Just a quick post to remind people about the Carnival of Socialism will be up very early Saturday morning so I will be compiling it sometime tomorrow.

So any posts you want to big-up etc. please link to in the comments box below.

Ta…

Twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall (20 years..how time flies) instead of reminiscing about that time I am including the trailer from this wonderful film, Goodbye Lenin. Reading Claude’s post reminded me of the film. I watched it when it was released in cinemas in 2003. It is a poignant, bittersweet, very funny, hopeful yet sad film.  See Claude’s post for a summary of the film. I missed watching it on television at the weekend.

And the final moments of the film, especially these lines are powerfully moving…and true: Socialism isn’t about walling yourself in. It’s about reaching out to others and living with them. It means not only dreaming about a better world, but making it happen.

Sir Richard Tilt, chair of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) has spoken regarding sanctions-based conditionality as the main tool for getting people back into the labour market:

We have seen little convincing evidence that sanctions ‘work’ in this way, and we very much hope that the development of ‘personalised’ support services … will offer an approach to compliance that offers customers empowerment and responsibility, backed by real choices and options, as they move towards the labour market.

So let’s reiterate the obvious, sanctions don’t work!

And Tilt has never been a supporter of benefit sanctions.

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.

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!

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!!

Having mindlessly and stupidly watched ‘The Execution of Gary Glitter’ the verdict I have reached is that this programme should have been put out of its misery from the start. Firstly, why Gary Glitter? More controversy but without the politics…and without a decent script. Secondly, it wasn’t grounded in reality. There are better and more realistic scenarios to be had. Though C4 was being too clever by half.

It trivialises the debate around the death penalty, docudrama with added talking heads from Miranda Sawyer to Gary Bushell. The real serious issues about the death penalty were lost without trace in the sensationalism of the tabloid-esque language and stereotypes. Real questions about why people support the death penalty weren’t examined. Also, what was it meant to be? Fictionalised drama…with wooden acting, dialogue, lack of dramatic tension and a confused storyline. What was Channel 4 trying to present?

 We were spoon fed a diet of whipped up controversy and sensationalism as a distraction from the real issues which was such a shame as the death penalty debate never goes away.

I really think C4 were being too clever by half and it showed!

A wasted bloody opportunity.

Charlie Brooker is spot-on btw.

Btw: if someone from C4 is reading this then how about making a drama about the loss of the ‘right to silence’. An erosion of civil liberties if ever. Just a thought….

From a welfare state to society murder
Bring “Back the noose” is always heard
Whenever those swine are under attack
But it won’t make you even
It won’t bring him back.

(Elvis Costello – Let Him Dangle)

It must be around 25 years ago when my English teacher asked us 14-15 year olds to write a discursive essay on the death penalty. Before we did he asked for a show of hands of who supported the re-introduction/against the re-introduction of the death penalty. There was around 30 of us in the class and only around 8 (including myself) were against the re-introduction of the death penalty. Even the teacher was shocked and interestingly gave a long talk about why he was against the death penalty. I can’t remember what grade I got for the essay (though the discursive essay on unilateral nuclear disarmament found me in even a smaller minority…me and another girl who was in Youth CND).

But the debate about the death penalty never goes away, it comes back and forth whenever there is an appalling crime committed usually in conjunction with the howls from the right-wing populist media whipping up a frenzy, demanding vengeance. The pro death penalty brigade have been raising their ugly heads. Though this debate will be interesting:

An Ipsos Mori poll commissioned by Channel 4 found 70% of those surveyed thought the UK should have the death penalty as the maximum possible penalty for the most serious crimes.

I considered the death penalty as state sanctioned murder as a 14 year old and still hold that opinion. It is obscene, it is vengeance.

In the States there are 3,300 people on death row disproportionately Black, (it seems that support for the death penalty in the States is falling) this highlights the racism that exists within that society. And one of the many reasons I loathe Bill Clinton was of this vile political opportunistic act where he made a point of supporting the execution of Ricky Ray Rector in 1992. Playing to the ‘tough on crime’ mentality.

