HS2 proponent Andrew Adonis on Rishi Sunak, Tony Blair and Keir Starmer

I like Andrew Adonis' clear sentence construction, but that's about all I like about what that member of the House of Lords stands for.

As well as his track record of helping to land us with HS2 and having declared himself 'Lord of Camden, I relate the following from his leader comment at The New European website for 27 August under the heading

Keir Starmer needs a game plan to defeat the Tories - and Boris Johnson’s possible successor

I love the Last Night of the Proms. I was there waving my European flag last year while singing merrily along. My only problem with Land of Hope and Glory is that after Covid-19 and Brexit there will be precious little of either. It will be land of no hope and humiliation....

If I could make a confession in the privacy of this column: Sunak is the first front-rank politician since Tony Blair who reminds me of Tony Blair. From me, you realise, that is the greatest compliment imaginable.

I say all this frankly, as a Labour politician who admires Keir Starmer and wants him to succeed, because disguising the view is rarely the best way of getting up a mountain. On the contrary, you need both a good view and a good map. And the best map to navigate Labour successfully from opposition to government is the Blairite one....

At the same time, Starmer as MP for the area that takes in HS2's proposed terminus Euston Station is speaking out against what I can best describe as HS2 proponents' gung ho attittude toward voters at that end of the line.

Perhaps Adonis does not a person who at least speaks out for local residents against matters that stand in the way of HS2 profiteering to remain in charge of the Labour Party?

(This is not to say that I favour Starmer's witch hunt of anti-Zionists within the Labour Party under the masquerade of 'rotting out antisemitism.)

Alan Wheatley
Now resident in South Hererfordshire Parliamentary constituent, and formerly a resident of LB Camden and 2015-2017 constituent of Keir Starmer.

Tale from a land that is sans free at point of delivery health and social care — and induces debt slavery!

American Academic Author, Community College Counsellor and Private Practitioner Left with > $114K medical debt to pay off after drunk driver incident

"You don't know what you've got till it's gone" — Joni Mitchell

As a disabled lifelong learner determined to make the most of my possibilities on a limited income and now a pensioner, I have a lot of decluttering to do. Thus last night I returned to a printout of publisher's information on a book, Moving through Life Transitions with Power and Purpose, 2nd Edition, by Cara DiMarco, Ph D of Lane Community College, Oregon, USA.

Waterstone's Bookshops info on Moving Through Life Transitions with Power and Purpose, 2nd Edition, price £42.49

As can be seen from the above screen capture taken from Waterstone's Bookshops website, the book costs £42.49 — that's about 1/4 of my weekly State Pension in the UK (that is paid monthly), and a much more sizeable portion of a UK jobseeker's income. I had kept the original publisher's information from Pearson's for something like 20 years, as the very idea of the title inspired me, but not got into purchasing the book.

Yet with advances in home computer technology since I originally saved the Pearson publishing page as print-out and going through my decluttering, I looked up Cara DiMarco, Ph D on youtube last night and came across the video of a training session that I present above. In the videoed session, Cara DiMarco talks about student's capacities to rcover from 'developmental trauma' (relating to early socialisation, as I would describe it, family influences as she puts it), and 'shock trauma' (relating to later life incidents). She observes that the intakes of American Community College students, being largely for poorer students, generally have much greater levels of 'developmental trauma' than students at universities.

(Meanwhile, those rejected by the admissions system and/or those turned off by the prospect of student debt are presumably left to flounder.) 

Yet she notes that Community College students probably have greater coping strategies than those who get turned down for places at Community Colleges, and humour in responding to students' distress helps them progress. None the less, I was struck by the nonchalance with which she stated in response to an audience member's question about what she meant by "Stop waiting for motivation"? that starts at about the 10 mins 16 secs mark of the 22 mins 50 secs video.

"Oh, yes, if you want the full chapter, from my third book, I could e-mail it to you; it's about three pages, it's not very much. But it's part of the example I explain in there is, I work a 15 hour day most days [as a hit-and-run driver] that didn't stop left me a million point three and medical debt and so I work a full-time faculty position  and a nearly full time private practice in order to pay $3,000 a month on the medical debt which will be gone in 38 more months, which is, yes, there will be a party you're all invited and then I will sleep for two days...."

