“and be in no doubt that many there yesterday wanted the confrontation with police”

Surely not.

“And now even if they do ‘play by the rules’ – go to school, try to get to university, find a job – they find the door slammed in their face.”

Really? Since the changes are benefcial for the lowest earners and will result in 22% paying less…

Oh, sorry, this isn’t actually about policy though, is it?

QUITE!

Which is why Field Marshal Von Cameron has now called up water cannon

What next, tanks?

I think you’re right, but you’ve missed one potential implication. To an extent it takes the pressure *off* the Government – they don’t need to worry about changing their policies because they know it won’t make a difference anyway.

We can argue forever about the effect of these reforms but it is absolutely clear that for the poorest they will result in savings, not costs. Tim Harford, the economist, ran the numbers on Radio 4 recently with several non-aligned experts and whichever way they were crunched this was the result. In fact, he found that the only people who would repay the full value of their loan (excluding interest) were those who achieved a lifetime average earning of £70,000 a year. The only thing that will hinder these kids going to university is being misled by teachers and commentators about the effects of the changes. But the cynical left will keep on telling these kids that they are going to have an enormous ”debt’, persuading them to miss the benefits of education, because, that is what they really want: an angry dispossessed, confused and undereducated constituency that can be manipulated for political reasons. It makes me a bit cross.

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You’re right. Labour abandoned these kids and now one of the few policies to benefit them, EMA, is being cut and they are angry.

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“Really? Since the changes are benefcial for the lowest earners and will result in 22% paying less…”

If you learned to read, you’d find it was the abolition of EMA that pissed them off…..

I am no kind of Tory, Sally, but you certainly seem to fit the bill of ‘cynical leftist’. That is, basically, a bourgeois who uses the plight of the poorest in society to lever from the welfare state subsidy for the middle classes. The cynical right do a similar thing but through different channels of course, (take a look at the bank bonuses this year). This is all par for the course in politics but it stick in the craw when it becomes quite so in-your-face with the lies being fed to young people least equipped to detect them, young people most in need of the money that LC and others are so determined to fence off for Charlie Gilmour and his like.

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@ Comments 1 and 4 above who are saying that the tuition fee reforms will benefit the poorest – this is missing the point somewhat. To a certain extent, for many of these kids the tuition fees are scary, and without EMA they won’t be getting the required education to go to Uni anyway – so it makes little difference. But it’s bigger than that.

Their grievance is quite a lot wider than just fees and EMA and the most eloquent of them are very well able to put across this wide ranging perspective. It’s about going from having very little future to having no future at all, from slim opportunities to break the cycle of poverty to having none, EMA was for many a real opportunity to get at least some kind of education. The whole of the current process is doing very little to help people in this situation, getting people, their brothers, their parents, their friends, off benefits when there are no jobs, stopping EMA when they need it to succeed and do better for themselves. One of the issues is that those from this group who are able to express this clearly and articulately are not those we see in the media and they do exist if you take a short while to chat to them.

I’m sorry, but many of these observations are risible. For example:

“the mainly middle class students who are involved in the occupations.”

The occupations I’ve visited aren’t largely populated by the middle classes. It depends where you go to. There’s more money in Cambridge than UEL. But on the whole the occupiers don’t appear to be middle class, and I doubt you’ve actually done any research to back up that prejudice.

“In fact, I’m not sure that it is political at all – certainly not in any way that has been previously thought of in this country.”

This is to vastly overstate the novelty of the protests. They are clearly political in a very conventional way. There is absolutely nothing new about large sectors of the population mobilising over specific grievances and then generalising from their experience to wider political understanding, which is what appears to be happening.

“the unions, the dinosaurs of the hard left (SWP, Stop the War etc) ”

We can take the ‘dinosaurs’ insult in stride, but the idea of Stop the War as a bastion of the hard left is fairly preposterous. Its core agenda is one shared by the majority of the population, and its platform is supported by Liberals, Labourites, even some Tories. There’s nothing remotely “hard left” about StW. I’m not even sure you’ve begun to think through the relevance of this observation. While the SWP has thrown itself into these protests, StW is obviously not the sort of organisation that is immediately relevant here. But when you look at those organising the student occupations, when you look at the UCU activists and the student union reps organising over issues like police violence, or when you look at the attempts to bring together a new students coalition involving the London Students Assembly and other bodies, you can’t write off the “dinosaurs”. They’re all over the bloody place, and they always will be when something like this happens, because they have experience and nous. My advice: get over it.

