Discussing New "Class" Fluctuations aka 'Chavs'

Suzanne Moore, Guardian Columnist, writes an interesting piece on 'Chavs' in this week's Saturday Guardian on Chavs, that, while eloquent, entirely misses the point of the debate.

Moore's take is aggressive and snide, and fails to come to any conclusions other than Chavs exist and the other classes don't like them.

The Underclass

Using the ubiquitous Lauren from Catherine Tate as a point of reference, she turns the discussion about what constitutes a 'chav' into a discussion on class and aspiration. To me, this is like a GCSE dissertation that would be laughed out of University seminars.

The word 'chav', parethesis required, depicts what Marx referred to many decades ago as the underclass. It is a depiction, in the worst way, of the dregs, scum or plankton of society that fails to aspire, to contribute to society or to function within the wider scale of social class evolution and transition. Therefore the definition 'chav' is simply a new terminology for such a position in society.

This terminology simply refers to a section of society that, Moore rightly states, tend speak a patois of "black", an epitome of confused origins, confused futures and a lack of direction in any area of immensely complicated lives. Social policy is the tip of the iceberg in challenging structural ideologies when dealing with an underclass that creates it's own circular economy separate from any system the government can impose or remove.

While Moore neatly portions 'chavs' into a 'poor' bracket, she fails to observe this is not a new phenomenom. Marx says himself;

This scum of the depraved elements of all classes ... decayed roués, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, brothel keepers, tinkers, beggars, the dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass

This is much as Moore depicts the poor, those who gain no benefits from society, therefore embracing a passive inertia is the most logical conclusion. Why should a convicted criminal seek to be more than he is, when he is discriminated against at every turn; unable to get a bank account, rent other than a council house, locate a job or an education?

Battling Generalisations

Social policy is the real debate. If people are worked against, discriminated against and expected to fall at every turn, they will not develop aspirations that would embody other class structures, from hard-working classes (the new middle class) or the upper middle classes.

The concept of the 'chav' is subject to striking generalisation in an age of austerity (and that's another rhetoric I'm beginning to loathe) with a predominately centre right government who embrace middle class ideology in spite of all the whimperings of the Lib Dems about social mobility.

If social policy made more ways for people to join the social-evolutionary-cycle (I'm sure there's a better expression for that) then the issue of a side-show for "the rich slagging off the poor for being poor". The constant battle those who are raised by single parents, addicted persons, ex-offenders and other so-called scum, then the situation would not seem quite so disparate. But all the time there are such bitter distinctions, such as access to work, the situation will pertain, whether they wear tracksuits or not.

The future of classes

I wonder if Moore reads her own paper. Guy Standing's article on Wednesday discussed The Preclariat, the 'new' class of people whose lives are without stability, who thrive on emotional charge, drift between jobs, aspirations, and have little hope of securing property or security in their lives. This is currently what the underclass have to aspire to.

And on a gender note

Moore's article made me laugh initially, although I couldnt quite reconcile it with The Guardian and it's centre left ideology. However, in retrospect, I observed that every single comparison to the attack on 'Chavs' was based on female examples.

She berates "Lauren", she belittles Katie Price, Kerry Katona and Jade Goody, and she even cites a fear of women as a legitimate example of the middle classes loathing of the underclass representation.

Where are the thuggish footballers that would epitomise the same concepts? What about the satirical take on black patois by Ali G that is such an apt interpretation of the cumulative negative effects of the power of the media?

In spite of being a female author, she choses to belittle the female representation of the underclass in sleb life to demonstrate the worst of the underclass. Apparently it is far worse to be a single mum than a male homeless addict. The females are the ones who take the brunt of the assault of her opinion, her loathing linked directly to the structural ideologies that pertain no matter what generation or class you may belong to.

Were Iceland represented by Honor Blackman, she may have taken a different tact. But Moore choses to put the boot into female aspiration far heavier than she does to the concept of 'chavs' as an ideology. To be a chav is a dire existence, but to be a female one is tantamount to being a devil incarnate.

To further suggest that this is part of a right-wing mentality, thereby potentially seeking to appease her own guilt for processing a right-wing argument in a left wing paper, she is perpetuating the ideology that women should be the subhumans in all class genres.

Democracy in Egypt - The Bigger Picture

Will Egypt be forced to embrace secularism in light of their democratic uprising?

Is one of the inevitable results of a social liberal democracy, embracing freedom of citizens, democratic voting rights and transparency of government a move towards secularisation?

As Egypt, still a storming nation under millitary rule following citizens' successful uprising this year, dissolve into religious clashes, there is a wider context within which we can view social unrest, war and religion.

Christians and Muslims clashed in Cairo, over an issue which is still not clear but seems to be linked to interfaith marriage and religious conversion.

When viewing such clashes from a Western perspective, the drama is shocking, and the resulting deaths more so. I am liberal in that I consider people to be entitled to practice whatever religion they chose, but I have the luxury of choice.

In the West we see democracy as a founding principle of society, forgetting it is a extravagance we have shaped from a mere political foundation where citizens have equal say in governance, to liberal appreciation and understanding of wider democracy in socio-economic, cultural and religious practices.

When second Gulf war commenced, I commented on the imprudence of enforcing democracy on a nation governed by a religion that did not recognise equal rights for citizens. It struck me as being a retrospective mistake, rather like imposing Christianity through the British Empire on aboriginal countries, thereby creating confusion, clashes and potentially war over the principles in a socio-political climate in flux.

As democracy evolves, we now see a good example of how democracy is not merely a political ideology, but shapes an entire culture around rights, entitlement and liberty that have a subsequent impact on the cultural practices of a country.

An even wider picture is what the religious clashes may indicate in the Arab Spring Uprisings as a whole. Egypt was not the first to protest, but was the first leader to submit to the pressure.

With the inevitable removal of Gaddafi in Libya, and subsequent cycles in Yemen, Damascus, Bahraim and the Ivory Coast, are we in fact going to be exposed to more violence in these coutnries as they battle for a wider socio-political understanding of democracy across all strands?

Discussing the Deserving and Undeserving Poor

Much debate has been had in the last week on the "deserving and undeserving poor".

As Stephen Tall puts it, "David Cameron has been pitching to the right-wing nut-job vote in recent weeks", and a brilliant example of this is the amount of people claiming incapacity benefits for alledgedly spurious reasons.

Churning out such debates is a good way to retain traditional Conservative voters, but the subject opens up a kettle of fish for many people.

What is the issue?

The welfare state is there to protect people who cannot work for whatever reason. The state provides this universal benefit to citizens in social solidarity, guranteeing a minimum level of well being. Apparently.

However, the term Social Solidarity means different things to different people.

What is the debate?

Smoking is a classic example, where upon people divide into different camps to debate the subject of smoking related illnesses in full colour.

But smoking is the tip of the iceberg. When one considers smoking to be the most socially acceptable of addictions, introducing illegal addictions is gasoline on a smouldering barbecue.

The difficulty with a welfare state is always exposed when one introduces firstly morality and secondly fault into the debate.

This is where I refer you back to the term "universal". The universiality of Britain's Welfare State should be the founding and ultimate principle. Whether you break your leg horse riding or because of an industrial accident, the welfare state should provide regardless.

The Facts?

The debate, however, is somewhat circumspect when one examines the facts.

People are so het up with the issue of fault, they did not question the facts. Mark Easton made the most brilliant post on the facts which far suppasses my paultry attempts at interpretation.

The truth is, addiction and obesity may make up some of the figures in recipient of Incapacity, however, this number has reduced by a third in the last two years.

And therefore, the debate is almost elementary.

And for good measure

If the welfare state was indeed introduced to remove the stigma of charity, how exactly does one reconcile the Big Society and Localism debates in current politics?

Have we come full circle, to where Charity provisions are acceptable and preferable to the state?

Will we now begin a fresh cycle where pride will build up and people will eventually reject the stigma once again?

Why Do We Even Need Internships?

I'd never heard of internships until I graduated.

Now they seem to be in the news every other day.

When I was 15, we had work experience at school. My dad offered to have me work with him, but I declined, wanting to see what the school got me as it would be a different, more exciting world. It was, I got to work at a K'Nex factory where I basically played with stuff all day.

