#somethingniceforashraf raises more than £22k
One of the most sickening scenes in the riots in London was the video of Ashraf Haziq, a Malaysian student, being mugged by rioters who pretended to help him.
In response, the “Do Something Nice for Ashraf” website was set up by people who were disgusted by the shameful way that he was treated, to raise money to do something nice for him.
This appeal has now closed, having raised more than £22,000 which is, as the organisers say, “a cracking effort from everyone”.
Do Something Nice for Ashraf is one of the main online efforts to help victims of the riots. You can donate to others, including the House of Reeves furniture store, Aaron Biber and Siva Kandiah.
Kids Company founder: cuts contributed to riots
Camilla Batmanghelidjh is the founder of the children’s charity Kids’ Company, which helps tens of thousands of exceptionally vulnerable children. Her work has been praised by David Cameron, she contributed to their Social Justice policy group, her charity was one of the inspirations for the government’s “Big Society” (she was one of the main guests at one of the many launches of the Big Society), and she is an adviser to the Centre for Social Justice, which was set up by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
Civil Society interviewed her yesterday, and here’s what she had to say about the relationship between spending cuts and the riots:
“Youth services were “at breaking point” even before cuts to their funding and were unable to provide the support needed to prevent this week’s riots, according to Camila Batmanghelidjh.
Speaking to civilsociety.co.uk, the founder of youth charities the Place2Be and Kids Company (pictured) said young people need to feel as if they “belong somewhere” where positive behaviour matters.
“If organisations that kids can belong to have been diminished through the cuts and there’s no secure base or a healthy group for kids to belong to then they’ve got nothing to lose.
“The services were at breaking point anyhow, and to be honest with you, most of them didn’t have sufficient resources to deal with these types of kids in the first place.
“Lots of the youth provisions had become very dangerous because they were too understaffed and the kids’ destructive and savage behaviour set the agenda.
“The counter-action coming from these agencies couldn’t be strong enough because it was too under-resourced.”
She added that the government should lay down a vision for disenfranchised young people which should be wide-ranging but should include additional resources for charities.”
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Conservative Home argues that Right wing politicians will only gain a political advantage from these riots if they “win the battle” and defeat “the idea that cuts are to blame for our social crisis”. The New Statesman thinks that “it is too simplistic to blame the coalition’s cuts for the riots”.
But there’s nothing “simplistic” about the analysis of people like Batmangheldjh, which comes from years of experience of working directly with vulnerable young people. And rather than thinking about how his party could exploit the riots to win support, Tim Montgomerie and other Tory politicians should listen to what she is saying.
James Purnell should leave pensioners’ bus passes alone
James Purnell has received plenty of coverage for ippr’s new welfare policy, which is that people who lose their jobs should be able to get interest free loans for up to six months to top up their Jobseekers’ Allowance, paid back when they return to work.
This is meant to be part of “a new centre-left agenda for welfare”. He says it would “give priority to universal services, rather than universal benefits”, and aim to provide “fewer but clearer and more substantive offers that really mean something to people – rather than lots of little things that often don’t”.
But they are deeply misguided on some ideas.
continue reading… »
The advocates of Blue Labour should practice what they preach
It’s been a bit of a tough week for “Blue Labour”, with the discussion having moved on from whether or not its approach should be central to the Labour Party to whether or not there is anything worth salvaging. Although I’m a sceptic of Blue Labour’s approach, I’d like to offer some ideas to help.
My analysis is that the fundamental problem with Blue Labour is not Lord Glasman’s ideas about immigration, nor even Glasman’s “hand grenade” style of debating.
Instead, the problem is that they aren’t behaving in a way which is true to their values.
continue reading… »
Tory MPs welcome “scrap NHS” report
Tory MPs including John Redwood and Dominic Raab have welcomed a new report by the Institute of Economic Affairs, which sets out radical plans to cut public spending, and claims support from 70% of the public. Amongst the proposals which the IEA have suggested are the following winners:
- Introduce “top up fees for schools”, where parents pay around a quarter of the average costs of educating their children, and allow private companies to set up new schools, receive money from the government and make a profit.
