NL continues its miserable progress to oblivion

I really truly want to use a few choice words such as bastard scumbags in describing the fact that the Commons have overturned the Lords amendment on the Welfare Reform Bill regarding financial sanctions for lone parents with kids under 5:

Amendment 2 – Nothing in this section shall cause any financial sanction to be imposed in the case of a single parent with a child under five years of age.

John Grogan MP argued this: 

There are safeguards, but at the end of the day, it might be that in a few months’ time, possibly in a little room in a jobcentre in South Dorset or in Pontefract and Castleford, a vulnerable single parent will sit at one end of the table and an official will sit at the other, and the former will have to justify their actions, justify why they are not taking up the appropriate child care so that they can do work-related activity or justify their personal circumstances.

And

This proposal is mean-spirited. It is cold, austere and technocratic, and it is unworthy of the Secretary of State and the Minister. I ask the Minister, even at this stage and in the spirit of Christmas, which is soon to be upon us, to drop his opposition to amendment 2.

And the Commons voted against amendment 2, 286 to 236. And you can see the scroll of shame here.

And congratulations to Jon Cruddas for finally doing the right thing (well, there’s a first time for everything….!) and voting for the amendment.

What to me is a touch of irony is that this specific Lords amendment came from Lord David Freud.

NB: I know the Torygraph spews bile on a regular basis but this is bloody awful!

Excellent post from Paul over at TCF regarding justice and social class.

Broken society Cameron style….

So just picture the scene…. lone parent, disabled person, job seeker, all queuing up outside the charitable institution who will decide whether they think you are deserving/undeserving poor. These judgemental individuals will decide whether you have some money to buy necessities etc. No, this isn’t 19th century Dickensian Britain but 2010 onwards known as Cameron’s vision to ‘mend that broken society’.

Indeed reading Cameron’s proposals you surely experience the disgusting stench of the workhouse. Well, 21st century workfare is the new 19th century workhouse. Rather than the welfare state supporting and helping you based on legislation if will be all down to local community….

We hear the prime minister talking about his moral compass,” he will add. “But when you are paid more not to work than to work, when you are better off leaving your children than nurturing them, when our welfare system tells young girls that having children before finding the security of work and a loving relationship means a home and cash now, whereas doing the opposite means a long wait for a home and less cash later, when social care penalises those who have worked hard and saved hard by forcing them to sell their home, rather than rewarding them by giving them some dignity in old age, when your attempts at playing a role in society are met with inspection, investigation and interrogation, is it any wonder our society is broken?

Lies, damn lies, Cameron!

Cameron’s vision is utterly reactionary drivel but scary reactionary drivel. A laissez-faire ideology which turns to charities and I bet later on, religious  organisations to decide on moralistic terms ‘cos it will be all about family orientated heterosexual values. A society that demands that people ‘behave themselves’…and that young women, in particular, should obey patriarchal norms in the correct order by ‘falling in love’ and having a job…and then having kids. Not out of synch the Cameron approach. Oh yes, I can hear the preachy retrograde sermons with a distinct Victorian flavour about ‘fallen women’…..

But this is the thing, what is this ‘broken society’, what is this ‘culture of dependency? Reactionary ideologies dreamt up by reactionaries adhering to a neoliberal agenda. In short, let’s punish the poor…for being….poor! And unlike Cameron who bemoans the damned welfare state it is precisely the beauty, that social democratic policy, of the secular run welfare state is that it treats people equally and that there is legislation in place. The problem is if you let charities/religious organisations to run the welfare shebang it won’t be run on state legislation and provision, it will be based on individual’s judgements and morals along with their own procrastinations on how people run their lives.

The reason the welfare state is ‘failing’ is due to it being starved of funds. Rather than investing in public services NL has saw fit to invest public money in the private sector combined with ongoing privatisation that has had severe ramifications on the servicing of public provision.

This leads me finally to the comments from Yvette Cooper:

This is a return to Thatcherism, or even 19th century liberalism – cutting back on government action on poverty, yet still backing tax cuts for the wealthiest estates.

Funny that Yvette is condemning Cameron’s polices because remember Ms Cooper who bloody well paved the way for this 19th century liberalism….this time turbo-charged social authoritarianism courtesy of the Tories…and a hellva lot worse!

