’s Cross is also a particular hotspot. In December, TfL promised to review the junction there after the fourth cyclist in four years was killed by a lorry. Far from being a priority, no changes were promised until after the Olympics.

“Similarly, two cyclists were killed in late 2011 at Bow Roundabout in east London. Both were using the new ‘Cycle Superhighway’, but a poorly designed junction left them vulnerable to other traffic…

“These cases underline why the Times’s campaign is so important. At both Kings Cross and Bow Roundabout there are some provisions for cyclists, but they haven’t been implemented in a way which actually keeps people safe.

“In total, 16 cyclists were killed in London last year, many of them by lorries. Dozens more, like Mary Bowers, were badly injured. Despite the commonly held belief (based on a statistical anomaly in 2009), the majority of cyclists killed were men, not women.

“Outside London, things are often even worse.

“Cyclists passing Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham, for example, are allowed to share the pavement with pedestrians for quite some distance. Then, without warning, they are forced onto a  ’cycle path’ (a foot-wide strip of green paint) crammed onto the edge of a busy dual carriageway. Ten metres later, the cycle path promptly disappears and cyclists are on their own again…

“Cycle groups have been making these points for years. Perhaps now, with the backing of a major national paper, TFL and local authorities will start to listen. If they don’t, cyclists will continue to pay with their lives.”

Regressive of the week:

International development secretary Andrew Mitchell, who again delayed enshrining in law his pledge to meet the 0.7 per cent target on overseas aid, claiming “there is not enough time left” to get it onto the statute book, despite the pledge being in the Conservative manifesto (page 117, pdf) and coalition agreement (page 22, pdf).

As Left Foot Forward reported yesterday, this is just the latest in a long line of delays:

“In opposition, David Cameron made much of his commitment to ringfence aid spending, as part of his detoxification strategy, pledging not to balance the books on the backs of the world’s poorest. All well and good.

“Yet the government has delayed enshrining the 0.7 per cent target in law. Again. And again. And again.

“As Left Foot Forward reported on June 4th 2010, just weeks after the election, it’s a promise the Tories failed to immediately deliver once they’d made it to power, omitting it from their first Queen’s Speech.

“Back then, there was criticism the legislation wouldn’t make the statute book by the September 2010 New York Millennium Development Goals summit; it now looks like it won’t even be law by the May 2012 Cape Town MDG summit.”

As for Mitchell’s claim that there’s “not enough time left”, as former DfID spad Richard Darlington wrote, such excuses simply don’t add up:

“This has been one of the longest ever Parliamentary sessions in history, running from May 2010 to May 2012. So what’s gone wrong?

“There are still ten weeks left in this Parliamentary session and another three when MPs will be on holiday. DFID’s Bill is short with just a handful of clauses. It has already had pre-legislative scrutiny from the international development select committee and there is cross-party consensus.

“There is no prospect of it being overturned in the Lords. It could probably be passed on a one line whip on a Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.”

If the will is there, it would surely have happened by now.

Evidence of the week:

The latest UCAS figures which show, surprise, surprise, that university applications have fallen nearly nine per cent on this time last year, with the figure for mature students even higher at 11 per cent.

For England’s universities, which will be allowed to charge the full £9,000 a year tuition fees from this September, there was a 9.9 per cent drop, with Scotland’s universities experiencing a 1.3 per cent fall in applications.

As UCU general secretary Sally Hunt wrote on Left Foot Forward this week, the fall in applications from mature students in particular is a worrying development:

“Over one in four students who apply to university are mature students with many looking to get back in to education in order to improve their qualifications and chances of long-term employment.

“The government should be making it easier for people in this situation to have a second chance but seem intent on making it harder.

“While ministers have been quick to defend the new fees regime as fairer and more progressive it is neither and will simply penalise those with ambition.

“Perhaps it is not surprising that our best and brightest are being tempted abroad to study. The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, for example, is reporting a surge in applications from Brits.

“Looking ahead, we cannot afford a system that puts people off university if we are to compete in the modern world. Other countries are encouraging their best and brightest to get on, not putting up punitive barriers.

“This government risks returning us to a time when money, not ability, mattered most for success.”

As Fiona Wood wrote in the Guardian, mature students are “the first casualty of higher tuition fees… as fewer people feel able to risk their future on a course that can cost thousands”:

“I started my undergraduate degree in 2005 at the age of 44, no longer wanting to get by on incapacity benefit, as I had done for years since giving up running my own business because of chronic fatigue.

“I decided it was time to gain the skills I needed to get myself back in the workplace, in a job that I could cope with. I am now studying for a master’s degree at Staffordshire University and beginning a professional career in photography.

“For me, education has been the engine of social mobility, and it could be for many other people. If I’d been facing fees of £9,000 when I started, however, I would have been unable to take the gamble, making myself liable for potentially 30 years of repayments on a tuition fee loan.

“I would have seen that amount of debt as too big a barrier, no matter the repayment conditions, and not made the leap that I have now taken. I’d possibly still be on benefits and face having them taken away, with no new qualifications to help me make my way without them.

“The shortsightedness and disjointedness is what most frustrates me about the government’s policymaking, particularly in education. They are narrowing opportunities wherever you look: making it harder for someone with a disability to get by, but making it harder for us to get into a position to find a job that we can do.

“For anyone with existing financial commitments and families to think about, the idea of taking on thousands of pounds of debt is a huge risk; one that in such unpredictable times many feel unable to take.”

This weekend on Left Foot Forward:

Saturday:

• Ben Mitchell’s primer on the economy – part 1.

• The Week Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

Sunday:

• Ben Mitchell’s primer on the economy – part 2.

