What now?

With the votes counted and with a turnout of 84 per cent—unprecedented in modern British politics—it is clear that the United Kingdom is not about to be dismembered…well not in the immediate future.  The critical question was always going to be ‘what happens next?’ whether the vote for independence was won or lost.  Well it was lost and pretty emphatically.  The time has come to address the West Lothian question—why should Scottish MPs be able to vote on English matters and not vice versa.  One solution would be to complete the pack—give England its own Parliament in the same way that they exist in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—in other words establish a federal structure.  The role of Westminster would be relegated to being the national Parliament dealing only with issues that are common across the four countries in the Union.  So no West Lothian problem.  The fiction United Kingdom having a unitary constitution—today barely a credible proposition—would finally be ended.

At a stroke, you resolve a number of constitutional issues.  The English Parliament would be a unicameral institution like the other national parliaments.  The Union Parliament could retain two houses—making it something like the American Congress—or, more radically we could take this opportunity of abolishing the second chamber so that all parliaments in the UK have one chamber.  This could mean that the English Parliament meets in one of the current chambers in the Houses of Parliament and the Union Parliament in the other—good economics—or you could establish the English Parliament in say Birmingham centrally in the country.  You could also reduce the number of MPs to say 200 by having them chosen from within the national parliaments on the basis of say 1UMP per 100,000 of the population based on the proportion of parties within those parliaments; so Scotland with a population of about 3 million people would have 30 UMPs.  Each country would have its own First Minister while the Prime Minister would be the Union leader with a cabinet including the four First Ministers. 

Then there’s the vexed question of how MPs should be elected.  Proportional representation fell in the last referendum but a radical change in the nature of the British constitution will inevitably raise the question again.  I’m inclined to go for the system that apply in Wales combining first-past-the-post and the additional member system but the existing Scottish system with its regional dimension might be preferable.    Either way, the current electoral system needs a radical overhaul.

Whatever happens in Scotland, constitutional reform is now inevitable

Whether Scotland votes for or against independence on Thursday, the constitutional genie is now out of the bottle.  If Scotland votes for independence, the West Lothian question will not longer apply as there will no longer be any Scottish MPs in Westminster but if it’s a no vote and further powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it remains unresolved.  What the Scottish debate has highlighted is the increasing disenchantment of the public with Westminster politicians and the need for fundamental constitutional change.

The problem lies in the existing unitary constitution.  Although there have been constitutional crises over the last thousand years—the reform crisis of 1830-1832 and the crisis between Commons and Lords between 1909 and 1911—there has only been one truly revolutionary moment—the English Republic between 1649 and 1660.  It is evolution rather than revolution that has been the primary feature of our constitutional structures and the problem with evolution is that it can look like tinkering with things or cosmetic change.  The British state evolved over a thousand years from the separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into the centralised English state that then by a process of coercion, conquest and often disreputable ‘persuasion’, in to the United Kingdom.  More and more power has been concentrated in Westminster and, until the acceptance that devolution was a necessary development, it jealously guarded and maintained that power.  Devolution has led to this unravelling.  The unitary constitution, if not already dead, is in terminal decline.

So where constitutionally does this leave the United Kingdom?  The question of an English Parliament  has recently been revived as one solution to the problem—English MPs for English issues.  But is again tinkering…it fails to address the critical issue that what Britain needs is a federal system of government in which its constituent parts are responsible for governing themselves while the federal authorities are responsible for issues such as defence—so small federal government and bigger regional government bringing power closer to the people, a shift from representative to participatory democracy.

So yes means yes and no means yes as well!!

What is evident from the populist debate on Scottish independence is that David Cameron is probably rueing the day that he said no to ‘devo-max’ when he had the opportunity.  The result is that the debate is not over whether Scotland should be given what is effectively Home Rule—probably what most people wanted even some in the SNP—but on whether or not the country should secede from the Union.  The response from Westminster has been the hastily presented proposals made initially on Sunday and firmed up in the following two days…not a panic response according to No campaigners but, when a demonstrator ironically yelled ‘Don’t Panic’ as David Cameron left his emotionally charged f…ing meeting in Edinburgh, he was undoubtedly right.  By not including ‘devo-max’ as the third question in  the referendum, those unhappy with the status quo find themselves with only one option…voting for independence and belatedly making promises and a timetable for greater powers to Scotland may not be sufficient to alter the seemingly inexorable stampede to the constitutional door.

The reality is that most people in the United Kingdom do not wish to see the break-up of the Union—and probably a majority in Scotland—but such is the opprobrium in which Westminster politicians are held, it is a real option.  And even if Scotland votes ‘No’, the constitutional genie is out of the bottle.  Why, people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland ask, should Scotland be given extensive powers to rule itself but not us?  Such is the remoteness of politicians in London from the lives and aspirations of ordinary people that there will be demands for greater regional autonomy within the Union—power needs to be brought closer to the people if our democratic system is to retain popular support.  Unitary constitutional systems ultimately unravel when faced with demands for devolution; in fact, I would go further and argue that unitary structures are incompatible with devolution.  What we need is a United States of Great Britain and Northern Island within the EU…in reality the only solution to the current constitutional impasse.  This recognises that there are supra-national priorities, while some things, such as defence and fiscal policy, that are best done at the level of the state; others things, such as education—this is already the case—that are best organised on a national basis; while others should be regional and local…what is essentially a federal constitutional network.   It works in other countries, such as Germany, and there’s no reason why it should not work here. 

Now I’m certain there will be many politicians and civil servants in London who will argue that we don’t need to move away from the unitary system that has served us well—debatable—for so long.  This, of course, neglects the evolutionary way in which the constitution has developed over past centuries despite the warnings from those keen to preserve their own power or the status quo bleating that change will be a disaster—and for them perhaps it was.  The question is whether the British Constitution is ‘fit for purpose’ in the twenty-first century and clearly it is not as the response to the independence debate has made very clear.  Whether it’s yes or no next week, radical constitutional change is now inevitable.

Is the logic of devolution independence?

