Labour has come up with a new soundbite slogan. It's that everyone should have the chance to ‘earn or learn'. What about pensioners, carers, those too sick to work, those for whom there is no work and those with disabilities that prevent them from working? It seems that Labour just does not care about them.
This is the audio file:
This is the transcript:
Why should everyone either earn or learn?
Labour has come up with a new soundbite slogan which says that everyone should have the opportunity to either earn or learn. And this, they think, is their answer to the problems within our economy. It isn't. It just shows how out of touch Labour is with society as a whole.
We don't necessarily all need to be either earning or learning.
There are people in this country who are caring.
There are people in this country who are retired.
There are people in this country who are too sick to work.
There are people with disabilities that prevent them from working.
There are people who cannot earn or learn because there are no opportunities for them to do so in the area where they live - and the increase in bus fares to £3 each way is going to prevent them reaching those places where the opportunity does exist.
It is absolutely clear that there are good reasons why many people are not earning and are not learning. And yet, Labour is ignoring those people. And this is something that has worried me for ages.
Before the election, they kept on talking about ‘working people'. Now they talk about people who are ‘earning or learning' because they've noticed that there are students. But, when it comes down to it, Labour is still talking about a group of people who appear to be of sole concern to them. And that is those who are what I might call economically manageable units.
These are the people who Labour think will contribute to the economy. They can generate income, or they are learning to generate income. And everybody else, as far as Labour is concerned, appears not to matter.
This is quite an extraordinary situation, not least for Labour, because Labour was always the party of the underdog - the person who needed support and help in society - the Party to whom the person who required assistance would turn. And now Labour is turning its back on those people, it would seem. Its rhetoric is powerful and clear and sends out an obvious message to everyone who is retired, or who is sick, or who is unable for any reason to work, that they don't matter.
Is that because Labour thinks that these people don't vote? If they do, they're wrong. Pensioners have an extraordinarily high rate of voting, for example. So why Labour is choosing to ignore pensioners - which it very clearly is, because, for example, its policy on the winter fuel allowance also sent out that message - is very hard to work out.
Are they taking those people for granted? I think that's unlikely because, let's be honest, many pensioners vote Tory and Labour will need to keep them if it is to get back into office in 2029 or earlier if the election comes around sooner than Labour might plan at present, which I suspect will happen.
So, why is Labour so indifferent to the people who cannot earn inside the UK economy or who have reached the point where learning is not what they wish to do with their time because they have other responsibilities instead?
I haven't got a real answer to that, except for the fact that Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are obsessed with one thing, and that is growth.
Growth opportunities in the UK are economy are limited. Growth opportunities in the whole world economy are limited, but they're particularly limited in the UK because we are fundamentally a services-based economy, and that means that the amount of extra growth that we can generate by whatever form of innovation we undertake now is relatively constrained simply because services are reaching their point of maximum efficiency.
And we don't want more stuff. And if we don't want more stuff, because, as a proportion of our total expenditure, the significance of material items, whether they be phones, whether they be food, whether they be furniture, whatever it might be, is falling, because that is what is happening in every rich nation around the world, then our opportunities for growth are low.
And that means that if Rachel Reeves is obsessed with growth, the only way she can deliver it is by forcing more people into work as a proportion of the whole. This is actually what has happened over decades. When I was a child, it was pretty unusual. for many mothers to go to work. Most mothers of most children in my class at a state primary school were at home looking after the family or turning up outside the school gate every afternoon to pick us up.
Actually, they didn't pick us up in those days. By and large, from the age of five onwards, they let us walk home because it was safe to do so. But mothers were at home to greet us. That was the way the world worked. And that is no longer the way the world works, as we know. The reason why we've had so much economic growth since the 1950s and 60s is because women have gone to work. That is the biggest single cause of the growth per capita in GDP in this country, because more people have been working.
And now, again, we're reaching the limit of that. We're into the 70 per cent of the total potential workforce working. The rest are, for all the reasons I've explained, not working because they're unable to, or they don't want to, or they are caring, or whatever it might be.