• The World Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

This week’s most read:

1. Maryland madness: 14-year-old girl’s birthday wish? “Ban gay marriage” – Shamik Das

2. Anonymous expose Ron Paul’s racist links – Alex Hern

3. “Free Pale*****”: BBC tries to settle censorship row – Alex Hern

4. Krugman savages the “austerity debacle” – Shamik Das

5. The insurance industry’s millions to the Tories are set to pay off – Alex Hern

Daisy Hooper works for Aequitas Consulting, an innovative public policy and public sector innovation agency.

Small and start-up businesses are essential to Britain’s economic recovery. But in order to support economic growth SMEs need to win new business. And despite government promises, red tape still prevents them from accessing government published contracts.

David Cameron has lauded the benefits of British SMEs, praising them for doing ‘incredible things’ and pledging his support for new businesses through the Start Up Britain.

The prime minister has pledged to support small businesses to access government contracts and reverse institutional bias against them.

However, procurement practices are still preventing SMEs from applying for and winning government contracts.

As part of a consortium of SMEs, we recently applied to join the central government procurement framework – consultancyONE, which is for central government contracts worth over £100,000, and purportedly has specific SME-friendly application criteria.

Working in a consortium can be a good way for small businesses to pool resources: working innovatively in partnership, as the government has urged SMEs to do, improves eligibility against contract criteria which theoretically improves the chance of winning contracts.

In fact, this partnership restricted our eligibility.

Applications for new contracts could only cite previous consortium projects worth more than £100,000. The consortium can’t get these contracts because it doesn’t already have them (individual partners’ contracts of more than £100,000 don’t count, no matter how relevant they are).

In the end our consortium was forced to withdraw from the application process for consultancyONE because of the complexity of the procurement hurdles.

The strict criteria that preclude SMEs from applying for contracts are intended to limit the risk to the government and to cut costs.

Yet there is no evidence that giving contracts to small businesses is more risky than giving them to large businesses – or that in the long run it cuts costs. Just look at the big businesses that have failed: one colossal example being CSC’s failure to deliver the NHS IT database project, which cost billions in taxpayers’ money.

SMEs have to be innovative in their approach to get the biggest ‘bang for their buck’. They create products and services that are more efficient, because they are delivered through tighter budget constraints. They also have a greater local and regional economic impact by creating jobs throughout the UK, with a better geographical spread than big businesses who want to be based in London.

And compare the benefits of SMEs (which create local jobs and a better distribution of wealth) with larger companies that outsource their staff and bank abroad to avoid contributing their fair share to society.

The government keeps telling us that small private businesses are already efficient and innovative, creating jobs and rising to the current economic challenges.

Small businesses obviously have the capacity to drive economic growth and to take up the slack from the public sector. But as long as the application process is a barrier to them winning new work, the outcome is likely to be an inefficiently slow and frustrating process.

See also:

• Small businesses can play a vital role – but only if they get the finance they need - Tony Dolphin, February 2nd 2012

• Obama puts manufacturing top of the agenda – time for Cameron to do the same? - Tony Burke, January 27th 2012

• Mandelson weighs in behind National Investment Bank - Alex Hern, January 27th 2012

• Design agencies face a second year of talent exodus in 2012 - Rachel Fairley, January 3rd 2012

• Will quantitative easing work this time? - George Irvin, October 9th 2011

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The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published research (pdf) this week pointing to a growing sense of grievance in England to the devolved nations.

Summing up the results, IPPR director Nick Pearce concluded:

“English identity is on the rise and it is increasingly expressed in terms that are resentful of the devolution settlement… Our mainstream political parties need to embrace Englishness.”

Scotland

Another week and the same issue continued to dominate Scottish politics, as the Alex Salmond independence band wagon continued at speed.

Having used the Hugo Young Lecture on Tuesday to argue that an independent Scotland would provide a “beacon of progressive opinion” for the rest of the UK, Burns Night saw the Scottish government publish its consultation on a referendum.

With polling for the New Statesman pointing to those in favour of independence being just one per cent behind those against, the Herald’s editorial on Thursday concluded:

“This consultation document and its Westminster cousin offer a vital opportunity to test public opinion on this most compelling of matters: the future of the United Kingdom and Scotland’s relationship with its constituent parts.

“It has suited the Westminster government to cast doubt on the credibility of a plebiscite organised by the Scottish government.

“The true test of that credibility, however, now lies with Mr Salmond. Having opened his proposals to public consultation, he and his Government must take on board the comments and criticisms and heed the will of the Scottish people whose interests he holds so dear.

“Scottish Labour’s new leader Johann Lamont made the point yesterday that the first minister does not speak for all the Scottish people. It is a valid point, given that he does not miss an opportunity to assert that the SNP expresses the will of Scots. Yet, until today’s New Statesman survey, the polls had continued to show that a minority favour independence.

“Mr Salmond has had his first big say. The opposition parties at Holyrood must now engage in making a positive case for the Union. There is a will to make sure that the referendum is legal, fair and decisive.

“It can be so as long as many people as possible make their views during the consultation period. The opportunity must be seized so that there is no room for dubiety or dispute when the people of Scotland take part in the most momentous vote in 300 years.”

At the Guardian, meanwhile, the paper’s Whitehall correspondent, Polly Curtis sought to establish how fair the SNP’s proposed question (Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?) was.

She explained:

“The experts I heard from don’t believe that the SNP’s question is the fairest phrasing on the question.

“Asking people to agree with something is more likely to elicit a positive response than asking them to disagree. The emerging “no” campaign would prefer to campaign on a question that asks people whether they would like Scotland to remain in the union – their favoured outcome. For the same reasons, this also wouldn’t be the fairest option.

“The fairest way would be to give the two options – independence or remaining in the union – and let people decide.

“However, John Curtice said that the phrasing of the question in this referendum is unlikely to have a very profound impact. Phrasing is far more important on issues that people don’t understand the ins and outs of, such as the AV referendum. With the Scottish referendum on independence people are likely to be well versed in the debate.”

