IS COMPULSORY SUPPORTED HOUSING FOR YOUNG PARENTS AND THEIR BABIES SUCH A BAD IDEA?
There was an interesting debate today on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show about the proposed centres for young parents. This had Erin Pizzey strongly supportive of the measure, and Jane James for the Socialist Party arguing against compulsion. They both made some good points, and Jane came over very well - compassionate and knowledgeable.
The debate followed Gordon Brown’s suggestion during his conference speech yesterday that 16 and 17 year old mothers in receipt of benefit would be required to be housed in communal “Foyers”. There is some confusion here because the Prime Minister said this would be instead of “giving them the keys to a council flat”, but my understanding is that the majority of teen mothers stay living with their own parents anyway; and the charity Gingerbread points out that council tenancies are currently only given to people over 18 years old, and mothers younger than that are already housed in sheltered accomodation.
But referring to the proposed homes as “Foyers” is a useful clarification of what they would be like; because this term is currently used for the sheltered hostels for young people coming out of homelessness - often run by housing associations, and providing a very positive and empowering experience for their clients.
Pizzey is a living paradox. She had a deeply unhappy childhood herself, abused by both her parents, and emotionally manipulated by her mother; and she has some real insight into the ofttimes co-dependent nature of abusers and abused; and how abused women sometimes try to place the emotional responsibility onto their children. But she also deeply, deeply hated her father, a violent cruel monster who terrorised and traumatised his family, to the point where Pizzey once almost killed him to defend her mother.
It was these experiences that led Pizzey to found the first women’s refuge in 1971, and pioneer an international movement to provide safety and security for women to flee abusive relationships. However, politically Pizzey is relatively conservative, and is opposed to feminism, which she regards as an ideology that perpetuates false stereotypes about men – and thus reinforces division and misunderstanding.
Erin Pizzey’s argument is essentially that society should not avoid responsibility for stemming the growing numbers of early teenage pregnancies from mothers (and fathers) who are barely children themselves; and that many of these young mothers do not have the skills, or family support to be good parents. Both of these propositions are undoubtedly true.
One of the callers into the programme was a woman, now in her fifties who had been placed in a Mother and Baby unit as a teenager back in 1976; and she said it was a very positive experience, with a sense of solidarity and help and support. It is an awesome responsibility to care for a new baby, and young parents should be supported by the state. Erin Pizzey talked of one teenage mother who couldn’t cook at all or cope on her own, and so invited other teenagers to share with her – a highly unsuitable environment for a baby; and she told of another young mother unable to cope who had turned to prostitution. I am sure there are many other disturbing examples.
Jane James agreed that such mother and baby units could be a good thing, but that young mothers could be allowed the choice whether or not to use such facilities if there was sufficient state support available for them to choose to live on their own – health visitors, social workers, etc. Jane also made the excellent point that fear, ignorance and stigmatisation mean that many young pregnant women leave it too late to tell anyone they are pregnant, and therefore have to go through with a birth even though they would prefer an abortion.
Better access to family planning advice, free contraception without questions being asked, a less moralistic social climate and greater self belief and hope for the future from teenage girls would be the best ways to counter unwanted teenage pregnancies. The test of the proposed Foyers would be whether they were developed in a context of stigmatisation, and moral panic; or whether they were genuinely empowering and supportive to give young mums independence, and the skills and aptitude for sucessful parenting. This is where the twin souls of Labour will be in competition - torn between a genuine desire for promoting equality and combatting poverty, but married to a failed and indefensible desire to promote social conformity through compulsion.
This is not an easy question. Anyone who works in Early Years will tell you how all too many pre-school children really are woefully failed by their parents, and thus by society. Children who themselves are unhappy, with low self-worth and culturally impoverished are not prepared for parenthood – and this is a typical profile for many a teenage pregnancy.
Anyone who is a parent will know how phenomenally challenging it is, especially to deal with the life change of having a baby in your life, and acquiring the complex skills necessary. It is also extremely hard to maintain your social connections with other friends who are not parents themselves, which can lead to young parents in particular being vulnerable and isolated.
