Saturday 12 December 2015

The December Deluge: Cumbria and the north

The last week has seen some of the more catastrophic events for years in the north of England and Ireland. Torrential rain falling onto already sodden land, and driven by gale force winds, meant that river levels rose rapidly, low lying areas were quickly overcome by water, whilst multi-million pound flood defences in those places which had suffered previous flooding held back the waters a little but eventually submitted to the onslaught of the sheer volume of water.

Record rainfalls levels were recorded across the county, and a major incident was declared,
A new record for the amount of rain in a 24-hour period was created at the weekend with 341.4mm recorded at Honister Pass, in Cumbria, the Met Office has confirmed.


The north-west of England is well-used to rain, but rain on this level is unprecedented even here. We have seen towns and village street flooded, some up to the top of their doorways so the only escape was via upstairs windows,  Lake levels have risen by several metres, engulfing many domestic and commercial waterside properties and washing away jetties. Roads have been undermined by the water, leading to sinkholes, collapses and landslides, and bridges have been either washed away or damaged so badly that they will need extensive checks and repairs before they may be used again.

This BBC news story tells the story of this week's floods in Carlisle so well.  I can't begin to imagine what the 8 metre depth of  river looks like!  And I can't comprehend the West Coast main line being under 2.5 metres of water!

There is no mention in the previous link of all the other towns and villages affected, Carlisle had the visit from PM David Cameron as that is where the majority of flooded properties were recorded.  But you could substitute Kendal, Cockermouth, Keswick, Workington, Appleby, Glenridding, Grasmere, Bowness, Lancaster or a host of other places for Carlisle and the story would still be the same. Lives turned upside down by the floods, as this link from the Guardian shows:


Cumbria, a county with an area more than four times that of Greater London, was deluged along with much of Ireland, parts of north Lancashire, the north east, and the Scottish borders, and it will takes hundreds of millions of pounds and months, maybe years, of repairs to put everything right and recover from the damage.

Without the tireless assistance and efforts of the emergency services (Police, Fire and Rescue, Coastguard, Ambulance) in Cumbria and a host of volunteers from organisations such as the mountain rescue groups, the RNLI, the Bay Search and Rescue, the situation would have been so much worse  - no doubt the same is true of other areas affected. The emergency services that have been pared back due to Government funding cuts did their utmost to ensure the safety of people affected by the floods. It's a testament to the efforts of everyone involved there there was only one reported death due to the flooding in Cumbria. The situation has been so dire that the Army were sent in to help with mass evacuations and transporting hospital patients to safety, and have been involved in helping assess damage to roads and bridges.

Meanwhile, the emotional damage caused by the frightening events, and the trauma that individuals and families that families endured and are still enduring, will probably last even longer.

To help the communities affected get back on their feet, a £3million appeal has been launched by the Cumbria Community Foundation, and donations towards this are warmly welcomed.




Thursday 3 December 2015

Remembering Bhopal 2-3 December 1984


Dear Friends
We're writing to invite you to join the thousands of people around the world undertaking a small act of remembrance tonight to mark the tragedy which took place in Bhopal on 2-3 December 1984.
It's now over thirty years since lethal gases spewed from Union Carbide's pesticide factory, killing an estimated 8-10,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands. As each year passes, 'the struggle of memory against forgetting' becomes more important.

The transformative potential of collective memory is demonstrated in the practical, compassionate care the Sambhavna and Chingari clinics provide for gas-affected survivors, as well as those damaged since. This medical work could not, and would not, exist without your individual acts of remembering.
Every year on the night of 2 December, our friends in Bhopal gather to remember those who have died and reaffirm their resolve to support the living. Please consider joining with them for a few moments, wherever you may be. By lighting a candle we move to challenge the darkness. 
With love, peace and thanks,
The staff and trustees of
The Bhopal Medical Appeal
 

#DontBombSyria #NotInMyName

The outcome of last night's vote in the House of Commons, as to whether or not to commit the RAF to air strikes on DAESH sites within Syria on behalf of the UK, has caused me great pain.  The case for air strikes has not been proven, despite the rhetoric of the Prime Minister, who himself said only a few weeks ago (on 4th October 2015) that Russia's bombing campaign in Syria will "lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism."  


Given that, it beggars belief that barely 2 months later the same PM states that our bombing campaign will solve the problem and eliminate DAESH!  So why is that? What can the RAF achieve that the Russian, US, French and other air forces haven't been able to?  And if it doesn't solve the problem, as I am pretty sure it won't, is the PM going to hold up his hands and admit that the vote will also lead to further radicalisation and increased terrorism?

The notion that our forces will be responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of innocent civilians, who are themselves oppressed by DAESH, is unforgivable. All the bombing will do is kill people and create more refugees, whilst DAESH welcome our interference as it just reinforces their claims that we (the West) want to annihilate Islam.

How much better would it have been to have voted no last night, and then worked with the US and other UN member states to cut off the supply of arms and money to DAESH. By not buying their oil, by blocking their trading routes, by refusing to handle their money brokering (are you listening banks?), and by not selling them arms and ammunition, we will weaken their cause.  The creation of a no-fly zone across DAESH-controlled airspace will remove any airborne targets, such as the Russian aircraft shot down recently. Isolate them and apply sanctions.

Having looked at the list of MPs who voted in the division, I can say I was disgusted to see my MP's name in the AYES list (Tim Farron, Westmorland and Lonsdale)  and from reading various comments a goodly number of other voters here share my feeling. I was equally shocked to so 66, yes 66, Labour MPs voting with the AYES.  Left Unity published the list of them below with a call for their deselection, such is the anger amongst many Party members at what is perceived as a betrayal of the Leadership and Conference's position.


Given the size of the Government's majority in the vote, if they had all voted NO it would not have prevented the air strikes, but given the Party's Conference resolution of the issue, it would have shown them to be in tune with the wishes of the Party's members. Those members who, it has to be pointed out, are the troops on the ground who both select a candidate and then campaign to get that person elected to Parliament. Those 66 have, I feel, done themselves no favours, and come the time when they seek re-election they may have a rude awakening.

The final vote was AYES 397, NOES 223, a majority for the AYES of 174. Breaking this down across the different political parties, those who voted NO were as follows:
  • 153 Labour Party
  • Scottish Nationalist Party  53
  • Social Democratic and Labour Party 3
  • Liberal Democrat Party2
  • Plaid Cymru 2
  • Green Party 1
If you would like to check how your MP voted, the Mirror website has a free search tool that will let you check. If you disagree with how they voted, then why not let them know? After all, they are in Parliament to represent your interests! 

Over the past few days MPs have been sent many thousands of emails, tweets and phone calls, asking them to vote NO. The public polls hosted by practically every news source online has shown that the majority of respondees do not support air strikes, yet 390 British MPs ignored those polls and voted YES. (Image shows poll from The Independent 2 Dec 2015.)