Elsewhere, independent MSP Margo MacDonland reignited the debate over assisted suicide by reintroducing a bill on Tuesday to allow it in Scotland.

Summing up the difficulties the proposals will cause, the Herald wrote on Wednesday:

“With the exception of abortion, it is hard to think of a more emotive and contentious area of public debate and medical ethics than assisted dying.The rest of life demands of us few more agonising choices than those surrounding birth and death.

“In late 2010 Margo MacDonald’s end of life assistance bill was rejected by 85 votes to 16 at Holyrood. Yet yesterday the Independent MSP was back in the chamber with a new bid to legalise assisted suicide.

“Her return to this issue, so soon after her first bill was so decisively rejected, testifies to her impressive campaigning zeal on this issue, a zeal intensified by her own Parkinson’s diagnosis.

“It is also a reflection of the way the ground is shifting in this debate. With new members making up one-third of the Scottish Parliament and opinion polls suggesting growing support for the right to be helped to die, it would be a mistake to write off her chances of success this time around.”

Wales

First minister Carwyn Jones used a press conference to distance himself from Ed Miliband’s support for a cap on public sector workers pay.

Arguing that such a policy would be fundamentally unfair, he told journalists:

“I think it’s absolutely crucial that people see that those who are paid the most in financial services, those who the public believe were responsible for our current economic difficulties, pay their fair share as well.

“I don’t believe that this is being done and as a result I think it’s very difficult to say to those who work in the public sector, who didn’t cause the economic difficulties, that we have to bear the brunt of pay cuts when it isn’t happening in those sectors which are more appropriate.”

As the Scottish parliament grappled with the issue of assisted suicide, in Wales leaders of the main Christian denominations made clear their objections to the government’s proposals for a system of presumed consent for organ donation.

Outlining their fears, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, George Stack, the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, and The Very Reverend Archimandrite Father Deiniol, of the Wales Eastern Orthodox Mission, argued:

“Pastors, theologians and church leaders of all denominations agree that offering organs for donation is a significant act of charity, and a reflection of God’s freely-given love and care for us, including the gift of life.

“The positive ethos of donation as a free gift is endangered by an ill-judged if well intentioned proposal to move from voluntary donation to presumed consent.

“It is of extreme concern that while responses are being invited on the proposals in the white paper, the central proposal, which is the shift from donation to presumed consent, is presented as a fait accompli.

“There is a real danger that a change in the law would alienate a significant proportion of the public and undermine the positive image of organ donation and the reputation of Wales.”

Responding to the concerns, health minister Lesley Griffiths argued:

“We have made great progress in Wales in increasing the number of actual donors. However, there is still a shortage of organs and this is something the Welsh government wants to change by introducing a new way of making a person’s wishes known.

“International evidence shows organ donation has risen in other countries which have opt-out systems. I believe introducing a soft opt-out system in Wales, together with an ongoing public awareness campaign, will help increase the number of organs available.”

Northern Ireland

After it was claimed that the UUP and DUP had held secret meetings over a possible merger, one DUP strategist and blogger argued for a debate about the potential for such a move.

Writing in the Newsletter, Lee Reynolds, a councillor for north Belfast, concluded:

“Unionism has two electoral challenges - falling turnout and the need to expand its electoral base beyond its traditional community (without alienating the existing base).

“There is the political challenge of making Northern Ireland a beacon of political, social and economic success within the Union and regaining the global presence it once enjoyed. None of these tasks are easy.

“There are also shifts in voter attitude going on among the electorate that unionism needs to be conscious of.

“The present structures, relationships and attitudes among the unionist parties have been shaped by the peace process. Northern Ireland’s politics has begun to move on from the politics of the peace process.

“As we look forward to the centenary of Northern Ireland in 2021, would focusing our efforts on these challenges and changes not produce greater benefits for the Union and unionism than finding arguments for the sake of them?

“Unionist unity could be an opportunity to create something new and better. This is its litmus test. If after a thorough, intense and constructive debate the conclusion is that we can create something better then we should proceed.

“If it doesn’t then we shouldn’t. The debate itself is something no unionist or anyone else in Northern Ireland should be fearful of.”

In a sign of further progress meanwhile, Sinn Fein deputy first minister Martin McGuinness declared that he still hadn’t ruled out the possibility of meeting the Queen.

Reflecting on her visit to Dublin last year, he told BBC Ulster’s “Inside Politics” programme:

“I’ve made it clear that the visit of Queen Elizabeth of Britain to the south, was something that we looked at with considerable interest.

“And I think the fact that she was prepared to recognise the importance of the Irish language; that she was prepared to stand in a very dignified way to honour those patriots who struggled in 1916 to bring about a free and independent 32-county Irish Republic, that made an impact upon me.

“So that’s an issue that I will ponder and I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

Also this week:

• Sign up to receive our weekly summary of the news from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, The Week Outside Westminster

• Regressive of the week: Alex Salmond – Shamik Das

• Salmond’s Scottish referendum is a textbook example of a leading question – Alex Hern

• Progressives need a positive vision for Scotland – Ed Jacobs

• Déjà vu as Scottish referendum campaign turns nasty – Mike Morgan-Giles

• Salmond has questions to answer, because the evidence doesn’t support him – William Bain MP

• Hughes makes the case for an English Parliament as Salmond faces fresh scrutiny – Ed Jacobs

To receive Look Left in your inbox, sign up to the Left Foot Forward email service

• The hate of the hard Right, bigotry-based commentariat was on ugly display again this week – and this time, it was Britain’s disabled people in their sights.

First, Rod Liddle wrote an article in The Sun on the “pretend disabled”. Yes, really

You have to see the bile to believe it, so here are some choice quotes:

“My New Year’s resolution for 2012 was to become disabled. Nothing too serious, maybe just a bit of a bad back or one of those newly invented illnesses which make you a bit peaky for decades – fibromyalgia, or M.E.”