It is not self-evidently wrong to ensure that teenage parents who do not have adequate family support should benefit from the collective solidarity of a supervised Mother and Baby home that will provide them with the practical skills, and help, necessary to start life as a parent. It is not self-evidently wrong for society to regard welfare entitlement as a social contract, so that teenage parents on benefit should be required to take the support that is available, rather than struggle without help, to the detriment of themselves and their child.
There is a genuine social problem here, and Gordon Brown’s proposal may be slightly ill-judged, but it is not monstrous. It will be broadly popular amongst most people; which means that those who oppose this need to couch their arguments in terms that recognise that there is a social problem; and engage with practical alternative proposals.
More on this from Grace Fletcher-Hackwood and David Semple
It’s potentially a very good idea if done properly. But again it’s too late. Labour should have done this in its first term.
Same with Frank Field’s welfare reforms, which were wrapped up in social conservative language, but would actually have been far more benign that the old welfare system, never mind the horror that Purnell has inflicted on us.
Comment by attila — 1 October, 2009 @ 1:58 am
There is plenty of “supported housing” for people with mental health problems. Much of it is little better than a sh*t-hole. How will this be any better?
Comment by Hospital Worker — 1 October, 2009 @ 3:17 am
Interesting post, though I think Andy is quite wrong in even considering that such a measure implemented in a compulsory and blanket way could be progressive.
I think this proposal has some similarities to, here in Australia, the previous conservative government’s 2007 “intervention” into remote Indigenous communities, a policy carried on without amendment by the Labor government elected in November of that year, notwithstanding the eloquent “apology” to Indigenous Australia by the prime minister in early 2008.
This policy was in response to media reports of high rates of domestic violence and other symptoms of social dysfunction in outback communities. These were and are real, to considerably varying extents in different places, but exaggerated for political purposes - and of course the problems are decades old but only addressed by a dying tory government desperate for another wave of conservative populism to save it. It involved compulsory measures such as the banning of alcohol and drugs in all remote communities, the abolition of councils replaced by effectively martial law, and the “quarantining” of half of welfare payments in cards that can only be redeemed at major supermarkets (often expensive taxi rides away).
The Labor government has ignored the substantial evidence that the policy is a flop: a study showing alarming drops in health indicators, and many anecdotal stories about how much harder and more dysfunctional welfare quarantining has made life, such as a sad story that bureaucratic fiat had decreed that the cards could not be used at an agricultural show (where kids get to play with animals, go on rides etc) even though the organisers went out of their way to allow it. There’s a clear left/right split among Indigenous leaders on the issue, and relevant minister brushes off the evidence of failure. The Race Discrimination Act had to be suspended to implement it.
The similarities with the issue of this post are that some of the measures might be worthwhile, if they were voluntary and/or only applied in truly problematic cases. E.g. some communities have for a long time democratically decided to ban alcohol and other drugs, and it’s possibly useful to give some welfare recipients the option of income quarantining to help with their addiction or other problems (though my understanding from a counsellor in the field is that income management is generally not a good way to help with addiction) or in severe cases this might be compulsory for individuals (though if the kids were at severe risk the more important thing would probably to take them into care).
The take-home message is that we can trust bourgeois governments to, at best, provide partial and contradictory solutions to serious social problems.
Interestingly when I did group interviews with several Labor Party branches in 2007 for my PhD, there was some anguish over this question, with a general “something had to be done though we can’t trust the Libs to do it” attitude, with the expectation they’d be some changes in the glorious victory soon to come. I suppose they’re disappointed in this and other stuff besides.
On Labo(u)rism more generally, I don’t have a problem generally with the “nuanced” approach that Andy seems to have been expounding here for some time, but I don’t think he is attentive enough to the material basis of the pro-capitalist nature of social democracy, in the bureaucratic privileges Brahmin caste nature of the parliamentary layer and much of the union officialdom, and the crumbs from the imperialist table, and all that. I.e. while we want to pitch to the Labo(u)rist ranks in the appropriate way, we should have very low expectations of the leadership, so as not to be disappointed.
Comment by Nick Fredman — 1 October, 2009 @ 6:32 am
This is a very interesting post on a topic of interest to all.
Libertarian instincts clash with do-gooder humanitarian instincts; compelling anyone to do anything for his or her own good is never the sort of activity Libertarians support.
However, almost all SU readers will know - often at first-hand - of hideously disfunctional ‘families’ [the vile ‘family’ group which recently drove a woman to commit incendiary suicide with her retarded daughter being one such.]
