Pupil premium- let's waste some more money

The deputy PM, Nick Clegg, wishes to introduce a "pupil premium" which will mean spending £7 billion over 4 years of fresh taxpayer money. This comes when most government departments are expected to announce cuts of 25% (I believe in reality it will be higher) and the US Secretary of State expresses "concern" over the fate of the UK defence budget (yes, I'm concerned too as we won't have any defence capability left, yet we will still send in our lads to fight in Afghanistan without the proper equipment, but I digress as usual). So if we all need to tighten our belts and get the deficit down,  even at the expense of defending the country,how come the government can find money for a pet project of the liberal democrats?

Secondly, we have had 13, yes 13 years of  "progressive" government in the UK with the previous Labour government, who came up with all sorts of initiatives like this (as this premium is designed to 'target' the 'poorest' of our people) with the result of very little progress, if one actually believes that state cash can somehow magic away poverty and the apparent connect with this to crime (the left mantra). The crime and feral children of the  inner city slums (let's not mince words) are still there. There is still poverty and yet the left, including the liberals seem to think that more spending will some-how solve this problem. Yet if we haven't after 13 years, after spending billions already, what makes Clegg think he will do it now over 5 years? What about letting the local community sort out this mess, rather than throwing more state cash at the situation?

I liked the quote from the Labour MP, Graham Allen, who is chairing a commission into early intervention with the 'poorest of children', who , in a moment of apparent bi-partisanship said  this scheme would :

"repay itself to the taxpayer many times over provided the children learn social and emotional

capabilities which middle-class two-year-olds take for granted".

Call me old fashioned, but I always thought that children learn social and emotional capabilities not from school, but from the parent (s) who bring up the children?

I must live in a different world....