Under-threat workers to lobby MPs today
Hundreds of staff from under-threat government agencies are expected to descend on Westminster today to put pressure on their MPs over the government plan to cut so called ‘quangos’.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union will join colleagues from other public sector unions at a rally that will be addressed by PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka.
They will then lobby their MPs to highlight the important work they do and how the government’s plan to abolish, merge, privatise or drastically alter scores of non-departmental public bodies will make the agencies less effective and less accountable.
Last month the Commons public administration select committee criticised the public bodies bill – which is currently going through parliament and includes the proposal to sell-off publicly owned forests – saying it was being rushed through and that the plan would neither save money nor improve accountability.
There will be a photo opportunity at the protest tomorrow at 12.30pm on Old Palace Yard opposite the House of Lords.
From a press release
Beware: PCC rules your tweets aren’t ‘private’
The Press Complaints Commission made its first ruling about the re-publication of information originally posted on Twitter, yesterday.
In response to complaints about articles published in the Daily Mail and the Independent on Sunday, it said that tweets could not be seen as private by individuals.
The complainant was a civil servant working at the Department for Transport. The articles reported on a number of messages she had posted on her Twitter account about various aspects of, and her feelings towards, her job.
In the complainant’s view, this information was private: she had a “reasonable expectation” that her messages would be published only to her 700 or so followers; she had included a clear disclaimer on her Twitter feed that the views expressed there were personal, and were not representative of her employer.
In their defence, both newspapers argued that the complainant’s Twitter account was not private. The posts could be read by anyone and not just those individuals who actively chose to follow her.
The PCC judged that the publicly accessible nature of the information was a “key consideration”. It also said the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, since any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience.
It also took into account the type of information that had been published by the newspapers, which in this case related directly to the complainant’s professional life as a public servant.
In all the circumstances, the Commission concluded that the newspapers’ actions did not constitute “an unjustifiable intrusion” into the complainant’s privacy.
From a press release
Two graphs that illustrate realities of the big recession
contribution by David Malone
What has been gained these last two years and what has been lost? And how shall measure it value?
Here are two graphs, two measure of one reality. They both measure the huge surge in the number of Americans who rely on Food Stamps to feed themselves and their children. They are from articles both published this week
continue reading… »
Three questions about the dying Big Society
It looks as if the Big Society is dying on its arse. This raises three general questions.
1. What is the relationship between the state and society?
Libertarians, and many non-libertarian Tories, have often thought that – except for a few minimal duties for the state – the two are substitutes, that the state crowds out voluntary or market provision.
continue reading… »
More cuts to Children’s services unveiled
contribution by Anjum Klair
Children and Young People Now reports that Somerset County Council is set to stop funding for 18 youth groups and seven youth centres as part of measures to reduce its spending on youth services by 75 per cent over the next three years.
Out of the 21 council-owned youth centres, seven could be handed over to community groups while 18 community-based groups that are currently supported by council resources could see that funding stopped.
In Northampton, the renowned Pen Green Centre for Children and Families is facing cuts of more than £1m over the next three years under proposals put forward by the Northamptonshire Schools Forum.
Nursery World reports that the proposed cuts, which at £350,000 a year amount to more than 50 per cent of the Corby setting’s core budget, mean that 51 groups for children and families will be cut, along with all after-school provision, year-round services for the youngest children in the nursery, and family support services.
Heather Donoyou, Head of the Pen Green Centre, said,
It is important to know that the budget being cut is not the children’s centre budget that comes direct from Government – it is the social services part of our budget which we have had since the centre first opened. When we became a school, the local authority promised us that this budget would be sustained, and now they are threatening to take away 56 per cent of our funding, which will have huge implications on what we can offer to local people.
Why the student movement in England is essentially dead
There is growing media chatter globally about the “rising anger” of this generation’s youth. Student protests in the UK; uprisings across the Middle East; the rise of India and China; things kicking off elsewhere etc.
