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Cameron Watt: Five for the future

After a rollercoaster of a political year, Conservatives end 2007 in good cheer. Cameron continues to grow in stature and has established a healthy lead in the polls. By contrast, Brown’s bottling and balls-ups may have inflicted irreparable damage to the Prime Minister’s reputation and, ultimately, his prospects of winning a General Election.

With such a disillusioned and volatile electorate, even the most encouraging polling numbers leave no room for complacency among Conservatives. Looking ahead, what gives me greatest confidence for British democracy in general, and Conservative fortunes in particular, is the quality of people committed to serving in politics.

Of course there are many exceptional individuals serving already on the Conservative green benches. Their ranks will surely be swelled significantly after the next election from the impressive cohort of parliamentary candidates already selected. In my final column of the year, I hope you’ll indulge me in briefly highlighting (in alphabetical order) five exceptional people I hope and expect to make a major contribution to our party’s future. They are engaging personalities and high achievers who are excellent ambassadors for a modern, authentic and compassionate Conservative Party.

Graeme Archer

I first met fellow-Scot Graeme at CH’s blog awards. Since then, I have increasingly admired his intelligent, witty and humane writing here and on Platform 10, even if the illustrations from formal logic and science are sometimes beyond my grasp.

All activists need motivation and commitment wherever they are involved. That much more is needed in areas where the party struggles. Graeme has worked hard to take ground for the Conservatives in Hackney, as has Andrew Boff, whose Mayoral campaign Graeme threw himself into.

I am particularly grateful for Graeme’s wholehearted supported for Iain Duncan Smith and the CSJ. We agree that a renewed Conservative focus on vulnerable people and communities is not just right in itself; it is also an important part of a positive, uniting agenda for the whole party.

Cameron Watt: Destitute asylum seekers deserve dignity

At Christmas, we are encouraged to consider those less fortunate than ourselves. With parties to attend, presents to buy and cards to write, there is never much time to do this. However we may manage to part with a few coins for the Salvation Army carol singers, or even Send a Cow to Africa. One exceptionally vulnerable group whose plight will be almost completely overlooked this Christmas are the tens of thousands of destitute asylum seekers throughout Britain.

The Government has lost control of our borders; in recent years Britain has experienced an unprecedented and unsustainable level of immigration. Urgent action is clearly needed to bring immigration down to a more sustainable level. An obvious starting point is targeting a reduction in economic migration from countries outside the EU, and David Cameron has committed to explicit annual limits on non-EU immigration, set at a level substantially lower than the current rate.

Currently almost three-quarters of the approximately 25,000 asylum claims made each year are turned down. However urgency to regain control of our borders and reduce the rate of immigration must not be accompanied by an indifference to asylum seekers. A civilised country should ensure that they are treated humanely both while applications are being considered and during unsuccessful applicants remaining time in this country.

As Nick Spencer has written:

“The fundamental tension in asylum policy is between the moral imperative of welcoming the vulnerable and the judicial imperative of securing borders against the dishonest.”

Presently our asylum system is failing in both these tasks.

Cameron Watt: Lee Jasper has a lot of explaining to do

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice; he writes here in a personal capacity.

Andrew Gilligan is to be commended for his impressive Evening Standard investigation into Lee Jasper, Ken Livingstone’s equalities and policing czar. It is alleged that at least £2.5 million in City Hall money has been channelled to organisations controlled by Jasper, his friends and business associates.

One project of which Jasper is patron, Brixton Base, received a grant of £290,000 from the Mayor’s London Development Agency for ‘premises’, even though it was occupying a LDA-owned building at that time. Another £230,000 was given to make the project a ‘creative training hub’ for the black community, although it appears that very little training was ever delivered. Quick inspection of the project’s website certainly does not inspire confidence that over half a million quid of taxpayer’s money has been invested wisely.

Jasper claims that he had no control over the LDA’s decision-making on its support of Brixton Base and other projects. However it seems that when senior LDA officials wanted to evict Brixton Base from their premises after a string of complaints, they were overruled by Jasper. In an email the Standard claims to have obtained, Jasper orders a senior LDA official to ‘ensure that this action [the eviction] is withdrawn immediately and ensure I am consulted on all major decisions affecting [Brixton Base]’.