"So, I never feel like working a 15 hour day. I don't think many people do, even though I love my work and to get in exercise I get up at this time of year around 5am and go into the dark rainy cold Oregon weather and go for a run, and no part of me goes, 'The alarms can go up at 5am, I get to leave this warm bed and put on 10lb of rain gear and run with a miner's light on my head flopping around my neighoburhood and then come home and get ready for my and if that was the case I'd never work out right.' No part of me at the end of the evenening goes, 'It's going to be so good to floss my teeth and clean the cat box or ....'"

The recording was uploaded in January 2017 [the month of President Trump's inauguration], and I believe that it helps to set the backdrop to the extent of Covid-19 pandemic in the USA, as student debt and medical debt etc. can be regarded as forms of debt slavery.

In the UK, we still have some level of 'free at the point of delivery' health care, though that does not apply to social care. For further information on the erosion of our welfare state, I refer my readers to the website of medically retired RAF medical veteran Mo Stewart, Mo Stewart Research.

As Mo states:

American corporate influence with the demolition of the UK welfare state

In 1982 the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the future demolition of the UK welfare state. With cross-party agreement, every government since Thatcher has worked towards that ultimate goal without the mandate of the British people.

In 1992 the John Major Conservative administration invited the American corporate giant UnumProvident Insurance to consult with the UK government regarding future welfare claims management, for claimants of long-term sickness and disability benefits.
By 1994 the company were listed as official government advisers, and by 1999 UnumProvident Insurance were identified in a Parliamentary debate as refusing to pay income protection insurance policies to genuine claimants. Yet, this American corporate giant’s influence with UK social security policies helped to create the agenda for the future demolition of the welfare state, with a 2005 official corporate document quoting Unum’s Chief Medical Officer confirming that the future UK welfare reforms were ‘…to a large extent being driven by our thinking and that of our close associates ’.

There are unaccountable drunk-drivers, and there are ideologically driven governments.

For information on how things could be in terms of Basic Income, I refer my readers to the work of Prof. Guy Standing and Basic Income Earth Network:

The justification for basic income is ethical

In conclusion, I state here, that my insights as a disabled person combine with my drive to fulfil my potentials, in order to help create a more humane world.

To parody Phil Ochs' song 'What — and Who — are You Fighting For?' that was addressed to willing draftees to the Vietnam War, 'What are You Working For or Toward?' What is precious in our lives?

Edward Said was no 'tree-hugger' but opposed the roots of global warming

17 people on a boat off the Dover coast — BBC photo

"Bombs, drones and boats follow the [fossil fuel 'rich']
'Aridity Line'" — Naomi Klein

UK news broadcasts are currently dominated by reports of 'illegal migrants' attempting to enter the UK illegally, and earlier this year I witnessed intense floods in Herefordshire where I now live. Against that backdrop, a London friend currently helping his mum in Kent, sent me this from London Review of Books website, in which author Naomi Klein speaks about the 'othering' — i.e., treatment of 'illegal migrants' etc. as effectively subhuman — that legitimises treating people as such.

Klein also mentions the UK Government avoidance of addressing the real issues behind the flooding as key for a right wing media industry to use the 'othering' as a diversion against thinking of the consequences of global warming as a global issue, the roots of which are in what is falsely declared as "human nature."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n11/naomi-klein/let-them-drown

A real "wow!" of an essay, tying together media myths, greenwashes and political acuity in an educational and informative way. It's long, but you can listen to it instead if preferred.

I'll never look at carbon capture of conservation zones again without considering them as "the face of the new enclosure acts"...my oversimplification of her statements. You'll probably be stunned by the JNF section too, but I know you're better informed than me on such matters.

 The talk he was referring to by Naomi Klein was actually given in June 2016, but the recency of the recurrence of such matters helps enormously in explaining why I overlooked the headline in following Naomi Klein's text down the page as I listened at

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n11/naomi-klein/let-them-drown

and thought she was talking of the early 2020 floods in England and the current drive to get the Royal Navy to stop the boat people from landing on our shores.

I sat riveted talking to Naomi Klein's citing of why the work of Edward Said is invaluable in tackling the roots of global warming, that take up about 47 minutes of the online recording, and took a break from the full 1:27:42 worth to blog this up now.