How did that set me up for life? Well, it didn't.

At fourteen, I was working in a riding stables mucking out, then I got my first paid job in a clothes shop for a tiny £2.50 per hour. I then did the usual rigmarol of waitressing, fast food, and other customer service to fund my room in a shared house so I could do my A-Levels.

Following that, I got a full time job in a wine merchants and put myself through my degree in the evenings.

At no point did I "need" to work for someone for free, nor could I afford to.

Social Mobility

So from a personal point of view, I disagree with both Clegg and Cameron.

I'm not relaxed about internships, I'm positively chippy. Why should people be granted a leg-up in any industry to succeed?

What is wrong with volunteering where your skills are needed?

We've seen the ludicrous furore over Clegg's comments, where most people ignored the fact that it was in spite of his own "leg-up", he was promoting active social mobility.

Now Cameron has jumped in and said he is "relaxed" about internships and social mobility.

This is a great news story. It addresses the differences between the parties without offending the membership of either party, and Downing Street ought to be very pleased with themselves. But more about distractions in the press another day.

Cameron thinks internships are great, having no issue with "giving work experience to personal acquaintances". But, as we know, Cameron thinks nothing of spending £600 on trimming his wisteria, while some of us spend that on a week's rent.

Clegg may think nothing of paying that for his wisteria, but at least he acknowledges the more humble of us with our Lidl shopping.

Do we need interns?

Ultimately, I do not understand why internships exist at all. They are an excuse to exploit those eager to learn, and will always be a luxury of people who can afford to do them without needing to work as well.

The only way addressing internships will affect social mobility is when the government, Blue, Red or Yellow, decides definitively that interns should be paid, at least minimum wage and have protected employment rights.

Anything else will always favour the rich, who do not have to worry about wisteria, and discriminate against the poor, who may not know what wisteria is.

Afterall, you do not see Apprenticeships being offered on a travel-to-work-allowance only.

Now Who's the Nanny State Mr Cameron?

Another little soapbox incident...

Theresa May MP suggested a suitable way to address (falling) antisocial behaviour levels is to remove the offenders' iPods and other items.

I'm sorry? The Tories had the temerity to call Labour the creators of a nanny-state but are now proposing that the government take responsibility for punishing people through removal of personal items?!

Firstly, this measure is clearly aimed at young adults, who make up just 28% of antisocial behaviour offenders. The majority is adults aged 45-60 in neighbourhood disputes. I doubt they would be inclined towards their iPods being taken off them by teacher-like paternalism.

Secondly, and significantly, this is NOT the government's role. It is a knee jerk policy suggestion to appease middle class voters who's fear of crime far outweighs their actual experience of crime.

If anyone should be taking young adults' media devices away for bad behaviour, it should be their parents, not a politician elevated from all direct experience of ASB.

The legal jargon put forward by Judges to reject the policy talks of court seizure being proportionate. I would suggest if ASB has escalated to the extent the offender is in court under threat of ASBO, removing their IPod is going to do very little to reduce their bad behaviour.
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Scathing Review on Labour's Policy and Campaigns

How sweet. Labour have nearly bankrupted themselves by;

(a)charging ludicrously cheap membership fees to convince themselves that people still want to join them after the state they left the country in; and

(b) spending all that money (really, over £650 billion a year on Public Services to implement a mediocracy?!)

As a result, they have attempted to market their severe lack of funds as a "Policy Forum"

This apparently is a way to discuss with party members the policies Labour should be promoting. That is, if they have any.

Judging by the comments I have seen on Labour Leaflets recently, they don't.

So what do Labour represent?

A lot of soundbites have been played today of Labour members complaining about their leadership campaign being about white, middleclass men from Oxbridge.

So if Labour are no longer Blairites, foolhardy opportunists singing to a tune of war and lowest common denominator service delivery, what are they?

Brownites are pretty dead in the water (although I think I liked them best)

So are we left with true socialism? The ragged trousered philosophers in their blue collar jobs?

Nope. Labour appears to be an uninspired, acrimonious bunch of moaners. Led by a man who conived his way to leader by leveraging union contacts, then stabbed them in the back when he got a chance.

And to top it all, they are so lacking in integrity that they have sunk so low as to make stories up when the impetus takes them.

Repugnant Campaigning

Labour appear have a coordinated national campaign to badmouth and effectively libel the Coalition. Which screams of a mature "name calling" response when they are licking their wounds.

Not only do I find their leaflets despicable (coming from a true blue county, I've had very little interaction with Labour Leaflets, that and the fact that "socialist" is a swearword around here), but I feel so angry at their relentless negative campaigning that is casting spurious, illogical and nefarious comments, I feel it necessary to point out a few untruths.

Now, I am sure I will be accused by the red tweeps and bloggers of simply returning the favour, but sometimes, one has to stand up for what they believe in.

A list of lies

#1 Libraries are closing nationwide
True the media have played a part in this. But in some areas, councils have retained all library services, AND, shock horror, EXTENDED the hours!

#2 People employed in the public sector are all losing their jobs
As a Union rep, I've attended many redundancy consultations, but I have yet to see any public sector institution make more than 10% redundancies in 2011.

#3 NHS Privatisation
Oh for goodness sake. The statement it's self is an oxymoron.

I could go on. But my ultimate point is please, please check the facts before you believe any of this nonsense!

Some Thoughts on Cameron's Spring Conference Speech and the Coalition

I'm trying to understand David Cameron's speech. I'm sorry but I'm failing completely.

I cannot get the mindset that sale of arms is in any way justified no matter how much of an "entrepreneur" you are.

Lateral Application of Ideas

I think that the Conservatives are very good at cost-benefit analysis, but completely useless are applying this to any of the system outside of economic. One has to measure up the social responsibility and the social economics of selling arms.

As recently demonstrated in Libya, sale of arms without any thought to the consequences of doing so in a country that is dominated by a dictator is likely to come back to bite you.

The familiar joke during the great Iraq war was that Blair knew that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction because he'd sold them to him.

There is something very unsavoury about a political party that seems to function purely on economic is and with very little reflection on society, community or lateral applications as a whole.

I do hope of the coalition that the Liberal Democrats provide some elements of social responsibility to the financial cut and thrust of the Conservative party. One could argue that the insistence of a pupil premium within Michael Gove's great academy scheme demonstrates this.

One could also argue that the Liberal Democrat refusal to allow funding of more nuclear power stations utilising government and public funds is another strong example.

However, it seems that with arms sales and negotiations, the Liberal Democrats have influenced not a jot

Flawed Argument

Of course, there is great merit in enterprise, however, as the New statesman points out, David Cameron started his speech detailing the enemies of enterprise and declaring war on enterprise before actively promoting it in a "budget growth".

It is one thing to be narrowminded and blinkered when attempting to resolve the economic deficit without looking at the subsequent effects, but it is another thing entirely to be completely contradictory when you're running the country. Perhaps Cameron, in all his Thatcherite glory, misunderstood her quoting St Francis of Assisi and thought she stated "where there is harmony, let us bring discord"

The Mythical Beast

what amazes me is the presentation of ideas the provide great scope to social responsibility and socio-economic factors when applying policy. The Big Society and the Localism Bill could be understood to be empowering people, engaging the public in politics and providing a collective social responsibility for the development of society, community and culture within Britain.

However, it does seem that The Big Society is down to personal interpretation, and David Cameron must be completely sick of talking about it!

How Britain is Failing Their Older People - Sheltered Housing

Resident Wardens have been removed from rented Sheltered Housing and this has left vulnerable, elderly residents to suffer serious consequences

In reading this please bear in mind that approximately 70% of the residents of rented Sheltered Housing are in receipt of Housing Benefit. The remaining 30% are what is termed “self funding”. Problems are arising in the Housing Benefit group and they have a knock on effect for all residents.

Prior to 2003, for those in receipt of Housing Benefit it also paid for the services of the Warden.

In 2002 the Government took out a Judicial Review to determine if it was legal to pay for the Warden from Housing benefit. The answer was it was not. In response the Government split the housing benefit for residents, one portion still paid in Housing Benefit for what is termed “bricks and mortar” . The other portion was called “support services”. This latter portion was re-located into the Supporting People budgets

There are approximately 149 Supporting People commissioners across the country and they are usually located with local government. Inter alia, their remit includes drug addicts and people with learning difficulties. The services provided by Supporting People are needs based, aimed at a specific problem which, when solved, they moves on. This brings Supporting People Commissioners into conflict with Sheltered Housing which is a tenure based support service and is for the life of the tenant.