Gilligan contends that at City Hall, ‘Mr Livingstone’s chosen representatives of different communities are wooed with favours and cash.’ Exploiting the politics of victimhood is of course second nature to Livingstone and Jasper. It is therefore not surprising that their allies, such as the Black Information Link website, are presenting the Standard’s investigation as an attack on all London’s black and minority ethnic communities. Such a crass deployment of the race card deserves short shrift. These serious allegations about the misuse of huge sums of public money are underpinned by a thorough investigation. Any person or group that has acted in the manner Gilligan alleges should be subject to full media and public scrutiny, irrespective of their ethnicity.

Jasper and Livingstone have a lot of explaining to do. Boris Johnson and the Conservative GLA group will continue to lead efforts to get full answers to all the allegations. If even only a few of the charges are proven, Jasper’s career at City Hall will surely be over. Whether this is marks the beginning of the end for the slippery Mr Livingstone himself remains to be seen.

Cameron Watt's column will return next week

Cameron Watt: Time for a Treatment Tax on Alcohol

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice; he writes here in a personal capacity.

Around 12 million people in the UK are dependent on alcohol, or drink at dangerous levels. Thirty times more citizens have a drink problem than the 400,000 abusing hard drugs. Few readers will be well acquainted with a heroin addict; almost all of us have at least one friend or family member who has had a serious drink problem.

Of course drinkers immensely damage their health. Alcohol is now responsible for four times as many deaths as illegal drugs. Nearly half our 14-15 year-olds, and a quarter of all men, binge drink at least once each month. Alcohol related death and disease has doubled in 25 years. And while they’re wrecking their health, problem drinkers make life miserable for the rest of us. Half of all assaults and most night-time admissions to hospital are drink-related.

Why has there been such a steep rise in consumption? For a start, booze is 50% cheaper in real terms than it was 25 years ago. Alcohol is also more easily available than ever before through a massive growth in the concentration of pubs and clubs in town centres, along with 24-hour access in many supermarkets. What was once a male and pub dominated drinking culture now warmly embraces women, adolescents and children. As a nation, we seem to have imbibed the advice of those 1970s ads, “Any time, any place, anywhere…”, even if Martini is no longer the tipple of choice.

The Social Justice Policy Group’s final report, Breakthrough Britain was published in July. Its 191 proposals to tackle five key areas of social breakdown were warmly received, both inside and outside the party, with one notable exception: the treatment tax.

Cameron Watt on the Second 'Conservatives for Social Justice' international gathering

I have spent most of this week in Washington DC with Tim Montgomerie, Philippa Stroud and like-minded conservatives from the US, Canada and New Zealand.

Tuesday 13 November

Arriving at Dulles late afternoon, we face the usual hour long wait to clear passport control. Tim, whose flight landed ten minutes after ours, conscientiously declines the opportunity to save himself half an hour by ducking under the barrier to join us further up the queue.  I suppose the resulting extra delay is a small price to pay for maintaining our Editor’s integrity.

On leaving the airport, it’s uplifting to see that a new lounge has just opened for the exclusive use of American servicemen and their families. Can you imagine that at Heathrow? Later in the week at a shopping mall, I notice mobile phone provider Cingular is offering special deals to service personnel. BAA and Vodafone – please take note.

Wednesday 14 November

Philippa and I begin our day meeting Bob Woodson at his Center for Neighborhood Enterprise. A veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, Bob left when he felt middle-class black Americans were using it to seek privilege from cultivating the status of victims. CNE works with community leaders based in many of America’s toughest urban areas, building their capacity through training and introductions to donors.

A man of sound conservative convictions, Bob’s network of grassroots poverty-fighters helped provide Newt Gingrich with the justification he needed to pioneer the 1996 federal welfare reforms. They told Gingrich that recipients of welfare in the communities they served would benefit most from a time limit on entitlement of just two years. The five year limit eventually settled seems rather generous in comparison.

Cameron Watt: The Education Dividend – in praise of co-operative schools

Thursday was a good day. I awoke from my slumbers to hear the CSJ’s Breakthrough Manchester report leading the news bulletins on Five Live Breakfast. (Aren’t Nicky and Sheelagh great? I could never stomach John Humphrys’ rudeness or Jim Naughtie’s pomposity first thing in the morning.) What’s more, Nicky gave the report a fair hearing, acknowledging Iain Duncan Smith’s serious work on social justice.

Unlike the Labour councillor from Manchester City Council, Nicky’s guests from the city’s hard-pressed communities were not interested in attacking us. They were eager to discuss the pressing issues highlighted in the report. Gun crime is up 10% in the last year. For all the prosperity of the city centre, 30% of working-age adults are on out-of-work benefits – 50% higher than the national average. Only 29% of pupils in Manchester’s schools achieved five good GCSEs (including maths and English) last year, compared to the English average of 46%.