“And being disabled is incredibly fashionable. The number of people who claim to be disabled has doubled in the past ten years.”

“I think we should all pretend to be disabled for a month or so, claim benefits and hope this persuades the authorities to sort out the mess.”

“It has become easier to claim those benefits, partly as a consequence of the disablement charities who, out of their own self-interest, insist that an ever-greater proportion of the population is disabled.”

Not that we should have been surprised at Liddle’s poisonous language, as a glance through our archive will show; as Will Straw has previously pointed out, Liddle is guilty of:

• Decrying “Muslim Savages”;

• Mocking the black British community for merely producing “rap music” and “goat curry”;

• Denying the evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming theory;

• Writing a series of sexist articles and holding sexist views, including “So – Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober”; and

• Writing, in response to Islam4UK: “F*** off back to where you’re from, then, you Muslims.”

As Alex Hern wrote yesterday:

“Rod Liddle is a nasty piece of work, peddling his equal-opportunities bigotry (he’ll be offensive to everyone – provided they’re different to him) to all-comers. This latest column is indeed horrible, but it’s anything but surprising.”

To today’s hate-filled bigot, then; step forward James Delingpole, Thatcherite climate denier extraordinaire, who has blogged his support for Liddle in the Telegraph today, blaming “the fake disabled” for “crippling our economy”. Yes, once again, someone really wrote such poison.

For good measure, Delingpole has a go at “anti-racism; diversity; anti-homophobia; anti sex-discrimination etc.” legislation for the “financial mess we’re in”. Nothing to do with bankers’ greed, nor the savage cuts he salivates over, nor the eurozone crisis then?

No, for Delingpole, our economy is tanking because of anti-discrimination laws. If only it would be possible to discriminate against, and make it easier sack all those pesky efniks and wimmin and gays and disaybled, the economy would be fine.

The jackbooted bigots of modern Britain aren’t just in the EDL and BNP, every now and then they crawl out onto the pages of the Sun and Telegraph, wishing to inflict ever more cruelty on disabled people, and turn back the clock to the ‘good ’ol days’ when you could discriminate against others with impunity.

On Holocaust Memorial Day, it’s clear the battle against extremism is far from won; the hate lives on.

• There has been widespread anger today over RBS chief Stephen Hester’s £963,000 bonus.

Ed Miliband described the obscene payout as a “disgraceful failure of leadership by the prime minister”, adding:

“The public won’t understand why, after all his promises, he has decided to sign off a million pound bonus for Stephen Hester.

“He’s spent weeks saying that shareholders should play a more active role in reining in excess where they see it, but at the first chance to act for a bank the public own the Prime Minister has just nodded it through.

“He owns through the British government 83 per cent of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The bonus should have been blocked. People will be appalled that nothing has been done about this.”

George Osborne’s been busy blaming the last Labour government for Hester’s deal – yet he has it in his power, if he has the will, to stop the jackpot, as Left Foot Forward’s Ben Fox revealed:

“We shouldn’t fall for the weasel words of Cameron and Osborne when they claim they are powerless to prevent Stephen Hester’s bonus.

“In fact, EU legislation drafted in 2010 by Labour MEP Arlene McCarthy explicitly gives governments across the EU the power to ban bonuses to banks bailed-out by the state.

“The purpose of the directive was bring the bonus culture of the financial sector back to reality, with limits on cash payments and rules that bonuses should be in shares or contingent capital so that executives would be rewarded for the long-term stability of their institution…

“While City fat-cats may argue that big bonuses are needed to attract the best executives, the concept of a bonus is that it is awarded according to merit. And the coalition, which signed up to the EU law on bank bonuses, has the power to stop the payments for Hester and others.

“It’s time they had the guts to use it.”

Cameron and Osborne clearly don’t have any intention of getting tough on undeserved high pay. They’re the prime minister and chancellor, if they wanted to walk the walk, they could, but they clearly prefer to balance the books on the backs of the poorest, ripping up pay and pensions deals with millions of low paid public servants, yet unwilling to claw back the millions being handed to the highest paid civil servants, and make no mistake, that is what Hester is.

As we said earlier today:

“As winter’s icy chill blasts millions of Britons up and down the land, with wages frozen, jobs lost and benefits slashed – with even cancer patients and disabled children not spared by the Cabinet of the compassionless – for at least one individual, there’s reason to cheer.

“RBS chief Stephen Hester’s 2011 pay packet could reach £7.38 million. Seven million, three hundred and eighty thousand pounds.

“That’s right, those responsible for the crisis are rolling in the dough once again, as if there’d been no recession, while those that had nothing to do with it are paying the price…

“All in it together?”

• The outrage at Hester’s bonus will have been heightened by this week’s GDP figures, which showed a 0.2 per cent contraction in the final quarter of 2011.

As Tony Dolphin reported on Left Foot Forward, the latest figures (pdf) leave us staring down the barrel of a double-dip:

“Growth in 2011 as a whole was 0.9 per cent. Growth over the four quarters ending in 2011 Q4 was 0.8 per cent, though this figure is flattered by comparison with the final quarter of 2010, when output was hit by particularly bad weather. Underlying growth over the last four quarters may have been as low as 0.3 per cent.

“In the final quarter of 2011 output of production industries fell by 1.2 per cent, probably as a result of large-scale destocking (there are very few details available at this point). Output of construction industries was down 0.5 per cent, while output in the service sector was unchanged.

“The recovery from the 2008/09 recession continues to be slow and uneven. Real GDP has increased by 3.5 per cent since the second quarter of 2009. Over comparable periods after the last two recessions, real GDP increased by 7.1 per cent in the 1980s and by 8.8 per cent in the 1990s.”

Concluding:

“In the short term, as I have been warning for some time, things are unlikely to get much better… As the IMF warned only yesterday, when it revised its forecast for growth in the euro zone in 2012 down from +1.1 per cent to -0.5 per cent, the euro zone crisis is an increasing threat to the global economy.