“The 15 year old Asian kids I saw shouting ‘one solution – revolution!’ at the TV cameras yesterday aren’t interested in top-down direction by white middle-aged union officials.”

This is a really unhelpful piece of TV sociology. The trade union movement has a way to go in terms of reaching into different demographics. But, for example, trade union density among Black British workers is higher than among white British workers. If trade unions have difficulty recruiting school students and young people it’s mainly because these are among the most difficult groups to represent in a union. If you’re a worker aged 16 to 24, your job is disproportionately likely to be casual and temporary – if you have a job. Still, 12.4% of full time 16-24 year olds are unionised, which isn’t negligible. The point is that there is no necessary reason why young people wouldn’t be attracted to trade unions, provided unions showed they could deliver some results. And it’s also not fair to characterise trade unions as being solely about piecemeal wage bargaining. The trade union leaders tend to be cautious and small ‘c’ conservative in the UK. But they do involve themselves in a host of political issues from fighting racism to supporting antiwar activity. There is a strain of social movement unionism that is sustained by a core of activists in this country, and which is going to be very important in resisting the public sector cuts in the coming years.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more cliched and tiresome the observation appears to be. One of the most popular appeals on these protests is for unity between workers and students. Trade union officials have got very loud cheers when they’ve deigned to attend and speak. Trade union banners have been very evident on these protests. The idea that there’s some necessary reason why these young protesters can’t relate to fuddy-duddy old public sector workers doesn’t appear to be supported by anything other than prejudice.

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@4 – “for the poorest they will result in savings, not costs”

This is a somewhat tired argument. There are still poor, and not so very poor, people who are not in the worst-off category of poor that will “benefit”. Plus people are not so stupid as to fail to see the contradiction in govt policy: by not creating a universal system the govt is incentivising people to remain on benefits. This is something they were themselves speaking out against recently.

Furthermore, some crumbs for a few will not distract us from the fundemental shift that is bing introduced into higher education: a shift that makes the younger generation pay their own way, and which places our prestigious Arts and Humanities faculties at the whim of the market..

I agree with the analysis contained here, but can’t say I would agree with the conclusion. I would suggest that if the heart of the protests are mid-late teens, then this is not necessarily dangerous – it is an experession of anger which may or may not last for a while, and could be destructive. But children shouting slogans are simply rebellion (with or without purpose), not a powerful majority or anything like that. Revolution and rebellion has always been directed and led, and as you say this is the sort of movement that rejects leadership.

Perhaps the biggest danger is of creating a sense of alienation and abandonment, which may fuel more radical activities. But we cannot say this is going to happen.

Stop Press: SWP detects revolutionary impulse in protest movement! Only effective leadership missing!!!!

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@4. Torquil MacNeil

You’ve completely missed the point of the article. It is *nothing* to do with the fees, it is EMA and the fact that yet again the a large section of the population is being ignored, or worse, being shat on.

Labour ignored this part of the population – and I think their big failure was housing – the Tories, rather than ignoring them, are actively attacking them.

As for fees, well most sensible analysis show that the government will not save money with this policy, and most likely will be worse off. The fees decision moves government money from direct grants to paying off the debts of the students who won’t earn enough to pay off their fees debt. The issue is philosophical: the marketisation of higher education. Rather than treating education as a benefit to society the Tories want us to treat it as a commodity. To be fair, Labour did this too, they just didn’t have the balls to push their policy to its full extent.

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“The evidence shows that 90% of it is wasted ”

Can you cite this evidence? Specifically the paper that calculates 90% waste?

“This is a somewhat tired argument. There are still poor, and not so very poor, people who are not in the worst-off category of poor that will “benefit”.”

Of course, but that still means the reforms are progressive. The poorest fifth of students will be paying less for their education. The richest fifth, more. Those in the middle, no change really, certainly not until they start earning well above poverty levels. The effect of the current system is a massive subsidy to the middle class. Why the hell should Cameron’s kids not pay for a part of their university education?

The only ones who like Grime are the ones with the speakers.

