The truth about Zane Gbangbola

 Guest blog post, by Nigel Gilbert of Betrayed By Their [NHS] Trust

 

Ingra and I joined over 200 other people last night in a Zoom meeting organised by the parents of the late Zane Gbangbola, who would have been 14 yesterday had he lived.. 

Zane died due to flood water entering the basement of the family home by the Thames in early 2014 and releasing Hydrogen Cyanide. Since then the bereaved parents have been compelled to fight a campaign to obtain the truth from a corrupt establishment of many agencies which stand shoulder to shoulder denying justice to them.

The basic facts are that the fire services detected Hydrogen Cyanide at the home. Matt Wrack leader of the Fire Brigades Union spoke last night to confirm this. Yet right from the start there was denial. It was claimed that the death was caused by Carbon Monoxide caused by a faulty generator in the house. No such generator was running. It was denied that there was ever a landfill site behind the house. The inquest ruled accidental death caused by Carbon Monoxide poisoning. 

Since then it has been established that there was a landfill site perfectly well known to the authorities, who allowed houses to be built. It was even recognised four years before Zane's death that it posed a threat to life. But the only reaction of the authorities was to provide gas protection to their own properties. 

At the inquest Zane's parents faced a phalanx of lawyers, but they themselves were denied legal aid.

Professor Phil Scraton, who was involved in the Hillsboro inquiry and wrote a book on it, drew parallels with the corrupt response to that disaster. Multiple agencies denied the truth. 

The meeting last night called for an inquiry panel with full disclosure. Damningly this inquiry must be independent of the state and need look at documents only. This implies the abject corruption of the state.

Those of us involved in BBTT will be unsurprised by any of this. We are used to the denials of multiple agencies, the corruption of inquests etc.

The Labour Party is very supportive. Richard Burgon and David Lammy spoke last night. Starmer and Burnham have also been supportive. But you will recall that justice for Zane was specified in Corbyn's manifesto. His successors will get the credit but I wonder whether they will attend to the issue of widespread corruption or just treat the case as a one-off. 

The campaign has a website.

Nigel  

Reverse cuts to union learning

 From https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/uk-gov-don-t-cut-union-learning?utm_source=Musicians%20Union&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=11922809_Take%20action%20to%20save%20the%20Union%20Learning%20Fund&dm_i=2QJ,73JP5,3ED622,SOSR1,1

To: Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education

Reverse the cuts to union learning

Campaign created by

Sean Dixon

The government's plans to cut the Union Learning Fund in England means hundreds of thousands of workers will miss out on skills and training.

Sign the petition calling on the government to reverse cuts to union learning and ensure working people can access education and skills training.

More at https://www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/uk-gov-don-t-cut-union-learning

Shahrar Ali wins vs Jewish Chronicle

 https://twitter.com/ShahrarAli/status/1319299816430645255

BREAKING NEWS: SHAHRAR ALI WINS IPSO RULING AGAINST JEWISH CHRONICLE ANTISEMITISM SMEARS! Press Regulator forces

@JewishChron

to publish retraction of its false statements made about

@ShahrarAli

Green Party Home Affairs spokesperson during 2019 General Election!

8:29 am · 22 Oct 2020·Twitter for Android

 

Why Alan says 'No' to 1200 new 'homes' at Three Elms, Hereford

  I have just submitted the following Planning Objection re Planning Application to build at Three Elms (P162920) to https://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/xfp/form/285?id=P162920/F&linkid=162920

The prospective car-dependency impact of this development would worsen Herefordshire Council's prospects for carbon neutrality by 2030, and in day time this is currently a great area for walking in in daytime that I frequently encounter in walking from Belmont to Grandstand Road Co-op, Bobblestock.

    The prospective car-dependency impact of this development would worsen Herefordshire Council's prospects for carbon neutrality by 2030, and in day time this is currently a great area for walking in in that I frequently encounter in walking from Belmont to Grandstand Road Co-op, Bobblestock. This currently allows pedestrians ability to use road as an extension of pavement for 'social distancing', but burgeoning car-dependency in that area would worsen realities for existing locals.

    Further, the inclusion of a community centre in the revised proposals are devoid of viability. Lockdown realities restrict accesss to community centres, and worsen residents' experience of being 'caged in' in living spaces that have got progressively smaller over the past century as developers and planners operate on the basis that THEY THEMSELVES will never have to live in the spaces that they design.

