Mental ill health: the last taboo?

For days, now, I’ve been trying to put down in words what I feel about the Christine Laird case, the civil case currently about to create a legal precedent for suing one’s employees if they dare not to reveal that they have a history of mental ill health. I work in mental health, and what I’ve been hearing everywhere is – well, maybe she wasn’t doing a very good job anyway.

Top Stories and Blog Review – 11th February

1,000 NEW PROTESTORS

Nationwide
Police use new ‘spider’s web’ to stop cars
Synod votes to ban clergy from joining the BNP
Jobcentres new mission to save the middle-class
UK unemployed may top two million

International
The $2.5 trillion bailout plan
Disarray as Israeli election rivals claim victory
Iran hints at US dialogue as it hails the revolution
Vatican buries the hatchet with Charles Darwin
Asian economies collapsing at alarming rate

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Aaron

Spy Blog reports that the Serious Crime Act 2007 is being abused to harass activist site Indymedia.

Sunny has a pop at internet-pest and wannabe Karl Rove [sniggers], Donal Blaney.

Mike Ion is suggesting we abolish prescription charges.

Philosopher’s Tree has an update on the crack-down on photography in public places.

Hagley Road to Ladywood has a video of a Noel Edmond’s rant from his cack new show on Sky. Warning: It’s painful. Apparently, pitchforks and torches are provided for the audience as they leave.

Political Blogging wonders if the bankers appearing before a commons committee could become a problem for No.10?

Thought on New Labour’s blogging operations

First Derek Draper launched Labour List, then Ed Miliband started plugging Labour Space, John Prescott started his Go Fourth campaign/blog, and now Alastair Campbell has joined the fray. You can hardly accuse the Labour party of now ignoring blogs hey?

Note too, that yesterday Huffington Post made history by being the first blog allowed to a Presidential press conference.

What to make of all this? Well, quite a few thoughts come to mind and I’m going to try and keep this as constructive as possible, because though their efforts so far are abysmal, it’s a good thing in my view that the upper hierarchy is trying to engage online.
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The curious case of Hazel Blears, George Monbiot and TWFY.com

An argument between George Monbiot and Hazel Blears is always going to be one which is deep into ‘oh look, they’re both wrong and getting wronger’ territory. They are currently having an entertaining spat in the Guardian. So far, Hazel has called George ‘cynical and corrosive’ and suggested that he’d do more good if he continued the family tradition by standing for elected office as a Tory politician, while George has responded by calling Hazel an unprincipled war criminal. Hopi Sen has already given this an excellent going over, here.

I just want to pick up on one of Monbiot’s points, from his latest article:

“Courage in politics is measured by the consistent application of principles. The website TheyWorkForYou.com records votes on key issues since 2001. It reveals that you voted “very strongly for the Iraq war”, “very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war” and “very strongly for replacing Trident” (“very strongly” means an unbroken record). You have voted in favour of detaining terror suspects without charge for 42 days, in favour of identity cards and in favour of a long series of bills curtailing the freedom to protest. There’s certainly consistency here, though it is not clear what principles you are defending.”

TheyWorkForYou.com is often cited by journalists and commentators on ‘Comment is Free’ alike, and is quite a useful resource. It’s got a section which summarises MPs’ votes on transparent parliament, smoking ban, Iraq war, inquiry into Iraq war, ID cards, foundation hospitals, student top-up fees, anti-terrorism laws, Trident, hunting ban, gay rights and climate change (here’s the one for Hazel Blears, for example). There are some pretty massive omissions there, which undermine its usefulness for assessing the track record of our elected representatives.
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Protect your data – crucial blows the the government argument

This article is one of a series that intends to inform and highlight the issue of Data/Information Sharing as proposed in the Coroners and Justice Bill currently being put before parliament. This is a serious issue for our individual liberties and is one I, and others, will be writing about over the course of the next month or two. If you have not already heard about this bill, please take a look at our analysis of the Coroners and Justice Bill’s contents and learn why you should be concerned by the legislation in its current form.
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In the past week the committee stage has started to take place; a session which involves a small number of interested MPs with the aim of deliberating on the legislation put before them, and listening to the views of experts and affected parties. The intention is that through this fact finding a better bill can be finalised for final debate in the House of Commons. For the purposes of Information Sharing the key witnesses (experts) we are interested in are Liberty, who cast a legal eye on the human rights affected, and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), whose opinion is more practically minded.
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What about the Palestinian right to self-defence?

