Cabinet colleagues visiting Exeter and other places in the South West for yesterday’s Cabinet meeting were universally impressed. 

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, spent an hour taking questions on a whole range of foreign policy issues at Exeter University’s world renowned Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies. Subjects included Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Bosnia and Israel/Palestine. David told me afterwards that he had thoroughly enjoyed the experience and had rarely been quizzed on such a range of subjects in so much depth. Thanks to Tim Niblock and all his colleagues at the University for organising the event at such notice and to everyone who turned up. I’m sorry capacity constraints meant that not everyone who wanted to come could get in. But anyone has any questions or points they would like me to pass on to David please let me know. 

Patricia Scotland, the Attorney General, was also at the University and Exeter Crown Court. She was particularly impressed by the work being done in Exeter on domestic violence. In fact, Exeter is the best performing area in the country in reducing the level of domestic violence and helping offenders change their behaviour. Lady Scotland said those involved were doing an “absolutely brilliant job – one of the great unsung success stories of the Labour Government” and she wanted the rest of the country to emulate Exeter. 

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary was at St James’ School at my request. Given St James’ is in the top ten improved schools in the country I thought it would be great if Ed could pop in to congratulate the staff and students. He did and told me afterwards that he thought Helen the head and her team are doing a great job. 

I was back at St Luke’s School with Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell to celebrate the students’ achievements in school sport. St Luke’s has one of the highest activity and sports participation rates in the country and has been leading the transformation of school sport in the Exeter area. Some of the students were also doing a sponsored walk for Haiti – good for them!

Cabinet Office Minister, Tessa Jowell, who is responsible for the Third Sector, visited Devon Doctors in Marsh Barton – the co-operative organisation of Devon GPs that runs the out of hours service in the county and was recently judged one of the best performing out of hours services in England. Given recent concerns about the quality of some GP out of hours services, Tessa came away convinced that the sort of social enterprise model we have in Devon is the way forward for the rest of the country. 

John Denham, local government Secretary, was also at the university at the Innovation Centre – but I haven’t had a chance to catch up with him to find out how it went. 

Transport Minister, Sadiq Khan, met cycle user groups in Exeter to learn how Exeter has achieved the biggest increase in cycling of anywhere in Britain. 

Last but not least, Deputy Labour leader, Harriet Harman, did a speech and question and answer session at Labour HQ at Clifton Hill for party members and activists from all over the region. She came away really buoyed up saying: “morale seems higher the further you get away from Westminter.” I couldn’t agree more! 

There may have been more Cabinet Ministers visiting places in Exeter that I missed. Any info gratefully received!

Exeter Racecourse did a great organisational job. The “town hall meeting” before Cabinet went well with members of the public asking questions on issues ranging from food production, the economy, public services, skills and defence. The Prime Minister did a separate round table discussion with readers of the Express and Echo and Western Morning News during which he was asked about issues including drink driving, support for carers and the possibility of moving our clocks to continental European time. The Cabinet meeting itself included a report from South West Minister Jim Knight on the economy in the region and an update from Northern Ireland Secretary, Shaun Woodward, on the deal that had just been struck in the Northern Ireland. Cabinet colleagues said they thought it had been the best regional Cabinet yet – and the food – all local – was certainly the best.

Most Cabinet colleagues left by train from Exeter, but travellers at Tiverton Park railway station had a surprise when the Prime Minister arrived to pick up the train there and, with time to spare, chatted on the platform and had his photo taken with passengers using their mobile phones. 

The more Tory policies are exposed and scrutinised, the quicker they unravel. 

Their major muddle now over the economy comes after climate change last week and marriage the week before. 

In my policy area they have just announced their 3rd u-turn in a year saying they would use part of the TV licence fee to pay for universal broadband. 

Originally they supported our proposals to save region news on ITV using a small fraction of the licence fee. Then David Cameron told Jeremy Hunt to ditch that policy and they opposed any use of the licence fee except for BBC programmes. At the same time they opposed our plans to fund next generation universal broadband through small levy on fixed phone lines as “unacceptable interference in the market”. 

They now seem to be recognising what we and everyone else have been saying for yonks – that the market won’t provide high quality broadband to about 30% of homes and businesses – particularly in rural areas. 

So, they have gone back to supporting some use of the licence fee – not for public service TV in the form of regional news – but for broadband. You couldn’t make it up! And this from a party that has had years to get their policy sorted out. 

If they are this incompetent in opposition when they have plenty of time to think and plan – just imagine what they’d be like in Government!! 

Britain’s Job Centres have plenty to celebrate on their 100th birthday today. 