Rather than amending the Supporting People needs based remit, to accommodate Sheltered Housing, the alternative solution of attempting to engineer Sheltered Housing resident needs to fall into line with Supporting People has become the only option.

Initially Sheltered Housing was ring fenced within the Supporting People budget, but this ceased in 2010 and Sheltered Housing became a part of the annual bidding wars for funds within specific local authorities.

There is a possibility that Housing Providers can opt out of supplying a Warden a service altogether. In the event Supporting People can provide what is termed 'Floating Support'.

This is not an alternative Warden service but is a community wide service. Many residents do not qualify according to the qualifying criterion set by Supporting People and receive no visits at all. In most cases Floating Support is provided on the basis of , usually, a visit once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month. As mentioned before it is only needs based and it is not envisaged that this type of support would be for a period of more than two years.

The contract to furnish Floating Support does not necessarily belong to the providers of Sheltered Housing, it can now be contracted outside of ownership.

Trickery is being used in asking residents to fill in a Support Plan, without discussing the full implications, and this is later used to reduce Supporting People reimbursements to Housing Providers.

Sheltered Housing UK say that residents made their own Support Plan, which consisted of the service on offer to them when they opted to live in Sheltered Housing, and this support is a part of their contract.

Usually Floating Support is managed on a staff rota system, thus its operatives never get to know the people they are dealing with. In Kent, we have heard of one such operative who had one hundred visits per day. Locally they call it the knock and run service.

People who moved into Sheltered Housing, and, according to our statistics many have sold up or given up their own home because they expected the security of a Warden, have virtually been stabbed in the back and they are not normally of sufficient wealth, or health to reverse their choice now.

The providers of Sheltered Housing who, hitherto, gleaned Housing Benefit for the provision of Wardens from the 70% of their residents who received it, have suffered a loss of income. Their response has been to remove or curtail their Warden service, against the wishes of a majority of their residents.

Section 105 of the Housing Act, 1985 calls upon social landlords to hold consultations with their residents before they make changes to the management of the properties they live in. Many Housing Providers did not consult at all, going ahead and removed, or changed Warden duties to suit their profit expectations.

Consultations, on face value many take to mean that some kind of democratic process has, or is to take place, and they are wrong. Consultations cannot be legally enforced, and there is suspicion that some Housing Providers have held them to satisfy the Housing Act, as above, but have absolutely no intention of acceding to any residents views, unless they coincide exactly with the plan they have in mind.

There have been many Parliamentary Questions put by MPs in the past and; to each the Government field the same answer:- The Government cannot control local government and it is up to Local Government Supporting People, and the complainant must approach them.

This is a slight of hand, a fork of tongue, and buck passing. It was the previous Government, but compounded by the present coalition, which produced this legislation and neither of them carried out any impact assessment when they passed the support element of Sheltered Housing over to local area Supporting People, nor did they exercise a common duty of care.

Moreover, Supporting People is funded from central taxation, so it follows that Central Government, have every right to determine how that money is spent, indeed they have a duty to see how it is spent.

In the past, three of these cases have been taken to a Judicial Review, Eastbourne, Barnet, Portsmouth, and each was found against the Housing Provider. Judicial Reviews per se are investigations into the procedural processes which took place, and where these processes are found to be legally incorrect, the Judge can order that they be put right by going back to the beginning. Which was done, but that does not prevent the adjudged against from getting the procedures right and returning to their previous intention.


How the battle is being waged

The Sheltered Housing UK Association was formed at the end of 2008 when it was realised that individual Sheltered Homes throughout the UK were isolated and were being picked off one by one. The objective was to unite them so that they could be informed and form a counter pressure group to the political events which were affecting them.


At the moment we have 43, cross party, Members of Parliament who support us. Both Geoffrey Cox QC, MP, and Margot James, MP, at different times, have obtained Adjournment Debates in the House of Commons on the subject of Wardens in Sheltered Housing.

Last year we presented a 15,188 signature to No 10 Downing Street, calling upon the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown to save Wardens in Sheltered Housing. The number of signatures we obtained were only limited by the number of people fit enough to undertake the task for collecting them. In some places people actually queued to sign the petition. There have been two other demonstrations outside of Parliament and No 10 Downing Street.

We have had letters in The Times Newspaper and articles in The Observer, Independent, Times On Saturday and The Sunday Express; and we are supported by the, targeted at the elderly, magazines 'Yours', and 'The Mature Times'.

We carried out a national survey of residents needs and requirements in Sheltered Housing.

97% said they only moved into Sheltered Housing because of the anticipated Warden service.

91% said they would never have moved in at all if they had known that they would take the Warden away after they had moved in. Most had given up larger than needs housing, sold or rented, to move into Sheltered Housing.

Our Vice Chairman, as a constituent, of David Cameron, sought a face-to-face meeting with the Prime Minister in October 2010, and the 118 stalled Court cases was discussed, at which the Prime Minister seemed concerned. On other matters he agreed to speak with the Secretary of State for the Department of Communities , Eric Pickles MP and, or, Grant Shapps MP, the Minister for Housing on a possible meeting.

This meeting did not occur, and eventually a letter from Grant Schapps to the Prime Minister was copied to our Vice Chairman saying that Sheltered Housing was traditionally funded through Supporting People.

So apparently the Housing Minister was unaware that Sheltered Housing had been traditionally funded through Housing Benefit but more recently levered into the Supporting People budgets. Thus, demonstrated that not only the Housing Minister short on facts, but the Prime Minister has been misled too ! Since then our Vice Chairman has twiced E-mailed David Cameron in connection with his letter, but has not been dignfied with a response.

Cause and Effect

Many said that, where the Warden had been removed, the activities in their Sheltered Housing complex virtually ceased and the residents had become insular.

Deaths may occur in Sheltered Housing at any time, and in any given circumstances.

But, notably a few have occurred where, had there have been an alert site-specific Warden, who is aware of residents habits and normal demeanour, they could have been prevented.

There is no telling how long some of those people remained alive on the floor of their flat before they died alone. In one of the most recent of cases a trail of maggots led to the body being found.

The longest that we heard of a resident on the floor, yet did survive, was four days. How does the Health and Safety Executive stand on this? Clearly if a service is reduced and death comes as a result, then the Health and Safety Executive should be involved.

Along the way we came across solicitor Yvonne Hossack, whom we invited to take on the cases which were presented to us. It is she who brought and won the first three Judicial Reviews.

From the end of 2008, through 2009, we gathered cases where residents wished to bring their housing provider to Court for removing their Warden against their wishes and passed them on to Hossacks. By early 2010 these numbered c.118 cases and this has since grown to c.150 cases from across the country. The sheer magnitude of dissatisfaction is staggering. The c.118 cases were presented to Legal Aid system in early 2010 and were now for 'breach of contract', rather than Judicial Reviews

The distribution of Legal Aid, Family section, is made geographically and a minor fault had been made in submitting the applications by Hossacks, rsulting in the applications being all made out as if they pertained to the Wiltshire budget.

An easy and correctable mistake. A terse letter from the Legal Services Commission, in about late September, noted this and responded that all the cases had been rejected save the one for Wiltshire. In other words there was just one word wrong in the remaining 117 Applications. Their letter continued 'There is no appeal against this decision'.

We found the assumptive divine right implied in this latter wording is unbelievable.

The Legal Services Commission are a public body and they have no powers whatsoever to state that the public cannot appeal against their decisions. They are paid by the taxpayer, and likewise accountable to the tax payer.

The Sheltered Housing UK consequently embarked on a petition to them noting, within it, that residents were aware that murderers, foreign terrorists, prisoners and villains were all entitled and apparently received Legal Aid, even for the right to be called 'Mr' in prison. Yet, these 2000 residents and 117 cases had been rejected, and for the flimsiest of reasons. We pointed out that they, the LSC, had the telephone, fax and the internet to seek corrections to the Applications, and a bottle of Tippex did not cost a lot. A little applied common sense costs nothing at all !