But its also too easy to overstate the impact of these changes, especially if the student movement here is anything to go by.
continue reading… »
Support for ‘global day of action for Egypt’
In solidarity, in defiance: global day of action for Egypt
Saturday 12 February 2011, 12pm to 2pm
Trafalgar Square, London
Egyptian Workers have long been repressed under three decades of President Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic rule, suffering from worsening unemployment, particularly among the youth, and the denial of their basic rights at work,
But with the uprising, they are throwing off the yoke of the state-controlled trade union movement, by recently declaring a new and independent national trade union centre.
Stand in solidarity with this new union movement in its calls for democracy, and social and economic justice for the Egyptian people.
Join the global day of action spearheaded by Amnesty International and the International Trade Union Confederation, this Saturday, 12 February 2011 in Trafalgar Square from 12 noon to 2pm.
Please show your solidarity and defiance by wearing black, white or red – the colours of the Egyptian flag
www.amnesty.org.uk/egypt / TUC release
The UK a safe-haven for terrorists? Try war criminals
contribution by Spencer Wright
In a dusty corner of the Coalition’s new Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill lie a series of amendments that really have failed to gain the mass audience they deserve. Hidden away under a rather dimly lit “Miscellaneous” sub-heading, is Section 151 – “Restriction on issue of arrest warrants in private prosecutions”.
The origins of that section lie in events a year ago, when an arrest warrant was issued by a senior judge in Westminster against former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, for her part in the attack against Gaza in 2008/9.
continue reading… »
Hammersmith axes local community centres
Last night, David Cameron’s favourite local council voted to shut 8 community centres, force the possible closure of over thirty community groups and leave 1000’s of the weakest and most vulnerable in the local community without support.
The unanimous decision by the Tory controlled Hammersmith and Fulham council flies in the face of Tory promises about protecting front line services.
The Labour leader of the council, Stephen Cowan said:
Twenty years ago the Margaret Thatcher the leader of the Conservative Party said there was no such thing as society – Tonight her heirs have destroyed much of the local society we had.
The people of Hammersmith and Fulham, who need help, the elderly, the young, the disabled, those who are fighting addictions to drugs have been abandoned by this Tory controlled council. It is a disgrace that the Prime Minister continues to talk about the Big Society while at the same time his own party members slash the fabric of our local communities.
Stephen Cowan and local community activists have vowed to continue the fight for local services and are supporting the national demonstration against the cuts in London on the 26th March 2011. He will also be at the Progressive London session on housing on Saturday February 19th at the TUC.
More details of the H&F cuts here.
‘Data Journalism’ event on Wednesday
A ‘Future Human’ event on Wednesday 9th Feb will shed light on biggest media trend of the moment: Data Journalism.
Guests for the event include Mark Stephens, lawyer for Julian Assange; Ben Leapman, one of the three journalists who broke the MP expenses scandal; and Martin Moore, director of the Media Standards Trust.
The MP expenses scandal of 2009, which was triggered by the Daily Telegraph’s publication of undisclosed expense claims, scorched the British political class. The story had deeper implications though: data journalism had truly broken into the British popular consciousness.
Rather than playing the traditional role of ‘digger’, The Daily Telegraph had paid an unnamed individual for digital files with their journalists acting as curators of the data. It signalled a shift that is redefining journalistic practise in the 21st century, with data-leaking websites like Wikileaks redrawing the very concept of journalism.
Describing most conventional journalists as ‘stenographers of power’, Wikileaks has embraced a hacker mentality and publishes information in its purest form, inviting collaborators to provide analysis and comment. Their whistleblowing platform has been an invaluable tool for political dissidents around the world, but Wikileaks’ code of practise is controversial; after publishing hundreds of thousands of documents pertaining to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, the US government declared Wikileaks a direct threat to the lives of its servicemen.
So it’s clear data journalists are going to change the way that public information is made available, and also change our relationship with the people who govern us – but how? And what are the legal implications?
Will this radical agenda of data transparency lead to greater political freedoms and less corrupt societies, or merely succeed in putting lives at risk? And will the data journalist come to replace the traditional storytelling journalist altogether?
Details
Wednesday February 9, 2011
Main event is 7.00 pm to 9.30 pm, music and networking until late
@ The Book Club, Leonard Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 4RH (map)
Nearest Tube: Liverpool Street, Old Street, Shoreditch Overground
Tickets are £8. www.futurehuman.co.uk
From a press release
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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