However David Cameron and IDS did not want to dwell on Labour’s failures when they met with local charities at a community hub in central Manchester. The CSJ presented Breakthrough Britain and its proposals for tackling social breakdown. In his speech, David Cameron set out his vision for ‘co-operative schools’ to play a major role in reversing educational failure.

Cameron Watt: Bridging the North-South divide

After 18 years of prevarication, Gordon Brown has committed to delivering Crossrail for Londoners. In Scotland, ‘Wee Eck’ has promised his SNP administration will build the badly needed high-speed rail link between Edinburgh and Glasgow. At the next General Election, what should Conservatives be offering rail passengers?

Britain’s railways are almost at capacity. More passengers are now travelling by train than at any time since 1946. Despite over-crowding, steep fare rises and saturation on many lines, passenger numbers are growing faster here than in any other European country. Growth in demand shows now signs of abating; Government predicts a 25% increase in passengers by 2014, but more realistic estimates are closer to 40%.

In its five-year plan for rail announced in July, the Government took the easy option of attempting to choke demand through steeply increasing fares, rather than addressing the urgent need for new lines in helping meet greater capacity. Track-building will be limited to tackling a few bottle-necks and small increases in capacity achieved through adding carriages to some of the busiest trains.

Our transport infrastructure is now woefully inadequate after decades of such under-investment by governments of both parties. This negligence has made our lives miserable through ever longer and more uncomfortable commutes. A considerable economic price is also being paid for these failures. This includes further exacerbation of the gulf between turbo-capitalist London and the many parts of the country sustained by near Soviet levels of public spending.

Cameron Watt is away this week

Cameron Watt: Abortion – 40 years on

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice; he writes here in a personal capacity.

Next Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the passing of the 1967 Abortion Act. David Steel’s Act was central to Britain’s sexual revolution and its impact on our nation has been immense. 6.7 million abortions have been performed since 1967. In 1969, the first full year that abortion was legal in Britain, just under 55,000 terminations were carried out. Last year, there were more than 214,000 – the highest rate of abortion of any European country, and equivalent to the population of Coventry. One in four pregnancies now ends in abortion.

Although the number of abortions is at an all-time high, there are increasing signs that public opinion on this most sensitive of issues is shifting. Technology has given us new, vivid images of unborn life, reinforcing the humanity of the foetus. Research published last month showed 68% of the public want to tighten abortion law and reduce the upper limit from 24 weeks to around 13 weeks. Another study by Marie Stopes International, a leading abortion provider, found that two-thirds of GPs want the time limit for social abortions to be reduced.

In Parliament abortion is, of course, a free vote issue. However the extent to which MPs divide along party lines on these issues is striking. Ann Widdecombe is probably the best-known pro-life MP, and three of her female Conservative colleagues have introduced abortion bills to the Commons in the last year.

Cameron Watt: Shrinking Brown’s supplicant state

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice, he writes here in a personal capacity.

I’m here in Dublin’s fair city for a family wedding. Ireland’s economic miracle has received considerable and deserved recognition in recent years. As shocking research released this week lays bare the inexorable growth of the UK as a supplicant state, it’s highly depressing comparing the Celtic Tiger to Brown’s Britain.

In the Republic of Ireland, state spending accounts for just 34% of the economy. Incredibly it’s over double that in Northern Ireland – 71%. In Wales, government spending is 64% of GDP; in north-east England it is 63%.

My native Scotland, where the figure stands at 56%, is a microcosm of the problem facing much of the UK. Its considerable natural and human resources could have been harnessed during the last fifteen years of economic growth to tackle crippling state dependency. Aberdeen has been the epicentre of the North Sea oil and gas boom since the late 1970s. Edinburgh is second only to London as a UK financial centre, home to some world-class companies including the all-conquering RBS. Yet taken as a whole, Scotland’s economy – and, more importantly, society – is ailing. In Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, 26% of working age adults lie beached on out-of-work benefits, and in some areas male life expectancy is less than North Korea and the Gaza Strip.

Cameron Watt: Conservatives offer addicts hope

Like most activists, I left Blackpool with a spring in my step. It was a good conference; the Conservative Party proved it has the leadership and ideas to reverse Gordon Brown’s failures. Particularly heartening was the raft of measures announced to reverse the root causes of poverty. British society is broken, but it can be fixed.