One thought: if this idea catches on - which is improbable, given the life-expectancy of McBroon’s doomed government - can the dread words ‘eugenics’ and ‘compulsory sterilisation’ be far behind.
Ask any older Swede about the joys of State intervention in family life.
Comment by Jerboa — 1 October, 2009 @ 6:49 am
State invervention in the lives of citizens ought to be a very last resort.
Comment by Jim Smith — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:02 am
It reflects a subtle but very significant shift in Labour thinking generally: in the past, poverty was seen as a problem, now it’s the poor who are the problem. Combine that with the authoritarianism that has always been a part of Labour politics, and this is what you get: a potentially useful safety net turned into another means of control.
Comment by Francis King — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:32 am
STATE INTERVENTION IN HAPPY DO-GOODIE SWEDEN:
http://www.nkmr.org/english/child_prisons_in_sweden_by_siv_westerberg.htm
Comment by Jim Smith — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:36 am
#6
True Francis.
But this has always been there - rempeber how in “ragged Trousered Philanthropists”, the socialist character puts trams in the same category of parasite as the aristicracy.
But in another sense the parameters of the problem have genuinely changed.
Labour did carry out a social revolution of sorts in the Twentieth century in enormously reducing the class stratification of Bristish society, and empowering upward social mobility. This differentiation of working people, and a route out of poverty for those with the ability and willingness to conform, did create a certain “residualisation” of those left in poverty.
This is in some ways analogous to the experience of East Germany, where around 5% of the population simply opted out of society into passive rebellion, non-conformity and semi-criminality - described as “asocial” by the government, and its welfare professionals. NOt taking the opportunities that society did offer, and often choosing petty crime instead. Socialist expectation was that in a country that guaranteed full employment, and offered education and social advancement, then people would not choose to live in ignorance and squalor - but many still did.
(There is some Western mythology about the “police state” of the DDR, in that the vasy majority of “political prisoners” were actually “neighbours from hell” or guilty of the type of behaviour that gains people ASBOs in Britain today. It was young, unskilled men from this social group who were the most common category to flee to the West - and suprisingly high (over 20%) proportion of people who then wanted to come back to the DDR suggests that they didn’t find it any easier to cope in the BRD.)
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 9:31 am
The Guido Fawkes site and the BNP site claim that this is a fine example - yet another example - of the no-ideas-of-my-own One-Eyed Caledonian nincompoop stealing ideas from the British National Party.
Comment by Binkstein — 1 October, 2009 @ 9:52 am
Well, in terms of the damage they do to society and social cohesion, I feel it should be the rich and their children who are placed in supervised accommodation.
The best part of Brown’s speech was by far the beginning, when he gave a rousing litany of Labour’s achievements. I almost cheered.
Seamus Milne’s piece in today’s Guardian offers a superb analysis of why Brown’s turn away from the free market may have come too late.
Tony Woodley ripping up the Sun at the Conference yesterday was another great moment.
For the first time in years the Labour Party are starting to look and sound like the Labour Party again.
Muted applause, I noticed, was accorded the mention of Blair’s name by Brown in relation to the minimum wage. It seems as though the ideas and policies of old Labour have gained traction in a way that would have been inconceivable before the credit crunch hit.
Comment by John Wight — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:17 am
#10 Indeed JOhn
As the Daily Mirror reported:
The Labour Party need to do better though, still two days after the speech, they haven’t put that clip on you-tube.
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Yes, Andy, I agree.
I think the Sun’s decision to drop its support for Labour could actually galvanise the party, esp its base and core support.
Woodley ripping up the Sun may well be a definining moment, the symbolic end of the New Labour project and all of the opportunism and embrace of the free market that went with it.
Labour needs to get angry and unashamedly redistributive in its message.
The Sun’s arrogance and naked attempt to cosy up to the rich in this way could well backfire.
Let’s hope it does.
Comment by John Wight — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:33 am
The great expenses scandal, best epitomised by Hazel KitKat Blears, shows that NuLab has lifted 300+ Labour MPs out of poverty.
