The blunder in the education department which led to the publication of a list of axed school building schemes containing 25 errors continues to rumble on. Conservative education secretary Michael Gove has apologised and taken the rap for his officials’ mistakes.
The Lib Dems’ Michael Moore was sympathetic to Mr Gove’s plight on the BBC’s Question Time last night, commending the quick and full apology:
I think he did that with grace. I think he did it appropriately and he’s determined that that doesn’t happen again. Nobody would wish that had happened. It was a major mistake, it has been acknowledged as such. The apology has been given, it will continue to be given to the appropriate people and I think it’s a sign of the man that he’s willing to do that.”
The coalition government’s announcment of the decision to axe the Building Schools for the Future programme – which will see some 715 schools’ rebuilding projects cancelled – has provoked strong responses.
Warren Bradley, the Lib Dem leader on Liverpool city council, has launched a strong attack on the decision, and the party’s role in it:
Being in coalition should be a two-way street. There are times when Clegg has got to say to Cameron, ‘no more’. I think BSF is the straw that has broken the camel’s back.”
Writing on his blog Liberal England, though, Jonathan Calder applauds the decision, noting the current Private Eye’s critique of the astronomical £700m pa cost of the programme which
… will mean that thousands of schools will forgo crucial maintenance while the few to have benefited from BSF “enjoy their shiny overpriced facilities”.
In a sane world decisions about new schools would be taken by city and county councils. That it is now a matter for central government is a symptom of the vast overcentralisation of Britain.
BSF also serves as a symbol for Gordon Brown’s love of overcomplicated and apparently ingenious (but actually rather stupid) methods of financing public works.
What do Voice readers think of the axing of the scheme, and the mis-handling of its announcement?
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Lib Dem energy guarantee would cut prices for all households
Chase Park fair photos
A swamp of lies and disinformation
Doing better? The goal must be Sufficeincy
Michael Meadowcroft (1942-2026) - A Liberal to His Core
paul barker
Peter Wrigley
Mick Taylor
expats
Matt (Bristol)
64 Comments
“Warren Bradley, the Lib Dem leader on Liverpool city council, has launched a strong attack on the decision, and the party’s role in it”
In a way, I think what’s surprising is that this kind of thing – as with the party’s poll rating – is happening so soon.
After all, only a tiny fraction of the really hard decisions over spending have been taken yet.
@Anthony Aloysius St
I agree, but I couldn’t care less about poll ratings either. Doing the right thing matters more.
There’s no evidence that a new school building results in better school performance or raised educational outcomes for the children within them. There’s no logic to rebuilding all schools, many unnecessarily, when we live in financially difficult times and doing so will result in inability to fund genuinely essential activities.
I am pleased we are taking pragmatic and practical decisions; I fully support the policy.
A reminder: despite the best efforts of certain groups to pretend that this is unusual, the party’s poll rating is where it was for all of 2006-2009. The Lib Dems invariably experience a brief spike around elections, then settle back into the 15-20% bracket. If we learn anything from poll ratings, it should be this: there is very little long-term change in political opinion in the UK.
Just to repeat what I’ve said in the earlier thread on this: BSF was wasting money on entirely the wrong things, and we’re well rid of it.
Possibly the worst part is this “throw away and replace” attitude being applied to buildings, as an alternative to refurbishment and maintenance. Let’s not forget that every 3 cubic meters of concrete costs one tonne of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere – construction accounts for more of the world’s carbon emissions than aircraft, largely due to cement production. And it’s all too often unnecessary, since there was nothing wrong with the walls in the building being replaced – it just needed internal refurbishment work.
I wonder how much of the construction industry (and their associated unions) are Labour supporters.
The primary school my son attended and where I work occaisionally is in the final throes of an extension – mostly to the staff room. Permanent staff who I have discussed the building work with are ambivalent about the benefits and necessity of this work. At the same time, playground equipment which was installed less than 5 years ago has been left fenced off for months as it is considered unsafe.
While I am sure that there are schools who are in desparate need of refurbishment, this school wasn’t. The extension is nice, but not truly necessary and it does not give much benefit to the children.
I don’t know how indicative my experience is of the BFS programme generally, but as it stands I am not surprised that much of the planned building work has been cancelled – this school’s extension certainly would have been cancelled if it wasn’t 95% built.
As for the mistakes in the announcement – stuff happens. You appologise, fix your mistake, make sure it doesn’t happen again and move on.
“I agree, but I couldn’t care less about poll ratings either.”
Well, certainly Lib Dems had better not care too much about poll ratings over the next few years.
But it’s not as these things don’t have very really consequences. Serious unpopularity, if sustained over a four-year period would have the potential to wipe out much of the party’s power-base in local government, for example. And if things don’t recover by the fifth year, parliamentary representation would go the same way.
