No, Hodge, It Is Violence Against the Left that Is Increasing!

Yesterday, the Beeb covered the story that the Met police are now investigating accusations of anti-Semitism against members of the Labour party. The investigation is based on a dossier of such incidents, which was leaked to LBC Radio, who have now passed it on to police commissioner Cressida Dick. Mike wrote a piece about it yesterday welcoming the move, as it means that these accusations will have to be investigated according to proper police procedure and law. This means that while such incidents will be registered as a hate crime, they will still have to be investigated and held to the same standard of proof as any other criminal investigation. An action cannot be considered anti-Semitic solely because a Jewish person says it is.

And Mike also draws attention to the way he was smeared by someone leaking information to the press from within the Labour party. And that he has spent the last nine months trying to defend his good name. He is now due to appear before a hearing, and is also appealing to people to contribute to his crowdfunding campaign, so that he can afford to sue those responsible for libel.

https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2018/11/02/met-police-investigation-into-alleged-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-in-the-labour-party-is-a-welcome-move/

The Beeb, which has shown itself to be committed to repeating the anti-Semitism smears against the Labour party sent in walrus-moustached John Pienaar to report on the story. Pienaar’s also shown himself all-too willing to repeat the smears uncritically. This time he interviewed Margaret Hodge, who had slithered out from whatever hole she’d been hiding in after she got a drubbing the last time she smeared Corbyn.

Hodge told Pienaar that there was a problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour party, and Jews like her now lived in fear of their lives. This was the woman, who managed to outrage Jews, people of Jewish descent, and gentiles, who had experienced persecution by the Nazis, or had relatives who had. Hodge, remember, had called Corbyn a ‘F***ing anti-Semite’ in parliament, a disciplinary offence. When she was threatened with it, which was later dropped, Hodge showed herself to be a massive self-pitying narcissist by declaring that she felt like the Jews in Nazi Germany did waiting for a knock on the door from the Gestapo.

Utter, utter, offensive, mendacious rubbish.

As the people on Twitter reminded everyone, including Tom London and the blogger Tom Pride, her experience was NOTHING like the terror the Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution felt and experienced.

Way back in September, Martin Odoni wrote in his blog, the Critique Archives, a piece about how in fact violence against the Left was growing. Martin’s a friend of Mike’s blog, and a critic of Israel’s vile maltreatment of the Palestinians. He, like very many other critics of Israel, is Jewish. Which makes him a special target of the Israel lobby, who have an especial hatred of anti-Zionist or Israel-critical Jews.

Martin reported how a screening of the film about Jackie Walker’s suspension from the Labour party for anti-Semitism, and her attempts to clear her name at a fringe event at the Labour conference in Liverpool had to be called off due to a bomb scare. Later that week, he was in The Caledonian pub in the same city, discussing Israel and Palestine with other Labour party members and supporters, when this meeting too was subjected to another bomb scare. They reasoned that it was another false one, however, and carried on with their evening.

He then moves on to a far more serious case in which a young woman, Jade Unal, and her mother were abused and attacked in a pub in Wakefield, west Yorkshire. Unal is an activist and local campaign manager for Young Labour. She and her mother were drinking quietly when a group of people came up and assaulted them. Jade was called “a posh c*nt in politics, that’s stuck up your own a*se” and a paedophile. Her head was then smashed against the bar, raising a lump and leaving a gash that required hospital treatment. The gang also followed her and her mother home, and threatened to torch their house. Martin shows the photographs of the wounds, with a warning about how grim they are.

Martin goes on to make the point that she was attacked because she was a Labour Leftist, but has received precious little help from the authorities. The police took her complaint, but have done anything further to help her or find her assailants. Jade also tried to get the help of social services, as her attackers had children with them. But she didn’t get any help there, either. And the Labour party itself has done nothing to help her, beyond the support she is receiving from her circle of friends.