“Meanwhile, the government is sticking stubbornly to its deficit reduction plans, meaning further cuts in public sector jobs and taking more demand out of the economy. With public sector austerity at home and a potential crisis in the euro zone on their doorstep, it seems unlikely the private sector will step up its recruitment or investment plans any time soon.

“Together, these GDP figures and the short term outlook suggest the UK economy has slipped back into recession. The feared ‘double-dip’ began in the final quarter of 2011.”

While on the impact on the deficit, Alex Hern wrote:

“For most people, the downside of going back into recession is obvious; but for George Osborne, he’s got an additional worry on his mind. Having bet the farm on deficit reduction, every quarter the deficit fails to fall as much as he promised looks worse and worse for him.

“As we have reported before, the size of the deficit is almost perfectly correlated with the level of growth…

“The government is now borrowing £168 billion pounds more than Osborne predicted before the election. That difference is almost entirely down to the fact that growth in the last six quarters has been 0.3 per cent, as opposed to the 3.6 per cent that was promised.

“Now we have had another quarter of negative growth – again, against Osborne and the OBR’s predictions. If, like us, you are starting to have doubts about the OBR’s ability to ever get a prediction accurate, George’s Marvellous Deficit Calculator (in our sidebar) is here to help.

“As a worst case scenario, for instance, if the average growth per quarter for next year is -0.2 per cent, leading to an annual contraction of 0.8 per cent, the deficit would be 9.1 per cent. Which is exactly what the deficit was at its peak after the financial crisis.”

And looking at the international picture, data today reveals the US grew nearly twice as fast as the UK in 2011, as Will Straw explains:

“New figures out today show that the US economy grew by 0.7 per cent in the last quarter compared to a contraction of 0.2 per cent in the UK. The final figures for 2011 put to bed Treasury spin from the autumn that the UK was doing as well as the US…

“While the UK economy has contracted in three of the last five quarters and may already be in a double-dip recession, the US economy has not contracted since the second quarter of 2009.

“The US has taken a slower approach to deficit reduction than the UK with cuts only starting to bite in 2013.

“And while George Osborne has blamed the eurozone for the latest downturn, research by the House of Commons library has shown that it was only trade that ensured the economy was growing at all in 2011. Surely now it’s time for Osborne to accept the need for a Plan B.”

Progressive of the week:

Former prime minister Gordon Brown, who this week published a new report, “Delivering on the promise, building opportunity: the case for a Global Fund for Education” (pdf), that offers a blueprint for the reform of key international institutions so they deliver more effective support for education in developing countries.

As Left Foot Forward reported today:

“The flagship recommendation is the creation of a new, independent Global Fund for Education. While the current major education fund, housed within the World Bank, has presided over an impressive fall in out-of-school numbers of 40 million over the past decade, progress has now stagnated or even gone into reverse.

“This fund, recently renamed the Global Partnership for Education, has been unable to attract significant support from donors and has been criticised in some quarters for being slow and inflexible – and what is more, many countries with the largest numbers of out-of-school kids, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, are not eligible for grants.

“A new Global Fund for Education would attract funding from non-traditional sources, make grants to NGOs and private companies working in remote areas (and not only governments or international agencies), and finally deliver resources commensurate with the size of the global education challenge…

“This report sees Brown at his best: forensically focused on policy detail and driven by a deep passion for improving the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

Regressive of the week:

Scottish first minister Alex Salmond, who is so hell bent on breaking up the Union he is not only delaying the independence referendum until 2014 – the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn – but is proposing a leading question in the plebiscite.

As Left Foot Forward reported today:

“The question may be “simple, straightforward and clear”, but it’s not quite as fair as Salmond suggests it is. By phrasing the question as “do you agree…” rather than the more neutral options of “do you agree or disagree…” or simply using “should”, there is likely to be a small but significant increase in the amount of people voting yes.

“Time and time again, textbooks on survey construction warn against phrasing questions the way the SNP have, because it will lead to biased responses.”

With Political Scrapbook adding:

“Technical literature on survey design is clear that questions phrased in this way result in a “small but significant increase in the amount of people voting yes”. And it has now emerged that even students as young as 14 are taught that these types of questions are wrong.

“Having explained why the sample is likely to be biased, this EdExcel GCSE statistics paper (pdf) asks young students why a “Do you agree…” question will skew results.”

The question could scarcely have been more biased if it was one of these…

Evidence of the week:

“The third wave of globalisation” report (pdf) from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which calls for a rethink in international governance and a more ‘personcentric’ view of globalisation, arguing the world is facing the third wave of globalisation, one characterised by the lack of a single leading nation or foundational project.

It analyses the underlying and resulting global economic and social trends, including growth and inequality, and also presents evidence from globalisation experts and participants in China, India, Brazil and other leading nations.

In the report, Lord Mandelson voices support for a National Investment Bank – echoing Will Straw’s pitch to the Fabians earlier this month.

As Left Foot Forward reported today, the report concludes:

“The vision and scope of the nascent Green Investment Bank needs to be more ambitious.

“First, it should become a National Investment Bank with green characteristics, rather than an institution purely focused on green investments.

“The energy and transport sectors are two critical areas where Britain already has some comparative advantages, but it makes little sense to restrict such an important branch of industrial policy to these sectors in isolation.

“Second, this bank should be able to utilise the historically low yields on government borrowing with immediate effect. The chart below shows the interest rate on 10-year government bonds. Any investments with a rate of return greater than the current yield of around 2 per cent will generate a positive net impact on the government’s balance sheet.

“Investing in marketable services of this kind would turn the government’s private finance initiative on its head by allowing the public sector to borrow and then sell or lease back the service to the private sector, rather than the other way around.”

