The Purple Scare

Dazed, I stared in awe as the number of ballot papers in the UKIP piles grew ever larger, in some cases, dwarfing those of at least one of the other three main political parties. I was informed that the previous count for the county council elections had welcomed just a handful of purple badge wearing guests, but this year that number was several times higher. What made this sudden shift all the more shocking was that no one I had spoken to that day on the doorstep had declared that they were voting UKIP.

So how did a party which had rested on the political side-lines only a few years before average around 26% of the vote around the country and win 150 seats? In nearby Eastleigh, UKIP managed to secure three out of the town’s seven seats, while they secured second place in all but one of Basingstoke’s divisions.

To make matters worse, UKIP achieved this by fielding a candidate (David Watson) who remained on holiday in Thailand, sent out just one leaflet, and did not even bother to knock on a single door. Generally, they did not deviate from their obsession with leaving the EU and for the most part ignored local issues. However, perhaps even more worrying is that two candidates were purple Tories (Harry Robinson and Philip heath), former Conservatives who were hung out to dry by their party, and have returned, ever so slightly disgruntled, for revenge.

Disillusion with mainstream political parties is perhaps the most obvious reason for UKIP’s success. Many merely see Westminster as the exclusive home of white, middle-aged male politicians who they believe presided over the economic downturn and failed to keep their promises. These feelings were heightened after the last general elections, when the Liberal Democrats fell short of adhering to the majority of their manifesto and were most notably lampooned for overseeing the raising of tuition fees.

This disenchantment has ultimately led to the rebirth of the protest vote. While door knocking in Eastleigh I came across numerous residents, who, regardless of their previous political affiliations, had voted UKIP in the recent by-election. The volume of these protest votes is not a completely uncommon mid-term occurrence, as the electorate can sometimes feel the need to complain when the game-changing general election is not in sight yet. However, in the past, protest votes usually went to one of the main parties not in government, so clearly they too are doing something wrong.

Going back to Eastleigh, I met several residents who had voted UKIP in the by-election who had never previously strayed away from Labour. Although UKIP failed to take a single Labour seat, they reduced the party’s majority in some areas, most noticeably David Milliband’s former constituency of South Shields. Although I later discovered that most of these former Labour voters went purple in temporary protest, I can’t help escape the feeling that perhaps Labour has left working class voters behind in the race to secure the coveted middle ground.

The Conservatives problems are more deep-rooted than simple anti-establishment feeling. Recently, the same-sex marriage bill exposed the slowly growing divide between the party’s right and centre, which has alienated many of the Conservatives more traditional supporters. In addition, the Prime minister’s delayed EU referendum has led many to question how serious he is about it, and whether he will simply use Europe as a bargaining chip come election time.

Personally, I think that one cannot ignore the importance of individual personalities. All three main parties lack a particularly captivating leader, and Nigel Farage has clearly capitalised on this gap in the market with his balance of eye catching quirkiness and grounded respectability. He reminds me somewhat of Boris Johnson in that both are essentially an act that can plead lunacy as soon as they step too far out of line.

It’s impossible to predict whether UKIP will hold up in the next general election or if the public will decide not to waste their vote for a protest. Regardless, all three main political parties will surely have been stirred into action by the recent county council elections.

Firstly, they should head straight for the jugular and dissect UKIP’s so far under-scrutinised policy. They must dispel the myth that leaving the EU is some miracle cure to Britain’s economic problems, and then move onto criticise the party’s proposed defence budget increases and indiscriminate tax cuts, both policies that would inevitably swell the country’s deficit.

Unfortunately, The Conservatives may be forced to bring forward their EU referendum, and will definitely have to repair the rift between the right and centre. Labour can represent both working and middle class voters, and should emphasize the fact that a protest vote for UKIP is essentially a vote for even more right-wing Tories. As for the Liberal Democrats, well, frankly I’m not sure that anyone can solve their problems.

“Free schools”: Basingstoke’s salvation?

“Cllr Ranil Jayawardena says too many children in the borough are being let down” was the title of an article which caught my eye in the Basingstoke Gazette last month. This point about the state of Basingstoke’s schools must be made, as, despite results in Northern Hampshire being above the National average, our town is still home to five underperforming secondary schools.

The obvious discrepancy between the poor state of education in many of Basingstoke’s institutes and other schools in the county raises the question as to what makes a good school, something which Cllr Jayawardena intends to answer in the first step of his three point plan, which calls for an independent commission to highlight the differences between schools performing at different levels. Unsurprisingly, the plan’s second point advises that pressure should be put on the relevant authorities to take notice of the research’s advice.

