A Young Swedish Social Democrat In Northern Ireland

During one week in late December, I travelled for the first time to Northern Ireland to visit the SDLP Youth to get a glimpse of another Social Democratic Youth League activities and organization. By SSU (which is the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League) and its international part, I had contact with Barry Magee who previously worked for the SDLP and was at our Congress in Sweden in August earlier this year. Barry gave me further contact with Matthew McDermott as SDLP Youth's chairman, and I quickly got a very good contact with both Barry and Matthew who welcomed me.

Matthew booked up several very interesting sessions for me, and I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and the welcome I received from everyone in the SDLP. Matthew managed to arrange a meeting with Margaret Ritchie, which I appreciated very huge, and I really believe in the political line she runs and thinks she is a very good representative for the Social Democrats and the SDLP.

For me as a starting point in a Swedish perspective, it was tremendously rewarding to get an insight into political life in Northern Ireland, as it also contains more political reasons than simply left to the right. I had several interesting conversations with representatives from various parties, as Barry had been kind enough to arrange for me because I would get a nuanced picture of the situation today. I really appreciate that enormously, and while I realize that it is difficult for me to understand the thoughts and feelings that exist, then I do not have the same historical roots of the situation today in Belfast for example.

I found, however, a strong social democratic movement and a belief in a change in society that has been shown to be capable in recent years. For me it is clear that social democracy still has and will play an important role. I do think that social democracy and its policies have the ability to understand people's thoughts about the past, but also that its representatives can capture the ideas of society as the new and young generation today.

I feel an enormous gratitude to all the people from the SDLP who I met during my short stay in Northern Ireland, but especially to Barry Magee who really made sure that my stay was as good as it really was. His efforts to schedule meetings with various representatives were really giving me a huge overall. In addition, he gave me personally a huge welcome as I will never forget and his family showed tremendous hospitality. In that way you can say that Barry really showed in concrete action what social democracy can really be. And that is a solidarity that does not know national boundaries and where cooperation between our countries are part of the work towards a better and redder Europe.

Ruben Wågman
Regionombudsman, SSU Stockholm
The Social Democrat youth movement in Sweden

Stormont to take on Interns?

Yesterday's news carried a rather interesting development for local graduates. Northern Ireland's Minister for Employment and Learning Sir Reg Empey argued that government departments here should consider establishing internship schemes to help tackle, what is for me, a crisis level of unemployment in young graduates.

Sir Reg admits that with finances already stretched his department alone may only be able to fund only 10 such internships. Put that across all the other departments and that is a potential 110 internship vacancies to be created, potentially speaking of course. The success of such a scheme will depend on gaining cross-party support and getting other departments to commit themselves to participating in such a scheme.

I can't see any political hurdles for such a plan but there certainly may be financial obstacles. With various departmental budgets already under serious pressure will Sir Reg be able to even guarantee a minimum of 10 internship positions per department? And more importantly, will those departments that do participate in such a scheme be prepared to ensure that future recipients of such internship positions are paid a living wage?

Frankly, these proposals are a case of “too little, too late” and the creation of a potential 110 internship positions will be cosmetic and, in practice, will represent a drop in the ocean in terms of tackling current levels of graduate unemployment. The economic crisis has been in full flow for well over a year now, with unemployment figures steadily rising over this period, and the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) have been remarkably slow to react.

A “keep-the-fingers-crossed” mentality and an inability to plan ahead, by addressing what was clearly a foreseeable situation, has meant that DEL have presided over a labour market that is allowing the hopes of a generation of young people go down the plug-hole. Sir Reg is not responsible for the current economic crisis but he is culpable for its negative local impact- through his department’s inaction to address some of the local symptoms of the wider economic malaise.

Why Won’t The Sammy Show Just Go Off Air?!

Today in the Assembly Environment Minister Sammy Wilson attempted to defend his ridiculous decision to ban UK Government-backed ads urging people to be more energy efficient. The Minister was responding to an Assembly motion of concern over his recent position.

I watched the debate and I must say it was nothing short of an hour long episode of the Big Sammy Show. Wilson ranted, laughed manically, ranted, laughed and then ranted some more. As far as responsible or serious government goes- this was farce.

Wilson is single-handedly is making a mockery of the role of a Minister of Government and he is turning NI into a laughing stock.

The Environment Minster attempted to deflect some of the furore over his decision to censor the energy efficiency ads by singling out several MLAs with a pre-prepared brief that besmirched their environmental claims or green credentials.

But the Minister was missing the point.

MLAs are not the running the Department for the Environment- he is. It is about time he put an end to this self-induced side show and assumed some sort of mantle of responsibility and duty of leadership.

His performance may have been amusing but he is increasingly looking like a man that should not be allowed anywhere near instruments of power.

