The coming war on affordable housing
Vincent Moss at The Sunday Mirror has revealed government plans to scrap rules insisting that new housing estates are built with a minimum density of homes and that at least 25% of homes are affordable.
This would wreck communities across Britain.
As a resident of Hammersmith this came as a particularly horrifying surprise. Cameron has been closely tracking the radical Conservative initiatives being tried out in their flagship London council, Hammersmith & Fulham.
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Government attacked on NHS database u-turn
The right-wing civil liberties group Big Brother Watch has attacked the government for doing a “u-turn” on medical data storage.
The coalition announced this week it would continue building the ‘Summary Care Record’ database.
The Conservative policy was: ‘A Conservative government would “dismantle” central NHS IT infrastructure, halt and renegotiate NPfIT local service provider contracts and introduce interoperable local systems.’
Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch said:
This is a disgraceful u-turn. The Coalition wants us to believe that they are serious about privacy and civil liberties – this is their first real test, and they have failed it.
The SCR is an unnecessary and intrusive piece of bureaucracy, as well as being wildly expensive. Doctors have managed without it until now. Our research has shown how vulnerable the NHS is to breaches of privacy – this will make things much worse.
Finally, I note that it was “announced” by brief Written Answer, without debate, on the day of the statement made to the House on the Cumbrian shooting, so it didn’t get picked up anywhere. A Jo Moore 9/11 situation writ large, but after weeks in power rather than New Labour’s years in office by the time of Moore’s disgrace. New government, old tricks. No change, and no shame.
Last year the Libdem health spokesperson Norman Lamb had said: “The Government needs to end its obsession with massive central databases. The NHS IT scheme has been a disastrous waste of money and the national programme should be abandoned.”
Now both parties have quietly dropped those commitments.
Is Phil Woolas about to lose his seat?
At BBC North West Arif Ansari asks an interesting question: Oldham East and Saddleworth – back to the ballot box?
It turns out there is a slim chance that Labour MP Phil Woolas’ recent victory could be overturned if the Libdem candidate’s appeal for a second ballot is successful.
The appeal is based on claims in Labour leaflets asking: “Why are the extremists urging a vote for Watkins?“.
[His Libdem opponent] Mr [Elwyn] Watkins believes the leaflet falsely portrayed him as a politician courting votes from militant Muslims; not a group known to be particularly supportive of British democracy.
The Labour leaflet said Mr Watkins was a personal assistant to Saudi Arabian billionaire, Sheikh Abdullah Ali Alhamrani. The leaflet went on to say: “Political donations from overseas are illegal. Even the Ashcroft money can’t match a Sheikh.”
Arif Ansari adds:
It was not entirely clear what Sheikh Abdulah’s interest would have been in Oldham East and Saddleworth. But putting that to one side, the clear impression was that Middle East money was oiling the Lib Dem campaign.
Such an arrangement would have been illegal. Presumably Labour has some evidence for these serious allegations. But I haven’t seen it and Mr Watkins denies being anything other than a full UK taxpayer.
In the end Woolas won only by 103 votes. Did this campaign tactic win at the margins?
Mr Watkins has now petitioned the Royal Courts of Justice, asking for an Election Court to judge if there should be a second ballot.
He argues not only that the allegations were serious and false but that Mr Woolas knew that to be the case.
In legal language, the Liberal Democrats are claiming that Labour breached Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act, 1983. In ordinary language, the Liberal Democrats are claiming that Labour lied to the electorate.
Elections results for that seat
Frank Field’s false crusade against ‘welfare dependency’
You have to hand it to the Tories. Hiring Frank Field as ‘poverty tsar’ to do a seven month study with no implications for the ‘financial’ side of things (e.g. benefits) is a brilliant stroke.
Not only will they be able to parade in their non-partisan laurels when the report is delivered, but it’ll be tweedle-dum to Iain Duncan-Smith’s tweedle-dee.
Banging the education drum will be met with Tory plans to ‘individualise’ education provision by reintroducing credits for kids to go to private schools.
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London pub reported to police for homophobia
Members of LGBT Labour have reported a London pub manager’s refusal to serve their members as a hate-crime to the police.
LGBT Labour reported on Twitter earlier today:
Manager at The Greencoat Boy near Westminster told members he would have refused the #LGBTLabour booking if he’d known it was an LGBT group!
