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Frankly, my Darling, you’ve got it all wrong
NEW Labour is dead. Old Labour is back. It’s back to tax and spend. These were the headlines on Tuesday following Chancellor Darling’s emergency pre-budget report.
To some extent the pundits got it right. But not quite.
It all depends on what is going on in Darling’s mind.
If he desires to introduce more sweeping measures but feels it is more prudent to stay his hand for a short while then New Labour may be transformed into something else – enough to win back the traditional Labour voter.
It isn’t what Darling set down in the pre-budget report but what he omitted to do.
He could have engineered a giant housing programme run by local authorities. This would have given a boost to the ailing construction industry. He could have. But he didn’t.
He could have saved billions by abandoning the controversial Trident and ID programmes. He could have. But he didn’t.
He could have helped the elderly by raising pensions to European levels. He could have. But he didn’t.
All the signs are that Obama is much more serious about the creation of jobs in the face of rising unemployment.
Unless Darling is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, it looks as if Darling will stumble along as the crisis worsens.
If we neglect our social services, how can we expect it to function?
TO a large extent social service workers have become scapegoats following the horrific death of Baby P.
After so many visits and examinations involving social workers, police and medical staff, why wasn’t the baby put in care?
Public opinion seems pretty certain that is what should have happened.
But in social services you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
It seems that in recent years the emphasis has been on keeping babies with their parents, a reversal of previous policies.
This week we reveal how Camden’s social services have been criticised for wrongly placing a teenage girl in care.
There seems little doubt that in this case Camden acted unwisely.
The rules weren’t followed. An error was made.
But the original decision reveals the extent to which social workers find themselves walking the tightrope.
In the storm of public debate over Baby P it is being forgotten that social services are badly funded by the government, that social workers are underpaid, that there are too few of them, that they are overworked.
It is a wonder, in these circumstances, that there have not been more tragic deaths. |
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