Martin compares this with the massive attention given to the Blairites, who have claimed that they have suffered threats of attack. He writes

In short, while I do not wish to sound over-dramatic, the British Left is currently facing growing aggression and threatening behaviour from other parts of the political spectrum. That aggression is largely being overlooked or misrepresented. When Labour centrists complain about ‘bullying’ and ‘victimisation’, as I have pointed out before, they seem highly selective over which victims they care about. Hence, an almighty ker-fuffle is made over the very obviously faked and theatrical ‘bodyguard’ requirements of Luciana Berger this week. But there is a muted reaction, or no reaction at all, when a young woman in the party is actually beaten up for her political persuasion, and when party meetings are threatened with bomb attacks.

I am not in any doubt that there are some violent, over-aggressive leftists out there. But the Left is not the aggressor here. It is the target. And it is time that it was made clear to the public at large just how dangerous the aggression is getting.

And in addendum to his piece, Martin also talks about the criticism he has received for using an image of far-right violence in Germany as a link to the article on Twitter and Facebook. His detractors believe it is inappropriate. Martin explains it is all too appropriate, because far right violence is growing. He himself was threatened with murder on social media by one of Tommy Robinson’s supporters. Tommy Robinson is the monicker of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the infamous Islamophobe and founder of the EDL, who was banged up for contempt of court.

Martin concludes

Okay, maybe I should have been more explicit, but my point was, if people are bothered about political violence, why are so many of them looking for it on the left, when all of this is happening on the right?

Sounds perfectly consistent with what is in this article? I would say so.

Absolutely. But the lamestream media does not want to talk at all about the real and rising violence against the left, preferring to indulge the fantasies and posturing of people like Hodge. It’s just another example of the completely corrupt nature of the Beeb and the rest of the media, who are determined to slander Corbyn supporters as anti-Semites. And in their way, they are responsible for promoting and inciting this violence against the left.

Street Democracy on the Privatisation of Social Services for Vulnerable Children

The Guardian today ran a story about how the government is planning to privatise the social services dealing with children in care. The Guardian’s piece begins

The government is planning to allow outsourcing firms to bid for contracts to manage social services for vulnerable children in England – while dropping laws allowing the removal of companies that fail to do the job properly.

A number of firms have expressed an interest in proposals that would allow them to bid for contracts managing foster care and providing other services for children in care.

But Labour says the plans would take away legal provisions that allow councils to remove a firm that has failed to meet national minimum standards. They would also relax the rules governing independent inspections of services that place and monitor children who are looked after by the state.

The Guardian’s story can be read at http://m.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jul/18/social-services-children-privatised-labour

Street Democracy has also covered the story. Their comment on these proposals begins

Social services for vulnerable children in England to be privatised’ is most shocking and most disturbing. Private corporations ‘owning’ the most vulnerable of children. A private corporation that is unregulated and unchecked. A private corporation protected by Government and like ATOS will have its own rules, be completely untouchable and do most damage I fear to our children.

Private companies turning up at your door with a ‘private warrant’ to take your child away because of some piece of paper with a private corporation stamped on it ‘says so’. Private cars and private vans to transport our children away and from place to place. This is the stuff of nightmares and this is just the beginning.

The Street Democrat fears that this will lead to the virtual ownership of these children, and the corporate exploitation by firms with connections to the pharmaceutical industry, amongst others. These claims may sound extreme, but unfortunately I can see them being born out. Michael Moore, in his documentary Capitalism: A Love Story covered cases where a judge gave teenagers, who came up before him on only trivial charges, custodial sentence. Why? He was also involved in a private prison company. The result of this blatant conflict of interest was exploited children, no doubt scarred by their incarceration. If the above goes ahead, something similar will definitely go ahead amongst Britain’s care children. The full article at Street Democracy is here:

http://streetdemocracy.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/social-services-for-vulnerable-children-in-england-to-be-privatised/

As one of the companies that may be allowed to bid is Serco, now in the news for massively overcharging the taxpayer for its service, this is a monstrous scandal waiting to happen.