Whilst many of us were trying to come to terms with the idea that we had been committed to yet another military folly, the news came that, barely an hour after the vote result was declared, four RAF Tornado jets had been despatched from Cyprus, believed to have been laden with 3 x 500lb bombs each. Two of them apparently returned without their bombs shortly before 3am GMT.

That this was all planned a long time ago, and that we have been manipulated into this awful, situation, is evidenced by a quote on the BBC's news page
BBC political correspondent Robin Brant said: "The British Royal Air Force has been preparing to be involved in these air strikes, to join the coalition of other Western forces who are attacking IS in Syria, for months.

"So perhaps it would not be surprising if within just an hour of the UK Parliament giving its approval [...] these planes did take off and did attack some choice targets in Syria almost immediately."
We are nothing but pawns in the very dangerous game of brinksmanship in which the PM and his Parliamentary colleagues, the media, arms dealers, and the oil companies are engaging. They are playing a very dangerous game, and those who will suffer are the people on the ground in Syria and those of us who will become targets of DAESH terrorists. Meanwhile, DAESH get rich on their oil revenues, and the warmongers get rich on arms sales.

It is a sad, sad day for democracy in the UK, and an even sadder one for those innocent civilians in Syria who will become victims of this dreadful action. #DontBombSyria #NotInMyName

Sunday 22 November 2015

UK Government petitions, are they worth doing?

For future reference if anyone is thinking of using the UK Government Petitions service, you need to bear in mind the scope of petitions that can be moved forward for debate, as not all of them can be it seems!

So, when writing your petition you need to include within it a call for a policy action or change, rather than just a petition about a named minister. It is well-worth reading the Rules/Help page to see what can and cannot be included.

This is the reply from the Petitions Committee re a recent petition:
"The Petitions Committee decided not to debate the petition you signed – "Vote no confidence in David Cameron" 
"The House of Commons Petitions Committee has decided not to schedule a debate on this petition, because the Committee does not have the power to schedule debates on motions of no confidence, and the petition does not contain a specific request for action on policy. 
"It is usually more effective to start a petition calling for a specific change to government policy or the law, rather than a petition about an individual Minister. 
"It is still open to MPs to seek time for a debate on this petition in the main House of Commons Chamber, if they wish to do so. However, debates on motions of no confidence are fairly rare. "
So, the moral of the story is, if you want your petition to get discussed, attack the policy not the person!

It still raises the question why, if the petition raised a question outside of the scope of the Petitions Committee, it did not rule the petition out under their standards checking procedure when it was first filed?  Would it be cynical to suggest that the petition may have been viewed as an indicator of the popularity of the minister named? 

Saturday 14 November 2015

Mourning the deaths of innocent people

Today the world is expressing its outrage at the attacks carried out on people in multiple locations in Paris last night, and rightly so.  Killing innocent people anywhere is to be deplored.  But how much of an outcry have we heard about recent attacks elsewhere?  Did we bemoan the massacre of seven people from the Hazara ethnic minority in Afghanistan, when the decapitated bodies of four men, two women and a nine year old child were found last Saturday in a rural town in the southern province of Zabul? The deadly assault in Lebanon on Thursday where at least 41 people were killed in two suicide bombings in the capital, Beirut rated a story on the BBC news website, but hardly a murmur of indignation from the populace.  Do we rate the lives of people in France to be more valuable than those of the people of Afghanistan or Lebanon, or is it that Paris is much closer to home, so it scares us more?

Our media are partly responsible for the lack of information. How much do we see or hear or read about the IS attacks elsewhere? Very little comparatively, so unless you actively seek out that news on alternative media sources you simply are not aware of it.   Instead we get endless guff about which celeb is dating who, the next soap story line, chatter about reality TV programmes, how much football teams pay for players, and storm-in-a-teacup non-stories about politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, which are designed to take your focus off the diabolical activities of the Government in respect of British citizens.

The situation in the Middle East was mainly caused by political interference by Western governments, arms manufacturers and oil companies to protect their interests.   Think back and understand how long the West has been trying to control the oil supplies in the area. Remember back to 1988 and the blowing up of Pan Am flight 103 which crashed into the Scottish town of Lockerbie, which caused the deaths of all 259 people on board along with 11 people in Lockerbie at the time. Remember also the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq under Saddam Hussein's leadership, invaded neighbouring Kuwait and the US and UK armed forces were sent in to deal with him. Hussein's setting fire to Kuwait's oil wells frightened the West immensely, as oil is such an important commodity, and the Western governments could not countenance losing access to its supply lines in the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent overthrow of Saddam Hussein  in Iraq , the overthrow of President Gaddaffi in Libya in 2011 are more recent instances of that interference, but it is still happening, and is the root cause of the rise of the Islamic State (IS) and the terror attacks we are now seeing.

If our Governments hadn't interfered we would probably not be seeing this situation now. Everything which has happened since that involvement can be traced back to Western interference in the oil-producing regions of the Middle East. If there had been no oil then the West would have had no interest in the region at all!

Monday 9 November 2015

Honouring the troops should never glorify war

My grandfather, who was a boy soldier in WW1, always told me that we should not have been involved in fighting that war as it was not about people but power, and I really believe that our involvement in some of the world's recent conflicts has been for the same reason: power and oil. WW2 was indeed about fascism and freedom, but was a conflict which probably would not have happened but for the outcome of WW1.

We owe a huge debt to all military personnel who have served, and those who continue to serve, in our armed forces. Sadly too often they are let down by Governments, and the politics gets in the way of the human issues they are faced with, such as injury, loss of limbs, blindness, PTSD, and more. And for those who lose their lives, the families pay an even bigger price.

I am firmly behind our serving personnel, many of my family are ex-military - and I do not want to see our troops being used as a political football by either side. And I really do not want to see any more of our troops die in any conflict, especially in ones where we really should not have been involved in the first place.

I disagree with some of the things our troops have been ordered to do by recent governments, and it appears that the actions they have been ordered to undertake has made the situation worse for lots of people. This is nothing that the troops are to blame for but it is fulfilling a wider political agenda in which they, and we, are pawns.

I want to see a world free of conflict, but sadly it's not going to happen whilst big businesses make mega-millions out of the arms trade. I want to see a world where wars don't happen, where armed forces are unnecessary, and where all humans live in peace, but as a race humanity isn't yet ready for that, so until it is there will always be a need for people willing to step forward and put their lives on the line keeping others safe.

So much of what our armed forces do is important in peace-keeping, in rescuing refugees, in providing aid in disaster areas, as they have the skills and the training to work effectively in those areas, and without them we would be much poorer as a nation.

