17 h. ago Teenage pregnancy rates are a barometer of Britain’s progress. The tale they now tell is not reassuring | Polly Toynbee

Years of austerity have destroyed the web of services that tackled this complex problem. Compared to our European neighbours, we are failingIt takes the passing of time to fully grasp the scale of the previous government’s vandalism. Think where we would be now had the Tories not dismantled the social programmes they inherited from New Labour, with so many showing rapid progress. Those watching the statistics had a jolt last week when figures from the Office for National Statistics for 2022 seemed to show the second annual rise in teenage pregnancies in England and Wales, after a decade of falling rates.This may turn out to be the result of pandemic distortions in the previous year, when numbers dropped due to teens not meeting. The next figures may return to the previous trajectory, but that’s still a sluggish rate of falling teenage conceptions and it throws into stark perspective how far Britain lags behind similar countries. The UK now has the 22nd-lowest teenage pregnancy rate ...

Politics

8 d. ago To those who question what Labour stands for – look at Best Start. It will change Britain’s future | Polly Toynbee

Sure Start was New Labour’s finest achievement, and the Tories destroyed it. Now it’s back with a mission to put children at the heart of everythingThey hunt high and low for Labour’s missing message, vision, purpose or identity. Well, here it is, where it always was, in the future of children. It’s what Labour does best, what it is for: building a society where children come first and everything else falls into place. The foundations have now been laid by Bridget Phillipson by finally bringing back Sure Start to England – the most successful achievement of the last Labour government – now rebranded as Best Start family hubs.It’s a pity about the new name, but young parents recognise “hubs”, whereas Sure Start is largely gone and forgotten. Its uprooting began the day Michael Gove arrived as education secretary in 2010. He entered the “Department for Children, Schools and Families” – a name chosen to reflect the awareness that children don’t learn without wraparound care for their w...

Politics

2 w. ago To all who think capitalism can drive progressive change, it won’t – and here’s the shocking proof | Polly Toynbee

Asset manager Aberdeen’s surprise cut to funding research into inequality has left those that used its grants for good works reelingThe axe fell with shocking suddenness. On Thursday Aberdeen Group plc terminated its Financial Fairness Trust without notice and sacked the CEO, Mubin Haq, the chair and all the trustees, leaving eight staff dangling. The company tells me it plans to move in a different direction. That dreaded phrase marks the end of 16 remarkable years, during which the trust sponsored some of the most influential research into inequality and its financial causes.Aberdeen is a wealth management and investment company. I admired its willingness to fund research not in its own immediate interest, but for the sake of social improvement, as a sign that decent capitalism was possible. Now that’s over. The mood has changed. Wildfires started by President Trump are engulfing global companies as his administration attempts to bar asset and retirement plan managers from conside...

Events

2 w. ago Another tragic fact about this disastrous welfare bill: it proves Labour hasn’t learned and doesn’t listen | Polly Toynbee

From cabinet members to the British public, there is an outcry about these benefits cuts. Why is the government always so poor at reading the room?This disaster bill won’t pass on Tuesday. The dangerous obduracy of the prime minister and chancellor confirms precisely what Labour MPs say: they haven’t listened, they aren’t listening and the fear is they won’t learn to listen. Even if the bill squeezed through with some softening, it will be a pyrrhic victory. Why take such a risk for so little? U-turns are better than crashes, but best not left to the last nanosecond.Senior ministers, some of whom have already spoken up in cabinet, will put their feet down firmly to insist on radical alteration, or better still that it’s withdrawn and rethought to avoid what they call “this catastrophe”. If niceties of parliamentary practice escape some, understand how extraordinary this rebellion is. Read their “reasoned amendment” with its crushing reasons why.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist ...

Events

2 w. ago Another tragic fact about this disastrous welfare bill: it proves Labour hasn’t learned and doesn’t truly listen | Polly Toynbee

From cabinet members to the British public, there is an outcry about these benefits cuts. Why is the government always so poor at reading the room?This disaster bill won’t pass on Tuesday. The dangerous obduracy of the prime minister and chancellor confirms precisely what Labour MPs say: they haven’t listened, they aren’t listening and the fear is they won’t learn to listen. Even if the bill squeezed through with some softening, it will be a pyrrhic victory. Why take such a risk for so little? U-turns are better than crashes, but best not left to the last nanosecond.Senior ministers, some of whom have already spoken up in cabinet, will put their feet down firmly to insist on radical alteration, or better still that it’s withdrawn and rethought to avoid what they call “this catastrophe”. If niceties of parliamentary practice escape some, understand how extraordinary this rebellion is. Read their “reasoned amendment” with its crushing reasons why.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist ...

Events

3 w. ago I hope this is the last piece I ever have to write about assisted dying | Polly Toynbee

Today’s vote is on a knife edge. MPs must take their chance to drive forward personal freedoms – and add to Labour’s legacyMPs, read this horror before you vote today. Here’s how some people are slowly dying, right now, in mortal agony untreatable by the best palliative care: “Some will retch at the stench of their own body rotting. Some will vomit their own faeces. Some will suffocate, slowly, inexorably, over several days.” An average of 17 people a day are dying these bad deaths, according to 2019 figures, as reported by palliative care professionals who see it happen.The Inescapable Truth, a report from Dignity in Dying, revealed what is usually kept hidden from us: the shocking last months for the unluckiest. It could happen to you or me. The assisted dying bill’s final Commons vote today is no abstract debate about slippery slopes or what God wants: to do nothing is to inflict torture on many.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contact...

Events

3 w. ago I hope this is the last piece I ever have to write in defence of assisted dying | Polly Toynbee

Today’s vote is on a knife edge. MPs must take their chance to drive forward personal freedoms – and add to Labour’s legacyMPs, read this horror before you vote today. Here’s how some people are slowly dying, right now, in mortal agony untreatable by the best palliative care: “Some will retch at the stench of their own body rotting. Some will vomit their own faeces. Some will suffocate, slowly, inexorably, over several days.” An average of 17 people a day are dying these bad deaths, according to 2019 figures, as reported by palliative care professionals who see it happen.The Inescapable Truth, a report from Dignity in Dying, revealed what is usually kept hidden from us: the shocking last months for the unluckiest. It could happen to you or me. The assisted dying bill’s final Commons vote today is no abstract debate about slippery slopes or what God wants: to do nothing is to inflict torture on many.Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contact...

Events