“despite the best efforts of certain groups to pretend that this is unusual, the party’s poll rating is where it was for all of 2006-2009. The Lib Dems invariably experience a brief spike around elections, then settle back into the 15-20% bracket.”
But of course the last election was in May 2005, and the party’s poll rating was in the 20-25% range until the end of that year, when – as you may remember – there were some difficulties with the leadership. So the party is doing significantly worse than after the 2005 election, despite having polled a bit better this time.
It will be interesting to see where things stand at the end of 2010. I suspect people will be looking back at “the 15-20% bracket” with a sense of nostalgia by then. But we’ll see.
@Anthony
I really could care less. Doing the right think is more important. 5 years, don’t waste a minute.
I wonder if Warren Bradley thinks that the Tories, as senior members of the coalition, will also be wiped out at the next election. One party state anyone?
Paul
“I really could care less.”
I assume you mean you couldn’t care less. If so, we’ve got the message now. After all, you’ve said it 20 or 30 times.
Then again, you aren’t the only person on the planet, and other people have different opinions.
@Anthony Aloysius St.
Re: “I could care less.” see e.g. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ico1.htm
Re: “Then again, you aren’t the only person on the planet, and other people have different opinions.”, well your needle seems stuck on the one track, too.
@Kevin
“One party state”
Unfortunately many labservatives believe in that. Either a blue one or a red one. All other forms of government are iniquitous.
At last, over four days after Gove’s announcement, someone at LDV actually thinks the scrapping of the school building programme is a subject worthy of mention.
I find it grimly amusing that Gove should be falling over himself to apologise for his embarrassing clerical error, but he hasn’t said a single word of apology to those communities who were hoping to have something done about their dilapidated schools but have had those hopes dashed.
It’s as if Gove getting egg on his face is more important than whether we give our kids decent schools.
It’s also quite funny how Warren Bradley’s comments – which made the BBC evening news in their own right – are tucked away as a four-line throwaway.
After never posting on LibDemVoice before I find myself in the unenvious position of doing so twice in five minutes, but if it wasn’t so hypocritical it would be hilarious.
“In a sane world decisions about new schools would be taken by city and county councils. That it is now a matter for central government is a symptom of the vast overcentralisation of Britain.”
The whole point of Gove’s academy reforms and ‘free schools’ is the clear and stated intention to take these kind of decisions away from city and county councils and place them directly in the hands of the Secretary of State – and to allow head teachers (with the support of a simple majority of their governing bodies) to do so even if the other half of the governing body, every single pupil, every single parent, every single member of staff, every single member of the community and every single elected representative is opposed. To quote Mr. Gove – “if this is democracy, I’m a banana!”
“Re: “Then again, you aren’t the only person on the planet, and other people have different opinions.”, well your needle seems stuck on the one track, too.”
The thing is, though, this is a website for political discussion that’s open to people with a variety of opinions, not just supporters of the party line.
Continually saying “I don’t care! I don’t care!” doesn’t really add much to the discussion. Nor does “It’s the Right Thing To Do.” Particularly when the Lib Dems were arguing it was the Wrong Thing To Do, only a few weeks ago…
Andrew Suffield: “Possibly the worst part is this “throw away and replace” attitude being applied to buildings, as an alternative to refurbishment and maintenance.”
I have read today about one school where the kids have been taught in prefabs for forty years – prefabs which only had a shelf life of 25 years to begin with.
Another school, in Doncaster, was burnt to the ground last year and the kids are now taught in portakabins.
Both schools were due to get new buildings under BSF; now they will just have to make do.
Honestly, there are schools in Soweto with better facilities. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet schools like the ones I’ve just mentioned are told that they should just make do and mend.
Andrew Tennant: “There’s no evidence that a new school building results in better school performance or raised educational outcomes for the children within them.”
There is no great body of evidence either way. But a report last year by KPMG found that schools which benefitted from PFI showed a rate of improvement in stduent attainment some 44% higher than that in other schools. Commonsense tells you that a crumbling prefab in a car park is not the ideal learning environment. A sense of fairness tells you that it simply isn’t right.
Seriously, if that’s the best Labour opposition HQ can come up with, they need to hire some marketing graduates.
Which is terrible, because sitting in a portakabin makes you more ignorant. Right?
In a stunning coincidence, a report last year by KPMG found that schools which had attainment 44% higher than others benefited from PFI.
It is so TRAGIC that we don’t all live in mansions and have servants and ponies. I DESERVE MORE
*ahem*
“Seriously, if that’s the best Labour opposition HQ can come up with, they need to hire some marketing graduates.”
Have you any idea how stupid this endless rubbish about “Labour HQ” sounds? Do you really not have any inkling of how unhappy large numbers of long-standing Lib Dem supporters are about what’s happening?
I’ve never voted Labour (or Tory) in my life. I was an active party member for 20 years. I resigned my membership two years ago precisely because I was afraid the Lib Dems would end up supporting a Tory government.