    Overcrowding only increases their profits and social inequalities, their aloofness. Lockdown has led at least one community centre to file for bankruptcy due to lost booking revenues, as I wrote recently in Hereford Times published letter, citing Kingsgate Community Association, London NW6.

    Developers' detachment from local realities also reflects on the poor targeting of the site in terms of hydro-geology. So I urge the planning regulators to say a resounding NO to the developers' proposals for what could not really be called 'homes'. As land owners, perhaps the Church Commissioners concerned are more like the money lenders Christ threw out of the temple than they are followers of His doctrines?

Alan Wheatley

Further reading available at

https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18733495.three-elms-housing-plans-bypass-land-re-submitted/

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59845d3dd482e94a17e70995/t/5f9079dd6215202dbb278335/1603303909152/Objection+to+development+plans+for+the+Three+Elms+site+21102020.pdf

http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18733495.three-elms-housing-plans-bypass-land-re-submitted/

 

To food labels, and beyond!

 The below is one I posted last night, in response to an Hereford Times reader's letter response to the HT's 'Buy British' campaign.

Hereford Times: It's apple season,
so let's buy British!

Dear Letters Editor

Writing regarding the importance of buying locally sourced food, Elizabeth Gwynne points out that packaging of th supposedly ‘farm fresh’ produce for a cauliflower she bought in a country shop was labelled ‘Country of Origin: Poland’ and notes, “Presumably the wages of those working on the land there, producing mushrooms, are so low that despite the costs of flight etc, the UK business people can still retail at a profit.” (Letters, October 15.)

Julian Day Rose’s book ‘In Deference of Life’ gives a detailed analysis of such trading practices with a special focus on Poland. Before Poland exited the Warsaw Pact, Polish farming served local communities, yet Poland’s debt crisis on exiting the Soviet empire led to a restructuring of the Polish economy. 'Structural adjustment’ directives of the International Monetary Fund, and the ‘bail out’ terms of the World Bank and European Central Bank and their economic principles were culpable. A reviewer writes: “Rose is critical of Europe’s subsidy system and the way it pays per hectare regardless of farm size, favouring big farms. He goes to the heart of what it means for farmers on Europe’s new industrial frontier – Poland – describing his personal battles to stop small farmers there being driven out of business...

"Whilst no fan of Europe, he is equally critical of the UK which 'thinks it clever to copy the United States' he says, and 'apply Ford motor company principles to the management of sentient livestock.'"(1)

A reason there are so many Polish workers in the UK, as a Social Researcher and ‘critical friend’ of the EU told me, is basically because of what the West did to the Polish economy as it leapt to the West.

Yet there is or was more hope for a small-scale and local future for farming in the UK by remaining in the EU than by the vulnerability associated with Brexit, a nonproportional electoral system and ‘"whatever next?" terms and conditions’ — especially post Covid-19 lockdown! The Head of the World Bank now says, “[P]eople, even the world’s poorest and most destitute, are required to pay their government’s debts as long as creditors pursue claims.. In the worst cases, it’s the modern equivalent of debtor’s prison.” As Nick Dearden of Global Justice Now writes: "If the head of the World Bank can call the global financial system a ‘debtors’ prison’ anything is possible."(2)

I believe international co-operation and democratic transformation from within trading blocs is key.

Alan Raymond Wheatley
Notes
(1) https://www.ciwf.org.uk/philip-lymbery/blog/2015/05/book-review-in-defence-of-life-by-julian-day-rose
(2)  https://newint.org/features/2020/10/14/official-global-economy-debtors-prison

PM calls for an end to 'freedom passes' in London

 The Independent Newspaper announces:

TfL told to hike fares and strip elderly of free travel to access new £1bn bailout

Measures including extending congestion charge area ‘totally unacceptable to the mayor’, source says

Transport for London (TfL) has been offered an additional billion pounds in bailout money from the government - along with further demands for fare hikes and cuts to free travel entitlements for children and pensioners, it has been reported.

The capital’s transport operator, which is overseen by the mayor’s office, first received a cash injection from the government in May on the condition the operator raise the congestion charge by 30 per cent and temporarily stop free travel initiatives for children and those over 60.

However as public transport has continued to drop to unprecedented levels due to the impact of the coronavirus on daily life, the government is understood to have offered a further £1bn to add to the previous £1.6bn financial boost.

Sources close to the talks cited by Reuters said TfL had been told by ministers that any funding would have to be accompanied by ending remaining free travel entitlements and hiking up fares....

