Teenage Pregnancy – It’s the economy, stupid!
Last week, I looked at the some of the evidence for the apparent relationship between socio-economic deprivation and conception/abortion rates for English local authorities and arrived at two main conclusions:
1) There is a strong positive correlation between deprivation and conception rates in under 18′s – the more deprived the area, the higher the conception rate.
2) There is, when you exclude London, a solid negative correlation between deprivation and abortion rates – the less deprived the are, the more likely a pregnant teenager is to terminate their pregnancy.
One question that came up several times in comments was, inevitably, that of why England has the highest conception and abortion rates in Europe.
Part of the answer lies in the fact that one follows the other, if you measure both in rates per 1,000 teenagers but that’s only part of the story.
Relative to much of Europe, England has a fairly modest rate of abortions relative to the annual number of conceptions amongst teenagers.
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Rawnsley was right
So The Observer really rained on New Labour’s parade, deflecting attention away from Saturday’s policy launch and onto whether Gordon Brown is a dominating, paranoid, near-psychopathic bully.
Let’s assume – on the grounds that Andrew Rawnsley is a serious journalist and The Obs continues to keep up the pretence of being a serious newspaper – that the allegations are broadly true.
I don’t disagree that there’s cynical political maneuvering gone on here. Nor that there are partisan interests at play. But nonetheless, it seems that if these allegations are true then now had to be the right time to bring them out.
This is because a significant difference exists between the office of the Prime Minister and ordinary bosses. Namely, a normal supervisor or manager can be sacked for their unacceptable bullying of staff, or an employer taken to court over a lengthy period on harassment charges. Often the process isn’t ideal, but it’s there.
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Watch: Are BNP members joining National Front?
Do Libdems have a counter-narrative to ‘Broken Britain’?
contribution by Jane Watkinson
The Tories are unfortunately good at presenting isolated cases of social hardship as ‘typical’ examples of the ‘dire’ state that our society is in.
Furthermore, their ‘Broken Britain’ narrative worryingly gives them legitimacy for centralised power and controls over the most intimate areas of our life.
As a staunch defender of civil rights and equality, I wonder if the Liberal Democrats would benefit from a campaign that highlighted the inherent contradictions within the Tory outlook.
Take the Conservatives’ views on the taxation involved to ‘fix’ the ‘Broken Britain’. The Liberal Democrats would benefit from contrasting their own progressive taxation promises to cut lower and middle income tax by £700 to the Tories outdated and civil right breaching marriage tax proposal.
How can a party that claims they want to give individuals more responsibility then seek to use the state to promote some type of ‘ideal’ family?
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Mental health mag makes plea for reader support
One in Four magazine, a national magazine written by people with mental health difficulties, is launching a campaign to help stay afloat.
The campaign ‘Help Us Change Minds’ is asking everyone who feels that people with conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression shouldn’t treated as second-class citizens to subscribe to the quarterly magazine.
“We don’t want donations,” says Mark Brown, editor of One in Four who experiences mental health difficulties himself. “We want 2000 people to subscribe to the magazine, which will give us to make our continuing a certainty. The subscription could be for you, a partner, a friend or family member. Anyone who is experiencing mental distress will benefit.”
According to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, one in six UK workers has a mental health difficulty and according to the Royal College of Psychiatrists overall five million people of working age in the UK have a common mental health disorder and just under a million a severe condition. There is a consensus that good mental health is a general public good.
“People with mental health difficulties get ignored and don’t get to speak to a wide public. What coverage there is almost always negative,” says Brown, who is leading the campaign: “This stops people recognising their difficulties and makes them avoid seeking help.”
The magazine is approaching its second birthday and is published by Social Spider CIC, a small London based social enterprise.
It is mainly sold in bulk to large organisations such as NHS Trusts to pass on to people who want and need it but may not be able to pay for it.
According to Brown, the current economic climate has made these large subscriptions difficult to secure, leaving a funding gap that needs to be filled.
“We’re a small team doing something that the NHS or the major charities aren’t doing – getting a magazine out to ten thousand people living with mental health difficulties that gives real advice, support and inspiration.”