With less than two weeks to the referendum on Scotland’s independence, a recent poll suggests, for the first time, that the Yes campaign is winning the argument—albeit a poll than did not include those who remain undecided or who do not intend to vote.  Should this come as a surprise?  I think not.  The No campaign, though working hard to get its message across, lacks the charismatic appeal of those campaigning for independence.  Individuals such as Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, though undoubtedly ‘big’ political beasts, do not have the same populist clout as Alec Salmon and Nicola Sturgeon.  Gordon Brown may be right when he suggests that the Better Together camp was finding it ‘difficult’ to win over Scots because of anger over coalition policies including changes to housing benefit and tax cuts for the wealthy but there also appears to have been a haemorrhage of Labour supporters to the No campaign as well. 

One critical problem for those calling for Scotland to remain in the United Kingdom is that the logic of devolution in a unitary constitutional system is independence.  Devolution only satisfies some of the aspirations of those areas given devolved powers, so you give the areas more devolved powers but in a unitary system you can only go so far.  What those who originally thought constitutional devolution was a way of satisfying calls for greater regional control over their own affairs either failed to recognise or recognised but ignored that while devolution within a federal system might  stem demands for independence, in a unitary system it would not.  If Scotland votes for independence on 18 September, one of the reasons why this will occur is that politicians who gave devolved powers to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland failed to then abandon the unitary constitution and establish a federal constitutional system.  Arguing for ‘Better Together’ and at the same time saying that if there was a ‘no’ vote, further powers would be devolved to the Scottish Parliament demonstrates the weakness of the unitary Unionist case in an increasing devolved political environment.  The logic of devolution need not be independence but it is more rather than less likely if you then retain a unitary constitutional structure.

The State knows best…of course, it doesn’t!

Where does the responsibilities of the State end and those of the individual begin?   From Plato and Aristotle through to John Rawls and Robert Nozick, this has long been one of the central questions of political philosophy.  Nozick, for instance, argued in favour of a minimal state, ‘limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on.’ When a state takes on more responsibilities than these, he argued, rights will be violated.  Others take a more positive, expansive and interventionist role for the state suggesting that it is only the state that has the coercive power to defend the rights of individuals against those who seek to limit those rights.  It is the defender of the ‘common good’—something generally undefined—and this justifies its restriction of individual rights for the benefit of society as a whole.  Individual rights are justified only where they do not do harm to others—the archetypal view of John  Stuart Mill in his On Liberty published in 1859—but also increasingly where they do not threaten the hegemony of the state.  Far from being the defender of democratic principles, though it will always argue that it is, the state is increasingly technocratic in tone—the notion that the state knows best—and anti-democratic in emphasis calling for political transparency on the one hand while denying it on the other.  It is becoming in Hobbesian terms, ‘the leviathan’.

Across the gamut of things that affect the individual—personal morality, health, education and so on—the state now takes the view that it knows best and seeks to regulate individuals’ lives effectively emasculating individual choice.  Take, for instance, the issue of students taking time off school during term time.  Recent regulations now make this not only unacceptable but, because head teachers can now imposed fines of parents who do so, can result in individuals having a criminal record if they refuse to pay the fines and are taken to court.  The justification for this is that students should be in school learning and not enjoying early holidays so parents can escape the exorbitant increases charged by travel companies during the school holidays.  This then appears, at least in the eyes of the Department for Education, to result in the poor standing of British students in the global tests such as Pisa, an argument that I find completely unconvincing.  Just how many students were taken out of school for holidays and when?  In my experience, this practice was most prevalent in the last week of the Summer term and then only affected a small number of students.  In 2004, we conducted a survey in my school and found that, of 1,300 students, only 21 were absent because of holidays in the final week of the Summer term.  Now, you may argue, that this is too many and why can’t parents use the six week break to go on holiday but if the alternative is pulling your kids out of school for the last week or no holiday at all then the question is whether a break with all the family together is more important than what is often a fairly relaxed last week of term. 

Of greater concern in tightening up the rules is that what would in the past have been seen as an acceptable absence is often no longer seen in that light.  As a result, students have been refused permission to attend family weddings, funerals, visits to terminally-ill grandparents  and even denied permission when their doctors have said they need a break.  This has placed parents in the unenviable position of either accepting the schools’ decisions or doing what they feel is in their families’ interests and paying a fine.  To be fair it also places head teachers in the often invidious position of having to decide whether to apply the letter of the rules or risk seeing their absence rates go up—a cardinal sin as far as Ofsted is concerned.  The state appears to have taken the view that it has the right to determine what is best for the family when the evidence suggests that students do no lose out by missing lessons in school.  Let me pose the question…a student misses a week of lessons to go on a school trip to Paris to study Art so no Maths, English, History and so on for that week but that’s not an unexplained absence, while if a student misses a day’s lessons to attend a family funeral it is, so does the state really know what’s best?

The Massacre of the Men in Grey Suits: how not to reshuffle your Cabinet!

With less than a year until the next General Election, it was inevitable that the Prime Minister would reshuffle his Cabinet.  Like Harold Macmillan in 1962, David Cameron has gone for a substantial revision of his top team giving it a more euro-sceptic and media-savvy focus.  Gone are many of those moderating middle-aged men in grey suits who have dominated both Cabinet and junior government posts and in come younger ministers, including a significant number of women.  Some of those dropped from the Cabinet, such as Sir George Young and Ken Clarke, are in their seventies and it is not surprising that they have stood aside from their often arduous ministerial posts.  Others, including Owen Paterson—whose lamentable performance during the floods earlier this year makes one wonder why he was still in post anyway—David Willetts, Alan Duncan and Damian Green are two decades younger but have decided that life on the backbenches after 2015 or life beyond the hallowed halls of Westminster beckoned. 

Several senior ministers are staying in post: George Osborne, and Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt and Iain Duncan Smith.  William Hague has decided to leave parliamentary politics in 2015 to spend more time with his writing—apparently a history of Foreign Secretaries is forthcoming--and, of course, his family and has left the Foreign Office but will act as de facto deputy Prime Minister and play a central role in the campaign for a second Conservative government.  His is an understandable, if unexpected, decision giving him the flexibility and time to do other things.  With Philip Hammond now in the Foreign Office, after his stint at Transport and Defence, political experience has replaced political experience but with a more euro-sceptic edge. The move of Michael Gove from education to become Chief Whip and his ‘enhanced role in campaigning and doing broadcast media interviews’ plays to his strengths and also removed him from his increasingly toxic position at education.  Nicky Morgan, his replacement, however, has barely two years’ experience in government.

