politics

Postal workers push ahead with strike plans over pay and conditions

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http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/13/postal-workers-strike-ballot-pay-conditions

Postal workers union says staff concerns are about longer term issues not Friday’s 38% rise in the price of free shares

Image of post office van next to postbox

Royal Mail staff are pushing ahead with plans for strikes in the run up to Christmas as the battle over privatisation intensifies.

The Royal Mail’s 150,000 workers were handed £2,200 worth of free shares as part of the privatisation, handing them at least an £800 instant paper profit on the first day of trading.

Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said the 38% rise in value would not make “one scintilla of difference” to employees, who are expected to vote for strike action on Wednesday. Staff are prevented from selling their shares for three years.

The union is planning a nationwide strike as early as 23 October – before balloting for further strikes in the run up to Christmas.

“It is likely to be an all-out strike first, then rolling strikes in the run up to Christmas,” a union source told the Guardian.

The union, which represents more than 100,000 postal staff, had wanted to hold the strike – the first since 2009 – before the privatisation but the government started the sell-off sooner than expected. More than 95% of Royal Mail staff were opposed to the privatisation in a consultative ballot earlier this year.

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[Royal Mail privateers get thousands of pissed-off posties.]

 

Continue ReadingPostal workers push ahead with strike plans over pay and conditions

Michael Gove adviser says genetics are more important than teaching

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/michael-gove-adviser-says-genetics-are-more-important-than-teaching-8876170.html

Dominic Cummings report claims as much as 70 per cent of a child’s performance is genetically derived

Image of Gove with advisor Cummings following[I had better explain: Choosing that genetics instead of teaching determines educational outcomes supports and perpetuates the idea that poor scum are inferior, inadequate and are to blame for their failure to succeed while rich people are intellectually superior and deserve their superior positions in society. He’s saying don’t bother educating the poor: it’s a waste of money. Educate the rich instead.

It’s extremely ridiculous – bordering on insane – but probably goes a long way to explain why Gove is so hated by teachers.]

The most influential adviser to Education Secretary Michael Gove has penned a report in which he states that a child’s genetics are more important than the teaching they receive.

Dominic Cummings’ 250 page private thesis comes weeks before he is to step down from his post after two years at the Department. In it he attacks a fear of elitism and says that billions of pounds have been wasted on pointless university courses and Sure Start schemes for young children.

Having previously advised Gove before the election, his appointment within the department was blocked by Andy Coulson because he was regarded as untrustworthy.

The report includes a claim that as much as 70 per cent of a child’s performance is genetically derived. He also criticises what he calls a “strong resistance” from politicians to accept “scientific evidence” that is “entirely ignor[ed]” when issues such as social mobility are considered.

What he sees as political pressure to fund scheme such as Labour’s Sure Start is also highlighted. He asserts there is “little scientific testing, refinement and changing budgets to reinforce demonstrated success. Therefore billions have been spent with no real gains.“

He suggests the money should have instead been used to “strengthen world-class humanities, maths and science departments”. However, he slams degree courses at what he calls “third-rate higher education institutions” where  “there is a large amount of ‘social science’ work in economics, anthropology, sociology, literary theory and so on of questionable value both from an intellectual perspective and from the perspective of students.”

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingMichael Gove adviser says genetics are more important than teaching

One home in every street at risk of repossession, warns charity

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/one-home-in-every-street-at-risk-of-repossession-warns-charity-8876317.html

Shelter says unemployment and high cost of living are leaving household on a ‘ knife-edge’

Image of terraced houses

One home in every street in some parts of England is at risk of being repossessed, according to a housing and homelessness charity.

Shelter said that unemployment and the high cost of living are leaving many households on a “knife-edge”, and applications made to courts by lenders and landlords to repossess homes in England have increased.

Between July last year and June 2013, Richmondshire, North Yorkshire, saw the biggest increase in possession as claims rocketed by 80.3 per cent.

Newham in East London has the highest number of homes at risk of being repossessed: one in every 35. This translates into one house on every street in the area where a family may be at risk of becoming homeless, Shelter said.

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingOne home in every street at risk of repossession, warns charity

In Theresa May’s surreal world, feelings trump facts

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/12/theresa-may-health-tourism-facts

The home secretary’s claims about health tourists are both wrong and an insult to voters

[Well done by] Nick Cohen

Image of Home secretary Theresa May

When historians of modern folly write their accounts of our capacity to ignore inconvenient truths, I hope they find the space to mention the performance of Theresa May on BBC Radio 4 on 10 October 2013 .

Britain’s home secretary announced that she was cracking down on the “health tourists” who were using Britain’s hospitals for free. The interviewer pressed her. How much money were these health tourists stealing from our pockets? May did not know. The Royal College of GPs, which ought to know, puts the cost at 0.01% of Britain’s health budget – or next to nothing. When the European Commission asked Britain for proof that sly continentals were sneaking into our hospital beds, Whitehall replied that its demand for hard facts was an affront. “We consider that these questions place too much emphasis on quantitative evidence,” it huffed.