Under the Freedom of Information Act I asked the LSC how many other solicitors applications had they rejected on the basis of a word wrong in the document and with the added words there is no appeal against this decision. I asked them for their response to the petition as well. Their reply was that the petition letters they had received from residents across the country would make no difference to their decision and they declined to answer the other FOI questions on the basis that they were sub-judice and could harm their commercial operations to reveal them.

Commercial operations ? They are a public body, any operations they indulge in are de facto 'public operations'.

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This briefing is provided by Sheltered Housing UK Association, Registered Charity Number 1137806

In short, we are failing our older people.

More than 500,000 people in the UK reside in Sheltered Housing.

In 2012, there will be more people aged 50 or above than under. These people may need the temporary and reassuring care of a warden, a cost saving measure in comparison to individual care budgets, and shown by studies to reduce the need for and subsequent time spent in a Care Home.

People who move in to Sheltered Housing often come from Council Housing, thereby freeing up two, three and four bedroom houses for the 2 year + waiting lists of families needing somewhere to live.

People who move into Sheltered Housing are less isolated than those who live alone or in changing neighbourhoods. Their mental health, their well being, and their capabilities increase with the reassuring presence of a warden in Shelteres Housing.

But Older People are not demonstrators. They cannot invade Conservative Headquarters and throw fire extinguishers to make their points. They have health problems to worry about.

And yet our country is denying them resident wardens on a technicality.

And as a result, those approaching old age are refusing sheltered housing due to the lack of wardens, which is costing the government more in Supporting People grants, in wasting properties that could house families and in shifting costs to other agencies.

When a fire alarm goes off in a Sheltered Unit now, instead of the Warden recognising it is Mrs Smith burning her toast, the fire engine has to come out.

If Mr Brown takes a fall, he has to call an ambulance. If he can get to the phone of course.

We need more support to help support these people and stop treating our Older People as if they are invisible.

Sheltered Housing UK is seeking donations to help fund cases, seeking people to help collect FOI requests from their local authorities and to help us continue to reach out to people in Sheltered Housing.

Why I Loathe The X Factor - A Christmas Special

I'll be honest. I loathe the X Factor and everything it stands for.

The X Factor is simply a modern paradigm of Social Control.

It's bad for society, bad for morality, bad for politics and democracy and just plain insulting.

The X Factor embodies the ultimate acheivements of a Marcuse scheme of social control by informal means in capitalist consumer society.

Material Social Control

To explain, Marcuse argued that;

"an "advanced industrial society" created false needs, which integrated individuals into the existing system of production and consumption via mass media, advertising, industrial management, and contemporary modes of thought"

Therefore, to relax now translates into, eg, "a coffee", but what brand of coffee? Where? Your needs are defined by an industrial revolution of false hopes and requirements.

Think of the teenager who simply must have the Iphone 4, or the latest computer game?

And this translates in to kidulthood and adulthood how one should dress (Next, not New Look), how one's home must be (is your sofa leather?) and one's aspirations in life.

This is where the X Factor comes in.

The show developes false needs based on aspriations - I want to be a "star", talent is irrelevant as long as I have the requisite gender stereotype clothes, hair style and personality. I can acheive this by subscribing to this concept.

It also creates false benchmarks with which to measure ones self. Can I sing in tune? Am I over a size 10 or 32" waist? Do I know the "lingo"? Are my nails manicured?

And so on.

This, in turn, translates into wider social control.

All of a sudden, the populus, the conformists and the anticonformists can be predicted by the series on the television. Behaviour is conditioned by people's desire to be in or avoid such dumbed down presentations.

Teenagers are so fixated on their modern technology, their appropriate clothing and their image that they negate the ability to think laterally or logically.

This has led to huge debts (the kids who think they are destined to becoem stars and live a life style in accordance because debt does not matter).

Now social aspirations are completely out of tangent with social needs. Do we have enough plumbers? No. No one has an aspiration to be a plumber as they are too busy ensuring they look right when they sing so if they get to an audition, they can ensure they will get through.

When social aspirations are shaped intentionally or unintentionally, the general rules of society must be effected. If people are no longer aspiring to hold a job in order to purchase the house, raise a family, retire; and simply waiting for the next opportunity to become famous, and this becomes the status quo, society will slowly but surely rot.

Consequently, actions and behaviour are conducted without true responsibility, where repercussions mitigated by false needs.

Eroding Morality

This is further illustrated by the fact; where acceptable social behaviour is influenced and shaped by the behaviour of those on the show.

Emotional immaturity is condoned by the show. The ones who cannot sing, who throw tantrums when they cannot hit the right note, or where they are berated by jobsworth judges, may create an amusing experience for viewers, but they also condition a "diva" style behaviour that is normalised and translated in to day to day life.

The acrimonious and sarcastic put downs do little to further human endeavours either. This behaviour, which would translate into harassment and intimidation in the Employment Tribunal, is suddenly how one should aspire to behave in a role of power and management.

Therefore we get division in socially controlled behaviours; one is either a nasty, malicious and derogative superior, or a hopeful, grateful and well groomed subordinate.

Neither seem to provide a particularly congenial behaviour set.

Gratifying the Public

One thing that strikes me is the similarities between alleged cultural shows such as the Factor and the Gladiators of the Roman Empire.

The ubiquitous gladiators of the Colosseum were allegedly funded as a form of social responsibility by the rich to entertain the masses. This was known as munera.

Rather like the golden era in the 70s when families would religiously attend football matches are to watch "their team" on a weekly basis; the routine display of the successful and the Carnival of the unsuccessful within the ex-factor provides a striking resemblance to the routine entertainment of the people in Ancient Rome.

The freak show of those who cannot sing and are not athletically acceptable presents us with the ultimate entertainment through which we can identify both our need and our failures.

And of course, all of the time it is on, we are more interested in seeing who will and will not succeed in what the apparent benevolent rich are up to in controlling our future.

Which, while it may not have been the intention of those in authority, is a rather convenient truth in ensuring the masses are not dissatisfied enough to riot, demonstrate or vote them out.

And don't even get me on to the dangers it presents to equality, feminism and class divide!

2010 Highlights

A few highlights for 2010; everyone else is doing it;

#Leadership Debates

One of the initial steps in political reform; the Leadership Debates have helped to cross the bridge between conspicuous consumption and politics and engage and inspire new generations and emancipate society from the grasps of those autonomous purchases that repress us.

# Demonstrations;

After the huge blow to the ego of genuine demonstrators, when Blair ignored Iraq war protests, there was a period when protests, political engagement and demonstration was seen as moot. Yet this year has seen the Climate Camp and the student demonstrations. You cannot condone violence, but you can admire the re-engagement of the electorate to pronounce what they feel strongly about.

# The foundational footsteps of new politics;

With a coalition of Tories and Lib Dems (who'da thought it?), the proposed referendum of the voting system, the reviews of the House of Lords, the riots, the #ukuncut phenomenum, the Tea Party movement, we are seeing a truly amazing year of political activity and awareness that I hope will set grass roots and grow from the simple acorn it has been.

# Global Disasters

There was a time when Climate Change denyers were winning the war. But with a year that has comprised of volcanos, floods, freak weather, earthquakes and forrest fires, as well as record snow in the UK, people are coming around to the idea of a greener world and the sheer need for a carbon reduction. Now to avoid complacency!

# Wikileaks

With a new regard for transparency, Wikileaks has helped to sell the idea of accessibility within democracy. Long may it reign!

# A New Relgious Regard

The Pope redefining Catholicism with a single blow, condoning the use of condoms, homosexuality and promiscuous behaviour. Even for a humanist like me, this is beyond amazing and will entertain me for years to come.

Why the Fawsett Society Challenge Actually Discriminates Against Women Further

The Fawcett Society has launched a major, high press challenge against the government's spending cuts to child benefit and benefit cuts in general.

Controversially, as a feminist, I disagree with this action.

Ultimately, I feel this hinders the gender equality debate, is a poor use of legislation and does not represent a true equality impact assessment of the spending cuts in line with other legislation.

Do the Spending Cuts Disproportionally Discriminate against Women?