On Remembrance Sunday and on Remembrance Day itself we should remember and honour those who serve and who have served in defence of our freedoms. We should respect those who still serve. What we shouldn't do is glorify the *process* of war for its own sake. Our soldiers, sailors and air force deserve better than that.



Friday 6 November 2015

Labour lacks "serious opposition" claims Lord Mandelson

Peter Mandelson expressed his concern that Jeremy Corbyn's leadership is a problem not just for Labour, but for the country, when he appeared on the BBC's HardTalk last night. "It is a very, very bad and sad day for this country," Lord Mandelson said, "when we do not have a serious opposition and a serious alternative to the Government."
I am not sure where Peter Mandelson has been keeping himself since September 12th, but there is more serious and active opposition by the current Opposition than we have seen in the Labour Party in many a long year.

During the interview by Stephen Sackur, Mandelson repeated many of the same old untruths and bits of misinformation that we have read and heard in the media over the last several months. His claims that Jeremy Corbyn is "far-left", that Harriet Harman opened the door to everyone to join in with the £3 vote, that Jeremy Corbyn changed his mind about Trident at the Labour Party Conference, and that despite Corbyn's claim of his belief in equality he appointed men to the top Shadow Cabinet positions.

Just for the record, Corbyn is not "far-left", his views reflect those of many others on the left or centre-left (not far-left or hard-left or even ultra-hard-left!) of the Party, even many in the centre of it! In fact, until the Blairite tendency moved the Party so far to the right that it was hard to differentiate between the Blairites and the Tories, Corbyn's views on many issues were pretty much standard Labour Party policy!

Harriet Harman did not come up with the £3 vote scheme. It was actually a change brought in by Ed Miliband in 2014 and supported by Mandelson's former boss, Tony Blair! In fact Blair actually said that it was a reform that his own leadership should have thought of.

And as for the Trident issue at Party Conference, that was not Corbyn's call either. At Labour Party conferences there is a committee which determines which subjects are debated. The short-list of subjects are put to a vote of those attending, thus it was conference itself which decided not to discuss the issue of Trident this year. 

As for the top Shadow Cabinet positions statement, this is very much a macho attitude! That positions of Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary are seen as the Top Jobs reflects an out-of-date view of what are priorities in government and society. Implying that the other Shadow Cabinet roles are less important denigrates whole sectors of society. It infers that health, education, employment, business, welfare, environment, transport, etc are less important issues, whereas to the electorate and I suspect to Corbyn these are most often the most important aspects of government as they have a direct and personal effect on each and every one of us. Cut backs in health or education funding have a more direct impact on us than does our foreign policy, yet Foreign Secretary is considered to be a Top Job by some. Clearly Corbyn will form his own opinions on what is important, but his first Shadow Cabinet does have a majority of women members - the first time any frontbench team has done so, so that's one up for him then!

Now we have corrected Lord Mandelson, what else can we say about the interview? Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable, and he cannot lead the Labour Party to victory and government, seems to be two main themes of Mandelson's spiel. In between the chest-beating mea culpa lament of "We didn't make enough changes ourself" and "We lost our way" type comments, it is quite clear that Mandelson has no intention of supporting the new leader or his attempt to win the next election. There was a lot of talk of "being ready" for when Corbyn goes (he said stands down but could just as easily have meant gets pushed out) and lots of guff about the Party not sharing Corbyn's aims for the Party, despite his "stonking" victory in the leadership election with just shy of 60% of the votes across all three voting sections.

Mandelson's sly inference that it was only the £3 supporters and the trades unions members voting that gave Corbyn his victory belies the fact that the full member vote of 121,751 out of 245,520 for Corbyn was only just shy of the 50% victory mark in itself, A further 1,010 full members voting for him would have given Corbyn the leadership even without the ability of the registered supporters and the trades unions members to vote, and Corbyn polled almost as many votes alone as the other three candidates did between them!  On that basis Mandelson cannot justify any claim that full members do not agree with Jeremy Corbyn's policies.

Mandelson's claimed that 47%  of the people who voted Labour in the 2015 General Election do not see Corbyn as leadership material, but that could also mean that 53% do see him as such!  But what about the 35% of the electorate who have not voted for anyone, many of whom claim they cannot see any difference between the Tories, LibDems and New Labour, so why vote?  Those people are amongst the sector of the electorate which has been excited and energised by the emergence of Corbyn as the Labour Party Leader. Many of them are becoming politically active for the first time ever, and come 2020 they will no longer be in the silent third, they will be voting!

Meanwhile, right across the country members and supporters are readying themselves to fight local elections in 2016. Indeed, some are already planning their campaign in the by-election caused by the death recently of the veteran MP, Michael Meacher.  Those of us who will be campaigning for local council seats do so in the strong hope that this will help the Party win votes and seats in the general election in 2020 also. We expect that it will be a hard fight; after all, we have to reconnect with an electorate that has become increasingly disillusioned with the New Labour Party of Blair and Mandelson, and it is to them that we have to establish our credibility as a Party fit for government. That job will be made all the harder by the whingers and the doomsayers, such as Mandelson, undermining the Party's democratically elected leader! So my message to him, and others like him, is this, "Button it! Support Corbyn. Help us win!"

Saturday 31 October 2015

So what did the trades unions ever do for you?

I hear so many people making comments about trades unions, about how they cause problems, about how they disrupt people's lives by going on strike, and so forth, and it makes me incredibly sad.

"Why so?" you may ask. Because it is thanks to the trades unions that we as working people can enjoy the protections and rights that we have in work, and and that we have much of the legislation that protects us as a society.

You might think that is a pretty big call. But let me explain what I mean...

Without the trades union movement, and the pressure they brought to bear on the governments of the day, these are the things anyone working for someone else would not have:

A contract of employment

A working week of 40 hours or less, aka the 8 hour working day

The weekend, aka a five-day working week

The ability to negotiate your pay and increases

Children's employment age and work restrictions

The right to collective representation

Paid holidays of up to 5.6 weeks per year

Parental leave after a child's birth

Workplace pensions

Paid holidays

Equal pay and equal rights

Discrimination on the basis of colour, creed or gender rules

Health and safety protection

Unfair dismissal protection

Rights at work (allowed to marry or have a child without being sacked)

Sickness protection

Injury compensation 

Tribunal representation

Disciplinary mediation and representation

Redundancy provisions

There may be a few things I have missed out, but even if I have, the list above is pretty impressive.

As a former trades union organiser I know the value that trades unions have for working people. I know the help that is given when needed by their negotiators or their legal teams. I know of cases where redundancy offers have been improved significantly by the intervention of a trades union; where early retirement has been negotiated when a worker has domestic demands which prevent them working; where frustration of contract cases due to illness have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and many more similar cases where trades unions have been able to help individuals and groups of workers, and I know the security and support that being a trades union member can bring.

