Back in the 1970s at a Co-op Party conference, I asked Frank Allaun, an
MP with good left-wing credentials and a passionate interest in housing
(Was he a junior minister?) why Labour councils, supported by our Labour
government were building the socially disastrous (and expensive)
high-rise
flats. He replied with the expected "homes for the people" stuff. We
all now know the score after many of these ill considered places have
met
their untimely demolitions. But I was never quite sure whether he or
his colleagues in the Government did.
But Bob Mellish has recently set the record straight. He was PPS to one
of the housing ministers at that time. Apparently, at one opening
ceremony for one of the housing horrors the minister said "We are
building
the slums of tomorrow." Bob asked why the minister didn't do anything
about it. "Because that would be fighting against progress".
So even the minister knew but could not do much to slow the juggernaut:
It was left to collapse under its own weight.
But today's question is different. Can we ask if ministers really
believe
that if we give everybody degrees we will get all the jobs in the
world.
A crude and imprecise question but it is one most people understand.
They know that "reskilling" a few single parents does not create any new
permanent jobs. The most it will do is get them a job that someone else
will not. And what most people want now is more emphasis on job
creation
and rather less emphasis on an education and training system that has
lost its way.
My question to Frank Allaun was one I had heard a few people voice but
today's question is on every thinking person's lips.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Posted to 3way, a service of Nexus. http://www.netnexus.org/
Hosting and email provided by new media consultants On-Line Publishing