Just to make ends meet now requires around £18k a year
contribution by Chris Goulden
Since 2008, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has been publishing its annual Minimum Income Standard for the UK, which shows how much money you need for an acceptable standard of living. This standard is based on the items and activities that a cross-section of ordinary members of the public agrees is needed to survive and take part in today’s society.
This year’s update highlights some surprisingly big increases in what people need to earn just to make ends meet.
It is clear that many millions of people in the UK do not manage to reach the standard and – for working families with children in particular – it’s getting much harder to do so.
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Campaign for inquiry into hacking: tomorrow
Journalism professor Brian Cathcart has been working with others, notably the Media Standards Trust, to set up a campaign demanding a public inquiry into the tabloid phone-hacking scandal.
Called Hacked Off, it will launch on Wednesday, he wrote yesterday at the Index on Censorship blog.
The site will have a manifesto, a petition, dozens of distinguished supporters and eventually a programme of public events for the campaign.
He says:
But the case for a public inquiry has become urgent for other reasons than these, because in recent weeks there has been every sign that without one the scandal will be killed off by the year’s end. The civil litigants — the victims of hacking who have sued — are settling, one by one. Often they have no choice because the courts would punish them for holding out. And the criminal prosecutions — if they come — may well be much more peremptory affairs than many expected.
Lawyers following these cases warn that every person charged may plead guilty, just as Mulcaire and royal reporter Clive Goodman did back in 2007. That would mean there would be no trials, just short agreed narratives and brief sentencing hearings. Nothing about the wider issues would come out.
So if you have any interest in knowing the truth about the hacking scandal — and the Dowler allegations demonstrate vividly that we all have such an interest, no matter how innocent and ordinary we may be — then your only hope is a public inquiry.
Labour MP Tom Watson will also hold an event at Parliament tomorrow, as part of the same campaign, to demand an inquiry.
Nadine Dorries claims backing for her campaign but it’s not so simple
Yesterday, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries posted a press release on her blog, claiming that the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) backed the amendment that she and Frank Field MP have put forward.
The amendment calls for ‘independent’ abortion counselling for women who want an abortion, with the aim of excluding respected organisations such as BPAS and others, and is tacked to the contentious Health and Social Care Bill.
She wrote:
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How the Sun is covering Milly Dowler phone-hack
How is today’s Sun newspaper covering the Milly Dowler phone-hacking scandal?
This is how the story looks on Page 2.
hat-tip @SimonNRicketts from last night
Why did Met not know of Milly phone-hacking?
In March this year the Met commissioner John Yates appeared in front of MPs at the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
At the time, Tom Watson MP asked:
Third, we know from the Information Commissioner’s inquiry into the convicted private investigator Steve Whittamore that private information about a family member of Milly Dowler was obtained.
If it transpires from the review of the Mulcaire evidence that, when Sky News were broadcasting it round the clock, Glenn Mulcaire was instructed to hack the phones of the family members of children killed at Soham, would that warrant an adequate use of police resources to investigate it?
John Yates replied:
I am sure it would, but that is the first I have ever heard of that aspect.
via @helenlewis
And yet the Guardian’s own investigation today reports:
The [NotW] newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly’s phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly’s parents also were being targeted.
There’s something very wrong here.
Edinburgh Uncut activists not charged
In a victory for the right to protest against the tax dodging of big business and the rich, charges against Uncut activists in Edinburgh were revealed to have been dropped today. The activists, who were arrested just over one month ago, were today informed by the procurator fiscal that their cases would not be taken forward and they will not have to attend court this week as previously expected.
Two weeks ago Bright Green co-editor Alasdair Thompson, who was the first Uncut activist arrested in Edinburgh, charged with abusive or threatening behaviour under section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act (2010) for holding a banner inside BHS, was told that his case would not be taken to court if he accepted the offer to pay a fiscal fine of £150.
The activists subsequently arrested for the same offence, but charged for a common law breach of the peace, will not have to pay a fine.
Tomorrow, the Defend the Right to Protest campaign will hold a demonstration at 1pm outside City of Westminster Court as the first activists from the Fortnum and Mason occupation face their initial court hearings.
As they say:
Fortnum and Mason are one of many super-rich companies that avoid paying tax. Tax avoidance costs us an estimated £95billion each year, an amount that would pay for the government’s £81billion cuts program and more.
Tax avoiders should be on trial, not protestors who raise awareness of their scams!
Please show support for the defendants and, if you can, attend the demonstration.
Is Ronald Reagan respected on these shores?
Spitting Image – a widely-watched satirical television show of the 1980s – famously suggested that Ronald Reagan fancied Margaret Thatcher something rotten. ‘What a fine lookin’ woman,’ the punch line to one particularly celebrated latex puppet sketch ran. ‘Pity I’m only screwing her country.’
Juvenile sexist witticisms of that kind are usually beneath the dignity of the average smutty schoolboy. But the gag was widely repeated for weeks on end, precisely because it did seem to encapsulate the state of the special relationship. Not for nothing, either, did Labour politician Denis Healey’s jibe that Thatcher was ‘Reagan’s poodle’ score a direct hit.
Today a statue of the former president has been unveiled in his honour in London. So it’s worth recalling that Reagan was not a widely popular figure on this side of the Atlantic during his term in office.
What does the Dilnot Report propose exactly: a primer
contribution by Dr Emma Stone
Today sees the launch of the Dilnot Commission’s report on how to reform the funding system for adult social care. What does it propose, what does it mean?
The key proposal: a social insurance model with an excess
The centrepiece of the reform package is a proposal to share the costs of care in later life between individuals and the state, with individuals paying for their own care until they reach a ‘cap’, after which the state pays for their care.
Boris backs Ed Balls on cutting VAT
Boris Johnson’s column in the Daily Telegraph is focused on the wonderfully wingnutty argument that Andy Murray lost in Wimbledon because Britain’s 50p tax rate meant that he wasn’t incentivised to strive as hard as his rivals from lower tax countries.
This is intended as a warning about how the UK can’t compete internationally with other countries which have lower tax rates on the wealthy.
But he does acknowledge that there is an even higher priority than tax cuts for Scottish British tennis stars:
I am not saying that the 50p rate is the only problem: if we were to cut taxes now, it might be best to start with VAT to get people shopping again.
That echoes the argument made by Ed Balls – that what’s needed is a temporary VAT cut to put more money in people’s pockets, increase consumer confidence, cut inflation and boost the economy.
Boris Johnson is desperately trying to distance himself from the Tories, one minute appealing to his base of wealthy right-wingers, the next backing Ed Balls against George Osborne on tax cuts.
I guess one consolation is that the more time he spends posturing and winding up his rivals for the Tory leadership, the less time he’s got for his other hobbies of putting up tube fares and sacking police officers.
What’s behind Boris’ latest campaign against high-speed rail?
The news that London mayor Boris Johnson has decided he is against the HS2 high speed rail project may have surprised some, but only if they are from out of town – or more specifically not watching events in London’s western suburbs.
Boris has decided that he will only go along with HS2 if it passes under those suburbs, rather than through or over them. He has also suggested that new capacity will be needed on the Tube network, even though it is estimated that HS2 will not increase demand on that network by any more than 2% at busy times.
So why the apparent volte face?
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» 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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