So when you next hear some scare story about a trades union, or something in the media about how trades unions are bad for the country, please stop and think, and give thanks for all those benefits we as workers enjoy as a result of the tireless work  of trades unions across more than 150 years. Even better,, if you are not a member of a trades union, why not join the one which covers your type of work and help continue the protections that we have enjoyed so they will be there for future generations?

Further reading:

History of Working Time
The history of European working time regulation 1784-2014

Some of the key events that have shaped the development of working time measures in Europe:http://www.fedee.com/labour-relations/history-of-working-time/

The Union Makes Us Strong: TUC History Online
Trade unions have played, and will continue to play, a decisive role in shaping economic and social developments in Britain - yet much of their history is at present unknown and inaccessible to the public. http://www.unionhistory.info/

Winning Equal Pay: the value of women's work
A part of The Union Makes Us Strong website containing filmed interviews with women who fought for and won equal pay, hundreds of digitised images and documents from the TUC Library Collections, plus contributions from historians and other experts.http://www.unionhistory.info/equalpay/

Striking Women
An educational site about migration, women and work, workers' rights, and the story of South Asian women workers during the Grunwick and Gate Gourmet industrial disputes.http://www.striking-women.org/


Thursday 29 October 2015

"And Labour are putting 11 candidates up for election."

Readers might wonder at the curious title of this post, but it is a quote from that august local newspaper, The Westmorland Gazette, which is published in Kendal and has been reporting Westmorland news since 1818.

I was interested to read on its About Us page, that it says,
The Westmorland Gazette, first published in 1818, is independent of political parties, private interests and government.
as that was not the impression I gained whilst looking back through coverage of the run up to the 2015 local council elections.

The article in question, entitled Lines drawn in local battle goes into great detail  about the seats held by the Conservative party, the dominance of the Liberal Democrat party, the strength of the field of the Green Party and the decision of one candidate to stand as an independent. But of the Labour Party candidates not a whiff, not a mention, not a hint, until the very last line, which reads like a last-minute addendum along the lines of, "Oh bother we forgot to mention Labour, just stick it on the end, no-one will notice!"

Guess what, Westmorland Gazette? It was noticed! So if you really mean what you say on your About Us page, would you please give equal billing to all parties in future elections?  After all, you would not like to be considered biased in any way, would you? Would you???

Thursday 22 October 2015

Does the Labour Campaign for the Self Employed give us a glimmer of hope?

The creation of the Labour Campaign for the Self Employed has given hope to many sole traders and micro-businesses that their concerns may at last find a champion. I am hoping that the Campaign will address the issues that face us in respect of VAT changes affecting digital cross-border sales. This is the message I have sent to the campaign today: 

The imposition of impossible EU regulations such as the VAT scheme for digital cross-border sales that came in on 1st Jan 2015 is a problem for us. It is impossible to comply with in many cases and is putting sole traders and micro-businesses at a huge disadvantage and driving trade back to the big guys like Amazon, as the smaller traders simply cannot meet the requirements of the rules at any price!

The EU has accepted that small traders being hurt was an unforseen and unintended consequence of the new rules, and that it was never the EU's plan to affect us, as according to the EU they simply did not know that we would be affected at all. The assumption appears to have been, "Don't you all sell via Amazon or eBay anyhow?" - No we do not!

For any sole trader or micro-business that sells cross-border digital products directly from its own website the initial costs of the changes required to the website are anything up to £4,000 to make the website capable of collecting the proof needed, and even then we cannot guarantee the data that we have to collect from the buyer.

The change was intended to prevent the big guys like Amazon and eBay from routing their sales via the country with the lowest VAT rate (i.e. Luxemburg mainly).  The irony is that the new rules are forcing many of us to sell via the big guys now as they can meet the new rules, whereas we cannot.

Whilst previously we would have had to charge VAT on digital cross border sales at the UK rate only if our turnover exceeded the £81,000 VAT threshold for domestic sales, now we have to charge VAT at the rate in the buyer's country and there is no threshold for digital cross-border sales, so even if we sell a music mp3 or an ebook or a knitting pattern for less than a £1 we have to register under the scheme and collect the VAT and pay it on to the buyer's tax authority.

To do so we have to *prove* where the buyer is based and calculate the VAT rate for that country and charge the buyer the relevant rate for the goods purchased (one of 70+ rates in 28 countries), and then remit the VAT to that country either directly or via one of the MOSS schemes that has been set up by different country tax authorities.

The proof we can accept includes an IP address, but this is not reliable evidence of geographical location in many cases and can be spoofed by buyers or reported incorrectly depending on how the buyer is connecting to the website to buy.

The UK government could unilaterally suspend the new rules until the EU gets the issue sorted and brings in the promised small turnover threshold but despite being asked to do so it has not. The threshold could take a couple of years to arrive as it has to be discussed and agreed by all EU member states, meanwhile we are struggling with trying to comply, or we can simply refuse to sell outside the UK (which also falls foul of another EU requirement about free trade across the EU!)

Meanwhile, you can keep up to date with progress of the threshold over on the website of the EU VAT ACTION CAMPAIGN


50 broken Tory promises - how many more to come?

Since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party my previously politically passive husband has become politically vocal. I think he finally has hope that we will see a change for the better once we can get rid of this Tory Govt. and replace it with a proper real Labour one!

This is one of the posts that he shared recently on Facebook - it sums up more succinctly than I can why the Tory Govt. needs to go!

Here are 50 more broken Tory promises from the first five years of failure in Downing Street:

We will balance the books by 2015
THE TRUTH: Britain still has a budget deficit of £90billion

We will pay down Britain’s debts
THE TRUTH: George Osborne has borrowed over £500billion in five years - more than Labour did in 13

We will get net immigration down to the tens of thousands
THE TRUTH: Net immigration is almost 300,000 per year

No more top-down reorganisations of the NHS
THE TRUTH: £3billion wasted on the biggest reorganisation in NHS history

We will improve your living standards
THE TRUTH: Families £1,600-a-year worse off than in 2010

We will deport more foreign criminals
THE TRUTH: The number of foreign crooks on our streets soars 20%

We will keep our nation’s defences strong
THE TRUTH: Army hacked back by 20,000 troops to its lowest level since the Napoleonic wars

We will not raise VAT
THE TRUTH: VAT hiked to 20%, costing the average family £450-a-year

We will protect the vulnerable from the cuts
THE TRUTH: Cruel welfare sanctions force one million people to use food banks

We’re all in it together
THE TRUTH: Millionaires get a £100,000-a-year tax cut - the poor get the £15-a-week Bedroom Tax

GP access promised 12 hours a day, seven days a week
THE TRUTH: Patients face a 10-day wait to see their family doctor

We will get tough on illegal immigrants
THE TRUTH: Home Office loses track of 174,000 illegal immigrants

We will get tough on tax avoidance
THE TRUTH: The Treasury is still missing out on an estimated £34billion a year

