Shoud we increase social mobility?

Several electors have asked me to support the TeachFirst manifesto which presents education as the main tool for increasing social mobility. The measures in the manifesto look sound and would help to reduce educational inequality and improve education generally. Our education system certainly needs help. Caught between rising pupil numbers and constant government meddling its losing really committed teachers. So I do support the manifesto.

But I have a couple of reservations:

• There's too much emphasis on university education. I enjoyed and benefited from my time at university but its not for everyone. For many young people good vocational training would be easier to access and more valuable than a degree in one of the less useful subjects. (I write as a man educated at a Technical School.) Its also what we need as a society - look how well it works in Germany.
• Social mobility is two-edged. Since the number of management and professional jobs is not increasing measures that give more of them to the children of poorer families will give fewer to the children of other families. Attempts to make that change will increase the competitive pressures in schools - and that's already grossly excessive. So these measures need to be linked with measures that make the less well-paid jobs more attractive and enable those who do them to live decent lives. When I was young that was possible. It's now very difficult.

We live in a very unequal society and this, as the Spirit Level showed, harms everyone - though it harms the poor a good deal more than the rich. We Greens believe in reducing inequality by a variety of means including paying a Universal Basic Income and increasing taxes on the rich.

Greens want a fairer society but we also want a different society. One in which hospital porters as well as doctors, teaching assistants as well as teachers, are paid enough to live decent lives. That needs many policies, notably on housing, pursued over many years.

That's why I'm Green.

More Prevention not More Cure: Dealing with knife crime

The arrest of a 14-year old "in connection with a stabbing that killed Joao Ricardo Gomes" is almost as sad as the stabbing itself. For all we know about the boy arrested is that he is a boy. Not, almost certainly, a desperate criminal. A boy with family and friends. If this boy was involved in the stabbing then his life, and his family's, will change - though not as much as Joao Gomes' life.

Local politicians have made predicable noises. Nick de Bois wants more enforcement of his 'Enfield law' whilst Joan Ryan wants more police. And, yes, laws should be enforced and seven years of Tory cuts do need to be reversed.


(Photo shows me holding the banner last Saturday next to Joan Ryan and Doug Taylor.)

But what we really need is not more punishment but more prevention. And that needs a series of steps. In the short-term we need community action, like this Saturday's march, to say no to knife crime and more police at times and places where violence may happen.

Then we need action in schools and youth clubs - even families - to engage with the teenagers who are both the most likely victims and perpetrators to show them that carrying a knife is a really bad idea. And the best people to carry this message are not police and teachers but young people who have seen this at first hand.

Next we need to restore the cuts to youth services to provide more things for young people to do - and more sense that they are valued. As Jonathan Bartley, Green Party co-leader, says:

"The Green Party wants to make schools and universities a springboard for life. We’re offering young people a better future, whether it’s a quality education, secure job, or a warm, safe home. The Green Party will build a raft for young people negotiating the Brexit storm.”

You can see our Youth Manifesto here.

But there's a bigger issue here. Rates of violence are higher in more unequal societies and Britain today is a very unequal society. The average pay of someone in the top 1% (£369,000 in 2013) is 15 times as much as the national average. Inequality of wealth is even greater.

So if we're serious about violence we need to reduce inequality.