If Starmer wants a defining policy for government, this is it: childcare, childcare, childcare

theguardian.com:

A n award-winning children’s centre in Corby, Northamptonshire is about to be hit with an estimated 70% funding cut from its local council, demolishing all that it’s famous for. It is the culmination of the 13-year destruction of Labour’s Sure Start programme. I have been visiting Pen Green over many years; it is considered a beacon and model for children’s centres, training thousands of early-years teachers and childcare specialists, and visited by people from all the world who want to copy its success.

This wilful destruction hits one of the most deprived parts of Corby, a Labour town now swallowed up by Tory North Northamptonshire. The council is taking the money to spread among three nurseries in less deprived zones, a depressing reminder of how much more damage the Conservatives can still do in their swan-song remaining months. Under threat before, Pen Green was rescued by a former Tory minister but the children’s minister, Claire Coutinho, has told Pen Green she won’t save it.

What bad timing amid a great groundswell of protest about the collapsing nursery system before next week’s budget. Costing an unaffordable average of just under £15,000 a year for a full-time place for a child under two, nurseries are closing in droves, unable to finance the government’s so-called 30 free hours, with pay so low that childcare assistants flee elsewhere. The fact is the sum the government pays to supposedly cover these hours is far too little, so nurseries struggle unless they can charge parents significant extras.

I know of no social issue that has aroused such a surprising coalition of quite different interests to demand radical reform. It would once be unthinkable that the CBI, Federation of Small Businesses, British Chambers