The tyranny of the gay agenda
Iain Duncan Smith and his band of super Tories at the Centre for Social Justice are to issue a report which will shape Conservative policy on the family. It is widely expected to put the God-given sanctity of marriage at the heart of family life, make divorce more difficult and promote marriage preparation classes and ‘family relationship centres’, as well as tax breaks for married couples.
Hooray!
The report comes not a minute too late, following countless years of social engineering designed by Labour to do nothing but obliterate traditional familial values of a mother, father and two children sitting round a stone fireplace telling ripping tales of Grandad’s adventures in the Great War.
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Our MPs are very unrepresentative
In the bad old days of not that long ago, single trade unions controlled constituency parties in dozens of Labour strongholds. Secure the nomination from the NUM or the GMB, and you had a seat for life, son.
Such practices were undemocratic, obviously conducive to machine politics, and invariably worked to the disadvantage of lefties. But in a rough and ready way, it at least it resulted a cohort of Labour MPs with some sort of demographic resemblance to their electoral base.
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The Tories and Section 28
You know those people who say ‘Labour and Tories, they are just the same’? They should read CentreRight, the voice of the Tory grassroots, more often. Here’s a topical article called, “I don’t apologize for Section 28″.
It begins “I am entirely comfortable in the presence of homosexuals” and then goes on to explain that “alas, tedious though it is, I shall be forced to defend Section 28 as the liberal Conservative measure that it was”.
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Developing a new economic common sense
I’ve recently written quite a lot on my own blog about the need to develop a new economic policy narrative, and soon.
I’ve also written about how the now dominant narrative of neoliberalism and money supply control became so dominant; despite the fact that the fundamental assumption of a finite world money supply is flawed, the ‘good housekeeping’ / ‘you cannot spend what you have not got’ narrative has continued to hold sway over public opinion for a generation and more.
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Red Toryism – ignorant and incomprehensible
Philip Blond, the so-called ‘Red Tory’, has just written an article setting out his new Big Idea for reducing poverty, which is about ‘recapitalising the poor’.
These Big Ideas come along quite frequently, and there is quite an easy and quick way to test them out. Simply pick one policy area that you know about and see if the author’s suggestions and analysis suggest they know what they are talking about. If so, read on, if not, bin the rest.
So here is Blond’s ‘Red Tory’ approach to social housing:
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What should be the Minimum Income Standard in 2009?
I wrote last year about a really interesting piece of research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which asked people to decide how much someone living in Britain today needs in order to be able to live on.
They have just released the updated version, Minimum Income Standard 2009. There are some really interesting and important findings:
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Anonymous job applications – ending discrimination
I have blogged several times about my idea to make use of anonymous job applications – so as to end the subliminal discrimination that creeps in with some applications being discarded because of the names on them.
I floated my idea during the Second Reading of the Equality Bill and it caused quite a hoo ha. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development waded in to support the idea – albeit they didn’t think it should be mandatory. Some Human Resource departments were less happy and thought it a stupid idea. Well – it will be interesting to see what they say in response to the evidence that’s now been gathered.
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Can Labour learn the lessons?
Ann Black sent round an e-mail to Labour Party members with five questions which she will feed back at Labour’s next National Executive meeting. It’s a discussion which I hope as many members as possible will contribute to, but also might be of interest to Labour supporters who aren’t members.
So here’s the questions and my answers – do reply to Ann’s e-mail or leave your own thoughts in the comments and I’ll pass them on…
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Selling abortion
A revised broadcast advertising code will force anti-abortionists to make their dangerous bias clear:
We pro-choicers were happy to note that the BCAP’s just-closed consultation on a revised advertising code included a proposal to allow abortion providers to advertise abortion services on radio and TV.
Equally cheering was the news that the code would include this new rule (11.11 in the code):
‘Advertisements for post-conception pregnancy advice services must make clear in the advertisement if the service does not refer women directly for abortion.’