Flexible Working and the Public Sector

The Fawcett Society states that "65% of public sector employees are women". It then goes on to illustrate why two thirds of civil servant employees are in fact female. Firstly, it is because the public sector has far more stringent flexible working schemes, equal opportunities governance and care related policies than the private sector.

By campaigning against the spending cuts to the public sector, all the Fawcett Society appears to be achieving, to me, is preserving the public sector as the best equal opportunities employer in the country. This immediately implies that these women would be unlikely to seek employment opportunities outside the public sector because practices are not as adequate.

Therefore, the debate is not about the cuts to the public sector, but in fact about how inadequate private corporations in the UK are at providing equal opportunities in employment for women, caregivers and those who seek flexible working schemes.

By enforcing major budget cuts on the public sector, this would significantly increase job seekers into the market who do not just seek flexible working, but insist upon flexible working. This would force companies into applying more suitable flexible working policies, and seek better ways of functioning with a level playing field of diversity strands.

The Fawcett Society may succeed in their legal challenge, but all this would do with secure a narrow field in which women can work and allow private companies to continue to discriminate against women and diversity strands.

Child Rearing

The Fawcett Society is responding to the sociological issue that women are, in the majority of cases, the main child rearers.

This is not a response to the amount of money these women receive, whether from benefits or employment, but in fact a response to the entrenched notion of discrimination within the family unit that the society has failed to address since the onset of second wave feminism in the 1960s.

Gender discrimination and patriarchy remain truly embedded within society through a variety of means. All the time we allow women to be considered as the "caring, mother figure" stereotype, we persist in the notion that women nest and men build.

Sexual liberation in the 1960s allowed women to have sex with a much lower risk of pregnancy thereby allowing them a far greater choice of partner prior to embracing family life.

However, the barriers still exist post commencing that relationship. Once she selected her partner, she is still expected to undertake certain roles within that relationship. This includes being the one to take leave for nine months to two years when a child enters the relationship. While a leave of absence is reasonable for women that have given birth, the assumptions of "biological destiny", "bonding" and the interdependent relationships indicated within society between mother and child ensure that the woman feels guilty for not taking for maternity leave, feels guilty when she is struggling with a variety of related child rearing issues, feels secondary to her child and is obligated by the sociopolitical landscape to fulfil these roles.

The Fawcett Society challenge to spending cuts perpetuates the concept of the woman of the child rearer, thereby inadvertently preventing the positions of women within society from changing to a more equal stance within the workplace.

The limiting of child benefit may in fact assist to reposition the role of the female as a potential to be an equal or main earner within the family; dependent on meritocracy and not upon negative and perceived social roles.

Legislative Tools

There is an entire range of gender equality legislation now available for use within the UK. But all the time that negative sociopolitical concepts of the roles of women within the home, the workplace, or career style, persists, all challengers are effectively moot.

Legislation from the EU indicates that you cannot discriminate against gender on the basis of goods and services. However, we still see gender stereotyping in marketing, advertising and merchandise as well as in the services surrounding capitalism in the UK.

The legislation should be strategic and proactive, enforcing companies and service providers to take into account equality impact on gender.

However, persistent messages such as "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" in advertising, education, and social media seem to be so entrenched, that no one even considered challenging them.

I recently submitted a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority with regards to an advert for Dove on the television. This is particularly targeted at men with a voice over detailing how fantastic it was to be male, including lifting the entitlements of the man within society and the role and gender rise masculinity that he should fulfil. I was informed by the Advertising Standard Authority that my complaint was not valid as I was the only person to complain.

What is the point of legislation if it does not exist to combat discrimination in these areas?

Instead, the Fawcett Society are using it as a reactive tool to discrimination. To combat discrimination against women based on these entrenched rules without both advising, consulting and instigating steps to erase such embedded notions from society, is what I consider to be a misuse of the legislation.

I'll go further, saying that it helps perpetuate negative connotations of "feminists" as angry, reactive, aggressive groups that do not put steps in place to rectify mistakes but simply battle against them when the impulse takes them.

Protecting the Stakeholders of the Sex Industry

I have a significant issue with the way women are represented in mainstream media as sexualised objects. Not only does it condone the sex industry, significantly harm gender relations and provide poor role models for young girls, but is also increases the risk of dehumanising women and increases the risk of sexual crimes and violence against women.

A number of Feminist not-for-profit organisations have conducted reviews into the objectification of women as sex objects which identify rising levels of pornographic poses, vacant expressions and harmful messages to society. In turn this also provides “hypermasculine” role models for men and advocates strong gender divide relationships which damaged society as a whole.

There is a significant rise in aspirations among young girls and young teams to be Glamour models with media stars endorsing sexualisation of women by posing in “lads mags” or simply being Jordan.

The presentation of the One Dimensional Woman has a cascade effect to younger generations, As OBJECT identifies with WH Smith selling pink Playboy pencil cases and Amazon sell pole dancing kits with paper money as toys. Alongside more negative gender stereotypes such as the Domestic Goddess and few female role models in Parliament and big business, Society is effectively rolling back decades in gender equality.

There is a significant separation between content and advertising and it is the portrayal of the content of advertising that is the issue. Advertising will continue to increase all the time there is a demand and nobody steps up to say the representation of women in this respect is wrong.

OBJECT runs a Feminists Friday campaign to promote the covering up of “lads mags” with anti-sexist slogans. The more attention that can be created through this, the more likely it is that the presentation of women as sexual objects in mainstream media will stop.

However, there is still a requirement for a socially responsible media in relation to the sexualisation of women. I would encourage you to lobby your Councillors, lobby your MP and lobby the national government to prevent further damage to gender relations.

The Sex Industry

The discreet patriarchal argument that working in the sex industry is the “choice” and the misrepresentation of careers from the globally successful Belle De Jour and Playboy Simply allow corroboration with the idea of “choice” and further degrade and dehumanise women. If you attempt to argue against it you are generally questioned as to whether you work in the sex industry and if not then your argument is not valid.

However, an independent study conducted by OBJECT reports that 75% of women working in the sex industry were drawn into it as children and the other Life events have a significant impact on on the so-called choice of sex industry workers.

There is a growing rise in violence against women at work in the sex industry where it is implicit that the right to buy sex also allows the right to perpetrate sexual crime.

And while the studies reported are not peer-reviewed, they identify serious concerns with the promotion of women sexualised objects within society.

The Netherlands provides what they call a failed legislative experiment whereby legislating on the sex industry has failed to ensure safety and actually promoted higher levels of sexual crime of violence towards women. It ultimately provides a market where the desire for the market grows with legitimisation and therefore the trafficking and abuse of women who work in this industry increases.

The issues in the sex industry are not limited to sexual crimes, but there are also issues around trafficking.

In order to prevent trafficking in the UK section 14 of the Police and Crime Act 2009 states that men who purchase sexual services where they are aware that the woman is traffic are liable to be charged. This is a strict liability offence. However, since the implementation of the section in April 2010 only three men have received cautions for such a crime. Men have telephoned crime reporting lines to report within being trafficked, but when questioned, in the majority of instances they have already slept with a woman who was trafficked and are simply reporting it as a consciousness issue afterwards. This further legitimises the market of trafficking in the work of women in the sex industry.

Local authorities are currently taking the lead and challenging qualification in their area. OBJECT is running a campaign to ensure that people can lobby their local councils to license sex industry venues appropriately, i.e. by going through a magistrates court to ensure the welfare of women and the crease the risks of harm, trafficking and destruction to gender balance relationships.

However, this essentially absolves central government of any responsibility to preventing a growing mainstream media concept of sexualisation of women.

It is up to people to act and stop the objectification of women in the media, in the sex industry and in society as a whole to prevent the cascading damage to young people.

Councillor versus Parliamentary Candidate

An interesting dilemma was presented to me this week at the Liberal Democrat Conference. That if you become a councillor in your local area you will find it near on impossible to be elected to as a Parliamentary candidate because of social perceptions of councillors versus MPs.

In addition to this, if you are an elected councillor, you will find it hard to be selected for another seat in a different area because you have commitments to a separate constituency.

Why do social perceptions differ?

People associate different things were different people. Perceptions can be based on the de individualisation of uniforms, the spoken word, the received business card or the way in which they consume their meals.

