G20 pathologist guilty of misconduct

I was going to write something about the GMC’s guilty verdict regarding Dr Freddy Patel but Kevin has got there before me. And it’s an excellent piece as well. So hope he doesn’t mind that I have cut and pasted his post below.

Today, the General Medical Council unpicked another thread in the state’s case for denying justice to Ian Tomlinson’s widow and his children.

It comes as no surprise that the GMC has ruled that the pathologist Dr Mohmed ‘Freddy’ Patel failed to meet professional standards during post-mortem examinations in three cases between 2002 and 2005. I can still remember clearly how devastated my friends Rupert and Sheila Sylvester were back in 1999, when Patel wrongly announced to reporters that their son Roger, who had died in police custody in Tottenham, had been a crack cocaine user. Patel was reprimanded for that instance of professional misconduct too and in 2003, Roger was found to have been killed unlawfully by the police. Still, it wasn’t until July last year that Dr Patel was finally suspended from conducting any further post mortem examinations for the Home Office or the police.

Common sense suggests this leaves in tatters the claim by Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, that there was an “irreconcilable conflict” in medical opinion over the death of Ian Tomlinson that prevented a charge of manslaughter. On the one hand, there’s the post mortem opinion of Freddy Patel, a discredited pathologist with a string of reprimands and disciplinary verdicts against him, a doctor who has had no formal working arrangement with any UK police force for five years before Ian’s death. On the other hand, there’s the opinion of Dr Nat Cary, the former Head of of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital, a member of the Home Office’s own Scientific Standards Committee and the author of more than fifty peer-reviewed published articles, mainly in relation to cardiovascular disease. Medical evidence stands and falls on the reputation of expert witnesses and whilst their testimony should never be relied on as the only evidence, I still can’t understand why a jury can’t weigh Cary’s opinion against the value of Patel’s credibility, alongside the video evidence available.

Meanwhile, there’s still the question of why the coroner Paul Matthews picked Dr Patel over Dr Cary (who is normally called in for suspicious deaths in London), especially as earlier this month, an investigation by BBC Radio 4′s The Report found that Patel had failed to meet the criteria for inclusion on the Home Office’s Register of Forensic Pathologists. We also need to know what role the City of London Police had in influencing the coroner’s decision – they paid Patel’s fee at the same time as they were busy telling the Tomlinson family that here was nothing suspicious about Ian’s death. And then we need an explanation why two investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission were denied access to the original postmortem by Dr Patel.

The accusation of a cover up is one that should always be made with caution – but in this case, the evidence is becoming alarmingly compelling.

Here’s a poll I made earlier….

Here’s a poll I made earlier.

I will be getting my two ballot papers for Labour Leader (one from the LP and the other from the affiliated trade union I belong to). So…what do you think? Who should get my 1st preference? Yes I know, should be thinking for myself and coming to my own conclusions ….

But, dear interested in the process readers, what do you think? Who should get my 2 votes?

A tale of two Milibands

Well, I am waiting for the ballot papers for the Labour Leadership to land on my doormat. And in a Simon Cowell-esque “pick me” moment Tony Blair is apparently expected to pass comment on the contest, contenders all waiting with bated breath to hear which one of them the warmongering neoliberal will choose. I think Diane Abbott will be safe in the knowledge that she won’t be picked neither will, apparently, be Ed Miliband. But then Blair passing comment will be more of a possible “kiss of death” moment for his chosen successor. One hopes. Unfortunately, Mandelson has decided to wade in with his own tuppence halfpenny about this contest with his defending the indefensible the Frankenstein NL hideous monster that he created and unleashed on the rest of us. And of course this is the man who is pretty comfortable when it comes to wealth.

And as the final days approaching fast regarding this uninspiring politically tedious and mundane contest. The Miliband brothers have been saying things. David M. provided something of a defence of the NL governments. Mr Ed has sounded more critical but nothing of substance in terms of an alternative vision of politics has been forthcoming.