So David Cameron has gone for youth over experience and has boosted the number of women who sit in Cabinet: I suppose it’s ‘Cameron’s cuties’, an echo of ‘Blair’s babes’.  The problem with this is that while individuals such as Ken Clarke are recognised by the electorate, people like Liz Truss, Jeremy Wright and Nicky Morgan are—whatever their abilities—generally not.  Yes, they have a year for the public to get to know them and their promotions are, at least in part, because they are good communicators. But there is a problem.  An increasing proportion of those who vote are over 55 so you have to ask how will the reshuffle go down with the ‘grey vote’?    Well, if you’re 60 and have just been moved aside to make way for younger people in the workplace, not very well at all.  It reinforces the view that experience really doesn’t count for much and that all that matters is youth and appearance—substance does not matter.  So is the reshuffle an unashamed electoral ploy to appeal to the younger voter?  Perhaps yes, but if that is the case then it’s doomed to failure.  Making your Cabinet appear more cuddly may not be the way to go.  Whether we like it or not—and this is something that David Cameron has rightly rejected—is that many people over 70 still remain suspicious of women in top jobs and in some cases have an intense antipathy to it.  It’s not something I agree with at all but it remains an electoral reality and an electoral risk, though one to my mind absolutely necessary to take. 

A pointless activity…and I’m not just talking about England’s performance in the World Cup!

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m heartily sick of sports coverage on the television…it simply seems to drown out virtually everything else. The last straw was the coverage of Wimbledon today.  From 1.45 through to 6.00 tennis it is on both BBC1 and BBC2.  Now I may be stupid but even I know that you can’t watch both channels at the same time.  I’m sure that the BBC would say well it gives you the choice of which match to watch and of course they’re right but isn’t that what the red button is about…something used to considerable effect during the Olympics in 2012.  Am I being unreasonable?  Well to sports nuts I suppose I am but if, like me, you really don’t give a damn if Murray wins a second title or whether England will fail to progress further than the first round of the World Cup (yes I know they haven’t) it begs the question what am I actually paying my licence fee for?  At least when I subscribe to Sky I have a choice of whether I pay for the Sports Channels or not…and of course I don’t.

The problem appears to be that if you don’t like sport you are, in some way or other, an incomplete person.  That was the tenor of the response from the BBC when I complained about the tennis coverage last year.  It really is about time that those of us for whom sport is a worthless experience stood up and said so.  My visceral distaste for any sport goes back to my experience in school where everyone was expected to be good at it…healthy body, healthy mind…tell that to Stephen Hawkins.  My sports lessons were a combination of collective humiliation and patronising involvement.  I remember on one occasion playing football and received the usual token one pass during nearly an hour’s play and being in the last group of students to complete the weekly cross country run in the Spring term and being yelled at by the PE teacher for not trying.  I couldn’t see the point of it then and I still don’t…for me cross country is , to parody Wilde, a good walk ruined. 

Now I’m not knocking exercise and keeping fit, if only as a means of staving off ill-health though I do object to be lectured by the fascistic sports enthusiasts and health experts about what is best for me.  Surely I’m old enough to make decisions for myself.  I’m fed up with seeing sportsmen baring all when they lose (which they will inevitably will) as if they’ve let the country down…they simply didn’t win, get used to it. 

The morning after!

Well has there been a political earthquake?  UKIP would certainly want you to think so and now with representation in Scotland and Wales as well as England it can certainly claim to be a ‘national’ party.  It’s the first time in a century that both the Conservatives and Labour have been defeated by another party.  Labour did well in London but its performance beyond the capital was lack-lustre and does not suggest that Miliband will be prime minister in 2015.  The Conservatives did quite well given that euro-elections are generally seen as a time to give the governing party a good kicking.  The Lib-Dems were annihilated with only one MEP and an election strategy that was, however principled it was, proved disastrous.  Saying that you’re the only party to take on UKIP may be true but it demonstrates political naivety when it was clear from the outset of their campaign that the electorate had no sympathy with what you were saying.  Nick Clegg will continue to lead the party—who would want to pick up his poisoned chalice anyway—into the valley of death in 2015, something that all Paddy Ashdown’s bluster will do little to prevent.  The explanation for the strong showing of euro-sceptic parties on the continent—it’s all to do with the recession silly—won’t do in Britain where our economy is reviving and, if the figures are right, reviving strongly.  

The message from the main parties seems to be: it’s not the general election and people may have given their vote in UKIP in 2014 but they’ll see sense and come back for the election next year.  This may have been the case in the past and UKIP will undoubtedly lose ground in 2015 but such is people’s disillusion with Europe that a focused electoral strategy could well see UKIP MPs being elected…and don’t forget we have the Newark by-election imminent.  This poses a major dilemma for all the parties.  For the Lib-Dems it must now be clear that its pro-European policy is no longer tenable in its current form—yes, argue for Europe but argue for Europe from a position of strength by agreeing to a referendum on the issue and stop treating the electorate as if we’re idiots, something the other parties need to stop doing as well.  The, were the politicians and we know what’s best for you no longer holds water…the essence of democratic politics is the art of persuasion and the three parties aren’t persuading anyone.  There’s nothing new about this but for the first time that I can remember the people have, in significant numbers, had enough of the patronising, posturing of Westminster’s elite.  Despite all the weasel word statements by mainstream politicians that they are listening and about letting the people decide, many appear still to believe that they have the only solution to the country’s problems and will push ahead whatever the consequences…something that the elite in Brussels will almost certainly do as well.  Politicians in Britain have yet to learn that they were elected to do a job on our behalf and it’s a temp job at that.

Political earthquakes come and go and few are in retrospect little more than slight tremors but on this occasion, at this time that is not the case.  The future direction of the EU is something that is too important to be left in the hands of self-serving politicos.  I was one of those who campaigned for the EU in the 1975 referendum and would campaign in favour of a reformed and smaller EU in 2017 if I get the opportunity.  The essence of this earthquake is that it may lead to the reversal of EU policy on closer integration—something that as far as I can see few outside Brussels actually want—and the restoration of the EU to its founding economic principles on which most people still agree.

