Politics and two veg: short term and long term, who has the answers?

I discussed yesterday in my blog post that David Cameron seems to have the upper hand over Gordon Brown when it comes to who looks better placed to provide solutions to the nation’s problems, and that the knife crime debate could be used as the prism through which we could view this battle. Here I suggest that traditional politics is too narrow in outlook and that other areas, such as the latest thinking in economics (gulp!) may provide more fertile ground

Yesterday the government launched another set of initiatives designed to bring alienated youths into the mainstream and to cut down on ant-social behaviour and crime. The Youth Crime Action Plan is the outcome of a struggle for control over youth crime policy between the departments headed by Ed Balls and Jacqui Smith, with the outcome being that Smith still leads but Balls has managed to get greater emphasis on a welfare based approach rolled in.

The key measures can be read on a BBC page here.

But they included nothing earth shatteringly original and have been criticised for being a mish mash of recycled plans.

Which comes back to my original point, Cameron’s lot seem to have convinced the electorate that they can act as a realistic alternative to a government who have run out of ideas. But for blog readers the important question is whether this perception can be justified.

To tell you the truth this writer is unimpressed by what any of the major parties seem to be saying at the moment. To stay on the issue of knife crime, what each of three main party leaders say needs to be done, and what they say about the failings of their opponents’ policies is gibberish. If you want to appear like an intelligent person who offers a more insightful analysis that what the party front benches have to say, read David Aaronovitch’s column from the Times yesterday.

He includes in his column a point so blindingly obvious that I don’t think I am claiming credit for thinking of it before him. The more young people hear about how everyone else is carrying knives, the more likely they are to carry them.

Which brings me to my final point about where politics needs to head if we are to make progress. Have a read of Daniel Finkelstein’s column in today’s Times.

Here he outlines the case for the merits of studies in the fields of social psychology and behavioural economics. Anyone familiar with the neighbouring Economics blog on the tutor2u site will already be familiar with the latter area. On the knife crime debate, Finkelstein suggests that work in these twin areas would suggest that the fact that politicians are fuelling stories about a knife carrying epidemic normalises knife carrying behaviour and that what politicians should do is change the parameters in which young people make decisions. But that sort of action would make the wrong sort of media headline and from those stuck in the Westminster bubble, we are likely to continue to get the same old meat just different gravy.