There is, of course, so much to quote from and I'm due for a late lunch, but shall conclude direct reference to her talk with this extract:

Fossil fuels, unlike renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar, are not widely distributed but highly concentrated in very specific locations, and those locations have a bad habit of being in other people’s countries. Particularly that most potent and precious of fossil fuels: oil. This is why the project of Orientalism, of othering Arab and Muslim people, has been the silent partner of our oil dependence from the start – and inextricable, therefore, from the blowback that is climate change. If nations and peoples are regarded as other – exotic, primitive, bloodthirsty, as Said documented in the 1970s – it is far easier to wage wars and stage coups when they get the crazy idea that they should control their own oil in their own interests. In 1953 it was the British-US collaboration to overthrow the democratically elected government of Muhammad Mossadegh after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP). In 2003, exactly fifty years later, it was another UK-US co-production – the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. The reverberations from each intervention continue to jolt our world, as do the reverberations from the successful burning of all that oil. The Middle East is now squeezed in the pincer of violence caused by fossil fuels, on the one hand, and the impact of burning those fossil fuels on the other.

 In conclusion, I draw attention to these articles at New Internationalist magazine about attacks by Erdogan's Turkey with Trump's complicity on Kurds in North-Eastern Afghanistan and Brazilian President Bolsonaro's attempts to assimilate the indigenous people of the Amazon as fellow travellers on the road to climate catastrophe.

Betrayed again

Water as a weapon of war

Speaking out can be empowering

The following was originally published on February 5, 2004 in Camden New Journal (CNJ) under the heading 'Disabled are role models' — accompanied by an advert for disability-friendly adaptations! (The CNJ is a local 'freebie' newspaper and thus very dependent on advertising.)

Here, I give it my own title.

I would also suggest, with the benefits of hindsight, that while there have been different governments since the early 1990s, senior civil servants in UK government have not been subjected to re-election. Over the same time period, I would argue and as Mo Stewart has highlighted in her research, UK 'welfare reform' policies have been steered behind the scenes by a disgraced American and global health insurance firm called Unum. Unum's ethos is far from that of a publicly owned 'welfare state' for the good of all, more like, as Mo has put it, 'The Corporate Demolition of the [UK's] Welfare State'!

Along those lines, I would argue that the dynamics and ergonomics in jobcentres changed drastically around 2003, imposing the presence of G4S security guards. I would ascribe that to a perversion of 'Scientific Management' and of the 'Hawthorne Effect'. 

There was, of course, also the distortion of public perceptions via Government-funded advertising campaigns proclaiming a supposed 'need' for and existence of 'thousands of benefit fraud investigators', while Disability Employment Advisors amounted to a 'workforce' of 650 UK-wide, under-trained with frequent rule changes and an under-recorded high burnout rate.

Mo's research has been highly illuminating. Speaking out and researching from experience can help illuminate what is really happening and has happened, so that the electorate can make wiser decisions. Likewise for Kate Belgrave's research that focuses on post-2010 Government.

Alan Wheatley

 

Screen capture of original publication in Camden New Journal, accompanied by 'Elderly/Disabled Facilities' advert

Speaking out can be empowering and helps keep me going

Some readers might find your publication of Christine Brody’s letter, ‘Hobson’s choice for our disabled pupils’ (January 8) depressing reading. I didn’t. It helped to put me in mind of a network of human survival rather than a league-table of suffering.

In the year when the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act becomes fully law, her letter can be viewed as expert witness testimony to room for improvement; your publication of it an act of empowerment.

While I have heard that the amount of teacher-training time allocated to addressing ‘special needs’ issues is derisory, I draw attention to statutory under-provision of Disability Employment Advisors.

As a disabled job-seeker, I commended Lib Dem work and pensions spokesperson Steve Webb’s denunciation of Alistair Darling’s 2001 call for Work Test interviews for claimants of Incapacity Allowance.

Further, I suggested a parliamentary question on provision of Disability Employment Advisors. (DEAs). That there are just 650 DEAs for the whole of the UK partially explains why the Acting DEA for Kentish Town Jobcentre has been based at Marylebone Jobcentre since October and burnout seems to be an occupational hazard among DEAs.