Somewhat more controversial however is the third step, which demands that groups should be assisted in setting up government funded “free schools”. This suggestion comes alongside proposals for the building of a 1,200 pupil “free school”, possibly on council owned land at Manydown.

Two “free schools” in Basingstoke, Costello and Robert May’s, have had some success, with 72% and 68% of their students respectively achieving at least five GCSE at grades A*-C , including maths and English. The fact that 102 planned free schools in the UK have been given the green light suggests that they have made some advances on a national level.

In many cases, “free schools” have been set up to deal with a lack of school places in specific areas. 88% of primaries were opened in areas with a severe need for additional places, while some schools, such as Ark Conway Primary Academy, were created to prevent children from having to travel far to attend a publically funded school.

However, most “free schools” are a reaction to what many parents perceive as underachievement in the public sector, and intend to provide a higher quality service that might give government institutions the wakeup call they need to compete. Many “free schools” also cater to a particular educational demand from its supporters, which frequently mean a greater focus on arts or sports. Interesting examples of specialised curricula include mandatory Latin in one school, and the teaching of transcendental meditation at Maharishi School.

However, despite the modest success of “free schools” in Basingstoke, institutes such as Costello are contrasted by the likes of Everest Community Academy, the worst school in the local area (according to GCSE results), despite the fact that it spent several million pounds on new facilities and was granted academy status.

One problem is that in many areas the so called “market” for education is already over saturated, yet 29 upcoming “free schools” are still being created in areas with over a 10% surplus of space. Hull is soon to be home to the £8 million Boulevard Academy, which promises to provide the city with 600 places, despite the area already having a 27.9% surplus of secondary school places. On the other hand, in areas which actually have a deficit of school spaces, “free schools” fail to provide as they are usually attempting to be as small as possible.

Perhaps most worrying of all is how questionable the quality of education in “free schools” actually is. The government has already identified 100 of its flagship “free schools” as being of some concern, while many others fail to provide the basic facilities promised in the first place. In London, 10 out of the 17 new “free schools” have been forced to teach from temporary sites.

The concept of being able to choose what your child learns is a tantalising one, and I can imagine that many a parent imagined practical curricula with no government approved waffle. However, the first thing that comes to mind after reading about many “free schools’” subjects is, “that’ll sure get you a job!”. It seems cold to focus on the future, especially when dealing with the education of young children, but schools still have to prepare their students for the real world, making sure that they are proficiently able in both maths and literacy. There is a distinct lack of balance in the teaching of many proposed schools, perhaps the epitome of which was a planned forest school, in which children would learn through nature and be taught creationism by evangelical staff.

What surprised me most about “free schools” is that despite being terribly inefficient economically, they have been promoted by a government which claims to me more financially savvy than the last. Many “free schools” cost between £10-£20 million yet do not attempt to cater to the maximum amount of young people as possible. Beccles Free School is one of the worst offenders, an institute with a capacity of around 40 which has spent £2 million.

Even worse than the “free schools” which are up and running are those which were shelved before being finished. Such failures include Bradford School and Rivendale Primary, who together lost the government over £350,000 without ever managing to teach a single pupil. Personally, I believe that the most worrying aspect of the “free schools” movement is the lack of control the government has over its own money. These institutes can pay teachers however much they want and allocate spending as they wish. Frankly, I’m worried by the opportunity that “free schools” represent for corruption, and would not be surprised to hear a scandal within the next year or so concerning embezzlement.

Additionally, if “free schools” sap local education funds, the government system will continue to suffer, even more so if privately operated schools can pull the best teachers away by offering higher salaries. What struck me recently was that if the government has the money to fund these new and expensive schools, then surely the same funds could be used to improve existing institutions rather than provide them with “competition”.

Aside from concerns over the quality of education and control over spending, there remains perhaps a more distressing point to be made against “free schools”. Apparently, just 9.4% of children in “free schools” receive their lunchtime meals without charge, a number well below the average in government institutes. What this statistic shows is that “free schools” primarily aid the wealthier middle classes, usually the same people who had the time and money to set them up in the first place.

What troubles me is that “free schools” could create a new type of class gap between those whose children go to institutes in an area where people can afford to set them up, and the less fortunate whose children have no access to them in the first place. And although parents have every right to teach their children the subjects they deem fit, I feel that a potential side-effect of “free schools” could be increased segregation, particularly with some of the fundamentalist religious schools that have been proposed.