BCAP’s argument – rightly – is that there ain’t time to waste if you’re thinking of getting an abortion: the longer you leave it, the riskier the procedure is likely to be (the BCAP reference is the renowned 2004 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ paper on abortion safety and standards).
In other words – you need to know immediately if the ad you’re seeing is for a provider who offers balanced, accurate, post-conception information and abortion (or a referral for one) if that is what you want, or if you’re about to be drafted by an outfit that hopes to pull one back for Jesus Christ by neglecting to mention safe, legal abortion is available, and pumping you full of romantic notions about the realities of an unwanted child. continue reading… »
The left needs to make a difference case for fairness
an article by Dan
There has been a lot of discussion of a new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on attitudes towards tackling economic inequality (at Directionless Bones, Left Luggage, Sunder Katwala on CiF, Don Paskini at Liberal Conspiracy, and David Osler). Quoting Alderson at Directionless Bones, one of the key findings of the report is:
People didn’t seem to endorse the idea of ‘equality’ as a general principle as much as they endorsed ‘fairness’.
This is a point that several of the posts linked to above considered, and there has been a feeling that the left needs to find a new way to promote their view of the world to people (which traditionally is based on equality).
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Who’s trying to stop psychotherapy being regulated?
article by Zarathustra
Earlier this month the arts therapist Derek Gale was struck off by the Health Professions Council for an appalling litany of misconduct and abuse .
He touched patients inappropriately, discussed his sexual fantasies with them, called a patient a ‘cunt” and breached confidentiality by telling a therapy group about a patient’s self-harm. Despite being struck off, he was able to simply retitle himself as a psychotherapist and carry on practising.
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Does more diversity really lead to unhappiness?
Excitingly for data-mining weirdos, the Department for Communities & Local Government has released data on various happiness-related statistics broken down by local authority. What else is broken down by local authority, that I’ve written about recently? – yup, ethnicity statistics.
One of the questions asked in the poll is “% who agree that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together”. If the theory that BNP voters are driven by fear of gangs of steaming Somalis, murderous mullahs and crack-dealing Caribbeans were correct, then you might expect there to be some kind of negative correlation between Nick Griffin’s multi-ethnic nightmares and the belief that ’round here things are pretty much OK’.
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How can we convince the public of re-distribution?
My entirely apolitical buddy Nick – we played in a band together in the early eighties – puts the the fact that I am a socialist down to some inexplicable quirk I picked up while I was a wanky student and he was already doing a proper job of work in a bathroom supplies warehouse.
While I subsequently swanned around doing non-jobs and trying to foment world revolution, he knocked his bird up, secured a council flat which he was then able to buy ridiculously cheaply courtesy of Shirley Porter, climbed the property ladder and eventually established his own bathroom supply business, doing a roaring trade knocking out plush bog seats to the Bishop’s Avenue set at two grand a time.
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What homelessness crisis? BBC take note
by the blogger A Homelessness Officers Point of View
I recently received an email pointing out an article on the BBC website by Mark Easton. The article is titled “Map of the Week: Homelessness crisis? What homelessness crisis?”.
It appears that Mr Easton has seen the government statistics (our old friends the infamous P1e’s) and on the basis of these has not questioned the truth behind them but has just followed them blindly. I hope to correct some of his observations here. Homelessness is not falling, what is happening is that councils are doing all they can to prevent people from making homelessness applications thats all.
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Thoughts on reducing poverty
The Fabian Society and Joseph Rowntree Foundation have just published the findings of research about public attitudes to reducing poverty and inequality.
Some of the key findings:
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Minority Status Call For Sign Language
I’ve just read on the BBC News website that, at the Voices of the West conference on Scotland’s “lesser used” languages, to be held in Inverness tomorrow (Saturday 20th June) Professor Graham Turner, of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, plans to argue that Sign Language should be given the status of an indigenous and minority language.
I have no doubt that Deaf people are very happy about this idea. (the Deaf see themselves as able-bodied speakers of a language and members of a minority community, while the deaf see themselves as disabled.)