And as a consequence, Rachel Reeves is putting enormous pressure on people to return to work through the benefits system, in particular, because that is the only way in which she believes that growth can happen. Given that growth per capita isn't, she has to increase the number of people who work as a consequence.
It's a desperate move that is contrary to the interests of the people of the UK because we do need some people not to work, because they are unable to, because they need to be cared for, because they are doing the caring, because they have a disability which means that we shouldn't be forcing them to work although it would appear that they're sanctioned if they try to refuse to do so.
For all these reasons, a caring, compassionate society would mean that people were not forced into the workforce. But Rachel Reeves doesn't care about caring and compassion. She's only interested in numbers. And numbers require that people be forced to earn or learn.
I resent this phrase.
I resent this policy.
I think it is small-minded.
I think it is undesirable.
I think it reflects a total obsession with economic growth, which is unhealthy.
It is time that Labour remembered what it was for. It was for everybody. And everybody included those who could not partake in a normal sense in what Rachel Reeves now thinks to be economic activity because they were supplying some other form of service within the economy. And that, to me, is vital. It isn't to Rachel Reeves, and I think she's got it wrong.
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Agreed.
This is policy as theatre.
Again the idea is to out-source or off-shore the problem to already hard pressed people and Reeves – so constrained by dogma – just does not want to spend any money addressing these issues and Stymied (Starmer) is so cowardly he will not deal decisively with BREXIT and repair the damage of that.
Weak, weak, weak.
To reduce NEETs? (And more workers = more tax = more funds for everything else, seems to be the econ logic without regard of benefit traps, childcare cost etc) ‘An estimated 13.2% of all people aged 16 to 24 years in the UK were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in July to September 2024….An estimated 15.1% of young men and 11.2% of young women…946,000 young people’
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/latest
But nothing the governmetn is doing creates jobs
It is cutting job opprtunities
I believe that much of the problem is that Reeves can only think in numbers – she is (supposedly) the accountant for the state – I was taught that a good accountant should be able to get through a day without using numbers.
You and I share a view of accounting
Sounds about right. Labour is obsessed with growth and coming up with soviet style slogans. I have been watching ‘Berlin Wall’ where party diehards spout nonsense but probably most of the population know its a load of tosh. Labour is now adopting the same approach. Regarding people who are inactive the question should be what are the factors causing that and what should be done? Modernising the benefit system would help removing the ‘poor law’ elements of our current system.
‘Berlin Wall’ the TV mini series? MMm, imagine that, a rapidly-disintegrating East Germany helps us make sense of HMG
“Earn or learn” is, as Richard writes, insulting and, in my view, divisive. I am a pensioner and I am learning with the U3A but that’s not counted. When I could, I was helping with a charity or two. For a short period I was a trustee. That doesn’t count either apparently.
But old age and ill-health places an ever increasing demand on my time now. Now, I am, to Labour worthless. Well, to my mind they are now totally pointless and have no place in my thoughts about politics other than the fact that they have reneged on the values I thought they stood for, those I saw 40-50 years ago.
If Starmer and Reeves’ party were a more conventional ‘labor’ party, I’m sure it would be fashioning ‘Learn and Earn’ policies. It would recognise and ensure that educational and employment inequalities need governmental assistance. Expanding and scaling up earn and learn training would necessarily improve the nation’s productivity and growth potential.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/desegregating-work-and-learning/
Since the accession of Blair, and especially Campbell, MPs and others had to ‘be on message’. If you weren’t, you were ignored or isolated. Since Starmer acceded to the barely pink throne, it can mean suspension or expulsion. I am appalled by my local councillors who tie themselves in knots to justify stuff that everyone knows they were opposed to. I exclude my local MP as he is one of several local machine politicians who execute the exclusions.
I think people have understood the ‘earn or learn’ lesson. They have learned that for many of the young, the best you can expect for their future earnings, is that they will be faced with lifelong renting at rents they can’t afford, or leasehold purchase in which the freeholders will run service charges that will clean them out*, all to be funded by a zero-hour contract job. They have learned that no matter who you vote for you will be governed by the single Transferable Party, and you can’t trust their promises. You will learn that in Britain, life is essentially the art of living in a perpetual scam.
