So it will come to pass that one of the Dr Who’s assistants will be bumped off in tomorrow’s finale.

Well, that’s according to the rumours doing the rounds. Unfortunately, there are no sneak previews to the press so no leaks.

Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), on breakfast telly this morning, was rather coy and wouldn’t throw us any juicy morsels about what might happen. Therefore the proverbial moggie stayed firmly in the bag.

Who might it be? Who might sacrifice themselves for the greater good and kick the collective ass of the Daleks and Davros (honestly, like all good villians from the hall of villainy you think they’re dead but up they spring)?   

It has been prophetised throughout the series that Donna’s life remains uncertain. Poor old Sarah-Jane was last seen covering her face shouting at the Daleks not to shoot. Rose was sobbing her eyes out watching the Dr regenerate. Martha Jones was with her mum. And Cap’n Jack was being Cap’n Jack and left the other two from Torchwood to fight the Daleks by themselves (oh, well, like any good manager he sells out the workers….They need a union!).

And who knew Sarah-Jane had a son. Oh, it was good to see Harriet Jones who redeemed herself after she gave orders to shoot down a spacecraft that was retreating in a previous series and where the Dr started a whispering campaign about how tired she looked. Oh, and it was good to see Bernard Cribbins taking on the Daleks reminiscent of his younger days.

Will tomorrow’s episode be a roller coaster of thrills and spills, the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs and the sumptuous creamy middles? Ok, I have a touch of the hyperbole. But we can be sure that the Dr will save the day, as, here comes the science fiction, it is all about and please do pay attention, temporal shifts, spatio-temporal rifts in Cardiff, and desynchronised time. I am sure a trusty sonic screwdriver can fix it all.

Finally, interesting that tomorrow’s finale is called Journey’s End which may refer to the offing of one of the assistants but it is also the swan song of Russell T Davies who is handing the executive producer baton to Steven Moffat.

Staff at the British Museum who are members of the PCS and Prospect will go on strike at 2pm today over pay. They are demanding an increase to the pathetic 1.6% pay offer. The strike is to last 4 hours. Staff at the Science Museum in London and the National Railway Museum have taken similar action.

Mark Serwotka: “This action is a direct result of the government’s shameful policy of attacking the living standards of public sector workers by capping pay rises to 2%.”

I was going to wait until the final part of Criminal Justice before I scribbled down my own review. But the gloves are off accompanied by a war of words that has started between Peter Moffat (writer of Criminal Justice) and Timothy Dutton QC (Chair of the Bar Council).

My own take on the 5 parter shown each night is from a lay-person’s understanding of the criminal justice system. The story revolves around Ben Coulter, a young man driving around in his dad’s black cab when a young woman called Melanie, preoccupied with her own thoughts, wanders into his cab in the mistake that it is for hire. They end up driving to the seaside, eating ice cream in the dead of night and getting to know each other. They end up back at her place, where they drink, take drugs and have sex.

Ben wakes up in another room of the flat, staggers into the bedroom to get his things together and say goodbye to Melanie. Yet Melanie is dead, a single stab wound, her lifeless body stretched out on the bed. The beginning of Ben’s Kafkaesque journey into hell.

We see Ben being arrested with the murder weapon concealed on him which inevitably brings the criminal justice into his life at full throttle. A array of legal eagles from the legal aid solicitor who tells him to say “no comment” in the initial police interview to the barrister who gives a false defence in court. 

The paternal middle-aged cop running the case who takes evidence from the crime scene, the old lag who takes Ben under his wing, the head honcho of the wing, the bullying prisoner, the ambivalent screws, cynical legal aid solicitor, rookie barrister and so on. And that’s the main problem with this drama, the stereotypes. The script has been described as realistic and powerful but I can’t get beyond “Porridge meets Shawshank” and maybe that’s unfair.

It is not that the characters wouldn’t exist in real life but I don’t understand why Moffat had to reduce them to mere stereotypes that are rendered one-dimensional. It is shame that Moffat couldn’t have crafted more nuanced believable characters. But in saying that Ben Whishaw stands out as Ben Coulter. His depiction of a man who life turns upside down in a short time is believable.

The other slight problem I have with the storyline is why Moffat has to add a whodunit twist. I understand this is part of the plot device as Ben can’t remember what happened that night hence all the trials and tribulations shown by his various defence team in how to plea. Ben becomes visibly frustrated as he believes he isn’t allowed to tell his side of the story and that his defence team put words into his mouth.

