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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Dave was doing OK at PMQs but he raised Unite just too many times
The most interesting feature of PMQs today was actually the new line of attack from EdM on free schools. Why are the government funding news schools in areas where there are surplus places when at the same time when there are parts of the country with desperate shortages?
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Those who watch the whole 30 minutes will know who he is. Those who watch the highlights will have it in a highlight.
People join a trade union for three reasons ...
(1) You get special offers on insurance, holidays etc (a very minor reason).
(2) The union negotiates professionally on terms and conditions (an important reason)
(3) As an insurance policy against victimisation. Ambitious managers can show their credentials by cutting costs and this can result in collateral damage. In my experience, this is a major reason in the public services. The bosses are seen to have their own agenda, and the union is a fall-back safety option.
Union members are representative of the population at large, many are apathetic politically and those who vote cover a wide spectrum. I was a rep for 15 years and a member of the branch council of a white-collar union unaffiliated to Labour. We took personal cases and defended members. We had a couple of SWPers on council who were militant, but in general our full time officials were pragmatic rather than politically motivated. We never advocated strike action without knowing that the membership would support it, and then only as a last resort.
In return we received loyalty from the members. Had we been affiliated to Labour and recommended, however indirectly, whom to support in a leadership election, we would have influenced the vote. I suspect Unite has a solid core of loyal supporters too.
The problem only occurs when the SWP-types take control but that's still the exception not the rule.
Tim and SO and OGH are right: voters will care far more about schools/shortages of places etc than the latest internal Labour rift. What the Unite/Labour squabble may do is affect internal Labour party morale and give the Tories a stick to beat them up with but I'd have thought that most voters (insofar as they care) already assume that the unions play a big role in running/funding Labour. It will reinforce existing perceptions rather than change anything much or at all.
Tories should not get over-excited by such stories - come September they will be hit hard if there are lots of stories of children being made to learn in playgrounds/parks etc because there are no school places.
Not sure the public care too hoots about PMQs right now: it's nearly the end of term / holidays are on us and the weather is still dismal.
If the Conservatives are going to make anything of this, they're going to have to go in hard precisely because Len McCluskey isn't yet that well-known. By taking this approach, David Cameron has this week obliterated the awkward questions that Ed Miliband was asking.
By the way, the title of the video is probably defamatory.
Ed: 240,000 place shortage coming up
PM: 500,000 new places coming up
Ed: But 1/3 of those places will go where "not needed".
With my basic calculations that means 330,000 will go where needed (to cover 240,000) and then there's extra 170k on top elsewhere. If that's the case I don't see any problem whatsoever. The idea that no new schools can be built if older schools aren't "full" is patently silly and so long as enough go to where they're required why are extras a problem?
@MSmithsonPB How many people watch all of PMQs?! If it's in BBC News once he's done what he meant to.
Seems like a great video. Might want to rehost it Mike...
Today it was Labour who were most discomforted, for the very good reason that they know the Unite malarkey is deeply embarassing for the Labour Party.
Meanwhile, life goes on.
Which he isn't...
Unless it's a clever plan by Labour to big-up UKIP and win on 30% of the vote in 2013?
Your boy got a spanking from the PM who was clearly enjoying himself.
It was a Crosbytastic performance - and made rEd look like the wee tiddler in the big boys pond that he is.
rEd insists that he bumbles on with no policies and no vision - there is nothing for the PM to attack - apart from their awful record, their dubious practices and their crap leader.
If Labour want to debate policies - they should get some.
Len clearly isn't too well known presently but that will change and that is what Cameron wants.
Having a union leader tied at the hip to the Labour leader with added difficulties is a win/win for Cameron and that is why Ed is reaching for the largest barge poll he can find.
No, tim. The shortage of school places is yet another legacy of the incompetent Labour government.
David Laws explains:
Schools Minister David Laws said: "Margaret Hodge is right that there is a severe need to ensure there are enough school places but she has failed to pin the blame where it belongs - at the door of the last government of which she was a member.
