Why you should vote for development, not aid
contribution byJohn Hilary
How have we allowed aid to be portrayed as the leading issue in international development? In the manifestos by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative, aid is given as the primary factor defining Britain’s relations with the countries of the developing world.
Each party is comfortable talking up its commitment to reaching the UN aid target of 0.7% GNI by 2013. The Green Party, commits itself to giving 1% of GNI as aid by 2011.
Aid is not development. Whatever the relationship between the two, development is determined by historical forces and political choices at a far higher level than aid.
Development NGOs have been successful in lobbying for more and better aid and protecting the aid budget from the cuts which now threaten the public sector. But we must resist any suggestion that aid is the lead issue when it comes to international development.
Instead, we should be looking towards those UK policies which really affect a country’s hopes of forging a path to long-term, sustainable development.
These include policieson trade and investment, which have arguably done more to prevent the world’s poorest countries from developing than anything else over the past 30 years, and where the UK’s track record is appalling.
We need to look at official UK complicity in tax dodging dodging by multinational corporations, facilitated by the City of London and known to cost developing countries anything up to £250 billion a year in lost revenue.
And what about the rights of workers and communities that continue to be harmed by British companies operating or sourcing from overseas?
The damage done as a result of continuing UK arms exports? The grave injustices inflicted on civilian populations through UK foreign policy in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine?
The UK’s support for illegitimate institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO?
The political parties have agreed to devote today, Sunday 18 April, to debating world poverty. We must not allow them to rest easy on their aid commitments while their other policies threaten to condemn hundreds of millions of people to extreme poverty in the long term.
I hope they use this opportunity, and the three weeks still left to polling day, to go beyond aid. Instead, let’s talk – and vote – development.
———
John Hilary is Executive Director of War on Want and is a guest blogger from the Vote Global blog
Knives come out for Clegg as Libdems in first place
According to Mike Smithson, a BPIX / Mail on Sunday poll today shows Libdems pulling ahead of Labour and the Conservatives:
BPIX – Mail on Sunday
LIB DEMS 32%
CONSERVATIVES 31%
LABOUR 28%
But already the knives are coming out for the Libdems via the Tory supporting media.
Here is the Daily Mail playing the class card: Clegg, the panto Yorkshireman: He plays the Northerner, but he’s really from the Home Counties and is as posh as Dave
And the Daily Mail once again: When the Lib Dem leader wasn’t so popular: Nick Clegg admits to falling asleep when his wife went into labour
The News of the World takes a policy based approach: Exposed: LibDem’s mixed messages
IN THEIR desperation for votes this General Election, the Liberal Democrats are willing to say absolutely ANYTHING to get your vote.
For an exclusive News of the World investigation we have trawled the length and breadth of the country, examining the millions of leaflets being shoved through your doors by Lib Dem, volunteers.
In other words: ‘oh shit, we’re fucked‘
In other polling news today:
Sunday Mirror/Independent on Sunday/ComRes: Conservatives 31% (-4), Labour 27% (-2) and Lib Dems29% (+8)
Sunday Telegraph/ICM poll: Conservatives 34% Labour 29% (-2) and Lib Dems 27% (+7).
Wow
The Libdem jump has been bigger than I expected (about 5%), and even though it will fall back slightly, that is still a big jump. The positive news cycle is virtually guaranteed.
Secondly, all polls show Libdems draining support from Tories much more than Labour. That says a lot about how deep their support is – and id definitely good news for Labour.
Lastly – the progressive majority is finally here. It’ll be interesting to see whether Labour enact a scorched-earth strategy (as the Tories are now preparing) or something more coalition orientated.
Abortion Rights’ election briefing; urges action
The campaigning group Abortion Rights has published an election briefing to raise awareness of pro-choice issues.
Recently, David Cameron expressed a desire to cut the abortion time limit to 20 or 22 weeks. But what do your local candidates think?
Using the Abortion Rights website you can find out where your local Parliamentary candidates stand on abortion.
Use their ‘lobby your candidate’ tool to send them an email expressing your views.
They have also compiled an election fact-sheet, with information you can use to canvas, campaign, or simply inform people about abortion policy, and why this issue matters.
Click here to download the fact-sheet
What they are campaigning for:
Protect the investment!
Women needing an abortion in this country are receiving better care than ever before. Access to abortion services has improved enormously over the past decade. Reproductive and sexual health – including contraception and abortion – has been made an NHS priority by this government.• The NHS now pays for 91% of all abortions carried out in England and Wales, up from 75% in 1997
• The teenage pregnancy rate has fallen by over 10% since 1998
• 73% of abortions now take place at under 10 weeks, when the procedure is safest, compared to just 51% in 2002 – a real sign that access has improved and that waiting times have fallen.Make sure your candidates know that these vital improvements and investments must be protected.
