Pix from London Zoo

For more pix see my Flickr page.

Facing up to justice??!!

Kevin has a written a post which is really well worth a read (as ever). Seems like PC Simon Harwood’s solicitors have published a photo of him because, he is aware that the media will not allow his family and neighbours any peace until it has a photograph of him, and he has taken the view that the only way to protect them from harassment by the photographers camped outside their addresses is to provide one.

Kevin goes on to say, Now personally, I’m not interested in what Harwood has to say about anything unless it is in the dock and in front of a jury. Equally, anything that prevents his lawyers from trying to argue in future that a fair trial is impossible, because of intense interest from newspapers more interested in headlines than justice, has to be good. After all, there still remains a realsitic possibility that the DPP’s decision may be subject to legal challenge and that Harwood may yet have to account for his actions in court.

But given how shocking this case is, it is still important to be able to put a face to the name. Anonymity granted to police officers normally extends far beyond what ordinary members of the public can ever expect – not unlike the kind of different treatment routinely granted to policce whenever they are accused of causing someone’s death.

I couldn’t agree more comrade.

See as well Bristle’s Blog

1980s: that was the decade that was…..

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times……….. That’s rather (like the author of this Guardian article states) how I see the 1980s. I spent my teenage years growing up in that stark politicised era of Thatcherism. Saturation of popular culture (tacky, chewing gum for the eye pre-packaged glossy telly) was at its peak in the 1980s… from Dallas to The A-Team to Dynasty to T J Hooker… it was hideously brilliant.. my Saturday evenings were consumed with viewing top quality dross with possible long-term implications for my functioning brain. But I was mesmerized. I didn’t go to the cinema much as a teenager (well, until I was 16 or so) but remember fondly, during my mid-teens. the Ghostbuster films, John Hughes’s homage to teenage angst, the X-rated films (oh the dear days of X-rated classification) which were surreptitiously whispered about in school along with the bragging about who snuck into to see one of these shockers…But one film stands out and that’s Top Gun possibly due to going on a date and seeing that film, neither the film nor the date worked out…………..

And the big hair, the rock ballads, rah-rah skirts, spiky New Romantic hair, Goth-Gothic intermission, Ska-Two Tone, winkelpickers, more is less when it came to make-up, psychedelic vinyl records (none of this DVD malarky), Betamax, VHS, Max Headroom, The Tube (oh, yes, Friday nights I looked forward to watching Jools and Paula), the early days when Brookside was good, A Very British Coup (they repeated that recently on cable), late teens; every student pin-up Betty Blue (sexist and the erotica overrated)…and so on….

Getting blindingly drunk on cheap whisky after LPYS meetings, feeling cool going to school next day with bad hangover, feeling that first rush of excitement of protesting/demonstrating, repressed the memory of Red Wedge, too young to attend Miners’ Strike events but not for Wapping, NUS….dem left to SSIN to SWSS, losing my voting card on Blackpool Pier circa 1987, throwing up in the back of a minibus over the week’s supply of papers for a certain Trot group (I would like to apologise for that indiscretion as I was suffering from travel sickness and unfortunately said Trot group, who will remain nameless though had a tendency to be militant, had their newspapers next to me…and well, my sectarian stomach got rather ill…), more demos, protests, activism…teenage loony bin trip, Oh the spirit of youth and the 1980s…. ‘We hate Tories and we hate Tories’…. Anti-apartheid, CND, unemployment, recession, YOPs, YTS, the savage raw deep, deep, ever so deep scar that Thatcherism left on the collective psyche of the working class…..

Yes my teens started detesting the Tories end with being an activist protesting against the Tories. With bad hairstyles, frilly shirts, pencil skirts, baggy jeans, ‘Frankie Says Relax’, high heels, boots, big hair, shaved hair, The Smiths, The Jam, The The, EBTG, Fine Young Cannibals, The Specials, Selector, Taylor Dane, Duran Duran, Communist Manifesto, Revolution Betrayed, Is the Future Female…..

I have good and bad memories of that formative decade, it was the best, it was the worst. In hindsight it is easy to get all nostalgic.

Sunsets

Con-Dem welfare reform

So here we go again… another ‘radical’ reform of the benefits systems. Another ideological onslaught on the poor. From NL to the Con/Dem right-wing lash-up…

Let us get one thing straight about unemployment and people being trapped in poverty…it is caused by deep structural and cyclical changes in the economy and not by a mixture of individual shortcomings and the existence of the welfare system itself. There are plenty of countries with no welfare benefit system but with vast numbers of people trapped in poverty and unemployment: they are the half of humanity living in third world urban slums. If you take the industry from large industrial areas and replace them with a scattering of McJobs then you end up with deep-seated structural unemployment. If you have a boom and bust economy then unemployment goes up and down in lockstep with the economic cycle: the culture of dependency inexplicably waxing and waning if you subscribe to it as your explanation of unemployment.

