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Monday Nov 09, 2009

'Have you ever wanted to spit in Gordon's porridge?'

Interviewing politicians is a bit like interviewing celebs – they're often so well media trained it's hard to get anything interesting out of them. Luckily when I interviewed Conservative MP Tim Loughton  at the annual conference of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services on Tuesday, I was armed with excellent questions from members of TheSite.org's politics & debate forum.

 I admit I chickened out of asking "how safe is the school kid's milk?" on behalf of CptCoatHanger. However thanks to Flashman's Ghost, I had to try and keep a straight face whilst uttering the words "have you ever wanted to spit in Gordon Brown's porridge?" Fortunately, rather than giving me a cuff round the ear, Loughton seemed to find it amusing - phew - saying: "I've wanted to do some drastic things to Gordon Brown, I must admit." Sadly he didn't elaborate as to what.

 Before I risked the porridge question, I asked about Diplomas, Apprenticeships and the Conservatives proposed plans to force young people into compulsory volunteering. 

 I wanted to find out what will happen when the Diploma is scaled it back, which Loughton confirmed is definitely the plan. He stopped short of answering this problematic question (he is a politican after all), saying instead: "we're not going to scrap it on day one", which isn't particularly comforting news for anyone considering taking this qualification. Apprenticeships, on the other hand, look set to get a boost (thanks adogwithsunglasses) with a pre-Apprenticeship for 14-16 year olds and plans to treble the amount of Apprenticeships available to people at school.

Star Galaxy wanted to point out the target of sending 50 % of 18-30 year olds to university is "utterly mad", believing it's contributed to rising graduate unemployment levels. Loughton's response: "I'm against arbitrary targets. I want people to go to university if that's the right thing for them. The problem with ambitious targets is that it potentially devalues the university experience and treats people who don't go to university as second class citizens. It should be horses for courses."

Finally it turns out National Citizenship Service (the feared compulsory volunteering) isn't actually going to be compulsory (it's also not necessarily going to be called National Citizenship Service – a name hasn't been decided yet). Instead, it's sounding more like a version of the Duke of Edinburgh's award, with young people signing up for summer-long 'challenges' in their community.  According to Loughton, the idea was 'youthproofed' by teenagers from Leeds, Liverpool and London. He said: "We've been using them as a sounding board and they've come up with some really positive ways of promoting it. There's no point in us coming up with a scheme if young people then reject it."

 I was struck by the difference in rhetoric between Conservative and Labour when it comes to talking about young people. Instead of ASBOs and the Respect Agenda, Loughton's emphasis seemed to be on communication and community and being "positive for youth." This may turn out to be no more than another dodgy catch phrase of course – we'll have to see – but any move away from the demonisation of young people has to be a good thing, whichever party you vote for.

Posted by Emma ( 5:41 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[0]