Comment by Binkstein — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Apparently (and sorry if this has already been mentioned) this policy is disturbingly close to the BNPs. What could be more depressing then a rudderless right wing Labour government mixing up disengenuous rhetoric about its solution to the crisis (which effectively involves bending over backwards not to offend those responsible for it) whilst making concessions to the far right on race, immigration and crime.
Bloody awful. And then of course there was the beyond parody spectacle of Mandelson the knight in shining armour being cheered to the rafters…
Comment by johng — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:35 am
Peace in Northern Ireland has been achieved by the simple expedient of cajoling the nastiest people on both sides into a meaningless coalition and bribing them handsomely to grin at the camera.
Comment by Kenneth — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:36 am
#13
Of course, you’re absolutely correct. But things have changed and Labour is definitely shifted left in the aftermath.
Blears, Flint, D Milliband, etc., represent the New Labour careerism and free market turn that increasingly appears regressive, along with the Blair years.
With the credit crunch, and now with the Sun announcing its support for a new Thatcherite assault on collectivism, Labour has been unshackled.
A way to go, yes, but the signs are definitely there.
Comment by John Wight — 1 October, 2009 @ 10:39 am
#14
Apparently (and sorry if this has already been mentioned) JOhnG’s attitude is disturbingly close to the Tories. What could be more depressing then a rudderless left wing sect mixing up disengenuous rhetoric about its revolutionary solution to the crisis (which effectively involves echoing the same arguments as David Cameron) whilst making concessions to the far right by slandering Respect as “communalist”.
Bloody awful.
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Another example of NL’s authoritarian response to a symptom of their own making. It’s well worth repeating the fact that the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe is linked with the grotesque inequality that NL has overseen. If you’re life chances appear severely restricted, then the only thing to get some sense of purpose and emotional satisfaction is having a baby. Until that is changed with radical social and economic policies, it will remain thus. The idea that NL is now evolving slowly back to it’s pre-NL incarnation is complete fantasy and wish fulfilment - traditional social democracy has no place in the brave new world we’ve entered.
Comment by Doug — 1 October, 2009 @ 11:39 am
MORE ON THE NANNY STATE:
http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.com/
Comment by Kenneth — 1 October, 2009 @ 11:49 am
#8 Well, how far “social mobility” is an achievement of Labour, and how far it simply reflects a more rational use of labour power under advanced capitalism is debatable. It has happened throughout the developed capitalist world, under all shades of government. But even at their best “social mobility” and “equality of opportunity” mean nothing more than the equal right to be unequal. Socialism, “reformist” or “revolutionary”, should not be about increasing “social mobility” - it should be about increasing social and economic equality. Greater equality would not in itself solve the problems of the social residue. But it would provide one of the essential preconditions for tackling them.
Comment by Francis King — 1 October, 2009 @ 11:59 am
“the ban on cluster bombs”
Here here. It’s the market fundamentalist Tories who make all those munitions and kill people. There’s many East Timorese, Serb, Kosovar, Iraqi and Afghan families who are greatly comforted by the fact that their loved ones were spared cluster bombs and instead gently put to rest by New Labour’s exciting new range of non-toxic, biodegradable, carbon neutral, multicultural and socially inclusive Peace Products (TM).
Comment by Nick Fredman — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
Gulags for young parents - yay!
On an inappropriately frivolous note; I recently saw a job as “Teenage Pregnancy Implementor” advertised. I was tempted to apply.
Comment by Charles Dexter Ward — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
Alliterative and nasty
but funny
http://order-order.com/2009/09/29/exclusive-browns-gulags-for-slags-policy-taken-from-bnp/
Comment by Rover — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
#20 Francis
Yeah, but of you sact your mind back to the early 1960s, Britain was commonly perceived to be a society where rigid saocial stratification was an obstacle to progress, and this was a clear dividing line between the Douglas-Home and Wilson governments. So Llabour was the nidwife of introducing social mobility to bring Britain closer to international norms.
Now, social mobility is not what socialism is about; but neither are we in favour of caste privilege, and removing snobbery and hereditary power and infleunce is progressive.
But my observation was more factual than argumentative. There has been a change in society so that poverty is residualised, rather than locking whole towns and communities into it, as happened in the 1930s.
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
“It is not self-evidently wrong for society to regard welfare entitlement as a social contract”
You’re on dangerous ground here Andy.
