There’s a bit of a hoo-hah today around the latest news on graduate employability in the UK. According to the Association of Graduate Recruiters, there are now on average almost 70 applicants for every graduate position available. So if you’ve just had your new degree minted, you have a 1 in 70 chance of getting a job that might somehow be related to anything you’ve just spent 3-4 years learning at university. Oh and a sting in the tail comes with the apparent fact that more recruiters than ever are now looking for a 2:1 or a first in the qualifications part of an applicant’s CV.

What does this say about the way we educate our young in this country? I was always uncomfortable with the “let’s get at least 50% of young people into university” mantra that Tony Blair & Gordon Brown spouted as their answer to making Britain more economically competitive in a globalised age where British workers have to compete with Indian, Chinese, European & American counterparts. I mean I’m sure it’s a worthy aim trying to raise the number of people who go to university. Education is one of the most powerful tools we have in improving people’s chances in life. But when more and more people are getting degrees, the law of markets (supply & demand) would suggest that the value of each degree would be reduced.

But alas, hundreds of thousands of young people over the last few years have gone to university and studied for degrees, ending up in a tight market with no work experience and tens of thousands of pounds in debt. Labour did “successfully” raise the number of people going to university: in 2001 only 20% of the population had a degree, but in 2007 that figure went up to 30.8%. But today’s anecdotal evidence reflects on the fact that there are too many graduates, and in a struggling economy, not enough jobs.

Perhaps our graduates are being spoiled and inflexible in demanding higher paying, more professional jobs simply because they have degrees. You can’t really blame them though, this is the system our politicians created. The chief executive of the Association of Graduate Recruiters suggested that graduates might want to be more flexible in their choice of jobs, and even encouraged some to consider working at places like McDonald’s (I can hear a gasp all across Middle England as I write this!). In the light of austerity Britain, his quote is quite apt “Any employment is better than no employment [even] if it’s about flipping burgers or stacking shelves rather than being sat at home feeling sorry for yourself and vegetating”. I do agree Mr. Gilleard, and indeed I worked at McDonald’s when I was unable to find more professional work, without an ounce of shame.

I left school at 16 with a lot of motivation and some good ICT skills. I later went into politics and I’ve been lucky enough to advise Prime Ministers, MPs, presidential candidates and government agencies. I can provide for my family, and I have good work options in the future. I managed all this without a degree. Today, hearing about the exasperations of 2010’s graduates, I have to admit to a pang of schadenfreude and remember all the naysayers in my life who tell me I can’t get to where I want because I don’t have a fancy degree. I’m already half way there, and at least I have a job.

The answer, in my opinion, lies in helping people to find alternative career paths which don’t require a degree. We should make education through primary and secondary better, by implementing the International Baccalaureate which provides a broad, challenging and internationally compatible curriculum. At the same time we should spend more time and money exploring how vocational careers can be developed from an early age. For this we should be looking at Switzerland & Sweden, as well as other countries, for lessons and pointers. One thing is for sure: New Labour’s model of pushing more and more people into university has only de-valued the idea of a degree and has left hundreds of thousands of educated, bright young things on the heap of unemployment. We need to look a-fresh at how we tackle this challenge if we’re to get anywhere near 10 Downing Street ever again.

@chrisjw133 & @clairee_french also wrote on this subject.

My initial reaction this morning when I heard about Diane Abbott putting herself forward in the Labour leadership contest, was of surprise and disbelief. I’ve never been Abbott’s biggest fan! She is outspoken and oftentimes irreverent, and spends a bit too much time on television pontificating to the political class. But over tea, lunch and a stroll, I’ve decided it’s a thoroughly good thing and I congratulate Diane Abbott.

I doubt it comes easy to anybody, unless your name is Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, to have the audacity to put yourself forward to lead a historic movement like the Labour Party, or any other major national party in any democracy. Diane Abbott is a proud backbencher, and she takes every opportunity to remind people that she’s of independent mind and not ‘with’ the Labour front bench. So even more of a surprise that she would put her name in the hat for the leadership.

Lots of Labour women I know have been lamenting the lack of female candidates so far. Until today we had five white, middle class, English males in the race for the leadership. Far from inspiring. Diane Abbott, in the rawest, most cynical sense, ticks two boxes: she is indeed a woman, but she’s also minority ethnic. We certainly need more diversity in our leadership contest; it doesn’t only reflect the diversity of Britain, but it also reflects the diversity of our party. David Lammy should also think about running.

It would have been far too easy for Diane to sit back on the sofa on This Week next to Michael Portillo and complain about the lack of diversity. Instead she put her money where her mouth is and is running for the leadership. That is bold, and it’s an exciting development in politics this year. Good luck to her.

I spent most of yesterday trying to come to terms with the fact that my political party, for the time being, had been kicked well into the long grass, and at the same time that David Cameron would become Prime Minister in the next few days. Mild relief was the fact that the Conservatives didn’t get an outright majority, which would have meant a Tory government starting yesterday would have had a much lower threshold of ‘democratic resistance’ to its policies over the coming term of parliament. The lower threshold of opposition would have made it easier for David Cameron to make deep spending cuts in a more ruthless way. So at the very least, one comfort to take out of this election is that there’s no majority Conservative government this morning.

