Monthly Archives: June 2013

How much do we really Care?

Blog, Health, Our democracy

by Joseph Cottrell-Boyce

Last Thursday the BBC released a video of 83-year-old Muriel Price, sobbing pitiful protests to an empty house as she lay stranded in her bed, her agency carer having failed to turn up to work. Her quiet desperation painted a shameful picture of how little our society values the elderly and vulnerable.

I found it hard to watch Muriel’s video, but wasn’t remotely surprised by the content. Just as with other recent care scandals in the UK, the pattern of failure and neglect was all too familiar to me.

I stumbled into agency care work as a 19 year old looking for employment that required neither qualifications nor experience. After two days of basic food hygiene and health and safety training I was sent to out support young adults with learning difficulties in day centres and residential homes for £5 an hour. I was utterly unprepared for the demanding work. Some of my clients had extreme behavioural difficulties; no one had told me what I should do when a charge of the same body mass as me bit an old woman in a shopping centre for example, or kicked children in a playground.

There was also little support; often I’d be left bathing, changing and moving clients alone, when for safety reasons these should have been two-person jobs. This was backbreaking work for me, and often humiliating for the person being cared for. Then there would be the times at the end of an exhausting 7am – 3pm shift when my manager would call and inform me he hadn’t managed to find cover for the afternoon and I’d have to do a ‘double’ sixteen hour day.

Although most of my colleagues were diligent and genuinely caring, I regularly witnessed malpractice. In one care home, waking night staff would tie emergency alarm cords out of reach of disabled residents, leaving them crying impotently for help in the night as the staff would catch up on sleep. I saw teenagers with learning difficulties locking in rooms for hours to ‘cool down’, by staff who’d had no training to deal with their complex needs.

Then there was the casual neglect. I’d regularly come on shift to find that an incontinent client had not been changed in the preceding 8 hours, or incapacitated clients who should have been up, washed and dressed had instead been left in bed while their carers watched TV.

To my great shame as an awkward 19 year old I never spoke up or reported wrongdoing. I did the best I could and kept my head down. I also saw the futility of complaining about individuals; this wasn’t about a few bad eggs, it was a systematic problem. We were all undertrained, underpaid and overstressed. I knew that colleagues who were negligent were also exhausted by erratic shift patterns, long commutes between different jobs and the usual stresses of trying to feed their families below the poverty line.

As frontline workers, we were also in the firing line for the failings of more senior staff; either our own managers or thinly spread social-workers. If something did go wrong or if our company lost contracts we knew that as agency workers we could be sacked at a moments notice.

The net result of all this was a sense that our work was unimportant. To many, care work was just another insecure stop on a merry-go-round of crap, poorly paid jobs and occasional spells on the dole.

It shouldn’t be like this.

Caring isn’t just another job; it is a vital component of a civilised society. The justifiable public outrage at widespread substandard care is testament to this. And despite all the stress, the antisocial hours, the lack of training or support and the rubbish pay, in many ways I loved my job. I got a buzz from enabling people to lead fuller lives than their circumstances would otherwise allow. At times the work could be genuinely rewarding and even fun. I’d go home drained, but feeling far more fulfilled than I had in the mind numbing call centre job I had paid my rent with up till then. Caring should be a vocation, but the current framework denies workers the support and security to make this possible.

Norman Lamb MP, Minister for Care and Support, has recently called for recommendations on how to reform the care system, stating the need for sweeping change. This is encouraging, but really the recipe for reform is very simple and is already working in other countries.

A few years ago I met a Swedish woman who had recently qualified as a care worker after two years of formal training. She was on a decent salary and was employed directly by the state on a permanent contract. She also had opportunities for further training and education to develop her career in the sector. She felt valued and supported and consequently took her job very seriously.

In Sweden, caring is a profession. In the UK it’s a dead end.

The neglect experienced by Muriel Price was not inflicted by one lazy carer; it is systemic neglect which implicates our priorities as a society. If we take the care of our most vulnerable seriously we need to invest in carers, giving them the tools and support to do their job properly and pay which reflects the demands of their vital work.

—
Joe Cottrell-Boyce is a Policy Officer at the ICB’s Traveller’s Project

Watch: EDL leader gets arrested on ‘charity walk’

News

In articles published here last week, I reported that the ‘charity walk’ in support of two year old Amelia looked circumspect since the money was going to an EDL account not directly to the official fund-raising page.

The charity then snubbed the donations from the EDL – but that didn’t stop Tommy Robinson and co from using her cause anyway.

Here’s a video posted today (by Hope Not Hate) of the English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson getting arrested today on his ‘charity walk’.

I have to say I’m uncomfortable with this. It’s perfectly legitimate to report on how the EDL are trying to exploit various causes for political ends.