David Davis may not have shined at conference, but on Tuesday afternoon he made one of its most significant announcements. A future Conservative Government will massively expand abstinence-based drug treatment. Put simply, Conservatives will offer Britain’s hard drug addicts the chance to get clean and stay clean. Abstinence-based Drug Rehabilitation Orders will be introduced to break the cycle of addiction and offending. The orders will require residential treatment or, depending on the nature of the offence and the circumstances of the offender, day care. The orders will provide a more effective alternative to community sentences for drug related offenders.

The UK has the highest level of problem drug use in Europe. Kathy Gyngell and David Burrowes MP produced a devastating critique of the nature and scale of Labour’s failures in their work for the Social Justice Policy Group. Encouragingly, their report underpins the new Conservative proposals.

Cameron Watt: Shame of the NHS

Last year I made repeated visits to the Whittington Hospital in Archway, north London. An elderly relative in his late eighties was seriously ill there. In his ward, Ken enjoyed banter with staff, many of whom were very warm and kind to him. Yet in the few weeks leading up to his death, Ken was denied the level of care he deserved.

The hospital’s greatest failure was in ensuring that he received proper nutrition. Ken’s body was riddled with cancer and his appetite was failing. Yet even when he wanted to eat, Ken was not able to. With diminished strength, he could not use cutlery properly. Routinely meals would be placed in front of him only to be collected, uneaten, 45 minutes later. Only when family members were present to help feed him would Ken be able to eat as much as he wanted. Among the other problems Ken faced was a callous night nurse who denied repeated requests from the geriatric patients for extra bedding to keep out the cold. A fine Irishman who had voluntarily served in the British Army during the War was repaid with very mediocre care in his final few days.

Appallingly, Ken’s experience is typical of what elderly patients are receiving throughout the country. This week’s Healthcare Commission report found that thousands of older people are being treated without dignity or adequate privacy on hospital wards across England. Inspections at 23 acute hospital trusts found that only five are fully complying with national standards on dignity in care, even though they all claimed to do so.

It shows many patients are at risk of malnutrition, with barely one in six of those who need help with eating and drinking receiving it. Incontinent patients are being forced to wear nappies, and sometimes left for hours in soiled clothing. Years after Government promised to abolish the indignity of mixed-sex wards many still exist, with elderly male and female patients forced to share toilets and washing facilities. Trusts ordered to make improvements include seven of the Government's flagship foundation hospitals.

In recent weeks I have been encouraged as the nation’s broken covenant with our armed forces has been increasingly recognised. This is a vital pre-cursor for action to tackle it. However the neglect of the elderly in our hospitals is one symptom of an even more serious broken covenant between the generations. At the next general election, I hope our party puts providing dignified hospital care for the elderly at the heart of our campaigning on the NHS. And each of us must heed the Healthcare Commission’s appeal to blow the whistle whenever we have concerns about the treatment of vulnerable older people.

Cameron Watt: Scrap Police Community Support Officers

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice, he writes here in a personal capacity.  In addition to his call to scrap the 'plastic police' he remembers some unhappy Blackpool experiences.

The failure of two police community support officers (PCSOs) to attempt a rescue of ten-year-old Jordon Lyon from a pond in Wigan has caused an national outcry.

Understandably so. Surely few, if any, police constables would have stood idly at the side of that pond. (I know the PCSOs called for back-up, but that’s nothing more than anyone else could have done by calling 999 on their mobile.) Police officers recognise that they are expected to show initiative, bravery and resolve, even if they haven’t received specific training on how to deal with a particular situation. As Jordon’s step-father said, most members of the public would have reacted with greater courage and resolve. Depressingly, Greater Manchester Police have fully endorsed their PCSOs’ course of (in)action.

PCSOs clearly do not have the powers, training and sense of vocation to eqiup them for the job the public wants them to do. A recent Freedom of Information request revealed that, on average, PCSOs solve just one crime every six years. In several areas of the country, ‘officers’ failed to detect a single crime over the past year. Perhaps they are doing better at tackling the low-level disorder that blights contemporary Briatin? Regrettably, they are not; when it comes to issuing fines for anti-social behaviour, public disorder or motoring offences, PCSOs average just one every four months. Emboldened hoodies certainly do not fear PCSOs, who they know have no powers to arrest them.

Cameron Watt: Giving the unborn a route out of poverty

Cameron Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Justice, he writes here in a personal capacity.