James Mills: “What a load of horseshit. The EMA has its defenders all over the BBC, The Guardian, The ‘Independent’ and other media. The evidence shows that 90% of it is wasted on kids that are too well-off to need it and who would stay in college without it.”

What evidence is that exactly? Would love to see some stats on that. Source?

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In addition “Where were all these student revolutionaries when workers were marching for their basic rights? At home, playing Xbox and getting drunk off their EMA money.”

At school – you don’t get it when you don’t turn up. Any more stupid questions?

18

“Excuse me while I die laughing.”

We can but hope.

I’m sure many of us here would be willing to contribute to a fund to buy you the comedy DVD’s of your choice to speed you on your way tho!

“As for fees, well most sensible analysis show that the government will not save money with this policy, and most likely will be worse off.”

Some (the richest) will be worse off, others (the poorest) will be better off. It is a tax being levied on those who have graduated and risen to high earnings levels. How is that not progressive?

” The issue is philosophical: the marketisation of higher education”

That is not the issue as far as these marches are concerned (if you think it is, you have not been paying close attention), it is a much more complex and interesting argument. And we just don’t know what the effects will be.

“Rather than treating education as a benefit to society the Tories want us to treat it as a commodity.”

Education benefits both individuals and society, just like banks, right? I find the idea that I should pay for Charlie Gilmour to become an investment banker because ‘society’ will benefit, risible.

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why is unfocused anger on the part of disadvantaged young people “more powerful” than “traditional” political protest?

“power” to do what?

@Richard Seymour

i’ll take your point about the class make up of the occupations – UEL is not the same as UCL. I’d still argue that the people in the occupations are more middle class than the bulk of the EMA protestors.

re: nothing new in protests

in my original post (here: http://thedirtistemporary.tumblr.com/post/2166103812/this-is-not-politics-as-usual ), i quoted something that Zizek had written about the Iraq war protests –

In 2007, Slavoj Zizek wrote that the Iraq war protests were “an exemplary case of [the] strange symbiotic relationship between power and resistance”. He wrote :

“Their paradoxical outcome was that both sides were satisfied. The protesters saved their beautiful souls: they made it clear that they don’t agree with the government’s policy on Iraq. Those in power calmly accepted it, even profited from it: not only did the protests in no way prevent the already-made decision to attack Iraq; they also served to legitimise it. Thus George Bush’s reaction to mass demonstrations protesting his visit to London, in effect: ‘You see, this is what we are fighting for, so that what people are doing here – protesting against their government policy – will be possible also in Iraq!’”

This is what i meant by the protests being different – they are NOTHING like the Iraq protests. And i would argue that in Britain, over the past 20 years, the concept of “large sectors of the population mobilising over specific grievances and then generalising from their experience to wider political understanding” IS something new. Which is why it’s so exciting.

As for Stop the War – i can’t tell you how many protests ive been to in the past decade, only to find the same old people speaking – John Rees, Lyndsay German, Galloway etc etc. These guys are trying to self-appoint themselves as the leadership of this movement via the Coalition of Resistance – but they don’t realise that this is a proper groundswell of protest, which cannot be seized control of by the seasoned left.

I would love the unions to get involved – but i think that the fact that the main TUC march isn’t until March says it all. The point i was trying to make is that the traditional channels of the left cannot expect all this energy to fall into their lap.

James Mills

let me get this straight – you don’t think kids should skip school in order to protest against the withdrawal of EMA because that would entail sacrificing their own EMA payments for the period, rather you think they should obediently attend school and just wait for their EMA to be permanently withdrawn. Because that makes much more sense.

I prefer smarter right wing commentators.

So let me get this straight. A bunch of students are protesting that they will get an allowance removed that helps them stay in school… by absconding from school?

The ends justify the means. They believe the point is more important than their own benefit, which is clearly something many Tories can’t comprehend.

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James, I notice you haven’t yet citied any evidence that EMA was wasted. Becuase if you were remotely familiar with the subject you would know that EMA money was not necessarily designed to be purely spent on books etc (though it undoubtedly helps) but designed to offset the opportunity cost of staying on in education.

Basically a great deal of research into NEETS and kids who didn’t stay on revealed that many working class kids were under pressure to leave school and get jobs/claim the dole because that option would bring in more cash in the short term than staying on in school. Hence EMA was introduced as a targeted benefit designed to offset these pressures. Apparently incentives matter…..

