Time for the Coalition to Look to the Future

A few days ago I was speaking at a Financial Literacy conference in Orlando. One of the most interesting contributions came from Chase Card Services - their research had found that "consumers are more optimistic and spending more". This where the President has taken the view that investment in growth rather than tackling the deficit is the priority, in stark contrast to "Austerity Britain".

So I am delighted that today Ed Randall has written this thought provoking piece for Liberal Left responding to the double dip recession,  as he points out:

 "It isn’t any longer good enough to complain that the Coalition was saddled with an almighty Labour mess. It was, but the Coalition government has to look – and be seen to look – to the future and not to the past. It isn’t any longer good enough to insist that the Coalition has no alternative but to insist on accelerated deficit reduction, and to go on treating ‘deficit reduction [as] the most urgent issue facing Britain"

On Afghanistan, Syria - what should be the Liberal Response?

I have been a bit inactive on my blog recently. Busy elsewhere, but no excuses really. I get the same urge to vent my spleen from time to time - but my spleen tends to end up deposited elsewhere.

So what has got me back to my personal therapy space? It's the news over the last day of the loss of six servicemen in Afghanistan. Whenever we hear the news of a British soldier lost on active service I admit to shedding a few tears. These are usually young men and occasionally young women, with their whole lives ahead of them. But the enormity of the situation has focused all our minds on why we are there and what a "price worth paying" amounts to.

And it raises again the question of whether we should intervene in Syria, how, why and when.

As a young woman of 17 I took "the Queen's shilling" and joined the army. Never believing my country would ever ask me to do anything that was immoral, illegal or unjust. So my opposition to the Iraq war was augmented by a recognition that many of our young men and women would have done the same thing. And the news today that those young men who lost their lives, apart from one, were aged 19-21 was excruciating.

We grieve for them, but also their families, in my case, especially the mothers. I have a son a wee bit older -  I immediately think about how I would feel if it was him. I imagine what it will be like for these mothers on Mothers Day - only a few days away. An empty space at the dinner table. No loving card or message, no bear hug, or that inevitable phone call "Mum, can you lend me some money?". The child you have nurtured, scolded, taught, nursed, encouraged, excused. Laughed with, cried with, lain awake worrying about. The much loved fruit of your womb lost - and lost forever, no parent ever expects to bury their child.

It is a serious responsibility when our politicians send our young people to war - and one too often influenced not by a commitment to human rights, peace or our own security, but as we saw in Iraq, personal gain and vanity. And who can honestly say we have made things better in Afghanistan? A country that like Iraq, was a convenient scapegoat in response to 9/11.

So what to say about Syria? We intervened in Libya for much less. Can we stand aside while communities are massacred? Will we remain inactive until it becomes akin to what happened in Bosnia, or Cambodia? How do we value life - in units of one, or in multiples of 1,000?

I confess I really struggle with this. The obvious answer is a robust UN response (isn't that the whole point of the UN?) with peace keeping troops protecting the vulnerable. But, rather in the way the US has continually blocked a humane response to the actions of the state of Israel,  Russia and China do the same in their own interests.

One of the most tragic legacies of the Iraq war has been to undermine any moral legitimacy we, or the US may have had in terms of intervening - and I have heard robust arguments against any intervention, given that often the inevitable result (as in Iraq) is likely to be far more civilian deaths.

If we return to the principles that underpin our party, the idea that we can ignore what is going on elsewhere in the world is inconceivable. The long term lesson surely is that we ignore despotic rulers at our peril. However, the challenge for us now is to find the right response - what that is, I guess many of us are still struggling with.

So as I write this, tears running down my cheeks listening to the tributes to these young men from their "brothers in arms" I continue to ask that question, what should
our response be?

Cameron, Debt and why we MUST Teach our Children about Money

This week we hear that David Cameron changed his speech  from “The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households – all of us – paying off the credit card and store card bills,”  to, “The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That’s why households are paying down their credit card and store card bills." An interestingly subtle change as a result of pressure from retailers, with political implications I will return to in another blog!