Book Review: The Development of the British Welfare State

By Michael Sullivan (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf 1996)

This is another history of the welfare state, though from the standpoint of narrative history, rather than the documentary approach of From Beveridge to Blair. Sullivan’s book was published in the mid-1990s, but I’ve included it here as much of the material it contains is still relevant today.

The book is divided into three parts. The first deals with the development of the British welfare state from the first Liberal legislation introducing old age pensions and health cover to the crisis in the welfare state in the decades from 1970 to the 1990s.

Part two deals with the individual welfare services – education, health policy and the NHS, the personal social services, post-war housing policy, and social security since the war.

The third part summarises the development and apparent decline of the welfare state, raising questions about it such as whether the welfare consensus was ever real.

Before the Welfare State

Chapter 1: ‘Before the Welfare State, covers the introduction of the first welfare legislation passed by Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal government of 1906. It has sections on the Embryonic Welfare State, discussing the first old age pensions, Lloyd George’s People’s Budget of 1910, and Liberal Social Insurance; Social Democracy: the Political Source of Reformism?; Marxism and Labourism as Twin Threats to Welfare Statism; Fabianism, Ethical Socialism and Social Democracy, with further sections on Fabianism: Its Appeal for Labour, Fabianism’s Contribution to Labour Thinking and The Contribution of Fabianism Considered; Ethical Socialism: the Heart of Labour Reformism; Tawney’s Ethical Socialism: Labour and Social Policy and Labour Social Democracy: Social Reformism Comes of Age.

The Road to 1945: War, Welfare and the People’s Will

Chapter 2 discusses the war years and the run up to Labour’s 1945 election victory. It has sections on the career of Ernest Beveridge and his proposal for the creation of the welfare state, consensus with the major stakeholders, the government’s reaction to the Beveridge report, the debate over the report and disagreements in cabinet about it, the parliamentary debate on Beveridge, which resulted in 121 MPs voting against the government for its reluctance to implement the report’s proposals, which resulted in Churchill being forced to accept it. The chapter also examines the role of collectivism; the emergence of Labour; Social Policy in War Time, with further sections on health policy, this significance of war-time policy for the social policy of the post-war period; Education Policy; and Conclusion.

The Emergence and Growth of the Welfare State

This deals with the development of the welfare state from its foundation in 1945 to 1969. It has the following sections: the Emergence of the Welfare State; the Economic Context; the Post-War Welfare State; Developing Social Security; Introducing a National Health Service; Labour’s Housing Policy; The Mosaic of Reform and Conservatism; Conservative criticisms of the welfare state; Consolidationists versus radicals; Conservativism and Social Policy 1951-64, which has a section on Convervatives and anti-welfarism; Conservative Responses, including Conservative justifications of the welfare state; Reactions to the Right: the Challenge of Social Democracy, including sections on Titmuss’ defence of the Welfare State, Crosland and the Welfare state and his redefinition of socialism, citizenship and social policy, and the rediscovery of poverty; Emerging Issues and Labour and Social Policy, 1964-9.

The Welfare State in Crisis

This chapter deals with the period from 1970 to 1995. The first section, Farewell to Welfare Statism, has sections, on poverty and labour, challenges to Keynes and Beveridge and Enoch Powell and the ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech; the 1970s; Labour on the Welfare Crisis; Conservatives and Social Policy; Welfarism and the new Conservatism; the New Conservative Experiment from 1979-1990, with subordinate sections on dealing with unemployment, restrictions on public expenditure, the National Health Service, radical approaches to social policy from 1983 to 1990; Public Resistance to the Dismantlement of the Welfare State; The Major Governments and Social Policy, with sections on whether the 1990 to 1995 administration was a development of Thatcher’s project or its demise, health policy in the Major governments, education policy in the 1990, rethinking the social agenda, and the Major administrations and social policy. The last section in this chapter is an appraisal of the New Conservatism’s Social Policy, including a discussion of its long-term strategy and incremental change.

