UK Pirate Party wants your policy ideas
contribution by Phil Hunt
Following on from the Berlin Pirates’ success last month in getting 9% of the vote and electing 15 parliamentarians, Pirate Party UK has launched an open policy consultation.
Anyone can suggest polices and debate the polices that’ve been proposed.
Transparency in government is a core Pirate Party value. Other parties may decide their polices based on what multi-national corporations and big donors want, but the Pirate Party listens to the public and its members.
The consultation lasts until the 3rd of November, after which party members will vote on policies. These policies will form the Party’s platform coming into the 2012 elections for London and Scottish local government.
Were the successes of Pirates in Sweden and Berlin merely one-offs, down to peculiarities in the cultures of their countries?
Or are we witnessing the birth of a new political movement that will become a permanent part of the political scene?
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Phil Hunt is a Pirate Party activist living in Edinburgh. He blogs here
Could ‘digital literacy’ deal with internet conspiracy theories?
contribution by Carl Miller and Andy Ryan
Sidetracking a lesson with an unrelated question is a favoured strategy of the bored student. Allow that discussion to move onto the latest online sensation and the classroom ignites.
Soon a quiet lesson on An Inspector Calls becomes a fiery back-and-forth on the death of Osama Bin Laden, Rihanna’s supposed Satanism and (often the house favourite) the ‘real’ architects of 9/11.
continue reading… »
Why I’m coming out this Sunday
contribution by HeardinLondon
My body is a bit rubbish. Sometimes it does not do the things it is designed to. I have a neurological illness that means some days my legs don’t want to walk, some days my arms aren’t fit for hugging and sometimes I can’t see.
And it’s amazing. It is amazing because it reminds me constantly how astounding the human body can be. It is the key to a treasure chest of reminders of what an incredible structure I inhabit.
Why am I telling you this? Because the reason I have been able to find the glitter in the shit is in grave danger.
continue reading… »
Scientists praised by Osborne slam his policies
The “brilliant scientists” praised by George Osborne in his speech yesterday warned publicly that government cuts and plans for a cap of immigration would damage scientific research.
Professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Noselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics for the discovery of a substance called Graphene.
In his speech, Osborne pledged to “fund a national research programme that will take this Nobel-prize winning discovery from the British laboratory to the British factory floor.”
Last year, Geim and Noselov were amongst signatories to an open letter which warned the plans to curtail the number of migrants coming to Britain from outside the European Union “would damage our ability to recruit the brightest young talent as well as distinguished scientists into our universities and industries”.
The letter added that: “International collaborations underlie 40% of the UK’s scientific output, but would become far more difficult if we were to constrict our borders. The UK produces nearly 10% of the world’s scientific output with only 1% of its population; we punch above our weight because we can engage with excellence wherever it occurs. The UK must not isolate itself from the increasingly globalised world of research – British science depends on it.”
“Without money we won’t be able to attract good people here,” Novoselov also told the Guardian. “The impact is going to be that good scientists will go abroad, especially the young people.”
How the debate on the Robinhood tax is being won
contribution by Owen Tudor
Since the European Commission published its proposals for a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT), the problems that the Robin Hood Tax campaign had in getting the story into the papers – in particular the Financial Times – have melted away.
Battle has clearly been joined.
This is good, because even where the articles are negative, they are underlining some key arguments which favour our campaign.
continue reading… »
What Boris’ speech today won’t say #cpc11
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson is due to give his speech to the Conservative conference today.
These are some of the facts since his administration started that he is highly unlikely to mention in his speech.
On Police cuts
Boris Johnson has cut London’s police by almost 2,000 officers
Over 1,000 locally assigned borough police officers cut in the last year alone
Boris Johnson to halve the number of local safer neighbourhood team sergeants
On Crime
Since Boris Johnson was elected:
Young people (aged 13-24) injured by knives up 34 per cent
Common assault up 8 per cent
Shoplifting up 20 per cent
Bike theft more than doubled – up over 100 per cent
On Tube delays
Tube delays up almost 10 per cent since Boris Johnson was elected
Over 3 million customer hours are now lost every month
On fares
Single bus fare up 56% since Boris Johnson was elected.
Zone 1-4 travelcard up 23 per cent to £42.60 – costing Londoners £416 a year more.
Fares have risen above inflation every year since Boris Johnson was elected.
400 doctors & specialists sign opposing NHS bill
In an open letter to all members of the House of Lords, more than 400 public health doctors and specialists from all over the UK have called for the government’s Health and Social Care Bill to be rejected.
