Ken Loach, the Palme D'Or award and a film on the horrors of neoliberal austerity

"The world we live in is at a dangerous point right now. We are in the grip of a dangerous project of austerity driven by ideas that we call neo-liberalism that have brought us to near catastrophe. It has led to billions of people in serious hardship and many millions struggling from Greece in the east to Spain in the west while this has brought a tiny few immense wealth..... When there is despair, the people from the far right take advantage. We must say that another world is possible and necessary.”
Ken Loach in his acceptance speech to the Cannes Film Festival

Great to hear that British left wing filmmaker Ken Loach has won his second Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his new film I Daniel Blake about the impact of Britain's barbaric welfare system.

In his acceptance speech Ken Loach slammed neoliberal austerity policies and welfare cuts across Europe and in Britain:

"There is a conscious cruelty in the way that we are organising our lives now, where the most vulnerable people are told that their poverty is their own fault... If you have no work it's your fault you haven't got a job"

I Daniel Blake shows what happens to people trapped in a punitive neoliberal welfare bureaucracy designed to give expression to the political rhetoric of 'lifters and leaners' in contemporary Britain.

The film documents the shame and horror of poverty and 'workfare' in UK and shows what happens when an older man living in Newcastle has a heart attack and can no longer work. He is declared fit for work, meaning his benefits are stopped, and he goes hungry.

A review of the film from the UK Independent is here:

Ken Loach’s latest feature (unveiled in competition in Cannes) is a story of an eminently decent man being ground down by an uncaring British welfare state. Scripted by Loach’s regular collaborator Paul Laverty, it is a melodramatic and sometimes very didactic film but also an intensely moving one.

This is the second time that Loach has won the Palme D'Or, the Cannes Festival's highest award. Loach won the award in 2006 for his film The Wind That Shakes the Barley, about two brothers who join the IRA in the early 1920s. He is the ninth Director to win the award twice. 

Loach, who has directed 50 features for screen and TV, has been a left wing socialist activist and political campaigner for most of his career.

Austerity kills

“If austerity were tested like a medication in a clinical trial, it would have been stopped long ago, given its deadly side effects…. One need not be an economic ideologue – we certainly aren’t – to recognize that the price of austerity can be calculated in human lives.”
David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu,“The body economic: Why austerity kills."

There is a chilling study in the latest edition of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine that shows that austerity measures, including reductions in income and welfare support imposed by the UK Government, are killing vulnerable elderly people in England.

The study shows a clear link between rising mortality rates among older people in England and the austerity measures imposed by the UK Government.

The authors conclude that:

" Rising mortality rates among pensioners aged 85 and over were linked to reductions in spending on income support for poor pensioners and social care"

One of the study authors is David Stuckler, whose 2013 book The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills (co-authored with Sanjay Basu) documents and describes the profoundly harmful effect of austerity policies on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable people and those who live precarious lives.

Stuckler argues that austerity policies imposed by national governments in response to economic crises bring about increases in disturbing public health and housing outcomes, particularly among the most vulnerable people.

He documents the unnecessary suffering and rising mortality rates associated with austerity policies.

Stuckler's book reveals that austerity polices in Europe and North America contributed to 10,000 additional suicides and a million extra case of depression.

Stuckler describes austerity as 'a public health disease". His conclusion is:

'Recessions harm but austerity kills'

Peter Tatchell on why he supports Jeremy Corbyn for leader of the British Labor Party

I have been following the remarkable ascension of Jeremy Corbyn and his bid to be the next leader of the British Labor Party.

So I was interested to read this piece in Open Democracy by Peter Tatchell, the highly respected UK based Australian born campaigner.

Peter Tatchell is a legendary and highly respected figure on the left for his profound commitment to  social and economic justice and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Tatchell is a member of the Gay rights group OutRage and the left wing of the UK Greens. He is a Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.

Tatchell has spent nearly 50 years of his life campaigning for social and economic justice here in Australia and the UK and has suffered profoundly for his commitment to social change.  Tatchell campaigned in Australia against our involvement in the Vietnam War and moved to London in 1971 to avoid conscription. He has been arrested hundreds of times, received death threats, been the target of violent assaults and suffered brain injuries and eye injuries after being bashed by thugs supporting Robert Mugabe and neo-nazis in Moscow.

In an article expressing support for Corbyn, Peter Tatchell writes:

On a majority of UK and foreign policy issues he's spot on, with real vision and an inspiring alternative. On a small number of issues he has made lamentable misjudgements. Despite these shortcomings, I'm backing his bid for the Labour leadership. Here's why.

I look at the big picture and judge politicians on their overall record. What are their ideals, motives and aims? What kind of society are they striving for? How would their policies impact upon the average person? On all these assessment criteria, Jeremy is on the right side and is the most progressive candidate on nearly every issue.