Far from being embarrassed, Mrs May was triumphant. Feelings mattered more than facts. Her job as a senior politician with ill-disguised ambitions to become prime minister was to pander to popular prejudice rather than tell the public the truth.

People feel it is unfair that illegal immigrants can use services, she said. They “feel it’s too easy to stay here illegally”. They had the “feeling that people who are here illegally were accessing services”, she continued, before degenerating into a babble of random noise, from which I just about made out that the “people” who had these “feelings” were, of course “hard working”.

In For the Time Being, Auden has Herod explain why he must save the classical world by killing the infant Jesus. If religion triumphed, “Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions… The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age”.

Mrs May can make you feel that way, as, indeed, can an hour spent watching prime-time television or reading the tabloid press. As Ukip threatens its core vote, the Conservatives will spend 18 months trying to flatter the deluded into voting Tory by telling them that they are right to put their “riot of subjective visions” before paltry facts.

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Auden warned that when populist heroes are worshiped, “the general, the statesman and the philosopher become the butt of every farce and satire”. If our statesmen (and women) choose to put feeling and prejudice before thought and evidence, however, a butt is what they deserve to be. Let us hope they become one. Let us hope that the mocking laughter becomes so loud it drives them out of public life.

Continue ReadingIn Theresa May’s surreal world, feelings trump facts

Politics news links

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A selection of links to political news. The lobbying bill discussed in Parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday has not been addressed by corporate media.

Firefighters to stage five-hour strike next week

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“No firefighter wants to strike, and it’s desperately disappointing that governments in Westminster and Cardiff continue to deny reality over pensions costs and the need for a pension scheme that reflects the job firefighters do.

“Firefighters simply cannot be expected to fight fires and rescue families in their late 50s and into their 60s.” …

UK asylum seekers ‘told to prove they are lesbian or gay’

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In the report produced by the Home Affairs Committee, they expressed concerns over the way the UK Border Agency made decisions and highlighted the 30 per cent of appeals against initial decisions approved in 2012.

They noted the 32,600 asylum cases backlogged from 2011 which had yet to be resolved, with some waiting up to 16 years in extreme cases.

They also focused on the way asylum seekers who claim to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex are treated. The report found they faced “extraordinary obstacles” in persuading immigration officers of their case.

In the report, it said: “The battleground is now firmly centred in ‘proving’ that they are gay. In turn, this has led to claimants going to extreme lengths to try and meet the new demands of credibility assessment in this area, including the submission of photographic and video evidence of highly personal sexual activity to caseworkers, presenting officers and the judiciary.”

The committee stressed “it is not appropriate to force people to prove their sexuality if there is a perception that they are gay.”

Its chairman, Labour MP Keith Vaz, told BBC News: “It is absurd for a judge or a caseworker to have to ask an individual to prove that they are lesbian or gay, to ask them what kind of films they watch, what kind of material they read. …

Royal Mail share buyers profit as price soars

… Royal Mail shares, which the government sold at 330p, started trading at 450p on Friday morning and peaked as high as 459p before settling at 445p at 9am.

The steep share price rise will heighten accusations that the government “massively shortchanged” taxpayers by significantly undervaluing the 500-year-old national institution.

Royal Mail’s market value has risen by more than £1.1bn to £4.5bn. The government valued the company at a maximum £3.3bn, and attacked analysts who valued Royal Mail at £4.5bn as “way out”. …

Driving age could be raised to 18 in UK – with a curfew and strict rules for recently-qualified drivers

The driving age in the UK could be raised to 18 and a curfew introduced for newly-qualified drivers, under recommendations put forward in research commissioned by the Government.

Under the proposals, prospective drivers would have to be 17 before they could begin a 12-month “learner stage”, during which they would need to complete more than 100 hours on the road and fill out a log-book recording their progress.

A “probationary” licence – and a mandatory “P” plate to go on their car – would be given only once the driver had turned 18, completed the first stage and passed their tests.

For a further 12 months the young person would be subject to a number of new restrictions, including a curfew from 10pm to 5am unless they were accompanied by an adult over 30, a ban on carrying any passengers at all under the age of 30, and stricter rules on mobile phone use (even hands-free) and alcohol consumption.

Only once all these stipulations were met would a person be granted a full licence and unrestricted driving.

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Energy price rise sparks new political row over power bills

Miliband said the SSE announcement highlighted the need for a price freeze. He tweeted: “New electricity and gas prices announced today show the need to freeze bills.”

In a second tweet, he wrote: “We need an energy market which works for ordinary families and businesses.”

The SSE announcement, which prompted the Tory energy minister Michael Fallon to express his disappointment, comes at a politically sensitive moment on the issue of fuel prices. …

Guardian’s NSA revelations: spies to go under spotlight

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27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
b. This posting satisfies the requirements of a derivative work.

Please be assured that this blog is a non-commercial blog (weblog) which does not feature advertising and has not ever produced any income.

dizzy

Continue ReadingPolitics news links