Miliband to highlight Cameron’s change of heart

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today, in a speech at his old school, Ed Miliband will seek to highlight the “false choice” between culture and deprivation, and point out Cameron’s own change of heart over the importance of deprivation. Miliband will say:

“So culture matters: from top to bottom. But just as those on the Left who dismiss arguments about culture are wrong, so are those on the Right who dismiss opportunity, deprivation and hope. We are failing far too many of our young people. They are not convinced that our country offers them a future. We all looked with horror this week at the sight of children, some not even in their teens, taking part in lawlessness and casual criminality.”

This is where a Leader of the Opposition needs to speak frankly:

Of course, not everyone who grows up in a deprived neighbourhood turns to crime-just as not everyone who grows up in a rich neighbourhood stays on the straight and narrow. Individuals are responsible for their actions-and every individual has the choice between doing right and doing wrong. But there are connections between circumstances and behaviour.

These aren’t actually my words.

They are the words of David Cameron in a major speech five years ago.

Five years ago he thought deprivation as well as culture both mattered. But now he says: “This is not about poverty; it is about culture” I don’t understand why he has changed his mind. The world hasn’t changed. Maybe it isn’t his view of the world that has changed, but his view of what would make him popular that has changed.

I am clear: both culture and deprivation matter. To explain is not to excuse. But to refuse to explain is to condemn to repeat. And in the battle to give hope and a sense of future to our young people, too often we are losing to the gangs who offer false hope, a false sense of identity, sometimes an income – the gangs that scar life in parts of our inner cities.

We need to offer greater hope to our young people so that every child knows there is an alternative to the gang. I am not interested in blaming one government or one policy. But does it matter whether young people feel they have a future, a chance of a better life? Yes it does.

Is it significant that young people feel increasingly they will have fewer chances, tougher lives than their parents or grandparents that what I call the promise of Britain is at risk of being broken? Yes it is.

Are issues like education and skills, youth services, youth unemployment important for diverting people away from gangs, criminality, the wrong path? Yes. They matter.

That’s what David Cameron used to say before he took the easy path. I hope he will say it again.”