As I have posted before Wilson is a man who loves the sound of his own voice- he appears to revel in this figure of fun persona that he has crafted for himself - and simply is not happy when things are not revolving around him. He is a man who pays homage to populist sound bites and eco-sceptic dogma.

At one point the Minister questioned MLAs, who were supporting the motion, on what scientific evidence they based their assertation that there is a link between climate change and human behaviour. What on earth is Wilson taking with is porridge? He obviously has not heard of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)!!

Wilson chooses to simply ignore the work this international panel of leading climate scientists have been involved in, under a mandate by the UN, and during the debate today he did not even acknowledge the outcomes of the recent climate change discussions in Bonn.

At the end of the day this whole furore is not about Sammy Wilson censoring an ad, it is about an Environment Minister who refuses to accept international consensus that climate change is influenced by human behaviour.

While Wilson might think the whole debacle is one big laugh- the position he has adopted is immature, ignorant and irresponsible.

The Minister is completely entitled to have his own dogmatic, eco-sceptic views about the human impact on climate change but as a Minister he is bound to the Ministerial code and to addressing the environmental commitments published in the NI Programme for Government.

The Programme for Government unequivocally ackowledges the role of man in influencing climate change- Sammy Wilson and his party, the DUP, signed up to this! So Wilson's recent position towards Government-backed energy efficiency ads is extremely difficult to comprehend.

The Environment Minister’s current attitude is extremely unhelpful.

Whilst his attics may sometimes seem amusing, he should attempt to contribute something positive to the climate change debate instead of indulging his own political platitudes.

A starting point would be for Sammy to take stock of his own rogue emissions- judging by the amount of hot air he is currently polluting the NI political climate with!

This is a democracy and Sammy Wilson is entitled to his own opinion- but not to his own facts.

Tackling the Economic Crisis

Yesterday I took part in an interesting public debate in Dublin regarding the economic crisis and how it can be solved http://www.labour.ie/youth/. I participated in a panel discussion alongside representatives from Irish Labour Youth, Socialist Youth and Young Greens.

This post provides an outline of my position on the economic crisis and the issues that I raised during the debate...

The global economic system is always in crisis. It is nothing new. As long as there is poverty and social exclusion in the world then the economic system is failing. So what makes this current economic crisis exceptional? With the onset of globalisation this is the first real economic crisis that has affected the entire international community.

Economic pressures in the US have been massively exacerbated and exported to the rest of the world by the process of financial globalisation and the increasing integration of economic markets. What makes this crisis unprecedented is that it is truely global.

The current pressures on the economic system first presented itself with the rising price of oil and the subsequent inflation in the cost of living- with increased food prices in particular. Oil price increases have meant that farmers have to spend more on fuel for their tractors/machinery and this increase in production cost has been passed on to consumers with rising food prices a direct consequence.

The increasing cost of living was then compounded by the mortgage crisis that hit the US economy last year. The collapse of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae came as a direct response to irresponsible and risky lending.

People who clearly could not afford mortgages for particular properties were given mortgages. When many of these people defaulted on their mortgage repayments or failed to afford the repayments then the whole system began to crumble.

The spectacular collapse of the mortgage system in the US rolled out into the global banking sector where many banks had bought mortgages during the good times and were now left with substantially toxic mortgage assets.

The collapse of banks such as Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, and the Presbyterian Mutual Society here in the north, came as a direct response to banks having toxic mortgage assets. When banks struggled to sell these toxic assets from their books this impacted on their own finances and affected their abilities to lend to each other. Banks became cautious and did not want to particpate in any lending that had any element of risk attached.

With this mortgage crisis now in full flow, ordinary people are stuggling to buy and sell homes and young people in particular can not get their first step onto the property ladder- this has led to a crisis in the housing sector. With the collapse of some pension schemes people's key source of economic security was their homes and the rising values of their property.

With the bursting of the housing bubble- now they don't even have that.

With internal pressures within the banking system banks are tightening their belts and restricting loan facilities - not just between the banks themselves - but also between the banks and their customers. This has created a lending crisis for small-medium business- as many in this sector need these loans to support them during this difficult financial situtation. For individuals there is now no easy credit to make up for pressures on wages.

Here in the north the construction industry has been hit hard by the housing crisis. With a shortage in demand for new builds building firms have had to lay off staff. By October 2008 there had been 8,000 jobs lost in the norths construction industry. This figure has undoubtedly risen since then and will continue to rise with an estimated 20,000 due to be out of work by the end of 2009.

Unemployment is at 4.2% (October 200*) and this figure is rising at an alarming rate. Youth unemployment is increasing due to people living longer and retirement age increases - with older people staying in employment for longer - and nowhere near enough job creation at the other end of the spectrum.