We’ve got it! No you haven’t

Having  watched The Andrew Marr Show this morning, a pervading liet-motif from the three mainstream political parties all said, with varying degrees of confidence, that they are listening to what the local election results are telling them about people’s attitudes to the political elite and to the continued rise of UKIP.  In essence, they saying ‘we’ve got it!’.  The reality is very different.  The mainstream political parties say, as they always do when faced with anything that challenges their hegemony, we’re listening and will take your concerns into account…no you haven’t!  The local government elections on Thursday and the probable outcome of the European election demonstrates clearly that UKIP is taking votes from all the political parties.  Labour may have gained the most council seats—no surprise for the opposition mid-term—but their results do not presage well for the General Election next year. 

No opposition has won a General Election when they did not have a majority in local government and Labour do not.  Their leader is hardly elector-friendly, his policies on, for instance, the cost of living crisis, are unravelling and although some polls give the party a lead over the Conservatives, at this stage of the electoral cycle it should be doing considerably better.  The Lib-Dems suffered most in the elections and although it is unlikely that Nick Clegg will be removed as leader, his poll ratings are appallingly low and his credibility as party leader is shot—he may have acted in the public interest in joining the coalition but this will, I suspect, have a debilitating effect in the elections next year.  The Conservatives also lost council seats but not enough to give Labour the majority in local government that it needs but the fissures in the party—evident since the 1980s—over Europe are damaging—the electorate generally punishes divided parties.  So where does that leave UKIP?  Well in a first-past-the post system, nowhere at all.  More councillors but no council and, though it looks like it will focus on 20 seats in 2015, it’s improbable that it will make the breakthrough into parliamentary politics.  This may explain the double-talk from the three main parties—yes we’re listening and will take your concerns into account…but no we’re not going to change our political directions.

Is it any surprise that there is a disconnect between the public and politicians?  Miliband is still saying Labour can—please note not will—win the General Election in 2015; Clegg, I won’t quit despite defeats; and Cameron, well actually saying very little leaving all the flak to his ministers and supporters.  Yesterday’s Times had an article by Matthew Parris in which he says that people don’t really care about the EU as an electoral issue and that in 2015 people will vote over largely domestic issues.  He may be right—past experience suggests that it is domestic issues not foreign or European affairs that determine how people vote—but in today’s circumstances, he just might be wrong.  UKIP’s popularity lies in being ‘none of the above’ and although its focus has long been on immigration and membership of the EU, these are now real issues for many people beyond the Westminster ‘bubble’.  There may be some UKIP supporters who want to stop all immigration, but most don’t.  What they want is for Britain to have greater control over who can come to this country and, because we have no control over labour movement from the EU, that tends to be the focus of their thinking.  If we leave the EU we can again control immigration—whether this is true or not matters less than how the issue is perceived. 

Ukraine and taxation: two disconnected stories

I must admit I felt quite sorry when the Russian duo in Eurovision on Saturday were booed and that whenever Russia was mentioned in the scoring, the same happened.  Whoever said Eurovision had nothing to do with politics.  It was as predictable as the outcome of the referendum in the eastern part of Ukraine—for the government in Kiev it was illegal and a ‘farce’ while the Russian Foreign Minister said Russia would respect the ‘will of the people’ in the eastern provinces.  It may have been illegal and expressed the ‘will of the people’—though precisely what this means is unclear—but it does little to resolve the on-going tension in Ukraine and the potential for direct Russian intervention.  The problem in Ukraine is that, whatever the nature of provincial government, it remains a largely centralised system of government based in Kiev.  It is hardly surprising that Russia is concerned about the westward looking agenda of Ukrainian politicians—Kiev was where the Rus state had its origins--and there was always little chance that it would accept a further EU country on its doorstep.  Whatever the aspirations of Euro-politicians, it was diplomatically and politically inept to encourage Ukraine to believe that it could become a member of the EU, an unlikely eventuality anyway given the parlous state of its economy.

The relationship and respective power of the different nationalities within Russia  had long been a divisive issue that the break-up of the Soviet Union simply exacerbated.  What do areas with Russian-speaking majorities do when they are no longer part of the Russian state?  As Ukraine clearly shows you can force those groups to remain within the state but at a huge cost in terms of political stability and political violence.  But is this the answer…well clearly not if the resistance of pro-Russian militias is any indication.  Whether the Ukrainian government agreed with the referendum or not, it is an expression of how a significant number of people feel about their position within that state.  The attitude of the Putin government is far from obvious—despite what the West feels—and may have more to do with assuaging internal critics rather than a reversion to the ‘salami tactics’—taking a piece at a time—of its Soviet past.  Annexing Crimea was undoubtedly an expression of Russian imperialism reversing what was an almost inexplicable decision in 1954 but whether this extends to the eastern provinces of Ukraine is far less clear.  There has been ample ‘provocation’ in the past week to ‘justify’ Russian intervention but its troops have remained firmly on the Russian side of the frontier.  Ukraine faces three equally unpalatable options.  It could cut the eastern provinces free allowing them to join with Russia; it could deal with pro-Russian feeling by giving those provinces autonomy within the Ukrainian state; or, it could imposed a military solution or at least try to. 

Yet another tax avoidance scandal has hit the headlines with the predictable moral outrage from politicians, a bit like the moral outrage of global politicians to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.  The difference is that the tax avoidance is not illegal.  Whatever you may think is the moral imperative, there is nothing legally wrong with individuals seeking to avoid paying some of their taxation.  If you don’t like this then make all tax avoidance schemes illegal: that would leave no wriggle room for those seeking to avoid paying their full tax bills.  This would mean, for instance, that you could not offset your tax bill against charitable donations or against personal losses in business.  But I hear you say that would be unfair on charities and , of course, you’d be right.  The problem is that as soon as you allow exemptions from paying taxes because of X, then people will try to exploit that legal loophole. If you give people allowances, they will apply those allowances within the rules even if you might think they are morally wrong to do so.   As soon as you say, you will pay £X in tax but…you’re into tax avoidance.  The solution is that we should tax all income—whatever its source—with no exceptions; so if you earn £200,000 or £20,000 a year, you pay all your standard and/or higher tax. 