* “Ground rents often used to be fixed and were often less than £100 a year. However, some developers and freeholders have been setting ground rents much higher and/or setting escalating rents, which increase in the way set out in the lease. This can mean that the ground rent rises steeply and quickly.
For example, your lease could say the ground rent doubles every 10 years. That means that if you bought a house in 2019 with an initial ground rent of £500 per year, by 2069, you’d be paying £16,000 per year in ground rent.
This may cost you more than you’re expecting. You may also find it difficult to sell, because some lenders may not want to lend on this kind of lease.
If your ground rent is more than 0.1% of the value of a property, or £250, whichever is higher, or if it might increase to this level, you may find it harder to: get a mortgage, remortgage, sell your home” (Extract from The Law Society, ‘Buying and owning a leasehold home’)
I have been purchasing leasehold properties myself for use in social housing recently and can to attest to how often the ground rent has recently risen by more than double figures as pointed by our legal terms when they come back to us with their searches.
In 1977 I bought my first home, a leasehold flat in a 16 flat 4 storey apartment block.
Unusually back then, the residents had complete management control via an elected residents association, so we decided on maintenance & fees. Ground rent to landlord was about £100/yr.
Next leasehold flat I bought in about 2013, small block of four, and the 4 leaseholders own the freehold via a company. No landlord involved. We decide our own maintenance rates and what to do when and we recently extended our lease to ourselves to 999 years, which paid for itself in the increased value of our flats.
I’ve followed the horrendous leasehold stories, and I share your concerns about solicitors not doing their jobs properly. Of course when people buy new or off plan, I suspect that many save on surveyor and legal fees because they think they don”t need them, and that the NHBRC will play fair. That is unwise because often the vendors & builders are shysters and the regulators are chocolate teapots, including NHBRC.
Thanks
The question that requires to be asked is how this came to happen; since the implication of the Law Society remarks is that it was not always a commonplace (or it would presumably not survive long)? Does it mean that developers have, until 2019 operated a double sale; the sale of individual leaseholds on a freehold development, and then the sale of the freehold over all the leaseholds as an investment opportunity, for the investor to make the most of the opportunity? And in that case, why do so many leasehold purchasers buy, without doing the searches? Which takes us back to why the purchaser’s solicitor is not doing the searches? And does that mean the purchaser has to know already, to have the wit to ask? Which would raise the new issue, why isn’t it standard practice to look?
Caveat emptor, in spades; or is all the world just a scam, and all the players, scammers? It begins to look that way.
“But nothing the government is doing creates jobs. It is cutting job opprtunities”
Couldn’t agree more and the recent increase in employer NI is a classic case how tax and government policy influences behaviour. Business heads from all sectors have publicly stated it will lead to fewer new jobs, less wage growth and in some areas people losing their jobs. It is disastrous.
Slogans like “earn or learn” come from the George (double-ya) Bush school of neoliberalism; remember “You’re either with us, or against us” (said in a Texas accent).
Neoliberalism has always been about dividing people. It’s non-inclusive.
As Starmer said, if you don’t like what he’s done to Labour, the door is open to leave.
And since Corbyn, Labour has lost 170000 members since 2018.
and also about .5 million votes against GE’19 and 3m against GE2017
Starmer’s POP VOTE GE24 ; 9,708,716
Corbyn’s PV GE19. 10,269,051
Corbyn PV GE17 12,877,918
It’s grim. For many decades I’ve had the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being farmed for my economic value. How much more uncomfortable to be hounded in this way if you are not in a job. Why, as you say, should everyone have a job? Why no time (or adequate treatment) to get well if you are Ill? A full-time carer should not have to work; many do as their allowance is pitiful and we know what happens if they earn a bit over their limit. Despite some reform on this one issue, the benefits system is rotten.
There was a time when you could get a part-time job, rent a crappy place and paint, write, invent, educate yourself, volunteer, be a pillar of the community or a dreamer with a small footprint. Where shall our poets, philosophers and mavericks find shelter now? Garrets cost gazillions and the government will come with its cattle prod to herd you back to be plugged into the state milking machine or cursed and sanctioned.