Protect the time limit!
In 2008 there was a serious attempt to restrict access to abortion: a small number of anti-choice MPs tried to change the law to reduce the abortion time limit from 24 weeks to 22, 20 or even 12 weeks. They have pledged to re-visit the time limit issue after the General Election – if they have enough Parliamentary support.
The week libertarians started looking like lefties
By now you must have already seen the car-crash of Libertarian Party leader Chris Mounsey being interviewed by Andrew Neil on Daily Politics.
The whole incident has received a rather lot of comment from other bloggers, unsurprisingly, because Mounsey went on to nuke his blog and start afresh.
What I want to highlight here is the reaction that libertarians have when they come across the cold feeling of reality. Two examples:
A few years ago Mounsey used to be vehemently against immigration despite calling himself a libertarian. Like many other loud-mouthed libertarians across the blogosphere, free movement of peoples wasn’t high on their agenda even though they claimed to be highly principled.
That constant rage against immigration came to a rather abrupt end when Mounsey fell in love with, er, an immigrant. Guess what? They found the immigration system to be arcane, really bureaucratic and incredibly difficult to deal with it. It’s intentional see, because they want to make life difficult for people trying to enter the country.
What do you mean the immigration system was gamed to make it hard for people to move to the UK? Mounsey was predictably outraged. Eventually, Bella got through the system (yay!) and Mounsey quietly dropped his opposition to immigration (yay!) and realised the error of his ways (more yays!).
Now let me build on this point.
This week various libertarians are outraged that Mounsey was treated so shabbily on TV. Why ask about his blog and not more about the party’s policies?
Leave aside whether the blog was fair game or not, as it’s already been addressed. What really irked our online warriors was the bastard establishment media and their agenda against a people’s movement. What really annoyed them was that Neil and the media is interested in scandal and not policy!
Wait a second. They sound like lefties.
Why do lefties instinctively want to keep the BBC? It’s not because we want all media to be state-owned or ruled by the political classes. It’s because we’re quite aware that corporate controlled media usually has an agenda that is biased against the little guy, suspicious of grassroots movements and loves sensationalism.
The BBC is far from perfect but at least it is the least worst option. It shouldn’t be following sensationalism and it should try and give voice to a range of ideas and movements. Of course, it doesn’t always do that. But do libertarians think an exclusively corporate media is more likely to do that?
Do they really think that in our over-saturated media world, the industry is interested in discussions of policy and meaning rather than quick sound-bytes about scandal and gossip? Hear that sound? I’m afraid that was reality smacking libertarians in the face again.
Surely, according to their own ideology, libertarians should accept all media have their agenda and deal with it. Why complain? Why not set up your own media?
Sure, those dreams about challenging the establishment with Guido Fawkes as main cheerleader haven’t exactly seem to have worked out, now that he’s pretty much spinning for the Tories 24/7.
But at least when we complain about media bias we are on ideologically firm ground.
All this whining about how the media is biased and only interested in scandal and crap is our job as lefties. Why do you think I get submissions every day of 1000 word essays every day on policy? Because we’re boring people and we want the BBC to be the same.
If the BBC were abolished then the space for marginalised voices wouldn’t be greater it would be much narrower. They’d bring on libertarians on TV solely in the hope they’ll either murder someone live on TV or dance like a monkey.
That’s commercialism for you. That’s the language Andrew Neil, as an arch-capitalist, understands. He ain’t got time for policy and he certainly does not have time for movements that challenge the establishment. Why are they acting all surprised?
Libdems surge by 8pts in latest national poll
YouGov’s daily polling figures tonight (fieldwork 15th-16th April) are:
* Conservative: 33%
* Liberal Democrat: 30%
* Labour: 28%
* Others: 9%
The Liberal Democrats have surged to 30% in the latest YouGov poll, which was conducted entirely after the leader’s debate, pushing Labour down to third place.
This is the highest level of support for the Liberal Democrats YouGov have found since the aftermath of the Brent East by-election in 2003.
The general election will be held on May 6. On a scale of 0 (certain NOT to vote) to 10 (absolutely certain to vote), how likely are you to vote in the general election?
0 – Certain NOT to vote: 3%
1: 1%
2: 1%
3: 1%
4: 1%
5: 3%
6: 2%
7: 4%
8: 5%
9: 10%
10 – Absolutely certain to vote: 70%
Don’t know: 1%
Additional questions
Putting aside your own party preference, who you think had the best second week of the campaign?