But I don’t think he should have been arrested merely for going on the walk. Neither am I comfortable with left activists celebrating his arrest – since such arbitrary police action will come back to bite them sooner or later. And it has already, plenty of times.

In all such circumstances the police should be asked to clearly explain why they are obstructing political acts and be asked whether their actions are disproportionate.

UPDATE: Actually, it looks like the EDL leader was warned in advance by police to avoid that route, but he ignored it. Justified arrest then.

The government is trying to scrap the England Coast Path, and we need your help

Blog, Environment

by David Hodd

Does a coast path matter? As a nation we love the coast: whether we are talking of the Thames marshes depicted by Dickens and Constable, the rocky headlands of the South West, the White Cliffs of Dover or the formerly black beaches of Seaham’s coast.

Our relation with it is ingrained in our culture. No one is more than a 2 hour drive from it. This importance was recognised by the National Trust, with its Neptune Campaign – which was begun to protect the coast through acquisition, and to safeguard access along it.

Cornish business leaders are well aware of the £307 Million contribution the South West Coast Path provides the region’s economy each year.

But the English Coast Path is a £239k project to extend it around the English coast, and this means opening up access on land where some landowners have an instinctive dislike of the great unwashed.

Whilst Environment Minister Richard Benyon has been steadily sapping funding for the project, the Welsh Assembly have got their national coast path up and running, and as Visit Wales shows, it is the cornerstone of their tourism campaign.

I don’t expect an environmental, cultural or wellbeing argument to cut any ice with the famously buzzard hating Under Secretary. But right now, we need policies that get more of us spending more money, and circulating it in the economy.

A coastal path does this, and unlike quantitative easing, puts the money where it is needed and used. The coast path will benefit places like Hastings, Scarborough, or Workington. The Welsh path, in its first year, is thought to have generated £16M to the economy.

“Not interested in the environment, show me how you benefit business” ministers regularly holler at Natural England. But when presented with the economic benefit (on National Parks for example), it seems they are not listening.

Their prejudice filters out all reason. As with their attempts to sell off the Forestry Commission, we now need to show them what we think of their economically illiterate policies.

Sign up to the Ramblers petition now. Not sure a coastal path is your priority? Go for a walk this weekend on the coast nearest you – preferably a bit that Benyon’s landowning mates want you not to see, and then reconsider the maths, and think how much you value the view.

—
David Hodd’s website is: www.davidhodd.co.uk/

The centre left still has no idea how to become relevant again

Blog, Economy, Labour party, Westminster

Jacob Hacker, a professor of political science at Yale University, is widely credited for coining the Labour buzzword ‘pre-distribution’.

He wrote an article for the Guardian a few weeks ago, as part of a talk at Peter Mandelson’s think-tank Policy Network. The most interesting part of the article for me was this bit:

Second, the third way took for granted that one could maintain the state’s role in providing public goods while also glorifying markets – especially, at least until the crash, financial markets. Then, of course, governments of all stripes bailed out those markets when things went sour. Throughout, virtually no investment was made in fostering a positive conception of the state’s role in making market work, which is actually more vital than ever in a complex global economy. The result is a crisis of legitimacy, and no political force suffers more from this crisis than the moderate left.

This point cannot be emphasised enough. The ‘moderate’ left is in a deep crisis of legitimacy that hasn’t gone away.

Even five years after 2007 we still don’t have an explanation of what went wrong in 2007 and what lessons have been learnt. Ed Miliband has made some attempt to grapple with this, but the agenda seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Now the focus is back on ‘fiscal consolidation’ and ‘tough choices’ and ‘pragmatic decisions’ and ‘public sector reform’ and so on. You know, the kind of words the Progress crowd love.

Now I’m not saying those phrases are not relevant in any way. But many on the centre left have mistaken this ongoing crisis of legitimacy (‘how did you let us get into this mess?‘) as a sign that people want to hear more of the things the centre-left loves talking about.

In other words, they say, obviously the centre-left is unpopular because we aren’t talking enough about ‘fiscal discipline’ and ‘public sector reform’ – rather than try and convince the public that we realise fucked up and have some bold ideas to promote this time around.

Ed Miliband started off down this path, and I was hopeful that he would stick with it, and develop it further to convince the public that Labour had learnt and changed.

But it seems the same people who were previously praising the bankers, disliked regulation and wanted the banks bailed out – Ed Balls is a key figure here – have gone back into their comfort zone again. Three years later there is nothing bold on reforming financial services, rebalancing the economy or a bold industrial strategy other than lots of speeches and a British Investment Bank (which the Tories are pushing anyway).

Instead of arguing about how far the UK economy needs to change to it work for ordinary people, the Labour party is spending all its time trying to explain how far they would match Osborne in every step he takes.