We will stop the closure of A&E and maternity wards
THE TRUTH: Dozens closed or downgraded since 2010

We will cut the number of MPs by 10%
THE TRUTH: Not a single MP has been cut

We will get Britain building again
THE TRUTH: Lowest level of house-building since the war

We will have more small schools with smaller class sizes
THE TRUTH: Number of infants in oversized classes up 200%

We will protect front-line policing
THE TRUTH: 17,000 cops get the boot

We will support families through the tax and benefits system
THE TRUTH: The average family loses £1,100 through tax and benefit changes

We will be the Greenest Government Ever
THE TRUTH: Cameron tells his Ministers to “cut the green cr*p”

We will work towards ending child poverty by 2020
THE TRUTH: 300,000 more kids plunged into poverty

We will enhance the status of teachers
THE TRUTH: Teachers’ pay cut in real terms year after year and their status publicly attacked from Michael Gove

We will revolutionise cancer care
THE TRUTH: The key cancer treatment waiting time target missed for the past four quarters

We will cut the number of highly-paid special advisers in Government
THE TRUTH: Number of special advisers soars by 50%

We will support and improve Sure Start
THE TRUTH: 763 Sure Start centres closed and many more scaled down

We will break down barriers between health and social care
THE TRUTH: Social care funding slashed by £3.5billion as part of attack on town hall budgets

We will restore trust in politics
THE TRUTH: The Tories trouser £30million in donations from hedge funds – which were given a huge tax cut in 2013

We will protect our NHS
THE TRUTH: 40% of NHS contracts handed to private health firms

We will revolutionise prisoner rehab
THE TRUTH: Prison escapes, assaults and suicides all soar as inmates are locked in overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day

We will increase spending on vital flood defences
THE TRUTH: Flood defence spending cut by £247million – and thousands of homes are flooded

We will fight for the union
THE TRUTH: Cameron talks up the SNP to punish Labour and unveils plans to downgrade Scottish MPs at Westminster

We will tackle inequality
THE TRUTH: The richest 1% of Britons now own the same amount of wealth as 54% of the population.

We will treat white collar crime as seriously as other crimes
THE TRUTH: 90% of cyber-crime is allowed to go undetected

No more winter crises in hospital
THE TRUTH: A&E departments in meltdown with one in five patients not seen within the four hour target.

We will invest in our schools
THE TRUTH: Plans to build more than 700 new schools across Britain brutally axed

We will help the disabled into suitable jobs
THE TRUTH: Remploy factories shut down and disabled people subjected to cruel Atos tests

We will make our borders more secure
THE TRUTH: Customs checks for dangerous drugs and weapons scaled back dramatically

We will keep supporting our young people
THE TRUTH: More than 2,000 youth workers axed and at least 350 youth centres closed

We will create security for British businesses
THE TRUTH: HSBC is amongst a raft of UK firms unsettled by Cameron’s EU referendum pledge.

We will not means-test child benefit
THE TRUTH: Child benefit means-tested and then cut for better-off families

We have no plans to get rid of the Education Maintenance Allowance
THE TRUTH: Six months later it is axed completely

We have no plans to get rid of Labour’s Future Jobs Fund
THE TRUTH: Six months later it is axed completely

We will improve Britain’s productivity
THE TRUTH: Productivity is 21% lower than the G7 average

We will deal with long-term unemployment with our ‘Work Programme’
THE TRUTH: More than 650,000 people are left off work for more than a year.

We will bring in 3,000 more midwives
THE TRUTH: Cameron misses his target by almost a third

We will create the “right sort of jobs” to spread prosperity “for the many not the few”
THE TRUTH: 1.7million zero hours contracts handed out in Cameron’s low-pay Britain

No-one will be made homeless by our welfare cuts
THE TRUTH: Rough sleeping up 55% since 2010

We will not allow cuts to front-line services
THE TRUTH: Services are cut across the board, from nearly 500 public libraries to over 1,000 lollipop ladies

We will not cut the NHS
THE TRUTH: The NHS is forced to find £5billion of ‘efficiency savings’ – cuts by any other name

We will have head-to-head TV debates like in 2010
THE TRUTH: Cameron was too chicken to take part

And there will no doubt be more of the same. If you think this is wrong, please join the Labour Party today and help us put things right. https://join.labour.org.uk/


Thursday 15 October 2015

Why we need to rethink how income, employment and the benefits system works

As the Tory Government continues its attacks on working people, and those who cannot work due to disability, illness or other incapacity,  with its swingeing cuts to the Tax Credit system, and the constant derision and stigmatisation of those claiming benefits by both the government and the media, it has made me question the validity of the notion that everyone has to be in paid employment all their adult lives to be a useful member of society.

The Labour Party has always been the party supporting working people, and will always do so. But  we do need to rethink how employment works, as we no longer have the need for those vast employers of the past. Gone are the days of industries employing 20,000 30,000 people. Smaller businesses have become the norm, which has led to a huge pool of people with skills who are no longer able to find employment that utilises those skills.

New technology has changed the whole employment market in the same way as the Industrial Revolution changed it in the 19th century.  The mechanisation of agriculture and of industries such as cloth production caused massive changes from labour-intensive production to a few workers and a lot of machinery.  That machinery required a huge workforce to manufacture the parts and construct the whole. The mechanisation of transport meant we needed vast steelworks, loco works, vehicle construction plants and more to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for boats, trains, buses and cars.

But there is no longer a market for many of the products which were produced in massive factories in the UK. Either they are made more cheaply elsewhere or they are simply no longer required, having been superseded by new products, for example, as the humble typewriter has been replaced by computers, tablets and even smart-phones.  

Expecting every person to be in full employment or working for someone else throughout their life is now unrealistic. Many people no longer work for others but are self-employed, often providing small scale or niche market products or services. According to the government's own Business Statistics, (PDF file) as of  2014, there were 5.2 million businesses in the UK, of which more than 99% are small- or medium-sized businesses  employing  fewer than 249 people. A more surprising figure though is that 5.0 million (96%) were micro-businesses employing 9 people or less. Micro-businesses accounted for 33% of employment and 19% of gross business turnover in 2014. These figures show the huge change in the way in which people are employed in the 21st century, and there is nothing to suggest that the percentage of micro-business employment will not continue to increase. 

The service industries accounted for 73% of businesses, 79% of employment and 70% of turnover whilst the manufacturing sector accounted for only 5% of businesses, 10% of employment and 16% of turnover. 

The Report on Small Firms, 2010-2015 (PDF) , by the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Enterprise, Lord Young, published in February 2015 stated,
"In 2013 there were 2.9 million homebased businesses; an increase of nearly half a million since 2010. They contribute £300 billion to the economy."
These figures also indicate the flaws in the government's Tax Credit changes. They simply do not seem to understand that they are no longer dealing with employment within large-scale industrial employers!  It is this change that needs taking into account by government, instead of sticking to a model of employment more suited to the 1900s than the 2000's. 