The NL project may have made sense in its own terms up to 2007. A property boom on steroids allowed NL to spend the public’s money on PFi, outsourcing and consultancy firms, prison building and illegal wars. Now it will not. If you follow either of the Milibands this is what you hope for: capitalism unreformed, a fresh property boom, an establishment that will allow increased spending in return for lots of public spending going into private pockets through privatisation of one kind or another, some of the remainder indeed going to make the poor a little less poor for a while.

Even if NL kicks the ConDems out of office in 2015 either Miliband offers a recipe for the Con part of the ConDems getting back in at the 2020 election. Sooner or later the boom will turn to bust and the capitalist beast will need to be a plague of locusts yet again. This is the reality of the “realism”  followers of either Miliband will preach to the Left.

Travels around SE20

Some more pictures from my travels around SE20 or more to the point Crystal Palace Park…..

The importance of wetlands

I like the London Wetlands. Have been to the one in Llanelli where you can feed the geese and ducks and see the fantastic flamingoes. It’s about preserving wetlands and conservation. Great to visit as you see so many different species of wildfowl. Half of the worlds wetlands have been drained. Wetlands are an ecological necessity. And they are disappearing….fast.

An enjoyable day out in pleasant summer weather. Not as many birds around as the Llanelli wetlands which is based on old industrial workings and natural salt marshes but it does provide an area of peaceful wilderness within the London sprawl (plenty of big silver birds droning their way into Heathrow Airport).

Just watching the birds on the main lake and its islands is relaxing. It is an education and a place to learn especially good for children. Also being able to observe all these different species of wildfowl and birds, there’s also information pinned up at the centre saying which birds of prey have been sited! But to gain entrance is expensive which defeats the object as experiencing these wetlands ought to be free or very cheap, all maintained and funded collectively by the state

To the extent that it was thought provoking we need to protect environments such as wetlands which should have the same status in our collective consciousness as mountains and dramatic coastlines. We also need to have plenty of affordable places such as the London wetlands so that more people get to experience nature within their communities as opposed to far-away places on holiday and on TV.

My great-uncle Rupert

As a distraction I found myself looking at the census of 1901 and 1911. What I did find was a revelation as I searched the household of my maternal great-grandparents. I knew my great-grandmother was born in India during the late 1860s, I knew my grandmother was born in the late 1890s in the district of Staffordshire and that she had 3 sisters, one of them I was named after. But what I didn’t know is that there were 3 other older siblings who I never knew existed. Two of them were born in India, the other was born in Middlesex. I always assumed that my grandmother had sisters so finding out I had a great-uncle was a very big surprise. In the 1901 census my great-uncle Rupert was 14 and a telegraph messenger.

In the 1911 census his occupation was telegraphist. I tried to remember if there was any mention of this man, as a kid I would trawl through my mother’s photo collection would come upon faded sepia Edwardian era photos, my mother would tell me who they were in those pictures but never once, can I recall as I dredge my memory, of Rupert or even his other two younger siblings, Catherine and Margaret. It is like they have been erased from family history, so that kinda inspired me to delve deeper and to find out what happened to the 3 of them. I came up against a brick wall with Catherine and Margaret, they married and with the usual patriarchal custom their surnames changed and I couldn’t track their new surnames while Rupert’s surname would stay static even when he married (I couldn’t find the “maiden name” of his wife, Amy). I wanted to know what happened to Rupert? Why had he seemingly disappeared? And then a very sad thought  occurred to me, did he die during WW1? Now even if he had then that wouldn’t/shouldn’t stop families talking about relatives who have died and certainly Rupert died 12 years before the birth of my mother. But there would be photographs, mementoes…surely to remind the living of the dead?

Even so he wasn’t mentioned, maybe (and certainly it is traditional in my family) “out of sight out of mind” with the added “stiff upper lip” approach. My mother spoke about her own father’s experiences in WW1, from what she said and didn’t say is that it totally devastated him, he found solace in alcohol. Shell shocked soldiers were treated differently certainly officer ranks got early forms of “talking therapies” at places like Craiglockhart while the lower ranks got what they were given. Yet witnessing the horrors of warfare changed my grandfather’s politics forever, once a man uninterested and apathetic towards politics by the end of the war he was a committed trade unionist and left-wing by all account. Then I wondered whether granddad Joe ever met his brother-in-law, Rupert as they lived not that far from one another (my grandmother married Joe in 1916), did they ever encounter each other even though they were in different, I think, regiments. Rupert was in the Royal Engineers, not sure what Joe was in. I checked out his (Rupert) military career and medals card in various databases via National Archives. I google searched his name and military number, up popped a war grave for him in Smethwick.