Secret inquiries: further erosion of civil liberties

So NL is ditching its plans for the ‘Big Brother’ database where every scrap of electronic communication etc. sent would be stored.

The Home Office confirmed the “Big Brother” scheme had been delayed until after the election amid protests that it would be intrusive and open to abuse. Although ministers publicly insisted yesterday that they remained committed to the scheme, they have decided not to include the contentious measure in next week’s Queen’s Speech, the Government’s final legislative programme before the election.

Methinks it was scrapped due to costs (£2bn over 10 years) as opposed to NL having a ‘Road to Damascus’ experience realising the importance of civil liberties in a democratic society. Ah, no such luck!

NL may have kicked this plan into the ‘long grass’ but the desire for a secret state continues. Secret inquests or as they are now known as ‘secret inquiries’ will happen whenever they deem necessary especially when the ‘get out clause’ is ‘national security’. The government’s majority was 8 in being able to push through these draconian measures.

Andrew Dismore raised the case of Azelle Rodney in the debate last night:

On 30 April 2005, Azelle Rodney was in the rear seat of a car in Hale lane, Edgware, in my constituency. A police officer fired eight shots at the car, six of which hit Rodney, killing him. There is no evidence that Rodney was holding a gun when he was shot, although the other occupants were successfully prosecuted, firearms having been found in the vehicle. The suggestion was that it was part of a drugs operation, not, I have to say, a national security issue, and that covert surveillance was used.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission report has not been published, but it recommended no action. Four-and-a-half years on, there has been no inquest and no explanation, and Azelle Rodney’s mother, Susan Alexander, wants, needs and has a right to know what happened to her son. So do constituents, because they were made fearful by the incident having taken place in broad daylight at a busy junction. They, too, would like to know what was going on.

I was pleased when my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary announced that the secret inquest proposals in the Bill were to be dropped, but I am disappointed that they have been replaced by secret inquiries. This debate seems to be something of a “Groundhog Day” in terms of the issues that we may have to cover. Schedule 1(3), which my amendment would remove, provides for the suspension of inquests

 

“on the ground that the cause of death is likely to be adequately investigated by an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005”.

However, there are no criteria or grounds for superseding an inquest specified in the Bill. On that basis, the proposals before us are worse than those that were withdrawn for secret inquests.

Furthermore

Given the way that the Bill is currently phrased, there will be secret inquiries at the behest of the Executive. The Executive will set the terms of reference, the Minister will choose the judge, the Minister or the judge can restrict attendance at the inquest, the Minister or the judge can restrict the disclosure or publication of evidence or documents, the Minister can redact reports and recommendations at the end of the inquiry, and the Minister can suspend the inquiry merely on the grounds that it is in the public interest to do so. That is far more broad and generous to the Secretary of State and to Ministers than the original super-inquest proposals were. That is why I am worried that there are no safeguards in the Bill that deal with this issue.

Similarly, if the inquest is resumed after the inquiry, the findings of the inquest are not allowed to be inconsistent with the outcome of the public inquiry, even if the jury comes to that conclusion. So if a judge is conducting a public inquiry and the inquest is later resumed at the behest of the coroner, the jury is not allowed to make a certain finding even if that is where the facts take it. Secret inquests are being replaced by the prospect of secret inquiries, which will not be adequate and effective investigations. They will not be independent or provide public scrutiny, and they will not involve the next of kin in the way that they should.

I really recommend if you get the chance to read the debate on Hansard.

Secret inquests or inquiries, call it what you will, is an attack on independence, public scrutiny, accountability and further erosion of civil liberties.

Bill Marshall-Andrews is correct when he argued in the debate yesterday, However, when something goes that wrong, and when something goes as wrong as it did the Jean Charles de Menezes case, there must be a public inquiry. Having a private, secret inquiry in those circumstances would be a devastating indictment of our system and of the use of Executive power.

And you can see the scroll of shame of spineless gutless MPs who voted against Dismore’s amendment. It fell by 8 votes. Gutless cowardly clone-like Labour MPs following the leadership in eroding and sacrificing civil liberties…and for what, exactly? Social authoritarianism and the encroaching secret state.

Shame on them!!