This weekend on Left Foot Forward:

Saturday:

• A look at the social care crisis.

• More on the racism allegations enveloping English football.

• The Week Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

Sunday:

• A look ahead to the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.

• The World Outside Westminster – sign up to receive it by email here.

This week’s most read:

1. Exposed: The six myths of IDS’s benefits cap – Shamik Das

2. MPs call for Romney’s tax haven to be closed – Shamik Das

3. Why child benefit must be removed from the benefit cap – Dr Sam Royston, Children’s Society

4. What’s right for Aberdeen isn’t for York; unemployment needs city-specific solutions – Paul Swinney, Centre for Cities

5. Where is Labour on welfare? – Vincenzo Rampulla

The opportunity for party renewal must be the only positive about opposition; converting political unease and hunger for government into a winning agenda of policies to win the electorate’s votes and affect change.

Pragmatic Radicalism’s quick-fire policy debates, ‘Top of the Policies’, offer Labour Party members the chance to present and discuss ideas, with the future of UK skills being the latest policy area tackled this week in Westminster’s Barley Mow pub, chaired by Michael White of the Guardian.

Pragmatic Radicalism – or @PragRad as it’s now known – is an eclectic mix of Labour voices from all wings of the party, who write and present short policy in the pub ideas. Facing quick-fired Q&A sessions, policies are then voted on in a secret ballot.

Pragmatic Radicalism’s founder John Slinger says:

“The idea of Pragmatic Radicalism is to generate new ideas that will help Labour and the shadow cabinet as they map out a vision for the country.”

A joint event with unionlearn and Unions21, the skills debate saw Jake Hayman, director at Future First, win the vote on the night hands down with his scheme for an alumni network covering every state school in the UK.

He explained:

“Utilising former students as relatable role models, who can raise awareness of key skills needed in the real world of work, motivating current students to take the initiative to develop these skills.”

Second place went to Anthony Painter, political writer and chairman of Hackney University Technical College, after arguing the case to create a new and high quality technical education from 14+, saying:

“Student strengths are varied and so the education system should be.”

My idea has already been given support in principle by Microsoft partnering, for a national skills mentoring scheme. This came in as joint third most popular proposal, along with Allan Graveson, national secretary of Nautilus International, who spoke about the need for fiscal incentives and tax credits for training, with an employment obligation on the organisation or company involved.

Hayman’s alumni idea is backed-up by Future First’s research that shows 39 per cent of 16 to 19 year olds who went to state school do not know anyone in a career in which they would like to work. He wants to find practical role models for them.

My skills mentoring scheme was similar in essence, to start a national register of experts and organisations, to give of their time, advice and expertise (and donations to part-fund scheme) to help as mentors, setting-up opportunities to access on-the-job skills for CV-building, through structured work experience, initially for young people aged 14-25, then rolling the programme out to those re-training for career change.

Mixing it up with old school politics in the pub, other speakers included John Edmonds (GMB) and former MP Parmjit Dhanda. All ideas can be found here.

Pragmatic Radicalism started life as a pamphlet in 2011. There will be more debates this year. If you want to get involved or wish to join the mailing list, please contact PragRad editor John Slinger

See also:

• Where next for Ed’s speeches? - Asher Dresner, June 28th 2011

• Miliband: “Our ambition is to be more than a party; Labour must be a cause” - Shamik Das, June 25th 2011

• Peter Hain: “We must transform the party” - Dominic Browne, May 16th 2011

• Young people are poorly served by the Coalition’s cuts - Nicola Smith, June 8th 2010

• Labour’s green appeal to first time voters - Joss Garman, April 25th 2010

Sally Hunt is the general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU)

Reports this morning that the government is shelving major reforms to its higher education bill are welcome news. UCU and others have campaigned against allowing private for-profit companies greater access to taxpayers’ cash through publicly-funded student loans.

The University and College Union has led the opposition to plans that we feared would allow private companies a greater hold on the UK higher education sector. The plans to recreate elements of the American system were vehemently opposed by the academic community and just last month 500 academics wrote to the Telegraph voicing their serious concerns.

This morning’s reports say that the plans have been shelved until at least 2015, which suggests the government has listened to the concerns of the academic community and for that it should be applauded.

The evidence from America is extremely worrying. For-profit companies offer derisory graduation rates, crushing levels of debts and degrees of dubious value. According to the US Education Trust, only 20 per cent of students at for-profit colleges complete a four-year course and the same proportion of those who do finish default on their loans within three years.

US private companies recruit just 10 per cent of students, but they consume 25 per cent of government-backed loans. We believe that allowing institutions driven by the pursuit of short-term shareholder value to get a foothold in higher education would risk condemning generations of students to a similar future, while the taxpayer would pick up the cost.

While legislation to allow private companies getting rich at the expense of the UK taxpayer appears to have been put to the backburner, we will remain vigilant and ensure that no similar measures are brought in through the back door and without proper scrutiny.

In the US for-profit universities and colleges have been investigated for the mis-selling of qualifications to vulnerable students and their families, which led to calls for far tighter regulation of the for-profit sector. The last thing we needed over here as students struggle to adapt to the new fees regime is even greater risks for the sector.

See also:

• Cameron needs to start backing our young people and universities – Sally Hunt, January 18th 2012

• Will 2012 see the first university bankruptcy? – Alex Hern, January 8th 2012

• Government funding of university research at lowest proportion since 1900s – Sally Hunt, January 5th 2012

• For-profit universities have failed in the US, so why import them here? – Sally Hunt, December 7th 2011

• Willetts must learn from America’s mistakes over for-profit universities – Sally Hunt, May 6th 2011

Matthew Sowemimo worked at the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, which trains emerging campaigners

The unprecedented scale of the government’s deficit reduction programme was always going to generated social protest. In this article I will also identify the features of some of 2011’s most effective political campaigns against the austerity programme and what they say about the wider state of our politics. The new wave of social activism will generate both challenges and opportunities for the labour movement.