Yet Ben’s truth is complicated and not straightforward as he can’t recall what happened after he had sex with Melanie. Is he a rapist murderer as the prosecution argue or an innocent man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

It is interesting how the cops hone in on Ben and because, from their point of view, he is carrying the murder weapon. Case closed, no need to extend any further investigation (and this has obvious echoes in real life) including anyone else who had reason to harm Melanie such as a violent ex partner.

And that leads me to the character of Melanie, peripheral but central, their ill fated meeting underpins the whole story and the dramatic tension (and again the viewer gets only a fleeting glimpse of Melanie…who is she?).

Back to the arguments between Moffat and Dutton, there’s a very good article written by Eric Allison who, rightly, points out that miscarriages of justices don’t just arise out of corrupt and dishonest cops and prejudiced judiciary but an incompetent defence team as well. And like in all professions, there are good dedicated solictors who fight for their clients corner and there’s the inept, unethical and exploitative ones.

Why couldn’t Moffat have created a simple story of some young man/woman who gets caught up in the criminal justice system and witnessing their lives spiralling downwards. Someone who gets in too deep (and it doesn’t have to murder/manslaughter… petty crime) who may already be vulnerable, who ends up banged up. Where we see the overcrowding, distress, self-harming and so on. In other words, exposing the squalid and brutal nature of the criminal justice system that uses prisons as social dustbins for the vulnerable and f*cked up.

A storyline that replicates the current situation without the twisty turning whodunit. A storyline that also highlights the authoritarian ideology of NL that has created a climate of ASBOisation and criminalisation along with cuts in criminal legal aid that will inevitably lead to miscarriages of justice.

 

Just got word that there is a provisional date (14th July) for the remaining stages of the HFE Bill. Three amendments have been tabled:

Pro-choice amendment (new Clause 1) tabled by Evan Harris and Chris McCafferty - Removal of two doctors requirment

Pro-choice amendment (new Clause 2) tabled by Evan Harris and Frank Dobson - Allowing nurses and midwives to administer early abortions.

Anti-choice amendment (new Clause 3) tabled by Nadine Dorries - Reducing abortion time limits to 20 weeks.

And now to lobby your MP…..

Depressing news, in the past week, from the States where a ruling will force doctors in South Dakota to tell women seeking an abortion that it will, “terminate the life of a whole, separate, distinct, living human being.” The attacks on women’s reproductive rights are unrelenting.

As the article states this has to serve as a wake up call for pro-choice activists as the anti-abortionists will not stop.

Two posts I have read today regarding sexual violence. Louise at the F Word highlights the perception of sexual violence is minimised, while riddled with sexist double standards and moral judgements.

While Unity at Liberal Conspiracy looks at the stats on rape, reporting, criminal justice system and the cuts in service provision for women who have been raped (argues that there is a possibility of using the impending Equalities Bill and anti-discrimination legislation in getting councils and the government to provide and prioritise these services).

I found both posts very interesting and useful because they highlight the ever present double-standards prevalent in this society and also that sexual violence is still semi hidden. That majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone the woman knows and trusts i.e. a partner.

While reading the book Rape: a history from 1860 to the present by Joanna Bourke, I was constantly struck by the similarity of the myths connected to rape.

We may have moved on historically and made political gains but the myths surrounding rape still exist and pervade this society. As Bourke reiterates, only 5% of rapes ever end in conviction. Do we even know the true figure of how many women experience sexual violence?

But this does impact on a woman by internalising the feelings of self-doubt, self-loathing, and disbelief perpetuated by the myths and perception that exist. At the very core, “it was all my fault”.  I know, I have experienced it myself and for many years tried to push it at the back of my mind yet it persisted, gnawed away at my own very being and eventually found a voice and the courage that could articulate that brutal and violent experience of rape.

And yet…and yet with societal pressures and conditioning, even with my political insight and feminism it seemed so contradictorily and hard to admit to a crime done against me and to state the simple fact: “It was not my fault”. Now I just feel angry and that’s more powerful, for me, as opposed to the silence and self-blame. But that’s just me and my own experience.

Unity mentions 3 members of the Welsh assembly admitting in a questionnaire that they had been raped but didn’t report it. Why? It is still an uphill struggle for women to report rape and sexual assaults. There are numerous obstacles from the idea of “grey rape” where a woman is in a situation where she never intended to have sex but wound-up being forced into it, “because until that point, they’d been a willing participant” to “sexual familiarity”, where the woman knows the attacker, is treated with more leniency and is used in mitigation. And up until 1994 there was the misogynist Corrobation Rule where a judge would warn a jury in a rape case of a woman’s dishonesty and that she may have a tendency to lie. Research was carried regarding this rule and it was shown that juries were annoyed by being told this and the judge’s warning actually backfired.