Nick Clegg: 59%
David Cameron: 14%
Gordon Brown: 8%
Don’t know: 19%
Yesterday saw the first of the party leaders’ televised debates.
How much difference did the leaders’ debate make to how you will cast your vote at the general election?
No difference – I will vote in the same way as I would have before the debate: 46%
Not much difference – It has made me think again, but I will likely vote in the same way: 22%
TOTAL NOT MUCH/ NONE: 68%
A little difference – I am reconsidering how I will vote having seen the leader’s debate: 19%
A lot – I have changed how I would vote in the light of the leader’s debate: 5%
TOTAL A LITTLE/ A LOT: 24%
Don’t know: 9%
What people are telling YouGov right now:
The only story for today’s leaderboard is Nick Clegg and last night’s leaders’ TV debate. The Liberal Democrat leader has become the fastest moving, highest scoring ‘topic’ ever noted on YouGov’s TellYouGov leaderboard, following last night’s debate. Since his performance (which finished at 10pm last night), he reached a volume score of over 1,000 just before 4pm today, the highest score ever recorded on the TellYouGov leaderboard.
At 8.30pm, just before the debate started, Clegg recorded a sentiment score of 50 and a volume score of 201. At the time of writing his sentiment score is recorded at 747 and volume at 1080, and still rising – an incredible rise of 697 in score and 879 in volume in just 18 hours. And the public response has been overwhelmingly positive, with users, or ‘tyggers’, applauding Clegg’s performance as ‘impressive’, ‘convincing’ and ‘fantastic’. One tygger responded that Clegg has ‘beat both Cameron and Brown in the TV debate – he might just have persuaded me to change my vote’.
David Cameron’s performance was widely lamented as ‘underwhelming’, ‘disappointing’ and even ‘uncomfortable’ and appears to have had only a modest effect on his TellYouGov sentiment score, largely through the lack of people commenting on him.
Equally unimpressive among our panel of tyggers was Gordon Brown, for whom this was, many would argue, a missed opportunity to turn public opinion. Tyggers rounded to condemn his performance as ‘insincere’, ‘misleading’ and one disgruntled respondent viewed his performance as ‘rude and slightly weird’.
Cam’s anecdotal “black man” joined Navy at 10
A constant feature of last night’s Leaders debates was speed with which each belted out anecdotes to support their cases.
Quite early on Cameron cited the story of a “40 yr old black man” he met in Plymouth. Remember this was the question around immigration.
The man joined the Royal Navy 30 years ago? Cameron just makes it up as he goes along doesn’t he?
Hat-tip Political Scrapbook
Why the Tory party’s promise on cancer-screening is empty
It’s not often that you come across a pledge in the election manifesto that genuinely makes you think ‘WTF?’ but, credit where its due, the Tories have managed exactly that by promising to “support the roll-out of screening programmes for common cancers’.
What screening programmes would that be, exactly?
Britain already has a long established breast cancer screening programme which, as I pointed out only recently, the UK’s existing screening programme is about as optimal as its possible to get given the limitations of the tests used in screening.
Its not perfect, and there are some significant issues in regards to informed consent and the disclosure of the potential risks associated with false positives, but otherwise its as good a programme as you’ll find anywhere in the world.
There’s nothing in the currently available evidence to support making any significant changes, least of all extending the scope of the programme much beyond the extension that’s due to come into effect in the next year or so.
For cervical cancer, the UK also has an established screening programme and although current research evidence is a little more equivocal that you might like, it does appear to show that routine screening has significant benefits for women over 25, but not for women aged between 20 and 24.
As with breast cancer, most of the significant issues that arise in cervical cancer screening relate to the reliability of the tests used in screening, which are generally considered to be weak relative to the tests used in other diagnostic fields.
For collorectal cancer, Britain began the roll out of its national screening programme in 2006, so its really far to early to assess the effectiveness of mass screening. As with the other two cancers for which routine screening is available, what we do already know is that the main limitations that will apply to this new screening programme are related to the effectiveness and reliability of the tests used for screening, which are still being assessed.
When the EU last assessed the progress of its member states in implementing screening programmes for these three common cancers, in 2007, only Finland matched the UK’s success in rolling out national, population-based, screening programmes, putting the UK. The rest of Europe was still playing catch-up.
Are there any new screening programmes in the pipeline?
Other than these three existing screening programmes there are two further types of cancer that could be candidates for mass screening.
The first of these is ovarian cancer and there is currently a trial in progress, called UKCTOCS, which will assess the feasibility of routine screening for women aged between 50 and 74. Thus far, the preliminary results of this trial seem promising although, again, the main hurdle that researchers are facing lies in the limited reliability of current tests.