"Her report correctly states that the department 'failed to adequately plan' for the rising population, but does not explain that the responsibility for this failure lies with the previous schools secretary, Ed Balls, who ignored the rising birth rates reported by the ONS."
He said that the government had more than doubled spending on new school places compared with the previous government.
The government announced on Thursday that as a result of the Spending Review, it would be spending £7.5bn creating 500,000 additional school places by 2021. This was on top of the £5bn that would have been spent by 2015.
Once again, the Coalition government has been left to clear up Labour's mess.
The most interesting feature of PMQs today was actually the new line of attack from EdM on free schools. Why are the government funding new schools in areas where there are surplus places when at the same time when there are parts of the country with desperate shortages?
How many people on here remembered what ed said at PMQ's ? (until mike brings it up in the headliner for the thread)
I got from PMQ's labour on the backfoot over they unite problem and mike Smithson's thread header of trying to change the attack on Cameron/gove than miliband and labour,nice try mike.
It's a great line of attack. I wonder how long they can keep it up?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/03/ban-qat-theresa-may-ban-cats
I believe this article has been made with Tim in mind...
though to be serious, the May plan does look like a transparent attempt to make it easier to harrass people originating in east africa..
Titters
It is a shame that Tim thought Wolmar had had a sudden anti-HS2 conversion. Here is one of Christian's articles from July 2010 about it, where he think Milton Keynes may end up like a little French village:
http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2010/07/hs2-may-result-in-the-unexpected/
Also note that a full third of the piece is an advertisement for his latest book.
I leave it to the reader to see where his argument goes wrong. He is a good writer with many excellent thoughts, but he does seem to ignore the effect of the motorcar and the scale of the country.
A simple rule for Wolmar: England != France (I will leave it to others to say whether France>England or England>France)
Mike you know damn well that that PMQs is 30 minutes long, of which mere seconds of highlights end up on the news bulletins. Dave knows this too. And why do you think Redward always refers to 'the part-time chancellor'? They need their sound bites and need to be sure the sound bites chosen will contain the words they want to convey.
We live in a world of spin and deliberate message management. We can thank Tiny Blair and Alastair Campbell for that.
Michael Deacon watches David Cameron torment Labour with attack after attack on Len McCluskey and the unions.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10157458/PMQs-sketch-Tories-unite-against-Unite.html?x
Still it does seem to have resulted in this beautiful line of questioning from Austin Mitchel.
"Q19 Austin Mitchell: It is not falling. The birth rate went up. It might have been falling under the Conservative Government, but it went up under the Labour Government because people had more confidence in the future. That is causing the problems."
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/359/359.pdf
The chief executive of Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester resigns amid claims of poor patient care.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/07/pmqs/
What capitalist witchcraft is this ?
No, I thought not.
"True, Mould [Trussel Trust CEO] was unimpressed with some of the government’s benefit cuts, which he worries will have unintended and costly consequences. But most of all, he was keen to impress upon me that food banks are not a scandal. In fact, the real scandal is that they haven’t existed for longer in this country. And the problems they address are so varied and complex that even when the good times roll again, we will still need food banks because government is incapable of solving every problem. It creates a fair few problems itself through inefficiency."
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/06/food-banks-and-political-failure/
Anyone outside Unite-Labour would agree with that.
Is there any evidence that the Free Schools which have opened in areas with surplus places are better than the existing schools?"
Do you wish to deny the parents their choice over where and how they are educated?
"The two issues are linked, mainly because the unions do not want new schools competing for pupils, especially if those new schools have non-union teachers. This would result in substitution of teachers and loss of union members. Loss of union members would result in reduction of union levies and loss of income for the Labour Party. Therefore Labour has a political interest in keeping poor unionised schools opened while keeping new non-unionised schools out."
It all comes back to that Union cash...
@YvetteCooperMP
Very positive news if Jordanian treaty now means Abu Qatada can be there by Sunday to face fair trial
In September 2010, the Department forecast a 330,000 rise in the number of
children attending primary school between 2010/11 and 2014/15 to 4.2 million, and
an increase in the number starting school from 584,000 to 633,000. It estimated that
260,000 new places would be needed in primary and 64,000 in secondary schools by
September 2014 (a total of 324,000 new places).
