True tribute to past is reflection

Ill advised 'welfare reforms' led to 'human catastrophe' yet UK Government hires top barristers to help cover up its past and present sins 

Mandy Lawrence wrote (Hereford Times letters, September 24), “Slavery is not just a horror of the past, it is all around us now” and “a true tribute to the past is reflection, and action to make our present kinder.”(1)

In my personal experience, a lack of reflection, truly informed decision making and accountability on the part of elected politicians and their appointed ‘problem solvers’ in identifying the true nature of the problems is a taproot of slavery being “all around us.”

In March 2007 a Labour Government signed Britain up to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), yet in February 2008 the UK Government’s appointed ‘welfare reform guru’ investment banker David Freud was foisted upon us, boasting that his lack of prior knowledge about the state benefit system could be an advantage to “sorting out the mess that is welfare.”

In short, he declared without noting his sources, that 2/3 of Incapacity Benefit claims were fraudulent, and the eligibility test was conducted by the claimant’s own GP, who would have a vested interest in proclaiming the claimant unfit for work.

“He told the paper it would be ‘economically rational’ to pay as much as £62,000 to a company which managed to place an incapacity benefit claimant in a job which lasted three years or more.

“Incapacity benefit costs the Treasury about £12bn a year.“(2)

The CEO of Child Poverty Action Group told the BBC that official figures suggested the true fraud level was below 0.5% and:

"Ministers will surely be alarmed that the man charged with major reform of the welfare system and family security rights gets basic facts wrong about benefits that he could find out in a second with a Google.His suitability must be under question for the task Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has set him." (3)

Later that month community social worker Bob Holman noted: "The affluent elite tell the government about poverty. Those who endure it are shoved aside."(4)

A decade later, the UK Government faced UN investigation as “cuts caused human catastrophe.”(5). Persisting in its denial, UK Government now sends top barristers to disability benefit test-related inquests to argue against public inquiry into the thousands of related deaths,(6) and David Freud is a Life Peer sitting on the Tory benches and President of the charity ‘Volunteering Matters’(7) nee ‘Community Service Volunteers’.(8)

Alan Wheatley

Notes

(1) https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2020/09/mandy-lawrence-reflects-upon-last-night-of-the-proms.html is an edit by Mandy of her original submission to Hereford Times
(2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7223687.stm Title: Two million wrongly get benefits
(3) ibid
(4) https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-apartheid-of-wealth-state-we-are-in.html
(5) https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/uk-faces-un-examination-government-cuts-caused-human-catastrophe/
(6) Search Results for “barrister inquest” – Disability News Service
(7) https://members.parliament.uk/member/3893/registeredinterests
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteering_Matters

A Code of Ethics for Actors and Presenters of TV Commercials?

I have previously noted on this Web Log that journalists in the National Union of Journalists have a code of conduct or ethics about truthfulness. Yet it strikes me from the way that the hegemony of televised adverts for what can be euphemistically called 'the Financial Services Industry' by strength of repetition, repetition, and repetition contribute to 'manufacturing consent'(1) for what Mo Stewart refers to as 'the corporate demolition of the welfare state'.(2)

One of the biggest UK-based branches of the 'Financial Services Industry' is Legal & General (aka L&G), that has extremely close links with UK Government L&G's 'For a more colourful retirement' adverts targeted at homeowners aged 55 or over for Equity Release [sic] are repeated ad nausea on daytime TV, alongside adverts for various charities' downsized versions of Lotto.(3)


It is little wonder to me that the paid actors involved in this TV commercial are so jaunty: Think of the millions of pounds they are likely to be making in repeat fees while these commercials are shown again and again.

Likewise there are the presenters of TV commercials for 'funeral protection' schemes. I have already commented via this News Forwards site about Alan Titchmarsh's involvement with 'Sun Life', and of course there are other paid presenters. Do these 'celebrities' give a damn about those of us who cannot afford such payments on our ever diminishing State Pensions after decades of under-supported jobsearch?

And do they really consider properly researching the 'services' or 'products' they are promoting?

I look forward to hearing from others, including members of the acting profession, on this matter, and how the funding of Culture, Media and Sport can be addressed properly so that culture, media and sport are not forced into a kind of 'prostitution' that serves the interests of institutions that make society more unhealthy, such as

• 'Big Soda' that has replaced tobacco advertising and sponsorship, and adopted the strategies and tactics formerly adopted by the tobacco industry, and
• Junk food manufacturers with their industrial impoverishment of workers via zero hours contracts and the like.

I have commented elsewhere about Direct Line Landlord Insurance adverts that promote the practice of landlords evicting tenants who have difficulties keeping up with their rent payments, while more attention should be paid to why tenants increasingly experience difficulties paying rent.