The saddest and heartbreaking thing about his death was that he died 3 weeks after Armistice. I don’t whether he died from wounds, weakened by the outbreak of influenza, again just guessing. I simply don’t know. But it says that he left a wife, Amy (no mention of children…again, don’t know whether he had children). I wonder what happened to Amy? I was overwhelmed with sadness when reading about Rupert’s life cut short by a futile yet devastating and traumatic imperialist war where thousands upon thousands of people died…and for what? War to end all wars….? His life and memory seemingly erased from my own family history, simply vanishing like he didn’t exist by a family who were beholden to a “stiff upper lip” approach to life. Whether they grieved I don’t know. But in someway I hope to have resurrected the names of Rupert and Amy by showing they existed, not some names forgotten and rubbed out of family history.

NB: I discovered that Rupert and Amy had two children but both died immediately after birth. Amy died in 1926 aged 43.

David Miliband – supporter of human rights?!

I received a letter today from my MP Jim Dowd, explaining why he’s voting for David Miliband as Labour leader, here is an extract regarding his reasons.

“Even before he became an MP he was developing policy on fighting child poverty and introducing the minimum wage. He is an internationalist, helping deal with climate change as Environment Secretary and standing up for human around the globe as Foreign Secretary”…

“Standing up for human rights”…. Does that include torture? War crimes?

Anyway, the letter goes on that Miliband the elder will be a pole of attraction in winning people back to Labour. Some how I just can’t see it. But then I am not surprised that Dowd is backing David Miliband  so in keeping the tradition of Blairism albeit a new improved version alive and kicking (though why Miliband didn’t just sod off to the ConDems like the other former Blairite ministers as that seems to be the natural progression for them is beyond me…but then he wants the Labour leader crown). And how David Miliband has the gall and audacity to stand as Labour leader is beyond me as well. But this is a man who lacks principles and a backbone….

To supporters of Miliband the elder, ask yourself, how can you back someone who whinges and whines about the obsession with Iraq, and was complicit in torture who desperately sought through the courts to obstruct and to further cover it up? Do you want this man with blood on his hands to become leader of the Labour Party? Have you  learned nothing from the warmongering and neoliberalism of Blair and Brown? Are you intent on sleepwalking to the election by voting for a man who wants to revamp New Labour, different face same politics (“We don’t need to rewrite Clause IV. We do need a leader who puts it into practice with verve and imagination”…)?

Whether justice will be served and the truth exposed over Miliband’s role over torture in this judicial secret inquiry which lacks transparency and democracy we shall see but as Andy Worthington eloquently and powerfully argues: In conclusion, then, the announcement of the inquiry is welcome, but issues of secrecy, compensation, the need for the release of Shaker Aamer and the seeming inability of the government — any government — to prohibit torture without leaving loopholes open, look likely to dog the inquiry’s every move. While the government is to be congratulated, ministers also need to be careful, as many people are scrutinizing their every move, and will not settle for anything that resembles a whitewash.

With Miliband’s tainted and blood stained politics how can he have any respect or status in the Labour Party and the labour movement overall? The best he can do is step down and leave politics. John Profumo, for example, resigned on less ending up working in the voluntary sector. Maybe David Miliband should do that, work with the victims of the torture and see the realities of his own complicity and capitulation to warmongering.

Update: Well, Miliband has found a friend in “influential left-of-centre MP for Dagenham” Jon Cruddas. This shouldn’t come as a surprise from the so-called “left of centre” MP as he has a tendency to capitulate to the NL line…. He’s no dynamic innovative principled left-winger but then I doubt if he would want to be seen like that. What is this…warmongers unite…you have nothing to lose but your political soul? But what am I saying, they lost their political soul when they voted for an illegal, unjust and barbaric imperialist war back in 2003. I wish the bloody gaping wound that is the Iraq war haunted these b’stards all the way to the war crimes dock along with the terrible cost it inflicted on the Labour Party.

