Vestas protest

So a crowd of us ended up outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change tonight to protest about the Vestas occupation. I didn’t stay for that long. Andy Hewitt from the Green Party read solidarity greetings from Hugo Blanco.

From Campaign Against Climate Change there’s a Save Vestas meeting on Friday night, 24 July @ ULU, 6pm

Speakers include:

Seamus Milne – journalist

Chris Baugh - PCS assistant general secretary PCS

Jonathan Neale – Campaign Against Climate Change

A Vestas worker, Greenpeace

Yvette Cooper: it’s about chasing the dream….

Hark! What noise is that in yonder distance?

It is Yvette Cooper announcing her new big idea….about ‘extra help to mums who lose their jobs in the recession’ as part of its efforts to end child poverty.

Every child should get a fair start in life, every child should have the chance to get on, to develop their potential, to chase their dreams. We believe in equality of opportunity for children as they grow. Children get left behind for years to come if their family gets left behind today.

Over a hundred thousand children could be lifted out of poverty if more second parents were able to work as their children get older. That is why it is so important to provide the help and support for parents who lose their jobs too.

Chase their dream…? What Hollywood schmultz has Yvette Cooper been watching…?

I mean, even if you chase the dream and catch it…knowing NL they will privatise it.

Oh, here we go again…with NL’s interpretation of ‘fairness’, ‘support’ and ‘equality’….. Especially considering that the gap between rich/poor has been ever widening under NL.

Nothing about the underlying root causes of poverty just a few superficial scratches to the surface….

Rights and responsibilities: ‘rather one sided’….

This quote from the SSAC (Social Security Advisory Committee) regarding their new paper, Rights and Responsibilities in the Social Security System makes me want resort to bleedin sarcasm….

The concept of a contract can imply an agreement between equal partners. However, it would be difficult to argue in relation to the social security system that both parties have equal power and/or voice in shaping the nature and terms of the contract.

One sided? You don’t say!!

Again, I will be leisurely perusing this report this evening to see if anything sensible and/or half decent is recommended….. Can but hope…

Policing at Kingsnorth report published

The report regarding the policing of the ‘Climate Camp for Change’ at Kingsnorth between 3-9 August 2008 has been published.  It was conducted by Assistant Chief Constable Andy Holt, South Yorkshire Police.

Chief Constable Michael Fuller said:

I also recognise the report identifies several areas for learning. While many of the recommendations made to us have already been adopted in the intervening twelve months, there is still work to be done either within Kent or in conjunction with other forces or agencies. On that basis I have asked Assistant Chief Constable Andy Adams, who is relatively new to the force, to lead on ensuring all recommendations are properly addressed. This process will be overseen by the Kent Police Authority.

Another uncritical report….. now there’s a surprise. I will spend my evening perusing this great work of literature…..

Vestas workers under siege

Support the Vestas workers in occupation who are under siege by the cops and under constant pressure. And now this:

The occupying workers have told the BBC that management yesterday gave them a deadline of 22:30 to walk out of the factory and keep their redundancy pay, otherwise they would be sacked.

You can find ways of showing support and solidarity by looking at the website.

Also:

DEMONSTRATE in London (protest called by Campaign Against Climate Change)

Wednesday 22nd July , 6.00 pm, outside the Department of Energy and Climate Change, No 3 Whitehall Place
(off Whitehall, Charing Cross tube).

- Ring up the police to complain about the infringement of civil liberties in the handling of the Vestas occupation, the office involved is number 3606, and the officer in charge appears to be number 3115.

John McDonnell has tabled an EDM (1925) regarding Vestas

That this House expresses its concern that, at the very time when the Government is launching its drive for developing renewable energy sources in the UK, the Vestas company, specialising in renewable energy plant, is shedding 600 jobs and is closing; and calls on the Government to intervene as a matter of urgency to ensure the future of the Vestas operation and the protection of jobs.

John McDonnell (Chair of the LRC):  It is critical that we build solidarity with this vitally important campaign. These workers are at the forefront of the struggle to save their jobs and our planet.

Broadmoor: time it closed!

Broadmoor is the Gothic madhouse on the hill, a place that lurks in the imagination of the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, and just the its original name conjures up a Roger Corman b-movie chiller, Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. It was built by Joshua Jebb in 1863, located in Crowthorne. Jebb also designed Pentonville……  

 And the stereotype of Broadmoor still looms today.

 I used to visit Broadmoor regularly during the mid-late 1990s, I would get the train from Waterloo, then taxi to Broadmoor. Once there, you are searched and then escorted to either the visiting room or the ward. I used to visit women there as a volunteer for the organisation WISH (Women in Special Hospitals), I had visited women at Rampton (I was invited by their women’s group) and Ashworth. Most, I think all now, of the women have been moved out of Broadmoor (one of the campaigning demands of WISH) and generally the special hospital regime was always geared towards men overshadowing the needs of women. It was estimated that 95% of the women in the Specials had experienced rape and sexual abuse sometime in their lives, that in itself represents a high level of vulnerability and powerlessness. Similar to the prison system these places act like social dustbins for the traumatised and the distressed.

My first experience of being led through the grounds I was struck on how vast the place looked, modern architecture fused with neo-Gothic, the imposing building reminded me constantly of Goffman’s Asylums, institutionalised misery. We always get sensationalism when it comes to Broadmoor, the high-profile cases yet many people are incarcerated for low-level crimes or who have not committed any index offence, they remain in the background and lets be honest….they don’t sell news!

 Channel 4 news did an expose on Broadmoor last night and the findings didn’t surprise me. 

Words can’t describe the experiences many women encountered as residents at Broadmoor, they still chill me. The place symbolised oppression. Abuse, neglect and sexual/physical violence went unchallenged and unheard. Silenced. Powerlessness and vulnerability increased. Cover-up after cover-up. More pain more trauma. No justice. Meeting many of these women, I was confronted by the similarities I had with them, things we had in common, and the recognition of how easy it is to end up in a hell hole like Broadmoor, even as an atheist I was reminded always of the phrase, there but for the grace of God (go I).

The place continually unnerved me, I was pleased that women felt they could trust me but at the same time I was powerless to act as many felt too scared for their complaints to become formal. One woman I visited regularly, and got to know very well, committed suicide as she concluded that she would never ever get out of Broadmoor, she would never be free, only in death. I still have the sculpture she made me on my book shelf. I wonder sometimes about what type of life she would have had had she been given the support and help she desperately needed. She was failed by an uncaring brutal system along with countless other people.

 I stopped visiting the Specials’ and dropped out for a short time in the mental health user movement as I couldn’t handle the bleakness and how soul destroying it was, the feeling of powerlessness and silence crept further into my life and impinged on my own mental wellbeing, I felt angry 24/7 but trapped by it. I think if this was affecting me now I would deal with it very differently.

I felt constantly crap for letting these women down, I found it hard to cope. I did believe I was looking into the human abyss known as the Special Hospital regime. Every time I left Broadmoor I had the urge to scrub myself clean of the institutionalisation that lingered on me. The squalid system that treats people in such a degrading, abusive and inhuman way yet time and time again it goes unheard and hidden. People didn’t seem matter; they were treated like they were nothing, invisible. And what clouds the issue is the sensationalism and hype that goes with the Specials. The right-wing populism that plays to the myth of these places.

The Fallon enquiry recommended that the Specials should close (though he knew the government wouldn’t accept that so listed further recommendations) and that still stands. Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton are symbolic of a bygone archaic Victorian age, they are an anachronism entrenched in the 19^th century which has no place in 2009.

Time to close these high secure hellish nightmares!