The NYA Blog
I’m Backing Britain (again)
06 October 2009
I’m just about old enough (okay then, I’m easily old enough) to remember the original ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign, which flourished in early 1968. But the ravages of time mean that I’m grateful to Wikipedia for reminding me that this patriotic campaign, aimed at boosting the British economy, started spontaneously when five secretaries volunteered to work an extra half an hour each day without pay in order to boost productivity, and urged others to do the same.
It took off spectacularly, becoming a nationwide movement within a week, and received official endorsement from the Prime Minister of the day Harold Wilson. After a few months though and without any noticeable effect on individual companies or the economy generally, interest flagged (not helped by discovering that all the campaign T-shirts were printed in Portugal!).
Let’s hope the same fate is not to befall the present day Government’s ‘Backing Young Britain’ campaign – which aims to encourage private, public and voluntary sector organisations to provide more work related opportunities for young people. This will see £1 billion spent to create 100,000 new jobs for young people and a further 50,000 jobs in what are termed the unemployment hotspots.
The danger of these schemes of course is that the jobs created and the training offered are not meaningful and the young people involved are merely moved from one statistical pile to another. But, thankfully and hopefully, this particular campaign seems to be building up a head of steam. You’ll have noticed I’m sure last week’s welcome announcement as part of it that more than 150 companies, including the Royal Mail, Microsoft, Pfizer, Phones4U, Centrica and Morrisons, will provide work, apprenticeships and training. That sounds like proper opportunities and proper jobs with proper companies to me.
But why oh why did it have to reach this crisis point before action was taken? As Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said last week “It is crucial for all of us that we make sure we do everything we can to harness the skills and talent of young people now so that we can all benefit in the future.” Well yes, haven’t we been saying the same thing for years?
Andy Hopkinson is with the Media Services team at
The NYA. He can be contacted at andyh@nya.org.uk