He has strong, unique policies for social justice and equality – to secure a kinder, gentler, fairer and more inclusive, harmonious Britain. I am with him in opposing austerity.

Tatchell acknowledges Corbyn's questionable actions and policies on some foreign policy matters and assess allegations against him over his association with some unsavoury regimes and extremists. He says Corbyn has made misjudgements on Russia, Ukraine, Syria and Iran, however he concludes that some accusations against Corbyn are exaggerations and distortions and other involve smears of guilt by association.

Tatchell concludes:

Some of Jeremy's supporters may accuse me of betrayal and of aligning myself with his right-wing critics. Not so. My criticisms are rooted in a leftist, human rights politics that is democratic, secular and internationalist. Support for Jeremy does not require suspension of our critical faculties and a knee-jerk unthinking allegiance. As he himself has often said, it is a citizen's responsibility to hold politicians to account – including those we support. Nobody is entitled to a free pass – not Jeremy, me or anyone.

Tatchell notes that another reason to support Corbyn's bid is that he is directly challenging some of the most sacred tenants of neoliberal economic and social policy, particularly the assumed superiority of private and corporate provision over public provision and the supposed inefficiency of public ownership.

Corbyn is advocating for a renewed program of public ownership. His plan to fight back against the privatisation and marketization of public services involves the adoption of innovative new approaches to collective ownership:

“I believe in public ownership, but I have never favoured the remote nationalised model that prevailed in the post-war era. Like a majority of the population and a majority of even Tory voters, I want the railways back in public ownership. But public control should mean just that, not simply state control: so we should have passengers, rail workers and government too, co-operatively running the railways to ensure they are run in our interests and not for private profit. This model should replace both the old Labour model of top-down operation by central diktat and Tories favoured model of unaccountable privatised operators running our public services for their own ends.”

Attacks on the independence of civil society and the voluntary sector

" We are on a slippery slope, where it is becoming increasingly common to hear the view that voluntary organisations should deliver services but not challenge the status quo, especially if they receive government funding. We are already seeing a ‘chilling effect,’ with increasing evidence of self- censorship by voluntary organisations"

Roger Singleton, Chair of the Independence Panel for the UK Voluntary Sector

 The Panel for the Independence of the UK Voluntary sector has just released its 2014 report titled Independence Undervalued: The Voluntary Sector in 2014,  and the picture it paints is despairingly familiar to the situation in Australia. 

The Report shows that the independence of the voluntary sector and civil society is under attack from Governments dedicated to the imposition of market based ideas and policies  :

 "The voluntary sector is losing its ability to protect the most vulnerable in society as a result of government attacks on its campaigning activities, lack of consultation over policy changes, and funding arrangements that put the future of an independent sector at risk"

In its media release the Panel:

• calls on the British Prime Minister David Cameron to take action to stop weakening the independence of the sector and to rebuild trust.  
•  calls on voluntary sector leaders to take a stand to preserve the sector’s independence, which it says is vital to a healthy and compassionate democracy and the reason why so many people lend their support to charities and trust their services.

•  documents numerous instances of a serious and growing threat from the government to Britain’s long tradition of independent voluntary action including:

• Growing criticism by some politicians, including the Secretary of State for Justice, of charities’ role as voices of communities.  There is an increasingly commonly expressed view that charities should simply deliver services and not speak out against injustices – leading to voluntary organisations self-censoring because they are afraid of losing government work, appearing too political or because of gagging clauses in state contracts.
• New and proposed restrictions to the ability of voluntary organisations to challenge government decisions in the courts on behalf of vulnerable individuals.
• Restrictions to campaigning put forward in the Lobbying Bill without consultation and, despite subsequent changes, with continuing concerns about their impact.
• Cuts in government consultation periods, leaving voluntary organisations too little time to respond to important questions, despite assurances this would change.

• "gagging clauses" in contracts for the government’s Work Programme, which prevent preventing subcontractors from criticizing the programme or releasing potentially embarrassing data.

• Damage to support in communities due to loss of public funding for local specialist voluntary organisations as public service contracts concentrate on economies of scale rather than social return.
• Many state-sponsored charities subject to government interference, for example in appointment of board members.
• A weak Charity Commission ill-equipped to maintain public confidence that charities are pursuing an independent mission that is furthering the public good and not state sponsored or driven by private gain; and lack of government compliance with a document signed by David Cameron to protect the independence of the sector, the Compact.

Panel chair Sir Roger Singleton CBE said:

“An independent voluntary sector lies at the heart of a compassionate, democratic society, a role that has become especially important as engagement with mainstream politics declines and the state reduces in size. Yet we are on a ‘slippery slope’, in which the independence of voluntary organisations is increasingly undervalued and under threat and there are insufficient safeguards to protect an independent future for the sector. It is increasingly seen either as a delivery arm of the state or only legitimate where it provides services but does not speak out for wider social change.

