Starmer has no coherent social mobility plan, says top government adviser
Keir Starmer has no coherent strategy to tackle entrenched inequalities harming the life chances of millions of people, the government’s social mobility commissioner has said.A report warned last week that young adults in Britain’s former industrial heartlands were being left behind as a result of failed or abandoned promises by successive governments.The Social Mobility Commission (SMC), a government advisory body, said big cities such as Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol were starting to thrive but that opportunities were “overconcentrated”.In a Guardian interview, the commission’s chair, Alun Francis, urged Starmer to outline a bold vision to tackle “the defining social mobility challenge of our generation”.He said: “We have a government that talks quite a lot about social mobility, but mainly about individuals – often about [the] social mobility of themselves or their colleagues … But what we don’t have is a coherent approach to social mobility as a useful concept that you can build a strategy around.
”Francis’s warning comes at a moment of mounting pressure on the government over its approach to social mobility after last week’s SMC report described poorer childhood conditions, fewer job opportunities and a lack of growth in former industrial communities, and as new figures showed the sharpest rise in youth unemployment for three years.With almost 1 million young people now outside education, work or training, critics say the government has failed to articulate a plan to brighten their prospects before the next election.Francis praised government policies on devolution and housing, but said welfare reform and other proposals had been “stop-start”.“We’ve got other policies like growth, educational improvement where we’re just not sure where we’re going,” he said.Francis said Labour’s skills policy and its industrial strategy were a step forward but that there was “no overarching narrative” to pull all these strands together.
Without an overall strategy, he said, the government would “struggle to address some of those issues and have a clear-headed view about what we might do to improve things”.He also warned that without a “universal view” of what social mobility means, it risked being subsumed by diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies – an agenda that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has characterised as “woke” and promised to dismantle.“To some degree it’s dropped into being a part of DEI because it does have some of those aspects,” he said.“But [social mobility] isn’t really a DEI policy.It’s more about an economic and social policy that’s about bringing the benefits to everybody.
”The SMC’s annual report, published last week, came as official statistics showed an increase of 85,000 young people unemployed in the three months to October.The risk of not being in education, employment and training is more than double for those from a disadvantaged background with low qualifications.This group is proportionally highest in the north-east and north-west of England, followed by the East Midlands and West Midlands.Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, said this was a “national outrage … a social injustice and an economic catastrophe”.He will lead a review into the causes of young people being out of work or education, it was announced last week.
Francis, who was appointed by the Cabinet Office in January 2023, said successive governments had become too focused on “quick fixes” and the frenetic pressures of Westminster, leading to “constant changes of direction”,He added: “Without that narrative on social mobility, what you tend to have is lots of disconnected aspects of policy without a way of bringing them together into one coherent whole,”A government spokesperson said: “Nearly 1 million young people in Britain are not in education, employment or training – and that number has been rising for four years,“This is a crisis we cannot ignore, and we have asked Alan Milburn to help us build a system that supports young people and understand the root causes of youth unemployment,We are bringing forward the biggest employment reforms in a generation and Alan Milburn’s review will ensure every young person is provided an opportunity to make something of their lives.
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UK failure to seal EU tax exemption hands industry mountain of paperwork
UK manufacturers are to be hit with mountains of Brexit-style paperwork in January on £7bn worth of exports to the EU after the government failed to secure an expected exemption from new green taxes.The UK had hoped to secure a carve-out by Christmas on the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), but EU commissioners have confirmed this is not going to happen.UK Steel says the exemption is unlikely to be in place before Easter, resulting in detailed paperwork for exporters in a repeat of Brexit when they were hit with paperwork on customs and standards of their goods.The documentation requires exporters to provide a detailed paper trail of carbon emissions generated during the manufacturing process.It will apply to scores of products made with steel and aluminium, including washing machines and car parts, under plans Brussels announced on Wednesday
Reform councillors in Kent condemned for spending thousands on political assistants
Reform UK’s “flagship” local authority, Kent county council, has been condemned for pushing through plans to spend tens of thousands of pounds on hiring political assistants.The move comes after councillors from Nigel Farage’s party in Warwickshire were accused of hypocrisy in July when they voted to spend £150,000 on the advisers, some of whom are being parachuted in by the national party to deal with a litany of issues at Reform-run councils.Both councils face budget crises and Reform candidates were voted in on pledges to cut waste and save money.A new leaked recording of a meeting of the Reform councillors in Kent – wearing turquoise Santa’s elf hats – showed them being told earlier this week by one of their leaders, Maxwell Harrison, that a former Reform director of campaigning and training at the party’s head office had been hired by the council as a “political assistant”.Harrison named him as Michael Hadwen, who has attracted controversy for social media posts including expressing support for Enoch Powell’s ideas about immigration
UK aid cuts take 40% from funds to counter Russian threat in western Balkans
Keir Starmer’s raid on overseas aid has led to a 40% cut in funds for countering Russian aggression and misinformation in a region of Europe described by the prime minister as vital to the UK’s national security.British funding committed to bolstering the western Balkans, where Russia has been accused of sowing division and creating destabilisation, has been cut from £40m last year to £24m for 2025-26.The Integrated Security Fund (ISF) is designed to tackle the highest priority threats to the UK’s national security at home and overseas.Starmer recently described the western Balkans region, encompassing Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, as “Europe’s crucible – the place where the security of our continent is put to the test”.Last year’s ISF funds were used in part to counter and respond to malicious cyber-attacks in the region and to bolster democratic institutions and independent media
‘It’s rather rude’: Truss accused of trying to poach members of rival Tory club
For Tory grandees licking their wounds and plotting their return after their disastrous 2024 general election performance, the opulent, fire-lit rooms of the exclusive club 5 Hertford Street are a sanctuary.But in recent weeks, their long lunches have been rudely interrupted by Liz Truss, who has been accused of wandering the premises in search of members to poach for her own rival operation, just one street away, which asks “founding members” for an eye-watering £500,000.The former prime minister’s alleged headhunting is understood to have irritated those who run the Mayfair club, including its owner, Robin Birley, the entrepreneur and son of Annabel Goldsmith and the nightclub owner Mark Birley. A friend of his said: “It is rather rude, but at £500k, we are rather better value.” Membership of 5 Hertford Street is a relative snip at less than £2,000 a year
UK politics: ‘Not clear’ who was behind FCDO hack, says minister, amid reports of China link – as it happened
Good morning.The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, according to trade minister Chris Bryant.Details of the hack emerged on Friday in a report by the Sun that claimed a Chinese hacker group was behind the cyber-attack.The Sun named Storm 1849 as the Chinese cyber gang responsible for the breach, which it said was understood to possibly include tens of thousands of visa details.The group has been “accused of targeting politicians and groups critical of the Chinese government”, the newspaper said
UK Foreign Office victim of cyber-attack in October, says Chris Bryant
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, a minister has said.Chris Bryant, a trade minister in Keir Starmer’s government, told Sky News there was a low risk to “any individual” from the cyber-attack.Details of the hack emerged on Friday in a report by the Sun that claimed a Chinese hacking group was behind it.But Bryant told broadcasters it was “not clear” who perpetrated the attack and cautioned against speculation. “There certainly has been a hack at the FCDO and we’ve been aware of that since October,” Bryant told Sky News
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