Andy Burnham would disagree but Jeremy Corbyn gives the
impression of being the MP most outside of the ‘Westminster bubble.’ He is the candidate who seems least like a
politician, and this has chimed with a lot of young people, and he deserves some
praise for getting a large number of young people engaged in politics. The issue is that with the release of his
manifesto for young people he confirms a deeper truth, that it is much easier
to play politics of perennial opposition, than it is to make the
compromises to needed to win a general election. Young people who are facing high levels of
unemployment and even worse underemployment, cuts to maintenance grants, cuts
to youth service, and a government with a rhetoric that devalues them at every
turn deserve more than a list of demands that are uncosted, and unachievable.
It is difficult to disagree with what Corbyn sets out, but
that is the whole point. When you face
little prospect of being Prime Minister, and when you offer no strategy of how
your ideas will be implemented, or the cost of doing so, you can promise
anything. Here are just two examples.
The very first pledge of the manifesto is “Labour should
introduce statutory living wage for all workers, including apprentices, and
abolish age related tiers for minimum wage.”
As explained later in the manifesto this would mean moving from a
current apprentice wage of £2.73 p/h, to £10 p/h for apprentices. Apprentices are chronically underpaid for
what they do, and it is through the fantastic work of the National Society of
Apprentices that they will soon be getting a pay rise that qualifies them for statutory
sick pay. There are currently around
440,000 apprentices in the UK at the moment, and there is little explanation
how such a pay rise would be funded. In
addition to this, why would a business of any description ever spend resource
on training an apprentice, giving them the skills for later employment, when
they could just hire an already qualified worker on the same wage? Low wages
for apprentices is a scandal and one that needs to be addressed, it will not be
addressed by promising impossible wage hikes, and through ensuring businesses
will never hire apprentices in the first place.
Another pledge promises to “end the failed Academies and
Free Schools project, and promote comprehensive education” again, it is
difficult to disagree that there are problems with this project, and in its
current form is a radical departure from the vision originally laid out. We need to stop pretending that comprehensives
were perfect before Academies came into existence. Under Blair and Adonis Academies were a
mechanism to improve failing schools, and that was there original purpose, and
there is no doubt some Academies have achieved that. Under this pledge, presumably successful Academies
would be returned back to local authority control, where they had previously
not been doing very well. Children in
education care much more about receiving a good quality education, rather than
who runs it. It is plainly ridiculous to
interfere with the running of good schools for political gain.
In fairness, there are some points in the manifesto that are
credible, but the vast majority of these points are simply opposing what are
obviously terrible Tory policies. Of
course a Labour government should oppose cutting housing allowances to those
under 21, of course a Labour government should oppose the removal of the
post-study work visa for international students and of course a Labour
government should reintroduce disabled students’ allowance.
There is a general sense of making easy promises without
tackling the deep lying problems that affect so many young people, and that is
what is so disappointing. Introducing
votes at 16, without addressing the wider issues of why young people in general
don’t vote. Capping rents in the private sector, without committing to a way of
doing it, or how to combat the concerns of subdividing apartments, forced sales
of homes, or discrimination on characteristics as raised by Shelter[1]. Restoration of EMA is of course a wonderful
idea, but EMA was in no way perfect. I want to see a Labour government that
looks at the reasons people aren’t getting to college in the first place, and
looks at the reasons why those who received EMA still were short of money at
the end of the week, and some of those who didn’t get it were even worse off.