 The full 64 page report of the Panel is here

John Pilger and the deafening silence about class warfare

In  a recent article Discovering the power of people's history  and why it is feared today Australia's finest journalist John Pilger reminds us of the deafening silence about class in the UK and about the harm and devastation caused by the class warfare unleashed by the political (and corporate) classes under the guise of policies of austerity, privatization and marketization.

Pilger points out that the experience of everyday people under policies of austerity (or what he calls enforced poverty) are not just deliberately hidden and suppressed. In the world of the political, corporate and media class, the experience and history of ordinary people under austerity simply does not matter, or even exist.

When I read recently that 600,000 Greater Manchester residents were "experiencing the effects of extreme poverty" and that 1.6 million were slipping into penury, I was reminded how the political consensus was unchanged. Now led by the southern squirearchy of David Cameron, George Osborne and their fellow Etonians, the only change is the rise of Labour's corporate management class, exemplified by Ed Miliband's support for "austerity" - the new jargon for imposed poverty.

In Clara Street in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the wintry dark of early morning, I walked down the hill with people who worked more than sixty hours a week for a pittance. They described their "gains" as the Health Service. They had seen only one politician in the street, a Liberal who came and put up posters and said something inaudible from his Land Rover and sped away. The Westminster mantra then was "paying our way as a nation" and "productivity". Today, their places of work, and their trade union protection, always tenuous, have gone. "What's wrong," a Clara Street man told me, "is the thing the politicians don't want to talk about any more. It's governments not caring how we live, because we're not part of their country."

A daughter remembers her famous father: Julia Hobsbawn on Eric Hobsbawn

Thanks to Jim Johnson's excellent and informative blog Notes on Politics, Theory and Photography I found this link to a wonderful article by Julie Hobsbawn about her father, the distinguished historian Eric Hobsbawn, who died in late 2012.

Beautifully written and heartfelt Julie Hobsbawn's piece provides a revealing insight into a man considered one of the greatest historians of the 20th Century.  

My father died at the age of 95 with scores of global editions of his books in print, countless honorary doctorates and visiting fellowships and something close to a cult following among people of all classes, ages and types. He had political enemies in death as he had in life – he was resolutely a Marxist historian and never relinquished his membership of the Communist party – but mostly people seemed as upset as we were, which was a comfort. In the hours after he died, while the Twitter feeds lit up and the news agencies rang in alongside relatives, I phoned through a death notice to The Times. The young man taking copy on the phone sounded stressed: he asked me to repeat the credit card number several times and then blurted out suddenly that he had read history at university and had loved my father’s books. Former students rang in tears from time zones which suggested they had woken to the news and had acted on impulse........

He must have felt an affinity with the hospital workers because he would introduce them to us admiringly as we visited: they were from the Philippines or Nigeria; they had a PhD. I think that he saw in them the thing he valued greatly as someone who started poor and worked his way up in life through his curiosity and ability to learn. I think they reminded him of the students he loved during a 65-year association with Birkbeck College, University of London, which specialises in evening degrees for daytime workers. The life of the immigrant, of the émigré, of the student, lifting themselves from desperate lives through education, was what he understood. In return the ward nurses and nursing assistants leaned in close to him as they did dressings and lifts, saying cheerfully “Hello, professor!” and mostly doing their very best.

 ....

At home in Hampstead every one of my parents’ rooms had a table covered with hardbacks, paperbacks, manuscripts and papers which he could graze at. Up until the end he was writing something new or editing something old. Although he could use email and read internet links, he was a book man. We are still sorting through them.

....

We used to range widely in our chats in those ending years, discussing everything from gossip, which he loved, to the goings-on in the political world. He was always completely up to speed. He engaged in the lives of all of us, his two sons and his daughter, his nine grandchildren, and his young great-granddaughter. He always asked me avidly “How’s business?” during each visit, enjoying my tales from the front line of capitalism. He celebrated every entrepreneurial step forward but was always a bit anxious, leaving answerphone messages saying: “It’s Dad. Just checking in to see how you are. Don’t overdo it. Kiss, kiss.” My dad, the academic historian and giant of “the left”, and me, his degreeless, politically plural daughter who loves doing business. I never felt so close to him as towards the end.
. . .
Now in the closing months of 2012 there would be no more discussions about ideas, frivolous or intense – no more hearing his panoramic view of the present viewed through an immaculately detailed grasp of the past. No more watching him steeple his fingers in deep listening interest at the ideas of one of his army of devoted friends who came calling wherever they could find him, in London at home, in Wales, and in the stygian holding pen of the Royal Free Hospital, London.

