Centre for Cities Analysis

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Some very interesting analysis from the Centre for Cities think-tank on how Medway compares with the rest of the United Kingdom

It makes a bleak read in some ways and a positive in others.

Medway comes out very poorly on education with our area amongst the worst in the region for the level of people with high level qualifications in comparison with areas with a fully comprehensive system. We also have very few knowledge-based jobs in our area which means Medway is disproportionately impacted by cuts to manufacturing and the public sector (ratio is 2:1 private to public).

Medway also has concerningly high business churn but with a low start-up in comparison to other areas. This means not enough is being done by the Council to encourage and start-up new business in comparison to other sized conurbations

The loss of income is also pronounced with average weekly earnings falling to £488 which is a real terms reduction of £6 but with inflation is likely to be significantly higher.

Overall Medway is in a fair position in comparison to cities in the North East and Midlands; but does not fair well in the region and on indicators where the Conservative administration could have had influence; business growth and support, they are failing in comparison to other nearby authorities.

The Quiet Man comes to Medway

The Quiet Man is visiting Chatham tomorrow. Charisma watchers stay away...

As is trypical with any Medway Conservative press operation it leaks like a sieve. Too many mouths feeding from the trough so to speak...

Anyway; the visit by Ed Balls MP caught the Tories off mark and worried last week. They are exposed because under the Tory watch youth unemployment has sky-rocketed during a period of growth...

Labour were expecting the Tories to come up with a bigger hitter, but given two of our local MPs are Euroloon rebels I can imagine the Prime Minister or Chancellor would not want to be seen anywhere near Medway.

As it is we have the quiet man; he is sure to go down well at the Chatham Job Centre.

Lets just say we all wait to be inspired.

Ed Balls MP on Youth Unemployment

Ed Balls MP visited Chatham today to meet young unemployed on the day the figures by the ONS saw youth unemployment above 1m.

A Tory legacy of failure as they led on cuts to the Future Jobs Fund and the EMA. They trebled tuition fees and took the ladder of opportunity away from our young people.

Further videos:

The Road Ahead?

Increasing unemployment as Medway Tories obsess over Europe

We all know that the Conservative Coalition policies are not working and because they decided to cut too far and too fast we are now at greater risk now than had the Country taken a different course in May 2010.

In the General Election the Labour Party were absolutely clear that we would not cut as far and as fast until the recovery was in view because of the risk of a double-dip.

You may remember this Labour Party Election Broadcast from May 2010 warning of the Tory path:

We lost the election and Cameron rejected our position.

They took the wrong path and now we are once again staring down the barrel of a gun but with a weak leader and a party which believes that 'unemployment is the price worth paying.'

Dont take my words for it; Cameron's own Conservative colleagues are falling over themselves to distance themselves from the Economic record of the current government

The below is from a Conservative, Patrick Mercer MP according to The People.

GUEST: I enjoyed your kind words. Some people have a gift for that.

MERCER: It’s sort of what I do. I’ve only made three speeches today. The first one in rather faux support for the Home Secretary who I assume will not be the Home Secretary by Friday.If the Prime Minister expresses his utmost confidence in you that means pack your bags. It always has done ­especially with Cameron. What a creature!

GUEST: You don’t rate him?

MERCER: No, I think he’s the worst politician in British history since William Gladstone.

GUEST: What about Gordon Brown?

MERCER: At least Gordon was ­human. Gordon had all sorts of errors, frailties – but at least he was human.

GUEST: Where did David go wrong?

MERCER: Well, he was born.

GUEST: You can’t say things like that.

MERCER: Yeah I can. He’s a most despicable creature without any real redeeming features. If I can think of one ... he’s very rich, how’s that? That’s a redeeming feature.

GUEST: He’s in a terrible situation, the poor guy.

MERCER: And he’s making it worse.

GUEST: Well what are his side going to do about him.

MERCER: We’ll sack him.

GUEST: You reckon?

MERCER: We’ll get rid of him.

GUEST: Well who’s going to take his place.

MERCER: Well if I don’t kill him, then I probably will out of fun – and show the country how really badly it can be run.

I’ve never, ever come across anyone less suited to the job in my life.

I would take a beggar off the streets and put him in that position rather than have Cameron. I loathe him.

What this snippet shows you is that despite all the spin and rubbish peddled by Tory MPs in public they know that they have called the recovery wrong and have a leader who could not even win an absolute majority. He is a dud...

