Birkbeck adopt Living Wage
Birkbeck University has given into campaigners and adopted a London Living Wage for its cleaning and catering staff.
continue reading… »
The case for proportional representation
Jon Cruddas is absolutely right, First-past-the-post actually increases support for marginal parties such as the BNP because it allows Labour to ignore them in constituencies where there’s no real opposition. Some form of Proportional Representation is now desperately needed.
PS: I’m also getting involved in a local campaign to start community organising, to get people involved in the political system. Will post more information about this soon.
Blears’ New Visa Scam
If you’ve not seen the announcement yet, here’s Hazel Blears’ latest wizard wheeze…
People from outside the EU moving to the UK to work or study will have to pay £50 extra for visas to help areas struggling to cope with immigration.
The £70m raised by the two-year scheme, announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, will help fund more police support and translators.
And, a bit of quick stats hacking later, here’s what Blears’ didn’t include in her announcement. continue reading… »
About those scroungers
I’ll try to write more about this later in the week, but I would hope that Amelia Gentleman’s brilliant (and awfully depressing) report into Breadline Britain will add something to the debates on poverty & welfare dependency:
Shopping at Morrisons doesn’t take very long. Louise has a simple formula: don’t buy anything that costs more than £1. This week, the budget bananas are finished, and the regular packet costs £1.29, so she doesn’t buy bananas. The cheap potatoes are also sold out, so she doesn’t buy potatoes. She fills a basket with Morrisons own-brand orange juice, 56p; reduced-sugar jam, 95p; peanut butter, 78p; yoghurt, £1.00; bread, 99p, granulated sugar, 93p; oven chips, 79p; two tins of eight hot dogs at 49p each; one bag of value apples, £1.00. Only the milk, biscuits and the cheese cost more. She ignores the faltering monologue from her son, who has been diagnosed with learning difficulties, just audible from beneath the pram’s hood. “Mum, I want flowers. Please buy flowers. I want the Bob the Builder egg. I want High School Musical chocolates.“
. . .
“It would be nice, on occasion, to buy them something on a whim – treats, cakes and biscuits. But if you do, you know you’re going to have to turn the heating off,” she says. Her face is pallid, and she has grey patches of exhaustion beneath her eyes.She crosses the car park to Iceland to find cheaper bananas (brown and verging on rotten), pizza, cheese spread and chicken pies for £1 each.
“This will easily last me until next week, and there’ll be stuff left over,” she says confidently, although she concedes that things would be better still if she could spare £4 to make a bus trip into the city centre for the weekly Wednesday food handouts by nuns, who usually give her a couple of plastic bags of tins and pasta. Last harvest festival her daughter’s school was collecting for the nuns, so she sent in a few tins she had been given by them, and is half-expecting to see them come back full circle and return to her cupboard.
Do read the rest.
She’s not gone yet, OK!
I know, it’s hardly good form to pile in on the embattled Northern and Shell publishing group, what with the Dumblane story still rumbling…
But I have to pass comment on this week’s copy of OK! Magazine.
THIS week in our special tribute issue we’ve got world exclusive words from Jade Goody and unseen pictures as the brave star clings to life…
Is today’s celebrity culture so sickeningly turbo-charged, that we have “tribute issues” before people have even had the chance to die?
Hell in a handcart people, hell in a handcart.
Top Stories and Blog Review – 19th March
Nationwide
New generation hoping to revitalise Labour
Christian Aid heads climate change march
The rise of the quangocracy
Warning over nuclear submarines
International
Pentagon chief: bin Laden like Unabomber
U.S. plans to ease ban on contacts with Iran
Vatican backtracks over Pope’s condom stance
After Gaza, Israel grapples with isolation
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Aaron
Heresy Corner wonders if the blessed Alan Moore (or more accurately, his artist wife), is in danger of prosecution under draconian new child-p0rn laws. What about teh Manga?
Graham Lineham adds his considerable voice to the anger over Paula Murray’s despicable attack on the Dumblane survivors. Also, did you catch Tim’s epic contribution?
Speaking of Bloggerheads, things are about to go postal.
And if you think we’ve done with dumb-ass predatory rightwing hackery… think again. Alone in the Dark dissects a particularly hateful Littlejohn “column”.
Mick Hartley reports on the morons defending the Pope’s statements on the devil’s rubber.
And finally, Dave Cole informs us that New Mexico has scrapped the death penalty. Hurrah!
What planet is Nick Cohen on?
Sunder Katawala has written a reply to Nick Cohen’s article in The Observer this weekend. In fact, a reply is not really a satisfactory word. Sunder tears apart Nick Cohen’s poorly written article with great force. He completely eviscerates it. If this was Menace 2 Society, which I watched yesterday, Sunder would have taken out an Uzi 9mm and destroyed the whole joint. You get my point.
This has become Nick Cohen’s latest game: to attack the liberal-left by using ‘liberal Muslims’ as his proxy. It would be funny if this wasn’t a national newspaper column expressly aimed at influencing the govenment’s Preventing Violent Extremism strategy. So, let’s play that game.
continue reading… »
Will Barclays’ scam create public anger?
It would be nice to think that with various tax havens having to promise to be rather more transparent in their operations than they have been previously, that the actual businesses which exploit such havens would be following a similar trajectory. The sad reality is that both will continue to get away with it just as they have in the past: when the economy eventually recovers, they will go back to doing what they do best, letting the rich and powerful get away it while castigating the scum at the bottom who dare to fiddle their benefits.
Barclays however hasn’t even bothered with letting it all blow other.
continue reading… »
Top Stories and Blog Review Wednesday 18th March
Nationwide
MPs condemn Barclays gag on Guardian
Poll: Economic recovery could save Brown
Study: Girls do better without boys
Government bids to allay fears over GM food
International
Fury as Shell cuts back on renewable energy
Outcry in Washington over A.I.G. bonuses
The iPhone is gaining some editing skills
Pope’s attack on condoms sickens campaigners
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Andrew Hickey
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and let us know!
Sarah Ismail writes about disability and sexuality.
Andy Worthington has more on the disgusting way accused terrorists are being denied proper justice.
On my own blog I have a post on the necessity of checking facts before starting a campaign.
Stephen at Lib Dem Voice looks at the newspapers’ ideas about what would happen in a hung parliament, and compares them to reality.
Anton Vowl talks about how the Daily Mail doesn’t like migrants being barred from entering. Well, some migrants…
Amnesty have started a campaign to stop the mass executions of 128 people in Iraq.
In US politics Eli at Firedoglake wonders if Obama will ever have the guts for real change.
And finally John Scalzi on what not to call your TV channel, or you can browse through previous Netcasts
Top Stories – 18th March
Nationwide
MPs condemn Barclays gag on Guardian
Poll: Economic recovery could save Brown
Study: Girls do better without boys
Government bids to allay fears over GM food
International
Fury as Shell cuts back on renewable energy
Outcry in Washington over A.I.G. bonuses
The iPhone is gaining some editing skills
Pope’s attack on condoms sickens campaigners
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / coming later
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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