| |
Real answers to economic crisis will be found in public debate
FISCAL injections into the economy are important if the effects of the recession are to be softened. But, quite inescapably, the question remains: What will be done to create jobs in the face of quickly growing dole queues?
This may have been easier to answer in the old days when Britain had a mixed economy where several industries were owned by the state.
It would have been easier, for instance, to absorb laid-off workers in the rail, steel, gas or electricity industries even if this had led to temporary over-employment. Privatisation, forced through by Margaret Thatcher, closed down that option.
Significantly, the decision of the building company JCB to lay off several hundred workers on Monday highlights the tsunami facing the construction industry today.
Gordon Brown’s initiatives flown this week do not – in our opinion – appear to amount to much. Some graduates may be helped by some kind of part-paid “working experience” but that is all.
Can local authorities help? To a limited extent, the answer is yes.
The Town Hall coalition hopes the construction of the new school in Swiss Cottage will help to do its bit. But aren’t there other ways Camden council can help? In Islington, for instance, an idea is being floated to enable the council to act as a kind of lender to help families who have fallen behind in their mortgage payments. Several million pounds put into the scheme could help hundreds facing difficulties albeit on a short term basis.
Other councils in the North are playing with the same idea and, apparently, introducing anti-debt programmes and setting up credit unions. Westminster are putting aside £1m to help youngsters find jobs.
In substantial terms, however, we come back to the idea this newspaper has been propounding for several months, that a strategic part solution to the jobs crisis would be for the government to set aside its suspicions and lack of confidence in local authorities – a state of affairs that has bedevilled central and local government since the 1980s – and fund them sufficiently to implement a giant housing programme.
Imagine the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be available on local authority construction sites throughout Britain.
Utopian? Impractical? Not if you consider large council building programmes were a feature of both Tory and Labour governments of the 1950s and 1960s.
The Lib-Dem “chancellor” Vince Cable is putting forward a not-dissimilar idea. We are pleased that Camden’s Lib-Dem housing “minister”, Chris Naylor, is a keen advocate of this approach (see Letters, page 14). Similarly, the plea for action from Ines Newman and others (below) is timely.
Presumably, they want to start a public debate – something that is long overdue – and are organising a public meeting on January 26.
Real answers to the crisis facing both the national and local economy will only be found through public debate.
|
 |
|
|
| |
| |