Fallacies: some thoughts on two recent education stories

Over the May Day weekend two educational stories have come to light.  The NAHT union conference has decided to investigate the benefits of scrapping the six-week summer holidays and University fellows with a PhD in maths or physics are being urged to become school teachers in England to inspire youngsters to study the subjects.  I’m getting a strong sense of deja vu…I’ve been hearing both of these points ever since I became a teacher and, as far as I can see there is little in what is being proposed that is different from the arguments that were deployed in the 1970s.

Is the current system of school holidays fit for purpose?  Of course it isn’t.  No one would designing a school holiday regime from scratch would have terms and half-terms of uneven length.  Higher education generally operates ten week terms though from what ex-students have said, given the paltry amount of teaching they got, it could have been accomplished in two.  Yes I know higher education is about more than teaching and learning—as should all education—but this is hardly value for money…but that’s a different issue.  Would it be better say to divide the school year into six terms of six or seven weeks?  Would it improve student learning and teacher sanity?  Well certainly the latter but as far as learning is concerned the jury appears still to be out.  We already have a varied system of school terms with often neighbouring areas having slightly different term and particularly half-term dates and government gave academies and free schools in England permission to vary term times earlier this academic year.  But the main concern for the National Association of Head Teachers appears to be the burgeoning cost of holidays during school breaks—they can easily be double those in term time—and its solution according to Russell Hobby is:

‘We would like to see local or regional co-ordination, but at that point you could also have the opportunity to have a staggering of holidays around the country.  So if different parts of the country within local authority boundaries or regional boundaries had slightly different holiday times I think that would ease the pressure on the prices of holidays as well.’

He said the change would take away some of the excuses that both parents and teachers made about missing school days.  I’m afraid I don’t see the economic logic in his argument.  Even if you staggered school holidays—and there is a case for secondary schools breaking up for the summer in late-June or early-July and coming back mid-August to fit in with the examination cycle—that would not prevent an increase in the cost of a holiday but will simply lengthen the time that leisure companies can charge a holiday premium.  It is, as the companies continually say, a matter of supply and demand. 

In my experience, there have always been staff shortages in one area or another in schools.  This has been the case particularly and persistently in Mathematics and Physics.  Why would you want to teach if you have a degree in these subjects when your skills earn better pay and conditions by working in other areas of the economy?  The government’s solution—yes yet another initiative in this area all of which have previously largely failed—is to pay ‘experts’ £40,000 a year as research fellows to conduct master classes for pupils in networks of schools, set up free online maths and physics resources for schools to use, and teach lessons that stretch more advanced students.  Usual response from the teaching unions with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers saying that the experts should be trained as teachers before being allowed to educate children.  Well that probably will guarantee that the scheme never gets off the ground!!  The response to the story on the BBC website is equally negative…experts won’t be able to communicate with students and so on. 

We spend an inordinate amount of time and money teaching teachers to teach and a lot of it is wasted.  To teach effectively you need to know your subject and be able to communicate it interestingly to students in ways they can understand…you can improve a teacher’s ability to do this but if they can’t communicate effectively in the first place it really is a waste of time.  The best teachers I know are great communicators and who make learning interesting and fun for the students and they get great results.  They may or may not be experts in their fields but they have the confidence and communication skills to get the subject across.  Now you can’t teach that.

‘Morally repugnant’: the new language of politics?

So this weekend we have two news stories to which the term ‘morally repugnant’ has been applied.  Supermarkets have been urged to end ‘buy one get one free’ deals to cut the ‘morally repugnant’ amount of food being thrown away by shoppers…and this from the House of Lords itself regarded by many as a ‘morally repugnant’ and undemocratic institution.  We also have the continuing saga of Maria Miller’s expenses, her vacuous and remarkably short apology—‘contemptuous’ as far as Labour is concerned--and ‘hints’ or as the press would have it ‘veiled threats’ from her advisors to the press that Leveson is within her remit…yes it’s another ‘morally repugnant’ expenses scandal!  Now I’ve always believed that at the heart of politics should be a moral imperative but this may well be politically naive of me.  There’s little moral about the rough and tumble of politics as individuals seek to clamber their way up the greasy pole to political power even if you believe—genuinely of course—that achieving power will allow you to do all those ‘good’ things that you’ve always said you wanted to do.  Making political decisions is rarely moral and when it is—I think we have the moral high ground or there is a moral principle at stake here—I tend to see it as an appeal for populist support for a policy that is indefensible in other ways.  

In fact, political discourse over the last decade has been replete with moral outrage…for instance, over bankers (probably justifiably), utility companies for ripping of the consumer, over those ‘unwilling’ to work or live on welfare as a career choice and individuals and organisations that do not pay their ‘fair share’ of taxation and not to mention MPs’ expenses.  What has been done about it?  Welfare reform certainly but then it’s always easier politically to hit those unable to defend themselves economically but bankers and tax-avoiders have been largely unaffected as long as they can stomach the moral outrage, which of course they can by simply ignoring it and energy companies have simplified their tariffs but, to most people, they still remain a foreign language.  The Miller case demonstrates that MPs should, under no circumstances, police themselves and be allowed to overrule the Parliamentary Commissioner of Standards…as several commentators and the public has said, if we did that we’d be sacked.  That a rich society like Britain still has high levels of individual and child poverty is morally repugnant, that bakers can give themselves obscenely large bonuses is morally repugnant, that we have a political class seemingly bent on acting in its own interests irrespective of its effect on ordinary people is morally repugnant…throwing a lettuce away may be environmentally and economically wasteful but it’s hardly morally repugnant. 

Fish out of water!

If I refuse to give you what you want, am I making my position clear or am I bullying you?  This is not a simple question to answer as it depends largely on the tone of my response.  Making my position clear and explaining why I hold to that decision may seem a highly reasonable response on my part.  I’m not simply saying no, I’m giving you reasons why I said no.  But is this bullying?  Here the critical issue is one of power and control.  If I have the power and you don’t then I can enforce my decision whether you like it or not…now that could be construed as bullying.  I raise this question largely because the debate between England and Scotland now appears to have degenerated into English politicians saying things that are unpalatable to the ‘Yes campaign’ and Scottish nationalists saying that this is bullying.  Now that might by good PR for the ‘Yes campaign’…nobody likes a bully…but it fails to address what are fundamental issues for the potential future of an independent Scotland that the nationalists. 