The centre left – I’m referring to Labour’s “centrists” here – aren’t even listening to their own people and recognising their ongoing crisis of legitimacy.

#BodyLove vs. Body Shame: Why we need to embrace our bodies

Blog, Feminism, Media

by Taran Bassi

At 1pm today, a campaign to promote ‘body acceptance’ will reach its peak with a flashmob across the country. The main one will be on the South Bank in London, and others across schools, colleges, Universities and online.

Anyone can participate by scrawling in the middle of a heart something that they love about their bodies, and tweet a picture with the hashtag #BodyLove, or share their story by using the same hash tag.

The campaign is loud and unapologetic in the view that we should love our bodies as opposed to being ashamed of them.

Body shame is all over the internet, for e.g. on the MailOnline’s “sidebar of shame”, evolving into a dominant practice within culture and media. It targets predominantly women for almost every single part of their physical appearance: bingo wings, muffin tops, cankles, cameltoe, crows feet, thunder thighs…the list of derogatory language used to describe the female form is endless.

We are constantly bombarded with images of the ‘ideal’, such as how to get ‘pearly white teeth’, ‘glowing skin’, ‘beautiful hair’ and let’s not forget the all-important ‘body you have always dreamed of’. Females are fed an image of perfection, and to deviate from that image or demonstrate resistance suggests that you are not beautiful.

Slut shaming and victim shaming too derive from the concept of body shame. They are typically victimised for their ‘sexy’ appearance, suggesting they are responsible for unwanted attention.

In a culture tightly controls definitions of beauty, where adhering to strict diet regimes are symbolic of a achievement, and where it is acceptable for topless women to appear in a national newspaper, this campaign serves as a giant ‘fuck you’.

#BodyLove in our culture has to win against body shame, because it allows women a chance and a choice to embrace something that has sadly often been used against them – their own bodies.

More about the #BodyLove project here

Why did police drop claim a bomb wasn’t terrorism?

News

On Friday 21st June, a bomb went off outside a mosque in Walsall, West Midlands. Fortunately no one was hurt and there was no property damage.

Nevertheless, almost 150 people in 40 homes near the scene were evacuated as a “precautionary and temporary” measure, as bomb disposal experts were called to the mosque. Residents reported hearing a loud bang when the bomb went off.

The story was reported in the news on Sunday and the police immediately said it was not an act of terrorism.

A statement by Assistant Chief Constable Sharon Rowe from West Midlands police said:

Specialist investigators have been working all day and continue to ensure that we maximise every opportunity from the crime scene.

At this stage we are keeping an open mind on a motive. There is no evidence or intelligence to suggest that this is an act of terrorism.

But given the recent spate of attacks on Muslims, it was bizarre the police ruled out terrorism as a motive so early.

What did the police think was the motive other than to harm people? Spread love?

But it gets more bizarre.

West Midlands police have now quietly deleted that quote saying there was no evidence to suggest it was terrorism.

There isn’t a note or even a tweet to point this out – they just deleted that bolded line above. It is missing from the page.

So why have the police now backtracked from the original claim? And why did they rule out terrorism so quickly very early on?

(hat-tip @AssedBaig)

UPDATE: Assed tells me he asked the police to justify their decision:

They told me that they deleted the sentence after an ‘internal discussion’ and it was ‘detracting from the overall witness appeal’. They also told me that there had been considerable discussion online (I assume they mean twitter).
…
They maintained that they still don’t know whether it is or is not terrorism, but they have just removed the sentence. I’ve also spoken to a source from within the Muslim community that has been liaising with the police that told me that there was considerable pressure from him and others to get this sorted.

West Midlands Police have now arrested a man in connection with the bomb-attack.

What the EDL tells us about hopelessness and fear in English communities

Blog, Media, Race relations

by Dan Taylor

Though the EDL claim to have cancelled (EDL site) their intentionally inflammatory march to Woolwich this Saturday, unofficially their website is still inviting its 35,000 members to descend on south east London for a ‘walk of honour‘.

The callousness and hypocrisy of the EDL in attempting to politically profit out of the random murder of Lee Rigby is chilling, though not surprising. It’s to the credit of the Army and the local borough that they’ve warned the EDL away from hanging about in the area.

But the real problem of the EDL is both increasing violence unfolding against peaceful Muslim communities and the lack of challenge to its anti-Muslim rhetoric by mainstream politicians.

In the fortnight following the Woolwich killing, hate crimes against Muslims in London soared eightfold according to Scotland Yard (a figure no doubt higher given the mistrust of police in Muslim communities). With online abuse, firebombings, grisly murders and physical violence increasing against British Muslims, particularly women, the problem of Islamophobic terrorism is something no one can remain complacent about.

