Its nurseries, not nannies, that mothers need most
Is Nick Clegg mad? Another week, another crazy social-mobility scheme from our Deputy Prime Minister. This time, Nick announces that he is going to recruit 65,000 nannies to help the poorest children. And where do you suppose he is going to get them from? Is there a hitherto unrevealed supply of rosy-cheeked Mary Poppinses just waiting to hop out of the Clegg carpet-bag to banish the blight of infant underachievement? Negligent, moronic parents? Spick-spot! Telly in the fouryear-old’s bedroom? Just a spoonful of sugar should sort that out. Homes without books, conversation or kindness? I know, let’s have a tea party on the ceiling!
Any weary woman who has tried to look for decent childcare will give a hollow laugh at the idea of the state managing to track down 65,000 adequate nursery nurses for the 260,000 extra under-twos who will be entitled to 15 hours a week of free child care from next year. Don’t worry, ladies, Nick says he has £650 million to spend. Dear oh dear. How far does he think that will go? In Notting Hill, a top nanny won’t make junior a papaya and rocket smoothie for less than a grand a week.
I do love the idea of the Deputy Prime Minister being obliged to conduct the interviews for his 65,000 nannies. Anyone who has interviewed for one knows how it goes. You begin by assuming the person offering the job holds most of the cards. That’s your first mistake. Any nanny who has no nose-ring or proven connection with Rose West can name her own terms. If you actually find a candidate who can be persuaded not to feed your baby pureed Kentucky Fried Chicken, you are so sobbingly grateful that you instantly promise her half your annual income. By the end, as Mr Clegg would soon discover, it’s a frantic auction of promises: “All right, you can have eight weeks’ paid holiday, personal use of a government Range Rover, Chevening, the deputy prime minister’s 115-room country residence will be at your disposal and, if you stay for three years, I can personally guarantee you a really nice seat in the European Parliament.”
Do you suppose there are any actual, you know, mums involved in drawing up policy on childcare? The evidence would strongly suggest otherwise. A mother, for example, might think that outsourcing the upbringing of the next generation to a bunch of school-leavers with a Level 2 NVQ in childcare may not deliver the rapid social progress Mr Clegg has in mind. I have a dim memory of Gordon Brown’s government promising us an “Army of Babysitters”, which seems to have got lost, perhaps because they couldn’t read.
The trouble with the Liberal Democrat leader’s brand of idealism is that it has painfully little knowledge of the world he tells us he is “passionate” about improving. “Every parent wants their child to fulfil their potential,” he said at the weekend. Oh, really? Try telling that to Karen Matthews, just released from jail after serving four years for staging the fake kidnapping of her daughter, Shannon. Matthews, who has seven children by five different fathers at the last count, is still only 39 and is now free – oh, joy! – to have yet more unfortunate babies at the state’s expense. Police reported she was “not interested in her daughter’s welfare”. Sadly, there are more Karen Matthewses out there than are dreamt of in Nick Clegg’s philosophy. Theirs are the children turning up at primary school in nappies.
The Clegg household is metropolitan in outlook. Miriam is the main breadwinner, charging several hundreds pounds an hour for her City lawyer skills. After attacks on his wife, Nick has pledged to take on those with the “sepia-tinted 1950s” opinion that mothers should not work, claiming Miriam’s critics are as “weird” as homophobes. Yet, survey after survey shows that millions of mothers, who have boring jobs instead of stimulating careers, would rather like to take care of their own young children. Last year, people were asked if they agreed with the statement: “In an ideal world, one parent should stay home with the children.” More than 80 per cent of parents surveyed said yes. Can they all be sneered at as “sepia-tinted” nostalgists? Maybe they just love their kids.
As Mr Clegg was announcing his Mary Poppins fantasy, employment minister Chris Grayling was admitting that more mothers were being forced to return to work because families have problems making ends meet. My children’s wonderful former nanny, who now has two small girls of her own, is one of them. With her builder husband struggling to find work, Claire visited a series of local nurseries in search of an affordable place. She was dismayed by the exorbitant cost and the low standard of care. In one hall, she actually witnessed the shocking, bovine indifference of five nursery workers whom she saw gossiping in a back kitchen, leaving a bunch of toddlers to their own devices. If the country can’t find enough qualified nurses to take decent, respectful care of hospital patients, what hope is there of finding 65,000 new nursery nurses?
Nick Clegg says he is “passionate” about removing the barriers to social mobility. So passionate that, under the Coalition Government, 124 excellent Sure Start centres have closed. Sure Start, the best legacy of New Labour, doesn’t just provide a toddler-sitting service, but offers advice on health, nutrition and even playing with your own baby, which are among the impoverishments that stunt so many young lives.
Why would you not bother to ringfence council funding for Sure Start centres and then launch a scheme to fill the gap left by the closed centres with 65,000 imaginary nannies? Answers on a ballot paper on May 3, please.
We seem to have arrived at a farcical situation in which good mothers who want to take care of their children have to go out to work because they can’t afford to stay home, and mums who can’t – or won’t – take care of their children are to be given free nannies. And this from a Government whose favourite word is fairness.
The Coalition should stop its posh-boy posturing about the very worst families and start thinking about the millions in the middle who are engaged in a daily struggle to pay their bills and find enough time to raise their children properly. What they need is high-quality state nurseries, flexible working and tax breaks that support parents, not bleeding-heart gimmicks.
If only Mr Clegg stopped being passionate about 65,000 fantasy nannies and instead advocated tax relief on childcare, every mum in the country would have a new word for him: Supercleggicoalitionexpialidocious.