If only…..

What next…kill the poor?

This caught my attention that gave me the chills and made me very angry. Here’s the blurb advertising Iconoclasts for broadcasting tomorrow on Radio 4:

Edward Stourton chairs a live debate in which Professor David Marsland defends his view that the mentally and morally unfit should be sterilised. Professor David Marsland is Emeritus Scholar of Sociology and Health Sciences at Brunel University, London and Professorial Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Buckingham. He argues that the only way to prevent the abuse and neglect of children whose parents are incapable of looking after them is to stop them from being born in the first place. It should be open to police and social workers to recommend that drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally disabled should be irreversibly sterilised – and the courts should be able to enforce this. Challenging his views will be three expert witnesses including a senior social worker, a drugs charity lawyer and a moral philosopher.

“Mentally and morally unfit should be sterilised”… the language of eugenics is raising its distinctly ugly head. Reading the blurb instantly made me think of Nazis eugenics, sterilisation of the so-called “mentally and morally undesirables”. The compulsory sterilisation laws in the US during the early 20th century were aimed at “genetically inferior degenerates”. Furthermore, psychologist Cyril Burt once wrote in 1903, “The problem of the very poor – chronic poverty: Little prospect of the solution of the problem without the forcible detention of the wreckage of society or other preventing them from propagating their species”…

These expose the establishment’s views on the working class and anyone who doesn’t fit the mould of what is “moral”, racism and prejudices based on flawed science and methodology which shows more of an ideological axe to grind. Does Marsland subscribe this?

Some of these ideas have been diluted (immigration laws etc.) down since the 1940′s. However since the development of the ideology of “culture of dependency” the scapegoating of the poor has accelerated and seems set to accelerate further. All right wing political movements need scapegoats sooner or later to distract from the crimes of the powerful. Sometimes it is based on race, sometimes on class. Here no doubt it will be based on a bit of both with some sexist blaming of lone parents. In other circumstances working women might have the finger pointed at them. It does not really matter to the right wing who is the target so long as it is not the rich and powerful. If you do point the finger of blame where it should be pointed the voices now shrill in condemnation of the powerless will respond that you should not be “simplistic” or indulge in the “politics of envy”.

Although the views expressed by Marsland are bog standard right wing orthodoxy as peddled for many a year they do seem to be upping the ante in terms of an ideological attack on the welfare state. If taken up by policy makers their will be a return slum housing, starvation, denial of healthcare and so on. The poor will be punished and physically violated in ways that that the right wingers’ pals who rule Saudi Arabia will approve of completely. Welcome to class war neo-liberal style.

I will be definitely be tuning in tomorrow….

UPDATE: I am listening to this reactionary, David Marsland (Thatcher’s favourite sociologist btw) and he says that he believes in sterilisation in the context of child protection for people with mental distress, disabilities, drug and alcohol addiction…. He’s says this isn’t Nazis eugenics but what the hell is it?

It stigmatises and labels people makes assumptions about people.I mean, he mentions “depressive illnesses”…. well in that context then he would have me up for sterilisation as he would assume that I would make a “bad parent”. Where are Marsland statistics? Where’s his methodology what brings him to this spurious and reactionary conclusion?

What about parents who neglect and abuse their children who don’t “fit” into the above categories? Abuse and neglect transcends social class, it doesn’t just happen in one social class, you can’t label and categorise people. Marsland is bashing working class people and the poor.

15 Albums

Sam on his Facebook page has this great meme (include the meme on your blog as well!!). Fifteen LPs you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes, one album per band. Now that’s a tough one cos it will take me longer than 15 mins. so here goes in no particular order…..

1. The Beatles – Revolver: I always find the track, “For No One” really sad and poignant to listen to (“The day breaks, your mind aches”…), always have. Listened to the album a lot when I was younger.