Joanna Elson from the Money Advice Trust has rightly pointed out, paying off debt too quickly can lead to people getting themselves into deeper financial trouble in the long run. However, as Martin Lewis of Money Saving Expert is constantly pointing out - we have educated our children into debt but not about debt. And with UK personal debt levels now topping £1.6 trillion - that lack of understanding and education is surely something that should concern us all.

In all my years of blogging I've never really said much about my work as Youth Policy Adviser at the Money Advice Service and what follows is written in a personal capacity and as a result of a recent debate on Twitter I have been having with Andrew Smith.



I am a strong supporter of Martin Lewis's campaign to get financial education on a statutory footing and he deserves much respect for the way he has mobilised cross party support - an object lesson to us all in how to campaign! The APPG he helped found is now the best supported in parliament, not least because of the equally passionate support for financial education from the APPG's chair, Justin Tomlinson (MP for North Swindon) and financial education charity pfeg. At its launch, it wasn't even standing room only, some MPs, our own Stephen Williams among them, couldn't even get in!

But some people, Andrew Smith among them, clearly don't support Martin's campaign. Andrew and I both left comments on a recent Love Money blog and while I don't like their choice of words (young people should be forced to learn about money) the argument is valid.


It is 7 years now since I took up the role of Youth Policy Adviser at the FSA as part of the Financial Capability Strategy - and it has been a real privilege to work with youth organisations, the financial services industry and government across the UK to work to ensure that young people are supported to manage their money effectively. Now we are the Money Advice Service with a statutory responsibility to help people make sense of their money, helping them not only to make the most of their money, but also to help to prevent them get into situations of unmanageable debt.


We know as a nation that debt is a huge problem - only recently we heard that families are being forced into debt because of the cost of childcare, others are borrowing just to stay on top of their mortgage repayments or rent. So while some of this debt may be seen as inevitable, for some, an inability to manage their money effectively can make matters far worse.

 Education is a hot topic at the moment, particularly for those of us as Lib Dems who find ourselves in bed with a coalition partner who has a very different view of what education should be about, Nick Gibb and Michael Gove in particular, pushing for a focus on academic subjects and the English Baccalaureate, unconvinced about subjects like PHSE. But thankfully, there are some enlightened Tory MPs like Justin Tomlinson who understand the importance of schools not only equipping our children with academic skills and knowledge but also the life skills and attitudes to enable them to succeed.


So where I disagree with Andrew Smith? Well I absolutely agree with him that numeracy and literary are essential and it is scandalous that so many of our young people are coming out of school functionally illiterate - it has to be the first priority of any education system to ensure our children can read, write and add up. But, it surely it also has to be part of a rounded education that our children leave school socially functional too? Many employers as well as complaining about young people's illiteracy, complain about their lack of soft skills too. Now Andrew isn't arguing school should just be about the 3 Rs so presumably accepts the curriculum needs to be wider. And actually, the numeracy aspects of Financial Education sit well in Maths - learning how to calculate percentages, add, divide etc becomes much more alive if it is related to the real circumstances in which those skills are needed. But the most important thing a young person needs to know in relation to APR is not how to work it out (almost impossible!) but more importantly that a loan with a HIGH APR costs more than a loan with a LOW APR and that taking out a loan in the first place isn't always the best solution!

And actually, relating learning to real life is proven to increase engagement. At the FSA we did some work on functional skills with some FE colleges and found that where Maths included financial education elements the young people were more successful, more engaged and there was a lower drop out rate. It's not rocket science. Young people, especially those Andrew is concerned about with low levels of literacy, learn best when they can relate that learning to their own experiences. Yes, the curriculum is crowded but frankly if school is not about preparing our children and young people to be effective, engaged and productive citizens I wonder what it is for? You may well learn about the Magna Carta, be able to explain what tectonic plates are, calculate the square root of 9, dissect a mouse, quote Shakespeare.............but all this will fade into insignificance if your lack of ability to manage your money leads you to experience a serious mental health condition, lose your home, causes the break up of your family, or ultimately, in the most extreme circumstances, take your own life.