The letter, to be published in today’s Daily Telegraph (below), includes signatories from across the whole spectrum of public health practice, including over 40 Directors of Public Health and over 100 leading public health academics.
The letter states that “the Health and Social Care Bill will erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations” and “will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice”.
They also draw attention to the likelihood of the Bill undermining the country’s overall public health capabilities.
Professor Martin McKee CBE, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said:
This letter demonstrates the widespread recognition within the public health community that this Bill is bad for the NHS and harmful to the overall health of the population.
There is no research evidence that reforms clearly intended to promote commercial competition will improve quality and safety of care. On the contrary, they are likely to lead to higher administrative costs, greater inequity and an erosion of medical ethics and professionalism.
Dr Paul Edmondson-Jones, Director of Public Health in Portsmouth, said:
As public health professionals, we have a duty to promote evidence, effectiveness and equity in health and social care. The Bill, as it stands, is not supported by any such evidence and will simply fragment our system. Evidence from other countries suggests that the proposals are more likely to create more inefficiency and greater cost and more importantly, increase our vulnerability to infectious disease outbreaks and a bigger health divide.
The organisers of the letter now intend to encourage further discussion between public health professionals with other segments of the health professions including the Royal College of General
Practitioners.
From a press release
TEXT OF THE FULL LETTER
Dear Honourable Members of the House of Lords,
As public health doctors and specialists from within the NHS, academia and elsewhere, we write to express our concerns about the Health and Social Care Bill.
The Bill will do irreparable harm to the NHS, to individual patients and to society as a whole.
It ushers in a significantly heightened degree of commercialisation and marketisation that will fragment patient care; aggravate risks to individual patient safety; erode medical ethics and trust within the health system; widen health inequalities; waste much money on attempts to regulate and manage competition; and undermine the ability of the health system to respond effectively and efficiently to communicable disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.
While we welcome the emphasis placed on establishing a closer working relationship between public health and local government, the proposed reforms as a whole will disrupt, fragment and weaken the country’s public health capabilities.
The government claims that the reforms have the backing of the health professions. They do not. Neither do they have the general support of the public.
It is our professional judgement that the Health and Social Care Bill will erode the NHS’s ethical and cooperative foundations and that it will not deliver efficiency, quality, fairness or choice.
We therefore request that you reject passage of the Health and Social Care Bill.
—————–
The full list of signatories will be on the Telegraph website
Labour voters now more sceptical of EU than not
The latest YouGov poll questioning voters attitudes towards the EU show that more Labour voters think the EU has been a negative thing for Britain than a positive.
In total 50% of UK voters think the EU has been a negative thing and just 28% a positive. This at the very least is justification for giving voters an in or out referendum on EU membership.
The left of the Labour in particular have become increasingly estranged with the EU as it has adversely affected British manufacturing and has been perceived to have damaged the viability of the welfare state and put pressure on home grown employment through increased immigration.
Perhaps the biggest incentive for the intellectuals in Labour to become increasingly suspicious of EU membership has been its hegemonic role it has played in facilitating the expansion of capitalism and imperialism at the expense of the environment peace and social justice.
It should not go without saying the the EU has been great for European peace and harmony. It has also helped reduce regional inequality. The introduction of equality (particularly gender, racial and sexual) legislation and the spread of human rights has been an advantage of EU membership.
The flow of information and cultural integration has brought Europe closer together. Some might also argue it has slowed the damage to the environment through European cooperation
If Cameron is as right-wing as Miliband is left, is the press out of touch?
YouGov published an interesting poll yesterday with Channel 4. They start by saying:
As in the past, most voters place themselves at or near the centre. 54% say they are in the centre or ‘slightly’ to the left or right. Just 12% say they are ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ left-wing, and 10% ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ right wing. These figures show why it is important for political leaders to occupy the centre ground.
But that doesn’t tell the full story. The polling also says Cameron is regarded as right-wing on the spectrum as Ed Miliband is seen as left-wing.
continue reading… »
This is how they gerrymander homeless children
contribution by Nathaniel Matthews
Henrietta left her council flat when her husband got a job abroad in Las Vegas. It seemed like a logical choice at the time. They were both going to make it big.
For a while everything was good. Her husband had a dream job, they were going to have a baby.
But when the child came along their relationship crumbled. When her husband stopped paying for housekeeping for his kid, when she didn’t have diapers or food, she realised that this man was no good for her or her baby, so she went home to the UK.
continue reading… »
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