The thing is that I can hear, and I still think this is a great idea. I hope that all of you can also hear, so I wanted to know how you feel about it.
BA to move into the voluntary sector
This article is by author Sim-O
BA are asking 40,000 staff to work for sod all for a month. Just like the the boss, Willie Walsh and his Chief Financial Officer, Keith Williams…
The call for unpaid work is set out in individual letters to staff, and in the BA in-house newspaper British Airways News under the headline Action Time.
It says bluntly: ‘Colleagues are being urged to help the airline’s cash-saving drive by signing up for unpaid leave or unpaid work.
‘From tomorrow, people will be able to opt for blocks of unpaid leave or unpaid work, with salary deductions spread over three to six months, wherever possible.’
It is a hell of a lot easier to forego a months pay if a months pay is £61,000 than it is if your pay is only a grand or two a month. Should a company that is in that much shite that it’s asking it’s staff to work for nothing really be paying its’ boss more a month than most of its’ staff be paid in 3 years?
Could this be the new mantra for capitalism? Work for nothing or you won’t have a job to go to.
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Sim-O blogs at his eponymous blog.
While Labour fiddles…
More on sheltered housing warden cuts in Barnet – an example of the sort of Tory public service cuts we’ll see more and more:
We go now to a tall, brutalist council building in Barnet’s Totteridge and Whetstone, where yours truly is holed up at a cabinet meeting in a large committee room, watching Cllr Mike Freer, the spiritual void who runs Barnet council, brush aside the concerns of elderly sheltered housing residents who are about lose their cherished onsite warden service in Freer’s latest cost-cutting wheeze.
As reported here recently, Barnet council and its financial team – that group of fiscal legends best known for investing (riskily) £27m in Icelandic banks, where the whole pile tanked – claim they need to find £12m in savings to balance books compromised by inadequate central government settlements (ie, it’s Labour’s fault – a point that Labour rubbishes, for what it’s worth), inflation, and a desire to keep council tax increases below three percent as local and national elections loom.
The council believes it can save £950,000 (re-forecast to £400,000 in a rapidly revised proposal for this evening’s meeting) by removing onsite residential wardens (whose tasks include dealing with health and security emergencies, organising GP visits, organising social activities, and checking on residents at least once a day) from sheltered housing scheme. They’d be replaced with a ‘floating’ support service where support workers based at hubs would visit elderly people who met eligibility criteria. continue reading… »
UK Finally Ratifies CRPD
I’ve been waiting for this moment since November 2008. On Monday, 8th June 2009, the UK government finally ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
The Convention is a landmark agreement that aims to give the world’s 650 million disabled people full equality, and ratification means that a country accepts its legal obligations under the treaty and ensures that any necessary laws are passed.
But what rights are guaranteed for disabled people by this Convention? Well, in summary, it’s about protecting our rights when it comes to making our own decisions; saying no to being placed in an institution; saying no to medical or psychological treatment; and living in the community. It also seeks to remove barriers to participation in daily life and enable equal opportunities for all.
This story has, unfortunately, been ignored by the mainstream media. So ignored that I’ve only just found out the news from the blog at the BBC disability website, Ouch. But, no matter what, this means real progress for the UK’s DisAbled population. As a DisAbled person, I am thrilled to hear it, and know that many of my friends are as well. To borrow the words of a very famous astronaut, this one small step for the mainstream is a giant leap for DisAbility.
Trying to blame the left for racism
There are two strategic reasons why the BNP was elected. First, the Labour party vote split and collapsed. Secondly, the left was split by infighting and small, inconsequential parties that had not much separating them. These things can be debated, and it’s right to ask why the Labour party has failed the working classes.
What does annoy me though are attempts by rightwing commentators, who really should know better, to pin the blame on ethnic minorities themselves and “the left”. It’s a nice rhetorical trick that makes them feel better – it’s not like the Conservative Party ever appropriated the language of the racists and had any of their members use the slogan “If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour“. I mean that is just the work of fantasy isn’t it?
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» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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