As The Guardian notes this morning:
The country's most deprived neighbourhoods will have higher crime rates and worse unemployment by the end of the parliament, according to a report written at the request of No. 10 Downing Street.
No. 10 has apparently focused its attention on what are called "motion critical" locations. These are defined as:
The 613 most deprived neighbourhoods ... are home to 1 million people and are clustered across the former industrial heartlands of the Midlands and the north. They are the areas that gave Boris Johnson his majority in 2019, then went Labour in 2024, and are now being targeted heavily by Reform UK.
The report No. 10 has commissioned notes this:
Economic inactivity is defined by the Office for National Statistics as people aged 16 or over who are not in employment, have not been seeking work within the last four weeks, and/or are unable to start work within the next two weeks. This group is outside the labour force because they are not looking for or available for work, distinguishing them from the unemployed.
Receiving support is not helping those in these supposed mission-critical locations, is the very clear message of this report. Crime rates are also forecast to rise as a result.
I have three thoughts. First, I am not surprised. When you focus on growth in GDP as your primary goal without any concern for whether what creates that growth is of real value rather than simply being capable of being counted, whilst being indifferent to the distribution of the gains, those already vulnerable are bound to suffer as a consequence precisely because your primary focus will always exclude them in a neoliberal economic system designed to focus advantage on a few and not on society as a whole. The policy failure this chart exposes is not an accident; it will be achieved by Labour by design.
Second, change will only happen when people, and not finance, are put at the centre of policy, as a politics of care would demand.
Third, I profoundly regret the consequences of this policy, represented by the lives of those suffering these situations not realising their full potential. That is a scandal, and until we change economic priorities, nothing will change to improve the lot of all those suffering as a result of the false objectives of neoliberalism.
The blame for this lies at Labour's door. It campaigned under the slogan "Change" in 2024 and lied about its intentions, offering only the continuity of a system already proven to be rotten to its very core. Unless its priorities change now (which seems very unlikely), expect Reform to win in these places in 2029.
I offer only one caveat, which is that this will be the case unless someone succeeds in getting the message out that everything that Reform wants will make the lives of those in the most economically deprived areas of the UK very much worse, because that is their explicit plan, which fact is the only thing that differentiates them from Labour on this issue.
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Agree with the points, nothing separates LINO from Deform, both are projects to enrich those at the top of either org.
The idea that either would do anything for the country is amusing.
LINO abandoned any serious action to improve the lot of most people in the 1990s – with Broon doing some tinkering to pretend that LINO cared (look! the deckchairs have new covers – style of).
It is worth noting that prime mincers get £110k per year. That should be coupled to a requirement (covering ALL ministers): you cannot work in politics, you cannot speak to ministries of any sort, you yearly wage from any other activity is capped @ £150k. Break these and it is life-time imprisonment – paid for by your family (Micado-style). Being a politician has to be a public service, a burden, something very few would want to carry.
Broken record: “Greek & Roman Political Ideas” Melissa Lane carries the main points – they were know +/- 2400 years ago. Society has not learnt and continues to make the same old mistakes. Education was key to having a population that was engaged. Remind me how education in the Uk is doing?
Mike
I think you need to emain in the boundaries of justice here, please
And MP pay is £172k per annum now.
Richard
MP pay is £94k.Do you mean ministerial?
I mean prime ministerial
Clarification:
the £110k/yr refers to the payment made to ex-PMs. If they accept this payment (which is for life!) then they should be obliged to retire totally from politics & be forbidden from any contact with ministries etc. If they want to do other work (= doing something useful) – fine. Would this approach stop B.Liar doing what he does? Probably not. But it would be a 1st step in the right direction.
Politics (@ the top) is wholly corrupt at the moment as has been shown wrt the various “donations”/bungs/bribes to politicos in positions of power that many of the blogs have profiled. We need root & branch reform – & it could be an easy win stopping the top political bananas taking the nice & sleazy route once they “retire”. Profiting from political office has to be made impossible.
Understood now.
I read the Guardian article with no sense of surprise. I skipped to the end to find the weasel words from Labour and there they were, dressed up as the “Pride in Place” plan, funded to an impressive (sounding) £5bn over a decade.