Dave Zirin on remembering Margaret Thatcher's victims

Photo of Margaret Thatcher  in front of an image of Augusto Pinochet at a Conservative Party conference. (Reuters Photo)

"Or to put it even more simply, in the words, of David Wearing, "People praising Thatcher's legacy should show some respect for her victims." That would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's please show some respect for Margaret Thatcher's victims. Let's respect those who mourn everyday because of her policies, but choose this one day to wipe away the tears. Then let's organize to make sure that the history she authored does not repeat"
Dave Zirin

Dave Zirin writes in The Nation here about why ordinary people are celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher.

As Zirin points in all the media frenzy about her death, the voices and experiences of those who suffered under Thatcher's policies have been ignored and forgotten

Zirin highlights the huge gulf in the reaction to Thatcher's death  between ordinary people who suffered as a result of her policies and the political, media and corporate class who benefited from them.

I received a note this morning from a friend of a friend. She lives in the UK, although her family didn't arrive there by choice. They had to flee Chile, like thousands of others, when it was under the thumb of General Augusto Pinochet. If you don't know the details about Pinochet's blood-soaked two-decade reign, you should read about them but take care not to eat beforehand. He was a merciless overseer of torture, rapes and thousands of political executions. He had the hands and wrists of the country's greatest folk singer Victor Jara broken in front of a crowd of prisoners before killing him. He had democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende shot dead at his desk. His specialty was torturing people in front of their families.
As Naomi Klein has written so expertly, he then used this period of shock and slaughter to install a nationwide laboratory for neoliberal economics. If Pincohet's friend Milton Friedman had a theory about cutting food subsidies, privatizing social security, slashing wages or outlawing unions, Pinochet would apply it. The results of these experiments became political ammunition for neoliberal economists throughout the world. Seeing Chile-applied economic theory in textbooks always boggles my mind. It would be like if the American Medical Association published a textbook on the results of Dr. Josef Mengele's work in the concentration camps, without any moral judgment about how he accrued his patients. 

Pinochet was the General in charge of this human rights catastrophe. He also was someone who Margaret Thatcher called a friend. She stood by the General even when he was in exile, attempting to escape justice for his crimes. As she said to Pinochet, "[Thank you] for bringing democracy to Chile."

Therefore, if I want to know why someone would celebrate the death of Baroness Thatcher, I think asking a Chilean in exile would be a great place to start. My friend of a friend took to the streets of the UK when she heard that the Iron Lady had left her mortal coil. Here is why:

I'm telling [my daughter] all about the Thatcher legacy through her mother's experience, not the media's; especially how the Thatcher government directly supported Pinochet's murderous regime, financially, via military support, even military training (which we know now, took place in Dundee University). Thousands of my people (and members of my family) were tortured and murdered under Pinochet's regime—the fascist beast who was one of Thatcher's closest allies and friend. So all you apologists/those offended [by my celebration]—you can take your moral high ground & shove it. YOU are the ones who don't understand. Those of us celebrating are the ones who suffered deeply under her dictatorship and WE are the ones who cared. We are the ones who protested. We are the humanitarians who bothered to lift a finger to help all those who suffered under her regime. I am lifting a glass of champagne to mourn, to remember and to honour all the victims of her brutal regime, here AND abroad. And to all those heroes who gave a shit enough to try to do something about it.

The Thatcher legacy

So former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is dead. 

Like many others I won't be mourning her passing. It is more important to acknowledge and remember all those who suffered because of her policies and all those who resisted and opposed her.

Film Director Ken Loach sums it up well:

"Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and destructive Prime Minister of modern times, mass unemployment, factory closures, communities destroyed — this is her legacy. She was a fighter and her enemy was the British working class ... How should we honour her? Let's privatize her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It's what she would have wanted."

Writing on the Overland Blog Jeff Sparrow reminds us that we should never forget many of Thatcher's political positions:

How to remember Margaret Thatcher? Shall we recall the friend of Augusto Pinochet, the woman who protested bitterly about the arrest of Chile’s murderous dictator, a man to whom, she said, Britain owed so much? What about the staunch ally of apartheid, the prime minister who labelled the ANC ‘terrorists’ and did everything possible to undermine international action against the racist regime? The anti-union zealot who described striking miners defending their livelihood as an ‘enemy within’, hostile to liberty? The militarist who prosecuted the Falklands war, as vicious as it was pointless? The Cold Warrior, who stood by Reagan’s side, while the US conducted its genocidal counterinsurgencies in Latin America? The British chauvinist who allowed Bobby Sands to slowly starve to death?

Both Jeff Sparrow and Rjurik Davidson writing in Overland reminds us that Thatcher's political legacy is very much alive and grows stronger here in Australia . Davidson makes the connection between Thatchers political and economic agenda and Julie Gillard and the Australian Labor Party's embrace of market fundamentalism.