...
The places required were not evenly spread across England. Although all regions
predicted need for more primary places, the greatest pressure was in London, which
accounted for a third of places required.
1.16 The Department compiled its estimate of places required by examining local
authorities’ forecast data for pupil numbers in 2014/15 and existing capacity in May 2010
in each authority, and, for county councils, for each district within that authority. It
then calculated the number of extra places needed to achieve a surplus of places of
at least 5 per cent in each authority or district. The Department adopted this planning
assumption in the context of a challenging spending review when preparing its funding
bid to HM Treasury. It considered that on average 5 per cent was the bare minimum
needed for authorities to meet their statutory duty with operational flexibility, while
enabling parents to have some choice of schools. As at September 2010, 37 of 152
authorities were forecasting a surplus of primary places of below 5 per cent by 2014/15
without any spending on new places, while another 62 would be in deficit, with fewer
primary places than children.
http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/10089-001_Capital-funding-for-new-school-places.pdf
Note this too:
Many local authorities also told us that increasing numbers of Academies and Free
Schools may make providing new places more difficult as authorities have no powers to
direct them to expand to take more pupils. Reviews by the Department in 2012 found
examples of Academies which were keen to expand, but also examples of Academies
not wishing to expand. The Department argues that schools have a range of very valid
individual reasons for these decisions.
While this rather blows Gove and laws out of the water:
In the 2000s, the Department recognised that, although the overall need was for
the removal of surplus places, local pockets of growth in school-age population could
occur, particularly in larger local authorities. It therefore provided core capital funding
to authorities totalling £400 million a year from 2007-08 to 2010-11, to help cover local
growth in need for places.6
2.3 The Department also operated an annual ‘safety valve’ whereby local authorities
could apply for extra funding to address exceptional growth. Until 2009, very few
authorities applied for this additional grant funding. In autumn 2009, in response
to the first forecasts that substantial numbers of new places would be required,
the Department ran a larger safety valve exercise, allocating an extra £266 million
for 2010‑11 to 36 authorities to provide primary places for September 2010 and
September 2011.
2.4 Under its 2010 Spending Review settlement in October 2010, the Department
doubled its specific core funding for new places to £800 million a year from 2011-12 to
2014-15. In total £3.2 billion was expected to be paid over the period to local authorities
through non-ringfenced capital grants (Figure 9). In parallel, it reduced planned
spending on its other capital programmes to reflect the 60 per cent real-terms reduction
in its overall capital budget under the settlement.
2.5 The Department reduced Devolved Formula Capital funding for schools’
maintenance, and cancelled the Primary Capital Programme and many Building
Schools for the Future projects (Figure 10 overleaf). The primary purpose of these
two programmes was the refurbishment of existing schools, but some local authorities
had started to consider how they could be used to expand schools to provide extra
places in areas of need. The Department did not assess the impact of reducing
these programmes on the provision of new places as it lacked the necessary data.
Consequently, there is no complete evaluation of how total funding which may have
contributed to new places changed across all the Department’s capital funding streams.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10157478/BBC-did-not-reflect-public-view-on-immigration-because-of-deep-liberal-bias-says-review.html
Under its 2010 Spending Review settlement in October 2010, the Department doubled its specific core funding for new places to £800 million a year from 2011-12 to 2014-15.
i.e. Laws was right.
"Dave was doing OK at PMQ's but he raised Unite just too many times"
Didn't he just! I don't want to be accused of being a class warrior but it's the first time since he became PM that I really found his plummy accent grating.
Sneeing at the Unions with a voice that sounded like a Victorian mill owner just didn't work for him. He just sounded patronising.
I can only think the instruction came from Lynton Crosby who wouldn't understand the nuance and therefore wouldn't comprehend what a turn off it was.
Not sure I would classify it as a "basic law" but it's a pretty fundamental part of economic theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law
"Hodge:. One is you have delivered 80,000 net additional places in the first
half of this Parliament.