“We’ve got this far by working hard, staying independent and putting our sweat into it. If we can’t keep going, a magazine written by people with mental health difficulties that speaks to everyone isn’t going to exist again.”
Earlier this month the magazine held a conference called ‘Talking about mental health – Getting it right’ that featured Alastair Campbell speaking about his own experiences of mental health difficulty.
Click here to join ‘Help Us Change Minds’ campaign and subscribe
Did BBC break guidelines with PM bullying story?
Yesterday evening BBC News lead with the story that members of Gordon Brown’s staff had called the ‘National Bullying Helpline’ on several occasions.
Its chief executive Christine Pratt was responding to Peter Mandelson’s claim that: “I don’t think he so much bullies people as he is very demanding of people.”
She told BBC News this sent out “the wrong message” to others.
She added:
Outright denial is just non-credible in today’s age.
Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown’s office.
Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office.
But wasn’t the organisation breaching its own rules around confidentiality?
BullyingUK certainly thought so, issuing a strong statement condeming NBH’s intervention as “a serious breach of confidentiality” and saying they had had a deluge of complaints via email and Twitter.
Curiously the BBC failed to report that. But more importantly it seems not to have asked questions about NBH itself.
Adam Bienkov at Tory Troll reports:
In fact a quick look at NBH’s website reveals:
- A personal endorsement from Conservative leader David Cameron
- One of their patrons is Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe
- Another patron is Boris Johnson’s Chair of the London Health Authority, Conservative Cllr Mary O’Connor
- They have close ties to Conservative controlled Swindon borough Council.There are also doubts about whether NBH is actually a functioning charity at all.
….
Now this doesn’t seem to be the operations of a national charity to me. In fact just a little more digging tells us that
- The Charity’s website was registered by a “bullying business” selling bullying investigations
- The Charity has referred people who call them to this business
- This business is actually owned by the people behind the charity
- That serious questions have already been asked about this.
And yet the seems to have reported their comments without asking whether the organisation truly functioned as a major, professional anti-bullying organisation.
Nick Robinson later waded into the growing row by trying to address some of the concerns.
But the BBC’s broader output does not give any indication that its journalists adequately screened the charity itself and asked whether it was neutral enough to make such an incredible attack on the PM.
You can complain to the BBC from here
LC Mission Series: part 2 – An insurgency at the gates
Late last year I was invited to speak by the Oxford University Libdems. This is an edited version of what I said, and seeps into much of my thinking.
In 2003 a political operative in the US by the name of Rob Stein made a series of presentations on how conservatives in the US had, over a period of thirty years, built a “message machine” and spent around $300 million a year to promote its agenda.
According to the New York Times the presentations were made to rich political entrepreneurs with a clear message: stop thinking in terms of politics in terms of elections, and focus more on building an infrastructure to support and build political ideas they liked.
Rob Stein wanted to point out how long term investment to ensure that in 10-20-30 years time, the Democrats would be the dominant political force instead of the Republicans.
I’m making this point here, today, in front of this audience, because you may be the future of the Liberal Democrats. And I think it’s time the liberal-left, of which you may be a part of, embraced the necessity and importance of insurgency politics.
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Simon Singh libel case: public meeting
Mathematician and scientist Dr Simon Singh – the man getting sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association after writing about their particular brand of ‘alternative medicine’ – will find himself in the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
The case will be heard by three of the most powerful legal figures in the UK, namely Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger and Lord Justice Sedley.
Given my own impending appointment with Mr Justice Eady over a 2007 post concerning Baader-Meinhof suspect turned Tower Hamlets Tory activist Johanna Kaschke, I am extremely pleased to be one of the speakers at a solidarity meeting for Simon in London on Monday night.
Also on the bill is consultant cardiologist Dr Peter Wilmshurst, who faces a libel action after criticising research by US company NMT Medical, in what is a test case for the freedom of scientists to engage in academic debate.
The other guest is Dr Ben Goldacre, author of the ‘Bad Science’ column in the Guardian, who successfully fought off a libel action from a vitamin manufacturer who promoted his pills to AIDS sufferers in South African townships.