Alan Wheatley

Notes

(1) Manufacturing Consent was the title of a book by American Noam Chomsky, and while our welfare state is being increasingly demolished under successive neoliberal governments, so too does daytime and even evening television advertising financing become more and more dominated by those who stand to gain considerably from ever-increasing privatisation and deepening social inequality.
(2) I highly commend the research by Medically retired RAF medical veteran Mo Stewart into how the American Health Insurance giant Unum Provident/Unum pioneered the 'disability denial factory' regime of UK government disability benefit testing and became principal advisers to successive UK Governments in steering the corporate demolition of our welfare state, even while it was outlawed in several US states and nations.
(3) Lotto has long been 'a tax targeted at poor people', while community centres have become more and more reliant on The Big Lottery Fund, while they have become increasingly involved with 'data mining' on behalf of the Big Lottery Fund.

Mandy Lawrence reflects upon 'The Last Night of the Proms'

I am delighted to be able to publish the following guest blog post by my friend Mandy Lawrence.

As one of those present at Hereford Quaker Meeting's Midweek Meetings for Worship in Summer and Autumn 2017 following my move from London — where I had spent more than half my 1953-born life since 1979 — Mandy was one of the first people who welcomed me to my new life in Hereford.

The ‘Last Night of the Proms’ Celebrations

BBC Last Night of the Proms

I understand why so many enjoy the traditional last night at the Proms. I have fond memories of my always well—meaning father, singing along with enthusiasm, if not harmony, to the radio.

However I find the controversial anthems troubling.

Not only because of Britain’s disquieting imperialistic past though this is important.

For myself, it is more concern at our morally failing present.

In what sense is Britain ‘ruling the waves’ when desperate migrants, including unaccompanied children, risk life in small dinghies to reach these shores and we fail to respond with compassion or competence? If Britons are ‘never to be slaves,’ why are there slaves today, trafficked and terrified, working in this country, in such sectors as car wash, catering, crop picking and many others? Slavery is not just a horror of the past, it is all around us now.

Seventeen desperate migrants risking their lives
on a small dinghy spotted off Dover

Like most counties, Britain has aspects of its history to celebrate and aspects of which we are ashamed.

I suggest that a true tribute to the past is reflection, and action to make our present a kinder, happier time.

And there are many other rousing songs to which my dad could have sung along!

MANDY LAWRENCE

Resources for responding to Planning White Paper 'consultation document'

Robert 'Three Homes' Jenrick's Planning White Paper looks clearly designed as a mechanism for ushering in what Prof. Guy Standing calls 'The Privatisation of the Commons' even while this Tory Government's response to the Tory Part being fined by the Electoral Commission is to set about the scrapping of that body.(1)

I believe that in response, we should be more pro-active and concerted in our actions as citizens, by getting better informed and responding en masse to what is designed as a whitewashing exercise by increasingly unrepresentative and over-centralised Big Government in league with global profiteers.

So while this Web Log page may be published on Sunday, 13 September 2020, I shall be adding to it over the course of the 'consultation period' that lasts until 29 October 2020:

The Campaign for Protection of Central England offers a 9 minute online video and the prospect of further assistance to people keen to respond to protect rural England against the further ravages of privatisation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6g6EORy4Rs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR09ggW0JZPwxr_Y-ogKngSalm8ajT3rZTDsjVi_LPp96rLcM8xLQzHK9rY


Meanwhile, Martin Francis of the Wembley Matters blog publishes model responses produced by Paul Burnham of Haringey Defend Council Housing.
https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2020/09/ideas-on-responding-to-governments.html

The Planning White Paper has also been criticised for its disregard of disabled people's accessible housing requirements.
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/?s=planning+white+paper+accessible+housing


I look forward to publishing more related resources on this page.

Alan Wheatley





Footnotes

1: That is yet another 'public consultation' as the Electoral Reform Society points out

Our elections watchdog needs strengthening, not scrapping

but whereas the Tory Government says that the Electoral Commission "is answerable to no-one," Private Eye, 11-24 September 2020, p7 points out that a likely cue for that 'consultation' was Electoral Commission fining the Tory Party for breaching General Election spending limits.

Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine and profitability of vaccine development

I republish here as a blog post, a link to a youtube video that was sent to me by one of my dear London friends. Dr Carrie Madej alleges that Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine links in with Artificial Intelligence toward making Genetically Modified Organisms of humans, and comes with very nasty side effects. I feel that her claims are quite plausible, given the agendas of the financial backers of this 'initiative'.