As is clear - I could bang on about this issue for ever (!) but I just want to leave you with a story and a small task.

A couple of weeks ago I was visiting a supported housing project in Northern Ireland where we have trained the staff to work with young people around money issues. They introduced me to a young man who had joined them with serious debt problems a few months ago. They worked with him to help him understand his attitudes to money that had lead him to get into debt and helped him draw up and manage a budget. He proudly told me that he had cleared his debts, was saving to visit Scotland for a family party - and had £500 in an ISA! The staff also commented on how much better his mental health was. Now tell me this isn't an important life skill?

And finally, if Cameron is serious about getting the country and individuals out of debt - let's demonstrate to him that we as a nation care more about the financial wellbeing of our children than whether or not we should remove benefits from rioters..........please join the 80,658 of us who support Martin Lewis's epetion calling for compulsory financial education - and please do it now!

Tulisa Contostavlos or Nadine Dorries - who would be your choice of Role Model?

Last week I watched "My Mum and Me" the inspirational documentary featuring Tulisa Contostavlos and exploring the challenges faced by young carers. She not only traced her own experience of growing up caring for a mother with schizoaffective disorder but introduced us to other young people in similar circumstances. It certainly struck a chord with me, having grown up with a bi-polar father and having a sister with schizoaffective/bi-polar disorder, I am only too aware of the impact living with someone with a mental health condition has on the whole family. For me, even at 14, it was terrifying when my father had his first "episode", but it only really hit me how terrible it was for my mum when at 18, stationed in Germany, I was sent home to care for the family since my mum had also had a breakdown, having been totally stressed out by watching for the signs of my dad becoming ill. She was always a buffer for all of us children, but even then, I know it had a negative impact on our schooling and sense of security. How can you concentrate on your studies when your father is seriously ill, behaving in a way that is at best unsettling and at worst terrifying? So how much more unsettling and terryfing must if have been for Tulisa, on her own, no father or brothers and sisters for support, being the only one having to deal with her mother's terrifying illness from 11 years old? No wonder it impacted on more than just her schooling!

So re-reading Nadine Dorries' self-righteous hypocritical rant against Tulisa becoming an X Factor judge has, I am afraid, initiated a right royal rant of my own! If Nadine was in any position whatsoever to pass judgement on anyone else, even then, what she says is cruel, self serving and ignorant. Her basic, flawed logic is apparently based on her view that no one deserves as second chance........oh, unless your name is Cameron or Coulson of course. So to take her argument to its logical conclusion, Cameron, who in his youth, despite coming from a privileged background, allegedly took drugs and smashed up places, really should never have been allowed to become an MP, let alone Prime Minister?

So this apparent paragon of virtue who pontificates on everyone else without allowing them the right to reply, thinks she can stand in judgement on a young woman who has taken on huge caring responsibilities at an early age, has had mental health issues to deal with herself and still managed to turn her life around? The most ridiculous comment in her blog claims "And for anyone who is even getting near to thinking it's ok, because she has turned her life around and what she is doing is showing teenagers that it's ok to behave badly, because they can turn it around too, let's get real shall we?" Who on earth would make that argument? No-one would argue it's OK to behave badly - but surely those who have been able to turn their lives around should be applauded? Where I do agree with Nadine is that not every young person can become a superstar, but whether we like it or not, many do look to the stars for their role models. What they also need are role models closer to home - sadly with the cuts to the voluntary and local authority youth provision many of those opportunities are being lost. And I haven't seen Nadine argue once against the swingeing cuts Central Beds have made to their Youth and Connexions services who for many young people would have offered just the kind of role models they need.

So, my message to Nadine is please, for once, start putting your money where your mouth is. If you really care about young people, demonstrate it by recognising the support they need and deserve. You clearly care deeply for children before they are born, if only that care and concern extended beyond the womb! I hope you will watch Tulisa's story with just a little compassion and perhaps think twice before judging her, or calling others "nutters" (something you also called me) without a modicum of understanding about the challenges many of our young people face. And I trust having watched it you may have the good grace to apologise.