With a shortage of new jobs being created many young people are having to do precarious work in order to get their first steps on the employment ladder. Many young graduates are having to work in non-degree related jobs in order to make ends meet. Often this work is low-paid, low-skill work with few employment rights, with many finding themselves with no other option but to work in the 'temping' sector where, under current labour market laws, they are routinely exploited.

The financial crisis must not be used as an excuse to dilute employment and therefore social standards. The increase in short-term contracts, agency work and sub-contracting has created a race to the bottom in social standards. This has denied many people, particularly young people, many employment rights and protections.

Those jobs that have been created have tended to be in the retail sector with the likes of Tesco and Lidl. Most of these jobs are low-skill, low-wage jobs and can not necessarily be described as 'new jobs'- as many of the vacances are filled by workers who have already lost jobs elsewhere - from the construction sector but mainly from elsewhere in the retail sector. There must be healthy competition on the high street to prevent this.

The increasing market dominance of large, stack-em-high-sell-em-cheap retailers is unhealthy. The collapse of retailers such as Zavvi and Woolworths and the collapse of the small to medium business sector has only added to the dominance of the likes of Tesco, giving them more of a monoply over the market (Tescopoly).

All this time, and with constant pressure on public finances, there remains a challenge to maintain existing levels of public expenditure and maintain service provision within healthcare, education and social security. The financial crisis must not be used as an excuse to cut public spending.

With existing levels of competition between states, or international regulatory competition, now being exacerbated by this globalised economic crisis- it is an increasing challenge for states to reconcile the need to increase social standards with the need to remain competitive and productive. Improving social standards will help tackle poverty and social exlusion and this will help create the necessary conditions for a competitive, knowledge-based economy firmly rooted in the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs.

A classic example of this competition presenting itself in Ireland is the recent decision by Dell to 'pick up sticks' and move its operation in Limerick to Poland- at the cost of hundreds of jobs in Limerick. Poland offers Dell the chance to reduce their labour and corporation tax costs- which Dell would see as necessary to compete in the pressurised economic climate. This is the reality of the localised and very real impacts of this crisis.

Ireland's over-reliance on international corporations (which have no local ties or loyalty) and foreign direct investment has come home to roost. If anything the economic crisis has taught us that here we rely too much on international corporations and we do not support local business enough.

There are however some reasons to remain optomistic. The credit crunch does present us with some really positive opportunities.

We can improve North-South cooperation to tackle the financial impacts on the island. The benefits of North-South cooperation were all too apparent in the successful resolution of the recent dioxic contamination in pig meat. This was a financial issue that threatened the future of the agricultural industry here and it was also an all-ireland issue as it affected the industry both north and south. The successful resolution of this crisis showed how all-ireland approaches to financial issues can work for mutual benefit.

The falling or deflation of the UK's currency has also allowed producers and business here to benefit. The lower value of sterling has meant that it is cheaper for the Republic / Euro-zone and other economies to import our products. This has helped to support local business but this must be capitalised upon by the likes of Invest NI. Cheaper imports from NI has also helped the Republic and other Euro-zone cut their business costs.

The economic crisis also presents an opportunity for a change of culture in financial institutions and in citizens. This can mean more responsible lending, cuts in city/bank bonuses, an end to rampant and irresponsible pursuit of profit; a change of direction in how we consume and how we as citizens approach issues such as personal debt. Afterall we have become generation-debt.

Value for money from politicans can present a positive symbolic signal to citizens. The recent moves by the Irish Parliament to cut representatives wages is something that must be positively acknowledged.

So how can we solve this crisis? Can we can truely solve a perpetually anarchic and volatile system that has proven itself time and time again to fall into crisis and then relauch itself?

I believe that traditionally recessions tend to last for years and realistically we can only hope to alleviate some of the impacts of this current crisis on the lives of people. The crisis cannot be solved overnight.

Here are a few positive steps that I believe can help soften the impact of the financial crisis:

Let's introduce the Euro in the UK; support the banks when needed in return for more democratic control over them; promote all-ireland infrastructure projects and other public work programmes that help get construction workers back to work; support small to medium enterprises and reduce our reliance on foreign direct investment; support moves to increase financial regulatory powers of international institutions- we live in a globalised world and can not stand alone during this crisis; invest in the green economy; resist privatisation and support employment by building strong social partnership- stronger unions means stronger employment rights that tackle poverty and maginalisation; finance social support measures and give redundant and unemployed workers a strong safety net- there can be no flexicurity/flexibility in labour markets (use of agencies, etc) without proper social security; develop progressive taxation measures; and develop the skills base in our workforce- let's give our workers a chance and make them more competitive within the internationalised labour market.