From my own standpoint, I believe that vaccines have long tampered too much with the body's immune system, so as to favour 'quick fixes' in a world where too few people have adequate nutrition. I favour homoeopathic medicines that treat the patient and restore balance, over allopathic medicines.



The BBC and World Health Organisation refute the claims made by Dr Carrie Madej,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53525002

Reality Check

Coronavirus: False and misleading claims about vaccines debunked

By Jack Goodman and Flora Carmichael BBC Reality Check

but I note that both are now heavily funded by billionaires who also finance vaccine development, and the BBC has also been known to delete material from public consumption regarding influence of Unum in 'steering' UK Government 'welfare reform' policies.
https://www.mostewartresearch.co.uk/introduction/

Vaccine development is very lucrative.

https://www.wddty.com/news/2020/03/big-pharma-twice-as-profitable-as-any-other-industrial-sector.html

Big Pharma twice as profitable as any other industrial sector

About the author: 

Bryan Hubbard

March 19th 2020                 

The average gross profit margin of a drug company is around 76 percent of revenues compared to just 37 percent of a typical large conglomerate listed on the S&P 500 index.

Researchers at Bentley University compared the revenues and profitability of 35 of the largest drug companies with 357 companies of equivalent size from other industries.
A typical large pharmaceutical was outpacing a company of similar size operating in a different sector across several financial measures; earnings were 13.8 percent against 7.7 percent for other industry sectors, gross profit margins were 76.5 percent compared to 37.4 percent, and earnings before interest and tax were 29.4 percent against a non-pharmaceutical sector average of 19 percent.

Pharmaceutical profits reduced slightly when research and development costs were added back in, but the findings still raise questions about the price drug companies charge for their products, the researchers say.

So, whatever the relative merits or demerits of Dr Carrie Madej's arguments, I believe it is fair to conclude that the development of these vaccines is designed to perpetutate gross imbalances of wealth, while developers such as those behind Moderna claim to be 'superhuman' themselves.

CNJ home page leads with closure of Kingsgate Community Centre

I have just been alerted to this by way of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group e-list:

http://camdennewjournal.com/article/kingsgate-community-centre-to-close-down-due-to-covid-losses

Camden New Journal home page leads with Kingsgate Community Centre closure
while rolling home page headline reads:
'Experts warn of a catastrophic economic event that may hurt economies financially'

CNJ: Kingsgate Community Centre to close down due to Covid losses:
Sad day for Camden as association's board of directors file for liquidation

Richard Osman of the CNJ writes:

USERS and supporters of a community centre in West Hampstead have been left shocked this evening (Thursday) after its board of directors announced it will not re-open after the coronavirus crisis.

The Kingsgate Community Association had largely relied on hiring out its building – the Kingsgate Community Centre in Kingsgate Road – but saw its revenue wiped out by the pandemic and is now filing for liquidation.

The nursery on the site will also remain closed.

Camden Council owns the building and said this evening that it was determined that it would be used for community use in the future....

[More at http://camdennewjournal.com/article/kingsgate-community-centre-to-close-down-due-to-covid-losses ]

As I see it, it's in line with 'The Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine

and how the Central Government diktat that community centres should act "more like businesses and less like charities [code for less like the 'charity cases' Disaster Capitalists attack as they set about the Corporate Demolition of the Welfare State

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-researchers-book-exposes-corporate-demolition-of-welfare-state/

)

In early 2017 before I left London, the CEO of Kingsgate Community Association gave a talk to Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG, aka 'Kwug') about Government demands that local community centres should "act more like businesses" while expecting less subsidisation from local government. When I moved to Tory-controlled Herefordshire later that year, I got a taste of the prospective consequences for places like Kingsgate Community Centre, and why it was unlikely that community facilities in a Tory-borough would be hosting meetings of 'the underprivileged of working age'. The frontage of my new local community in one of Hereford's lower income areas cried out for volunteers.

Kingsgate CC as a hub for personal transformation for the least privileged

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's regular meetings on a weekly basis at Kingsgate Community Centre while I was with them from early 2012 to the time I left London gave my life a renewed sense of purpose after my years of jobsearch as a disabled jobseeker proved fruitless in terms of 'getting me a job', and my disappointments as an activist within political parties.

Before lockdown, Kingsgate Community Centre was fully accessible to people of limited mobility at least, and quite a few attended the weekly term-time meetings of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG). KUWG activists had demonstrated volubly outside Kilburn and other local jobcentres and the phony 'disability assessment centres', talking with people at risk of benefit cuts who then attended our meetings at Kingsgate CC, got support with their claims and returned to us at Kingsgate CC as satisfied customers while too many going though what they would have otherwise gone through were at much greater risk of corporate homicide dressed up as suicide.