- Scrap the pupil premium and Sure Start, reduce the number of nursery places within primary and infant schools, scrap free early education for 2-4 year olds and childcare vouchers, and instead “encourage more private sector provision”.
- Scrap the NHS and replace it with Singapore-style private health vouchers.
- Reverse plans to link the state pension to earnings, and scrap the winter fuel allowance, TV licenses and free bus passes.
- Privatise all social housing stock, and make flat rate housing benefit payments which pay less attention to the cost of housing in different areas.
- Remove tax credits from part time workers, to encourage them to work full time in all the new jobs which the private sector will create.
- Scrap all railway lines which don’t currently make a profit, and phase out all subsidies for bus travel, on the grounds that “Such transfers can be challenged on economic grounds, however, because they redistribute resources from productive individuals to non-productive individuals, thereby hampering the creation of wealth.”
- Introduce VAT on public transport fares, and deregulate the private taxi market so that people who used to use the bus to get around can instead travel by low cost taxi.
- Privatise the motorways and introduce road pricing to charge motorists to use them, and give residents in urban streets the “right to buy” their roads.
- Take an “anti-interventionist” approach to climate change, for example by cutting government spending on tackling climate change but instead imposing VAT on food.
This summary barely scratches the surface, and the full report is here. It is a kind of Encyclopedia Wingnuttia which brings together every half-baked, utopian, daft right-wing libertarian idea into one handy reference guide.
The IEA argue that “in light of public opinion the proposals in our report no longer look so “radical” or “brave”; these are mainstream ideas backed by supporters of all parties.” This is based on a polling question which asks people, “If the Government were to reduce its spending to 30% of national income, the Government would have less money to spend, but each household would get a pony and pay around £7,500 less tax on average. Would you support or oppose this reduction in government spending?”
While we hope that the Tory Party will listen to the IEA and adopt their manifesto in full at the next election, what is perhaps most interesting is that when right wingers talk about “government waste”, it turns out that what they mean are things like the NHS, free nursery, primary and secondary schooling, trains, buses and free use of motorways.
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.
Maude: ‘sacked officials should work for free’
“Public sector workers who have been made redundant should work unpaid as volunteer managers for charities, according to Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
Speaking at a session hosted by Christian charity Oasis in London on Wednesday evening, Maude said many charities had plenty of potential volunteers but were unable to involve all of them because there was a shortage of volunteer managers.
“There will be a diminishing public sector workforce,” he said. “I want to help train some of these people to be organisers and managers of volunteers. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing charities with too many volunteers they can’t use because there is no one to manage them.”
Maude did not say whether the government would fund any training, but said the suggested roles would be unpaid.”
Last August, Francis Maude was asked about what voluntary work he does. He replied, “that is a very unfair question”. It is not known if Mr Maude or any of his colleagues have offered to lead by example, quit their jobs and work as volunteer managers without pay.
A Liberal Conspiracy guide to the “hateful Right”
Matthew Barrett on ConservativeHome wrote an article yesterday about “the hateful Left”.
After a full day’s work, Barrett managed to find nine journalists who are members of this “hateful Left”. We’ve come up with ten members of the “hateful Right” – it took us about ten minutes to compile, and we aren’t even scratching the surface.
If I were a right winger, I would think twice before accusing my political opponents of “spewing poison” or being hateful, particularly if after a day’s work the best haters that I could come up with were Owen Jones, Laurie Penny and a cartoon in the Guardian being mean about Iain Duncan Smith. So here’s a selection of some of the finest right-wing hatred, lies, self-pity and downright ignorance:
continue reading… »
BT: employing disabled people good for business
Tory MP Philip Davies called on Friday for disabled people to be paid less than the minimum wage. The Spectator backed Davies, arguing that:
“Davies is probably right to suggest that disabled people lose out to those who aren’t, wages being kept equal. He might not have the correct solution. He might have pre-empted the response better. But that doesn’t alter the fact that there’s a genuine worry here. And soothing that worry will require discussion, not knee-jerk indignation.”
According to research from Mind, more than 6 out of 10 employers would not consider hiring someone who has a mental health problem. What the Spectator and Davies are doing will reinforce these prejudices on the part of employers, and make it less likely that disabled people will get jobs.