I completely understand that Basingstoke needs better schools, and I fully agree with the first two points of Cllr Jayawardena’s plan. We need discover what’s wrong with the bad schools, what they’re doing right in the good ones, and then act on our findings. However, I can’t say that I approve of the third step, nor the plans for a “free school” in Manydown. These new institutes simply haven’t had enough success to be seen as a sure fire way to improve education in Basingstoke, never mind their financial implications. In many ways, the concept of “free schools” represents ideology over reality. If Michael Gove truly thinks that education can simply been turned into another of the current government’s beloved “free markets”, he is quite naïve. Pupils should not be pawns in an educational marketplace. I wish that I could come to a conclusion as to how we improve education in Basingstoke, but I am at least certain of one thing. “Free schools” aren’t it.

You’ve had a year, now stop grieving!

“It’s a very good policy, the public knows it’s a good policy” claimed Iain Duncan Smith, amidst a wave protests across the UK vaguely reminiscent of the 1980’s poll tax demonstrations. Most recently, 13,000 protestors took to the streets, with further demonstrations to be held in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff.

Despite the media frenzy that the government’s announcements caused, many still don’t quite understand the nature of the “bedroom tax”. It is in fact a cut of up to 25% in housing benefits for over half a million tenants on the housing register, based on what the government deems to be the wasting of potential bedrooms.

Yet why, according to the Work and Pensions Secretary, is the “bedroom tax” such a good policy? The conservatives claim that they can reduce spending on housing benefit, free up living space, and even encourage everyone to go get a job.

However, the policy is fundamentally flawed, and parties across the political spectrum should be able to see that. By saving what amounts to less than 2.5% of the annual housing benefit bill, families could lose more than twice that percentage of their income. One must also not forget the potential costs the government will face in the aftermath, due to potential increases in homelessness.

Moreover, the “bedroom tax” highlights another prejudice. In addition to believing that working class families live off the state, apparently the government also think that these households purposefully harbour vacant rooms. Since when do people pay for rooms they don’t need, especially when they are struggling to afford housing in the first place?

In Basingstoke, around 17.4% of housing can be classed as social, compared with less than 14% in other parts of Hampshire, so we should be especially concerned with the effects of the “bedroom tax” in our town. Over 1600 Sovereign and Sentinel households can expect to lose between £670 and £1800 per year, or face having to turn to the private market.

Unfortunately, this may be no alternative, as it’s estimated that a household in Basingstoke must have an income of over £20,000 per year if it wishes to enter the private market, an impossible feat for families on the register earning less than £15,000.

As is the case with many government cuts, it is families who will bear the brunt of the force. Any siblings of the same sex under 16 are expected to share, separated parents will have to pay for their visiting child’s room and university students must spend a certain amount of time at home for their childhood room not to be counted.

Simply consider these scenarios; what happens if a divorced parent is forced to move into smaller accommodation, only to find that their new home does not have the required space to provide weekend custody of their children? Secondly, does a child moved across town have to change schools if they can’t manage their new commute?

What makes the “bedroom tax” even more detrimental for Basingstoke however, is that the council had previously advised young families to take on slightly larger houses so that they would not have to move after each child, thereby forcing these households to make a costly U-turn.

After families, Basingstoke’s disabled people are most vulnerable to the incoming “bedroom tax”, so it’s important not to forget that our town is home to over 3,500 claimants of Disability Living Allowance and an equal number of Incapacity Benefit recipients. The main disadvantage with the cut is that it fails to recognise the need for some disabled people to have their own room, whether to hold a piece of medical equipment or just have uninterrupted rest.

Unintentionally, the government have also succeeded in creating what they deem to be an acceptable grieving period by allowing bereaved families one year before their deceased loved one’s room is taxed. That’s one year to move on (perhaps literally) or pay up.

Personally, I find that the most shocking aspect of this whole affair is that in a democratic system which should reflect the desires of the people, the government are deliberately flying in the face of public outrage. Bring up your search engine of choice, enter the phrase “bedroom tax”, and you’ll see just how heavily opinion is weighted against the cut. It’s puzzling how the government can be so careless as to how they are perceived in an age where PR has such a significant effect on politics.

To conclude, I frankly believe that the phrase “bedroom tax” is too dignified a name for a cut targeted on the poorest in society, which, despite intending to free up living space, somehow forgets wealthier renters with rooms a plenty. To be honest, whether the under occupancy charge is classed as a tax or a cut barely matters in the first place, as its effects will be just the same.

Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that only a single Liberal Democrat backed the “bedroom tax”, that there is discontent in the Conservative party, and that people have gone into the open to demonstrate. Is it not ironic that a cut which will force many people out of their homes has driven people onto the streets in protest?