You need to do a lot of growing up.
Gove heads a large and shambolic department, so it ain’t surprising that such errors happen. His gross misjudgment was not to check and double check, and for that he should be sufficiently ridiculed. But apologized he has and, to his credit, not slapped Tom Watson around the head with the black rod.
Still, that Warren Bradley sounds like a Labour troll. Or someone who’ll cement his reputation in the Party for dissent. I haven’t decided which.
I can’t be bothered going through LDV archives looking for articles going into the stratosphere about one of these ‘mere’ spikes this year, but you know I’m right.
Don’t believe you. You’re just green with envy at the project the LibDems have taken on.
In fact, I’ve just seen the breathtaking opportunism necessary to come out with this comment.
I know I’ve seen Andrew advocate STV or PR on the basis it would give the LibDems a proportion of influence based on their showings at GEs. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.
“Don’t believe you. You’re just green …”
Admittedly that seems to be the only option left open to me at the moment.
@ Anthony – I struggle to understand your motivation for posting on this site. Your contribution seems to be just to tell the Lib Dems how terrible things are, or are going to be, for them. I don’t know what you get out of it? What do you want/expect people to say in relation to your comments?
As I said to you the other day about the poll results, yes, they’ve gone down, but also (a) all polling companies are adjusting the results to take into account their woeful performance in predicting Lib Dem share of the vote at the GE and (b) YouGov are doing a poll every day – this basically means the “poll average” is YouGov’s result. If YouGov, therefore, are adjusting too heavily then this is going to show up as a lower poll result. For most of the mid-latter part of last parliament the Lib Dem poll result hovered between 12-17%, and there was also a rough patch in 2006. Now, I didn’t exactly enjoy that, but the Lib Dems were not wiped out, and whilst our apparent “surge” came to nought, we didn’t lose 20-30 seats to the Tories as was being predicted on a uniform swing model throughout the last couple of years. A lot can happen in 5 years.
The interesting thing here is Councillor Bradley has come under fire from Lib Dem colleagues recently for his support for a councillor who got herself in a bit of trouble. Do I think he’s got a point? Well, clearly it’s going to hurt to allow Labour to claim that we’re stopping people getting their new school buildings. Is it the right thing to do? Probably, as so much money was tied up in BSF.
Oh, good grief, I’d sooner join the LibDems than vote Green.
The Greens are a mixture of people who think the Islington-set is there it entertainment them or that washing clothes by bashing them against rocks is a sign of technological development, or barely concealed Nazis like this chap:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Gardiner
Kehaar
Well, that chap has been dead for nearly 40 years, so I’m not sure quite what relevance you see there. Still, I agree the Greens have some pretty unreasonable policies. Just at the moment they don’t seem quite as bad as the other options, though.
Apart from the option of just not voting, I suppose. I could never really understand people who said, almost proudly, “We don’t vote” when canvassed. It’s becoming more comprehensible, though.
Well, there we go. Almost half the posts on this thread expressing no regret whatsoever for the cancellation of BSF. Most of the other half equally single-minded in condemnation of the coalition for its cuts.
Once upon a time we had a living centre party here in the UK, which prided itself on seeing both sides of an argument. Which would not have entertained a doctrinaire great-leap-forward project to rebuild every school in Britain. Which equally would not have entertained a doctrinaire cutting frenzy rushed through amidst confusion and multiple error. Which would have demanded care, analysis, rationality, choice, the survival of genuinely necessary rebuilds and the cancellation of those at lower priority.
What happened to that party?
Grammar Police
Sorry that I’m such a puzzle to you, but I shouldn’t lose sleep over it. Basically I’m just expressing my opinion, and as for what I expect other people to do in response, I expect them to express their opinions back.
I wouldn’t have thought there was anything particularly strange about that. I thought it was the purpose of this site. But perhaps you’re one of those who want LDV to be a propaganda vehicle for the party, despite its stated purpose?
Now I have heard it all, people on here who are Lib Dems and say they are unhappy with the coalition are in fact from Labour HQ….what next Warren Bradly Leader of the Liverpool Lib Dems for many many years is in fact a Labour sleeper, waiting for his time to attack the party?
http://redrag1.blogspot.com/
@ Anthony – don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more important things to be concerned about.
But I’m not sure you do just want to express your opinion, it’s almost like you want some sort of reaction, and either don’t or do get it – I can’t tell. Oh well.
Anthony, that is the root of the Greens… as one would expect from any movement which sees a mystical lifeforce in the soil which ‘indigenous’ populations are in better touch with, and which had its roots in early 20th Century nationalist movements intended to protect the German forests.
One never should mistake the Greens or conservationists for environmentalists. The germs of good ideas from the latter (which is far more in evidence in the US National Parks scheme than modern Greens) have become mainstream: heck, even Osama bin Laden has picked-up on it.