Post-War Education Policy: Continuity and Change

The has sections on the Labour Government and the Butler Act; The issue of Comprehensives, including sections on the debate within the Labour Party, the movement away from comprehensive education by teacher’s organisations, and the first comprehensive schools; Education and Society, 1951 to 1964, including sections on the squeeze on education spending, and the replacement of the squeeze by increased spending, the continuing debate over comprehensive education in the Labour party, the question of whether there was a resurgence in the Labour Left, or if it was a redefinition of social democracy, evidence from sociological and psychological research, changes in schooling and changing attitude among parents, education and the economy, and the attitude of the Conservative Party; the various reports into education of the 1950s and 1960s; and the Robbins Revolution in the expansion of the higher education.

Education, Retrenchment, Privatisation and Consumers

This chapter deals with the period from 1965 onwards. It has sections on Education Policy and the Labour Governments, 1964-70, including sections on the Labour government and comprehensive education, the unusual method in which this policy was introduced by administrative circular, the way the cabinet was not involved in the introduction of the policy, relations between central and local government, the Labour party and the professionals involved, such as teachers, and the use of the circular to avoid opposition in parliament; Conservatives and Education, 1970-4, with sections on Margaret Thatcher and the comprehensive schools, her ending of free school milk, her initial policies of expanding education; Education Policy during the 1974 to 1979 Labour Governments, with sections on comprehensive schools and the ‘great debate’ on education; and the Thatcher governments and education.

Health Policy and the National Health Service

This chapter covers the post-war period up to the book’s publication. This has sections on the creation of the National Health Service; the period of initial conflict, followed by consolidation, with sections on demand and supply, consolidation, the question of hardening of inequalities and the power of the medical profession; From ad hoc innovation to rational planning, with sections on the 1962 Hospital Place, and financing the National Health Service; the return to the ad hoc approach to reforms, with sections on the 1974 reorganisation of the National Health Service; the question whether the new philosophies actually led to changes in service, with sections on further reorganisation, the Griffiths Report, general management and the marketization of the National Health Service, marketization and the National Health Service: competitive tendering, marketization and health: private practice, private insurance and private facilities, the national health service reforms, the National Health Service and Internal Markets, papering over the cracks in the White Paper, the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Acts, and where the NHS may go from here. The last section, Making Sense of It All, has further sections on supply and demand and equality. The post-script to this chapter notes the proposed changes by the Labour government at the date the book was written.

Personal Social Services

This chapter begins with a short summary of the post-War social services, including a section on the reorganisation of state social work. There is then further sections on personal social services in the post-War period; the changes in the 1960s, with further sections on the Seebohm report and community development; attempts to fill the gap between aims and resources in the 1970s; the arrival of community social work in the 1980s, with a section on the disappearance of the Barclay Report as it challenged the Neoliberal ideology of the Conservative party; the return of Care in the Community; attempts to explain personal social services policy, including the sections on the Left’s critique, the attack from the Right, and personal social services and the New Conservatism.

Post-War Housing Policy

This begins with Labour’s attempts to end the housing shortage, followed by sections on Macmillan and Housing; the return of the market; the construction of high rise flats; Conservatives and the market; the New Towns; the ‘affluent society’ and housing policy in the 1960s, with sections on demographic change, the reaction to the Rachman scandal, Labour and housing policy from 1964-70, a new ideology and the decision to build more houses, the ending of the construction of high rise flats, and the existence of the homeless poor in the new welfare state; the record of Ted Heath’s Conservative government on housing 1970-4; Labour and Housing, 1974 to 1979; Changing policies to housing during Margaret Thatcher’s three administrations, with sections on the right to buy, the 1988 Housing Act. The last section is a critical summary of Post-War housing policy.

