Why I’m backing Ed Miliband

By Owen Evans

Recently, I was fortunate enough to listen to Ed Miliband speak at a meeting of Labour Party members in Caerphilly, South Wales. He was treated to a definitive Welsh experience: it rained all day, the meeting was held in a community centre-come-chapel, and at the end of the meeting, an announcement was made about an Aneurin Bevan Memorial Dinner, to be held in a local rugby club.

This is a Labour heartland which has sometimes felt peripheral to the national debate, but Ed’s engagement with the audience was both empathic and genuine, as he showed a sophisticated understanding and appreciation of Wales in the devolved era. As impressive as this was, the most resonant part of his message, from my point of view, was his appeal to young people. Time and time again, Ed presented ideas which demonstrated an intuitive understanding of the issues which really matter to young people. Among these issues were higher education, low incomes and reform of the political system.

On higher education, Ed promoted the Graduate Tax as an alternative to tuition fees. This tax, he argued, would not burden young people with the debt of student loans – which serves as a disincentive to entry into higher education for many talented youngsters – but rather, it would be a fair and responsible measure, forming the basis of a sustainable higher education funding model. As a university student myself, I feel that this policy must be given serious consideration as we address the ever-growing funding pressures of higher education. The graduate tax would reconcile the realities of the cost of higher education with the aspirations of young people from all background – representing an equitable balance between pragmatism and fairness.

Another policy which is central to the Ed Miliband campaign is the living wage. While the minimum wage was a flagship achievement of the Labour government, the living wage is the next step in the progressive analysis of bottom of the pay scale. The living wage would benefit hundreds of thousands of workers – including the thousands of young people in low paid employment – providing a higher standard of living and greater socio-economic opportunities in general. The living wage would also provide a real incentive for the young unemployed to seek work, whereas the current situation causes many to fall into the sometimes inescapable unemployment trap when faced with a choice between poorly paid work and benefits. Ed’s approach to the economy is based on more than just recovery – it is based on renewal, giving hope not only for the creation of new jobs, but for the creation of well-paid, highly skilled jobs in modern, cutting-edge industries.

A further plank of Ed Miliband’s campaign which stood out was his vision for the re-invigoration of our political system. Support for AV and the reduction of the voting age to 16 are fundamental to Miliband’s interpretation of a vigorous 21st century democracy. Such reforms – particularly the commitment to votes at 16 – are important to young people like me, as they signify an attempt by politicians to reach out and engage with the public. This is essential if we are to meaningfully include young people in our political system and build a genuinely open modern society, in which we all participate and contribute.

As vitally important as political re-engagement is, it is undoubtedly Ed Miliband’s understanding of our economic challenges that is most important to young people. Living in an ex-mining community in South Wales, I see the despair of long-term unemployment on a daily basis. I also see the all too real threat of long-term youth unemployment gathering momentum in the wake of the coalition budget. I know that several of my friends here in South Wales, who are unemployed, feel disenfranchised by the political system, disempowered economically, due to their exclusion from the workforce, and disengaged from participation in their communities. They are in this situation through no fault of their own – some have struggled to find work since leaving school, and some of them lost their jobs during the recession, as the unfortunate phrase ‘last in, first out’ is so often the case when it comes to jobs. I’m sure the situation I have described will be familiar to young people in communities across the UK, not just in South Wales.

The last Tory government wrote off a generation of young people like my friends, consigning them to long-term unemployment and misery. Following the cuts announced in the budget and the job losses which will ensue, there is no doubt that the current coalition government is marching in the same direction. Now, more than ever before, we need to fight for the future of Britain’s youth, and Ed Miliband is the man with the ideas, the vision and the courage to lead that fight.