Traditionally people with the lowest incomes have lacked a political voice equivalent to the stake they have in policies designed to redistribute wealth and to provide them with services like housing that they could not secure from their own resources.

Many would argue that people on low incomes are bearing the brunt of the government’s austerity programme. So have those with most at stake been at the forefront of popular protest against the government’s policies?

The student protestors dominated protest at the early stage of the spending cuts and conform to the established pattern of those with the greatest levels of social capital and educational levels being the most assertive in representing their views.

Conversely, the initial overspill of protest from the student movement to the arguably more important issue of the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance (EMA) was not sustained. The demographic of EMA beneficiaries was notably poorer and more drawn from ethnic minorities that the student protestors.

The one social group adversely affected by the welfare cuts who took part in popular protests in some numbers were disabled people. However as in many past occasions significant numbers of disabled people are part of national networks of large charities, like Scope and Radar.

Many of these charities have invested considerable resources in mobilising disabled people and supporting their political advocacy. However individuals affected by the housing benefit reforms and the household cap on benefits have lacked any national visibility.

By contrast, the National Trust-led campaign against the government’s forestry proposals was powered by thousands of affluent voters writing protest letters.

The fact that policies like the housing benefit reforms have not led to direct mobilisation of the communities directly affected by them is aggravated by the fact that these groups are far less likely to turnout in general elections.

Barack Obama’s community activism in Chicago was based on the belief that policymakers would become more responsive to poor peoples issues if those voters were brought into the political process. Obama’s own election as a United States senator was an ‘aftershock’ of long term political and electoral re-engagement of poor communities.

The protests that have been most effective are those that have focused on wider systemic political and economic issues rather than defensive campaigns reacting to specific cuts.

UKUncut and the Occupy campaigns effectiveness can be seen in the way they featured high up news schedules; how they sustained their media impact and that they shifted the terms of debate. UKUncut’s campaign challenged the central tenet of the government’s argument that there is no alternative to its spending cuts.

Both campaigns demonstrate the ability of online campaigning to reach out to large numbers of unaffiliated people around a clear focus and to do so in short time frames. Prior to the cuts, grassroots campaigns like Plane Stupid, have used the agility that comes with not having large formalised decision making structures to sometimes steal a march on large campaigning charities.

In the 1990s Adam Lent and I argued that national protest movements formed in areas like gay rights and foreign policy in part as a result of political disaffection with the conservatism and caution of the Labour Party leadership.

The Occupy campaign’s challenge to the City of London about its past and ongoing role in the financial crisis has taken place at a time when Labour is undergoing an agonising reassessment of its record in office, including its policies towards the banking sector. Occupy’s stance on the City of London was clear and urgent and quickly generated quite significant levels public approval.

As a result, Ed Miliband and Vince Cable found themselves acknowledging the force of Occupy’s core political case. Occupy’s experience shows that social movements can expand the political space for progressive politics.

However, the vibrant new social movements pose a challenge for Labour.

The youthful face and energy of groups like UKUncut serve as a sharp contrast to the ageing profile and falling membership of the trade unions and Labour Party. The more social movements are seen to set the agenda on fundamental questions about the economic and political system, the less relevant Labour may seem.

However social movements, by going where mainstream political leaders initially fear to tread, can prepare the ground for stronger progressive commitments.

Occupy Wall Street’s messaging, ‘we are the 99 per cent’, provided a countervailing force to the reactionary Tea Party by channelling popular discontent over the banking bailouts through progressive politics. Within weeks President Obama realigned his political message to argue for a greater contribution from wealthy Americans to pay down the deficit.

Labour needs bold and vibrant social movements not only to help prepare its path to power but also to govern effectively.

This year will see new potential policy conflicts that could rally protest and there will be a further test of whether those who are most socially marginalised absorb more pain without protest.

2012 is likely to see renewed pressure from within the Conservatives part of the coalition to abandon or water down climate change commitments, particularly as growth continues to stagnate. This year will see a new wave of benefit cuts come into force just at a time when unemployment is rising.

Will the newly established internet-driven loose and informal campaign groups become more structured mass movements with memberships that systematically take part in ongoing actions, or are the days of the mass mobilisation of groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament now a thing of the past?

See also:

• Welfare reform bill in tatters after Lords defeats – Shamik Das, January 12th 2012

• UK Uncut: Stop the traffic to stop the NHS being run over – Tim Holmes, October 7th 2011

• Networks can be deliberative, accountable and consensual in decision making – Aaron Peters, January 4th 2011

• Daily Mail echoes UK Uncut campaign against tax avoidance – Will Straw, December 6th 2010

• A consensus on community organisation – Will Straw, March 31st 2010

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Cabinet Office minister Mark Harper this week announced the establishment of a commission to address the West Lothian question, opening a can of worms over the future of the UK constitution.

Writing of the announcement, IPPR director Nick Pearce explained:

“English votes on English laws (EVOEL), which would bar Scottish MPs from voting on English matters, sounds like a seductively simple solution to the West Lothian anomaly, but as Gladstone discovered during the Irish home rule debates of the 19th century, it is notoriously difficult to make work in practice.

“In 1964 and February 1974, UK Labour governments were formed despite the Conservatives holding a majority of English seats.

“Under EVOEL such governments would be unable to legislate for English domestic policy.

“It has often been argued that such chaos would create a greater constitutional anomaly than that generated by West Lothian itself.”

Scotland

The ongoing debate over Scottish independence rumbled on as the  Sunday Telegraph released polling showing English voters were more supportive than the Scots about the idea of independence; a date was set for a meeting between Alex Salmond and Scottish secretary Michael Moore and the SNP officially rejected suggestions that ex-pat Scots should have a vote in the referendum.