Social Security Since the War

This has sections on the Conservatives and Social Security, 1951-64, with a sections on pensions; Labour, and Poverty and Social Security, with sections on demographic and economic crisis, the rediscovery of poverty, and the Left’s reappraisal; the Heath Government and Social Security, with sections on Keith Joseph and the Family Income Supplement, the expansion of social security, the retrenchment in welfare spending due to the 1973 oil crisis, and the integration of tax and social security; Labour governments and social security policy; the Thatcher Governments and Social Security, with section on the 1976-8 review, her first administration, the 1980 ‘Annus Horribilis’, attacks on ‘scroungers’, the Fowler Review in Mrs. Thatcher’s Second Administration, Income Support, Family Credit, Housing Benefit, Social Fund, SERPS, the promise of radical change, and the 1988 Social Security Act; Emerging Issues, with sections on the preference for means-testing, the retention of work incentives, fraud and abuse, racism against the Black community, the contraction of the role of the state in favour of charities, self-reliance and independence, and the construction of residual welfare state; the 1990s, with sections on workfare and the Tory ‘Bastards’ in Major’s administration. The final section summarises briefly the changes in social security from 1945.

From the Cradle to the Grave: The Beginnings, Development and Demise of the Welfare State?

This final chapter reviews the progress and changes in the welfare state in order to question whether it is at its end. It has the following sections, on whether there was a real welfare consensus, Keyne’s, Beveridge and the origins of the 1945 welfare settlement; Neoliberal and Radical Right hostility to the post-War consensus as ‘backdoor tyranny’, and scepticism on whether the consensus ever existed at all; the question of whether the consensus has been smashed, with sections on the problems of Thatcher’s first administration, and her administrations from 1983 to 1990, the National Health Service, Education, Social Security and Personal Social Services, and Housing; Majorism and Welfare, with sections on social policy spending and his introduction of Thatcherite policies on the family and personal responsibility; continuity and change in the welfare state from 1945 to 1995; Continuity and change, with further sections on the debate over equality, professionals and welfare; further directions in the welfare state, with sections on Labour and the welfare state in the 1990s, Blair’s shift from social class to community, whether the effective re-making of the Labour Party meant the death of social democracy, economic prudence, the acceptance of internal markets in the NHS; New Labours emphasis on social responsibility rather than social rights, opt-out schools, from universalism and selectivism, ineffecitiveness and inefficiency and consumerism in the old welfare state, and Labour and consumer choice.

Each chapter has a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

The book provides a detailed examination of the development of the welfare state over its first fifty years, and the nearly forty years prior to its establishment by Clement Atlee. It covers the political debates and manoeuvring over policy, and includes extracts from the speeches and documents made and compiled by its architects, reformers and adversaries. These can be quite long – the speech by Lloyd George advocating his ‘people’s budget’ is well over a page. It thus provides a good overview of the welfare state’s history, and the changes from state provision to the post-Thatcherite political climate of hostility, privatisation and marketization, and the reliance on charities.

Book Review: From Beveridge to Blair – The First Fifty Years of Britain’s Welfare State, 1948-98

By Margaret Jones and Rodney Lowe (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2002)

This is a documentary history of the first fifty years of the British welfare state written by two history lecturers at Bristol University. The book is part of a series of collected documents on aspects of contemporary history, aimed at sixth-formers and university undergraduates. The book’s blurb states

‘The creation of Britain’s welfare state in 1948 was an event of major international importance and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of Attlee’s Labour government. On its fiftieth anniversary, for example, New Labour proclaimed ‘at its birth, the vision was broad … We need to capture that original Vision.

Yet the term ‘welfare state’ is now used, even by New Labour, with extreme hesitation. Moreover, although the public services it represents (such as the NHS and education remain at the heart of British politics, the election of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 reopened a fundamental battle over whether these services are best provided by government or the market.’

The blurb states that the book is intended ‘to inform and stimulate debate by providing a concise introduction to the evolution of both the structure of the welfare state and the attitudes towards it.’ It has an introduction, and then chapters on the political debate, social security, health care, education, housing and personal social services. There is also a chronology of events giving the year, the government of the time, and the events in the above departments of the welfare state.

The Introduction

This begins by noting New Labour’s ambivalence towards the welfare state, shown in the muted nature of the celebrations of its fiftieth anniversary in 1998. It then has the following sections: Defining the Welfare State; the Core Policies; the Exception of Employment Policy; and the Evolution of the Welfare State.

