Yvette Cooper needs to do more than just talk about Nordic models

Britain’s Left has been indulging in worship of Scandinavian social democracy ever since the tide started ebbing on the New Labour project, most recently on prostitution reform and the SNP’s vision for an independent Scotland. Thinking wistfully of Borgen beats the hard work of actually reinventing socialism, but I haven’t heard so much excited talk about the ‘Nordic Model’ since I was at school and Helena Christensen was practically everywhere. Happy memories indeed.

Last month Yvette Cooper announced that one of the pillars of her leadership bid would be childcare:

campaign[ing] for universal childcare – as other countries, including Scandinavia, have. That means breakfast clubs, after-school clubs, holiday clubs and free nursery places and childcare available full-time not just for three- and four-year-olds but two-year-olds too.

More details were promised, but I’ve waited… and waited. And to be honest if she has a hope in hell of becoming Labour’s leader she’ll keep shtum on her vision of Scandinavian childcare: a big part of the Nordic early years model is deregulation of politically sensitive things like childcare standards, and it would be a bold leadership bid that argued for loosening staff-to-child ratios. Indeed Nick Clegg engineered a high-profile coalition feud over this very issue in 2013.

Back then Labour criticised Liz Truss for putting ‘quality and safety at risk’ with her plans to allow greater flexibility in childcare ratios. Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said that ‘a childminder can have the very best qualifications, [but] they still only have one pair of hands’. The attack was clumsy and ideological; the government's proposals were ‘to allow nurseries to relax ratios only where they hire highly-qualified staff’ and bring us more in line with the northern European countries so admired by Cooper, where childminders cope perfectly well with more children than currently allowed in the UK.

International comparisons of national mandatory minimum staff:
child ratios for childminder care by child age (Gov.uk)

What Cooper has missed is that Nordic social democracy is distinctly pragmatic, with privatised railways, free schools and competitive selection for the Eurovision song contest. And the Scandinavian approach of light touch regulation with more children per adult allows people with better qualifications to be employed: the Institute of Education’s research unit describes Sweden and Denmark’s childcare provision as ‘characterised by high levels of staff training, involving at least 3 years education at a post-18 level’.

With parents empowered and free from government edicts, there can be innovation in childcare – another hallmark of the sector in the Nordic countries. Increased resources are needed, but UK expenditure on childcare is well above the OECD average and comparable to Holland. And most metrics suggest Dutch childcare is pretty good.

So if Yvette Cooper wants to lead her party back from the political wasteland she needs to engage with the nuts and bolts of childcare reform. Simply hoping her party members lap up talk of Scandinavia as a justification for spending money was an approach that was tested to destruction by Labour in the 2015 general election – and Cooper is no Birgitte Nyborg.

First published by Coffee House on June 9th, 2015

Power ballads and funny hats: why Eurovision matters

I love the Eurovision Song Contest. Tragically for me it isn't some sort of ironic interest based on poking fun at the funny hats, weird beards and implausible busts – I actually have the wretched thing in my diary and look forward to it each year, although up until now it's been something of a secret shame.

Carola sings Evighet in Melodifestivalen 2006 (STV)

The Swedes are to blame. In 2006 I lived in Stockholm, and they take Eurovision rather more seriously over there. Melodifestivalen is the country's annual talent show that selects their Eurovision entry, and I was horrified to find my friends, who previously exuded Scandinavian cool, staying in to watch it with unnerving enthusiasm. Carola was the eventual winner: her act was typical schlager, a wonderful Swedish word that sums up all the craziness of Eurovision-esque power ballads, cheesy dance music and lengthy hair billowing with wind machines running at full tilt. Carola's song reached #1 in the domestic charts, was promoted around Europe and finished a very credible fifth in the year Finnish monster rock act Lordi swept away all before them.

But I think the whole Eurovision business neatly sums up some of the failings we have in understanding our European partners. Our entries – recently more towards the nul points end of the spectrum – mean we've become accustomed to sneering at the madness on stage each year, and consoling ourselves with just how good the British music industry really is. The red tops do their best to drum up interest in whatever act the BBC has strong-armed onto a plane, but inevitably singing in Eurovision is seen as a hospital pass, with the contest joining siestas, eating horses, long road trips Eastwards and all the other clichés we like to belittle Europe with. We're just too cool for Eurovision.

So when it comes to the actual contest finals the unfortunate performer we've dispatched invariably doesn't stand a chance against acts who are rather more established, and who see Eurovision as an opportunity to build their profiles as commercial recording artists. I had no idea who Bonnie Tyler is, so I asked my cousin, who described her thus: 'I think she's a... something from the... I'm not entirely sure actually'. The Sun charitably called her a veteran. Either way her Eurovision song won't be gaining much airtime in the bars and clubs around London, whereas the opposite was true for Loreen in Stockholm last year.

We did actually choose someone decent a while ago – Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a song for Jade Ewen in 2009, took her on tour around the Eurovision nations and ended up delivering our best result in years. Casting my mind back I seem to remember Britain being genuinely excited about the 2009 competition because Jade actually had a chance of winning. Her career progressed as a result, showing that Eurovision is worthwhile if you actually engage in it seriously, rather than dismiss it as a stitch-up by scheming foreigners.

Likewise griping about bloc voting (when all the Nordic countries vote for each other, etc.) betrays another misunderstanding about Europe. In the democratic voting-by-text era people still stubbornly dish out high points for their neighbours – just as we do with Ireland. But this primarily reflects the degree of cultural integration across the regions of Europe, which makes sense when you put it in context with UK voting – many of the German acts feel like something we might actually hear on the radio, whereas Latvian music just sounds weird. As a result Germany and the UK regularly (indeed reliably) vote for each other. Just don't call it an Anglo-German voting pact – it's just another one of Europe's many little cliques built on proximity and interaction.

First published by Egremont on May 17th, 2013