And to Tulisa I would say thank you. Thank you for being so honest, for admitting to not only what you have done wrong in your life but also for speaking openly about what it is like to grow up caring for a parent with a mental health condition. Thank you for the genuine care and understanding you showed for other young carers and for drawing our attention to a group of young people who so often get ignored because they are not on the streets causing a problem, but dealing with fear, anxiety and isolation on their own. I think you are a fantastic role model and I am delighted that you are using that position to make a real difference to the lives of other young people.

Will Nick Clegg lead the fight for Liberal Values?

The last couple of weeks have strained many of the fault lines in the Coalition that up to now have been more or less papered over. As a party we signed up to a Coalition Agreement that presumably most members could live with (myself excluded of course!) - but a Coalition Agreement in retrospect which was more at fault for what it didn't say than what it did.

So we have had the unedifying spectacle for the last 15 months of our much loved parliamentarians tying themselves in knots to be able to justify their support for Tory policies that stick in the gullet of any self respecting Liberal Democrat - most notably the suicidal support for tuition fees. But up to now most of the issues which have resulted in Lib Dems voting against their consciences, could be seen as of more concern to social liberals and while we may make up the majority of the wider party, as David Laws has pointed out, it is the Orange Bookers who are by far the majority amongst our ministers.

However, now the political ground is shifting - in the wake of the riots our Tory partners are hitting at the heart of what it means to be a Liberal Democrat. Yes, we may have different opinions on economic and social issues, but what absolutely binds us together as a party is our commitment to those liberal values of freedom, civil liberties, equality, human rights, fairness and justice. And it is those values that are under attack as we speak.

So the next few months I guess will be dominated by the political fallout from the riots, Cameron's promise that if it moves he will review it, politicians of all hues competing for the title of "Tough Cookie". Never before has it been more important to stand up for our shared values, however difficult that may be.

There has been a debate recently in the party about which of our policies we should shout about and which we should whisper. Strange as it may seem (:-)) I am in the shout about everything school of thought! When we whisper about the issues we care passionately about but we know don't play well with the likes of the Daily Mail, for example immigration and knee jerk reactions to rioting, all we do is cede the ground to our opponents. When we let the likes of Melanie Phillips blame the "liberal intelligentsia" without pointing her to the facts, we cede the ground. When we try to frame our narrative in the language that talks rough and tough, illiberal, authoritarian counter productive nonsense, we cede the ground.

So I find myself in total agreement with Chris Bowers on Dale & Co arguing that Nick Clegg now has a golden opportunity to promote a truly liberal response to the riots through, amongst other things, using restorative justice to confront the rioters with the consequences of their behaviour. We know that it works, for example in Northern Ireland the combined reoffending rate for youth conferencing in 2006 was 37.7% compared to 70.7% for custodial sentences (see the Prison Reform Trust's excellent report "Making Amends - Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland"). And alongside that, as Chris Bowers has argued, Nick's genuine concern for children and families I trust will mean he takes a far more considered long term view about what needs to happen.

Last year when I raised with Nick my concern about the impact of the cuts on young people during The Conference Question Time, he invited me to hold his feet to the fire if he didn't deliver. Well, he now has an opportunity to put his money where his mouth is - I have everything crossed in optimistic expectation that he will - with the hot coals in reserve if he doesn't!

Bring Back National Service............and the Birch........and Zero Tolerance..........and David Blunkett?....and Jack Straw?

The past week has seen a cornucopia of opinion and counter opinion in relation to the shocking events that swept so many cities in this country. From Melanie Phillips blaming the "liberal intelligentsia" (Melanie darling you are SO last season!) or the delightful Nadine Dorries citing the "moral vacuum"....ah yes dear, so that's what you are blaming for your own lack of moral fortitude is it? Now let's check out your alleged behaviour - hmmmm, adultery, lying and stealing? Not bad to be going on with. But of course, you haven't been caught looting Louboutins from Selfridges, no you were able to loot the public purse without breaking a single window! Rather like your millionaire pal George "we're all in this together" Osborne - you just don't get irony! This is in marked contrast it has to be said to the brave and perceptive Peter Oborne, whose analysis in his Telegraph piece this week was characteristically spot on. Ah, now there's a man the right could do well to look to for their moral compass.