All the cant about eco-friendly policies and organic farming is suprisingly easy when one has the disposable income and comfy surbuban house paid for by a professional salary. The rest sees – re Gardiner’s pioneerism – a recent deranged scene at the Woodcraft AGM where a boycott on Israel was approved. What on Valen’s name does a children’s organization need an international policy for?
Actually, I’ve thought about this. If the LibDems implode, I’d expect to see the sandals going to the Left; Whigs to the Right; and crackpots, Gaia-obsessives and borderline antisemites to the Greens.
“But I’m not sure you do just want to express your opinion, it’s almost like you want some sort of reaction, and either don’t or do get it – I can’t tell. Oh well.”
Sounds like you should lie down in a darkened room for a bit.
David, the Party got a whiff of power. One part has realized it has no ideas beyond those which can be expressed in virtuous opposition. Another part is getting in touch with its inner Tory, but not wanting to admit to it lest it looks like… how to put this delicately… a liar when it claimed to be an antidote to the Tories.
Yet another part is feeling the pull of its precious and knows it will do anything, absolutely anything to a tiny taste of power.
Anyone got the popcorn?
“Actually, I’ve thought about this. If the LibDems implode, I’d expect to see the sandals going to the Left; Whigs to the Right; and crackpots, Gaia-obsessives and borderline antisemites to the Greens.”
If by “the Left” you mean Labour, I think you’ll be disappointed unless there are some really big changes on civil liberties.
How anyone of a serious liberal outlook can praise Michael Gove is beyond me.
The man is positively jumping up and down with the excitement of cancelling so many important school building projects.
Good grief, Anthony, what makes you think that ID cards or CCTV or whatever is at the core of the Labour movement? It’s an aberration which may or may not continue; and I’m sure Ed Balls and Milliminor (the one who looks as if he thinks he’s far too pretty) is about to tell us they never did support them in the first place.
A few weeks ago we were being told that the LibDems wouldn’t go for 20% on VAT. Anything can happen.
I don’t mind CCTV and wouldn’t object to some form of ID cards, but equally can live without them. It’s the presumption that implementing them is akin to eating children which baffles me (the latter, in particularly, is the bleeding NORM in industrialized countries).
No one Party is going to have policies which please every member. There are sections of the Labour Party which oppose said “civil liberty infringements”, but don’t go shopping for a position in virtuous opposition. If you think said civil liberties are the most important issue, fair enough… but more people think the ill-effects of VAT-rises are worse.
This entire thread is indescribably frustrating. I look at LDV for some interesting, thoughtful debate on what the party is doing and how people who care about the party feel about it, yes its useful to have an occasional Labour/ Tory poster to stimulate debate but the recent trend of pathetically whiney Labourites is doing my head in!!
Anthony- you have made your opinions know… a couple of times on this thread, many more on others- good for you, but you don’t have to post every thought that comes into your head- please God give it a rest.
As for Red Rag and some of the other hard-core Labour-types with their cries of betrayal- hush up. Unlike your party we are democratic and are quite capable of shouting at each other without your ‘aren’t we so morally righteous’ act. You can have your moral compass back once we are all debt free, anti- nuclear weapons, have a fair voting system and another 10000 years has passed to make up for Iraq.
On the actual issue. The BSF programme was a joke, horribly wasteful, inept and yet another stupid police brought in by Labour helping to bankrupt the country while actually doing little to you know… rebuild schools.
Because of waste like this we can’t now afford to actually build the damn schools. The programme itself was a good and reasonable cut to make.
Are any LibDems happy we can’t afford to build schools? Of course not. Is any LibDem who knows anything about the BSF programme sad to see it go? None that I’ve met. Will we have to work once the budget is under control to give schools money to do the building work that is certainly needed? Yes, so lets hurry up and do the first bit.
I was never happy with the hype over the polling figures, and said as much at the time (and in a lot more detail) – polls aren’t reliable in the short term that way.
Yes. Strangely enough I do think that the votes delivered on election day should be the way that voting strength in Parliament should be determined, and not the opinion polls taken by commercial pollsters at other times of the year. Controversial, I know.
The spike in Lib Dem support around an election is caused by the campaigning. It turns out that Lib Dem campaigning is more popular than any of the others to around 5% of the voting population that is not normally attached to the Lib Dems (mostly floaters); when the campaign goes away, so does the support it generates. Floaters have short memories, I guess – a week *is* a long time in politics, for them. There’s nothing unreasonable or unfair about getting more votes via campaigning.
We’ve had a special conference and several polls here on this site, plus the commercial pollsters. I have a pretty good idea how large those numbers really are.
@ Anthony – “Sounds like you should lie down in a darkened room for a bit.”
Just proving my point?
