Thread 46 Sunak - don't rain on our parade

[DuncinToffee]

He called it, countdown to 4th July

Previous thread
www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5079131-thread-45-sunak-remove-one-letter-and-tell-his-future?page=40&reply=135513708

Figures uncoveredd_ by YMCA reveal the
true extent of cuts to youth services funding by local authorities in England and Wales since 2010, with an allocation of just under £429m in 2018/19, compared to £1.4bn in 2010/11 – a real terms decline of 70%.

www.ymca.org.uk/outofservice

Johnson & Dorries launch National Youth Guarantee to access trips from home and extracurricular activities. But the money was unspent and the budget cut.

As part of the policy, the Government had pledged to build or refurbish up to 300 youth clubs in the most deprived areas, hire 500 new youth workers and give 5,000 young people the chance to be mentored between 2022 and 2025.
But questions are being raised over whether the targets will be missed, with only 44 youth clubs given funding for renovations so far, over two years into the scheme.

inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-nadine-dorries-youth-fund-cut-under-rishi-sunak-3061952

You are spot on itsgettingweird - they went hunting for a Mail/Telegraph worthy headline - if they were serious about supporting youth services they'd concentrate on the existing policies.

Cheap & nasty culture wars politics yet again.

Has Laura K had her weetabix this morning. She did a better than normal job of holding Cleverly to account.

Wasting £2.5b on what someone on twitter described as 'mandatory Duke of Edinburgh without the walking'

Jim Pickard has point out that it would paid with money from the Levelling Up fund - so another policy they've abandoned

x.com/pickardje/status/1794484540376813690?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

Asked how they can pay for their National Service plan, James Cleverly says the Government can raise £6 billion by cracking down on tax avoidance.

So what have they been waiting for since 2010? #bbclaurak

x.com/adambienkov/status/1794643649005052171?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

https://x.com/implausibleblog/status/1794648104047620261

Ayesha Hazarika, "National service is a gimmick.. We have a country that has so many systemic problems. Whether it's fruit picking.. People in our care service"

"A lot of that is because of Brexit"

"Troop numbers have fallen.. This idea of sticking plasters.. trying to get young people to solve these structural problems" @ayeshahazarika

"We need an army that is properly paid and properly resourced.. We need fruit pickers.. Agricultural workers.. The idea of getting young people to fix these problems is not the answer"

I know you are right. It won't happen and it's a big turn off for many many voters.
Bloody annoying that yet again our young people are talked down and used by an ailing government.

If they have £2.5 billion to spare on this stupid idea then you know why not put it into education?

Word Cloud on Sky News

I love the idea that Sunak has sat around discussing with his team what is wrong with the country and the conclusion he is come up with is that 12 weekends volunteering for rich kids and National Service for the rest will solve everything.

That's sure to sort out the NHS, water, roads and so on.

This is a good (if frustrating) read: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/24/punishment-election-tories-voters-lies?CMP=share_btn_url&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0BMQABHdK1oBv7LLceZ8OqS1djdEnHBY67tt4rkwPYmH_3zF0cMj25Z4W2xtJv9Q_aem_ASRVOHU8P_bI0i2aWfUd11mvFiQ2AXsqRZ0iRbuQGLl2LfDWb3I-58rYVBFeYrmiwSdKHxgezsToj_oL8E_NBO4x

Or bump up the SEN budget. Build some more SN schools.

Or bring back Sure Start.

James not so Cleverly

"Too many young people live in a kind of a bubble within their own communities," says James Cleverly.

"They don't mix with different viewpoints."

Here's a quick look at the diverse social outlooks of the current government.

I just watched Sunak's video heralding this and it's honestly frightening. He keeps saying dangerous, uncertain, security.

Why on earth is the strategy one of fear?? Frightening people into voting for you isn't a good look.

Or just do what they actually pledged to do and fund youth clubs and extracurricular activities for kids and young adults. Never thought I'd suggest Dorries was right but am willing to say on this she & National Youth Guarantee was!

DofE (which I am a fan of) is expensive to do - good walking boots and waterproofs and waterproof backpacks aren't cheap. I'd like to see some funding for that - for those that want to do it.

I don't watch the show but choose Trevor Phillips on Sky if anything.

Maybe the BBC are now not afraid of challenging the Tories because they won't be able to take revenge by not appearing or decriminalisation of the licence fee.

For reference, the £2.5bn annual cost of the Conservatives new national service policy is roughly twice as much as would be needed to return local authority spending on services for young people back to the level it was in 2010

x.com/nj_davies/status/1794615742576357756?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

For less than £2 billion a year, you could end the two-child benefit cap, which would lift 300,000 children out of poverty entirely – and reduce the depth of poverty for around 700,000 more.

x.com/jamesrbuk/status/1794634703817036158?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

If they genuinely wanted to do something positive for young people...

See Cleverly knows what he is talking about. It is bad when people just know people from their own bubble. Look where that got us.

Ooh! Compulsory free labour performed by our kids instead of by cheap Euro labour which we short-sightedly kicked out. Hurrah! Let them pick veg or put out fires. Or put on a uniform and play with guns. Education is wasted on the young, this will Make a Man of all of them.

DofE as an organisation has done quite a lot of work in the past few years on finding funding in order to widen access to the Award.

https://www.dofe.org/access-without-limits-funding/

There is more to be done for sure.

The main reason that DofE has got more expensive is that the support that local authorities provided 10+ years ago has disappeared and school teachers are far more reluctant to give up their time to be leaders and run expeditions than they used to be.

"The main reason that DofE has got more expensive is that the support that local authorities provided 10+ years ago has disappeared and school teachers are far more reluctant to give up their time to be leaders and run expeditions than they used to be."

Yes - that's the 70% cut in funding since 2010 in action.

There are 2 problems dovetailing here

• over 100 candidates have yet to be selected for the Tories
• Yet they are expected to defend on the doorstep policies they have had zero input into.

Bad luck if you were hoping to be a Tory candidate and don't like Rishis big idea then. Bearing in mind the Rishster hasn't even started yet.

Ds' old school always made sure to offer DoE to any of its young people who wanted to do it. So they were always very clear that finances should not be an obstacle. This despite the fact that it had a very high proportion of SIMD1&2 within its fixed catchment (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, ie the bottom 2 deciles, and Scotland doesn't have variable catchments - you have to make a placing request to go "out of catchment" which we did for ds

The Parent Council used to fundraise and has 2 separate funds: one the "School Fund" where the various departments would put forward cases for things that were "nice to have but not absolutely necessary" (and to be fair, the headteacher used to veto some suggestions, saying that she should be paying for that out of the school's own budget), which we would discuss and select from: and the other the "Achievement Fund", which the school used to help support students who couldn't otherwise afford to do something (eg DoE, certain optional school trips...) where we would get a broad outline of what was spent but not, for confidentiality reasons, on whom.

The NS thing is fuelling some very nasty ageism in MN this morning. Cheers Sunk.