It’s complete bullshit, whether self-evident or not, in the case of child raising. Pregnancy, birth and child rearing involves thousands of hours of labour (and not just the labour bit), that is, self-evidently, socially useful. Unconditional social support for this effort is a right, not a privilege (with whatever special measures necessity for truly problem cases, which may or may not include a greater proportion of young parents). It’s also a necessity for late capitalism, under which it’s very difficult for families to survive on a single wage. A fact recognised by the actually quite generous parental benefits and “baby bonus” implemented by the recent conservative government, even if they had to disguise fortnightly payments as tax cuts for ideological purposes.
And the historical experience of “mutual obligations” in both the US and Australia is of a relatively mild version implemented by the respective liberal parties (Clinton and Keating in the 90s), made much more punitive and privatised by the succeeding conservative governments. Something to consider in regard to this proposal.
Comment by Nick Fredman — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
“Pregnancy, birth and child rearing involves thousands of hours of labour (and not just the labour bit), that is, self-evidently, socially useful. Unconditional social support for this effort is a right, not a privilege (with whatever special measures necessity for truly problem cases, which may or may not include a greater proportion of young parents).”
But it is the existance of “problem cases” and the necessary social support hat this debate is about, and in particular what degree of compulsion society can legitimately use to protect the child from bad parenting.
The societal responsibility to the child needs to come into play, as well as considering the liberty of the parents to make their own choices.
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
“But it is the existance of “problem cases” and the necessary social support hat this debate is about, and in particular what degree of compulsion society can legitimately use to protect the child from bad parenting.”
Er, no it’s not, unless you think all 16-17 parents are problem cases and will inevitably be bad parents, as the proposal is compulsory. Analogously work for the dole that is compulsory and poorly paid, which we have thanks to “mutual obligation”, is very different from work for the dole that is voluntary and reasonably paid.
By the way, as social problems go, people having children at older ages is probably worse, in that this has significantly increased the rates of down syndrome in children and gestational diabetes in mothers, the latter leading to to more types 1 and 2 diabetes and obesity in children, who are are then more likely to get gestational diabetes, etc etc. I just proofed a literature review of studies on the latter issue, it’s quite a biggie, but I suppose not as soft and useful as a political target.
Comment by Nick Fredman — 1 October, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
ALARMIST STUFF FROM AMERICAN EXTREMISTS:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=111475
Comment by Jimmy Riddle — 1 October, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
What young parents need most is support, and lots of it. If the support mechanisms (health visitors etc.) are working properly, the problem cases will normally be picked up in good time. Whether it then makes sense to concentrate them all into institutions is another debate. My hunch is that, in most cases, that would probably make a bad situation worse.
Comment by Francis King — 1 October, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
OPTIMISM:
Having these young women living semi-communally would help their self-esteem no end.
PESSIMISM:
Shoving them all together would create a convenient girlfriend farm for drug dealers and other lowlifes.
Comment by Janey — 1 October, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
#30
the pessmism is misplaces I think, becasue this would be sheltered housing, with full time, professional adult supervision .
Comment by Andy Newman — 1 October, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
Last nite a mate of mate ask me if there going to be a revolution and in replay i said if many come without i help ,
It come across to me that there is a real mood for change out there and it just needs to be trap into
Comment by steelcityred — 1 October, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
Why can’t these Foyers be linked to schools/colleges? - especially ones that have Child Care qualifications and Health and Social Care. For all its efforts on wrap around education school are still too concerned with the students who fit into more ‘traditional’ moulds of what a ’student’ should be. Schools should aim to be truly inclusive, making sure that it is at the centre of community development.
Every school should have a school nurse however all schools should have access to on site lower year child care professionsals (and on that note why aren’t dentists and lawyers based in schools?)
Comment by Stupot — 1 October, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
If there is to be adequately funded sheltered housing and support for young vulnerable people fine.
Surely the point is that for thousand’s of hopeful readers and viewers of the media who for a split second thought that Brown stating that a minority in society sought rights without responsibilities HE WAS GOING TO ATTACK THE CITY/RICH!
But no, he lays into the yoot instead. Would have played well with the centre right leaning WC but they are already lost to Labour this time around.
Comment by FFLP — 1 October, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
I thought this was the Government’s flagship policy in regards to young mothers?
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social_exclusion_task_force/family_nurse_partnership.aspx
Is Gordon not on message?