Grammar Police
Well, if you don’t like that suggestion, what about discussing the issues, instead of coming out with post after post of boring ad hominem stuff about what I am trying to achieve by posting on LDV, what reaction I am looking for, whether you’re sure I’m just trying to express an opinion, whether I want some sort of reaction, whether I’m getting it, and so on and so forth?
“jiggles”
“Anthony- you have made your opinions know… a couple of times on this thread, many more on others- good for you, but you don’t have to post every thought that comes into your head- please God give it a rest.”
Thanks, but as you know this site avowedly welcomes contributions from people with all shades of opinion, so until that changes I’ll post just as much or as little as I like.
Why not use the members’ forum if you are dismayed by the number of postings in the public area that are critical of the party?
“jiggles”
Oh – and one more thought just came into my head. You say:
“The BSF programme was a joke, horribly wasteful, inept and yet another stupid police brought in by Labour helping to bankrupt the country while actually doing little to you know… rebuild schools.”
As in so many cases, it would be one thing if the party had been saying this before the election, but of course it wasn’t.
Here’s a report from January about Nick Clegg “taking time out of his busy schedule” to meet some local school leaders who were concerned that they hadn’t got BSF funding. One local school had “been repeatedly knocked back for BSF in favour of other more deprived local authorities.” They said the cost of maintaining the fabric of their existing school buildings was a big drain on their resources.
This was Clegg’s response:
“He said BSF was a good scheme in principle but said he had major doubts about how it was working in practice in some areas.”
http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2010/01/nick-clegg-in-discussions-on-local-high-schools/
I dare say that in the context of that article, concerned parents would have read the “major doubts” as support for their view that their school had been unfairly deprived of funding – not as an implication that Clegg wanted to axe the whole programme.
For those who watched QT – anyone remember the part when Michael Moore got told to “get a grip” by an unemployed woman in the audience? His subsequent answer was so atrocious that he got booed. He put in a really bad performance the whole way through (“tough choices/difficult decisions/economic legacy/GREEEECE”) and, reasonably all-weather supporter of the LDs though I am, I’m failing to see any reason to vote for them any more. The party certainly isn’t going to attract any new voters this way. Warren Bradley, that Liverpudlian councillor, was right.
@David Allen
Isn’t the living centre party you talk of the party we still have. As a party we’ve rejected the idea that it would be spending state money effectively to rebuild all schools using a bureaucratic and inefficient scheme; we’ve put an immediate stop to continuation of construction projects under that scheme, and we’re taking the time to reassess what future construction will be both necessary and affordable based on the facts we can now accumulate as they were never previously obtained.
Getting back to Gove — I heard David Miliband say on Thursday night’s ‘This Week’ that one of the schools that Michael Gove announced was not to be constructed had, in fact, already been built and had actually been opened by David Cameron. If so, this is extraordinary incompetence and if a Labour minister had been so inept the Lib Dem Cons would have been screaming for his head. I suggest that the school building programme has been cut so that the Tories’ friends who have empty properties to sell can flog them off to those snobs who want to set up dame schools —- er, free schools. Incidentally, I gather that Gove favours the idea of children sitting in rows learning the names of the kings and queens of England. A fitting curriculum for “Gradgrind” Gove’s dame schools. As for those who say that school buildings don’t matter they should try teaching in drafty, leaking, freezing classrooms as teachers did under Thatcher. I predict a return to those days. Thanks, Lib Dems.
I agree that bad school buildings can undermine the effectiveness of education. I’d love it if we had the money to rebuild every school in the country.
But, for crying out loud! We’re facing the worst deficit since the war, following the worst financial crisis since the thirties, with another very serious crisis threatening on our doorstep in Europe.
Labour was planning severe cuts to the school capital programme. Now the coalition is doing what Labour had planned.
Are there one of two stupid decisions among those projects that have been cut? It being a central bureaucracy, I would be surprised if there weren’t.
When I read the apocalyptic reaction from some, I am deeply skeptical of their sincerity.
There might be credibility in arguing that one of two of these schemes shouldn’t have been cut. But the reaction from too many people, including some of those posting on this site, just makes them look ridiculous.
@David Allen “Once upon a time we had a living centre party here in the UK, which prided itself on seeing both sides of an argument.”
We’re still here, but that side of our character is less evident than I’d like on this site at the moment. And I’m talking about myself.
Sometimes, I have misgivings about a coalition policy. But if I hear an unfair attack on the policy, my training to see both sides of the argument goes into overdrive. I work out the justification for the policy, then leap to the party’s defence.
Sad, isn’t it? The attacks have the opposite effect to that intended.
Give it some time. The temperature here will cool down, and geniune debate will resurface. We’re still the same people we were. For all their best efforts, our visitors aren’t going to drive us into becoming Conservatives!
Meanwhile, I’ll try to train myself to ignore those attacks, and be a little more open about my doubts.