There is a major problem with reporting, evidence gathering and conviction rates for rape. We are seeing an increase in blaming the woman ‘cos she was drunk, ‘cos she had been a willing participant, and so on.

And rape crisis centres are disappearing due to lack of funding and other support centres that deal with sexual violence are being starved of funding. There are, shamefully, 50% less rape crisis centres now than in 1985! These centres are a lifeline for many women to get practical help and support. And a safe place where a woman is listened to.

The excuses piled onto women who have experienced sexual violence, reflects dominant sexist ideology that women still “ask for it”. It also creates ambiguities that aren’t there and de-politicises rape as well. We need to move beyond this and stop this incessant “woman blaming”.

The Treasury Committee has recently called for a Poverty Commission to be set-up to tackle the issue. In the report,  Budget Measures and Low -Income Households, the Committee believes that the government should focus on all forms of poverty:

The problem was with the tax system, and required a tax solution’, it concludes that, in the longer term, ‘reforms should be centred on the greater challenges faced by the government in combating child poverty, pensioner poverty and in-work poverty.

The report also looks at the impact of the abolition of the 10pence tax band, they welcome the government’s attempts to compensate those who lost out but highlight the fact that 1.1 million households will continue to lose out.

After 11 years of New Labour there are still a huge number of people stuck in poverty. Do we really need a Poverty Commission when the answers are so bleeding obvious?

Tax Credits and sure start are the crumbs falling from the table. Where were the policies of building the housing people needed, providing free universal childcare, making sure that the public sector created the kind of jobs that need to be done…keeping hospital wards clean springs to mind. Only the public sector can make sure that the jobs created come with training that makes sure that people move into better paid jobs that create real value for society.

A real labour government could have done this with 11 years of solid majorities. It would now be looking at another 11 years of solid majorities.

Reactions to the report from CPAG and CAB.

I wrote about the opening of this inquest recently. The jury returned a seven page narrative verdict that described the prolonged use of restraint as “excessive” and catalogued other series of failings by the hospital. Kurt Howard died while under a section at Cefn Coed Hospital in Swansea in 2002. His family had to wait 6 years for an inquest.

Deborah Coles from Inquest argues:
“Evidence heard at this inquest is a damning indictment of the treatment of a vulnerable mentally ill young man who died a horrific death while being restrained. The scandal is that six years after Kurt’s death there is still no mandatory training on the use of restraint in psychiatric hospitals as recommended by the Rocky Bennett Inquiry in 2003.  Excessive levels of restraint continue to be used in psychiatric institutions behind closed doors.  The government must enforce national guidelines and implement compulsory training on restraint before further vulnerable patients die.”

I meant to write about this Friday evening when I first read about it…..

So Justin Gimelstob shoots his misogynist mouth off by launching into a nasty vicious tirade about women tennis players with one of his main targets being Anna Kournikova. It seem he divides up women tennis players as either “bitches” or “sexpots”. And the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) were “appalled” by his rant, forced him to apologise and to donate an undisclosed sum towards the women’s sports foundation.

Yet Gimelstob, in his rather pathetic excuse of a apology, states: I am extremely disappointed in myself. I take full responsibility for all the words that came out of my mouth.

He indulged in a vitriolic misogynistic rant that objectified women tennis players (”great body but her face is five”), insulting their so-called lack of social skills and intelligence. And yet this pathetic excuse of an apology has been accepted by the ATP.

If he had said this in a workplace about women co-workers then he would be facing a possible disciplinary for this fundamentally attacks and undermines equal opportunities and is degrading and belittling to women.

Was this an appropriate and effective sanction forcing him to apologise and donating cash? It seems to me the ATP let him off the hook. I think the sum of money shoulda been made public. Funny how the “P” in ATP stands for “professional”…something that Gimelstob most definitely lacks.

Marjorie Wallace (Saneline) has joined the foray into the latest discussion regarding mental health services in Britain today. This after the new president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Professor Dinesh Bhugra will deliver a damning indictment of the services in his inauguration speech on Wednesday.

Wallace reiterates the same old myopic argument she has been using for years about how it was wrong to close psychiatric hospitals and instead focus on community mental health teams. I have always thoroughly disagreed with Wallace and the politics of Sane and this latest from her makes no difference. Mental health has always been at the bottom of the financial pile and a Cinderella service. Yet what kind of mental health system do we want? Wallace always harps on about on about the old days (would she really mean it with the good old days?) of the psychiatric system where it meant those who would relapse had the knowledge that they could admit themselves to hospital whenever things became intolerable, and return home when they felt ready.

