A Response to Cameron's Speech

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 10 October 2012 11:51:05

Yesterday Letchworth launched the UK's 199th Foodbank, as with the majority of others it is affiliated to the Trussell Trust. This trust is a Christian charity which is focused upon providing for need and is not and cannot be politically aligned. The demand for the help of foodbanks has grown in recent years and whilst the Trust cannot actively campaign against the reasons for this if you look around their websites you can become informed about some of the issues involved, linked to the changes to funding and welfare. This news release from them about Social Fund Reform explains the wider issue which people need to be getting engaged with as well as giving to the foodbanks.

Shelter which has recently highlighted the problems which will be caused by cutting benefit to under 25's is faced with the possibility of eight offices, including in Milton Keynes, having to close due to changes in legal aid funding according to this BBC article. If this happens it will put the YMCA which is, as I understand it, already struggling to meet the demand for its help in this city under even more pressure.

It is my concern about these issues and others that makes me particularly interested in what Cameron is saying today.

It worries me that David Cameron saying the country is on the right track as these problems become more acute. I agree with him the current situation is serious and that imagination is required. I want to ask what "Britain on the Rise" actually means, do we want to succeed at the expense of others in the global south for example?

I agree the Olympics were great and the queen is a wonderful head of state. Ellie Simmonds and the para-olympians were great. Hopefully the attitude towards visibly disabled people is changing. However, what about attitudes towards those suffering from mental health issues for example? Also what about the effect the disability benefit cuts are having? (See here for one example)

In terms of the call to save the union I think it is a complex issue but let us not forget as Billy Bragg reminds us the UK is an economic union....just like the European Union in many ways. The difference is that within the UK London has the dominant power but in the EU they don't.

I agree about the great sacrifice of our armed services and that their sacrifice should be honoured but they should be coming home. And that is what worries me about his earlier references to battle and competition with other countries, rather than co-operation. Are we taking a strategy which is going to increase conflict and see more of our young men and women dying abroad?

The Cancer Drugs Fund is important and something good. However as to his claim the Tory's are the party of the NHS....I would disagree that this is what reforms are showing (see this Telegraph article explaining what a top GP has said about them).

The stuff on International Development is important and good to notice. Yet again, though I would argue that the opening part of the speech indicated that other policies are likely to cause problems to those living in other parts of the world through their focus on global competition.

The effects of welfare changes have been shown above. In terms of the radical preachers it is wrong that this term is being associated with Muslims. There are extreme Christians too.

The council tax freezes are resulting of cuts which are causing major problems as this article about the impact of the cuts in Northamptonshire shows.

His simplified and reductionist explanations about the globalised economy are dangerous I think because they don't take into account a range of issues. It is ironic I think that Cameron is looking to China, a communist country with a poor record on human rights for example.

I agree aspiration is excellent and important. However, I think what is being done to education is a sign that their is contradiction in the Conservative Party policies. I agree with him that morality and social mobility are important. Yet I would argue that they are not getting behind people who want to get on in life....they are stopping some.

I too salute those who want to make better lives for themselves, I know many of them and they are the very people who Cameron is hammering.

The cartoon Conservatives section of speech was highlighting the key ideological differences between the right and the left. This part sought to show that they are compassionate and showed the criticisms given against them. To me this showed why the left needs to move beyond sloganeering and engage with explaining why Cameron is ideologically coming from a position which is problem.

I agree jobs are important and low interest rates are ideal. However, as I remember from economics and am seeing now the flip side of this is unemployment.

In terms of the jobs numbers questions need to be asked about the types of job, who is getting those jobs and how they balance out when matched against job losses happening at the same time.

The economic issues referred to are again more complicated than portrayed. In terms of the risk issues in the speech it is somewhat ironic that he was saying earlier people need to take more individual risks but that we as a country need to take less.

The debt issue is one which, like most people, concerns me greatly.  One element which Cameron is apparently failing to realise is that the Coalition's policies are forcing more people to go to payday lending for example.

In terms of the tax issues - tax cuts which give people more choice also give some less opportunity because communal amenities and services are taken.

The anti-Labour rhetoric is again somewhat simplistic and focuses alot of blame on the party. The situation is more complicated and needs to be analysed as such.

There are good things happening in business and we need to keep this going. However, we also need to recognise the issues with multi-nationals and globalisation. We need to understand the way that jobs move around in a way which keeps wages low and destroys labour protections (something he had already referred to when talking about the economies which are growing).

The language of fights and battles and of destroying protections is something I find difficult. The housebuilding issue is important and the problems faced by young people need urgently addressing. We need to help them by making more social housing available.

I agree it is a tragedy welfare isn't working. Unfairness is an issue and the problems of housing availability need addressing. Injustice is an evil. The choices we give to young people are different to what he says. Often many of our young people are trying but are not able to get jobs. There is a requirement for work to be given a living wage. No young person should be forced to live at home. Bureaucracy is a problem but the work programme is not helping get people into work, real work.

No one is a write off, no one is hopeless, their is ability and promise in each of our citizens and it is not harnessed by increasing mental health issues.

Work experience programmes are as the trade union official described. The fight against poverty needs to be based on there being full time jobs with living wages.

When he talks about "really educating" our children I agree. Our children should be allowed to learn for the sake of learning and achieve well whilst doing this. The implication that state schools which are not independent don't/ can't provide discipline and achievement is awful. Professionalism is not something which only applies to academies and so forth. The arguments he is giving about education is reductionist and again wrong.

Ambition is vital and important I agree but I don't think that the current government is helping this change achieve. The closure of public libraries in local communities is one example of something which is causing a decline of opportunity not increasing it. Karl, my partner, is an example of what Cameron was talking about in terms of the ideal. He achieved social mobility but it was because of the support he got from a local librarian amongst others. The council tax freeze is causing the removal of such amenities and the public service workers who nurture aspiration beyond the school environment.

When a parent goes he is right you realise how much you owe them. My mother taught me about the importance of many of the things Cameron is talking about, but also about why the strategies Cameron has proposed in this speech are wrong.

Working hard is important, family is important but the community is important too as Cameron says. I also agree with responsibility and serving others. Yet within his speech he actually used examples to show the complexity of the reality and the simplicity of what he is saying. We were involved in stopping slavery of one kind, but we had also been heavily involved in that trade. Slavery still exists in different forms around the world, and sometimes in a form which we are responsible for as consumers.

This speech highlighted for me the problems of Cameron, Gove and Osbourne's Conservatism. It uses the right language of aspiration, fairness and responsibility but the policies which lie beneath it are far more complex than was put forward. The effects of those policies are the types of things I highlighted at the beginning of this speech. Rather than just contributing groceries to food banks we need to look at the reality of the type of policies Cameron was putting forward and seek to work, imaginatively as he said, to put forward alternatives. An alternative based upon co-operation rather than competition as a base.