Sole traders and self-employed people actually get very little in the way of support from the state benefits system despite paying Income Tax and National Insurance contributions like people in "traditional" employment. There is no provision for sickness or injury benefit or unemployment benefit for self-employed people.  The only provisions are through private insurance policies, so self-employed people pay into the state system and have to pay extra privately to have any safety net and many simply cannot afford to do this.  Tax Credits and Housing Benefits are available to self-employed people on low incomes, but the forthcoming changes to these benefits mean that many will fall outside of the support system provided by Tax Credits and Housing Benefits and will struggle to remain in business and earn enough to provide a level of income commensurate with their housing and living costs. 

It is not good enough that the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that the shortfall will be made up for by the new National Living Wage.
"From April 2016, the government will introduce a new mandatory National Living Wage (NLW) for workers aged 25 and above, initially set at £7.20 – a rise of 70p relative to the current National Minimum Wage (NMW) rate, and 50p above the increase coming into force in October. That’s a £1,200 per annum increase in earnings for a full-time worker or the current NMW.
"The adult NMW rate is currently £6.50. It will increase to £6.70 from October 2015. From April 2016 the premium will come into effect on top of the NMW, taking the National Living Wage to £7.20. The NMW will continue to apply for those aged 21+, with the premium added on top for more experienced workers taking the total hourly rate to the National Living Wage."
The National Living Wage, like the National Minimum Wage, simply does not, and cannot, apply to self-employed people!  There are also concerns that by introducing a new National Living Wage that there will be an increase in job losses and a decrease in working hours, which is counter-productive to the government's stated (but unrealistic) aim of getting everyone into work! 
"It will give a pay rise to six million workers but is expected to cost 60,000 jobs and reduce hours worked by four million a week, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility."
In practical terms, what will happen as the Tax Credits cuts slice into people's incomes, is that there will be less to spend on non-essential buying. The priority of many will have to be paying for housing and food, followed by transport and clothing. Many of those 5 million micro-businesses will be hit by the downturn in their sales which, combined with the National Living Wage, will result in many of them ceasing trading. Those people running micro-businesses and those whom they currently employ will be unemployed, which will simply reduce further their disposable income, that downward spiral leading to mass unemployment and severe hardship for many families. That's austerity in action!

What we need is a radical rethinking of the way in which living is funded, in how employment is created, in how taxes and national insurance are paid, and how the whole benefits syetm is configured.  We need to understand that an economy can only grow and that businesses can only prosper and create more employment if people have sufficient income beyond the essential level needed to cover housing, food, transport costs. We need to consider if a Citizen's Wage as proposed by The Green Party is a viable option. We also need to address the costs that we are faced with - it is no use just tackling unemployment or wage rates without addressing the cost of housing - whether for sale or rent, the cost of transport - whether by public transport or private vehicle, and the cost of energy - whether gas, electricity, or renewable sources. If all these remain high it means that no matter what the National Living Wage is set to there will always be a shortfall and less disposable income to help grow the economy through the myriad of small and micro-businesses this country currently has. 

Creating a sustainable economy capable of creating growth and maintaining incomes depends on a whole integrated package, so that the majority of people in this country benefit instead of just the few at the top of the economic system. It is not going to happen under a government that slashes welfare benefits and laughs whilst people suffer.

Monday 5 October 2015

Don't lose your right to vote!

The changes to the way the Electoral Register (voters roll) is created could see up to 2 million people losing their right to vote from as early as December this year. Individual Voter Registration is being rushed through so everyone needs to ensure they are actually on the Electoral Register.

It's very simply to do, all you need is your National Insurance number, and then go to the Government website https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote and fill in the online form.  If you do not know your National Insurance number go here to find it

Please make sure that everyone in your household does it for themselves too, as it is no longer the responsibility of the head of the household to complete the return on their behalf!




Saturday 3 October 2015

Now which party is undemocratic, remind me again!

It's interesting that Zac Goldsmith was elected as Tory candidate for London Mayor in an election in which the turnout was just 9,227, of which he polled 6,514 votes. The Tory contest was open to anyone on the electoral roll (presumably in the London area) whether Tory party member or not, although non-members had to register for £1 to be able to cast their vote.

Compare that with the Labour candidate for London Mayor election turnout, which was nearly 90,000, which saw Sadiq Khan polling 48,151 votes. The Labour contest was open to Labour Party members, registered supporters, and affiliated supporters within the London area.

The mainstream media had a field day, shrieking that the Labour Party contest was undemocratic as anyone could sign up as a £3 supporter and vote. Not a critical word was said by that same media about anyone being able to sign up for £1 and vote.

Interesting eh? Now which party is undemocratic, remind me again!



Tuesday 29 September 2015

Are we falling through the cracks?

The Labour Party Conference Leader's Speech today makes fascinating reading or listening, depending on how you access it, but one thing jumped out at me as being a significant change from the Labour Party. Labour has long been the party of workers, of employed people, springing as it did from the loins of the early trade union movement. Keeping those roots and that connection is important, but so is moving with the times, and recognising that the era of thousands of workers in massive plants in the UK has gone, and that many people in work are now employed in the service industries or in small businesses, or are self-employed people - who now make up around 14% of all people in work!

Whilst some people are self-employed out of choice, some are so of necessity. Some, like me, live in a rural area where there is not much work and where public transport costs are exorbitant. Some can work limited hours due to childcare issues, some cannot go out to work due to being a carer, or having a disability, or other health issues. That people are self-employed and therefore earning something has many benefits, not all of which are purely financial! Feeling that you can earn your keep, or a part of it, is good for your mental health too. Being able to structure your working hours round caring for your children, your elderly relatives, a disabled partner, all help ease the pressure on families under strain.