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“James, I notice you haven’t yet citied any evidence that EMA was wasted.”

To be fair, he did link to a DFE report on barriers to participation which found that EMA did not affect the decision to stay on in education in 88% of cases. That means 88% of it is wasted in its own terms.

37

Having it confirmed that you are a po-faced right wing troll whose sense of irony has apparently been surgically removed is entertainment enough thanks.

Planeshift,

Would you agree therefore that EMA is a monetary response to a cultural problem – i.e. it is an attempt to effectively pay for a problem to stay dormant, rather than an attempt to cure the problem?

“Would you agree therefore that EMA is a monetary response to a cultural problem – i.e. it is an attempt to effectively pay for a problem to stay dormant, rather than an attempt to cure the problem?”

Personally I would have no problem with that if it worked. But it doesn’t seem to. Better would be to place all education spending on account for each learner to spend at whatever time of live she chooses (or cash in). But that devolves too much power to individuals for the technocrats of left or right to stand.

The fervour in which James Mills is battling straw men suggests he was once raped by a scarecrow…

The person to blame for all this is the compulsive liar Clegg.

Anybody who had their head kicked in by the police or any police officer injured can lay the blame with the arrogant little shit that is Clegg. His determination to pull policies out of his ass, in complete contrast to what he put in his manifesto is the reason many people are angry. And his “we are in a coalition” bullshit excuse will not wash. He and his pathetic, spineless Lie Dems who either think it is fine to brazenly lie to their voters or who are trying to pretend that they are wrestling with their consciences can piss off. Vacillating Vince who wrote a whole book about the banks stood by as his pip squeak chancellor bailed out his banking mates in Ireland and did nothing, but go dancing.

@37 Richard Seymour said “stop the war” was not far-left, not the SWP.

“Read the research I linked to”

Yes, I wrote that post before you presented the link, and didn’t click submit until you had linked.

However the research does not mean what you think it does. For a start it stated that

““Around a quarter of young people view finance as a constraint when deciding what to do after Year 11”

and ““one quarter of young people in JWT say that having to pay their parents rent is a barrier or constraint when deciding what to do post-16. Furthermore, around a third of young people who do not participate in learning after leaving school think that they would have done some education or training if they had received more financial support””

Which clearly demonstrates a need for financial support to be in place.

What the report does say is that: “However, only 12 per cent of young people overall receiving an EMA believe that they would not have participated in the courses they are doing if they had not received an EMA. This contrasts with much higher proportions of young people with LDD who say that they would not have participated in learning without this support. Together these findings suggest the need for financial support to be increasingly targeted at those most at need.”

which is an argument for more targeted financial support at people. Not an argument for saying EMA was 90% waste. Its also worth pointing out that the 88% who would have stayed anyway may well have found things more difficult without EMA. It’s just in these cases the EMA wasn’t the sole reason they stayed on, which in fairness it was never likely to be.

I don’t buy this one. As an ex working class kid myself, I was brought up to believe the following; “when you grow up and discover you’ve no real brains, you better learn to work hard”. Naturally I had to take the latter option !

On the other hand, it did me no harm whatsoever. NB not everyone – all classes – are suitable for university style learning. Indeed, a number of my friends went to public school and university – all wasted. Their words, not mine.

Anyway, working class kids are losing their inherent values and intrinsic strengths by mixing with this rubbish —(rant over – promise)

Watchman, I would hardly say it is a cultural problem. It is one of opportunity cost. If you are from a family struggling to pay the bills, the temptation will always be to get a job or claim the dole to help with your family income immediately rather than stay on in the expectation that 2 years down the line a few AS-levels (or 5 years with a degree) will translate into slightly higher income to help with bills then.

Of course part of the solution to this could also be in basic incomes replacing the dole – so kids can claim that and still study if they wish.

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[deleted]

“Anyway, working class kids are losing their inherent values and intrinsic strengths by mixing with this rubbish ”

Ah the tory working class. Experts in voting against their own intertests.

Planeshift,

Watchman, I would hardly say it is a cultural problem. It is one of opportunity cost. If you are from a family struggling to pay the bills, the temptation will always be to get a job or claim the dole to help with your family income immediately rather than stay on in the expectation that 2 years down the line a few AS-levels (or 5 years with a degree) will translate into slightly higher income to help with bills then.