The worry is that this dud cant control his party. We are seeing evidence of similar rebellious actions to Patrick Mercer MP locally.

Both Mark Reckless and Tracey Crouch joined a growing number of rebel Euroloons on the back-benches on the referendum vote only a few weeks ago. They rebelled against the leader of their party and voted against the national interest, in the persuit of an extremist agenda which would have called for a referendum in the middle of the Eurozone crisis, which could have cost this country millions as the markets would have inevitably responded had the motion passed.

They both irresponsibly put the share prices of UK companies, jobs and employment of millions of people at risk and they did it because they saw a political opportunity while the Eurozone struggles to secure itself.

Do you think they acted responsiblity in the interests of the moderate middle?

What is most worrying though; whilst they have been focusing on Europe they have said precious little about the current state of unemployment which blights Medway and beyond.

This week we will likely see an extremely grim milestone, with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) preparing to release the latest unemployment figures which is expected to cross the one million mark.

In Medway youth unemployment is sky high:

Rochester & Strood unemployment: Number of 18-24 yr olds claiming over 6 months up 114% with the total number up from 2,425 to 2,430 from May 10 to Sept 11

Gillingham & Rainham unemployment: Number of 18-24 yr olds claiming over 6 months up 206% with the total number up 4.9% frm 2,358 to 2,473 frm May 10 to Sept 11

Chatham & Aylesford unemployment: Number of 18-24 yr olds claiming over 6 months up by 150% and a total number up 2% frm 2,720 to 2,774 from May 10 to Sept 11

Cameron is taking us in the wrong direction and our rebellious and factional MPs are putting the national interest behind that of a faction within the Conservative Party.

Meanwhile our young people continue to be let down...

There are risky times ahead; but Labour will continue to fight and talk about the issues that matter. Jobs, NHS, schools, police and a sensible relationship with Europe.

Just like the 1980s?

Last week the House of Commons Library published the latest unemployment figures. They are as one would expect, pretty grim. Unemployment is up across the board, and the South has been affected much the same as any other region.

Just like the 1980s!

Job Seeker Allowance claimant levels have risen considerably in the five years since 2006. The increases across the South East in particular have been severe, as the figures below show:
Increase in JSA claimant levels, 2006-2011 (source: House of Commons library)

Crawley +114.7%
Milton Keynes South +100.1%
Dartford +87.7%
Thanet South +75.4%
Portsmouth North +72.1%
Gillingham & Rainham +68.0%
Hastings & Rye +67.9%
Chatham & Aylesford +62.8%
Sittingbourne & Sheppey +62.6%
Reading West +55.3%
Rochester & Strood +51.6%
Dover +48.0%
Hove +34.4%
Brighton Kemptown +19.7%
Brighton Pavilion +12.1%

All fifteen of these constituencies were Labour seats until 2010. They are the communities in the South East that Labour needs to win back if we are to win the next election.Labour’s five point Jobs Plan, outlined by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls at the Labour party conference last month and set out below, demonstrates that Labour has a Plan B for growth.

It is a sensible and well thought through plan of action.However, as well as providing hope – and a plan – for those out of work, Labour must also ensure it addresses the concerns of those still in work. Job security – actually, job insecurity, is a rapidly rising concern. Cost of living increases mean that the monthly pay cheque needs to go further and further.

Inflation figures are likely to heap further pain on already overstretched household incomes. Labour’s frontbench must remind themselves that when they talk about a growth strategy as the means of getting people back into work, they also highlight that the very same growth strategy will give security to those already in work.

Source: Southern Front

Medway isn't working under Tories

Only the most blind of Conservatives can now ignore the glaringly obvious - that Gideon and the Etonian cabinet of multi-millionares are totally mismanaging the economic recovery.

The last time unemployment stood at this level was under the Major Conservative government. A government that failed Britain with sky high crime, dithering factional govenrment, dodgy scandals and a total lack of leadership. History repeats itself.

Labour went into the General Election in 2010 on an economic argument which has since come to fruition. Labour wanted a slower pace of deficit reduction over a longer cycle because we were clear the recovery had not been secured.

The Tories meanwhile lied to the public over their plans. They were elected and cut the public sector and rose taxes they promised they would not - VAT.