In his piece Margaret Thatcher and the Misapplied Etiquette  Glenn Greenwald challenges those who demand respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death, arguing that such silence is not just misguided but dangerous. He writes:

But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren't silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person's death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend." Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. 

When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms. 

Greenwald concludes that:

There's something distinctively creepy about this mandated ritual that our political leaders must be heralded and consecrated as saints upon death. This is accomplished by this baseless moral precept that it is gauche or worse to balance the gushing praise for them upon death with valid criticisms. There is absolutely nothing wrong with loathing Margaret Thatcher or any other person with political influence and power based upon perceived bad acts, and that doesn't change simply because they die. If anything, it becomes more compelling to commemorate those bad acts upon death as the only antidote against a society erecting a false and jingoistically self-serving history.

In the New Left Project Tom Mills has written an excellent piece The Death of a Class Warrior in which he reviews Thatcher's political career and political legacy. Mills argues that Thatcher provided:

a sustained, violent assault on British society launched on behalf of big business in the name of ‘strong government’ and cloaked in the rhetoric of national renewal. 

Mills argues that Thatcher was able to appeal to and draw on a range of impulses that had developed during the 1970's and had coalesced into a coherent political ideology (often called neoliberalism  or market fundamentalism).  She did this by using the coercive powers of the state to: 

• portray markets as a moral force
• bring about mass support for big business 
• champion markets as an empowering democratizing force
• portray certain forms of state and Government intervention as hampering Britain’s economic effectiveness and corrupting its moral character.
• attack the social basis of collective action and collective ideas
• emasculate those institutional forms that could build an alternative to neo-liberal/ market fundamentalist regimes (such as trade unions, public ownership of public assets and services and  civil society)
• fusing neoliberalism (market fundamentalism) with the moralistic, reactionary politics of ‘Middle England’ and tying the interests of capital to the bigoted preoccupations of their political base.

This sounds awfully like the political agenda of Tony Abbott and the Liberal National Coalition here in Australia.

In their piece in Counterpunch The Queen Mother of Global Austerity and Financialization Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers make the direct link between Thatchers economic and political policies and the current economic and financial crises gripping the UK and Europe.

Mrs. Thatcher became the cheerleader for what became the greatest giveaway of the century as the City of London’s gain became the industrial economy’s loss. Britain’s lords of finance became the equivalent of America’s great railroad land barons of the 19th century, the ruling elite to preside over today’s descent into neoliberal austerity............The Iron Lady was convinced she was rebuilding England’s economy, while in reality it was only getting richer from London’s outlaw banks. Throughout the world, the damage wrought by this financialized economy has been immense.

Hudson and Sommers also point out that one of Thatcher's greatest effects was on the British Labor Party:   

As the uncredited patron saint of New Labour, Mrs. Thatcher became the intellectual force inspiring her successor and emulator Tony Blair to complete the transformation of British electoral politics to mobilize popular consent to permit the financial sector to privatize and carve up Britain’s public infrastructure into a set of monopolies. In so doing, the United Kingdom’s was transformed from a real economy of production to one that scavenged the world for rents through its offshore banks. In the end, not only was great damage inflicted on England, but on the entire world as capital fled developing countries for safe harbors in London’s banks. Meanwhile, governments throughout the world today are declaring “We’re broke,” as their oligarchs grow ever more rich.

And then there is music. Here are 21 Incredibly angry songs about Margaret Thatcher

The paradox of the Paralympics

Excellent piece here by Amelia Gentleman on the paradox of the Paralympics- the disconnect between the positive attitudes to disability on display inside the Olympic stadiums and  the experience of people with disabilities in the wider British society where intensive Government cuts are creating immense suffering for disabled people and increasing hostility towards people with disabilities is resulting in a soaring of hate crimes.

Many radical and activist groups such as Disabled People against Cuts have campaigned and protested against aspects of the Paralympics such as corporate sponsorship by large corporations such as Atos  and cuts to services for people with disabilities. Atos  who was a major sponsor of the Paralympics is contracted by the UK Government as administrators of assessments that rob disabled people of their benefits.

In this piece on the website of Disabled People against Cuts disability activist Dave King argues that the Paralympics are the precise opposite of the values of disability liberation. King writes:

But with the Paralympics we have seen the addition into this cocktail of a supremely powerful and toxic ingredient, the opportunity for liberals to feel good about themselves for supporting the underdog and ‘progress in the fight against prejudice’. It is this thick coating of syrup which has confused even radical disability rights advocates, and is making it almost impossible for critics to speak out, except about the blatantly obvious outrage of Atos as sponsors. But the truth is that, despite all the hopeful talk about how the Paralympics are going to revolutionise people’s ideas about disability, the ideas and values at the core of the Paralympics are the precise opposite of the values of disability liberation. (I write this as a disabled person, one who has undergone one of Atos’ medical assessments and been found wanting, and who is suffering financially as a consequence.)