Of course part of the solution to this could also be in basic incomes replacing the dole – so kids can claim that and still study if they wish.

Ah, that may explain the different interpretation I have. If you see this as opportunity cost, then a payment is indeed a good solution.

If you see this as a cultural issue, then what payments are doing is simply avoiding the problem. If there is so little aspiration that people would prefer a low-paid job or the dole (lets take those who have an apprenticeship or other good job, or are setting up a business or whatever out of the equation here since they are clearly not those EMA is aimed at) to further study, then the problem is either with society which is not putting a proper value on education or with the education system, which is not providing enough incentive for people to continue by installing aspiration and hope. Either way, surely the idea should be to change the system.

At the moment, EMA does produce a subgroup of students who do not really want to learn and are only attending school/college to collect their money; results of a culture where they do not gain aspiration and yet are bribed to continue in education. I cannot see the benefit to these children who in all honesty would be best off going out into the real world and perhaps returning to education when they had the aspiration required.

Incidentally, I am not denying EMA has done some good and helped some students achieve aspirations. I simply proposing it is a blunt tool applied to simply cover over problems which are better treated by looking at the roots.

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@53. Sigh,

Learn to read and avoid straw men. You stated that 90% of EMA was wasted, and based that on an out of context quote from a report that clearly doesn’t demonstrate what you think it does. All of a sudden that means I’m defending a scheme with 88% waste. Logical Fallacy doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The report clearly demonstrates finance is a barrier for some groups of kids, and argues for more targeted support, along with greater awareness raising of the existance of EMA (and other schemes). Here’s some more of the relevant quotes:

“finance is more likely to be reported as a barrier or constraint by those who feel it is important to earn money straight away and those who receive or apply for an EMA or hardship funding after completing Year 11. This may suggest that the provision of such support can minimise the impact of finance as a barrier or constraint on some young people ”

““However, over two-fifths of young people (43 per cent) felt that when making their post-16 decision it was either very or quite important to earn money straight away.””

“Otherwise, about one third (28) of the 74 teenage parents not participating in learning at the time of the interview said that they would be encouraged to do some education or training by more financial support to cover the cost of transport. A similar number (29) said that more affordable childcare would encourage them to participate in education or training. This is not surprising given the costs associated with childcare.”

Even amongst those who said they would carry on without EMA, this does not mean EMA has been wasted. It undoubtedly makes things a little easier. Being able to afford textbooks, a cooked meal, or even a leisure activity, probably influences grades obtained (and thus quality of university).

Watchman – yes your right – I’m seeing this primarily as an issue of opportunity cost, and I think the report linked to provides good evidence for you concluding that EMA is a bit of a blunt tool to deal with the issue (although I’d be extremely wary of introducing more means testing and administration into the system)

Oh for FFS – I hate that some people just come here for petty sniping and bickering. I also suspect ‘James Mills’ is a right-wing troll, because the real James Mills, who is behind that site, is for EMA. This is just online identity theft. Once I get it confirmed, I’m going to clean this thread up.

@ 63. Sunny Hundal

I’m not sure they are just sniping at each other ? Suspect there’s a high degree of honesty and exposure involved ? Thank goodness I’m still an old fashioned Liberal – gets me forgiven for lots !

Sunny,

Sorry – I’ve been winding sally up a bit today (was planning to suggest we breed her and James Mills and see if we produce a sort of supertroll or merely a liberal troll, who spends all their time saying ‘whatever you want so long as it doesn’t hurt someone’).

I’ll try to remember to stay on thread.

thanks ted, but I didn’t ask for your advice on how to moderate the site.

Does the attack on Sir Winston’s statue remind anyone else of Joe Orton’s “What the butler saw”. “Can anyone produce or cause to be produced, the missing part of the hero of 1940?”

65. Sunny Hundal

I was actually praising you for letting the thread run ! I’m the least qualified person on earth to advise anyone on websites.

I agree with all of the OP except for this:

the avowedly middle-class dubstep

Maybe in London dubstep is a more middle-class thing but I can assure the author that if he comes and visits the provinces sometime he’ll find plenty of working-class people of any sex or race soundtracking their lives to dubstep.