Jiggles :- “Is any LibDem who knows anything about the BSF programme sad to see it go? None that I’ve met.”…you may not have met him, but if you know your Lib Dem Party you will know who Councillor Bradley is.
I will leave you with a quote from him that he managed to get in both Liverpool papers and onto the regional North West news as the headlines so was heard from Cumbria down to chester
“”IT WOULD BE FOLLY FOR US TO IGNORE SUCH A RIDICULOUS DECISION BY MICHAEL GOVE, WHETHER WE ARE IN COALITION OR NOT.NOT ONLY WOULD IT SHOW HOW SHALLOW WE ARE WHETHER IN CONTROL OR IN OPPOSITION(IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT JUSTIFYING OUR EXISTENCE) IT WOULD BE LETTING THIS AND FUTURE GENERATIONS DOWN.I WILL GIVE YOU THIS GUARANTEE, IF THE PARTY CONTINUES AS IT IS, WE WILL BE WIPED OUT BY LABOUR IN THE NORTH AND THE TORIES IN THE SOUTH.”
This will be the man who is supposed to be welcoming Nick Clegg to Liverpool when he comes for your Conference…..can’t wait to see the reception he gets from the local party.
http://redrag1.blogspot.com/
@ Mack “Thursday night’s ‘This Week’ that one of the schools that Michael Gove announced was not to be constructed had, in fact, already been built and had actually been opened by David Cameron.”
You are indeed right:
http://redrag1.blogspot.com/2010/07/red-rag-sack-gove-now-he-is-bloody.html
Anthony- yes I know the site welcomes contributers, but what your doing is like those people who say ‘I have freedom of speech, therefore I can be as unpleasant about people as I want’. Just because you are ABLE to post here constantly doesn’t mean you HAVE to. Operate some self constraint.
On what you said about BSF- like I said- it was a crap programme that deserved to be cut- but the actual building of schools should of course continue. Unfortunately Labour spent all the money so before we can do that we need to make some savings and reduce the amount of debt interest we are paying. Then, when there is money to do things it won’t come under the wasteful BSF programme so will actually stretch further.
Red Rag, of course I know who he is, and I also disagree with him- I said and it was mainly idiotic. What I said in my post was any LD who knows anything about the BSF programme- i.e. how it works. He clearly doesn’t get that it is one of the many jobs-for-the-boys programmes created by Labour and not got anything to do whith actually building schools.
“jiggles”
No, of course I don’t _have_ to post here. But so long as the site welcomes contributions from outside the party, it’s rather pointless your stamping your foot and telling me not to.
To repeat my point about BSF. If the party had told people before the election that it thought BSF was a “crap programme that deserved to be cut”, that would at least have had the merit of honesty. Instead, as I’ve just pointed out, Nick Clegg was describing it as “a good scheme in principle”. As far as I can see, the Lib Dems said nothing about cutting it. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
What influence can voters have, when politicians are so dishonest?
@Red Rag
Thanks
The school’s website shows it to be a huge building. Rather difficult to miss. Local news websites reveal that the school was visited last year by David Cameron who launched the local election campaign from there. Surely Cameron should have mentioned to Gove that the school had already been built. What an example of joined up government.
I think the fact its taken 4 days to get a LDV thread up on this tells you all you need to know about the political impact of this issue. To move on I’m more interested in the narrative consequences of all of this. The coalitions communications strategy seems fairly clear by now. Unrimittingly bad news every day, appeal to the strong man motif, blame the last lot then repeat. Is this really sustainable for over 2 years. The PSR isn’t until Oct 10 then the first wave of cuts comes on line in April 11. Given the wind down time for some stuff you are still going to have closure and cuts stories running into the 12/13 financial year and the Olympic. Given the effects of the cuts will be lagging indicators and the fact that growth forcasts are being revised down I’m struggling to see how anyone is going to escape the austerity narrative this parliament. They still call Thatcher the milk snatcher 30 years later.
Where is the hope? the alternatives? the forward momentum? The philosophy?
Education has never been my thing but I’ve sat on a planning panel and done enough BSF applications to see the illiberal, soviet, small is ugly, everyhing new at all costs approach first hand. Why has no preparitory work been done on the failures of the model and what better things will come in its place?
Nonwe that I can see, its just been fed into the cuts sausage machine and announced as I suggested above.
@David Morton
You write very well, and, as far as they go, your points are valid. If you’re saying that the pain is going to be remorseless, I’d agree. You’ve said this before, and you’re right. But then, many of us have said it before too.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-enter-the-storm-with-our-eyes-wide-open-19653.html
And so, allegedly, has Mervyn King.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/29/mervyn-king-warns-election-victor
What I’m unsure is what alternative you are suggesting.
Are you saying that, at a time of, frankly, national emergency, we should have ducked the challenge? Just let the Tories sort it out.
