Tag Archives: barnardo’s

Mark Pack

A graph, a dip, a policy: why the nursery premium is so important

By Mark Pack | Tue 2nd October 2012 - 2:25 pm

Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton saw the a motion passed calling for the party to investigate the practicalities of introducing a ‘nursery premium’. At first glance this sounds like an obvious extension of the party’s existing pupil premium policy. Delving more closely into the data, however, shows that it is more than simply an obvious extension; it’s necessary to remove what is a bizarre anomaly arising from how other policies fit together.

Here is the extra assistance which is given for the education of children from the most deprived backgrounds in England for each age band from 1 year-old to 18 years-old:

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 4 Comments
Peter Welch

Opinion: what the Guardian isn’t telling you

By Peter Welch | Mon 20th December 2010 - 1:20 pm

Mehdi Hasan has a provocative article in the Guardian So what, Nick Clegg, made you forget liberty? It is standard Guardian fare these days: you can’t trust the Lib Dems.

The “delay” in completing the abolition child detention in deportation cases is the focus of his attack.

To be fair, he acknowledges that Labour hardly look good on the issue:

child detention in this country is one of the most obscene and unforgivable legacies of the ultra-authoritarian New Labour years. In 2001 the Blair government made the populist decision to detain children and families who were subject to immigration

…

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Stephen Tall

Social mobility and the Lib Dems: will Alan Milburn’s appointment help?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 16th August 2010 - 9:50 am

The weekend media was full of the news of Alan Milburn’s putative return to front-line politics with his appointment to a role advising the Coalition Government on policies to promote social mobility.

Reaction to the news has been mixed. John Prescott, never one to mince his words when he can mangle them instead, spat out that Mr Milburn was a “collaborator”. Conservative blogger Iain Dale was disappointed to see the Coalition’s big tent expanding to include a former New Labour cabinet minister: “One day they might actually appoint a Conservative.”

For the Lib Dems, Simon Hughes was more amenable to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 16 Comments
The Voice

RIP Patrick Short

By The Voice | Thu 27th May 2010 - 10:00 am

Former Cumbrian Lib Dem councillor and education advisor to the party, Patrick Short, died on Monday in the tragic school bus accident in Keswick which claimed the lives of two teenage children.

The BBC reports:

Tributes were also paid to the car driver killed in the crash – Patrick Short, from Braithwaite. His wife Wendy described him as a “generous, principled man”.

“He loved me and the family and was committed to his work with Barnardo’s. As a parish councillor, chairman of Cumbria Rural Choirs and a former church warden, he was dedicated to the local community,” she said.

Lib Dem leader …

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The Voice

Clegg pledges “A fair start for every child”

By The Voice | Tue 2nd February 2010 - 7:10 pm

Plenty of media coverage today of Nick Clegg’s announcement that the Lib Dems will pledge to give every child a fair start in life by investing an extra £2.5bn in schools which could be used to cut class sizes, offer one-on-one tuition and provide catch-up classes.

Once again we see the renewed Lib Dem emphasis on that f-word, Fairness; and in this case, a policy which has long been championed by Nick, the ‘pupil premium’. Here’s Nick describing it in ‘just a minute’ in a BBC interview:

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Alix Mortimer

Authoritarianism: the Greatest Hits 1

By Alix Mortimer | Sun 8th February 2009 - 3:30 pm

With barely three weeks to go now before the Convention on Modern Liberty, we bring you a quick refresher course (courtesy largely of the Guardian’s excellent Liberty Central A-Z) in how we’ve arrived at today’s crisis in civil liberties. The tour will be chronological, so cast your minds way, way back to 1998, the last age of innocence, and the bullishly named Crime and Disorder Act…

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