However, the UKCTOCS trial will not be complete until 2014, so there is no prospect of a national ovarian cancer screening programme in the lifetime of the next parliament.
A smaller trial has recently close that, if successful, could lead to a targetted screening programme for women who have a familiy history which indicates that they are at much higher risk of developing ovarian cancer than most women. This trial has yet release any results or indicate when it will report its finding, so its impossible to say whether it will leading to viable programme or whether that programme will be ready to roll out during the next parliament.
And that leaves us with prostate cancer…
Prostate cancer is the other hypothetical option and it can be screened for, but in most men its a form of cancer that progresses so slowly that men are much more likely to die with it than die of it.
Prostate cancer, if it is found, is also eminently treatable, the downside of which being that the existing treatment options tend to produce some pretty unpleasant side effects and have both mortality and morbidity associated with them. Depending on how its treated, common side effects can include everything from incontinence and impotence to through to a significantly increases risk of diabetes, osteoporosis, heart attacks and strokes. This is for a condition that, although it will develop in 1 in 6 men during their lifetime, will kill only 3 out every 100 men who develop prostate cancer.
Dr Richard J Ablin, the doctor who discovered the PSA test that is used to screen for prostate cancer, has stated the popularity of the test amongst American men ‘has led to a hugely expensive public health disaster’ in an op-ed in the New York Times in which he also gave this stark assessment of the reliability of the test:
…the test is hardly more effective than a coin toss. As I’ve been trying to make clear for many years now, P.S.A. testing can’t detect prostate cancer and, more important, it can’t distinguish between the two types of prostate cancer — the one that will kill you and the one that won’t.
So is this all just an empty promise?
Yes. Absolutely.
As far as screening is concerned the UK already has screening programmes in place for the three common types of cancer covered in the Council of the European Union’s 2003 recommendation.
Of the other cancer’s for which a national screening programme is a possibility, one, ovarian cancer, is at least 5-6 years away from producing sufficient trial evidence to verify whether a mass screening programme is even viable.
As for the other candidate, prostate cancer, there’s nothing I could possibly add, at this point, to top Dr Richard Ablin’s assessment of his own discovery:
“I never dreamed that my discovery four decades ago would lead to such a profit-driven public health disaster. The medical community must confront reality and stop the inappropriate use of P.S.A. screening. Doing so would save billions of dollars and rescue millions of men from unnecessary, debilitating treatments.”
So I have to ask again, where are these cancer screening programmes that the Tories are planning to support?
Did Sunday Times mislead over Muslim shoe-throwing case?
Last week a front-page story appeared in The Sunday Times, reporting that apparently the Metropolitan Police had “bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest”.
The incredible claim being made was that police had specifically given the members of one faith group, Muslims, special permission to throw shoes as some kind of “concession”.
A little bit of digging however soon showed the article had some major problems.
First, the focus of The Sunday Times’ piece is one particular prosecution of an individual for violent disorder, following the protest that took place outside the Israeli embassy in January 2009:
Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge of violent disorder against the student because it was “a symbolic” political gesture.
…
A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service admitted this weekend that the police advice to the Downing Street protesters was a factor in the case at Isleworth crown court, west London.
But after I contacted the Crown Prosecution Service myself, I was sent this statement by CPS London Borough Crown Prosecutor Jeetinder Sarmotta:
There is no CPS policy that people who throw shoes, rather than other objects, during demonstrations will not be prosecuted. The CPS makes charging decisions based on the totality of the available evidence.
Mr Salim pleaded guilty to violent disorder by throwing a stick but not by throwing a shoe. We were aware that there was a question over whether or not the police had given demonstrators permission to throw shoes by way of a political statement, but the CPS accepted Mr Salim’s guilty plea on the basis that we could not be certain on viewing the CCTV footage whether the item thrown was a shoe or not.
By accepting the guilty plea we considered that the court would be able to impose a sentence that would reflect the criminality of Mr Salim during the demonstration.
The Times article also omits the issue of the CCTV footage. The CPS prosecutor refers to the shoe-throwing purely in the context of the act being “a political statement”. Nothing about ‘Muslims’ or ‘Islamic sensitivities’.
Chris Holt, the defendant’s solicitor, told me of the wider context for the prosecutions of the Gaza protesters, particularly the fact that “a large number of demonstrators, with no criminal history and even after timely guilty pleas, have received custodial penalties of up to eighteen months”. (Newsnight report).
Targeting Muslims
But there is no mention in The Sunday Times article of these numerous custodial sentences handed down to other protesters. This is a point taken up by ‘The Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign’, in a statement published on their website.