Erin Pizzey? You are having a laugh? Ms Pizzey has been attacking the refuge movement for years and been putting about her theory that women are addicted to domestic abuse. So now in the 21st century her position is to put young women in compulsary mother and babies home!!
I am incredulous!!!
Comment by Cat — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
Francis wrote
But even at their best “social mobility” and “equality of opportunity” mean nothing more than the equal right to be unequal
You make it sound like you disagree. There is nothing ethically wrong with inequality per se only what is an acceptable level of inequality in any given society.
Inequality means fairness-for example it wouldnt be fair for the person who didnt work to receive the same pay as the person who did work? Likewise it wouldnt be fair to pay someone without a degree the same pay for doing the same job as someone with a degree?
Comment by Anon — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:24 pm
If we lived in a functional society based on love and compassion for our fellow human beings, and not the relentless pursuit of profit, then communal support for all mothers, regardless of age, would be an integral part of that society.
But we don’t live in that kind of society, you could call it a socialist society, we live in an dysfunctional one that has been completely corrupted by the profit motive.
The Thatcherite ideologues that continue to remain at the heart of Gordon Brown’s Labour government are completely committed to the introduction of the private sector into the administration of benefits in the UK.
So when Gordon Brown says;
“From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes. These shared homes will offer not just a roof over their heads, but a new start in life where they learn responsibility and how to raise their children properly. That’s better for them, better for their babies and better for us all in the long run.”
The first thing anyone who remains committed to a free public health service delivered at the point of need and has been fighting to defend that for the past 25 years is going to ask is;
“Who gets the contract ?”.
Because there is one thing that the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been absolutely committed to and that is the opening up of the benefits system and national health health service to the private sector.
Is communal living a good thing ?
Yes of course, we are socialists after all.
But that’s not what’s on offer.
It’s network of compulsory adult supervised care homes for girls of 16 and 17 years of age who have children.
Will it ever happen ?
No, of course not, the Brown Labour government is heading for oblivion.
In that respect the whole sorry story is like a repeat of the dog days of the Major government as it thrashed around for people to blame, funnily it was young mothers then too.
Some things never change.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 1 October, 2009 @ 8:42 pm
“There is some Western mythology about the “police state” of the DDR, in that the vasy majority of “political prisoners” were actually “neighbours from hell” or guilty of the type of behaviour that gains people ASBOs in Britain today.”
That was what the Stasi were about then. I bet they helped old ladies across the road too.
Comment by daggle — 1 October, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
#37 I agree with most of what Eddie is saying. But what I also would say is on whose terms is this based on? Will it be on the terms of the young pregnant woman? I somehow doubt it after what NL has done with its social authoritarian agenda. One aspect re housing would have been to have developed a progressive social housing policy where people could decide for themselves what they wanted and how they want to live rather than these institutionalised (because that is what it smacks of) homes. It looks Victorian, it looks like woman are being punished for getting pregnant as a teen. And if they refuse the take-up of these places will their benefits be sanctioned? This is only guess work but NL’s MO is about penalisation and sanctions.
And frankly, is it really an amazing moment witnessing bureaucrat Woodley ripping up the Sun? Shame he couldn’t find the same gusto for demanding that Labour repeal the hideous anti-trade union laws. Also, it shows how NL relied on the right-wing populist media (indeed Milne is right when he describes it as a Faustian pact) and hasn’t shown the same shock reaction of traditional Labour voters running away. It shows NL is more upset at being dumped by Rupert Murdoch et al than by their core voters!
And the comment at no. 2 “There is plenty of “supported housing” for people with mental health problems. Much of it is little better than a sh*t-hole. How will this be any better?”
And having lived in one of those ’supported homes’ (institutionalised patronising load of crap)I ask the same question.
And don’t get me on Erin Pizzey…. Her bk Prone to Violence is one of the most reactionary offensive crap I have read on DV. It’s a shame as ‘Scream Quietly…’ was a grounding bk.
