item0069C  994, 981

New Labour,
New Apprenticeships

The Government has shown real imagination in dealing with middle-teen education.  I am proud to give my positive support to Labour’s two new “flagship” measures.  They are – 

These initiatives carry attractive flavours of both socialism and liberalism – indeed, this has been a good week for Liberal Socialism… 

I have only a few niggling doubts...  

The £30 per week education maintenance allowance has been trialled successfully in certain parts of the country.  For socialists, it represents the simple, outright redistribution of wealth, effectively targeted and enhancing directly the “wealth” of the student’s household.   My regret is that it is the means-testing – I would prefer an outright, universal benefit for all 17/18 year-olds, regardless of parental income.  

I have two reasons for seeking this. 

First: this Allowance will bring with it a great sense of independence and well-being, for the students concerned – and that’s great.  It represents a sound piece of socialist, redistributive intervention.   But it is also a case of blatant reverse discrimination.   That new-found independence ought not to be the monopoly of “the poor”.  A key “conservative” factor in our society is the pressure on middle-class teenagers to comply with their parents’ wishes, to “keep their noses clean”, so as to ensure that the cheques keep coming.  “Wealth” gives parents power over their own children.  Middle-class children, like children from disadvantaged households, need the opportunity to strike out, to be independent. s

But there is another good reason for favouring a universal flat-rate benefit, like Child Allowance.  Means-tested schemes are unreliable, always subject to the subtle bureaucratic discrimination, to tweaking of the rules, engendering a constant fear of withdrawal.  This great socialist scheme should become firmly entrenched as a right in the minds of our teenagers, all our teenagers.  And it is wrong that their parents should be forced through the means-test mill, merely for the ambitions of their children. 

Labour has it within its grasp to build a new pillar of the Welfare State, to rival one of our greatest successes, namely Child Allowance (and now Baby Bonds…)  These could become, if cast as universal benefits, colonnades of the New Welfare State. 

• We should set our children free! 

And as for Apprenticeships, these are effectively reducing the school-leaving age from 16 to 14 – which is where I think it should be.  The weakness of RoSLA (Raising of the School Leaving Age to 16…) was that it imposed on teachers the hopeless task of containing rebellious15/16 year-old males who had no interest in continuing school education, thus disrupting school discipline.   

Now, those youngsters (both boys and girls) will be able to opt for two-days per week apprentice training, under new day-release arrangements.  This is a clever and creative reform.  It will remove the sting of absolutist coercion from the last two years of schooling: that represents a great liberal victory, giving our teenagers greater choice, greater control over their personal environment.   I predict great improvements in school discipline, a reduction in school violence, improved teacher-recruitment, a reduction in truancy - and happier children. 

• The new Apprenticeships cannot come soon enough for me.

What do you think?  Drop me a line

 < Back to Home Page

Liberal Litmus Test

Yet this was a wrong without a remedy.  There can be no doubt that the young girl was grievously wronged, her privacy and sovereignty grossly invaded.  Yet the wrong was done by her mother, and by the Press - who failed to acknowledge her dignity and right of privacy.  True, she could initiate a civil legal action herself, but that would in practice be inconceivable - in human and family terms.  And a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, would be disruptive and inconsequential.

Once we have a Human Rights Commission, it should take up this kind of diffused and irremediable wrong, where there is no effective plaintiff of complainant.