If you are saying the coalition should have cut slower, then I think I agree. Say it, and let’s discuss it.
If you are saying that the coalition should have delayed the cuts for a year, then I think I disagree. Particularly because it would mean cutting faster after that year. But say it, and we can discuss it.
I don’t think you are saying that cutting the deficit is unnecessary, that the coalition, Allistair Darling, and everyone but the Greens and Respect are wrong. But if you are, just say it, and we can discuss it.
Are you saying that the coalition should present its case better? I think that’s obvious. But it must be extraordinarily difficult, taking over with such huge and urgent issues hanging over the government.
You seem to be saying that we should be presenting a unified political philosophy behind the cuts, and thereby a clearer direction and narrative. In an ideal world, that would be nice. But in the crisis situation, in a coalition, is this a fair criticism?
And, anyway, how about offering the beginnings of a unified philosophy, which you think the coalition should adopt? Or, at least, a link to one.
@ George Kendall. I basically agree with you and will try and start to sketch a response to your points. However I think, while tedious and unedifying, there is a little toothpaste left in the tube of ” Burden of Proof”. Those of us uneasy with what is comming forward from the coalition at an economic level are asked to provide an alternative. We are quite entitled , at least for a month or two more, to simply reply ” We’d like the policies in the manifesto please” and read out a list of all the rude things Vince said about George on Twitter. Actually its incumbant upon those putting their names to the budget to explain why the party’s position pre election is now for the birds. All we have been offered is” Greece”. However we have just seen massive market jitters over defict hawkery in Europe which was designed to stop market jitters.
Perhaps we should just pull back the curtain and see how big the Wizard of Oz is?
But of course you are right in a Real Politik sense. The government is the Government, the budget is published and if party members want a different direction then they will need to take up the burden of setting out a coherant alternative. I’ll try and deal with that in due course but expect and indulge if you can a bit more moaning first.
@ George Kendall. Regarding the comms situation, there is a question that the new Labour leader will ask repeatedly when he/she is elected. its a reasonable one so we may as well start asking and answering it ourselves now.
” Is this cut for ever, or until we can afford it again? ” of course this begs other more complex questionsbut the central allegation we face is that the Tories are doing this because they want to and the Lib Dems are doing it because they are to weak to stop the Tories. That a small statist clique is using a defict crisis as a Trojan horse ofr ideaological cuts it wanted to make anyway.
Deliniating some cuts as clearly regretable and reversible in time , either as a coalition or on our own as Lib Dems will put down two powerful anchors. Firstly the anchor of expectation. We will think twice about a cut that we going on record as wanting to reverse one day. Secondly an anchor against rhetorical mission creep. Government is appalling difficult and the capapcity for the bunker mentality to take over is huge. The easiest way to cope psychologically with doing awful things is to tell your self they aren’t really awful. ” It’s all waste anyway ” ” what would gladstone of thougt of the state doing that? ” ” Nice but a Labour vanity project ” etc etc. We may not start out wanting to dramatically shrink the state but we will end having wanted to do it because its easier that way because we had to do it.
“We are quite entitled , at least for a month or two more, to simply reply ” We’d like the policies in the manifesto please” and read out a list of all the rude things Vince said about George on Twitter. Actually its incumbant upon those putting their names to the budget to explain why the party’s position pre election is now for the birds.”
Well, quite.
It really is getting more a little irritating to hear the constant refrain of “you suggest something better, then”, when people express unhappiness that the party is going against so much of what it argued for only a couple of months ago. (If I weren’t so polite, I’d be tempted to respond with something along the lines of “Read the Effing Manifesto!”)
And if the argument is that people like Vince Cable knew that the Lib Dem policy platform was totally impracticable (and therefore totally dishonest) at the time, where exactly does that leave us? If politicians can’t show an elementary degree of honesty about what Nick Clegg would no doubt call the “Big Choices Facing Us” , what on earth is the point of wasting time and effort on political activity?
@David Morton 11:04 pm
“if party members want a different direction then they will need to take up the burden of setting out a coherant alternative. I’ll try and deal with that in due course but expect and indulge if you can a bit more moaning first”
Excellent! Thanks. Completely agree with the first. And, of course, we’re all human, and moaning is only human.
But I have a lot more sympathy than you do for the dilemmas Vince faced in a soundbite election, and faces with joint cabinet responsibility.
“we have just seen massive market jitters over defict hawkery in Europe”
Interesting. I didn’t know the jitters were so clearly attributable as that. Do you have a link?
@David Morton 11:20 pm
Even better. Some ideas I think might even be a practicable way for ministers to differentiate themselves.
“Is this cut for ever, or until we can afford it again?”
I’ve heard different Tory ministers give contrary answers to that. One indicating it’s forever, the other that it’s deeply regrettable, and implying it might be temporary. So it should be possible for Lib Dems to differentiate by stressing the temporary answer without straining joint cabinet responsibility.
