With polls showing support for the Irish Labour Party plummeting amidst poor performance as the junior-party of the current coalition government (akin to the liberal democrats across the sea), some in in the Republic of Ireland are looking to Sinn Fein as a credible left alternative.
A Sunday Times and Behaviour and Attitudes poll has put Sinn Fein’s support at 25%. Though, is it wise to trust that the Shinners will stick to their promises of equality and solidarity, or is there newfound commitment to equality simply for electoral reasons?
What is interesting about Sinn Fein is their ability to campaign. Continue reading →
Last year world leaders gathered at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea to discuss the future of international aid.
Amongst the negotiations and political wrangling there was one message that governments appeared to agree on: that the most effective and fairest way to administer international aid would be to hand control over to recipient governments.
However, despite this apparent consensus, new research shows that donor governments are continuing to invest public money into private companies, many of which are based in affluent, developed countries. Continue reading →
The Government has repeatedly argued that low interest rates on government bonds are sign of market confidence. The Prime minister has recently claimed that:
Those who argue we should spend more want us to borrow more, driving up our deficit and our debt and putting our hard-won credibility and low interest rates at risk.
I argued last year (at tedious length) that this was not the case. Continue reading →
Earlier this week, a man was arrested after pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a performance by a theatre company at London’s Globe theatre.
Tel Aviv’s Habima company was performing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice during the Globe to Globe festival when a small number of demonstrators unfurled banners and displayed a Palestinian flag.
I can’t claim that I came to the event as a completely neutral party. Continue reading →
After this blog took up the case of Shanene Thorpe and how she was misrepresented on BBC Newsnight by Allegra Stratton, the BBC has finally apologised.
A statement emailed over today said:
Newsnight was sorry to hear Shanene Thorpe was unhappy following her interview.
While the BBC is still yet to receive a formal complaint, Newsnight contacted Shanene to hear her concerns.
We are happy to accept her contention that her current situation was not made clear and have apologised.
The BBC Newsnight segment is below.
Shanene Thorpe disputed how Newsnight represented her in tweets after the film was aired:
To set the record straight, I work for tower hamlets council, I’ve worked since 16 and I only get help towards my rent because it is so high.
I pay the same amount of as paying a mortgage, full rent on a council property, or someone living outside of london, they top up the rest.
It happens that I’ve worked in retail for years up until now so never qualified for a mortgage and wasn’t handed a cushty council flat.
The council offered to pay my deposit if I found my own accom as it was part of a scheme the had at the time. Unfortunately u can’t get much.
I got a call from my supervisor asking if I’d be happy to be filmed at work to show the side of the working single parent/ young person.
I did not expect to be personally scrutinised, have judgements made about my choices and asked why I didn’t choose to get rid of my child.
As we reported this morning, shadow minister Toby Perkins had also waded into the debate, calling for Newsnight and Allegra Stratton herself to apologise.
UPDATE: I asked the BBC whether the programme itself was going to make an on-air apology or say anything further than issuing a statement to this blog.
They said they wouldn’t say any more at this stage as Ms Thorpe hasn’t actually made an official complaint yet.
@splasherford hiya, I held it off for a few reasons but they will be receiving one in the very near future
— Neney (@Nenes_Life) May 30, 2012
The BBC usually wait until there is an official complaint in such circumstances. But due to the coverage on this blog and the online petition, they released a statement early.
Allegra Mostyn-Owen, whose sole claim to fame is that she was the first to marry London’s occasional Mayor Boris Johnson, let the cat out of the bag about her former husband in an otherwise unremarkable Standardinterview: “He needs the adulation of others. He can’t thrive without that.”
So when a new biography of Bozza came out earlier this year, and turned out not to paint him in a totally adulatory manner, the response was all too predictable. Continue reading →
Women for Refugee Women, the campaign group founded by Natasha Walter (author of The New Feminism and Living Dolls) yesterday published a new report pulling together the experiences of 72 women who had claimed asylum in the UK.
Refused: The Experiences of Women Denied Asylum in the UK (PDF) – which records the stories of abuse that they had suffered in their home countries, prior to their escape to the UK – makes for harrowing reading.
A particular issue is the problem of ‘late disclosure’ of sexual abuse.
Often, the fact that those claiming asylum have been raped is not revealed to UK Border Agency officials when the initial asylum claim in made. This is understandable, but it leads to an inconsistent story that the agency uses as evidence of deception.
In other words, the abuse and shame that these women are fleeing becomes the very thing that prevents their asylum claim from being accepted.
At the launch event of the report yesterday, actors Juliet Stephenson and Eve Best read some of the testimonies gathered during the creation report.
I recorded part of this reading, and uploaded it to Audioboo.
listen to ‘Eve Best and Juliet Stevenson give voice to asylum seekers’ on Audioboo
Two weeks ago I was told I was a) economically illiterate; b) talking defeatist ‘cobblers’ for arguing that the Left should get behind SYRZIA and other anti-austerity parties as they refuse to do what they must do to stay in the Euro.
I argued that the pain would be just too much to bear, and that far from being a decisive act for socialism, leaving the Euro could simply tear the country apart, with untold consequences.
Now the National Bank of Greece has set out in numbers what will happen to ordinary Greeks if Greece is forced out: Continue reading →