The Political Debate

This chapter is divided up into sections, each containing documents relating to that subject or area. The first is on Democratic Socialism, and has pieces on Marshall and the Evolution of Social Equality; Titmuss and the Virtues of Collective Action; The ideological Divide between Labour and the Conservatives, written by Anthony Crosland. The next section, Reluctant Collectivism, has extracts on One Nationism’ the Market and Community Case for State Welfare. Following this is the section on the New Right, with an extract from Hayek’s Roads to serfdom; the Institute of Economic Affairs and Choice in Welfare; Sir Keith Joseph and the Origins of ‘Thatcherism’; Charles Murray on the Emerging Underclass. The next section is on New Labour, and contains extracts from the 1994 Commission on Social Justice; There is a section on Incorporating Feminist Perspectives; after this is the sections on Frank Field and ‘Stakeholder’ Welfare, setting out his ‘Key Political Assumptions’; and Anthony Giddens and the Third Way.

Social Security

The chapter opens with the a brief description the types of benefits available and debates surrounding its nature and the principles by which it should be governed. It then has the following sections:
The Expansion of Social Security, with extracts on the Beveridge Vision, with its Three Guiding Principles of Recommendations, the Six Principles of Social Insurance, Flat Rate of Subsistence Benefit, Flat Rate Contributions, Unification of Administrative Responsibility, Adequacy of Benefit, Comprehensiveness and Classification. The next section is on Bevan’s abolition of the Victorian Poor Law, the Times’ summary of the Atlee’s welfare state, the introduction of earnings-related benefits, and Equality and Pensions. The section after this is on ‘Modernising’ Social Security, with sections on Thatcherite Principles, Breaking the Benefit-Earnings Link; the 1985 Social Security Review, the 1986 Reforms, Re-thinking Labour Policy, the 1998 New Deal and the Working Families Tax Credit. The next section is on the Controversy between Universalism and Selectivity, with sections on Choice in Welfare, Defending Universalism, Targeting and the 1976 introduction of child benefit. After this is the section on the Poor, with extracts on the Reality of Poverty in the 1950s, the ‘Rediscovery’ of Poverty in the 1960s, Low-Income Families in the 1970s, and Living on Social Security. The last section of this chapter is on Poverty and Social Exclusion, drawing on the 1999 census.

Health Care

The chapter on Health care also had an introduction to the issues involved, and then sections on the Vision, with an extract on Wartime Plans; the Allocation of Scarce Resource, with extracts on Bevan on Finance, The Guillebaud ‘Economy’ Report, 1956, and Enoch Powell and the Fundamental Dilemma; Restructuring the NHS, with extracts on the 1974 reorganisation, the Managerial Revolution, the 1988 Thatcher Review, the Introduction of Internal Markets, New Labour and the NHS; Controversies, with sections on Bevan’s Resignation, Pay Beds, and Privatisation and the 1988 Review; Health Outcomes, with extracts from the 1980 Black Report, and Health Inequalities.

Education

This chapter has sections on The Vision, comprising extracts on the Wartime Ideals, Scientific Manpower, Conservative Ambitions, Higher Education, Nursery Education, Special Needs and Multicultural Education; Controversy: Comprehensive Education, with extracts The Case for the Defence, from Robin Pedley’s argument for it, the Conservatives attempt to reinstate choice in 1970, Labour’s insistence on reinforcing compulsion in 1974, and the Thatcherite Response; Controversy: the National Curriculum. This begins with a discussion of William Tyndale School, which became a national scandal. The teachers there were extreme advocates of ‘child-centred learning’, who didn’t really want to teach. Private Eye’s Ian Hislop included the scandal about the school in his history of education broadcast one Christmas a few years ago. One pupil at the school said violence from other pupils was so bad you daren’t go there without being ‘tooled up’. One teacher taking a reading group simply wrote on the blackboard, ‘I hate reading groups and sent the children out to play’. When confronted with the fact that most of the pupils at the school couldn’t read, the teacher’s replied that neither could people in the Middle Ages, ‘yet they built cathedrals’. The result was an outcry that resulted in the teachers involved rightly losing their jobs, and a campaign to introduce a national curriculum. Other extracts in this section include James Callaghan’s speech launching a great debate on the National Curriculum in October 1976, Shirley Williams as a representative of Old Labour on a ‘Core’ Curriculum, Margaret Thatcher’s Response and Attacks on the National Curriculum. the last section is on the consensus on education in the 1990s, composed of two extracts, the first on the Thatcherite Revolution, and the second on Labour’s continuation of the same policies.

