“Labour Abandon Students (again)!” – Peter Black

Peter Black, Welsh Liberal Democrat AM, has posted a blog article regarding Labour’s recent Tuition Fees policy, a u-turn by the party having completely opposed the Coalition Government’s policy to raise fees during the student protests.

You can read the article here.

Thirteen years of mixed messages.

Labour want to increase the number of Apprenticeships available to young people. Read the BBC article here. These are my personal views – particularly on Higher Education.

First off, Labour adopted a policy which stated that they aimed to achieve a figure of 75% (in their 2010 manifesto) of young people progressing to Higher Education. Teenagers are led to believe that Higher Education is the only realistic option, which has the Universities bursting at the seams, and Apprenticeships have gone mostly untouched. In 2009 Labour said;

“We want one in five young people to take up apprenticeship places within the next ten years. In order to fulfil our ambition for young people, we are increasing the number of apprenticeships for under 18s and are legislating to ensure every suitably qualified young person who wants to do an apprenticeship can do so. This year for the first time, we plan over a quarter of a million new apprenticeships.”

In 2009 Lord Sugar blamed the government for neglecting apprenticeships, despite being hired by Gordon Brown to promote his policies. It seems that Labour say one thing, and then say the other. Is there no middle ground?

Hayes has called it an “empty promise” by Labour, which is no doubt a knee-jerk reaction to the suggested increase in Neets, being 18 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training – which has risen to more than 18% in England. The Coalition government is funding a record of 360,000 apprenticeships this year.

Undoubtedly the increase in funding for apprenticeships over the past thirteen years has done some good and the increase in the number of young people in Higher Education is a success, but there seems to be difficulty in balancing the two at any one time. Not that the Coalition have done brilliantly with Higher Education.

It seems that Labour and the term ‘middle ground’ don’t fit all too well. At one point they call for an increase in the number of young people in Higher Education (since the beginning of their time in government), and then realising that they have neglected Apprenticeships, make knee-jerk announcements.

2015 and party grassroots.

I had been thinking about putting a post together on where the party can go from here and how the party should approach the 2015 General Election and then I came across this on Lib Dem Voice, and decided to use this to emphasise my argument.

People – generalisation intended – have criticised Liberal Democrat MPs for voting for, then against government reforms for the NHS, calling it a ‘u-turn’, an attempt to gain public approval, and an attempt to show that the Lib Dems are different from their Conservative coalition partners. As Mark Thompson says however, that view undermines people’s understanding of Liberal Democrat politics and party politics as a whole.

The reason the Liberal Democrat stance on governmental reforms of the NHS changed was because of grassroot politics, which has seen a massive influx during recent years – even if it’s campaigning for certain policy areas or topics such as Voting Reform in May. The party’s grassroots gave party leadership the real view of NHS reforms – and as the party’s grassroots decide on party policy – the party leadership had to acknowledge party activist’s stance on the reforms. When we first entered government it was paramount that we dealt with the economic climate, putting political differences aside – which the majority of the party’s grassroots agreed on.

That is how we progress and tackle the next General Election – the party’s grassroots must be at the centre of the campaign, in terms of where the party was right, where it went wrong, and where it can improve. We take, what are normal people’s view, of this government and emphasise what we have done well over the course of parliament.

We emphasise the difficult decisions that we have made, and the impact that we have had on government policy, making sure that the coalition’s disagreements are known and how we would have done things if we had been in government. It is possible that the next campaign should outline plans for the net government, but should have far more emphasis on our first chance at governance and what we have done. Use our experience to prove that we can be trusted on more than constitutional reform and opposition.

The Independent View: Coalition Works!

Many thought that coalition government couldn’t work, but twelve months later an independent review of the coalition proves that coalition government does work. Better than the Blair/Brown years according to the 90 ministers, special advisers, officials, parliamentarians, and external interest groups interviewed.

However, although the coalition works, it isn’t doing much for us as a Party – the report does say that we can do better in government, but also recognises our difficulties in terms of people’s view of the party and the restrictions in Cowley Street.

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post by Robert Hazell over on Lib Dem Voice.

“The coalition is working well, but the Lib Dems could do better, is the overall message from the Constitution Unit’s first report on how the coalition works in Whitehall and Westminster. We are conducting a 12 month study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, with a research team of five, including two former senior civil servants, and one senior broadcaster. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have authorised access to all the key figures in Whitehall, and so far we have interviewed 90 ministers, special advisers, officials, parliamentarians, and external interest groups.”

You can read the full article on the Lib Dem Voice along with a link to the original review here.