(Meanwhile, adverts on commercial radio celebrate the existence of “thousands of benefit fraud investigators,”)

A letter from Camden Financial Services dated January 12 and received January 18 urges me to re-apply for Housing Benefit asap. (My ‘entitlement’ expires of February 8, and the new form calls for ever more proofs of ‘entitlement’ to help prevent benefit fraud. My last housing benefit claim was made in October!)

Administrative stigmatisation coupled with mounting interest on 1997 graduation debt can be very dispiriting for the over-50s.

I commend Christine Brody’s aversion to ‘Maximising Disabilities’. Too often, news stories talk of a person’s life being ‘ruined’ by an incident that left them with an impairment. A more helpful focus would be the social construction of enablement.

Children and adults need a healthy self-concept in order to give of their best, and I would argue that a greater threat to society than ‘benefit fraud’ comes from the denial or diminution of disabled people’s potential to share their potential with the world around them.

I can be, and am, a role model, and that thought helps keep me going.

Alan Raymond Wheatley, BA in Interdisicplinary Studies (Major: Sociology)
Writing in early 2004
 

Planning White Paper ignores accessible housing, Disability News Service reports

 "Government's 'contempt' for disabled people, as planing white paper ignores accessible housing" is top story at Disability News Service weekly uploads for Thursday, 13 August 2020

John Pring writes:

The government has been accused of “showing contempt” for disabled people after publishing an “utterly shameful” 84-page white paper on the future of the planning system without including a single mention of disabled people, disability or accessible housing.

The Planning for the Future document makes repeated references to the need for “beautiful new homes”, “beautiful places” and “beautiful buildings”, while ignoring the accessible housing crisis.

There is also no mention of wheelchair-users in the white paper, which looks only at England, even though successive Tory ministers have been repeatedly warned of the dire shortage of suitable wheelchair-accessible housing.

“A lack of accessible and adaptable housing
is one factor in unnecessary moves
to costly care homes.” — Fleur Perry

Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, says in the white paper that the government wants to see “environmentally friendly homes that will not need to be expensively retrofitted in the future, homes with green spaces and new parks at close hand, where tree lined streets are the norm and where neighbours are not strangers”.

The document talks about “tackling head on the shortage of beautiful, high quality homes and places where people want to live and work” and even highlights the importance of “our capacity to house the homeless and provide security and dignity”.

But nowhere does it mention disabled people and the need for accessible housing, and when it asks those taking part in a consultation* on the white paper for their “top three priorities for planning in your local area”, accessible housing is not included as one of the options.

Perhaps the Housing Secretary is a total stranger to the requirements of disabled people?

The closest the white paper comes to mentioning disabled people’s housing needs is in question 26 of the consultation, when it asks for “views on the potential impact of the proposals raised in this consultation on people with protected characteristics” under the Equality Act. [Alan notes: Question 26 is the final question in the 'consultation'!]

For more on this story, go to

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/governments-contempt-for-disabled-people-as-planning-white-paper-ignores-accessible-housing/

The 'consultation' deadline is 29 October, and is sure to have input from paid staff of the profiteers. I append a list of the questions

See also 

Book exposes harassment, abuse and neglect of benefit claimants in austerity years 

which is also a new upload to Disability News Service reports from Thursday, 13 August 2020, and features the work of Kate Belgrave who — unlike the Housing Secretary — actually does listen to marginalised people severely affected by Government policies that advance profiteering over human rights.

Appendix: Questions in the 'Planning the Future' White Paper 'consultation'

Pillar One: Planning for Development

Questions 

1. What three words do you associate most with the planning system in England? 

2. Do you get involved with planning decisions in your local area? 

[Yes / No] 

2(a). If no, why not? 

[Don’t know how to / It takes too long / It’s too complicated / I don’t care / Other – please specify]  

3. Our proposals will make it much easier to access plans and contribute your views to planning decisions. How would you like to find out about plans and planning proposals in the future?

 [Social media / Online news / Newspaper / By post / Other – please specify] 

4. What are your top three priorities for planning in your local area? 

[Building homes for young people / building homes for the homeless / Protection of green spaces / The environment, biodiversity and action on climate change / Increasing the affordability of housing / The design of new homes and places / Supporting the high street/ Supporting the local economy / More or better local infrastructure / Protection of existing heritage buildings or areas / Other – please specify]

Questions7(a). 