The Government’s paper does make some valid points about the complexity of the system and the effects of high rates of benefit withdrawal as earnings income increases. Both of these are major problems for people claiming benefits. However the oppressive system of conditionality is praised as something that reduces unemployment. Stalking the later half of the paper is the need to cut the social security budget: that is the need as far as the rich investors have, no-one else needs it. Contribution based benefits are dismissed in a rather flip way suggesting that the whole benefit system will be means-tested. This will increase complexity rather than reduce it.

It is means testing that brings in a huge amount of complexity into the system. More means testing more complexity. On top of that local welfare states with policies and budgets etc decided locally…simplification? Finally on simplification the paper looks towards IT links with employers to provide real-time data on people’s income. Millions of employees/claimants, hundreds of thousands of employers (remember this is to be a utopia of a huge number of small employers coming to the rescue…) and a huge number of variations as shifts change, deductions change etc. Not simple.

Underlying issues? Denial of the structural and cyclical causes of unemployment and poverty. Without a long essay in marxist economics it is capitalism and capitalist greed that guts economies and societies not having a welfare state. The other thing motivating our rulers is hidden away in the talk of “distance from the labour market”. Essentially it is this. From the point of view of the capitalists the unemployed are not acting as an efficient reserve army of labour in driving down wages. If someone is for instance a technically qualified worker say a cook in a cafe. A lone parent on Income Support with no access to childcare is not providing any competitive pressure on the cook in the cafe. Imagine the cafe gets taken over by a chain. The chain operating company will want to drive down wages. A large number of part-time workers working as cafe staff or in a factory producing pre-packaged food and drink for the cafe will either replace the skilled cook with a half decent salary or at least provide greater downward pressure on pay.

There is quite a lot of stress in the paper on part-time work. This will be minimum wage stuff not GP’s or teachers keeping their skills sharp while bringing up young children. It will not provide a decent standard of living. These are and will continue to be people trapped in poverty. Someone working 16 hours a week at the minimum wage of £5.80 will earn £92.80 a week. They will pay no tax or national insurance as they are below the thresholds for these. Most of their income will at present come from tax credits and benefits of one sort or another…but they will be acting as a much more efficient part of the reserve army of labour as they are at once in the labour market as a worker and at the same time someone the bosses hope is desperate due to still being very poor. The Government is deep down simply looking to make this process much more efficient.

What do we want instead? Economic policies that encourage beneficial forms of economic growth as opposed to boom and bust casino capitalism. We need  a decent minimum wage. £10.00 an hour would mean that people would have real standards of living. Proper ongoing training so people have real skills and real childcare provision. Affordable? Yes…it would cut into the cost of the benefit system like nothing else. Yes it will help to have a proper system of tapering to allow people to choose the amount work that suits them but this needs to be on the terms of ordinary people both in work and out. And scrap conditionality for ever…the poor are not the authors of poverty. Capitalism and its parasitic ruling class are.

21st Century Welfare? No, more like 19th Century…..

More examples of heavy handed tactics used against photographers…

This beggars belief….

An amateur photographer, who requires a carer, was stunned when security guards threatened to call anti-terror police over his photos of the Liverpool docks. Mike Evans said guards told him he was not allowed to use DSLRs outside the city’s Echo Arena, but that if he used a compact camera or a mobile phone he was free to take pictures.  Mike, who branded the behaviour of the guards ‘senseless’, took up photography in 2008, a year after being diagnosed with cancer.

Furthermore

Mike, from Runcorn in Cheshire, said he had wanted to visit Liverpool after hearing the city had undergone major redevelopment as part its Capital of Culture status. He had been with his carer – his brother – on a footpath next to a bus stop at the side of the arena building, which is located at Kings Dock. But it was when the pair turned their DSLRs on the Mersey estuary that the problems began. ’We were approached from behind by two security guards from the arena, which was behind us. ’The guards proceeded to inform us not to take any pictures of the arena and that, if we ignored this request, they would ring the anti-terrorism police.’
Mike added: ‘I then showed the lens cloth received free with your [Amateur Photographer] magazine… they told us that the rules on the cloth meant nothing to them.’

And hilarious nonsense from a spokesperson at the Liverpool Echo Arena

A spokeswoman for the Liverpool Echo Arena told us: ‘Apologies to the gentleman… We have no issues with amateur photographers taking non-commercial images of the exterior of the buildings.’ However, she pointed out that the Echo Arena stands on private land and urged photographers to contact the venue before taking pictures of the buildings.

‘We reserve the right to approach anyone and ask them questions about what they are doing,’ she added.

Where to start? Firstly, this area has had major development and is now part of the Capital of Culture status… now with all this major investment and architectural face-lift then surely people will want to take photos of the area and that should be encouraged, surely? Not the ridiculous reply from some spokesperson. It is unbelievable encountering security guards denying your rights to take a photograph. That’s just it….to take a photograph! Secondly, it is becoming more and more apparent the privatisation of space, what we are permitted to do and what we can’t… all an infringement on our civil liberties… But more importantly, where’s the legislation stopping people from taking photos of buildings on private land? Also, what anti-terror legislation were the security guards using? Heavy handed tactics to stop someone from taking pictures, what is so bleeding wrong and offensive about that?