But if my sums are right, that equates to almost exactly £200,000 per year per community, which at least to me does not sound quite so impressive and which objectively is not remotely enough to replace the tens of billions cut from council funding in the Tory years.
Agree about Labour’s awful deriliction of duty and the ongoing empowerment of Reform and possibly worse which that entails, for for what will the populists reach when Reform fails, as it inevitably will? It won’t be pretty.
Much to agree with
Is there a link to the actual report anywhere? I want to find out if I’m in a mission-critical neighbourhood, or whether everything round here is fine and dandy.
I hope they didn’t spend too much money on that study. So now we have Labour’s “5 Missions” and some “mission critical neighbourhoods” target seats for MacSweeney/Starmer to make promises to. That’s neat. Why do I suddenly feel a wave of cynicism washijng over me?
Looks like Bristol made a big mistake sticking with Labour in 2019 & 2024 (except for kicking out Thangham Debbonaire), we didn’t frighten MacSweeney enough.
I’ve learnt a new jargon word today, “mission critical neighbourhood “. I’ve no idea yet, what it means.
(We got our water back after 72 hours btw. Delay was due to a 2nd burst in same pipe, after they repaired the first one. So much for robust well maintained “mission critical” infrastructure benefiting from private capital… now I can have some fun deciding what to do with the compensation payment!)
I could not find it. The guardian is annoying in not providing external links.
RobertJ
I think this is it https://www.neighbourhoodscommission.org.uk/report/future-outlook-for-disadvantaged-neighbourhoods-in-england-in-2030/
Thanks
This is good from Assa Samake-Roman in The National today. Like you, Richard, she writes some really good stuff for The National
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25802658.taxing-rich-not-enough/
Thanks
Labour did the homework, got the depressing answers back, and then… set the homework for 2036.
The report basically says: in these “mission critical” neighbourhoods, things are still heading the wrong way on current funding — crime up, worklessness up. So Labour unveils “Pride in Place”: a decade-long pot that sounds big until you do the division and realise it’s the policy equivalent of splitting one blanket between 613 people and calling it a winter plan.
It’s pure Yes Minister. Not even the plot — the vibe. “We must do something” becomes “we’ve announced something”, and “delivery” becomes “a stakeholder roundtable with biscuits”.
If this is “change”, it’s the kind where everything stays the same but the leaflet is nicer. And while Labour’s busy trying not to spook the markets, they’re quietly spooking voters instead — by looking them in the eye and saying: “Yes, we know it’s getting worse. See you in ten years.”
Is this doggerel appropriate, if not, don’t use.
LABOUR IN NAME ONLY?
The government goes under the name of Labour
But we must ask, to whom they are doing a favour?
Their friends in the City
Are sitting pretty
While the poor
Knock at the door.
The rich can grow their resources
And claim dubious tax allowances
The poor are left to live on pittances.
NHS being privatised before our eyes
Privatised water gives polluted rivers and seas
Right to buy council houses has led to rentier greed
Release us from this we simple plead
Surely people see a corporate wheeze?
Release us from this rentier sleaze.
MPs are paid to be corporate lobbyists
Their constituents often fall off their lists.
Political parties funded by the rich and wealthy
Leaving us poor peasants financially unhealthy.
Time for the truth to be unfurled
Think tanks funded by the corporate world
Rich and powerful foreign owned media
Feed us their antisocial neoliberal lying hysteria.
MPs given directorships, consultancies and bungs
They say to keep their feet on corporate rungs !!!!
This should be seen as deception
Let’s call it what it really is – corruption.
More than suitable. Thank you.
Poverty is manufactured. Criminalisation of the everyday day to over regulation of people, and under regulation of corporate and govnement interests.
It’s always been that way .
This lot are cranking it up. I must give it too them. While they perform the pantomime and supposed uturns, they are putting the system in they need, to make those changes in a future point. This looks like profiling.
If you give those incarcerated the money it cost to keep them there. The majority would never return. Yet those that cause the most harm on our society and economy, there is never enough to satisfy them . Yet it’s merely unlawful, not criminal. An unfair, unjust system always needs those to point at , as the scourge of our societies. The target for blame and off ire. The warning. And they always manufacture the conditions to keep that status quo in place
When poverty rises so does crime.
We should expect that as the outcome of our lack of engagement m.