If you want to be an artist or inventor, best be born with a silver spoon, else risk being shackled to the machine. If you want to work but cannot, or there is no suitable job within reach, you too can expect to be herded.
I was relieved and hopeful, if skeptical in early July, but you rightly use the term Single Transferable Party. The glitter of a few gems in the welter of wrong and weak policies and ideas is insignificant. Woe, woe woe
Much to agree with
For some reason I thought of this
Leisure
by
William Henry Davies
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Fantastic! Lovely doggerel I learned in primary school, remembered for ever. Train hopping, the `Tramp Poet`, in hastening from a to b in the USA, lost a foot . Unlike his poetry. I`m so glad it`s still in circulation. So, more bird observation, if you can now give yourself a bit more leisure, and enjoy your walks.
Thanks
That has reminded me of writing an essay based on that poem in 6th form General Studies early 60 years ago!
🙂
First question, what percentage of the working age population in comparable Western European nations is NEET – not in Education, Employment or Training?
Secondly what work has been done to those not currently in education, training or employment to identify why not?
Thirdly, and following on from the second question, how many of those who are currently NEET want to go into the labour force and what might encourage or motivate them to do so in a positive way.
I do not have answers to those questions
I’m not “earning” (I’m a caring pensioner instead) but I am definitely “learning” & learning FAST. Mostly economics and how to spot political BS, keeping 1000 miles from PPE nostrums & swotting up MMT.
Plus “radical politics” (it used to be called social justice), and alt left media (read critically), living in the REAL Benefit Street.
I also do a lot of helping others learn, just in daily life. It’s amazing how quick off the mark people round here are when given the right info.
Starmer & Reeves would be shocked to realise how fed up people are in communities like mine. And I mean, fed up with BOTH STPs, not just the Tories. My Labour MP suffered a 25% drop in her vote in her safe working class v deprived area seat. Greens came second.
I’m assembling a video library on my home cloud to help my revision, from the sofa. Economics, politics. Middle East news, Israel-Palestine archive from YouTube, DDN, Al Jazeera documentaries, Kelton videos, Byline Times, Bristol Cable, Crispin Flintoff and a Christian MENA channel created by the locals, not by USA Christofascists.
We watch a Beirut church service (in Arabic which I dont speak) every Sunday breakfast, from a church heavily involved in feeding, sheltering and caring for refugees from ALL backgrounds. They can watch apartment blocks being bunkerbombed from their roof then they go out and deal with the painful results.
Yes, Ms Reeves. I may be a non-productive economic unit, draining govt funds as I get older, but I’m a fast learner, I’ve got a vote, and a voice, and the message from our neck of the woods is, YOU HAVE BEEN RUMBLED, you and your lying “public purse/can’t afford it/balanced budget/taxes pay for spending/how to pay for it?/interest rate dominated/PPE/BoE” garbage paid for by your corrupt billionaire patrons.
“I see you!” as they say in Africa.
In Crocodile Dundee, Mick says to some soon to be unconscious villains, “I’ve got a Donk!”
I say to Starmer/Reeves, “We’ve got a Murphy!”
Keep learning!
I have found some figures
For Europe 15 to 29 year olds
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Statistics_on_young_people_neither_in_employment_nor_in_education_or_training
Unemployment by Country
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1115276/unemployment-in-europe-by-country/
What I cant do is draw any conclusions from them
Earn or learn? Cheap slogan and threatening. Next it’ll be ‘Freedom through Work’. I fear we are entering a 1984 world in which the sound bite rules and decision making about individuals will be made by computer algorithms. Yesterday I walked through Victoria in central London. I have never seen so many homeless. Mattresses, sleeping bags everywhere. I do not object to them – these are people who have no choice – but to the circumstances that have left them homeless. How will earn or learn help these individuals Rachel?
Richard, I think you are being generous when you say that apparently non-working people “don’t matter” to this government.
My concern is that in reality the government regards them (us) as an unwanted burden and is consequently creating policies which will actively harm them. The withdrawal of the pensioners’ fuel allowance for state pensioners is just one example. Surely nobody is in any doubt that some elderly folk will die as a direct consequence.
I hope I’m wrong.
See what happens on Friday