Education NI: From Wreck to Ruane

Last week we heard the Education Minister Ms Ruane provide some 'clarity' to the post-primary education debate. The only thing the Minister made clear was that she is not clear about what will happen to the education system under her proposals.

For months now, if not years, teachers, parents, students and anyone else involved in the education sector have been kept in the dark about Ruane's plans for post-primary transfer arrangements in light of her decision to remove the 11+.

The pressure on the Minister to provide clarity has been mounting steadily over this time.

People hanging onto the hope for clarity on the issue must be extremely disapponted by the Ruane's display last week in the Assembly. Her constant foot-dragging and politicisation of the education debate has been tough to swallow for many.

I for one agree with the Minsters intentions. The 11+ is a failed system. It fails so many young people. It simply does not offer a progressive management of the futures life chances of our children.

Yes the current education system, underpinned by the 11+ transfer test, has had many victories in its time. Children in the north have consistently topped UK league tables for performance in all key levels of the curriculum.

However, whilst the north has dominated the top tiers of educational performance for so long, there remains an untold and untrumpeted underbelly of underperformance.

Whilst it is true that young people in the north may achieve the highest levels of educational attainment in the UK with the highest proportion of students achieving A grades and above- we also have the very dirty prize of being home to the lowest educational attainers in the UK.

In the north more people as a percentage leave the education system with little or no GCSEs, much lower than the government standard of 5. This portrays an education system of extreme disparity. The variance between the top achievers and the lowest is simply not acceptable.

But really can the removal of the 11+ improve this situation? I believe it can but only if its removal is backed up by investment in children and their respective socio-economic circumstances at home. That perhaps is a debate for another day. But any movement towards a comprehensive style system like in England may not necessarily address the fundamental issue of gross disparities in educational attainment. Ruane's assumption that it will is extremely hap-hazzard.

Simply put- lumping all children into the same school will not in itself create an automatic level playing field for attainment.

Ruane's discision to remove the 11+ however receives my endorsement. But how the Minister has gone about the business of replacing the transfer test has left alot to be desired.

Her constant foot-dragging, politicisation and confrontation on the issue has done much damage to these noble intentions. By not achieving any sort of political consensus on her proposals she can not legislate for an end to the selection issue.

If she can not legislate then we are staring down the barrel of an unregulated and anarchic system. A system that could do more damage than good. Guidelines are not worth the paper they are written on and do not legally enforce compliance from schools. They are not sufficient for a sector that is so vitally important and therefore require the strictest form of regulation.

Applying the soft law option will not bring all schools onto the same page and could create an even worse monster than the 11+. It is simply impossible to predict the outcome of the proposed system as there are so many unanswered questions and potential variables. This creates so much uncertainty for those involved.

This uncertainty will no doubt led to considerable legal challenge - not just to the Minister's decision - but to the unregulated and unstandardised transfer tests that most schools will adopt. This could also prove to be an expensive legal minefield.

In life I have learnt the hard way that you can not convince those who have diametrically opposed views from you by shouting at them and squaring up to them at every opportunity. Politics is about the art of persuasion and in this test I give the Minister a F-.

She is the Education Minister so it is up to her to build consensus around her proposals, build political and sectoral support and get the required people on board in support of her plans.

Ruane's failure afterall is a failure for our young people.

She clearly wanted rid of the 11+ from the moment she became Education Minister without even thinking of alternative arrangements. By running to the media to announce that she was ridding us of the 11+, but she would tell us of her alternative plans at a later date, the Minister bought herself time but at the considerable expense of placing enormous uncertainty and pressure into the lives of parents, pupils and teachers.

I would not care if this time was spent divising concrete proposals and then building consensus around them but she failed to do that.

The lack of clarity over her plans for post-primary transfer has been the major issue for parents, pupils and teachers trying to plan ahead for the future. They have been let down.

The lack of consensus around her plans has been a major issue for politicians. Ruane has tried to rail road her plans through the Assembly without any consultation- simply listening to other parties is not good enough. But she didnt even listen. Proper consultation means listening to other views and incorporating conflict into final proposals through compromise.

Yes there are other parties, such as the DUP, who wished to scupper the Ministers plans from the get go regardless. If Ruane said black they would say white. Her constant evasiveness and confrontational style did not help this and only served to give the DUP clear reason to object.

The Minister needed to build compromise proposals in order to provide a way forward out of this gridlock by placing the onus on other parties to move towards her position. She needed to bring the SDLP on board first and foremost- and then address unionist concerns but she failed to do that. Even though the SDLP have the same position on academic selection Ruane was intent on going it alone and side-lined them.

Last week the Minister failed to compromise and clearly showed that she was prepared to confine the next batch of primary school children to an uncertain future simply in order to show that she means business and will not back down to intransigent unionism.

This is playing politics with childrens lives and for that reason Catriona Ruane fails every test in my book.