But were these hospitals or the political ideology of the mechanisms of these places something that ought to be championed? A sense of loss and a desperation to reclaim these old asylums? My own view is that the psychiatry, then and now is still rooted in a need for social control, conformity and coercion (the changes to the Mental Health Act, for example). Is the mental health user at the centre of the treatment, is her/his needs understood when vocalised? Or is it based on a very paternalistic notion that shrink knows best? And indeed the over emphasis of medication that acts like a panacea for all society’s ills. The commodification of mental distress under this society means any old pill is chucked at us as a quick fix. A bio-chemical and deterministic understanding ever presence in mental health and psychiatry. Science has advanced in many ways yet psychiatry is still wedded in a type of medievalism. A kind of taking a sledge- hammer -to -the -television- when- it -isn’t- working -to -fix -it mentality (a case in point is the use of ECT).

Psychiatry rarely treats people as human beings instead we are reduced to specific criterion, behaviour,  eventual diagnoses and labels. And as psychologist Lucy Johnstone argues psychiatric diagnoses are social judgement lacking scientific objectivity. The psychiatric system is fraught with power relationships and is ingrained with institutional racism, sexism and homophobia. The system reflects the oppression that exists within this society. Mental distress is on the increase due to the fragile and precariousness of life that includes debt, misery, job insecurity, pressures, oppression, poverty and so on yet psychiatry sees this increase in a social vacuum.

I believe in asylums, but my interpretation is different to Wallace’s understanding of the term. I believe there should be safe places people can go to which isn’t based on social control but based on the needs of the mh user who is able to define his/her needs on their own terms and a equal relationship  between staff and user not this imbalance of power that exists between staff and user. That leads to mistrust. RD Laing was right when he said psychiatrists observe as opposed to listen.

I believe in a system that treats people with respect and understanding as opposed to vilification, social control and stigmatisation. And to go beyond a bio-medical understanding of mental distress (I don’t totally rule out medication because I do think there is a dialectical relationship between the social and the biological). There is a hell of a number of people out there who will experience mental distress but it is still hidden. It is not something people feel able to be vocal about. And a system, contradictorily, that desperately tries to “normalise” vulnerable people yet only too happy to turn a blind eye to what the powerful in society get away with.

I heard two speakers today, at a LRC NC, Jack Heyman speaking on behalf of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and Clara Osagiede from the RMT representing the LU cleaners who will be striking on the 1st July for 48 hours.

Jack Heyman gave a historical account of their last contract negotiations shortly after September 11th 2001and federal government threatened to bring in the military if they disrupted the flow of cargo. Instead, as Jack said, the troops were sent to Iraq to occupy it (cops used “non-lethal weapons” to violently attack anti-war protesters near the Port of Oakland in 2003). And now the Bush administration is in a much weaker position, the union were in a stronger position and federal government were not threatening to intervene.

And so on the 1st of May this year longshore workers on the west coast of the USA held a one day strike. The ILWU have before taken action to show international solidarity before by refusing to carry military cargo for the military dictatorship under Pinochet in Chile (1978), and boycotts of apartheid South Africa. The demands of the ILWU were simple: end the wars, occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and for an immediate withdrawal. Iraqi dock workers at Umm Qasr and Khor al-Zubair went on strike in solidarity with the ILWU.

Unfortunately the ILWU are facing a lawsuit because the employers deem the strike action a secondary boycott and is illegal. But as Jack argued they are sending military cargo to Iraq and the companies are war profiteers. And now the ILWU need our support and international solidarity with this lawsuit and as John McDonnell rightly described the ILWU as standing firm and as heroes and heroines.

The RMT LU cleaners went on strike this week and will again strike on the 1st July for 48hours. Their demands include a living wage of at least £7.20; 28 days’ holiday; sick pay; decent pensions; travel facilities and an end to “third party sackings”.

Majority of these cleaners are women and migrant workers who are subjected to harassment and bullying. We need to show our support and solidarity to workers. I am appalled with my own union T&G/Unite who have not balloted their own members who work as cleaners. It would have been the politically principled thing to have done and to have joined the RMT members on the picket line. The LRC has organised a rally in support of the RMT cleaners on the 8th July @ 6pm, Portcullis House. The political courage and convictions of these workers should be an inspiration for us all and I will definitely be joining the picket lines.

And Unison council workers voted to strike on the 15/16 July along with Unite members. Again, maybe we will see a summer of discontent?