Israel’s ‘right to self defence’ has been supported, recognised and repeated ad nauseam over the last few weeks. The incessant invoking of this ‘right’ is important for two reasons: one, because of how little thought normally goes into what it actually permits and prohibits; and two because of the notable absence of any backing of a Palestinian right to self defence.

At the very least, given the surface commitment to even-handedness by the likes of the Quartet, surely ‘both sides’ should have their right to self defence affirmed?

But of course, to suggest that the Palestinians have a right to self defence is problematic, because it threatens to show up the approach of the international community to Palestine/Israel for what it is: a duplicitous farce.
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Top Stories and Blog Review – 10th February

THE $1.5 TRILLION STIMULUS

Nationwide
Brown seeks Obama-style bonus cap
Government may offer cash-back for scrap cars
MPs demand apologies from fallen bank bosses
Surge in sex abuse calls to children’s helpline

International
Polls open in Israel’s closely watched elections
Hadron Collider relaunch delayed
Republicans balk but Americans side with Obama
The Taliban in Pakistan are raising U.S. fears

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Douglas Johnson

Stumbling and Mumbling - Democracy and religion both appear to make people happy. Do the two have to be mutuallly exclusive?

Jennie - finds a rather good reason to bash the BBC.

Back Towards the Locus - does not like Obama’s inside-out underwear.

Charles Darwin’s Blog - prefers dinosaurs to the Tories.

Our Kingdom- Time for the taxpayers to make the rules on banks, says Tony Curzon-Price

Why don’t newspapers sell even less?

One of the most unanswered questions concerning the British media is why, when survey after survey suggests that journalists, especially of the tabloid ilk, are trusted only slightly more than estate agents, the papers that lie the most to their readers continue to be most successful.

Last month Edelman found that just 19% trust newspapers in this country, while the latest survey, this time for the Media Standards Trust, found that national newspapers were the least trusted of six institutions and organisation. The police, supermarkets, the BBC, hospitals and banks were all more highly trusted, although they did come second, behind the banks, when asked which should be more strictly regulated.

Why then, when so many don’t apparently trust a word of what they’re reading, do they continue for the most part, to buy the likes of the Mail and the Sun?
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Creeping anti-semitism

A senior British diplomat has been arrested for an anti-semitic rant (via Sid):

The diplomat, 47-year-old Rowan Laxton, allegedly shouted “f***ing Israelis, f***ing Jews” while watching television reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza last month.

He is also alleged to have said that Israeli soldiers should be “wiped off the face of the Earth” during the rant at the London Business School gym near Regents Park on January 27

Disgusting, obviously, and if found guilty then I think he should have no place in the Foreign Office. There’s two points to be made here.

First, I wonder if right-wingers will rush out to condemn the ‘politically correct police’ and defend this idiot’s racist rants. Secondly, there is a opportunity here to convict him under the Race Relations Act and I think it should be pursued.
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Martin Bright joins Spectator

The former political editor of New Statesman, Martin Bright, has started blogging for his former employer’s arch-rival Spectator magazine. In his opening salvo he acknowledges the tension:

So here I am on hostile ground, writing for a readership I barely understand (although I hope we will get to know each other better). British politics is nothing if not tribal and some will see my move to The Spectator as a gross act of treachery, a classic defection in the tradition of my new colleagues Paul Johnson and Melanie Phillips. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. After more than three years in the political editor’s job at the New Statesman it was simply time to move on. I was delighted when the people at Coffee House gave me the opportunity to move my blog onto this site, which has become Britain’s pre-eminent site for political comment. I’d like to think the ideological tension will be creative.

Meanwhile, his new colleague Melanie Phillips is still silent on the Sunday Times revelations that trashed the original MMR controversy.