2. The The – Infected: I played that album constantly when it was released in 1986 year I left school. I don’t have a favourite track on there but I still find “Heartland” such a raw and powerful song.

3. Style Council – Café Bleu: different from Weller’s Jam incarnation. The LP is very mellow to listen to though still political. My favourites on there include, “The Whole Point of No Return”, “Headstart for Happiness”. And of course the wonderful Tracey Thorn on “Paris Match”.

4. Blondie – Parallel Lines: I think I stole my copy from an older sibling from their record collection. The über cool Debbie Harry who I adored as a young feminist. I love the striking cover of the LP and majority of the tracks such as, “Hanging on the Telephone”, “Picture This”, “Sunday Girl” and “Hear of Glass”…

5. Everything But The Girl – Baby, the Stars Shine Bright: I was going to choose Eden but I think this LP is underrated, it has that “big band” quality and my favourite track on there is the homage to Marilyn Monroe, “Sugar Finney” (“When you’re out of mind, when you’re out of sight / This you shouldn’t, this you should / Oh, but Sugar Finney never could be good /”).

6. The Beat – I Just Can’t Stop It: This LP takes me to Birmingham, early 1980s and 2-Tone music. I liked UB40 and The Specials but preferred The Beat. My favourites are “Mirror in the Bathroom”, “Tears of a Clown”, “Best Friend”, “Can’t Get Used to Losing You”

7. The Selecter – Two Much Pressure: Again, Birmingham, early 1980s and 2-Tone music. Another über cool woman, political and powerful, Pauline Black, someone else I admired as a young feminist. I love “Three Minute Hero”, “Too Much Pressure” and “Missing Words”..

8. The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow: Now this was a tough one as I bought most of The Smiths LPs. One of the things I liked about them was their LP covers which had 1960s icons on the front from Pat Phoenix to Alain Delon. Think as well I was in a minority at school who liked The Smiths from the start and bought their singles/LPs, the usual stuff about alienation and isolation. I used to listen to “Heave Knows I’m Miserable Now”… Insufferable teenager was I! Along with “William, It Was Really Nothing”, “What Difference Does it Make”, and the wonderful acoustic intro by Johnny Marr to “This Charming Man”, “How Soon is Now”, and “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want”….

9. Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures: it wouldn’t be complete without some Joy Division more moody melancholic misery I listened to (and still do…. though someone did recently say to me, “stop listening to Joy Division…not good for you”… Yes, indeed). The track for me is, “She’s Lost Control”.

10. New Order – Substance: not sure if you can include compilations but anyway here goes… I listened to New Order on and off since my teenage years. And my favourites here include, “Thieves Like Us”, “Temptation”, and True Faith.

11. Manic Street Preachers – Everything Must Go: I saw the Manics live in 1991 and thought they were awful. So I was shocked when I listened to some of the singles on this LP and discovered that I really really liked them, “A Design For Life”, “Kevin Carter”, “Everything Must Go”…

12. Teardrop Explodes…. I can’t decide between Wilder and Kilimanjaro… I know that’s cheating but both LPs have great tracks like “Treason” and “Passionate Friend”….

13. Massive Attack – Blue Lines: early 1990s for me was listening to this fantastic LP. It’s a great fusion of styles. My favourites include, “Unfinished Sympathy”, “Safe From Harm”, “Hymn of the Big Wheel”… I coulda have also chosen the LPs Protection or Mezzanine.

14. Nitin Sawhney – Beyond Skin: I saw him live in late 2001, and what a live show that was combined with an anti-war message. Tracks I play over and over again include “Broken Skin”, “Immigrant”, “Letting Go”, “Nadia”.

