Cameron’s campaign tour, aka The Labour Achievements Roadshow
Posted on April 14th, 2010 by Jeremy Cliffe
Last Friday David Cameron visited SPEAR, a youth charity in Hammersmith. A slick and media-savvy event, the visit formed the backdrop to his party’s Big Society plan, which, so its manifesto claims, envisions the state taking action to “agitate for, catalyse and galvanise social renewal”.
Yet rather than speaking of Cameron’s nebulous aspirations to ‘mend our broken society’, the event stood to exemplify the strength of community engagement under Labour. Tory Stories has found that SPEAR is in fact a direct beneficiary of Labour’s support for the voluntary sector.
The charity is a project of St Paul’s Centre, a faith-based education group in West London that provides work experience, training and careers advice for those aged 16-24. Founded in 2003, the centre has benefited from a panoply of Third Sector initiatives introduced by Labour: it is funded by Connexions (- launched by the government in 2000 -), the Community Cycling Fund (- introduced by Ken Livingstone in 2003 -) and the Youth Capital Fund (- part of the ‘Youth Matters’ programme described by Tory MP Edward Heathcoat-Armory as an ‘utter waste’ of money -).
SPEAR has also received operational support from Jobcentre Plus (- launched by Labour in 2002 -) as well as ongoing funding from the Urban Partnership Group (- itself funded by the Learning and Skills Council, the London Development Agency and SureStart, all established by the current government -).
This case well underlines the growth of the Third Sector under Labour: full time employment in the sector is up almost 25% on 2000, whilst UK charities’ income over the same period has increased by 40%, thanks in no small part to Labour’s extension of gift aid, the Charities Act and the Hardship Fund. The level of charitable giving in the UK is now the highest in Europe, whilst the proportion of the population doing some voluntary work, having fallen from 51% in 1991 to 48% in 1997, had climbed to 59% by 2007. Small wonder, then, that an investigation by the Economist magazine found that “The evidence supporting the existence of a “broken society” is thin indeed”, and that a recent poll by Third Sector magazine showed that charity professionals overwhelmingly support Labour over the Tories:
Third Sector Magazine, 8/1/10
It is just as well that Hammersmith’s young people can rely on SPEAR. The borough’s Tory council (known as ‘Cameron’s favourite town hall’ and a ‘policy test bed’ for the party) has sold off schools, community centres and youth clubs, cut the youth budget by £500,000 and turned a local park into a private polo field, all whilst lavishing £5 million on rebranding, £35 million on new council offices and further millions on 16% pay rises for top officials. It has also been slammed by local charities for selling off a community building used by no fewer than 22 different voluntary groups. Responding to the protests, the council said that the building was ‘surplus to requirements’.
In any case, Labour will be grateful to Mr Cameron for drawing attention to the government’s achievements in this way. After all, the SPEAR visit was not an isolated case. Over the past week the Tory leader has visited Leeds City Museum (admission free under Labour) and Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital (the first new hospital in the city for over 60 years, representing £545 million of NHS investment), launching his party’s manifesto in Wandsworth, the London borough in which unemployment has fallen most relative to the last recession (from 19,025 in 1992 to 6,641 in 2009).
Where will Cameron go next? There is no shortage of options. A new SureStart centre perhaps? The Scottish Parliament? The Disability Rights Commission? Keep track of his Labour Achievements Roadshow here.