News however that unemployment across Scotland has increased by 19,000 and growth was just half a per cent in the third quarter of 2011 concentrated minds on the substance of the issue, namely the impact independence would have on the Scottish economy.

Looking ahead to the publication next Wednesday of the Scottish government’s consultation document on a referendum, Eddie Barnes, political editor of the Scotsman, argued:

“While the political class in Scotland has spent the last week poring over the minutiae of the referendum and the relative merits of devo-more, devo-plus and devo-max, the reality of the flatlining economy is still the main issue for most voters.

“The SNP knows this well. And it knows it cannot make the case for independence without aligning it alongside peoples’ real lives. So it has made crystal clear, internally and externally, that the economy has to be the central argument. So the GDP figures, out on Mr Salmond’s big day, may serve the SNP’s purpose.

“Against the prospect of a flatlining Britain, the First Minister can be expected to conjure up his usual alluring message of how Scotland can, with independence, go its own way and prosper.

“For the SNP’s opponents, this is a battleground they appear to fancy. The SNP may want to focus on pound-in-your-pocket arguments. Their opponents will respond by warning that if the SNP get their way, that pound could end up being a euro.

“The thorny issues of an independent Scotland’s currency and the economic handcuffs the country would still have to wear, independence or not, offer them rich pickings.

“But SNP figures claim to be entirely untroubled. People, they say, just see these attacks as the usual noise that goes with the territory whenever the words “Scotland” and “independence” are raised.

““If anything the negative attacks serve to undermine voters’ trust in those making them,” claims one senior SNP adviser.

That all has a ring of truth. In former times, it was fear of the cost of independence which proved the SNP’s Achilles heel. But, as Britain continues its long march into austerity, it is clear that the old assumptions - like so many others than existed pre-crunch - may no longer apply.”

Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, meanwhile, formally launched the government’s plans for a single police and fire services across Scotland, declaring:

“The stark reality is that budget cuts from Westminster will devastate our excellent frontline services if we don’t act now. This government will not be complacent, we will not compromise on public safety and we will make sure that every community is served and served well.”

A spokesperson for UNISON however had a warning over potential job losses, telling the Daily Record:

“We have either already lost or are about to lose 450 civilian staff, so perhaps the same number again will be under threat as a result of efficiencies. But that’s a guess. No one has a clue because we don’t know yet how the new single force will operate.”

Northern Ireland

First minister and DUP leader, Peter Robinson, used an interview with UTV on the threat posed to the Union by the SNP to advance a case for the DUP and UPP to merge.

Calling for the two parties to “uphold the integrity of the United Kingdom” he continued:

“We are in a year when we are looking back to the centenary of the signing of the covenant and the cohesiveness that there was within the unionist community at that time.

“I would like to see that coming about again. I think you probably will have noted that over the last number of months, some of the heat that there has been in the exchanges between the DUP and the Ulster Unionists has now been removed and there is a much improved relationship. I hope we can build on that.”

Finance minister Sammy Wilson, meanwhile, used an interview with BBC Radio Ulster to tell unions warning about future public sector job losses to “shut up”. He did so as figures from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions pointed to Northern Ireland losing more public sector workers, 26,000, than anywhere else the UK by 2017.

Responding to the figures shadow Northern Ireland secretary Vernon Coaker argued:

“I am very concerned by the findings of this report which predicts that Northern Ireland will have the highest number of public sector job losses of any UK region.

“The Tory-led government’s spending cuts and tax rises go too far and too fast. The impact of their disastrous economic policies – which handed Northern Ireland a cut of £4 billion to its budget - has choked off the economic recovery and put more people out of work, meaning the government is set to borrow £158 billion more than planned.”

Wales

Former Welsh secretary Paul Murphy used on-going rumblings about the future of the union to argue in favour of regional devolution for England.

Speaking to Radio Wales’s “Sunday Supplement” about the UK Parliament he concluded:

“In effect it is an English parliament in the sense that they’ve got in England far more members of parliament than Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales put together. That’s why we were arguing very strongly about the number of Welsh members of parliament, to keep our voice up.

“Despite that, there are ways and means, it seems to me, we need to examine how the English regions might react to further development. Although it didn’t work before when we had a referendum in the north east of England, I’m not quite so sure these days that English devolution within in the regions is off the map.

“People should consider now having regional government in England as a means by which we progress constitutionally.”

Plaid Cymru meanwhile published a review of its operations which recommended that the party should provide greater clarity about its objectives in relation to independence and should consider changing its name to the Welsh National Party. Writing on the suggestion of a name change, branding expert Sara Robinson of Cake Communications in Cardiff wrote for BBC News:

“If it goes ahead it will be a radical departure for the party. There is a misconception that Plaid Cymru is the party for Welsh speakers, but they have come a long way in the last 20 years.

“They have many non-Welsh speaking members, as well as AMs and councillors, who represent areas which are not traditionally Welsh speaking. But if you didn’t know that, then you would be forgiven for assuming it’s a party for Welsh speakers because a Welsh language brand gives that impression.

“In that sense, their brand isn’t truly reflecting the party as it is today and isn’t working hard enough for them as it doesn’t have the wide appeal the party needs.

“I am sure there will be a lot of debate around the right and wrongs of dropping the Welsh language element [in English] of their brand.

“But just as any business would take a long, hard look at how it markets itself after a period of poor results, I think it’s only logical that the party undergoes a period of reassessment after disappointing recent elections.”

See also:

• Sign up to receive our weekly summary of the news from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, The Week Outside Westminster

• What’s the point of the UUP? – Ed Jacobs, January 19th 2012

• Khan attacks “partisan tinkering” of the constitution – Ed Jacobs, January 17th 2012

• Win or lose, Scottish independence referendum heralds a revolution in UK politics – Ed Jacobs, January 16th 2012

• The Week Outside Westminster – Sending Osborne to save the Union – Ed Jacobs, January 14th 2012