Most people work out by the time they are in their mid-20s that multicoloured hair and facial piercings are not generally acceptable if you want to be a member of public office or in a professional career. But that these perceptions go deeper and have an effect on the capability of you to represent your public.

If you're campaigning over a long period for a local seat, you will ensure that you know your public highway law well, the contracting businesses of the borough council, local issues and the relevant local interest clubs.

If you're campaigning for a Parliamentary seat, you may be more inclined to pay attention to national issues and interrelate them to local issues. Identify global warming is a huge issue and refer it to the wind turbine building proposals in the relevant borough of your constituency.

People are perhaps not so inclined to hear national arguments from local politicians and or intricate local oddments from national politicians. This is predominately why people will vote a political colour rather than for a specific person in General Elections.

This probably has a significant effect on Liberal Democrats, who are exceptionally good at grass-roots campaigning, knocking on doors and making things happen locally but fail to command the same level of respect on a national level.

I genuinely believe after the expensive scandals, that more people felt more comfortable voting for the Liberal Democrats because of that element of “realism”. Because they met the candidate on the local high street, knocking at the door or at local events. This means that there is an element of personalisation In the candidate they had met, whom they can then decide or allocate a relevant level of the integrity until proven otherwise.

I'd be interested to see statistical representation of those who have been campaigning as councillors or council candidates and then switched to Parliamentary candidate campaigning to see if the argument holds much weight.

The role of the MP should be bought at local level and this is something that will be greatly facilitated by the boundary changes in the AV referendum in May. Our current constituency is one of the largest in the country which makes it very very difficult for a Parliamentary candidate to meet everyone.

Everyone should be entitled to meet and talk with their MP: that this is the essence of democracy. They should not be limited to glimpses of that person on the television or in the local paper or behind electric gates or paparazzi lenses.

The ultimate discussion is the; which one do you focus on?

It does, I suppose, depend on your interest in representing the public. A councillor is able to address on the ground issues, from assisting to resolve antisocial behaviour through to organising regular bin collections. In a two tier local government, a county council will provide you with the opportunity to help resolve traffic issues and contribute to local education authorities.

But as an MP you can address national issues as well as local issues, championing causes on a much larger scale and provide a voice to the people in an entirely different form.

It really depends on where you want to make society better and how you want to represent your people. I would suggest it is much harder for an MP to represent the views of 100,000 people accurately than for a council ward of 1000 to be represented.

With the looming elections and looming selections, this is a decision I will have to make.

I would be interested in other people's opinions

Persuading Belief in the Conservative Facade

I don't usually review the columns in the daily papers, but this one in The Telegraph, “The Conservatives have The Vision but not the Nerve", caught my eye and I decided to have a thorough critique.

The gist of the article is that Conservative members are in some way intimidated or inhibited by the media labour and the public and are therefore failed to reveal their policies cohesively or sensibly, when in fact the policies they have are rather good.

In other words, it is an entirely subjective article attempting to persuade the more intelligent voter why voting Conservative is a good thing! Can you hear me champing at the bit?

Upholding My Own Disbelief In the Validity of Tory Policies

Believe it or not, the Conservatives actually have quite a compelling vision for government, in which spending cuts could be made to play a constructive role, public services would be more responsive to the real needs of the people who use them, and the state would be an enabling force rather than an oppressive one.

Personally I would say that the Conservatives are playing down the details of their policies in order to generate the idea that they are demure and humble, lacking in the arrogance, and indeed hubris, that the Conservative Party after usually associated with.

The concept that spending cuts would play a “constructive role” begins to unravel when interviews such as Andrew Lansley MP's on the Today Programme identify an across-the-board 10% spending cut within almost all public services. If spending cuts were truly constructive, and indeed, a compelling vision, then the cuts would differ according to the needs of the various departments. Money would be reinvested according to the needs of people, and they would be determined to cut the bureaucracy and consultancy that dominates public services and wastes so much of this money.

However, given the Andrew Lansley repeatedly used the phrase “spending restraints”, it is clear that the party has no intention of reducing buzzwords, bureaucracy and confabulation within public services.

This in turn indicates that Public services are not going to be more responsive to the real needs of people who use.

As for the state providing an “enabling force”, the Conservative track history on a refusal to allow democratic participation are both at local level and at national level, makes the statement almost laughable. As indeed the campaign Vote for A Change identifies, the Conservative party are keen to push the agenda to vote for change but they are not willing to hold referendums to allow the people to decide to change.

An Innovative Philosophy?

Honestly. The reason that you are almost entirely unaware of this philosophy is because the party thinks that you will either be frightened by it or that it will be too difficult for you to understand.

No, quite simply the reason that we are unaware of this philosophy is because it doesn't exist.

Apparent Fear of Criticism

Very occasionally, they allow you a glimpse of an aspect of their programme: Michael Gove's plan for "free schools", or the "co-operative" model in which public agencies would be run by their own staff. But then some television interviewer starts to ask wider questions, or a Labour frontbencher tosses out some predictable, brain-dead jibe, and the shutters come down.

The glimpses that have been provided of the Conservative programme have been contradicted at every turn by Conservative Members of Parliament. Such as providing inconsistent arguments for getting people back to work while supporting those who need to be benefits, a desire to invest in during joining the European Union combined with a desire to protect the British public from the European Union.

For a snapshot of these inconsistencies have a look at the Conservative website “Responsibility Agenda”.

The only thing I can determine from this is that the entire party is confused as to where they would go if they were in government.

The Tory spokesman who had, ever so cautiously, begun to hint at what could be a genuinely progressive new relationship between the state and the people, scurries away into the darkness again, like a small animal terrified of being caught in the open.

A Tory spokesperson who ha,s ever so cautiously, hinted at a genuinely progressive relationship between the state and the people would probably be considered an epiphany within the centre-right party.

Indeed the ones that have, seemed to have come to this conclusion and joined the Liberal Democrats.

The result? The Tories look vacuous: like a party with half-hearted convictions, half-baked policies and with no overarching theme to distinguish it in any fundamental way from Labour.

And indeed Nick Clegg stated yesterday following the strange political speech stand-off between Brown and Cameron that their election pledges were “vacuous”. This is not a result of a humble Tory MP concerned that their opinions may scare the public, this is because they do have half-hearted convictions, half baked policies and no true substantive difference from Labour's pledges.

And so, ironically, a leadership that is so afraid of damaging questions leaves itself wide open to the most dangerous ones of all: what real difference is there between you and your opponents, and why should anyone be inspired to vote for you?

Again, I reiterate, if Cameron and his party had leadership and inspirational qualities, they would not be afraid of any questions, they would appeal to the intelligent voters and they would present substantial arguments in the face of criticism from the press and from the other parties.

A Truly Insulting View of Voters

”You may be asking yourself at this point whether the patronising assumption that you are either too timid or too dumb to grasp the potential of this message is actually justified.”

I'm just confused by the assumption that this is the real reason for the Tories inability To communicate their election pledges without discrepancies, contradictions or confusion. This has nothing to do with my intelligent, nor any other member of the public's.

Apparently, the crux of the argument is;

Janet Daley goes on to state that the apparent reasons the Conservatives are unable to respond coherently to questions about their policy is because they are aware the “government run things badly”.

If that was truly their position than they would be proclaiming, as indeed the Liberal Democrats are stating, that they would review the way in which the government runs things and how this filters down to public services. If they had confidence in their argument then this would not mean a difficult announcement to make.

“by cutting back the power of central government and making the agencies that deliver services accountable to the people who use them rather than to politicians, we would get better, cheaper and more productive results”

If this was truly the case, then I would not have issues in my area is where public services without contracted to the cheapest company thereby causing and perpetuating the suffering of people who require carers. This is the extent of the Tory policy proposals on “coalitions”.

Out contracting services and minimising government input so the government can not be held responsible when people are harmed as a result.

Community Engagement?

”Second, the more power and authority that the state seizes, the less people feel the need to take responsibility for themselves and for each other. Many of the problems that now corrode the quality of life in Britain – anti-social behaviour, irresponsible parenting and the feckless refusal to accept any idea of civic duty – have their roots in the emergence of government as the only source of moral authority and the only provider of social protection.”

Ah. What this convoluted statement actually means is that the Conservatives feel that Britain has become a overly left wing nanny state. And how do they propose to challenge that? Well the arguments they present so contradictory, I genuinely cannot tell.