The group says that “rather than ‘bow[ing] to Islamic sensitivities’, the Metropolitan police have done precisely the opposite: targeting for arrest almost exclusively Muslim protesters from amongst the very diverse group who protested outside the Israeli Embassy last year”.
However, returning to the most startling aspect of The Sunday Times’ story, how did the newspaper come to claim that “Scotland Yard” has accepted “Muslims” can throw shoes as a form of protest? There is no doubting the emphasis of the piece. The headline talked of ‘Islamic protestors’, while the article was clear that the “concession” (a term used twice) was to “Muslims” and “Muslim demonstrators”.
Complaint
Musab Younis, a member of the Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign, says that “the article was not only misleading” but also “dishonest”: the article “states the demonstrations in London against Israel’s attack on Gaza were composed of ‘Muslim demonstrators’, when they were in fact made up of an extraordinarily diverse range of people”.
The demonstration on 3 January 2009, when organizers arranged beforehand with the police for a symbolic shoe-throwing outside Downing Street, was indeed coordinated by a variety of groups, including Stop the War, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and CND.
Younis added that with “no response” from the newspaper to their objections, “we have no choice but to file a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission in consultation with our solicitors”, while continuing to “urge The Sunday Times to amend the article”.
We probably haven’t heard the last of this story yet.
Why Clegg and Cameron did well: populism and values
Nick Clegg is certainly the man of the moment in Westminster. All those journalists and politicians snubbing their noses up at the Libdems won’t do so lightly again for sure.
But how exactly did Clegg do so well? He was good on some policy: notably attacking both parties on Trident, on the need for a different approach to law & order, and… some other fluffy stuff that I can’t remember…
And that’s the point isn’t it? By today, most people who would have watched that debate last night would have forgotten 95% of the policies they talked about. It was excellent political theatre, and threw up a few laughs, but we’re not sitting here discussing the policy implications of what they said – we want to know how the voters reacted. And why.
Populism
This was Clegg’s strongest card. He remembered the names of all those who asked questions. He addressed them directly. He didn’t use flowery language.
But most importantly he was constantly exasperated. He pitched himself as being against the other squabbling parties who never reached any consensus.
He berated both of them for saying one thing and doing another (on electoral reform and cleaning up politics), or not doing them at all. At times he went into full drama-mode, showing exaggerated annoyance at ‘typical politics’ of Westminster.
Some may hate it – but Clegg did excellent at playing on the annoyance and exasperation many feel at Westminster politics. He played the underdog. He attacked continuously but in an exasperated sort of way that made the other two look petty.
I think the other smaller parties – especially the Greens could learn a lot from this. Most of the time they lack the ‘fire in the belly’ that Clegg showed last night. The hunger. The sheer annoyance at how things are done. Even if it was partly theatrics – it worked.
Values
I also think Cameron did well in his closing speech. Brown’s speech basically said: ‘stay the course’. Cameron didn’t just say that the Tories had changed (though fairly subtly) – but he went for the I believe in your values line.
That was the only part of the debate that showed a degree of emotional intelligence. People mostly don’t vote on policies (as I keep saying) but on whether they think the politician is like them or understands their concerns/fears/optimism etc.
Cameron is usually distrusted because a large swathe of people feel he’s not like them. He went head on to neutralise that. He tried to assuage their fears that he had different values, and largely I believe it worked.
My feeling is that Brown should have gone more on the offensive on the ‘values’ issue early on. There is still a big percentage of the population who don’t trust the party. That is Cameron’s weak point but Brown failed to exploit it.
By the end I think Cameron pulled it back.
Gordon Brown performed well too. But he didn’t land any killer blows unfortunately.
The question now is: who did Clegg take votes from?
Tonight’s poll: Tories losing hearts and minds
YouGov’s poll tonight: fieldwork 14th-15th April:
* Conservative 37%
* Labour 31%
* Liberal Democrat 22%
* Others 10%
Two negative signs for the Tories today…
Even if I don’t always agree with it, at least its heart is in the right place
Applies more to the Conservatives: 24%
Applies more to Labour: 33%
Applies to both parties: 7%
Applies to neither of them: 27%
Don’t know: 9%
It seems to appeal to one section of society rather than to the whole country
Applies more to the Conservatives: 36%
Applies more to Labour: 19%
Applies to both parties: 26%
Applies to neither of them: 10%
Don’t know: 9%
And something uplifting – Tories have managed to ditch their toxic connotations…?
It seems to have succeeded in moving on and left its past behind it
Applies more to the Conservatives: 29%
Applies more to Labour: 22%
Applies to both parties: 7%
Applies to neither of them: 32%
Don’t know: 10%
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