My last official role  other than Web Log editor within Kwug was as attendance monitor, in line with the Equality & Diversity criteria of LB Camden as principal funder of our meeting facility and the responsibilities imposed upon Kingsgate Community Centre as a beneficiary of public funds.

https://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/search?q=attendance+figures

The then newly appointed CEO of Kingsgate Community Centre told us he was delighted by the diversity he saw before him at that meeting.

Thursday, 19 October 2017

Toghether we are stronger. Join us!

Together we are stronger. Join us!

Some equality & diversity attendance statistics from when this blog editor was Kwug's attendance monitor

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 6 Jan-to-28 Apr 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures, 14 Apr-to-14 Jul 2014

KUWG meeting attendance figures,24 Jul-to18 Sep 2014

Closure of accessible public facilities highlights the government lie that they will protect the most vulnerable

That was before the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) closed Kilburn and other local jobcentres, isolating disadvantaged claimants more and more while making them travel further as a Kwug-led demonstration outside DWP HQ highlighted.

Save Our Job Centres — a 1 minute 45 seconds video by Shootroot

Video of demo outside DWP HQ, Caxton House, Monday 6 November 2017


This video was originally posted at https://youtu.be/p8jnYVjqtfQ ...

Further, people incapable of using a computer unaided were compelled to claim benefits online by default, while cuts in council funding led to loss of Social Services for the most vulnerable, as KUWG's friend Kate Belgrave has highlighted.

Learning/literacy difficulties & can’t use online Universal Credit? “Find a friend to help,” says DWP. This is dire

Posted on October 12, 2017

21

Yesterday, I rang the Universal Credit helpline number (0345 600 4272) to ask about DWP support for Universal Credit claimants who have learning and literacy difficulties, and who struggle to use computers. (I’ve posted a transcript of a recording I … Continue reading →

What now?

I would advise those with reading speed and stamina and sufficient Internet Literacy to download a free Portable Document Format (pdf) copy of Kate's book that results from her talking with people facing benefit cuts.

'Abusing Power: How an aggressive austerity state shaped people's politics and lives'e-book by Kate Belgrave available to download until early October 2020from https://nx10568.your-storageshare.de/s/LJ2ajSRXYYt7z8e#pdfviewer

Kate is a responsible journalist following the diktats of the National Union of Journalists Code of Ethics more than any corporate mass media diktats.

National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct

 
One of the most dreadful things about closure of public facilities for the most vulnerable is that isolating vulnerable people is in tandem with the capacity of the 'austerity state' and its lies to go unchallenged as the lies about 'strivers and shirkers' continue to be financed by public funds. As someone has said, democracy presupposes information.

And yes, it is very much a time to get more active in supporting the future of Kingsgate as a community resource, and people giving personal testimony regarding how Kwug's ability to meet regularly at a local community facility was a life-saver and life-transformer for them that should be extended to others. But I also believe that the campaign should be wider than just the London Borough of Camden, and be a national one.

Alan Wheatley

Solidarity with Black Lives Matter Brazil & the Indigenous Struggle

Alan Wheatley writes:

If Evangelical Christianity has been funded as a front for America's Central Information Agency (CIA) as I heard argued in the late 1970s and can well believe, President Bolsonaro of Brasil seems to be setting himself up as the one to fulfil some prophesy of the world ending in flames as Amazonian deforestation continues mercilesly under his approval.

Along the way however, his racism is an affront to real Christianity, as many would argue. That is clearly evident from a recent New Internationalist magazine posting

In Bolsonaro's Brazil, the police kill more black people than Covid-19 does

In times of Covid-19, black people die twice in Brazil

Leonardo Sakamoto reflects on the police killing of João Pedro Matos Pinto, a 14-year-old black boy, and one of many Brazilian George Floyds.

 and much more besides, such as

21 May 2019 19 minute read

This article is more than one year old.

The indigenous resistance against Jair Bolsonaro

The young indigenous man, bent double in pain, uttered a deep, ... get support from far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January this year and is ... begins our conversation by quoting from the Bible, John 14:6: ‘Jesus sayeth unto him, I am the way, the truth ...

Labour Friends of Latin America

THIS THURSDAY : Resisting Racism & Bolsonaro's Far-Right - Solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter Brazil & the Indigenous Struggle Thursday, 3 September, 19:00 With: Martvs Chagas, Brazilian Workers' Party (PT) Secretary for Combating Racism // Carmen Foro, General Secretary of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT Brazil/Brazilian TUC) // Claudia Webbe MP. Register here Share, RSVP & invite friends on Facebook here