 More at  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tfl-bus-london-underground-fare-free-travel-bailout-sadiq-khan-b1058724.html

Claimants of 'working age benefits' are accustomed to endless 'conditionality' and sanctions imposed upon them by central Government, and this Tory Government is already increasing the 'working age benefits' franchise by steadily gazumping the state retirement age, "work until you drop dead of exhaustion from pointless Universal Credit Claimant Commitment 'conditionality';" but London's 60+ Oyster Card helps keep London moving and reduces Global Warming while alleviating poverty among those unlikely to ever find paid work again.

Meanwhile, in Herefordshire, the Shire Council in a two-Tory safe seats area has plans for reducing congestion and Global Warming by measures including extending public transport. And Hereford &  South MP Jesse Norman is First Secretary to the Treasury. What conditionality might be lumbered upon this democratically elected coalition council comprising Independent, Its Our County and Green Party councillors [in order of numbers of council seats]?

 

Revitalised by Recognition

 

'The Sun' card. Source: Rider-Waite Tarot pack

Negative life-experiences, properly re-evaluated, can help us define what we really want out of life. I believe I gained that insight at least partially from reading Dorothy Leeds’ Secrets of Successful Interviews: How to Get the Job You Really Want in 1998, as well as from earlier, 1984-86 experience of psychotherapy. (Secrets of Successful Interviews has clearly been since reformulated and updated as Marketing Yourself: The Ultimate Job Seeker's Guide.)

That insight was made more alive for me by way of the interviewing skills of a recruitment agency's founder, Jacquie, in 1999. She asked me about the supports I would require in my ideal job. I recited a work placement experience in which my line-manager had been the CEO of my employer (whom I had previously known through shared volunteering in childminding), my workbase was my training provider’s facilities and line-manager never visited me on placement except for three interviews with training provider’s Placements Officer in an 8 week placement. “I would like good supervision,” I stated, while I recalled that the CEO too busy with other things never really gave me that and later emphasised my failure to meet deadlines.

“Don’t you really mean that you would require recognition?” Jacquie replied, and I resonated with that insight.

 

I recall that interview insight as I reflect on the resurgence I gained recently by the revival of my rapport with Hereford Times letters pages, and the impact on me from a research-oriented telephone interview I received yesterday by way of referral by Alison Mann as Kundalini Yoga teacher to both the researcher and me.

In the telephone interview, I was asked about my resilience under lockdown, and we clarified the definition of ‘resilience’. I said that I take the approach that I’m a survivor, whatever has happened to me in the past, and I have a lot more scope as a state pensioner on more-than-’working age benefits’ and free of the shackles of a Universal Credit ‘Claimant Commitment’ that is oriented to getting the claimant off the unemployment register more than it is to helping the claimant get the job they really want.

I referred to a sense of life purpose as an essential ingredient in my resilience — my capacity to bounce back from whatever happens to me: “I’m an expert witness, applying verbal literacy skills and ‘expert witness’ testimony, rather than a victim of life’s circumstances and waste of space.”

I felt revitalised by that interview, whereas I would no doubt feel drained by interactions with someone who probably had no experience of recruitment experience from the recruiter’s point of view and yet professed to providing “the help you need, when you need it.” (Namely, a Universal Credit 'workcoach'.)

Thus, last night I responded to a friend’s feedback on my latest Hereford Times published letter that provided the impetus for blog posts:

After a very stimulating research conversation with University of South Wales counselling course student re lockdown and access to wellbeing promoting therapies such as Yoga this afternoon, I had a fresh burst of blogging impetus, in which I gave loads of info related to what I told the student/researcher: that for far too many people, financial lockdown has long preceded Covid-19 lockdown.

https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2020/10/agenda-for-caring-economy.html

And before that blog post, I noted that the print issue of New Internationalist magazine referred to in the 'Agenda for a Caring Economy' posting, is not on the New Internationalist home page, but there is this reference to related online article about the skewed values of the Global Economy

https://newsforwardsfromalanwheatley.blogspot.com/2020/10/global-economy-as-debtors-prison-newint.html

 

Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of the current economic system is that while the caring that props up national economies is an underrecognised form of modern slavery, carers and the people who need their care are treated as expendable. That is instanced by, say, the fact that downgrading a claimant's entitlement to Personal Independence Payment that replaces Disability Living Allowance also downgrades the carer's prospects of getting Carer's Allowance.

Alan Wheatley