Earlier this week I accompanied IDS to NAVCA’s annual conference at Keele University. (NAVCA is the national umbrella body for community groups and the councils for voluntary service that support grassroots projects around the country.) The conference was entitled Breaking the exclusion cycle - can the voluntary and community sector help build a more equal society? and our old friend Polly Toynbee was chairing.

Unsurprisingly, the agendas Iain and Polly presented for tackling poverty were rather different. However there was one principle that both were agreed on: the need for effective early intervention in the lives of our most vulnerable infants to arrest and reverse intergenerational poverty. Iain stated that a full appreciation of the urgency of ensuring the most vulnerable under-threes are given every opportunity to thrive was been the most significant development in his thinking during his chairmanship of the Social Justice Policy Group (SJPG). A lack of proper nurture in a child’s first three years can do irrevocable damage to a child’s mental health and cognitive development. Clearly, parents from dysfunctional families often struggle to provide this, perpetuating disadvantage and the associated crime and disorder. 

Cameron Watt's column returns next week

Cameron Watt: Let’s pay MPs £100K – for working full-time

It’s probably safe to assume that the general public holds prison officers in higher esteem than Members of Parliament. Although the warders’ illegal strike this week cannot be condoned, I have some sympathy for their relatively modest pay demand. However I want to use this column to make what many will consider a much harder case in arguing for a large salary increase for MPs. In my view, their basic pay should be raised from just over £60,000 to around £100,000, and MPs with additional paid responsibilities should receive proportionate increases.

Last December, it was reported that both Labour and Conservative MPs had written to the Senior Salaries Review Board arguing such a rise was needed to bring them into line with senior civil servants and GPs. It is certainly true that in recent years, MPs’ pay has fallen well behind senior public sector workers, especially in health and education. Average pay for general practitioners in England is now £102,000. The MPs’ aspiration to be paid at such at level is entirely reasonable.

Cameron Watt: Each of us must stand up to the yobs

During a commute home on the Jubilee Line last summer, I found myself sitting opposite two youths, aged around 15 and 17. One was blasting music from his mobile phone. After my polite requests to switch it off were ignored, they squared up to me and I had to push one of them away. That’s the last I remember.

I regained consciousness at Finchley Road station. Blood was pouring from my face. Unsurprisingly, the lads had scarpered. It was the first time I been knocked-out; this 6’3’’ ex-rugby player was clearly not as tough as he thought he was. I’ll never know what, if anything, I was struck with. However, when getting stitched up at the Royal Free I reflected that many have come off much worse when challenging anti-social behaviour.

This has been powerfully reinforced to me with the a spate of recent murders including those of James Oyebola, Garry Newlove and Peter Woodhams, brave men slain for challenging anti-social behaviour. Rhys Jones’ murder has further highlighted the dangerousness and volatility of some of these feral youths.

Cameron Watt is away

His column will return on 25th August.

Cameron Watt: Labour and Tory approaches to the voluntary sector are not the same...

British society is broken. David Cameron repeatedly made this assertion last month as the Social Justice Policy Group’s proposals were published and debated. In spite of all the controversy generated by commitments to strengthen marriage through the tax system, commentators did not challenge the contention that something is seriously wrong in our country. It goes beyond inexorably rising rates of welfare dependency, addictions and violent crime. For most people, depressing statistics are corroborated by first-hand experience of menacing, rude and anti-social behaviour.

In response, David Cameron has developed the language of social responsibility, reminding us that we have a shared duty to tackle the breakdown. Government can only do so much, and action on a seemingly modest scale by individuals, families and communities can have a significant cumulative impact.

Cameron has also called for a much bigger role for the voluntary sector in enabling the most vulnerable make positive changes in their lives. There is now a cross-party consensus that disadvantaged groups, from excluded pupils to drug addicts and the long-term unemployed, are often most effectively assisted by the voluntary sector.

Cameron Watt: Notes from Northern Ireland

Having got married in Belfast in January, we have been back in Northern Ireland this week for our first break since returning from honeymoon.

Saturday 21 July, Belfast

The love-in between Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Minister shows no signs of abating, but it’s all a bit too much for Belfast Telegraph columnist Kevin Myers:

“Viewing the pictures of Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley avidly viewing one another at the North-South meeting like a pair of Linda Lovelaces, I felt a panic-inspiring vertigo. It was like Pope John Paul snapping awake at a Papal Banquet in the Vatican and finding a nude Mother Teresa cavorting with an equally naked Ayatollah Khomeini, while the Mormon Tabernacle choir sang Seven Drunken Nights and the Dalai Lama harpooned koala bears.”