The Etonian arrogance of the Tories who last year claimed last year we were 'out of the danger zone' and that there need not be a rise in unemployment. So today, unemployment increased by 114,000 to 2.57 million in the quarter to August, the worst total since the autumn of 1994, giving a jobless rate of 8.1%, the highest since 1996.

Medway's claimant count rose 142 to 7,120, while in the rest of Kent, an extra 445 people joined the dole queue.

Youth unemployment reached a record high of 991,000, while the numbers claiming Jobseeker's Allowance increased for the seventh month in a row, to 1.6 million, date from the Office of National Statistics has shown.

The male youth unemployment rate (23.6 per cent) is also the highest since 1992. There are now 257,000 young people who have been unemployed for over a year, the highest figure since Dec-Feb 1994. Overall, 867,000 people have been unemployed over a year and 423,000 for more than two years.

Other figures showed a 178,000 slump in employment in the quarter to August - the biggest fall in more than two years - and the largest-ever cut in the number of part-time workers, down by 175,000.The number of people classed as economically inactive increased by 26,000 to 9.35 million, a rate of 23.3%. Taking the inactivity rate and the new jobless figures together, half of 16 to 24-year-olds are now not employed, it was revealed.

Not one Medway Conservative Councillor or MP has apologised for calling it wrong...

With the Tories Britain isn't working. We need a plan B.

Shame as Youth Unemployment Rockets

Medway was shamed today as the United Kingdom hotspot for increasing unemployment amongst 18-24 year olds.

The number of long-term young unemployed people has doubled in ten local authorities across the UK, with Medway (+158 per cent), West Lothian (+121 per cent) and South Ayrshire (+120 per cent) experiencing the sharpest increases. Medway is now the worst area of increase in youth unemployment in the United Kingdom.

The TUC analysis of Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) data shows that the number of young people claiming the dole for over six months has increased by 21 per cent in the last year to reach 103,230 in June 2010.

However the number of 18-24 year olds claiming JSA represents less than a third of the total number of young people out of work for over six months, which reached 338,000 between March and May 2010.

Southampton (-62 per cent), Stirling (-46 per cent) and Halton (-44 per cent) have experienced the sharpest falls in long-term youth unemployment levels over the last year.

The rise can now be directly blamed on successive government policies. With unemployment figures showing a further rise in long-term unemployment, and the Bank of England set to reduce its quarterly growth forecasts, it is now time that the Conservative Government accept that its overly aggressive language on deficit reduction will impact consumer confidence and is likely to harm the recovery. Sentiment, a rare commodity, is flagging.

The rise in youth unemployment are a warning that deep and early spending cuts, before the private sector has recovered, will only hurt our young people more.

Medway has suffered in part by falling aspiration. The Conservative closure of the dockyard and the cuts to education budgets through the 1980s and 1990s left not only a generation of unemployed but a legacy which remains to this day, where pockets of the town remain hotspots for worklessness. This culture was embedded under Thatcher and has remained stubbornly entrenched ever since. The closure of the Dockyard, a major employer, has not been matched since. Low-skilled workers remain at the mercy of cyclical economic trends and a lack of industrial blue-collar work and the closure of military bases has led to serious problems.

The proximity of Universities and improvement in education is the solution for future generations which is why it is key that per pupil funding is maintained.

According to the TUC,

'Young people were hit particularly hard by the recession and with the Government focusing on spending cuts, rather than getting people back into work, they may not fare much better during the recovery.

'Previous investment in employment schemes helped to keep many thousands of young people off benefits and in paid work. But having made an early decision to scrap the £1.2 billion Future Jobs Fund and the Young Person's Guarantee, the Government has yet to announce similarly well-funded support to get people back into decent paid work. Young people struggling for work this summer should be very concerned by the Government's silence.'

Tory polices are only making matters worse. Medway Council has been forced to scrap the Future Jobs Fund and other mechanisms to reduce youth unemployment and it is this bloggers concern that young people across Medway now face a Conservative tripple-whammy. Not only are the aggressive cuts leading to sluggish growth, risk of double-dip and reduced employment, but the Conservatives are also cutting the benefits of those seeking work, and it is cutting the public sector staff who are employed to offer counsel and advice.

Yvette Cooper warned of the cuts to come:

The Big Society is a big idea. But it risks being seen as a slap in the face to hundreds of young people. It's the economy stupid and at present the Tories have over-egged the downside and risk sluggish growth.