Before spouting off, Davies should have taken the time to familiarise himself with the experience of private sector companies like British Telecom.
Since 2003 BT has provided sustainable opportunities for over 300 disabled people to work within BT through its award winning Able to Work outplacement scheme. Monitoring has shown that disabled candidates performed as effectively – if not better than – their non-disabled colleagues. BT also found that disabled employees remained with the company for longer (67% of disabled people recruited have over one year’s service).
Here’s the BT Director of Policy and People, speaking in 2009:
“The problems that disabled people face has often got little to do with their disability,”
“Many of the barriers disabled people face are external. A diverse workforce can help to access people from different backgrounds, which is a competitive advantage for the organisation.
“Disabled people face hurdles on a day-to-day basis and hence can tackle any challenges and find extraordinary solutions. They have unique perspectives and can change not just what we do but how we do things.
“Employing people with disabilities is not risky, disruptive or expensive – it is just plain business sense. A diverse workforce makes for better business. It is the difference that can make the difference.”
Other parts of the business case for employing disabled people include:
- tapping into a wider range of applicants for job vacancies (research has found that disabled employees are just as productive as their non-disabled colleagues, and have less time off sick, fewer accidents and stay in their jobs longer)
- finding workers who can fill skills gaps in tight labour markets where there aren’t enough ‘obvious’ candidates
- gaining a competitive advantage by having a diverse workforce which can attract a diverse range of customers (there are over ten million disabled people in the UK with spending potential in excess of £50 billion)
- saving money and keeping valuable experience by retaining employees who become disabled whilst working for your business (the Post Office estimates that medically retiring an employee can cost up to £80,000)
- using the experiences of disabled people to understand how your customers think and what drives their spending habits
- improving staff morale and loyalty to a business considered inclusive and representative.
- increasing your retention of staff (Poundland, for example, found that the turnover of disabled candidates recruited is 4%, compared to 48% of non-disabled recruits.)
- complying with existing and emerging legislation and avoiding unnecessary – and potentially costly – charges of discrimination (there is no upper limit on fines for discrimination on grounds of disability)
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Advocates of cutting the minimum wage for disabled people are trying to pretend that this is a debate between the Right who are prepared to raise difficult issues, and “Left-wing hysteria”. But in fact, it is a simple case of “people who know what they are talking about” against “Philip Davies MP”.
Thousands of cancer patients to lose benefits
Research by Macmillan Cancer Support suggested that around 7,000 people who are suffering from cancer will lose an average of £94 per week as a result of the government’s welfare reform bill.
Macmillan will have access to data which isn’t publicly available in calculating these figures. But publicly available statistics from the Department of Work and Pensions’ website seem to support their figures.
As of November 2010, 3,250 people with the IB ICD (disease) code of “Neoplasms” were in the Work Related Activity Group of Employment Support Allowance. A further 9,480 were either at the Assessment phase or at an unknown stage of their claim, and hence are people who might be placed in the Work Related Activity Group in the future. In addition, a further 5,440 people who had submitted claims over the previous three months had the same condition, and over the next few years 1.5 million people who have claimed Incapacity Benefit will be reassessed and moved to Employment Support Allowance, which will include an unknown number of people suffering from cancer.
The government’s own figures also show that it is not just cancer sufferers who will be affected, as a total of 700,000 sick and disabled people will lose out.
David Cameron should have been aware of this issue, as leading cancer charities raised this issue back in February this year.
Even at this late stage, it’s not too late for the Tories and Lib Dems to do the decent thing and drop this cruel measure from their bill.
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» We’re turning The Spirit Level into a film: help us in that goal
» I love the counter-productive attitude of right-wing commentators
» Watch out for the TPA’s report arguing for more cuts tomorrow
» The resurgence of bigoted conservatism in Ireland
» What’s the point of being ‘British’?
» The tragedy behind the Sam Hallam case
» Will JP Morgan be able to walk away from billion dollar losses?
» Labour is now even more reliant on left-wing voters
» We need the minimum wage for under-21s to be raised
» Has Liam Byrne discovered his conscience over disability benefits?
» Why the jobs crisis is far worse than headline figures
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