In the Guardian  Amelia Gentleman writes:

There has been a clear reluctance among officials this week to sour the happy atmosphere by talking about the Paralympics paradox – the difficulty of reconciling the amazing excitement around the Games, which has portrayed Britain globally as a place where positive attitudes to disability reign, and a bleaker reality that kicks in beyond Stratford.

The guide for journalists covering the event is explicit in its instructions that disability and any issues around it should not be the focus of reporting. It stipulates that reporters should concentrate on "performance, sporting ambition, training, competition and the emotions associated with winning and losing". Most athletes contacted to discuss the broader issues of disability for this piece declined to be interviewed. But many disabled visitors were quick to comment on the disconnection between their experiences within the park and their everyday lives at a time when in addition to cuts to services and benefits payments, charities such as Scope have been documenting worsening attitudes and official figures show that incidents of disability hate crime have soared to their highest ever levels.

Kalya Franklin, a disability campaigner whose Benefit Scrounging Scum blog has charted the rising problems faced by disabled people at a time of cuts to services and benefits, was amazed at the ease of her journey to Stratford from Birmingham, describing it as "the smoothest journey I've ever done on public transport". "People were there waiting to offer help – that's very unusual. There were much higher levels of staffing. That's not typical, nor is seeing lots of portable ramps around," she said.

She was delighted to be at the event, but like many, she was struggling with the Paralympics paradox.

"It's a utopian fantasy of where we need to move towards as a society," she said, pausing for a moment at Stratford station (interrupted on two occasions in the space of five minutes by transport staff asking if she needed assistance). "It's brilliant, because this has shown that with the right attitude, will and financing, it can be done."

The sporting event was for her, like any sporting occasion, a bit of escapism from daily problems, but she was anxious that attention to the pressing issues facing people with disabilities should not be deflected while the country basks in the international congratulations for having mounted a sellout Paralympic event. She pointed to a planned 20% cut in the disability living allowance (DLA), announced in the 2010 budget, in particular, arguing the that extra money, for employed and unemployed claimants to help with the extra cost of disability, had helped finance the extra cost of care and transport for many disabled visitors to the Games.

"What the public haven't realised about the Paralympians is how many of them are completely reliant on DLA. Although they are superfit athletes it doesn't mean they aren't also disabled and have mobility needs and care needs in their day-to-day lives," she said.

The dangers of corporatised health care

photo courtesy of the UK Guardian

More evidence in this Guardian piece of the dangers of allowing corporations and private business to run health services that should be provided by the public sector.

Six people are feared to have suffered irreversible sight loss because of the failings of a privately run clinic at an NHS hospital, raising fresh fears about the government's plans to open up the health service to the commercial sector.

In an unprecedented move, GPs have been advised to consider alternative clinics for their patients because of "worrying concerns" about the services offered at a hospital in Hertfordshire. The surgical clinic, owned by Carillion, a construction firm which was formerly part of Tarmac, has only carried out NHS services at Lister hospital since October but it has already been the subject of criticism from the Care Quality Commission regarding waiting times for a range of services.

The government's drive towards NHS privatisation is leaving patients vulnerable to poor care and support at surgery centres like the one at the Lister hospital. It is potentially the tip of the iceberg in terms of the clinical risk of fragmented health services.

"The Conservatives talk about patient choice, but many patients would have been unaware of the difficulties that they would face by choosing the privately run Surgicentre. These companies see the Health and Social Care Act as a big opportunity to increase their business, but safeguarding patients has to be the number one priority

New book on the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin

Excellent review (here) by Robert Wilbur of a updated version of the book Easter Rising by Michael Foy and Brian Barton about the 1916 Easter Revolution in Dublin.

On Easter Monday 1916 in Dublin 1500 armed  Irish revolutionaries seized a number of strategic buildings and locations across the city, including the Court House and the iconic Dublin Post Office, with the goal of immobilizing the British forces in Dublin and inspiring a revolutionary uprising throughout Ireland.

The uprising was  mounted by Irish Republicans at the height of WW1 with the aim of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing an Irish rebellion.  All this occured at the time that the British empire was engaged in the slaughter on the Western Front across France and Belgium.

The British response to the Easter uprisings was unsurprisingly savage and ferocious.They shelled and attacked the insurgents with artillery and massive firepower. Foy and Barton write:

The fighting in Dublin at Easter 1916 was multifaceted, ranging from rifle fire into and out of houses and large buildings, to ambushes and pitched battles. Grenades and bombs were thrown from roofs while snipers operated from windows, barricades, church spires and clock towers and were, in turn, hunted down by individual enemy marksmen or units. Sometimes combat was at close quarters, almost hand to hand.