Do you agree with our proposals to replace existing legal and policy tests for Local Plans with a consolidated test of “sustainable development”, which would include consideration of environmental impact? 

[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]7(b). How could strategic, cross-boundary issues be best planned for in the absence of a formal Duty to Cooperate? 

Questions8(a). Do you agree that a standard method for establishing housing requirements (that takes into account constraints) should be introduced?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

8(b). Do you agree that affordability and the extent of existing urban areas are appropriate indicators of the quantity of development to be accommodated?

 [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Questions

9(a). Do you agree that there should be automatic outline permission for areas for substantial development (Growth areas) with faster routes for detailed consent?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

9(b). Do you agree with our proposals above for the consent arrangements for Renewaland Protectedareas? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

9(c). Do you think there is a case for allowing new settlements to be brought forward under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects regime? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question10. Do you agree with our proposals to make decision-making faster and more certain?

 [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question11. Do you agree with our proposals for accessible, web -based Local Plans?

 [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question12. Do you agree with our proposals for a 30 month statutory timescale for the production of Local Plans? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Questions13(a). Do you agree that Neighbourhood Plans should be retained in the reformed planning system? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

13(b). How can the neighbourhood planning process be developed to meet our objectives, such as in the use of digital tools and reflecting community preferences about design?

Question14 . Do you agree there should be a stronger emphasis on the build out of developments? And if so, what further measures would you support? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Pillar Two: Planning for beautiful and sustainable places

Questions15. What do you think about the design of new development that has happened recently in your area?[Not sure or indifferent / Beautiful and/or well-designed / Ugly and/or poorly-designed / There hasn’t been any / Other – please specify]16. Sustainability is at the heart of our proposals. What is your priority for sustainability in your area?[Less reliance on cars / More green and open spaces / Energy efficiency of new buildings / More trees / Other – please specify]

Question17 . Do you agree with our proposals for improving the production and use of design guides and codes?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question18 . Do you agree that we should establish a new body to support design coding and building better places, and that each authority should have a chief officer for design and place- making?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question19 . Do you agree with our proposal to consider how design might be given greater emphasis in the strategic objectives for Homes England?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question20. Do you agree with our proposals for implementing a fast-track for beauty?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Pillar Three: Planning for infrastructure and connected spaces

Question 21. When new development happens in your area, what is your priority for what comes with it?[More affordable housing / More or better infrastructure (such as transport, schools,health provision) / Design of new buildings / More shops and/or employment space / Green space / Don’t know / Other – please specify] 

Questions 22(a). Should the Government replace the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 planning obligations with a new consolidated Infrastructure Levy, which is charged as a fixed proportion of development value above a set threshold? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]  

22(b). Should the Infrastructure Levy rates be set nationally at a single rate, set nationally at an area-specific rate, or set locally?[Nationally at a single rate / Nationally at an area-specific rate / Locally]  

22(c). Should the Infrastructure Levy aim to capture the same amount of value overall, or more value, to support greater i nvestment in infrastructure, affordable housing and local communities? [Same amount overall / More value / Less value / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]  

22(d). Should we allow local authorities to borrow against the Infrastructure Levy, to support infrastructure delivery in their area? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

Question 23. Do you agree that the scope of the reformed Infrastructure Levy should capture changes of use through permitt ed development rights?

 [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Questions 24(a). Do you agree that we should aim to secure at least the same amount of affordable housing under t he Infrastructure Levy, and as much on-site affordable provision, as at present? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

24(b). Should affordable housing be secured as in-kind payment towards the Infrastructure Levy, or as a ‘right to purchase’ at discounted rates for local authorities? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

24(c). If an in-kind delivery approach is taken, should we mitigate against local authority overpayment risk? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 24(d). If an in-kind delivery approach is taken, are there additional steps that would need to be taken to support affordable housing quality? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.]

Question 25. Should local authorities have fewer restrictions over how they spend the Infrastructure Levy?[Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 25(a). If yes, should an affordable housing ‘ring-fence’ be developed? [Yes / No / Not sure. Please provide supporting statement.] 

Question

26. Do you have any views on the potential impact of the proposals raised in this consultati on on people with protected characteristics as defined in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010?