Harriet Harman: If you're middle class, you can't work here
Simon Heffer wonders if Miss Harman is modelling herself on Stalin with her latest attempts to remove Britain's class divide.
With all the zeal of one born into upper-middle-class comfort – she is, after all, the niece of an earl – Harriet Harman is setting out to remove Britain's class divide . She has done her bit by marrying a prominent trade unionist; though the gilt went off that particular piece of gingerbread when she contrived to send one of her children to a school miles from her home to get a decent education.
However comical it may seem, Miss Harman thinks she has a chance of being the next leader of the Labour Party. Those who want to accept this increasingly poisoned chalice know they must grease up to Labour's somewhat neglected core vote of disadvantaged working-class people and the hard Left. Miss Harman does it by saying she will ensure that working-class people have the same advantages as middle-class ones.
She is going to outline this doctrine in a speech to the Fabians on Saturday. However, she has intimated that public bodies will have a duty placed on them to ensure favourable treatment for working-class people. How that will be implemented and policed beggars comprehension. No doubt some minion is drawing up a prole index that will have to be consulted by all public sector employers to ensure that they have their quota of people from council houses, people without GCSEs, clients of social workers, ex-convicts and people with Asbos. It can only be a matter of time before employment according to social class (or social disadvantage) rather than merit is forced on the private sector: and under Miss Harman's Single Inequalities Bill we can expect it will soon be illegal to call anyone a prole too.
Alan Milburn, cynically brought into Mr Brown's increasingly desperate circle, had laid the ground for some of this by complaining it was unfair that middle-class youngsters found internships whereas working-class ones, lacking the contacts and the qualifications, did not. We are not far, on that analysis, from Mr Milburn saying that the Duke of Devonshire has rather too much grouse shooting, or that Roman Abramovich keeps Chelsea FC too much to himself, and that all these things should be shared around.
Let there be no doubt why there is so much social immobility. It is Labour's choice. The Wilson government's decision in 1965 to abolish grammar schools removed the most effective way yet devised to haul people out of poverty. It institutionalised a lack of ambition and of aspiration, and has cruelly denied the chance to millions to reach their potential. The comprehensive system, while it has occasional jewels, has largely dumbed down education and achievement.
And for all their bragging about "taking children out of poverty", Labour's welfare state has suffocated aspiration for many poor people. It does not ease them out of poverty; it traps them in it. Do not misunderstand me: I want a welfare state for those who through no fault of their own are on hard times, and I want it to be generous. However, the present arrangements encourage fecklessness among those who could work and could do better, but choose not to.
If Labour makes life sufficiently appalling for the middle classes they too will cease to see the point of working hard. They will pay less tax and contribute less to society. There will be less money to look after Labour's people, and fewer opportunities too. Stalin tried an extreme version of what Miss Harman is now suggesting; and just look at how fondly history remembers him.
Don’t be vague about Hague, he’s good news
On the rare occasions when Dave makes a good call it is important to praise him, just in case it encourages him to continue to think sensibly about the multiplicity of other problems still facing the Conservative Party.
His anointing of William Hague as his de facto deputy leader was one such intelligent move, even if it does represent a hobnailed boot in the kisser for his former best friend George Osborne. Mr Hague was a pretty poor leader of his party, but that was a decade ago, and his stature has risen immeasurably since. I wish he were leader, for I think he would make a sensible and decent prime minister. If he is to have more power and influence now, so much the better for the Tories. Mr Hague ought also to be shadow chancellor, Little George having shown conclusively that he can’t begin to hack it; but I suspect he is too much of a good sort to ask outright for the job. I just hope his pals are doing it for him.
Shriti the Shriek is the business for Brown
There have been howls of outrage at Baroness Vadera’s technically correct, but politically insane, remark that she could see one or two “green shoots” of recovery. Lady Vadera is not popular with anybody, it seems, except Gordon Brown, and this provided an opportunity for the legions who loathe her to start digging her grave. She does come with the merit (for all her other faults) of having been a great success in life before being tempted to Westminster.
Mr Brown is attacked for putting people in the Lords to act as ministers but, given the almost complete absence of talent in the Commons, I don’t blame him. It was inspired to appoint one of only two sensible bankers in Britain, Mervyn Davies, as banking minister. Using the Lords in this way is to the country’s good. All we need now is for my colleague Jeff Randall to become Chancellor.
Beware – accident-prone speed camera at work
One of my readers, like me, drives each morning past the speed camera at the bottom of the M11 in north-east London, and like me has noticed the number of accidents it causes. He made a freedom of information request and found that in the five-and-a-half years before it was installed there were fewer accidents and casualties than in the same period after its installation.
My correspondent finds it amusing that this camera is run by “The Essex Casualty Reduction Partnership”, which seems to have a case to answer under the Trades Descriptions Act. The money raised hasn’t been disclosed for “operational reasons”. Police admit there have been more accidents, which they blame on “drivers braking”. No doubt they would rather we didn’t, so the cash register could ring more.
The thought police get their teeth into Harry
I think we can all agree on the bad manners and bad taste of calling someone a “Paki”, though since Prince Harry’s lapse, I have had several messages from ex-servicemen describing even more unkind and savage nicknames by which they or their comrades were known during rough years serving the Colours. What I find scarcely less nauseating is the barely concealed, self-righteous glee with which solemn, boot-faced toadies of the politically correct establishment queued up to condemn the Prince. How clearly it demonstrates that we have advanced far down the road that George Orwell predicted, when we fear the knock from the thought police as much as so many fellow Britons clearly do. Prince Harry serves his country in a way few of his detractors would have the guts to do. Let’s keep some perspective.
English cricket is on a sticky wicket
As English cricket recovers from the Kevin Pietersen debacle, and a success-free tour of India, its aristocracy hopes to be reconfirmed in office. Giles Clarke, who chairs the England and Wales Cricket Board, is standing for re-election, and nominations for the post close on Monday. At time of writing, no one is opposing him. Mr Clarke takes credit for the ECB’s “decisiveness” in sacking Pietersen as captain of the team, and good for him. But much else that has happened over the past two years, not least the handling of the threat from 20-20 cricket to the traditional game and the ghastly, relentless pursuit of money at all costs, has been less impressive.
As the Labour Party has shown, uncontested leadership elections are not always for the best.
I hope Mr Clarke won’t get a free pass.
Spinning, spinning – higher and higher
Quangos and public bodies spent 25 per cent more on public relations – that’s spin, to you and me – in the 12 months to last March than in the previous year. When we think of the client state, and the army of people doing pointless jobs at public expense, we should think of no finer example. The figures – £1 billion on seeking to con the public and make the Government look good – would be shocking if the country were awash
with cash. In times like these, it is scandalous. On the day they were published, Lord Jones, the former trade minister, told MPs that he was “amazed” that so many civil servants who deserved the sack didn’t get it, and that “the job could be done with half as many”. Could Gordon Brown, who appointed Lord Jones and rated his expertise, tell us why he isn’t taking this excellent advice?
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