Housing

The chapter on Housing has sections on the campaign to end the housing shortage from 1945 to 1955, consisting of further sections on wartime plans, Bevan’s position, the Conservative Vision and Macmillan’s Achievement; the Restoration of the Market, with sections on the 1957 Rent Act, the 1959 Labour Manifesto attack on the Conservative’s record, the Milner Holland Report into the operation of 1957 Act, and scandals such as that of the brutal slumlord, Peter Rachman, the 1965 Fair Rent Act, the shift from building new houses to the renovation of older properties, the 1972 Housing Finance Act,and Anthony Crosland’s attack on the 1972 Act. The next section, Eroding Public Provision, 1979-1998, has sections on the sale of council houses, the fiasco of the 1984 simplified housing benefit, which bore out Crosland’s previous criticisms of the 1972 Housing Finance act, the 1988 Housing Act, New Labour’s adoption of the same principles, and the implementation of the divide between provider and purchaser. The next section is on Causes Celebres, with sections on the outrage over Peter Rachman’s brutal treatment of his tenants in the East End; the explosion in the Ronan Point block of flats, which ended the construction of tower blocks, the foundation of the homeless charity, Shelter; the controversy over Clay Cross, in which the local council refused to raise rents resulting in a bitter political campaign that resulted to the radicalisation of the welfare state and the Winter of Discontent; and the New Labour Social Exclusion Unit’s Report on homelessness.

Personal Social Services (In other words, those requiring a Social Worker, Probation Officer or similar Care Worker)

This chapter on The Personal Social Services contains sections on the Statutory Sector, with extracts from the 1965 Seebohm Report, the 1986 Audit Office Report on the failure of the policy of ‘Care in the Community’, and the Thatcherite Solution. This is interesting, because it was delayed due to its recommendation that local authorities should work to clear objectives with proper government funding. The best care was to be provided for those in need regardless of the whether the organisation providing it were state, voluntary or private. The Tories did not naturally like this, as it appeared to enlarge the role of the government, not reduce it. The next extract in this section was New Labour’s Solution. The section on the Volutary Sector begins with Lord Longford’s defence of voluntarism, extracts from the Seebohm and 1978 Wolfenden Reports and the Conservatives’ re-prioritisation of voluntary provision in 1981. The next section, Children in Need, has a extracts from Lady Allen’s letter, highlighting the terrible conditions endured by children in care homes; the death of Dennis O’Neill, a 13 year old boy, who died of maltreatment at the hands of his foster parents; the 1948 Children Act, the 1960 Ingleby Report; the death of a seven year old girl, Maria Colwell, while supposedly under the protection of social workers; the 1989 Children Act, New Labour and the Crisis of Child Care, the 1997 Utting Report on the systematic abuse of children in care homes, and testimony by the children themselves on the failure of legislation to protect them.

The book is a fascinating overview of the first fifty years of the welfare state, as recounted and described by the people and events that set it up and shaped it. It shows the transition from the state provision of welfare services established at the Welfare State’s inception after the War to increasing private and voluntary provision of services, as well as reports on the failure of these policies. Critical to the process of privatisation has been the ideas of Von Hayek, introduced into Britain by Americans such as Charles Marshall, and into the Conservative party by Sir Keith Joseph and his protégé, Margaret Thatcher.