”Communities, families and individuals, whose ethical judgments are likely to be more sound and more effective, have been dwarfed by the gargantuan intrusiveness of this expensive, impersonal monster which, as often as not, interferes without understanding and meddles without sensitivity. So by pulling central government's tentacles off the most personal and local areas of people's lives – by giving them the power to run their neighbourhoods, schools, health services and benefits agencies according to their own priorities – we can restore self-determination and pride while improving public services.”

And at what point disease differentiate from Brown's pledge Fairness in the Community? Indeed, where local public services have been allowed to grant more responsibility communities, we have seen an upward rise in charity is funded entirely by public state grants which, while being run on a not-for-profit basis, are concerned only with the bureaucracy and illogical targets and public services provide.

One example that I continuously come across is Illogical use of volunteers within the public-and- charitable sector. Company-cum-charities are encouraged to let go of the little old lady who gives an hour of her time once a week because the younger person to give four hours and be far more productive. Or the funding that they are granted is so heavily ringed fence that it sits in bank accounts the years until the exact measurement of the grant is decided to be met at the funding can be released.

The only way to prevent this getting worse, and, hopefully repair it, is to allow a greater hold over local public services by the government, to allow the government to supervise the implementation of these ideas and ensure that people are in fact benefiting from community initiatives, engagement and social cohesion.

Privatisation by Any Other Name

”When it comes to public services, the independent local outlet could offer a relationship of trust, familiarity and understanding to the consumer, and greater efficiency and productivity to the taxpayer.”

The only reason that the party is so “timorous” about these ideas is because they realise that the reality for people who use the pavement everyday is not as simple as saying we will enlist a separate body to provide good quality cheap services.

Anyone who has watched Panorama will be aware of diabolical care services where the business is out-contracted. Or how about the changes to waste collections by Borough services, based on productivity of the neighbourhood?

In a lot of cases central government is the last resort for those campaigning for a return to fair services, as my work with Sheltered Housing UK identifies.

Indeed Janet Daley herself acknowledges that “Only central government, the Left argues, can enforce uniformity and prevent disadvantage.” But she then goes on to say that Labour's approach has indeed been to this aim. When in fact, the opposite is true. Labour has actually increased opportunity for the poor, aided social deprivation with the introduction of tax credits and support, but at the same time has failed to address its use with local councils and local public services having so much control without any government input. There is also been too much of an emphasis on Labour's Park of providing everyone with the same benefits and matter what their background. This has led to middle-class mothers storing up Child Tax Credits for their summer holidays and rich students investing their student loans in tax-free isas. The only logical way to proceed is to introduce a more thorough means testing, rather than providing everyone with the same, provide those who are in the most need with what they need.

But the Conservatives are not pledging this. The Conservatives are pledging severe cuts across all public services, a fast repayment of debt without foresight or strategic development as to how this will impact on our economy.

Oh That Old Chestnut

Finally, for the article to bring up the embarrassing concept of “class war” that appears to divide both the Media support and the party squeeze tactics, is nothing short of ridiculous.

While there probably is something to be vindictive in the squeeze tactics between the two major parties and the presentation of a two horse race, there is a growing consensus amongst the public that they would like to hear less about whether their MP went to Eton or Joe Bloggs Comprehensive, are more about what they plan and how they plan to do it.

And, ultimately, how society as a whole will benefit.

Seeking Social Policy Solutions

Another rehash of the "Hell Boys" who tortured two younger children in Doncaster last year has appeared through out the news.

The details have not been elaborated on due to an injunction to prevent all of the details being know. When I blogged on this last year, I referred to the case as the next generation's Jamie Bulger, and indeed this case has been compared to the notorious 1993 Jamie Bulger case..

Police were alerted on April 4 after the nine-year-old boy who was attacked was found wandering, covered in blood, in the former pit village. The youngster told the people who found him where to find his 11-year-old companion, who was discovered unconscious in a nearby wooded ravine.

Previous court hearings have been told that the two victims were hit with sticks and bricks, one had a sink dropped on his head, one had a noose put round his neck and the other was burned with a cigarette on his eyelids and ear. Their tormentors also tried to force the boys into performing sex acts on each other.

During the attack the older victim begged his attackers to kill him, such was his torment.

This case raises several strands of concern. The failings of our public services and the systematic rise in child to child violence that the Legal System is not equipped to deal with.

Failing Public Services

The BBC have had access to a document which identifies 31 incidents which Social Services had recorded but not acted on. This must be a relief for Haringey.

Joking aside, this raises serious concerns about thechildren's services department of Doncaster council, where seven children officially marked as being at risk have died since 2004.

Newsnight is revealing the details of the report into Eddington as I type, and reporting of matters in the public interest

"Corporate and Organisational Inadequacies" are cited by the report as the main cause of the failings of the system.

Ultimately, it is not only Eddlington that is failing children, it is systems across the country.

Underfunded, badly staffed, managed by CEOs who transfer through directorates with alarming ease and no experience, all cite reasons for a serious review.

Articles litter the web on proposals and analysis of cases and systems. Political parties have limited proposals and it is as unappealing a job as reviewing the benefit system.

Reviews need to be done with all members of staff, not just quality and target assurance managers who do not practice the trade . Case loads need to be reviewed, more administrative support needs to be provided.

After all, Doctors automatically have secretaries, why not Social Work professionals?

The premise of a right to parenthood has dominated public services for too long. If someone has a child taken away from them, it should follow that all subsequent children are removed until they are deemed to be a stable parent. The case in Eddlington shows more evidence of drink, drugs and violence in a home with seven children.

Early intervention would have decreased the risks of the boys then attempting to murder other children, among other offences.

Nefarious Youth

The convicted killers of Damilola Taylor identified a serious trend of youth violence in Britain in 2006. Yet this, and other high profile cases of attacks and murder of children by children have failed to accelerate a solution within the public services that are failing these "hell boys".

To take a political slant, the "tough on crime, tough on causes of crime" soundbite Blair was so good at has created a decade of clunky bureaucracy and pseudo offences for the young criminal population. Antisocial behaviour orders, a brilliant concept with no back bone or implementation what so ever, have failed the justice system and the perpetrators.

Antisocial behaviour orders remain difficult to achieve, taking an average of 3 years to achieve and only when a system of reprimands such as Acceptable Behaviour Agreements have been tried first. In turn, 45% of ASBOs are breached in the first year.

Many groups question the suitability of ASBOs for young persons and how they are worked separately from the Social Care system.

With The Children’s Society saying "Asbos are never appropriate for children". and fighting for abolition for under-18s, the Youth Justice Board saying ASBOs should only be used “with care, and only when necessary” and the Children's Commissioner stating that an Asbo should only be issued when it is “appropriate, sensible, proportionate and just”, it is understandably a confusing area.

The variety of non custodial sanctions employed in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2003 are repeatedly revealed by statistical agencies as futile, there is clearly a need for a social policy review in this area without soundbites, without tabloids screaming capital punishment and a determined focus on the origins and development of violent behaviour that are increasingly leading to high profile cases such as these.

Inadequate Legal Jurisdiction

The age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10 before a prosecution can be brought.

The Youth Justice Board battled for rights for children in relation to criminal prosecution resulting in the Children's Act 1989.

However, it is clear that the Courts are dealing with these children too late. While Youth Offending Officers and Legislation governs for intervention by Social Services, it is clear that, as children cannot be arrested, cautioned or sanctioned before the age of 10, there is no system in place for referral.

Social services are only aware of a situation if it is brought to their attention.

If lesser sanctions were allowed for children under the age of 10 committing offences then it would flag the child's name to social services and allow intervention before the child ended up in Court at 14 charged with serious offences.

Inter Agency Working

Multiagency working, another Labour Buzzword, is the logical conclusion to proceed in a review of these services.

But partnership working suffers with numerous meetings, little action planning and poor results. Bureaucracy and the infiltration of tick box procedures has created an environment where there is little focus on client care or focus. With Police ensuring they make the target on ASBOs and the Social Workers ensuring they have met their weekly visit quota, the client is left to run rings around the system and results in activities with no fear of consequence, no remorse and little prospects other than further crime.