Chris Wormald [Head Civil Servant at DoE]: No, that is the September 2011
number.
Q103 Chair: The September 2011 number. So what are you up to now?
Chris Wormald: We have not collected the data on September 2012. That is collected in our next data return for local authorities, so I cannot estimate that number at the moment. We do have completely unaudited returns, so I am not going to claim any more than that, but local authorities tell us that they have approximately 110,000 primary school places in
the pipeline. So if you look at the 81,500 places and those 110,000, then you probably have, for September 2014, which will be our toughest year, somewhere around 130,000 further places to create.
Then, by September 2015, to take us to the end of the Parliament, there are probably a further somewhere around 80,000 places. Now, I am not going to put too
much science on those numbers because, as I say, some of the numbers I have just used are unaudited.
Q104 Chair: Do you feel confident you can stick to that programme and therefore deliver?
Chris Wormald: Yes. As I have tried to emphasise all the way through, this is a huge challenge for the system as we have the unique circumstances of a rapidly rising birth rate, local effects and a tough public spending environment. With all those things taken together and looking at the situation, we think it is under control and that local authorities are delivering the numbers of places that are required.
Given the level of the challenge that the National Audit Office has identified, I do not really want to use words like “confidence”, because I think this is an area that requires constant vigilance both from the Department and from local authorities. But I will say I have not seen anything that has caused me to worry yet. That is not going to stop me worrying."
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/359/359.pdf
If the local school is crap it will have spare places as parents wont want to send their kids to it. For far too long, crap schools have existed because there was no alternative. Now there is, and a good thing too.
The Department’s capital priorities have changed since 2010 and new capital
programmes will deliver some additional places by 2014/15. The Department has
changed its capital priorities since 2010, including cancelling many Building Schools
for the Future projects and the Primary Capital Programme. These programmes were
primarily aimed at enhancing the quality of school buildings and the Department has
not estimated how the total number of school places available may have been affected.
The Free Schools Programme has been allocated capital funding of £1.7 billion to
2014-15. It is expected to increase the number of available places, although this is
not the primary purpose of the programme. We estimate that Free Schools opened
in September 2012 could provide up to 24,500 places, 58 per cent in local authorities
with a shortage of places. However, only 8,800 of the 24,500 places are in primary
schools and most Free Schools will not be operating at their full capacity by 2014/15
For 2012-13 only, the Department sought to provide local authorities with
some funding stability, and consequently allocated some £56 million (7 per cent
of core funding) away from authorities with most need. The Department introduced
a transitional mechanism to afford authorities some protection as it changed the method
of allocating core funding. As a result, 57 per cent of authorities received more funding
than the Department assessed them to need according to authorities’ own forecasts of
pupil numbers, while 29 per cent received less. These forecasts were not at a detailed
enough level to identify demand ‘hotspots’
But, to be fair, Gove does write some very good letters to Stephen Twigg.
@MichaelLCrick
Two more Plebgate arrests - a woman police officer, 37, from Diplomatic Protection Group and a female civilian, 46.
The need for school places has increased in recent years, reversing previous
trends. The number of children starting primary school is closely linked to the number
of children born five years previously. Throughout the 1990s the birth rate declined,
with fewer children starting school each year. However, between 2001 and 2011, the
population of England and Wales showed the largest ten-year growth since the census
began in 1801. In that period the number of live births in England rose by 22 per cent
from 564,000 to 688,000, the largest ten-year increase since 1954 to 1964 (31 per cent).
Reasons for this include a 6 per cent increase in the number of childbearing women
since 2003 and women who postponed having children in their twenties in the 1990s
having children in the 2000s. The effect of the increased births has been a 16 per cent
increase in the number of children starting reception classes in primary school since
2006, with almost 606,000 starting in 2011/12, up from 523,000 (Figure 3 overleaf).
The number of births is projected to carry on increasing to levels last seen in the 1970s.
I doubt anyone knew who Michael Ashcroft was in 2008, until Gordon Brown shouted out his name at PMQs each week. By the election his name hung round Cameron like a bad smell.
McCluskey is an equally - and less charitable - open target.