However incongruous and even nauseating Mr Myers finds such displays of affection, I’m thankful that the Province’s two most powerful men are getting along. Unless they continue to, the new settlement may not endure.

Tuesday 24 July, Belturbet, Co.Cavan

We’re visiting friends in a sleepy town situated just inside the Republic, in what used to be the border badlands during the Troubles. Two of the town’s youngsters were murdered in a car bomb, so the peace dividend is particularly cherished here.

Whereas the impoverished Republic was once viewed with disdain by those in the North, the tables have been decisively turned over the last fifteen years. Indeed the Celtic Tiger is now dispensing considerable largesse to improve the Province’s infrastructure.

The Irish Times has further details of Eire’s 400 million Euro investment in the North, which will include a new Dublin-Londonderry motorway. Some Unionists consider this part of strategy to achieve a united Ireland by stealth, but none of the main parties are prepared to look such a generous gift horse in the mouth.

Wednesday 25 July, Ballycastle, Co. Antrim

I fell in love with the north Antrim coast when I first visited last summer. We’re back in the same cottage, perched on the coast a mile from the seaside town of Ballycastle. As the sun sets I look out over the tranquil waters of the North Channel to the small island of Rathlin. Sweeping, hypnotic beams of light are cast over the sea from two of the island’s lighthouses. Silhouetted above them are the towering peaks of Jura. BBC Scotland’s Radio Nan Gaidheal is on in the background, playing its usual mix of haunting Gaelic melodies and accordion and fiddle music. This is a glorious place to be.

There is far more to this dramatic stretch of coastline than the Giant’s Causeway. Antrim’s multitude of excellent links courses make it a golfers’ paradise – Royal Portrush is the only club outside Britain to have hosted the Open Championship, in 1951.

Tourism obviously has a major role to play in revitalising the Province’s ailing economy. Northern Ireland consumes more than £5 billion in public spending than it pays in taxes. Expenditure is over 60% of GDP, yet per capita GDP is still 20% below the national average. In the race to attract inward investors, Northern Ireland is struggling to stay in touch with the Republic where corporation tax is a mere 12.5%, less than half the 30% levied in the North.

Jump-starting Northern Ireland’s economy is the most pressing priority for the new all-party Executive, yet they have few tools at their disposal to achieve this. However there are signs of hope. This week the Bank of Ireland announced the creation of 150 graduate-level jobs in Belfast administering hedge funds. Ryanair also announced it was establishing many new routes from Belfast City Airport to Britain and Europe.

When you’re next planning a vacation or weekend break, why not consider Northern Ireland? For too many Brits it’s the undiscovered gem on their doorstep.

Cameron Watt: Building to Win

Gordon Brown has made clear that housing is a policy area he believes can win him many votes at the next General Election. Already announced are plans to increase the number of new homes built annually from 200,000 to 240,000 by 2016. Next week much more detail of the new Government’s housing strategy is expected with the publication of a green paper. If Brown can enable large numbers of younger voters currently priced out of the market to fulfil their dream of home ownership, he will be obviously become very popular.

Housing also has the potential to be almost as important as welfare reform in reversing poverty. As well as benefits traps, punitive marginal tax rates and couple penalties, the poor are also increasingly trapped in ghettoes of social housing where both aspiration and opportunities are scarce. Two facts here are particularly startling:

• In the UK’s 3.8 million social housing units, more than half the adults of working age do not have paid work; and
• If you are living on a council estate and have two people of working age on either side of you, the chances of them both working is just one in 10.

Cameron Watt: What a week!

Never have I been so relieved to reach a Saturday as this one. The Centre for Social Justice, of which I am Deputy Director, and Social Justice Policy Group hosted nine events between Monday and Thursday. Most of these were linked to the launch of the Policy Group’s Breakthrough Britain report with its bold and detailed proposals to mend our broken society, for which Iain Duncan Smith deserves great credit.

For the last 18 months, Philippa Stroud has inspired the Group’s staff to work harder than we ever thought we could. Our team of able young graduate interns (some pictured here with June Sarpong) has done superb work in supporting the volunteer chairman of the Group’s working parties. As one our friends reflected, “It’s amazing what you can achieve with kids!”

However in recent weeks I was most nervous about overseeing the third Centre for Social Justice Awards, sponsored by the Pears Foundation, which JPMorgan Asset Management hosted on Wednesday evening. Now in its third year, the Awards showcase the work of exceptional small groups successfully tackling poverty to politicians of all parties.