As the Financial Times (no other) reported on Saturday, Job Centre Plus has “come into its own” during the worst global downturn since the 1930s.  One of the reasons unemployment is 450,000 lower than people predicted and much lower than in the recessions of the 1980s and 90s is because of the brilliant job Job Centres and their staff have done at getting people back into work or training. 

This is in part thanks to the reorganisation undertaken by the Labour Government bringing the benefits and job seeking functions together under one roof, with benefits tied to looking for work but with active help offered. 

It is crazy that just as the success of this system is being recognised and copied around the world, the Conservatives are proposing breaking Job Centres up and handing the benefits system over to local government. 

The old adage “all politics is local” is coming back to haunt the Liberal Democrat leadership of Exeter City Council. 

Their plan to close the city’s best used public loos has provoked a storm of protest and a great campaign by the local paper, the Express and Echo. 

Lib Dems have made a hash of running Exeter since they took over from Labour 2 years ago. Until then Exeter was one of the best performing local authorities in the country. They have cut services and out up council tax, abandoned plans for a much needed new swimming pool, are making a mess of waste collection and, as is so often the case with Lib Dems, never seem to be able to agree among themselves. 

But it’s the “Battle of Exeterloos” - that could be the last straw. 

Three cheers for Mark Easton, the BBC’s Home Affairs Editor, for filleting the Tories’ claims about crime. Mark is a rarity among journalists today in that he cares about facts and accuracy.

While Cameron has claimed crime, including violent crime has gone up, it’s actually gone down, significantly, Mark points out.

It’s a shame there aren’t more journalists of Mark’s integrity and courage. Most appear to be afraid of upsetting the Tories by subjecting their claims and policies to proper scrutiny. Could that be that they are hoping for special treatment if the Tories win the election?

The Mirror’s James Lyons is another honorable exeption this collective cowardice. He has built on Mark’s work today to show how the Tories have misled people on health, education and welfare figures too. 

The huge increase in young people from less well off backgrounds going to university shows Labour’s drive to extend opportunity is working. 

There’s been a 27 percent increase in students from disadvantaged areas going to university since 2005 alone. The long term trend of more girls than boys doing degrees has also started to narrow. 

Steve Smith, Exeter University Vice Chancellor and head of Universities UK described this as an “unalloyed success” and credited the extra investment in higher education and improved grant and bursary packages for less well off students. Increased investment and improved performance in the state school sector has also helped - giving more young people the confidence and necessary qualifications to get to university. Given the importance of education and, particularly, university education for social mobility, these results help Labour refute the charge that we haven’t worked hard to address inequality. 

The public will make their own judgement about politicians who play politics with a tragedy like the Edlington case.

The Edlington case is dreadful and there was clearly catastrophic failure by the agencies involved. But to claim the case shows Britain is “broken” or “morally bankrupt” is wrong and not supported by the evidence.

The overwhelming majority of children and youg people are not criminals or sadists and the vast majority of parents do a good job.

The new construction skills academy at Exeter University will create 70 new apprenticeships and is a big boost to the city. 

It comes as figures showed a record 240.000 people starting apprenticeships last year, a 7 percent increase on 2008 in spite of the global downturn. 

It is vital that we continue to invest in skills and training, particularly through a downturn. It helps keep people in jobs and skills in the economy, reducing the impact of the recession, but it also means that when strong growth returns we’ll have the skills and trained employees to make the most of it. 

In previous recessions Governments have cut back on skills which have led to skills shortages and bottlenecks in the economy once the upturn comes. 

Anyone who believes quality local and regional news is important should be aware that the Tories have said they will pull the plug on regional news on ITV. 

They say they’ll just leave matters to the market. But no-one who knows the TV or news business thinks quality regional news can be delivered by the market alone. Neither do they believe that the Tory idea of US-style ultra local TV channels is either economically viable or would be of any quality. 

The Tories’ policy would leave the BBC with a monopoly, which would be bad for the BBC and for democracy. 

The latest fall in unemployment is encouraging and means the jobless total is nearly half a million lower than was predicted a year ago. 

It is also far lower than in the recessions of the 1990s and 1980s. This is as a direct result of Government action - to save the banks and support the economy, but also the targeted schemes to help people who have lost their jobs back into training or work quickly and support particularly aimed at helping young people. 

In the 1980s and 1990s unemployment was considered a “price worth paying” by the then Conservative Government. 

During the global crisis of the last 18 months, Tory politicians have said we should “let the recession take it course” and David Cameron has opposed every single measure the Government has taken that has meant the impact of the global financial crisis on individuals, families and businessses has been far less severe than people feared and far less than in the downturns when the Conservatives were in power. 

Labour needs to constantly remind people of this as well as point out that the measures the Conservatives propose for the future would risk turning the recovery into a devestating “double dip” recession - throwing more people on the dole and costing the country far more in wrecked lives and needless benefits payments in the long run.