Harry Clarke-Ezzidio

Policy Correspondent, @NewStatesman. Covering social affairs | 📩 [email protected] | boo-urns twitter

[Will Lloyd @Will___lloyd]

Reporting from Makerfield for this week’s New Statesman cover. After a few days I realised that the big ticket by-election was a glossy distraction from the increasing strangeness of post-industrial English life. When so many people are poor and feeling poorer, when nothing ever seems to change, what kind of politics results?

[Lewis Hamilton @LewisHamilton]

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

HOW BRITAIN LOST CONTROL by Anoosh Chakelian

When George Orwell was working on The Road to Wigan Pier in 1936, he lodged at a tripe shop riddled with beetles on this street. He had asked a local to point him towards the worst place to stay. On the same quest today, he would have had plenty of suggestions. Darlington Street and its offshoots are thought around town to have Britain’s highest concentration of Serco-run and other “HMOs”. HMOs are houses in multiple occupation, and Serco is one of the private outsourcing companies with a government contract to rent them out to asylum seekers.

Serco leases houses from private landlords and runs them on their behalf. I have heard from landlords who are being paid between £1,000 and £2,000 a month in rent on these properties, depending on the number of bedrooms, location and condition. The money these landlords are receiving comes from the Home Office, which agreed ten-year contracts to outsource the accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels and houses to Serco and two other firms: Clearsprings and Mears. These contracts are projected to have cost the taxpayer a total of £15.3bn by 2029.

There are 93,653 asylum seekers housed in Home Office asylum accommodation in the UK, around 22 per cent of whom are in hotels, some of which Serco also runs. The government has prioritised closing hotels. As a result, the number of people being quietly dispersed to houses is rising every year – there are now 68,719 in tens of thousands of houses across the country.

Emotion runs high. The UK’s asylum accommodation model has led to rioting and protests for two consecutive summers across Britain. Protesters direct their rage at the government, the council, police and asylum seekers. But occasionally, you see signs reading “Serco Out”.

Serco is so integral to the British state that the Labour politician Margaret Hodge has called it “too big to fail”, because “there are too many services that would collapse” if it went bankrupt. It simply runs too many state functions for it to be feasible to allow it to go bust.

It’s not just Serco. So much of the state, from welfare, prisons, and asylum to the NHS, security and social care, is in the hands of gnomically named companies most voters have never heard of: Capita, Sodexo, G4S.

Thatcher is often accused of “selling off the family silver” when she privatised public utilities and state-controlled industries. But less attention is paid to the services she pawned off, now in the hands of outsourcing giants. The question is whether a potential future prime minister, such as Andy Burnham, could overthrow the outsourced state.

Cover illustration by Gregori Saavedra

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

More than one in five children in England are living with a probable mental disorder.

The systems that are meant to support them are struggling to cope.

@HarryClrke goes inside Britain’s youth mental health crisis: https://t.co/0DqDUFasVu

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

Adding onto last week's Milburn report discourse...

Upstream from NEET adults are vulnerable children in a mental ill-health spiral

I visited Childline recently, which told me that "High risk" incidents involving kids are "increasing":

@NewStatesman
https://t.co/SJwyGfCnjQ

[Central @WestHam_Central]

European*

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

@nickpaulharris cook

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

@DespoticInroad enough politics what do u think of var and arsenal's luck with the refs

[Rhi Storer @rhistorerwrites]

For @NewStatesman I spoke to Natalie (name changed) about why the police and probation services failed to track her ex-partner down after she reported him for breaching multiple restraining orders, its woeful performance, and the legacy of austerity.
https://t.co/gVywe0k7IE

[Lippy @LickshotLippy]

You see Rooney yeah smh. Just read what he tweeted when Whitney Houston died, he is top 3 English people of all time. For life - Alongside Princess Diana and David Rodigan

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

@DespoticInroad 🎯Balllllllllll (90+3)

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

@tonietonitone Interested - can you DM me?!

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

Jacqui Smith has this morning warned that ousting PM would be a 'mistake'.

I caught up with Smith recently. In holding her position she goes in strongly against the favoured successor of many (her former Cabinet colleague) - @AndyBurnhamGM

@NewStatesman https://t.co/2pOH7HgLsk

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

The era of the football manager is over, writes @HarryClrke

https://t.co/qtxmBXyHPq

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

The row-back on plans for the Bill to have day-one protections against unfair dismissal has caused outrage. Particulary among Labour MPs, unions and workers; some deem it a manifesto breach.

I put all that to @nowak_paul, General Secretary of the TUC:

https://t.co/kMoh8ISZwp

[Harry Clarke-Ezzidio @HarryClrke]

Revealed: The Employment Rights Bill (which has had a *week*) could bring net economic benefits in excess of £10bn per year.

Kemi Badenoch this week termed the Bill "an anti-growth blueprint"

New @The_TUC research shared exclusively w/ @NewStatesman:
https://t.co/ypeaOzo28b

[Rhi Storer @rhistorerwrites]

As immigration and income tax spur on next week’s budget talks, spare a thought for child poverty.

It’s increased in the UK, but not in Scotland, adding more pressure on Reeves to abolish the Tories’ two-child benefit cap. Read my story below: https://t.co/II3A2IznFY

[Ailbhe Rea @PronouncedAlva]

I've written this week's New Statesman cover story on how much trouble Keir Starmer is in.

https://t.co/8c8bzxNuQe

[Rhi Storer @rhistorerwrites]

🚨 I'm thrilled to announce I've started a new role as Policy Correspondent for The New Statesman.

Think tanks, policy wonks, and knowledgeable experts please get in touch with me for coffees, conferences, and events at my email address: [email protected]

[The New Statesman @NewStatesman]

"Poor mental health costs England around £300bn every year."

That cost, shockingly, is nearly twice the total budget of the NHS, writes @HarryClrke https://t.co/Zy66TrrN6K