In the UK we are proud of our public services, but they have become so entrenched in bureaucracy and procedure in the last two decades that they are failing the people who really need them.

Where they are not outsourced to corner cutting, profit making businesses, the staff are disillusioned and unable to make a difference in a culture of targets and imagined successes by managerial incompetency.

The only quality assurance a society should need is to protect it's citizens.

Social policy should follow this by ensuring that children's needs are met to allow them to grow up with access to education, a safe and stable family environment, no poverty and a meritocratic system of reward and achievement.

The social agencies are so focused on meeting stringent targets, they miss the bigger picture. When children die, or commit serious offences, they retreat behind excuses of poor facilities or resources.

What about the poor resources the children are left with that leave them in a state of criminal behaviour with no morality and no future?

Didgi get ripped off Britain?

Not content with plunging the country into recession, finding every excuse to invent stealth taxes, failure to get petrol prices down or get any one jobs or anyone off benefits and allowing MPs to claim blue murder on expenses, now Brown reckons we, the struggling public, should "levy an extra 50p a month" to fund the digital era.

Any savy reader of new reforms to social policy will be aware of how important this alleged digital era is being forced into every area and box possible. The "Wellform" legislation encourages the use of pc at family learning days to stop children in underacheiving families from not catching up with their class mates. It encourages flat screen tv advertising in sink estates. Internet access in public services.

What planet is Labour on? Are they not aware of rising unemployment figures? How about rising burglary and vandalism figures?

So while we are being confused by new Employment Support Allowance processes, we must not expect the flat screen tvs to be stolen or vandalised by families trying to pay the extra 50p a month for the digital era?

The MPs expenses issue was a collection of evidence showing how out of touch politicians are with the real world. This is simply more fuel for an already unhappy public.

The Prison Policies need Overhauling NOW

The reclassification of prisoners, a diabolical move by Labour to adjust their targets on rehabilitation, has resulted in a number of disasters from riots to those convicted of serious offences casually walking out.

Following the riots in May the management of prisons has reduced to such a degree that even the treatment of that was "political" (as in answered no questions and made no sense).

In spite of Colin Moses, of the Prison Officers' Association, stating in May;

"We have seen a rise in violence, bullying and intimidation, all because people who do not appear suitable for category C prisons are being put through too early."

the Prison Service insisted that prisoners were not "wrongly downgraded" and this is true. By new prison classifications, they are not wrongly downgraded. This stinks of 'but it was within the rules' ideals of politicians and identifies how some people cannot see the wood for the trees. Of course, Prisons Minister David Hanlon rejects claims that the downgrading is incorrect in true political style.

I can not be the only person to spot the illogical and irrational nature of this matter. Of course it is dangerous to put murderers in open prisons less than a third into their sentence. Quite simply; the reclassification of prisoners has allowed a concatenation of events that has resulted in the most recent escape of murderers on life sentences walking out of an open prison.

The latest in this series of aberrations seems to underline the need for policy review. It is situations like this that allow right wing fascist parties to steal middle class votes when people are fearful of crime and fearful that criminals are not being punished.

There is a reason crimes are broken into summary, triable-either-way and serious. The government needs to act accordingly before we descend into the anarchy that is seen in American prisons where gang violence and drug smuggling are common place. There must be a better way to categorise prisoners and rehabilitate them. Making the security more lax on serious offenders is not only irresponsible but downright dangerous.

As a final point, why did they walk out on Sunday 7 June and it was only reported today? Hazel Blear's whinging yesterday was a waste of news space in itself yesterday, but apparently far more news worthy?

Before we can condone holding information of innocent people, we must review the systems

While MP expenses are stealing the headlines with "cheque book journalism", I think the leak is potentially a well positioned distraction from the concepts of DNA Databases and ID Cards.

I happen to be a supporter of DNA databases and ID Cards. But I do not advocate them in a country where the Police Service are maintained by target meeting. If we provide the police with a DNA database of every citizen, you can gurrantee that the hierarchy of the Police will feel the pressure to induce more and more use of the system in order to gain funding each year.

But a system that provides a deterrent in both evidence collection and in punishment is of practical use for a democracy.

The other conditions ought to be that DNA evidence is maintained correctly in the chain of command before being submitted, that correct PACE proceedures are met and that DNA evidence is NOT the sole evidence on which to base a prosecution case. Any more than a single witness or character evidence should be.

But the police and the CPS are without morals when faced with the options of hitting targets and getting good press or not hitting targets.

The same applies to the Local Authorities and NHS. Public services should be based on quality and fairness, not revenue and quantative data. This is one Thatcher Legacy I cannot support.

Football and Fanaticism

I'm not a football fan but no one could avoid this story yesterday.

What caught my attention was the number of media quotes demanding "more security" for referees. Referees should not need more security. As far as I am aware, death threats are a criminal offence and it is down to the public protection service to investigate.

We are in a recession. Recession breeds boredom, violence, and football hooliganism. For all the factors in Hillsborough, I sincerely doubt it would have occurred in a profligate period of time.

Other countries with poor economic climates provide a similar example, such as the levels of "Organised Hooliganism" seen in Poland with strong ties to Neo Nazi and fascist organisations.

Just as the middle class become more right wing in an economic downturn, so the working classes embrace aggression and fascist regime. Without wanting to digress into a sociological lateral analysis aggregating the negative impacts of a lack of money in society, I can sadly say that this will not be the last outburst in Football, nor the last BNP member to be voted in, nor the last ludicrous resolution plan to appease one person instead of maintaining risk.

I will, however, make the point that in every economic slump, governments slash public spending to within an inch of it's life. The result is a widening gap between the rich and the poor, resentment in the unemployed and welfare state and further inducement of aggression towards the welfare state. If the government had the sense to invest heavily in public spending, regulate and manage society so less people were deprived, more people were compensated during financial instability then this would temper aggression, right wing temperaments and illogical justifications for lack of development. Look at the Scandinavian States for example.

To surmise, football hooliganism is the problem, as a result of the economy. Not the levels of security Chelsea may or may not provide for their referees.

A Few Thoughts on Legislating on Alcoholism

Labour spin continues in the sidelines to the email scandal.

This current initiative, while not as detrimental to freedom as the enforced community service for adolescents, is illogical and impractical. The assertion that Labour "are going to look at the arrangements for alcoholics on benefits, just as [we] did for problem drug users, so that people get the help they need to get sober" is missing fundamental information about both drug users and alcoholics.

Measuring the "treatment" of heroin addicts is quantifiable. They go to the doctors once a week and get methadone. This replaces the heroin in their system and they are "ticked off". I they fail to collect methadone then it is assumed they are back on heroin (unless they are in work of course) and the benefits are ceased.

What exactly are the government prescribing to subsidise the addiction of alcohol?

They also fail to consider that alcohol is readily and cheaply available. All the time, thanks to the 24 hour drinking scheme initiative.

How can they tell if someone is off alcohol if there are not regular visits to a professional?

Is there even a measurable form of alcoholism? I know plenty of people who may drink every day, and plenty of people who consume so much alcohol in short periods they should be pickled.

This is without touching on the expense, bureaucracy and time investment that it will weight the NHS down with even further. Let alone valid points made by Theresa May and Steve Webb.

Looking at the story in more detail also reveals that it will be the Job centres that will refer the alcoholics for treatment. Ironically at the same time the Scotsman reports that alcoholics have the right to claim disability benefits such as Incapacity. So they wont be going to the job centre anyway will they?

Although alcoholism is cited as the main reason for claiming benefits, alcoholics getting disability benefits are also likely to have other health problems, such as mental health issues, which prevent them working.

So would being an alcoholic with mental health problems negate the removal of benefits if they refuse treatment? And which is the greater problem anyway? Will this extend to removing benefits of people with serious mental heath impairments if they refuse to attend counselling?

As an aside, the constant degradation of smokers aggravates me. I used to manage wine merchants. It always confused me that smokers were penalised more heavily than drinkers, and as staff, I would be penalised to the tune of £5000 if I sold cigs to an underage smoker. But if I sold a bottle of whisky to someone under 18 and they got in a car and killed someone I would only be fined £2000. This seems illogical. The argument, of course, is that smoking causes long term irreversible damage. Although, getting killed in a car accident is not exactly reparable!