A logo without the lolly is no use
A question is haunting college and school administrators, a question about money – ‘Will our sponsors be ok in the credit crunch? Will our bankers cut off our stream of private funding? Will our private cash cow still give out?’ For not only has the Labour government outsourced most of the infrastructure of state education to the private sector, it has also pressurised schools and colleges to adopt a ‘business-friendly ethos’ in every aspect of educational activity. Today hundreds of charities, schools and community projects in the poorest parts of Britain, but especially in the east London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham next to the City, have come to rely heavily on the largesse, the ‘generosity’, of City firms and their employees. Advertising and logos bring commerce straight to the students, everything from the local butcher to British Petroleum and the McDonald’s Work Experience Programme. There is hardly a school fair, performance or sporting event that is not sponsored by businesses in return for free advertising space in the hearts and minds and pockets of pupils, parents and teachers. The flow of cash from the free enterprise friends of education is serious money. The Southwark-based Kids Company received £100,000 worth of support from Lehman Brothers last year. Gone, all gone with the wind.
Dinner with Gorby, anyone?
The financier Arpad Busson, founder of Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), which runs seven academy schools, held a fund-raising dinner in 2007. It is said to have raised over £26 million mainly on the back of pledges from Bloomberg, Merrill Lynch and UBS. Guests were entertained by Prince and raffle prizes included a day on the set of the latest James Bond film and dinner with Mikhail Gorbachev. UBS is a Swiss bank that has just written off $42 billion because of its involvement in the sub-prime market. Merrill Lynch has gone under, some of it being bought up cheaply by Bloomberg, the huge financial data and news company valued at $22.8 billion, whose founder Michael Bloomberg is also New York City’s Republican Mayor. Wining and dining and raising money for poor kids in 2007 is just not going to be such a big pastime for the wealthy in 2008. On the contrary, under the leadership of the Labour government, it is taxpayers who are going to be bailing out the spirit of free enterprise this year.
Susan Davidson
FRFI 205 October / November 2008
