Competing on childcare
Bring back Parkie. That's the cry from David Cameron today. No, he's not mounting a campaign to bring back the father of all chat show (although given you can see why he might). The Parkie in question is the park keeper who keeps the playground safe for your kids.
Today the which is designed to tell the story behind the stats contained in the UNICEF study which showed Britain bottom of the league for children's wellbeing.
The Tory Review is long on narrative and very short on policy but makes no secret of that. It says:
"We are wary or producing too many policy responses. As the Government discovered with its Children’s Plan, the temptation is to fire out regulations and initiatives that may even harm the very causes they are trying to help."
The Review argues that the key problem is loss of trust - both in public spaces and in other adults. Hence the need for Parkie and others to protect public spaces such as playgrounds and the need to give him and other adults the power to care for and control children without the fear of being sued.
Ministers can and will insist that none of this is new. Gordon Brown is the first prime minister to publish a and to appoint a who, significantly, is his closest political ally. They will suggest that the Tories are guilty of substance-free, uncosted political positioning.
Whether you believe that's true or think the Conservatives are taking a first step on an important journey, it matters that Labour and the Tories are now competing over who will best look after your kids.
I'm 
Comments
Order, harmony, and patience are fundamental to Zen Buddhism and the strategy maps out over individuals, organisations, and nation states. This policy initiative seems to have grasped some of that sort of thinking. However, if they're trying to compete or own this space they're going down the wrong path. Enlightenment, or reality, is bigger than that.
I almost can't believe what I'm seeing. Since first commenting in this blog I've seen what was a novel and foreign approach slowly become the dominant view. Before the general election you wouldn't have put money on it but all the main parties seem to be developing a clue. Am I seeing things or are we genuinely teetering on the edge of a new golden age?
I dislike the popularity of "debate" and "anger" in the press. Discussion is much more reasonable. It's much less combative and leaves space for consensus to develop. The British can be too aggressive, partisan, and short-term in their approach. By reducing these extremes and investing in the centre a more subtle, sharing, and long-term success can build.
All hail Blessed Leader!
This seems like a good idea doesn't it? Alas, the days when a parks attendant could give misbehaving children a cuff around the ear or tell people to keep off the grass are long gone. So has the low cost of these service jobs as presumably they will require background checks etc.
Parks are not the quiet gentle places they were forty years ago. Is this not another example of not thought through policies? Perhaps it came from a fund raising think tank?
merely brinnging back Parkie sounds narrow. I suggest we also need to consider:
- teaching children the meaning of words such as scram, jeepers, and aaargh;
- issuing children with black and red striped jerseys;
- getting Jamie Oliver to run a campaign promoting the benefits of cow pie;
File under John Major, warm beer, village green cricket etc.
Hmm... let's analyze the options?
Should I trust a party that introduced the NHS to provide my children with free health care? that gave us The Open University so that no matter what happens there will always be a door open for my child to change his path in life, that's spent billions renovating the worst schools in Britain, that's expanded education so much that even kids at McDonalds can get qualified?
OR...
Should I trust a party who's principle icon is Thatcher, Thatcher, The Milk Snatcher?
Hmm... difficult one that.
This won't be a problem once Labour have built over everything even remotely green!
Re children, more worthy of comment, surely, is the second reading on Friday of the Private Member's Bill to acquire and analyse data over what actually works for children with SEN (special educational needs.) This revolutionary Bill, with cross-party support, proposes basing education policy on effectiveness, not politics. Remarkable!
This is complete and utter tripe. Cameron obviously knows nothing about policymaking, because policy does not necessarily mean bombarding the public with new initiatives. It means having a plan of what government can do, sticking to it and putting it into action. Initiatives like "bringing back 'Parkie'" are fiddling at the edges. The Tories need a proper agenda and proper ideas of what they want to do, not just this meddlesome tinkering redolent of Blair's nadir.
If the Tories don't start bringing out concrete plans for what they will do properly, Labour will certainly win the next election because of inertia and because when they have ideas and an agenda, they make sure they put it into practice holistically and without this fondness for playing "cops and robbers" or "mummies and daddies" with petty bureaucratic initiatives and vague spin rather than "joined up" public policy. Initiatives are merely filler for coherent, interesting and solid ideas of what to do in the long term, and why Cameron hasn't proposed anything after two years in office and with probably 15-18 months to go to the election beggars belief. Does he expect to make it up on the back of an envelope the day before we go to the polls?
If so I think we are better off with Labour, and I normally vote Tory.