Therein lies the problem with the referendum.  Many of the critical questions on, for instance, economy, membership of the EU and so on, will perhaps inevitably not  be answered until after the referendum takes place.  Take the question of whether Scotland and England would enter into a currency union based on the pound.  For Mr Salmond this appears to be taken as read, a logical solution to Scotland’s future currency. But when George Osborne and his officials made it clear that this is a non-starter, this was yet another example of England bullying Scotland and anyway once independence is agreed the separation negotiations will resolve the issue in favour of currency union anyway.  For Mr Salmon, there is no Plan B in the lengthy and, in places, speculative and nebulous Scottish White Paper.  He simply asserts that Scotland keeping the pound will be beneficial for both countries. 

Now let’s admit that he might be right on this issue—doubtful given the uncharacteristic unanimity among the three major Westminster parties—but the issue of continued membership of the EU appears, if Mr Barroso’s statement that this would be ‘extremely difficult’, to be close to impossible.  It would require agreement of all 27 members and we all know that Spain is highly wary of the impact of a vote for Scottish independence on the separatist campaign in Catalonia. Barroso has previously said that any newly independent state would have to re-apply to join the EU.  His comments are at odds with Scotland's blueprint for independence, published last year, which says that it hoped to agree a ‘smooth transition’ to membership of the EU as an independent state.   The Scottish government paper said they believed transition could be agreed without interrupting its EU membership in time for a potential independence declaration in March 2016.  It is now clear that this is no longer the case.  For the leader of the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, former British Chancellor Alistair Darling, the independence campaign was beginning to unravel: ‘Alex Salmond is a man without a plan on currency and Europe. The wheels are falling off the independence wagon.’   This may be premature and the current polling figures of 29 per cent in favour of independence, 40 per cent opposed and 29 per cent undecided means that the race for independence is still wide open.

Can we shrink the size of the state?

The debate about the proper balance between what the state should provide and what individuals should provide for themselves has a long pedigree and has never been fully resolved.  The critical question is how can we have a ‘good society’ and a ‘good state’?  As the state has grown bigger so those areas that previously would have been left to individuals have been vacuumed up leading to an expanding public sector and higher levels of taxation to fund those services whether through direct or indirect tax or through National Insurance contributions.  This had led to growing concerns that the state is doing too much and that it costs too much (a cost that is unsustainable) and  that individuals are taking little responsibility for their livelihoods.  It is true that over the past century the state has taken responsibility for providing benefits for those in need through the welfare system and provided ‘free at the point of need’ health care through the NHS.  This ‘welfare state’ has proliferated over the last twenty years with a growing number of increasingly confusing benefits that people may claim giving rise to the notion of a benefit culture with an imprecise numbers of people—the so-called ‘scroungers’—being supported by the state from cradle to grave.  This, combined with an aging population that puts pressure on pensions and health-care, has led to calls particularly though not exclusively from the political right that we need to ‘roll back the state’.  The problem is that people want the benefits but don’t actually want to see their personal taxation rise to pay for them and many people are prepared to countenanced benefit cuts as long. of course, it’s not their benefits that are cut.   Cutting the role of the state is fraught with difficulties since many benefits the welfare state provides have been accorded the status of sacred cows making them virtually untouchable by politicians without disastrous electoral fallout.

Therein lies the conundrum, politicians recognise that the current public sector is financially unsustainable and yet its reform requires political courage that most of them clearly do not have.  They are not prepared to say that we cannot continue with a financially burgeoning NHS or that people must (not should) take responsibility for providing certain things for themselves.  So they seek to reform or rather tinker round the edges of the problem hoping to reduced costs sufficiently to allow the unwieldy state to survive in its current form for a few more years.  As a society we have to accept that either we will have to pay more through taxation for the current services or that we will have to take greater responsibility for providing for ourselves through saving.  In Australia, for instance, people save about a tenth of their income for this purpose while in Britain the figure is less than half that.  This applies particularly to saving for old-age and saving to deal with health problems through private insurance.  We insure our private possessions against damage or theft and yet the overwhelming majority of people do not do the same for their own health.  We assume that, irrespective of our health needs, the state will provide free care. The same applies to pensions though recent attempts to make making private provision has been made easier for those in the private sector.  In both cases, this would shift responsibility from the state to the individual.  But, I hear you think, what about those who do not make such provision?  Well you can’t let them starve in old-age or die for want of medical treatment so individual provision has to be mandatory much as it is now with NI contributions but with a private provider not with the state.  But private providers aren’t reliable are they?  Well at present probably not but but there is no reason why they shouldn’t be…we take out health insurance when we travel abroad so why not when we’re at home?  There’s also no reason why private providers cannot do things better than existing state providers…in fact you might think they couldn’t do worse!!

A democratic deficit

The idea that there is a democratic deficit at the heart of the European Union is nothing new.  It has been a recurrent theme of those critical of the EU for several decades.  There is also a growing realisation that there is a democratic deficit at the heart of the British system of government as well.  Yes we elect MPs every five years but once they are elected they appear to forget those who elected them until it comes to the next electoral cycle.  What people find increasingly irksome is the patronising attitude of politicians who appear to take the view that you elected us and if you don’t like what we’re doing you can vote us out at the next election!  Now this might have been a (barely) acceptable position before the 1960s but people are more politically aware and confrontational today.  They have views and expect politicians to respond to their concerns which they are often unwilling or unable to do.  The result of all this is that political decisions are frequently made by a small cadre of career politicians or, in the case of the EU, unelected officials both of whom have their own agenda that they pursue irrespective of what people say.

Herein lies the problem of the democratic deficit and it’s a problem facing all ‘democracies’.  Democracy is increasing losing its core principles: ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ in favour of a technocratic view of democracy in which frequently unaccountable ‘experts’ propound solutions that are then implemented by elected politicians.  This is not to suggest that those solutions are wrong or that they do not benefit the people but that misses the point.  The essence of a democratic system is that it is accountable to the people and ‘technocracy’ is, by its nature, largely unaccountable.  Take the vexed question of the proposed referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU.  It is clear, whatever your views, that the British people have been crying out for the right to vote for or against the Union for the past decade (if not longer) but it has not happened despite the promises of successive governments.  The reasons for this are relatively simple: politicians of all parties generally say that this isn't the right time largely because they think they’ll lose. 

