Category Archives: Politics

Immigration facts #1

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Nobody’s saying it, so I have to.

Here we go.

Immigration facts #1

The positive net fiscal contribution of recent immigrant cohorts (those arriving since 2000) from the A10 (“accession”) countries amounted to almost £5bn, while the net fiscal contributions of recent European immigrants from the rest of the EU totalled £15bn.

Recent non-European immigrants’ net contribution was likewise positive, at about £5bn.

Over the same period, the net fiscal contribution of native UK born was negative, amounting to almost £617bn.

University College, London Nov 2014

The Lives of Others: a plea to Labour

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I was going to write something about the need to for Labour to avoid the politics of envy. But I see Polly Toynbee has done it for me here. A very well-put and well-timed piece.

Medina High - my school on the Isle of Wight

Medina High – my school on the Isle of Wight

Just today Labour has fallen again into the trap of talking the right’s language. It has announced a policy to make private schools ‘earn their £700m subsidy’ by forcing them to run summer schools and sponsor academies – or lose their business rate exemption. They will not be allowed to remain as ‘finishing schools for the children of oligarchs.’

Whether you like private schools or not (on balance, I do) and whether you like Tristram Hunt or not (on balance, I really do) this attacking approach is wrong-headed. And not just because private schools save the state sector £5000 per pupil, per year. If the argument were about the mathematics of subsidy, the state should be on its knees with gratitude.

But it isn’t about the maths. It’s about them and us. And that’s why Labour’s making a mistake. Because the class divide is poisonous. It is poisonous to our nation. And it is poisonous, above all, to Labour.

Because when it comes to meanness of spirit, the Tories are masters. They thrive on it. They do not believe in collective provision, or shared responsibility, or, fundamentally, community. They believe in small state and small government. They believe in every man for himself (and really, who cares about the women, the children, the disabled, the disadvantaged, the foreign, the uninsured sick?).

The more they succeed in sowing fear and resentment – the more they suggest that the state cannot and should not and will not provide – the more inclined we are to look after ourselves, and not others. And with good reason; if we can’t rely on our community and our state to support us, we must make our own provision. We must put up barriers of protection. We must, in short, be mean.

Tristram Hunt, in his article here talks about “the Berlin Wall in our education system.” But a Berlin Wall is a function of politicians talking the right’s talk of selfishness, class resentment and division. Demonising the lives of others requires, creates and reinforces walls; it does not break them down.

And in an atmosphere where this divisive talk prevails, the Tories will always, always win. Because you can’t out-do the Tories on meanness of spirit. Please, Labour, do not try.

BoJo and brain cells: we’re all in it together.

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Boris Johnson has been hammered for using IQ to justify inequality.

You don’t need me to tell you in how many ways his attitude stinks.

But, even while you hate his attitude, you might be worrying that the statistics he quoted were arresting.

Here is what he said:

“Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent… have an IQ above 130.”

So – cleverness seems incredibly rare. Only 2%! But not-so-cleverness seems alarmingly common. 16%.

So maybe inequality is an inevitable consequence of the unfortunate distribution of brain cells.

A lot of us are twits. Only a few of us are clever. So only a few get the wealth. It’s nobody’s fault but God’s.

But just in case nobody sets this statistical mischief straight for you, look at what BoJo has done.

At the clever end of the scale, he’s gone 30 points above 100.

But in the other direction, he’s only gone 15 points below 100.

So of course there are more below 85 than there are above 130.

Had he gone the SAME number of points down as up, and chosen to say how many people have an IQ below 70, guess what the number would be?

It would be 2%. The SAME as the number above 130.

This is because the distribution of IQ follows a ‘normal distribution’ – see the bell curve below.

What you need to know is that it is mirror-shaped. There are just as many of us with low IQs as there are with high IQs, and the pattern is THE SAME as you move further from the centre. It doesn’t matter which direction you go, up or down.