Despite this, why has no major politician visited the burnt-down remains of the al-Rahma Islamic centre in Muswell Hill, or the Aisha mosque in Walsall bombed last Saturday? Why has no politician tackled the chilling rise of anti-Muslim violence?

Because to do so would be to introduce the causes of Islamophobia: hopelessness, poverty and fear in former-working class communities across England, and across Europe.

There is nothing special about the EDL. Like the BNP and NF before them, they are the latest manifestation of an ugly minority of violent racists with a warped understanding of English history. But examining the causes of their support leads to real problems, such as decades-long unemployment, housing shortages, hunger, benefits cuts, closing community services, alienation from mainstream politics, police racism and violence, and a wider culture of Islamophobic fear since the US/UK ‘War on Terror’.

The fear, anger and hopelessness of its lived experience is very real in many former-working class communities. It requires a ‘Britishness’ myth, despite being primarily an English problem. As with UKIP, perhaps the more acceptable and ‘common sense’ face of xenophobic nationalism, these right-wing parties and their media outlets offer an easy, us-and-them narrative for atomised and distressed individuals to believe in.

Common characteristics of EDL’s ‘soft racism’ include a generic fear of outsiders, fear of injury to home and family, especially young females, and loss of identity and culture, a fear which leads to hatred. Such messages are broadcast on a daily basis throughout the tabloid press.

As the philosopher Spinoza once asked, ‘why do men fight for their servitude as if for their salvation?’ With the poor bearing the real cost of austerity, another message of hope, opportunity and popular social democracy is needed. To put the words of the EDL leader to a better end, if we fail to tackle the real causes of racism we risk ‘sleep-walking into oblivion’.

—
Dan Taylor tweets from here, and blogs at Drowned and Saved

Trenton Oldfield’s family aren’t the only victims of the vindictive British state

Blog, Conservative Party, Immigration, Law, Westminster

Public opinion appears to be that Trenton Oldfield, the protester who disrupted last year’s boat race, is a bit of a dick. I’m not that bothered – the race is a fix anyway, the same two teams get into the final every year.

In the very week that his British wife is expecting their first child Oldfield has been told that, after ten years, his presence is no longer welcome in this country. Theresa May’s decision to seek to have him transported to Australia for his crimes (on top of the two months he’s already served inside) goes against all natural justice but, more importantly, seeks to split up his family to make some cheap political point.

The collateral damage of May’s callous punishment is his British wife and soon to be born child, a child whose right to a father she seems unwilling to consider.

The terrible truth though is that Oldfield’s family are not alone. For many British born people it is harder to settle with their spouse and children in this country than it is almost anywhere else in the world.

It is even easier for EU citizens to settle here with non-EU spouses than it is for a UK citizen to be reunited with their own children if they were born outside the EU.

Imagine only being able to see your mother on Skype.

Imagine being separated from your own children because they were born abroad by a non-EU citizen.

Imagine having an elderly relative who desperately needs your support, but being unable to look after them because they come from outside the EU, or being separated in your old age from your only remaining family members because of where you were born.

That’s hundreds of broken hearts before we even consider the cases of refugees and asylum seekers where we split 200 children from their detained or deported parents.

None of this is because they have committed a crime (even a fairly trivial one, as in Oldfield’s case), but purely because they had the audacity to fall in love with someone with the wrong colour passport. The toxic debate around immigration bears little relationship to the reality.

If you are wealthy life is, naturally, easier. If you seek to be reunited with your family you need to demonstrate, among other things, that you are earning at least £22,400 with a further £2,400 for each additional child – a burden even harder to meet if you live in a poorer part of the country or belong to a group of people who earn less than the average… like women.

If you cannot meet the financial and other tests then your family will be one more victim of this government’s desperation to drive down the immigration figures in any way they can think of. You don’t have to disturb the rich at play to have your family torn apart.

British citizens might feel it is their natural right to have their children live with them, no matter where they were born, but this is not always the case.

The first anniversary of the government’s decision to change the family immigration rules (Tuesday 9 July 2013) please help keep up the pressure.

One tweet sums up Labour’s new, confused stance on cuts

News

I said the other day that Labour’s position was henceforth going to sound confused and need constant clarification.

This tweet by John Rentoul makes the same point.

Far from establishing a clear position on deficit reduction and moving on from it, Labour could spend the next two years just explaining it (and losing).

And did Labour’s plan to match Osborne’s cuts get them any political credit? Nope

A range of new restrictions on welfare claims will be introduced, including a delay between first claim and payment, and a requirement for 100,000 claimants with poor English to learn the language. Lone parents will get a push to start preparing to return to work earlier. And British pensioners living in warm countries will lose winter fuel payments. Given Labour’s difficulties shedding its image as the party of profligate welfare, the Chancellor’s political calculation wasn’t subtle.

I don’t think the penny has dropped yet, but it has to sooner or later.