I have over the years shared platforms with many luminaries of the left and the labour movement, including Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Peter Tatchell and Arthur Scargill. But this gathering will be more daunting than even those rallies, not least because I will be the only bleedin’ thicko without a PhD.
The event kicks off on Monday night at 7.00pm, at the Monk Exchange pub in Strutton Ground, SW1. Nearest tube: Victoria. It’s two quid to get in. I’d love it if any Liberal Conspiracy readers are able to get along. Wanna see four guys bricking it at the prospect of being homeless and bankrupt? This is the place to be.
Does Cameron believe in meritocracy? Thought not
The Conservatives always maintain that they are a party of merit not privilege.
People should be judged by how hard they work rather than their background, right? That is, after all, why they’re against any form of positive action.
Except, of course, when it applies to them.
Here’s a little nugget from David Cameron: the PR years:
The manner in which he obtained the job says much about how men of Cameron’s background tend to progress through life. The future Tory leader, whose credentials at Conservative central office were already well-established after periods working for Norman Lamont and Michael Howard, believed a stint in the private sector would benefit his political career.
With no experience outside politics, he did what any old Etonian might do and worked his contacts. The mother of Cameron’s then girlfriend Samantha, Lady Astor, was friends with Michael Green, then executive chairman of Carlton and one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite businessmen. She suggested he hire Cameron, and Green, a mercurial millionaire, obliged. The 27-year-old was duly recruited on a salary of about £90,000 a year (the equivalent of more than £130,000 today).
One former Carlton executive remembers Green often found jobs for family friends and social acquaintances. “At one stage I was asked to find a job for Michael’s daughter and also for Suzie Ratner [daughter of Gerald Ratner, whose jewellery business collapsed after he described his own products as 'crap']. On one hand [Carlton] was kind of a global conglomerate, on the other it was like a family business. It would be ‘my neighbour’s nephew’s daughter’ or ‘someone I met at the synagogue or at Arsenal’ – and not ‘Would you give them a job?’ but ‘Give them a fucking job’”.
Sweet work if you… have the right connections.
(via Next Left)
Here’s another anecdote in the Daily Mail:
When the young Cameron was due to attend a job interview at Conservative Central Office, a phone call was received from Buckingham Palace. “I understand you are to see David Cameron,” said the caller. “I am ringing to tell you that you are about to meet a truly remarkable young man.”
It has been speculated that the mystery call was from Captain Sir Alastair Aird, Equerry to the Queen Mother and husband of Cameron’s godmother. The Airds vigorously denied it.
Others have suggested the caller might have been Sir Brian McGrath, a family friend who was private secretary to Prince Philip. But he, too, though named as a referee for the job, denies it firmly. No matter – the tale provides an illuminating insight into the family’s enviable social standing, and how the ambitious Cameron was helped by well-placed friends and family.
Who says the Tories have ditched identity politics and class war?
Eric Pickles silent on Tory dirty tricks campaign
Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles continues to say nothing about the explosive revelations that CCHQ have have encouraged Tory activists to deliberately disrupt Labour party events.
Sky News today reported that the party is calling on Conservative Future members “to disrupt Gordon Brown’s announcement of Labour’s election slogan”.
In a leaked email to members, chairwoman Sophie Shrubsole said: “CCHQ (Conservative headquarters) have requested that Conservative Future members from across the country gather in Warwick to form our own publicity stunt.
“This will be a sign to the Prime Minister and the Labour Party as a whole, that as Conservatives we are ready for the General Election. It will no doubt act as a demoralising element to Gordon Brown’s trip.”
The story was first leaked by Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard, who published the whole email.
It quotes Sophie Shrubsole as saying she had “been informed by Conservative Head Quarters” of the last minute rally.
Eric Pickles recently said he would sack any party workers involved in dirty tricks during the election campaign.
Paul Waugh points out:
It suggests (assuming it is not a spoof) that the Conservatives are actively planning regular swoops to disrupt Labour events. Most importantly, it shows that CCHQ are directly involved, rather than allowing ‘localism’ to rule….
And yet Eric Pickles has been conspicuously quiet from saying anything on the matter, let alone taking any action on his own words.
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