The Post Office siege was perhaps the most iconic. The insurgents held out against British artillery and direct fire for days.

The rebellion was suppressed within a week and its leaders were arrested and deported to Britain where they were either executed or imprisoned. Many of those involved became leaders in the ongoing struggle against British rule that eventually lead to Irish independence, including legendary figures in Irish history such as Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, James Connolly (executed) and Roger Casement (executed).

Despite its apparent failure at the time the Easter uprising was a definitive event that largely united the counties of Southern Ireland against their British masters  and ultimately forced the British  to the bargaining table. In particular, the savagery of the British was a critical factor in turning many Irish people to the Republican cause.

"The Easter Rising was an ill-fated enterprise. It was conceived by two revolutionary groups: the Irish Brotherhood (IRB) was Catholic, but far from catholic, while the much smaller Irish Citizen's Army (ICA) was a democratic-socialist organization that stood for just about everything that made the IRB nervous, from atheism to women's rights. 

 What united them was their determination to evict the British and establish an Irish state. Their opponents, however, were not just the crown forces, but their Irish subjects was well, for Ireland - like all the participants in the Great War – had been infected with an epidemic of chauvinism. Foy and Barton write: "The First World War was a seminal event in Irish history. It involved more combatants and casualties than all subsequent conflicts in Ireland combined and it utterly changed the country's political situation. Initially, people appeared gripped by pro-war sentiment as patriotic crowds in Dublin waved Union Jacks, wrecked shops owned by German immigrants and wildly cheered soldiers departing for the Western Front."

But as the war dragged on, it exerted a divisive effect between the gradualist, pro-war supporters of home rule and the increasingly militant nationalists. Still, what really turned the trick, what had the Irish waving green flags instead of Union Jacks - and within the course of a few weeks - was the savagery with which the British crushed the Easter Rising. A short-term military victory would turn into a political catastrophe for the United Kingdom".

The crises engulfing David Cameron, the Murdoch empire and the British political class

Gerry Hassan is always worth reading.  In his latest piece Hassan writes about the significance of the crises engulfing Britain's neoliberal state, particularly the collusion between the Murdoch empire, Prime Minister Cameron and the British political class. 

Hassan writes that:

"This may seem like a schadenfreude moment for many who have despaired at the profound influence of the Murdoch empire across British life, and who are feeling a little spring in their step upon seeing Andy Coulson, former editor of the ‘News of the World’ and Downing Street Head of Communications charged by the police, while David Cameron and his Tory-led Government struggle to deal with events.

The Cameron Conservative project is now in major crisis".

A Murdoch newspaper, The News of the World, and its Editors have been involved in criminal activity. They authorized and allowed the hacking of the phones of a murdered girl, the families and relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and people killed in terrorist bombings. One of the Editors of the paper who was directly involved in this illegal activity was subsequently employed by David Cameron, the current Prime Minister as his Head of Communications.

The British PM has been damaged seriously by the implosion of the News of the World and the fall out from the scandal. Some commentators are suggesting that PM Cameron has been damaged irrevocably. 

Robert Zeliger writes that Cameron is irrevocably tarred because he turned a blind eye to some of the press's shadier tactics, while cozying up to media executives in order to win political backing. Zeliger writes

"After all, Cameron has ties to some of the most vilified people in the scandal. He courted Rupert Murdoch in the run-up to last year's election (which helped to ensure his victory). He's friends with Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of the tabloid and current News International chief executive who has become a focal point of criticism for the mess. And he hired Andy Coulson, another former editor of the paper, as his communications director at 10 Downing. This morning, Coulson (who stepped down from his job in January) was arrested for his involvement with the paper's illegal activities.

 Gerry Hassan writes:

"That brings us to the state of Britain and the Murdoch News International scandal. It isn’t an accident that in the last three years there have been three seismic crises of the new forces of power and privilege in the new British establishment. In 2008, we had the crises of the banks, followed by the political classes and the expenses crisis, and now, the escalating revelations of the amoral, out of control nature of the Murdoch press.

All three crises are important because they are parts of the pillars of Britain’s neo-liberal state: the reconfiguration of the British political, public, economic, social and cultural life of the UK, and the collusion of our politicians and wider political classes with all of this.

As Hassan ponts out:

"It may be heart-warming to see the attention of media, politicians and police investigation turn on the inner workings and abuses of the Murdoch empire, but we will need to ask much more penetrating, far-reaching questions if we are to take back British public life from the vulgarians, fellow-travellers and apologists for Murdoch’s empire, the marketisation of our society and development of Britain and the British state into an outlier for corporate power.