Absolute attack on civil liberties and the freedom to take pictures of buildings wherever they may be.

Protest outside the CPS tomorrow

Unfortunately I can’t make this protest tomorrow….

Demo tomorrow outside the Office of Department of Public Prosecution Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London from 12noon to protest against decision made by the CPS over the death of Ian Tomlinson.

Solidarity with the Tomlinson family!

Support EDM 655 – Inquest into the death of Ian Tomlinson

Lobby your MP NOW to sign this EDM into the death of Ian Tomlinson

EDM 655

 

INQUEST INTO THE DEATH OF IAN TOMLINSON

Lucas, Caroline

That this House notes the public interest and disquiet over the case of Ian Tomlinson and the threat to public trust and confidence in the police that this case poses; further notes that the Independent Police Complaints Commission failed to investigate this death for seven days and notes the manner in which this failure has undermined public trust and confidence in the police complaints system; further notes the controversy over the appointment of the pathologist DrFreddie Patelin this case; further notes the possibility of a conflict of interest in the inquest as presently constituted; therefore calls on the Secretary of State for Justice to appoint a judge as coroner to conduct a prompt and effective inquest into the far-ranging issues this case raises; and calls on the Legal Services Commission to provide public funding for Ian Tomlinson’s family to be legally represented.

Bad day for FIT

Three men told today how they were “made to feel like criminals” after being arrested for obstructing a police cameraman photographing people attending a meeting at a community centre.Alex Clay, Jeff Parks and Barney Laurance celebrated a landmark legal victory that saw their convictions overturned after a judge ruled their human rights had been breached.

Hurrah for Fitwatch!!

They had originally been arrested and convicted in June 2008 for obstructing cops and police photographers and ordered to pay £2,000 in fines.

Judge Robert Fraser said: “We emphasise we do not say the police did not have a legitimate aim, but the Crown failed to satisfy us to the relevant standard.” James Welch, legal director at Liberty, said: “This is a useful reminder that protest is not a suspect activity and that the police have no general right to keep records on law-abiding citizens.”

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Fit teams are something that have been around for a long while and are an overt tactic at high-profile demonstrations and events. They are there so that if people get out of hand then the evidence has already been gathered.”

A great day for civil liberties a massive blow for FIT!! Hurrah!!

Further good news, “Terror suspects ‘able to sue’ over control orders” (H/T Kevin)

Another pointless Hollywood remake

Holy moly….. Why does Hollywood always feel the desperate need to remake good, solid and impressive originals (and usually these are non-English language speaking films). The latest film to get the Hollywood treatment is the powerful gritty modern day vampire and absolutely brilliant Swedish film, ‘Let the Right One In’… Why oh why oh why.. I lament.. You kinda know it will be terrible as the history of Hollywood remakes tells us.

 The author of the article writes: The argument is that Let The Right One In was so original, so thought-provoking, so utterly insurmountable that it deserves to be left unmangled by Hollywood’s suspect machinations. But can Let Me In achieve the impossible? Can it actually top the movie it’s based on?

 The conclusion is: Sorry, Let Me In – I make that 3-1 to the Swedes. You put up a valiant effort, but some films you just don’t mess with. I’m afraid we’ll just have to stick with the original on this one.

And it just doesn’t end there…. next is a Hollywood version of  Stieg Larsson’s first book of the trilogy – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Again the original Swedish version is gritty and brilliant (Swedes are on a roll !). Why the need to do a remake? Rumour has it that 007 himself, Daniel Craig, will play the journalist Mikael Blomkvist…. But why? Oh why, oh why! And who the hell with play Lisbeth? I bet not a patch on the wonderful enigmatic Noomi Rapace who plays her in the original.

I remember watching the Dutch film, The Vanishing, creepy, imaginative and spine-tingling. And then the director George Sluizer for reasons unknown made the  Hollywood version with Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and Kiefer Sutherland…along with a happy ending. And that’s what made me cringe was that the original didn’t have the average formulaic happy ending neatly tying up the loose pieces… for from it. See the original if you can.

There was a great Georgian/French film that had a limited release in 2005, 13 Tzameti. Thought-provoking, ‘edge of your seat’ cinenamtic experience, shot in monochrome. At the end of the film, I turned to my other half and said, ‘I bet Hollywood will remake it and add a happy ending’…. And what do you know …. they have! It’s called 13 and apparently uses the same narrative and plot of the original (young vulnerable man assumes the identity of a dead man that leads him into a violent and scary world of gambling with your own life)… I don’t know whether they have given a happy ending. I hope they won’t though I don’t know whether it has been given a release date…..

 Though sometimes a remake can be better or just as good as the original. Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven is far superior than the Sinatra and the Ratpack original (directed by Lewis Milestone…poor old Lewis Milestone got lumbered). On the subject of Soderbergh I liked his version of Solaris as much as I did of Tarkovsky’s.

 So there you go…….