Over the past decade or so there has been a lot of encouragement for individuals to start their own businesses. For example, we have been told that the digital economy is growing. More and more shopping is being done online. A whole raft of public services are online. We have been encouraged to get online and do all sorts of stuff, and as a country we have done just that, with 89.90% of us with internet access. Figures from the Office of National Statistics (.pdf, 482kb) state that there are 4.6 million self-employed and sole traders in the UK. That's an awful lot of people who fall outside of the scope of the current welfare state!
Jeremy Corbyn's Leader Speech had this to say about self-employed people:
In my leadership campaign I set out some ideas for how we should support small businesses and the self-employed.  
That’s because one in seven of the labour force now work for themselves.  Some of them have been driven into it as their only response to keep an income coming in, insecure though it is.  But many people like the independence and flexibility self-employment brings to their lives, the sense of being your own boss.  And that’s a good thing.
But with that independence comes insecurity and risk especially for those on the lowest and most volatile incomes.  There’s no Statutory Sick Pay if they have an accident at work.  There’s no Statutory Maternity Pay for women when they become pregnant. They have to spend time chasing bigger firms to pay their invoices on time, so they don’t slip further into debt. 
They earn less than other workers.  On average just £11,000 a year.  And their incomes have been hit hardest by five years of Tory economic failure.
So what are the Tories doing to help the self-employed, the entrepreneurs they claim to represent?  They’re clobbering them with the tax credit cuts.  And they are going to clobber them again harder as they bring in Universal Credit.  So I want our policy review to tackle this in a really serious way. And be reflective of what modern Britain is actually like.
Labour created the welfare state as an expression of a caring society – but all too often that safety net has holes in it, people fall through it, and it is not there for the self-employed.  It must be. That is the function of a universal welfare state. Consider opening up Statutory Maternity and Paternity Pay to the self-employed so all new born children can get the same level of care from their parents.
I’ve asked Angela Eagle, our Shadow Business Secretary, and Owen Smith, our Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, to look at all the ways we can we support self-employed people and help them to grow their businesses.
This is such a significant statement for self-employed people like me. Although we pay our National Insurance contributions and our Income Tax like every other worker, we currently have no support  by way of sickness or maternity benefits. All we have is the red tape of being self-employed under a system designed for big businesses or employed people.  It's time for a change to iron out those discrepancies and to recognise, as Jeremy Corbyn clearly does, that self-employment is an important area that needs to be looked at in depth and some serious answers provided.

Monday 28 September 2015

Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story!

This might come as a bit of a shock to some, but things have changed! It seems that some  of the media are having a problem understanding that. It really upsets the press when change happens, as it upsets all their preconceptions and renders their pre-set texts obsolete, so reporters cannot just churn out the same old garbage - they actually have to investigate, to do research, to find out about the changes. What a shame it is that so much of the mainstream media appear to be incapable of doing that.

Not only are they incapable of doing it, but they also appear incapable of understanding information given, or answers to questions they ask. How many times have we heard a reporter state as fact the a politician said "this", when if you go back and check the source of the story the politician said "that" instead.
Reporters seem to feel that this is acceptable, that twisting someone's words, or putting a spin on it, is what reporters should do. Guess what? They are wrong!


So, if you really want to know what a politician such as Jeremy Corbyn, MP, or John McDonnell, MP, has said, why not read their own words instead of the media's spin or twisted versions of them?  Why not watch them on YouTube and actually hear what they say, rather than accept a reporter's interpretation of what they say?  You might be surprised. You might also find that you agree with Jeremy and John. Now that would make a change!

Jeremy Corbyn's priorities: http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/priorities/
Jeremy Corbyn's articles: http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles/

YouTube interview on C4 by Jon Snow, 16 Sep 2015:


John McDonnell's blog: http://www.john-mcdonnell.net/

YouTube interview on C4 by Jon Snow, 14 Sep 2015: 











Sunday 27 September 2015

Why do women need a separate voice?

Following coverage of the current Labour Party conference has reminded me of my own years attending party and trades union conferences, especially as yesterday was the Labour Women's Conference before the main Labour Party Conference starting today.

Across social media I have seen questions asking why this happens, when there is no equivalent Labour Men's Conference. That's a good question. Perhaps some of my memories are worth sharing to show where attitudes have (or have not) changed in the intervening years and why the Labour and Trades Union movement has long had women-only meetings and shortlists.

Here's one of those memories to begin with...
Many years ago, as a young delegate to the USDAW annual conference, I wanted to speak on the debate about abortion that took place there.

The conference Chair was male, and he called male delegates to speak on the motion. I was sat right on the front row opposite the Chair and every time I could I stood and raised my hand to speak, every time he ignored me and called another male speaker. This despite USDAW being (certainly at that time) a Union of more women than men (something like a 70% to 30% ratio).

Eventually conference delegates decided that I had been ignored long enough and a chant began in the hall, "Call the woman, call the woman, call the woman" and so the Chair reluctantly had to call me to speak. By that time I was hopping mad, and the speech came out in a much more fiery manner than I had originally planned!
The point of the story is that women faced, and possibly still do face, discrimination even within the Labour and trades union movement, so using the women-only meetings and conferences is sometimes their only way to get their message through. That is actually an indictment of the attitude of some of the men in the movement, and until all men and all women regard each other as equals things will not change.

Saturday 26 September 2015

Housing rental costs - how they have changed!

There is an interesting graphic doing the rounds on social media, in the form of a London Underground (tube) map, showing housing rental costs for each station area.  For me it's a real eye opener,  as I lived in London between 1981-1986, and so it's interesting to see how London area rents have rocketed since then.


My flat in Stoke Newington, rented from the London Co-operative Society's property division, cost me all of £12 per week when I moved into it in 1981. Compare that to the one I had left in Kendal which cost me £8 per week, so even then a 50% increase on rentals. Now the difference in rents between here and London is even-more marked.

Stoke Newington isn't served by the tube, but a quick check of estate agents reveals that a one bedroom flat there will cost around £400-£500 per week, whereas you would be paying that per month for the same sort of space in Kendal. So instead of it being a 50% increase of cost, current London v. Kendal rents equate to a 400% increase.

How on earth do young people especially afford that? How does anyone afford those levels of rent? How does that impact on people wanting or needing to move south for work opportunities like I did in 1981?

It brings home to me just how much of an issue is (a) housing costs and (b) the North-South divide in housing issues.  This is why new Labour Party leader,  Jeremy Corbyn, has long been making the point about private rent controls being needed and why housing has long been one of his priorities.




Friday 25 September 2015

Petitions that get results...

Following on from yesterday's post about the use of petitions, I was pleased to receive a response from my local authority, South Lakeland District Council, in respect of a petition on care2.com that I signed back in June of this year.  The petition "Stop housing discrimination against homeless people with pets" called for a rethink in the way that homeless people with pets are dealt with, and a copy of the petition was sent to each local authority.

The response from Cllr Graham Vincent, the council's Portfolio Holder for Health and Wellbeing, thanked me for raising the issue and explained the council's position,  insofar as housing homeless persons meant they often had to share accommodation (I presume this means hostels) and that having pets in such places was not appropriate so the pet was kennelled overnight (presumably at the council's expense.) He also referred to families escaping domestic abuse and that having pets housed with children is not always appropriate.

Cllr Vincent went on to explain that the council was currently revising their housing strategy and that this issue would be looked at as a part of that review, and that he will raise the matter at the regional Homelessness Forum to see if there are other options which may be better.

I have to say that I am delighted to have the reply from Cllr Vincent, and his assurance that he will look at this again.  I shall respond to him and make some comments and suggestions which I hope he may find of use.