IQ-bell-curve

What BoJo should have said is:

“Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that just 2 per cent of our species have an IQ below 70, and just 2 per cent… have an IQ above 130.”

In other words, we’re all in this bell curve together.

Reality Bites

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7th January, 2013

Reality bites…

… but if Labour is hoping that the cuts kicking in will change the game, it is mistaken.

Writing in this week’s Observer, Andrew Rawnsley argues that the Tories’ overtly political attempt to put Labour on the spot over the proposed welfare caps could backfire badly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/05/labour-party-bill

The Tories are proposing a 1% cap on increases in most state benefits for three years. They are bringing their plan to the Commons for a vote – even though a vote is probably unnecessary – so that they can put Labour in the position of having either to support it (contrary to its core values) or reject it (and risk looking like the party of “unlimited welfare”).

Andrew Rawnsley’s analysis of this cynical strategic motivation is widely accepted.

George Osborne

But Rawnsley thinks it won’t work out the way Chancellor Osborne expects.

Rawnsley argues that once the “strivers” – those in work but also to some degree dependent on state benefits – realise that they too are going to be adversely affected by the squeeze (and by a raft of other measures which will kick in this year) then they will turn against the Tories.

It’s an argument I would like to be true.

It is a version of the argument going round Labour circles in the spring of 2010. The idea was that, since nasty cuts were inevitable after the election, it would be no bad thing for Labour to accept defeat, let the Tories take the helm for the bumpy ride, and regroup in time for the next election, when surely people would have had enough of austerity.

Again, I hope this line of thought will turn out to be true.

But I fear that it lacks psychological insight.

Rawnsley suggests that when blue-collar voters realise that the cuts are hurting them just as much as they are hurting the scroungers, then, far from punishing Labour for opposing the cuts, they will turn back to them. Biting reality will reverse the “C2 meltdown” of 2010.

I can’t see it.

Because, as Rawnsley himself points out, the Tory spin doctors have done such a wonderful job of dividing the nation, and painting the picture of the closed-curtain layabout getting fat on his couch while the rest of us struggle into work. (In reality, only 3% of the welfare budget goes to unemployed people, and fraud accounts for less than 1% of that 3%. Yet 47% of us think the government is “not tough enough on benefit” and should do more to force people into work. – YouGov)

Because the Tory spin doctors have done such an overwhelming job of pinning the blame for their cuts on Labour.

Because – although Labour (and indeed many right-wing) politicos are at pains to point out that the cuts have yet properly to kick in – the perception of austerity has been with us for two and a half years. We already think we are suffering. We’re already tightening our belts. We feel the pain already. And yet there are no signs of a dramatic shift in mood. The C2s are not flocking to Labour.

Will it be different when the perception of pain is matched in reality? I don’t think so. If I think there’s only £20 in my wallet, and it then turns out there is indeed only £20 in my wallet, I am in no worse a mood.

Even if I did feel worse off when the cuts actually bite, would I need a new scapegoat? If I already thought that scroungers or foreigners or bankers or Labour were the cause of my paltry purse, why would I suddenly change my mind and blame the Tories?

So if Labour is hoping that the imminent reality of austerity will, on its own, clear the path for a return to power in 2015, it is mistaken.

Labour can’t wait for the Tories’ economic strategy to be deemed wrong by dint of time or pain or miraculously changed perception. It must make the argument that the strategy is wrong.

Further, Labour must ensure that the blame for the attack on the state is correctly apportioned.

And above all, Labour needs to understand what the Tories so effortlessly tap into: the psychology of mean-spiritedness. People who are scared, who are feeling the pinch, and who, because of those anxieties, are inclined to believe daft, demonising stories about benefits millionaires need an alternative narrative. A narrative which enables them to feel better about compassion than about righteousness.

That narrative needs crafting, and selling, by Labour. The reality of austerity, on its own, will not do the job for them.

For now, George Osborne has nothing to worry about.