My own views on the subjective of ’supportive housing’ for young pregnant women.
http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/a-tale-of-social-exclusion/
Comment by HarpyMarx — 2 October, 2009 @ 11:25 am
I’ve followed this debate through and it seems quite predicably polarised. I’ve no doubt that many young people end up having children before they are really ready for them. For young working class women in particular, in a society that offers limited opportunities and status for them, who pehaps live in uncomfortable, stressed out conditions at home, the status of being a mother (highly regarded in bourgeois society) probably sometimes outweighs the stigmatisation encouraged by the same society of being a teenage single mother.
In any debate on the issue two things have to be weighed up and balanced - the rights of the mother not to be discrminated against or scapegoated by society on grounds of age and the rights of the child to the best start in life. A libertarian approach on one end of the equation may have to be balanced in some cases by a state interventionist approach on the other, but the criteria for that has to be the interests of the child, not pandering to right wing populist prejudice.
In my view, Brown and New Labour were simply playing to the Daily Mail/Telegraph gallery with this, dog whistling up the old saw about teenage girls getting pregnant to jump the housing queue. On the other hand, I hardly think it opens up the door to eugenics and forced sterilisation as one poster suggested.
In a socialist society we would probably want to have a good voluntary support scheme for young mums and parents, and that might include supported accomodation in some cases. If we agree that teenage pregnancies are a bad thing then surely a two pronged progressive social democratic approach to reducing the incidence of teenage pregnancy is needed: better sex education in schools and easier access to contraception and emergency contraception for teenagers, linked to a the creation of a more equal and socially just society where more young women can see other opportunities to develop their personalities and status as individuals without recourse to having children so early in life. Finally, a program of building serious quantites of social housing available at affordable rents for all those who wanted it would remove the existence of any council queue to ‘jump’.
In cases where parents are abusive, cruel or seriously neglectful towards their children then the state has to have the right to take those children into care for their own protection, but that is a different issue.
On a related point that seems to have popped up on this thread in postings from John, Andy and others, I don’t think anyone should be getting carried away by the strange and startling appearance of some left rhetoric at the Labour Conference, or at Brown’s posturing and hypocritical speech.
New Labour know the election is lost and are now primarily concerned with damage limitation and holding onto what they can in their heartlands - thus the red ties and Old Labour rhetoric are dusted down and brought out of the cupboard for display. That’ll be forgotten as soon as we are into the next electoral cycle and Labour have to think about winning votes in Daily Mail land again.
Let’s not forget the record of New Labour that Gordon Brown didn’t list. PPP/PFI schemes that have engorged the rich and hobbled public finances for a generation, the tick box managerialist bureaucracy that strangles public services, higher levels of inequality than for two generations, pension holidays for big companies that have put the pensions of millions of working people at risk, attacks on benefits, an increase in faith schools and creationist teaching, privatisation of air traffic control and planned privatisation of royal mail, the housing and credit boom that directly led to the banking crisis and recession, and the subsequent trillion pound rescue of capitalism which we will all pay for in cuts in services, wages and pensions over the next five years, and of course not forgetting the bending of the knee to US foreign policy interests, trident, the Iraq war, the continuing military folly in Afghanistan…
The time for Gordon Brown to talk about a crisis of ideology and Tony Woodleigh to be ripping up the Sun was a good number of years ago.
The left needs to be building something new, fresh and vital that leaves the mistakes of the twentieth century behind it and is capable of garnering the support required to build a libertarian, socialist and green society in the 21st century. Old Labour is as demised as the proverbial Norwegian Blue and deserves to be left to rest in peace. The left should look forward, not back.
Steve Arnott.
Comment by steve arnott — 3 October, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
Brown is npt distinguishing between parents who need or want this type of housing or whether children need the protection of ’sheltered’ or ’step’ accommodation. The deciding factor for Brown is that they are dependent on the taxpayer, i.e. the poor ones.
As far as helping the housing lists then its obvious that all this would do is introduce a two year freeze, as the same parents would get a council flat when they are eighteen and the numbers would be the same two years on.
Also, the media is very good at reminding us of the headline stat that we have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in europe, they are less keen on revealing that the rate, as a general trend, is falling and has been for decades, and the average age for women to have their first child is rising.
I have a neighbour who is 17 and has a wee boy. She is fine, gets support from friends and family, but Labour would evict her into a ‘home’ whether she needs it or she wants it, simply because she is on state benefits (very small amounts to boot).
It is indefensible and reprehensible.
Comment by Anonymous — 9 October, 2009 @ 12:05 am