“anchor against rhetorical mission creep … the capapcity for the bunker mentality to take over is huge”
Very important point. It’s essentially the same one made by Sunny Hundal http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/06/23/labourites-screaming-betrayal-at-libdems-wont-work-yet/ .
This is a key reason why providing positive suggestions is so important. If the left on the party are unremittingly negative, it may just shift the leadership, and those in the party defending the coalition, to the right.
@ George Kendall 8.09pm. One final point for the evening from me. You are being quite *reasonable* in asking for an alternative course of action from the concerned about the austerity Budget within the party. However as this is politics I hope you don’t mind if I counsel people against acting reasonably at the moment.
At the time of writing the the budget debate is framed between the Coalition’s TINA versus the Disgruntleds Munch’s Scream. In order to trump TINA not only will we need “an alternative” and of course in passing there are plenty of off the self alternatives around, we will need to move at the moment of maximum psychological advantage. It’s not pretty but the right time to unveil an alternative is when the full hoorror of what to come has been unveiled and it has just started to hurt. Austerity can sound attractive when you still think it won’t be that bad and will hapen to other people and to things that you don’t care about. There is a profound reason that all parties to greater or lesser extents didn’t tell the truth about what was coming before the election – that no one would have voted for them if they had.
Critics of the austerity budget need to plot the moment when the full hoorror of the cuts passes from the public’s sub concious to its concious. The moment when we all know what is going to happen happens and before its too late to stop. his may be quite narrow and I have an idea when it will be.
Then is the crisis point ( Greek for time of Decison ) and when people will be most susceptible to alternative courses of action. While publishing an alternative frame work NOW may be more intellectually honest it will diminish its psychological power. In less florid language people won’t miss certain things till they are going, ask if its a price worth paying till the bill appears. t may be frustrating for some but there is a strong tactical, neigh strategic, case to spend 6 months or more on a viable plan B.
If, as is being claimed, the BSF was wasting a huge amount of money on bureaucracy and consultants then we should at least commit to the same amount of building but done efficiently, then we will have made genuine savings.
Much of our school estate is no longer fit for purpose and does need to be replaced as quickly as is reasonably possible.
Michael Gove is slightly incompetent. News at eleven.
It must be nice to be a mudslinger like the minority in this comments thread. Ah well.
@David Morton
“At the time of writing the budget debate is framed between the Coalition’s TINA versus the Disgruntleds Munch’s Scream”
Brilliant one-liner! And true. A few are, tentatively, starting to present alternatives. But so tentative as to be irrelevant to the debate.
“In order to trump TINA not only will we need “an alternative” … we will need to move at the moment of maximum psychological advantage”
It depends what kind of alternative you want. If you want to destroy the coalition, then a strategy of waiting for a moment of weakness is sound.
I would be aghast at the possible consequences of a collapse in the coalition – months of turmoil, followed by a new government shackled to the orders of the bond markets. Or if it led to a split in the party, an ongoing coalition without the restraining influence of left-of-centre Lib Dems.
For Labour, I think the present strategy of denouncing every cut, and not presenting alternatives, is disastrous. The new zeitgeist is that it’s time to face hard realities. Labour leadership candidates must feel trapped by the need to appeal to the grassroots. They know, day by day, Labour’s reputation for economic competence is draining away. By the time one of them becomes leader, it may be too late to recover.
If, like me, you want to shift the coalition economic policy away from the Osborne budget, and more towards what its rhetoric promised, then time is of the essence.
The longer we wait, the more the coalition leadership (not just Lib Dems, but Tories too), will have dug themselves into a bunker mentality. The more time passes, the more statements they will have made which will be embarrassing to retract.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been reflecting on the budget, and that’s long enough. I do have serious reservations about the pace of the cuts, and I need to support those offering friendly, but critical, advice to the coalition.
(Incidentally, I think this brief discussion has been extremely interesting and distinct from anything I’ve read elsewhere. I think I may try to capture the gist of it in an article, and submit it as a separate post)
What you guys are forgetting is that the Tories have no legitimate mandate for destroying people’s lives other than the spurious legitimacy that you Lib Dems have given them. Despite all the efforts of their viscious right wing press and media the Tories couldn’t even get past the winning post, yet, with your support they are cutting with all the confidence of a 100 seat majority. That’s why people are angry. The insensitivity with which Gove has handled these cuts has been staggering. I understand that the Lib Dem Cons regard Gove as having an enormous intellect. If that’s so this country’s in even more trouble than I thought!
Surprising that no one has mentioned Nick Harvey’s intervention here (unless I’ve missed it). Here is the text of his open letter to Michael Gove:
http://www.nickharveymp.com/news/000672/open_letter_to_department_of_education.html