Up and down the country, sorry England, sentences are being dished out like smarties. Sentences that on the face of it appear to betray a knee jerk response to a phenomenon that has at least unsettled and at worst shocked us all.

As a party we are committed to evidence based practice, now, more than ever, we need to demonstrate that this is what distinguishes us from our Tory partners. The likes of Phillips and Dorries may, rather like Cameron and May, want to absolve their class from any responsibility by dumping it in part on those immoral nasty liberals, but let's consider the facts. We have had decades of totally illiberal political leadership! Thatcher - liberal? Major - liberal? Blair - liberal? Brown - liberal? Cameron.........ah yes, claimed to be a liberal once, but prick him and does he not bleed pure illiberality?!

So this morning, as the dust of the last turbulent week (is it only a week?) settles - we have the unedifying spectacle of a prime minister, clearly out of his depth, calling for.......you've guessed it ZERO TOLERANCE. Oh and then we have that novel idea, being touted in the Express that the real answer is NATIONAL SERVICE (that'll sort them out, give'em some discipline in their lives........er......I joined voluntarily and look at me!). So let's look at what happens after people come out of the armed services - disproportionately homeless, disproportionately street drinkers, disproportionately suffering from mental health conditions. Now if our prime minister's argument is to be extended to its logical conclusion, given that our "feral youth" are the products of dysfunctional parents and a sick society, presumably there are some of our service personnel who are the product of our dysfunctional and sick armed forces??? But, maybe they're right, much better to train our "feral youths" to beat up and kill foreigners in Afghanistan Iraq or Libya than let them loose over here.

Having spent the best part of my life working with and for young people (and scarily that is now a very long time!) I have lived through many moral panics. The last week is no different. And frankly isn't that different from moral panics about youth throughout the ages. Even Socrates described the youth of his day as having contempt for authority, being disrespectful to their elders, tyrannising their teachers. But, what is different in every case is the environment in which such behaviour takes place - the values which people accept or reject - the messages our young people are getting from the society in which they either participate or feel disaffected from. And given this government's belief in "nudge" theory and behavioural economics, it seems extraordinary if they do not consider this as part of what must be a proper inquiry into what happened.

So it seems to me that what this country desperately needs is a truly liberal response to what are clearly complex problems. I may have been a little reticent in expressing my anxieties about the coalition, but surely this is a golden opportunity for us to stand up and challenge so much of this knee-jerk rhetoric? Most of us agree that short sentences don't work, and many Liberal Democrats (including myself) are ambassadors for Make Justice Work, the campaign which highlights the wastefulness of short term sentences and promotes more intensive community sentencing. We also agree with using restorative justice as an alternative to custodial sentences, surely given what as happened and the evidence of how effective this approach is, our leadership should be making this point? Being faced with the consequences of your criminal behaviour can be not only far more difficult for a young person to cope with, but also is far more likely to get them to reform their ways.

At the moment there is talk of some 3000 arrests and no doubt there will be many more, like Cameron and Johnson in their youth, who will escape justice. Do we honestly believe ALL of these rioters were criminals? Or is it more logical to conclude that there was a hardened criminal element but that many more, particularly young people, were drawn in by the mob mentality? Those young people more than any will be far more likely to respond positively with being confronted with the enormity of the consequences of their behaviour. What's that saying about acting in haste and repenting at leisure? (both young people and politicians). Don't we know that our prisons are universities of crime?

What we need now is true political leadership, a recognition that if we truly are "all in this together" we all have to take some blame for what has happened as well as some responsibility for finding solutions. There are a good few things I disagree with Nick Clegg on (!) and we have had many arguments about, however, my primary reason for supporting his leadership was that I knew him to be a true liberal, I knew that on youth issues in general and youth justice in particular, he absolutely got the need to have a liberal approach. Nick Clegg, Simon Hughes, Lynne Featherstone (another two who absolutely gets it!) and our parliamentary team have never had a better opportunity to show that leadership, to take that opportunity we allegedly joined the coalition to promote - an opportunity to ensure we try that which has never been tried in living memory - that truly liberal response.