I don’t wanna derail this thread though so I’ll leave it there

“Once I get it confirmed”

It may well be worthwhile, if possible, for you to publish all the details you have (location etc).

@ 66

Before anyone attempts such a task I would humbly recommend a little background reading on Mr Orton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Orton

If this so called Coalition is not careful the demonstrations might end up taking place during the 2010 Olympic games. One big benefit would be that violence would not happen when both the Police and Protestors are under the spotlight. In addition to this no person will get accidentally blasted by Water Cannon.

“Sorry – I’ve been winding sally up a bit today ”

Well you are not very good at it then.

Tory winding up must be a bit like tory humour. Non existent.

For crying out loud! How long is it going to take before the apologists who keep going on about higher education being cheaper in real terms than ever (or whatever the tale de jour is) realise that the cost of higher education is completely bloody irrelevant if – as a result of the scrapping of the EMA – kids have to leave school at 16 and not be able to sit entrance exams?

@ 55 Sally

You’re correct on this one except I’m not a tory. I have no fear whatsoever in voting against my own personal interests. It’s called selflessness – an unknown factor to the extreme left and right.

Real old Liberals make themselves independent and strong enough to vote for wider needs – almost always beyond their own interests. You have (accidentally) highlighted a significant difference between all our political ideologies.

If I was a tory as you regularly put it, I would attack Labour for their culture of dependence individually, collectively, politically and culturally, This is the very reason they have always left government and the country in a total mess one way or another.

I find my self again In total head scratching mode.

Because the more i read these posts the more i believe that i was so wrong voting for the libs.
I find that most people who argue the case for the libs are idealist dreamers with no sense of community or out of touch with how things really are.

Comments like they should be at school rather than protest (no idea if he is a lib that sounds like a Tory or a Sun reader )

I always argue the case that the uk is not broken.
Its totally fobared http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fubared

its fragmented
Reading these blogs just shows any one how out of touch people are with the realities that millions of people face in the uk every day

and that then answers your own question
why do they need to protest.
they do it because no one listens to them
that the likes of nick or the MP knows better than them

Remembering the chancellor and David Cameron where both members of Bullingdon Club notorious for its destructive binges.

Yet these guys can call sum one a yob for protesting >?

then clegg said ” this government is going to trust people”
Its in his NEW POLITICS speech.

its a joke…
http://www.libdemvoice.org/power-revolution-nick-clegg-new-politics-speech-19604.html

People don’t riot when they are listened too

@ 75. Me

Cockeyed, the public did not have to pay for Camerons antics in the Bullington club ! Westminster Council are spending shed loads of taxpayers hard earned dosh cleaning up behind this (mainly) middle class rubbish that we call students.

Students rubbish.

Middle class unseemly.

Deport all who aren’t like Ted.

Ted.

If sum-one is middle-class haven’t they got the right t protest ?

I recall watching in horror as sum posh people protested because they were not allowed to chase a fox around then rip it up with a drink of brandy.
they called themselves the country side alliance even thought most dident even live in the country.

They actually threw stuff on the PM if i rember right but were not even charged.
But they had the right to protest even though i don’t agree with them .

I can imagine you not moaning about your tax then ?

people have the right to protest and just because you don’t like it . it dont make it wrong other wise your a national socialist.

“Labour abandoned these kids and now one of the few policies to benefit them, EMA, is being cut and they are angry.”

This is a neat example of a common sort of comment that keeps striking me.

I have no doubt these kids were let down in Labour in various ways. But sooner or later, surely, the cognitive dissonance between condemning Labour for ‘abandoning’ people by doing almost nothing to help them and condemning the Tories for cutting one worthwhile Labour programme after another has got to be acknowledged.

I keep on hearing that Labour basically got everything wrong and abandoned the poor – except that actually Tax Credits help the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or the EMA helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or the school building programme helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or the Child Trust Fund helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or additional uni places help the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or investment in schools in deprived areas helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or the minimum wage helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut, or Sure Start helps the poor and shouldn’t be cut etc etc. Yes, there’s plenty of room for criticism of the way New Labour did things – PFI, academies etc – but if people are out on the streets protesting that a Labour programme which has benefited them personally is being cut, we should be encouraging them to notice the glaring fact that Labour *did* do something for them that they value highly. These are the new voters of 2015, after all.