Nick Clegg made it clear yesterday that he would give the Conservatives the first shot at forming a governing coalition with him. Neither Labour or the Tories won the required majority of seats, or 326 to be exact, on Thursday to form a government on their own (Conservatives have 306, Labour are on 258) so the 57 Liberal Democrat seats when added to the seats of the Tories create an overall majority which allows David Cameron to be Prime Minister. A Liberal/Labour coalition would only have 315 seats, so other small parties would have to be drafted in to make that work. In return for Clegg’s overtures yesterday, Cameron practically love-bombed the Liberal Democrats and made a “big, comprehensive offer” to help Clegg implement some of the policies in his election manifesto.

So for the coming hours at least, it seems that Clegg & Cameron will come up with a deal allowing the Tories to run the country for the first time since 1997. Let’s not jump the gun though. There are at least two major sticking points which really do have the potential to pour cold water over this Con-Lib romance.

1) The Liberal Democrats really are a democratic party, internally speaking. There’s a so-called “triple lock” that Nick Clegg would need to release in order to sign a deal with the Tories. Firstly, he needs approval from the Liberal Democrat members of parliament. Secondly, he would need the approval of the Lib Dem federal executive, the body of representatives that forms the administrative core of the party. Third and finally, and perhaps most crucially, the whole membership body of the Liberal Democrats would need to be balloted in a postal vote.

- Whilst I could see a situation where Nick Clegg and his front bench could persuade the executive committee and the Lib Dem MPs of the merits of making a deal which would a) blunt the Tories’ power in government to make brutal cuts and b) see some of the Lib Dems’ agenda actually be implemented, I suspect most of the Liberal Democrat members would not want to be seen dead in a coalition with the party that’s furthest away in terms of ideology.

2) The single most important policy for the Liberal Democrats to seek implementation of is electoral reform. If Britain changes its electoral system from the current first-past-the-post to proportional representation (PR), the Liberal Democrats would have more seats and more of a shot of forming a government. Let me demonstrate. The current system awarded the Liberal Democrats 57 seats for getting 23% of the vote share. Labour got 258 seats from 29% of the vote share. Under PR the Lib Dems would have got somewhere around 150 seats from this election. So you can see why they want electoral reform! I agree though, I think our current system is archaic and undemocratic, and actually turns people off politics.

- The reason this is important is because it is highly unlikely the Tories would agree to implement or try to implement an electoral system which would result in their parliamentary suicide. Proportional representation would make it difficult in the short-medium term for the Tories to be the party of government. The Conservatives are ideologically opposed to proportional representation and they believe that first-past-the-post, with some tinkering, is best for British democracy. Cameron himself said yesterday that the only ground they would concede on electoral reform would be to set up a commission to look into the matter – a ‘talking shop’ in effect.

These two sticking points are critical to keep in mind over the next few days. Whilst the media might have already made Prime Minister Cameron under a Tory/Liberal coalition a foregone conclusion, I wouldn’t hold my breath on this outcome. Gordon Brown has already offered a referendum on electoral reform should the Lib Dems go into a coalition with Labour. Unfortunately, for Labour to stay in power even with the Lib Dems’ seats, it would require support from the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Northern Irish Social Democratic & Labour Party (SDLP). A four-party coalition would in my opinion be more likely to lead to instability in government and the markets. Despite this fact, I now don’t see this as an impossibility.

When Nick Clegg realises that he won’t get the electoral reform his party prizes, and perhaps when the members of his party show him that they despise the idea of a pact with the Tories, he will consider forming some kind of deal with incumbent Labour. Without doubt, that would have its difficulties also – Clegg won’t want to be seen to prop up a government that lost an election, and a leader who is unpopular. But it’s the most natural political fit for the Lib Dems. And it would be the deal most likely to lead to electoral reform. Labour too would have to pay a higher price than just a referendum on electoral reform; it is highly likely Clegg would want Brown’s head to roll before he forms a coalition with Labour, and this would most likely mean that David Miliband, as Labour’s new leader, would be Britain’s unelected Prime Minister.

This leads to one final possible outcome. A second election within months. Gordon Brown has the right to stay on as PM until the outcome is clear. He also has the right to call another election if there isn’t such a clear outcome. Quite frankly, I doubt a second election would give the decisive result that Brown would look for. Labour is almost 50 seats behind the Tories, and they would be unlikely to win any seats back that it lost on Thursday night. The Tories need at least 20 more seats to form an outright majority government, and whilst that’s more of a possibility, if the country really wanted a Tory government they would have given the party those seats on Thursday.

This is indeed, as Winston Churchill said, “a riddle wrapped up in an enigma”. The days and weeks ahead will cause political uncertainty and this will be bad for the country. It looks very unlikely from where I’m sitting, that there will be a Tory/Liberal deal, and the alternative four-party pact to keep Labour in power is loaded with tension also. A second election is unlikely to create a clear outcome. British politics entered a new reality on Thursday, and it’s going to be very hard work to convert the democratic wishes of the British electorate into a stable government.