Whilst I understand the reasoning behind the council's stance, I do feel very strongly that where a homeless person has been sleeping on the street and their only companion has been a dog, that it is wrong to separate person and dog as part of the rehousing issue. The dog is a vital part of the well-being of that person, possibly their only friend or companion, and once parted both will suffer.

The same can apply to families - if children are forcibly separated from their pets due to homelessness / rehousing, it can simply add to their trauma. Maintaining the continuity and stability of the good things in a child's life is essential when they are faced with domestic violence or abuse issues, as it will help them to cope with the huge changes they are going through.

If the current method of housing homeless persons does not allow for them to keep their pets then we really need to be rethinking how and where we rehouse people.  It's difficult enough being homeless without the distress of losing a loyal and trusted companion also.  I look forward to hearing how my local authority will progress this issue and hope they will be brave enough to consider some alternatives to the status quo.


Thursday 24 September 2015

What use are petitions really?

One of the things I often used to hear was, "petitions are no use, no-one takes any notice of them."  That may have been the case once, but how things have changed. Petitions have become a powerful tool for people concerned about a particular issue. The proliferation of petition sites online, such as change.org, 38degrees.org.uk, avaaz.org, sumofus.org, care2.com has enabled groups and individuals to make a difference by harnessing the power of people worldwide. Organisations which existed before the internet, such as Greenpeace.org, Amnesty.org.uk and Shelter.org.uk, have used online petitions to great effect also.

So, why do they work so well? Basically it's all about publicity. With an online community the news about an issue can go global in minutes, and as fast as the news spreads, so the petitions signatories can respond equally quickly.  The use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter make it easy for a petition to be shared with a huge number of people - very much a ripple effect as each person sharing it casts the ripples further from the source. The power of petitions has been recognised by charities and pressure groups, but is also widely used by individuals raising an issue that they feel strongly about.  

In the UK there is a government petition scheme which any UK citizen can initiate. Once the petition has 10,000 signatories it will be reviewed by the government Petitions Committee and a response issued. If the petition has more than 100,000 signatories it will be debated in Parliament. The biggest problem with the UK gov't scheme is that its petitions can only be signed by UK citizens, so it is of no practical use against global issues or multi-nation corporations.

That petitions do work has been seen by some spectacular climb downs over recent years. That they don't work every time is also true - some politicians seem to make an art form of ignoring them! But it is the case that without them we would have a lot less of a voice, and many injustices would not be corrected. Shaming LEGO into announcing it will not renew its links with oil company SHELL is just one of the many issues which petitioners have influenced vis the internet, another is the ban on the sale of Monsanto's Round Up in the Netherlands.  Petitions for the protection of whales, tuna, rain forests and palm oil, and many other issues have had partial or total success.

One of the most useful aspects of petitions is that they raise awareness among people who would not normally have heard of an issue. The manipulation of news stories via the mainstream media means that often the stories which raise the most public support are never read in the newspapers. Why? Perhaps vested interests. Perhaps not thought to be of sufficient interest. Perhaps media owners oppose that viewpoint. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that petitions give a voice and a strength to ordinary people everywhere in the world. Long may that continue!

Wednesday 23 September 2015

Crossing the floor

If you have, like me, become fed up of the endless #piggate  stories flooding the press and social media, you will be glad to know that today's story has nothing in it about quadrupeds of any type!

Instead, I've been watching the steady climb of  membership figures since the announcement of Jeremy Corbyn as the new Leader of the Labour Party on Saturday 12th September.

An article dated 25 September last year (2014) on opendemocracy.net gace the following figures as having just been published in a House of Commons Library Report:
“Latest estimates suggest that the Conservative Party claimed 134,000 members, the Labour party 190,000 and the Liberal Democrat Party 44,000.*” They also say that, in June, UKIP had 39,000 members.
So how does that compare with the figures now, 12 months down the line?  It's hard to be exact as the latest "official" figures published by the House of Commons Library are dated August 2015, and show as follows: 
According to the latest party press releases and media estimates (at 11 August 2015):
- The Conservative Party has around 149,800 members, as of December 2013.
- The Labour Party has around 270,000 members, as of August 2015.
- The Scottish National Party has around 110,000 members, as of June 2015.
- The Liberal Democrat Party has 61,000 members, as of May 2015.
- UKIP has around 42,000 members, as of January 2015.
- The Green Party (England and Wales) has 61,000 members, as of June 2015.
However, what is clear is that whatever the figure was on 12th September, the Labour Party membership has climbed by more than 62,000 since the leadership election result - that's more than the total number of members that UKIP has, crowed the Independent.

Many of the new members are assumed to be from the 105,598 registered supporters (the £3 voters) signing up as full members, although there is evidence that some new members were not previously registered supporters whilst others have crossed the floor from other parties to join the Labour Party.  The total membership of the Labour Party is now reported in the Independent as approx. 360,000, which is probably more than the Conservative, the LibDem and UKIP totals combined!

So, apart from feeling smug, what should we as a party be asking all the new members to do?   We need action, we need people to spread the word about Labour Party policies, we need people to volunteer to deliver leaflets, attend meetings, organise awareness and fund-raising events, talk to anyone and everyone how a Labour government would result in a better, more socially just and caring society in the UK. How a Labour government would protect and improve the NHS; scrap student fees; bring essential services like the railways back into common ownership (not the same old nationalisation which was top heavy and didn't work);  build affordable social housing so that everyone who needs one can afford a home; by providing protection and support via the welfare system or otherwsie to the old, the sick and to people with disabilities of any kind;  to support small businesses and sole traders who have long-been ignored and neglected by all political parties;  by making our communities safer and giving our young people better opportunities for their futures. These are the policies that we need to explain to our friends, our neighbours and the wider society in which we live. Our vision is for a better future for us all in the UK, rather than the most wealthy 1% being OK and everyone else just getting by or suffering.

If you want to join us you would be very welcome:  https://join.labour.org.uk/ and if you are in the Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency we will probably see you at a local South Lakes Labour event very soon!


Tuesday 22 September 2015

Mutual humiliation and shared secrets

I have just read a really interesting blog-article which outlines not only why the public are finding this week's revelations about the disreputable past of the current PM, David Cameron, so amusing, but also why such groups as the Piers Gaveston and Bullingdon clubs exist at all and what benefits they bring to their members. It is a real eye-opener.

The article also puts forward suggestions about why former PM, the late Margaret Thatcher, took no action when she allegedly knew about paedophile activity amongst people in the public eye, media, politics and the judiciary.

If what this article claims is true, it would appear to me that most of the electors who voted for the Conservatives have been victims of a huge con-trick.

http://theleveller.org/2015/09/british-really-laughing/

Another story in the Mirror tells of a woman who apparently attended one of the drug-fuelled Piers Gaveston parties and one hosted by the "Assassins" - a group described as, "another of these elite Oxford drinking societies."