"Even leading rail expert Christian Wolmar is now against HS2. http://bit.ly/10zk7WX" and added: "This is starting to look like a bit of a trend."
Which implies a change of opinion on his part. The words 'even' and 'now' give it away, compounded by you stating that there is a trend.
You might as well have said: "Even Len McCluskey is now against the Conservatives. This is starting to look like a bit of a trend."
D'oh. We had this the other day with the PCS.
For 2012-13 only, the Department sought to provide local authorities with
some funding stability, and consequently allocated some £56 million (7 per cent
of core funding) away from authorities with most need. The Department introduced
a transitional mechanism to afford authorities some protection as it changed the method
of allocating core funding. As a result, 57 per cent of authorities received more funding
than the Department assessed them to need according to authorities’ own forecasts of
pupil numbers, while 29 per cent received less. These forecasts were not at a detailed
enough level to identify demand ‘hotspots’
The good news is that 14% of local authorities got what they needed and Stephen Twigg got an "hilarious" letter.
No wonder Dave wants to talk about Len McCluskey.
West Midland? Would that take in Ludlow and the social coterie which includes the
incestuous collection of louche, affluent, power-hungry and amoral wastrels known as the Chipping Norton Set?
Like Jasper Carrot?
Just think, if Blair had been a bit bolder seeing off the vested interests, this could have been a big Labour success story and many thousands of children would have got a better education, rather than the very limited number that Blair and Adonis managed.
But Blair flunked it, and Gove will be the one who gets all the glory. It's just a pity that thousands of children have lost out in the meantime.
Yep, queues of grasping scroungers, who have plenty of money for food but fancy a free tin of nearly out of date tuna on top, lining up for a free lunch. That's EXACTLY how food banks work.
Though, of course, the charities concerned say themselves that demand is soaring because more and more people don't have enough money for food. Which, given that these poor souls are referrals by poverty charities or health workers, kinda makes sense. Perhaps they're all Labour stooges, eh.
But not tiny enough to prevent you losing your bet, I'm pleased to say!
Of course, you can always point to the academy-free zone of Wales to support your argument. Labour's central-control system is doing really well there, I hear. Or not.
It looks as if the Military are not bluffing or playing very high stakes poker. Apparently some of their number have taken up residence at State TV offices in preparation for some announcements should they be required.
"Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey has hit out at David Cameron over his jibes about Unite today, accusing the Prime Minister of misusing his office and PMQs to indulge in shameful cheap political shots. McCluskey also used the opportunity to reaffirm his support for Ed Miliband, saying that ”There can be absolutely no question about who runs the Labour party: it is Ed Miliband and he has my full support”:
http://labourlist.org/2013/07/mccluskey-hits-back-at-cameron-over-pmqs-jibes/
Indeed, I'm surprised tha such an august personage as Mr McCluskey has demeaned himself to respond to such baseless tittle-tattle....
Anyone would think Ed Miliband was weak....
Watched most of the Del Potro/Ferrer match, but missed the early fall. Very impressive win, but I hope his knee's ok.
"What should worry Labour is that when Miliband gets creamed at PMQs it no longer seems like news."
Ouch.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6509535.stm
The fact remains that there would have been no problem had Ed Balls, when Education Secretary, recognised the upcoming capacity problems and had he taken steps to allocate resources in time for the extra places to be made available when needed.
The failure to identify the cause of the problem and to take action to avert it is at the root of the subsequent and costly exception management.
"What would really help Labour now is picking a fight with the unions, rather than hammering the govt over the economy #westminsterpunditry"
opening that causes people to use them . No doubt you would be happier if they were all closed and the poor starved out of sight behind closed doors .
Labour sources confirm that Ed Miliband's briefing notes were left behind in the toilet.
@BBCNormanS
Labour say it was Ed Miliband's Parliamentary aide Jonathan Reynolds who left behind the Labour leaders #PMQs briefing notes
Jonathan, in addition to being a Labour Party Member (since 1998) is a member of Unite the Union
They aren't WMD - like say - chinese lanterns.