Refighting the First World War by today’s politicians

It is hardly surprising in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War that historians, politicians and countries are reappraising its origins, course and consequences.  We have already seen the publication of a tranche of books on the subjects including the excellent study by Max Hastings of its beginnings and David Reynolds’ superb study of its ‘long shadow’ during the twentieth century and there is undoubtedly more to come.  Now there’s nothing wrong with re-examining past events and coming to different interpretations of those events—the essence of what being a historian is about—but I also become a little jaundiced when politicians enter the fray largely because their comments are normally ill-informed and designed to attract the media and because those comments often have little to do with the events themselves and rather more to do with contemporary political agendas.

Michael Gove’s comments in the Daily Mail last Thursday is the case in point.  He argues that people’s understanding of the war had been overlaid by ‘misrepresentations’ which at worst reflected ‘an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage’.  ‘The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best,’ wrote Mr Gove. ‘But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who fought, it's important that we don't succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict.’ ‘The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh, What a Lovely War!, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.’  Then comes the critical point: ‘Even to this day there are left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths.’  Yes, it’s a further assault on Mr Gove’s bête noire…left-wing academics even though the origins of the idea of ‘lions led by donkeys’ came from Conservative politician Alan Clark’s revisionist history.  What Michael has done is to erect an Aunt Sally that few historians now believe in and proceed to knock it down.  The importance of Clark’s The Donkeys is that it initiated a debate into how the war was conducted—which was his intention—rather than simply an attack on the incompetence of the ‘top brass’.  Today we have a more nuanced view of how the generals ran operations during the War—and perennial trench warfare was beyond most of their experiences—and historians recognise that there were some poor and some very good military leaders and that no general, good or bad, could sensibly regard their troops merely as cannon-fodder to be thrown pointlessly against the enemy trenches. 

That there has been a response from the Labour Party should come as no surprise.  Shadow education secretary and TV historian Tristram Hunt also criticised Mr Gove's ‘crass' comments. ‘The reality is clear: the government is using what should be a moment for national reflection and respectful debate to rewrite the historical record and sow political division.’   While Sir Tony Robinson commented that ‘I think Mr Gove has just made a very silly mistake; it's not that Blackadder teaches children the First World War. When imaginative teachers bring it in, it's simply another teaching tool; they probably take them over to Flanders to have a look at the sights out there, have them marching around the playground, read the poems of Wilfred Owen to them. And one of the things that they'll do is show them Blackadder.  And I think to make this mistake, to categorise teachers who would introduce something like Blackadder as left-wing and introducing left-wing propaganda is very, very unhelpful. And I think it's particularly unhelpful and irresponsible for a minister in charge of education.’   Tony’s mistake was that Michael Gove did not mention teachers in his article though others, including Jeremy Paxman, have criticised schools for relying on episodes of Blackadder Goes Forth to teach about the conflict.  The critical word here is ‘relying’ and in my long experience in teaching I have never come across any teacher who would ‘rely’ on fictionalised drama to teach about the War.  Drama provides one interpretation of the War, Wilfred Owen another and Rupert Brooke yet another.  I am reminded of Nikita Khrushchev’s comment that ‘Historians are dangerous and capable of turning everything upside down. They have to be watched.’  Undoubtedly Michael Gove would agree.

Who really wants to be a teacher today? Further thoughts.

So eight out of ten schools are good or outstanding, according to the annual Ofsted report from Sir Michael Wilshaw, while the publication of League Tables for primary schools today shows that hundreds of schools in England have failed to hit tougher literacy and numeracy targets brought in this year.  Targets were missed by 767 of more than 15,000 schools in which final-year pupils took national SATs tests. Individual schools are now deemed to be below target in fewer than 60% of their pupils do not achieve Level 4 or higher in reading, writing and maths and pupils are not making the expected progress in these three subjects between the ages of seven and 11. Those falling below targets could be put under new leadership, turned into academies or closed down.  There are large swathes of England where below 58% and between 58 and 62% of schools fail to achieve the national average of 63% especially in East Anglia and the South-East, Yorkshire and the North-East and along the Welsh Marches while London—previously regarded as an education ‘black spot’ scored above average in all but three boroughs.  Sir Michael Wilshaw said the regional gap was like ‘two nations’.

For those teachers in the blighted areas, this will all be dispiriting and it is hardly surprising that schools in these areas have problems recruiting good staff.  Sir Michael said there needed to be a fairer distribution of good teachers and school leaders across the country, with incentives to encourage the best teachers to move to the areas of greatest need.  He also said on Newsnight yesterday evening that he felt that the probation period for teachers should be extended from the current year to three or even five years before full teacher status should be awarded.  This may well be a good idea since many weak or failing teachers are ‘persuaded’ to leave one school by heads offering to write good references so they can get a job elsewhere—the evidence for this is apocryphal and its extent unclear though in my experience it does happen.  I have never understood why teachers who fail with students year in year out and whose daily experience must be one of continual stress don’t make the decision to leave the profession anyway.  In some cases I’ve seen, it’s simply a case of self-delusion—things can only get better—while for others they simply keep battling on and failing.  Better for them and definitely for their students that they leave the profession as soon as possible and if Sir Michael’s proposal aids that process so much the better.

It seems that, although bad behaviour in schools is declining, low level disruption remains a critical issue for many teachers.  When I started teaching I remember being told by a very successful senior teach that ‘if you think you have a class of absolute bastards in front of you, you’ll never be disappointed’.  At the time I thought this was remarkably cynical but experience showed its truth.  The vast majority of students want to learn but they can be held back by those students who chatter, go off task or won’t participate in the lesson.  This means establishing clear and unequivocal rules within the classroom with known sanctions for those who breach those rules.  When I was teaching I would, at the beginning of each term, lay down the rules that operated in my classroom—I also had them pinned to the wall—don’t talk unless I tell you to, do the work you’re asked to do to the best of your ability and ask for help if you need it, and contribute to discussions when asked and if you don’t know the answer say so.  Clear and simple.  Similarly the sanctions: extra help for those not working to the best of their ability during break or lunch for 15 minutes rising to 30 minutes for those with particular problems; zero tolerance of chatting with daily silent detention at lunchtime for up to 30 minutes.  This was applied across my departments and within a term we had very few students in silent detention and, though there are always students with difficulties these decreased as well.  Students knew where they stood, what was expected of them and what they could expect from us and it worked—outcomes in class improved, results improved, student self-esteem improved and lessons became what they should always be, a joint learning experience for teacher and student that was focused, enjoyable and led to student success.  We also used student questionnaires at the end of each term to gauge student attitudes and identify areas where individual teachers or the department as a whole could do better and fed its conclusions back to the students.  Giving students a voice and respecting that voice is central to any joint learning experience.

