NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Or not?

No 10 has released the New Opportunities White Paper and a website
The introductory blurb on the website says: “Beyond today's global slowdown lies a world of new opportunities for which we must prepare. If we put in place the right foundations now, the prize is not just a richer country but also a fairer society. The challenge we face is to help safeguard people and businesses against the impact of the crisis now, while preparing our country today for the tremendous opportunities of tomorrow.”

Take a look at the website; there are links to “success in the global economy, Supporting child development and Pathways for all”, as well as other inspirational topics.

The white paper talks about “the new opportunities that will arise in Britain as up to a billion skilled jobs are created worldwide in the coming years and said he wished to “encourage the aspirations people have”.

Some of the proposals are “offering teachers a payment of £10,000 to work at under-performing secondary schools, extending free nursery and childcare places to 15 percent of the most disadvantaged families with two-year-olds, and a guarantee that vulnerable mothers will have access to a dedicated family nurse to help them through pregnancy and the first two years of childhood.”

It sounds forward thinking and altruistic, or is it just “Pie in the sky”, what are peoples aspirations at the moment?

To look forward a few years when the recession is over (lets call it what it is, it isn’t a downturn”) or to keep the job they have (if they still have one), to pay the mortgage or rent, to be able to heat their homes and feed their kids, to be able to afford to travel to work, or survive on a pension that has lost half of it’s value, to find the money for food that has risen in price by almost four times the rate of inflation, to find a job so that they can do all the above?

Or to look forward a generation to when we will still be paying off the debt that the Government incurred to give billions to the banks while 75,000 families are being evicted this year. To watch our kids struggling to live with the tax increases and price increases that are inevitable?

What are your aspirations, do they include planning ahead a few years, or are you, like most people living for the moment, and just trying to survive?

The book Building Aspirations was written by Mark Mikelat (this is not an advert, it’s just that I used his cover).

Angus