Doing Politics Differently? Let's see................

Well - I hadn't realised just how long it is since I blogged! However, this is such an important issue that I have torn myself away from a beautiful white sandy beach in order to mount a last minute attempt to garner support from our MPs for an amendment to tomorrow's Finance Bill - the text of my email below :-


Dear All

I am sure you will remember the emergency banking motion that was passed at conference, in particular calling for:

F) Measures to tackle financial exclusion for individuals and small business, with a Basic Banking Guarantee; a public bank administered through Post Offices; a commitment from high street banks to provide fee-free ATMs within walking distance of all deprived communities; as well as reducing unfair bank, credit card and loan charges.

G) Greater support for local credit unions and mutuals.

(my emphasis)

So you can imagine my dismay when it came to my attention that our party may not support an opposition amendment to the finance bill on Monday which offers an eminently sensible way forward without making any firm commitments - as you will see from the text below:


The Government shall lay before Parliament a review of all taxation measures contained in this Act that are applicable to those judged by the financial services authority (or its successor body) to engage in high cost credit lending. This review shall consider the following matters:
a) The nature of the high cost credit market and the proliferation of lending practices which are detrimental to consumers and or competition in the provision of credit to consumers;
b) The impact that taxation could have on the provision of high cost credit in the UK which is detrimental to consumers and or competition in the provision of credit to consumers;
c) Whether changes to taxation could discourage lending in a manner which is detrimental to consumers and or undermines competition in the provision of credit to consumers;
d) Other measures relevant to the high-cost credit lending sector that may prevent consumer detriment.


There are two clear issues for me - firstly - the preamble to our constitution which clearly states that “no-one should be enslaved by poverty”. As a party we seem to be continually flying in the face of that aspiration and getting to grips with legal loan sharks seems to me the least we could do. In fact not only would there be no cost to the public purse in doing so, ultimately it could cost the state less as fewer people would be dealing with the consequences of unmanageable debt - in particular the impact it has on both mental health and relationships (and as I understand it the Tories are very keen on preventing family breakdown - debt being one of the key issues). There is surely a clear and present need, given the disproportionate impact of the recession and “austerity measures” on the poorest in our society - to do what we can through regulation, to protect them. As some of you will know my day job is working for the Money Advice Service (formerly part of the FSA) so I am acutely aware of the need for preventative measures, such as education and advice as well as access to free ATMs, Basic Bank Accounts and reasonable credit as provided by credit unions. However, these are not the whole answer, the fact is that most people only seek advice once they have a problem. I understand the arguments about regulation forcing people into the arms of illegal loan sharks, however, there is no evidence for or against this and surely this is not an argument against the above amendment which calls only for a review.

Secondly, I have a real concern that to reject this amendment flies in the face of all we have been saying about a new kind of politics, why is consensus such a problem? Surely we agree with the sentiments of this amendment, it is in line with party policy, so to reject it merely because it is an opposition amendment risks us being portrayed as mealy mouthed opportunists - caring more about party politics than the people I know we all got into politics to speak up for, those people whose lives are constantly blighted by these ruthless money lenders.

I am presuming there is a strong whip on Monday - but I fear that rejecting this amendment will prove to be yet another indication of just how disconnected the parliamentary party is becoming from the grass roots of the party, who will not understand why we can’t support amendments that are in line with party policy and are not ruled out or in by the Coalition Agreement. In my humble opinion, if we lose our integrity we risk losing our soul.

Anyways, I have said my piece for what it’s worth! I appreciate how difficult it is for all of you at the moment, in particular being continually faced with having to choose between holding your collective noses and voting for things you don’t believe in, or risking upsetting valued colleagues by defying the Coalition position - but I hope on this issue you will feel able to take a stand.

With best wishes

Linda