Trips to Auschwitz, they can form an important part of a child's education about history and also about the danger of politics gone bad. Plans are that the government will fund children to visit these places more, but the Tories are calling such a policy a gimmick. And you know what, they're right.

The facts are simple. There are over 750 thousand students at A-Level age, and around 27% of children live in poverty. The government is funding the trips to the tune of £4.65mil over three years, or rather £1.55mil a year. Trips to Auschwitz cost £350, so this money essentially pays for around 4,500 students a year to go and see the camp, this is roughly 0.6% of all sixth form students.

This policy IS a gimmick, as it goes nowhere near enough to enable an equal opportunity for all students to go and see the camps and get a feel for the tragedy that happened. Even if the trips are only supposed to be taken by History students, which would be a bizarre subsidisation of a singular subject by the government, the money would still not be enough to make sense. With that 27% of children in poverty the funding should be a lot closer to £50mil a year even taking in to account schools part funding every trip by £100.

I understand that the government can't afford to do this, but it could do a lot more. As it stands it's made a statement that attempts to make the Labour party look like it is a liberal party that learns from the past and wants to show our kids the lessons that we need to take from failed politics, but in reality fails to put any money where its mouth is in real terms. Just as a side note, if the Government scrapped ID cards they could fund subsidisation for all sixth form children in poverty to Auschwitz for at least 38 years.