How many of these people on death row are innocent and have been subject to a miscarriage of justice? But then some members of the ruling class have no problem with hanging innocent people (Lord Denning on the Birmingham Six, “We shouldn’t have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they’d been hanged. They’d have been forgotten and the whole community would have been satisfied.”)

I remember reading the powerful Reflections on the Guillotine by Camus as part of a series of essays written by campaigners for the abolition of the death penalty in Britain (the book had been published in the early 1950s). Camus writes about his father desperately wanting to attend a public execution, he does and he gets more than he bargained for. His father is in shock for days after witnessing the brutality and violence of state sanctioned murder.

Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most prolific hangman, made the point in an autobiography that people who were otherwise popular got their sentence commuted. Others who could be seen as ‘outsiders’ people with few friends, inarticulate etc ended up being hanged. And the death penalty reflects class dynamics, racism and sexism engendered in this unequal judgemental and moralistic society.

The Sun newspaper of course would love to have the death penalty back. The trial and execution would be cheap to cover but would be a cert for huge sales. Imagine being able to whip up public fury or sympathy for the convict and being able to report all that extra revenue back to Rupert.

I like this post by Paul over at Though Cowards Flinch.

Will write some of my own political observations from his post later as I am still well and truly bunged up due to cold. And I won’t do the post much justice if I rambled on in a cold addled manner.

So it seems the Welfare Reform Bill is on course to go back to the Commons on the 10 November for consideration of Lords amendments. Changes have been made.

Others amendments to be considered include:

• ensuring that lone parents of children under five will not face a financial sanction if they fail to carry out work-related activity;
• introducing flexibility to allow lone parents undertaking work-related activity on employment and support allowance, and those affected by progression-to-work, to restrict the hours when they undertake work-related activity;
• placing in primary legislation an assurance that lone parents with a youngest child aged below seven will not be required to meet the full jobseeking conditions of JSA – for example, being available for work or actively seeking work;
• ensuring that the well-being of children is always taken into account when a personal adviser and a parent agree the steps the parent will take to prepare for and move into work when completing an action plan or a jobseeker’s agreement;
• making clear in primary legislation that in considering whether a person has good-cause for failing to undertake mandatory activity for income support, JSA and ESA purposes, account must be taken of the availability of childcare and the claimant’s health condition or disability;
• ensuring that a direction for a claimant to undertake specific work-related activity may not specify medical or surgical treatment as the only activity which is to be regarded as being work-related activity;
• introducing parliamentary control over the provisions relating to external provider social fund loans, by ensuring that details are set out in regulations rather than in social fund directions which are not formally laid before Parliament;
• giving the government the flexibility, in uprating benefits, to uprate the basic state pension by the commitment of 2.5 per cent and to uprate other social security benefits as the Secretary of State thinks fit, even though the level of prices, as measured by the retail prices index, has not increased;
• renaming council tax benefit as council tax rebate;
• introducing an automatic 13-week exemption from the JSA conditionality rules for victims of domestic violence;
• introducing powers to mandate problem drug users who refuse or are not ready to enter into treatment to agree a rehabilitation plan, which will require in particular that they attend a six-week education and motivational programme;
• inserting a provision into the drug testing provisions to enable an individual who refuses to attend an assessment because they are adamant that they are not a drug user to be offered a drug test in order to demonstrate this;
• tightening up data-sharing powers, in particular by preventing Jobcentre Plus from obtaining information about a problem drug user’s medical and social work history, and providing that information provided by the police and probation service can be used only by those involved in administering the new programme; and
• introducing a review mechanism to ensure that Parliament properly reviews the effectiveness of the power to disqualify a ‘recalcitrant’ non-resident parent from holding travel authorisation and/or a driving licence.

I will write more about the amendments from the Lords later.

Just one briefly, the amendment on domestic violence introducing an automatic 13-week exemption from the JSA conditionality rules. To reiterate what has been argued before, 3 months is not nearly enough time for someone escaping from domestic violence. It takes longer than 3 months for a woman (with or without children) to turn her life around.