They later said they reported it as a hate-crime and the police were taking statements.
The Greencoat Boy pub is situated on 2 Greencoat place in London.
Various Labour tweeters are now calling for a boycott of the pub.
‘Greencoat Boy’ has become the top trending topic in London already.
Update: Grace Fletcher-Hackwood has pictures from the event, including this one with LGBT members with the police.
She also suggests ways to take action.
Update 2: Michael Cashman MEP has called for a boycott of the pub.
Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls has now called it “really shocking”.
Update 3: The pub has now denied the group were refused drinks because of their sexuality.
A spokesperson for the chain said:
Punch Taverns seeks to provide welcoming venues to everyone. We are shocked and saddened that a group of our guests did not experience this and would like to apologise.
We would however like to stress that this is an isolated incident and is not representative of our commitment to diversity.
We are currently conducting a full investigation of the incident and will report back to the Labour LGBT group with our findings.
Political Scrapbook has the full statement and accuses the pub of hypocrisy.
This government has broken all its promises on spending cuts
The pre-election promises that £6 billion worth of cuts could be easily conjured up from efficiency savings that no-one would notice, that front-line services (whatever they are) would not be hit and that the poor and vulnerable could be protected have all been broken already.
Few will mourn the General Teaching Council or ID cards but cuts to even quite modest programmes such as Every Child a Reader revealed by Nicola break all these promises.
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Tom Watson: leaders should meet real people
Tom Watson MP made an excellent call yesterday.
Writing for Guardian CIF, he says:
I’d love to see Ed Miliband contend with his own Walter Wolfgang moment, as Harold Wilson is seen to do. ”
…
We don’t see that kind of behaviour today because modern politicians do all that they can to avoid their own Mrs Duffy moment. They’re terrified of unscripted interventions. And the nation is losing out as a result.
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This is why I want to see my next leader tested by real people. Labour HQ is organising official members-only hustings. I’ve no doubt that young activists from Compass and Progress will challenge candidates on their vision for a progressive century, but I would like real workers and families express their concerns too. It’s particularly important in this selection because, after all, most contenders are keen to allude to Gordon Brown’s difficulty in this kind of arena.
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I’ve set up a Meetup group [link fixed] for real people to self-organise Labour leadership hustings. You can sign up and find like-minded people who want to organise a hustings meeting in your area.
Spot on. I hope people get involved and do this. This is the kind of debates the Labour party needs.
Peter Tatchell to present film on Pope
Channel Four Television announced yesterday that human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell will present an hour-long documentary on the Pope.
Peter released a statement saying:
My aim is to make a robustly factual programme that explores the Pope’s personal, religious and political journey since the 1930s, as well as the motives and effects of his controversial policies.
I intend to ensure that we hear the voices of the Pope’s defenders, as well as his critics. I would be like to interview the Pope himself. It would be ideal for Pope Benedict to be able to explain himself in his own words. But I doubt that I will be granted an audience.
“This will not be an anti-Catholic programme. I have great sympathy with grassroots Catholics who want a more open, democratic, liberal and inclusive church. The ‘We Are Church’ movement is admirable. I salute it.
The programme will be broadcast shortly before the pontiff’s state visit to Britain in September this year.
We wasted far too much money on feel-good schemes
contribution by Julian Harris
Almost a quarter of a million pounds of “foreign aid” was pledged to a Brazilian-style dance troupe – in Hackney, east London – in 2009.
Given the farcical sound of this scheme, it is little surprise that incoming Conservative Secretary of State Andrew Mitchell had been in power for less than a week before he slashed its funding, declaring a freeze on all similar projects.
Progressives are right to promote awareness of international issues, universal freedoms, and the benefits of development in poor countries. But this is different from a government funding domestic feel-good schemes, and paying NGOs to champion its own policies – a self-serving system which threatens to provoke a reaction against the very causes that progressives support.
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Why is everyone who drinks booze treated the same?
contribution by Planeshift
The recent discussion on the minimum price for alcohol has proven to be hilarious for a further demonstration of the sociological ignorance of Tim Worstall et al, whose approach to the issue is at best naive and at worst dangerous and actually illiberal.
This to social and health policy issues is generally to examine matters from the perspective of examining what the externalities of certain market transactions are, and then ensure the externalities are priced and paid for via a pigou tax.
In fact whenever an externality arises, the preferred solution is a tax.
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