15. Carly Simon – No Secrets: takes me back to my childhood, my sister used to play it a lot, kinda grew on me that meant I ended up singing along to it… and it’s a memorable folk/pop LP and I liked Carly Simon’s voice..and lyrics, “The Right Thing to Do”, “The Carter Family”, “You’re So Vain”, “We Have No Secrets”, “Night Owl”.. It may seem a strange choice but I kinda learned to read by reading the lyrics to tracks on the back of LP covers/inserts and No Secrets was no different. Same with MeatLoaf’s Bat Out of Hell…. but that’s for another time…

That’s that. Taken me far longer than 15mins. So who to tag? It’s usually Phil tagging me, so makes a change I will tag him. Anyone else who wants to do this, please feel free. Actually I will also tag Carl Raincoat as curious to know what LPs stick with him……

Dammit…. forgot to include The Pretenders… I adored Chrissie Hynde when I was younger. Still listen to the compilation LP, The Singles, which I bought at the same time as a compilation of Elvis Costello’s greatest hits… which I also forgot to include….

Oh Well!!

Keep libraries public!

More from the Big Society Con…..

When I worked in a library based in higher education during the late 1990s colleagues (including myself) used to indulge in a bit of gallows humour (well, it kept us “sane” in some way as all of us were trade union activists resisting cuts in higher education and library services were usually the first to experience the attacks) joking that we expected to see McDonalds sponsoring one of the library bays or shelves any time soon or some other corporate sponsor encroaching on state funded provision. It didn’t happen……then

But……

Hundreds of libraries could face privatisation according to recently published proposals in the new library support initiative called “Future Libraries Programme” championed by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey to “help the service during the challenging financial situation”. However, campaigners fear it could lead up to 1,000 libraries closing in the next 18 months.

In other words, starving libraries of funding (which has been happening over the years), flogging them off, involving the voluntary sector specifically volunteers, which in itself is a wholesale attack on terms and conditions, driving wages down, by deskilling work using untrained and unpaid labour. Unison members working in Southampton Libraries went on strike on the 13 and 14 August over the introduction of new style volunteers and the closure of the Thornhill and Millbrook libraries.

As Branch Secretary, Mike Tucker, commented, Libraries need professional staff to provide a modern service to the people of Southampton. Untrained, unskilled, unreliable volunteers will not provide this service. The Conservative Party’s “Big Society” is a smokescreen covering up savage cuts in vital services. Southampton librarians are determined to resist the destruction of their service.

And this does all connect with Cameron’s ideologically fantasy of the Big Society all based on cutting the public sector to the core. It is, as that guy on Twitter described it aptly, a neoliberal hallucinogen by using social cohesion as a smokescreen.

One of the  areas chosen “for their individual strengths, type of project, geographical spread and rural and urban mix” is where I live, Tory Bromley. Lewisham Council (also one of the areas) is proposing closing 5 libraries out of the 12. The council hilariously describe these cuts as, “re-shaping service delivery”. And with these proposals from the ConDems the future for state funded library provision likes very grim.

Terence Blacker rightly argues, Pass the running of them over to private enterprise, local bodies or charities – or to a fashionable muddle of all three – and the effect will be to dismantle it beyond repair. Indeed, the areas where books and reading are most desperately needed are precisely those where communities are enfeebled and private companies are uninterested.

A country’s public library service is a sure indicator of how highly it values its citizens, its children and its future. There may well be a place for the new localism around the outer fringes of the service – the library is a focus of local life, after all – but, if the Government allows it to slip into decline in the hollow name of community, Ed Vaizey’s promises and his boss’s Big Society will be exposed as a heartless sham.

Where’s the accountability and transparency in this Big Society Con? How will these volunteers be chosen? These proposals have a real hideous nasty whiff nay stench of the Victorian. This is about precisely about privatising public services. Libraries  are a way to collectivise learning, finding out about the world, access to books, in an equal way. And when you look at how much of a budget is spent on libraries, well it is a drop in the financial ocean! Furthermore, at a time of recession and ferocious cuts, all these benefits are of greater importance. Good local libraries become more relevant to people’s needs, not less.

The cuts will have an immeasurable impact on learning. Libraries give equal access to education but the erosion due to cuts will create a society where the poor will not have the same access as people with money.

Having to rely on charity or privatisation threatens libraries and undermines the universality of services. Books should be for all not just the few.

See Alan Gibbons’ Blog about campaigning against proposed library closures. As one woman who turned up to a protest said, “But that’s where I borrow my books. What am I supposed to do if it goes?”

See as well this Facebook group.