But what about those students for whom this didn’t work?  Well, for a few it didn’t matter what you did, what sanctions you employed or threatened, they were always going to be a problem.  I’ve put students in my office with the work to remove them from the class so that they did not disrupt others and sometimes this had the correct effect—no audience, no problem.  My department moved students across classes to see whether they would be better with a different teacher, again with some success.  However, you’re unlikely to win with every student and then your aim must be to minimise their effect on other students and hope that other teachers in other subjects will do better than you do.  There is a point at which banging your head against the wall becomes enduringly painful! 

Who really wants to be a teacher today?

The ‘battle against mediocrity’ must be fought to improve school standards across all parts of England, says the head of education watchdog Ofsted. Launching Ofsted’s annual report, chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said the regional gap was like ‘two nations’.  The report showed that eight in 10 schools were now good or better, the highest in Ofsted's history but there were still nearly 250,000 pupils being taught in inadequate schools and 1.5 million in schools that require improvement.  Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt said the ‘postcode lottery’ of regional differences needed to be tackled and he accused the government of weakening rather than improving standards.  The solution seems to be calls for greater accountability and more assessment—because that’s what countries who scored well in the recent global Pisa tests. 

Central to improving school results, it is generally agreed, is having good teachers and good school leadership.  But why would you really want to be a teacher today?  If things go well then clearly you’re coasting and need to do more, get even better results and if not, we always knew that teachers were rubbish anyway.  Well if you have a good degree, the chances are that you wouldn’t.  Whatever the incentives—financial or in terms of rapid promotion—teaching lacks the advantages or status that people who go into financial or commercial services or the law gain.  This is not to say that all those with good degrees do not enter teaching but often do so as part of a career plan that frequently takes them out of the profession.  For those who do become teachers, there is no guarantee that having a good degree will make them into ‘good’ teachers anymore than having a lower degree will make them ‘poor’ teachers.  Although teachers can be trained to be better teachers, I have always believed—and my experience in teacher training sustains this—that individuals can either teach or they can’t and no matter what the training you can’t turn someone who can’t teach into someone who can.  Yes, you need to know your subject but if you can’t communicate your enthusiasm for that subject in ways that appeal to students, then you’re never going to be an effective teacher.  In reality, you’re not going to be a teacher at all. 

Looking at History blog passes milestone.

BLOG PASSES 500,000 ‘HITS’

Since I starting working on my blog several years ago, its audience has increased significantly.  Each month it receives between 15,000 and 20,000 hits from across the globe.  Unsurprisingly, given its content, the largest audience lies in Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia but growing numbers of readers come from France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Russia and India. 

Pensions, personal responsibility and the state

The issue of the state pension looms large in today’s Autumn Statement by Chancellor George Osborne. The current state pension age was set to change from 65 to 68 in 2046 but that date will now be brought forward to the mid-2030s.  The pension age could rise again to 69 in the late-2040s, he will add, meaning people now in their 20s may have to work until they are 70, a return to the starting age when pensions were originally introduced in 1909.  The debates on pensions in 1907 and 1908 raised questions that remain pertinent.  For instance, W. H. Lever commented on 10 May 1907:

All the Government ought to do was to see that the methods of taxation were fair and just to every section of the community, and that every citizen had equal opportunities by the application of the principle of payment of taxation in accordance with ability to pay, and in proportion to the wealth of the individual…There were duties devolving on the State, which were that the State should do for the individual citizen what it was out of the power of the individual citizen to do for himself.

The problem with pensions is that individuals tend not to think about how they will fund their retirement until later in life.  When you’re twenty you’re more concerned about having fun than putting money aside for your old age.  You might think that you are putting money aside through taxation for your state pension but other than that most people do not begin their own individual pension plan and save accordingly.  The escalating age at which individuals are entitled to their state pension—justified by the government because of increasing life expectancy--may well act as the catalyst for this now to occur.  It may well be the case that raising the state pension age is justifiable in those terms though there is clearly a political narrative in the Chancellor’s decision.  However, does society really want to rely on emergency services peopled by individuals or people working in manual occupations in their 60s?  Is it morally justifiable in a highly developed and wealthy society that individuals should have to trudge to and from work until they reach 70?  Although some people may be quite happy to work until that age—and there’s no reason why they should not do so if that is what they choose to do—but we have to ask whether everyone should be compelled to work until they are 70?

Take individuals who today have just left university.  They will have student debts of perhaps £35,000 to be paid off.  They are in a steady relationship and want to set up house with their partners so they need to raise a deposit for a mortgage—currently around £40,000.  They are aware that they will need to save for their retirement and take out pension insurance—industry estimates suggest that up to a quarter of income will need to be invested to ensure a liveable pension.  They also want to have a ‘life’ as a consumer to gain access to the products that appear central to many people’s lives—the latest phone, tablet etc.—and they want to have disposable income to spend on leisure activities.  Is it any surprise that, when adding up the figures, they decide that the thing they can do without is a pension plan.  This may be a short-sighted decision but human nature dictates that people seek the pleasure of consumerism than the pain of perpetual saving.  Yet, if people want to retire before they are 70, they will need a private pension that allows them to do so and do so at a level that makes their old-age financially manageable.  Therein lies the problem.  Left to their own devices, individuals will not put aside sufficient for their old age so, in Rousseau’s terms, should they be ‘forced to be free’?  Should the state take more of individuals’ incomes and invest it for them to provide sufficient for their old-age or should individuals take control of their own futures and be compelled to invest a proportion of their income for their old-age?  The answer is probably both though I would prefer to be making decisions about my own future than leaving it to the state that is hardly a reliable user of the public purse if last experience is anything to go by. 

Whatever decision individuals and governments make, the current pension regime is unsustainable and that has been the case for several decades.  What we need is a new model that allows individuals to retire when they choose even if they do not receive their state pension until later in life.