Two public inquiries into the phone hacking and media ethics are only the start. We need our politicians, media and wider political world to begin asking what kind of Britain have they colluded in creating? What kind of nomenklatura have they allowed to evolve and what have been its consequences? And given the forces of power, privilege and status which exist in the UK, and of which Murdoch is but one manifestation, how do we row back against the world they have created?

Soon a corporation will own the UK blood supply.

What is that saying about putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank?. 

Well it's becoming a reality. Soon the UK blood supply will be privatized. Market madness!

From the UK Independent;

The proposed privatisation of NHS Blood and Transplant service, or parts of it, will instinctively make people shudder and we are right to be concerned about how commercial motives will change the service.

From Unite

Staff representatives from the National Blood Service (NBS) have written to chief executive, Linda Hamlyn, and to NBS board members warning that the privatisation of the NBS could have serious effects on the fragile relationship between the service and its donors.
 

Around three million UK citizens give their blood every year.  Unite says it is the ultimate "big society" service but the essence of the service would be fundamentally altered if a profit-motive was introduced to any part of the service.

Unite is demanding a full written report from the NBS board setting out what discussions have taken place with potential bidders, what decisions have been made and what time scales there might be regarding possible privatisation.

The union also wants MPs currently scrutinising the Health and Social Care bill to look seriously at ways to preserve the NBS so that profit-making companies are not handed parts of the service to operate, arguing that the only motive for the service ought to be the collection and distribution of blood for the common good.

On 16 February, the Health Service Journal learned that the Department of Health's commercial directorate held talks with private providers about running parts of the NHS Blood and Transplant service. Capita and DHL are understood to be interested in taking over parts of the service (see notes to editors).

Unite, Britain's biggest union which represents staff working for the NBS, resolutely opposes any privatisation of the service arguing that it goes against the very ethos of giving blood.

Unite's regional officer, Owen Granfield said: "On behalf of the staff working for the blood service who are very proud and dedicated, we have written to the chief executive of the NBS demanding to know just how far discussions with the private sector have progressed. Unite is not prepared to allow the private sector to profit from a voluntary service which was in existence even before the NHS was founded.

"People who give blood for free because they believe it is in the common good will be shocked to learn the Department of Health is considering allowing the private sector to profit from their blood. This is blood money and it is totally wrong.

"The very essence of the blood service is about people giving their blood for free to help and save lives. The blood service is always short of donors and privatisation could have serious effects on the fragile relationship between the service and voluntary donations."

Service users finding their protest voice: the new politics of resistance in the UK

All over the UK some of the most disadvantaged and marginalized people are mobilizing against the Cameron Government's austerity measures and cuts to benefits and entitlements. What is occurring in the UK is a remarkable "new politics of opposition and resistance" led by service users, user led groups and those who depend on public services and welfare entitlements who are demanding that banks, corporations and the financial and the corporate elite should be paying for the crises, not ordinary people.

The Cameron Government is pursuing the deepest cuts to public services and welfare entitlements in UK history. Protests, demonstrations, web based organizing, social media campaigns, leafleting, sit-ins and pickets are all being used to expose the cruelty of the Cameron Government's cuts.

People with disabilities and mental health problems, homeless people, welfare recipients, users of public services, students, parent groups, disability groups, anti-poverty groups and other user led groups are outraged that the Cameron Government is attacking those who had least to do with the financial crises whilst rewarding those who caused it.

Before the recent election, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promised to safeguard the vulnerable, but now they are among the primary targets of government austerity measures. Rather than hold the bankers, financiers and corporate elite responsible for the financial crises, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have given them tax breaks, whilst turning their sights on the most marginalized.

But if the Cameron Government thought people would not fight back they were wrong. What is taking place is a new politics of opposition by service users, welfare recipients and small civil society groups. As Peter Beresford points out service users are co-opting the Government's own rhetoric of "co-production" (where service recipients are involved in designing the services they receive) and the "Big Society" to oppose public policy that targets, excludes and stigmatizes them.

And what is significant is that the target for much of the anger is NGO's (who supposedly represent and provide services to disadvantaged people) who are seen to have abandoned and betrayed the people they claim to represent.

Another target is corporations and banks including those who pay little or no taxes, as well as those providing services to the marginalized. People on welfare benefits, people with disabilities and campaigning groups such as Disabled People against the Cuts, are targeting the Atos Healthcare corporation (and its parent company Atos Origin) because they carry out the controversial assessment of eligibility for out-of-work benefits and work capability tests on behalf of the UK Government. Disabled people and welfare recipients have complained for years about the flawed decision making and injustice of Atos processes, which effectively decide people's eligibility for benefits.

More and more civil society service user groups are mobilizing against the cuts, all of whom have a strong online presence.

Uncut UK coordinates, publicizes and facilitates protest and campaigns against the banks and financial institutions.

False Economy is a campaign and website to document the extent and types of cuts and to support action against the cuts. False Economy aims to provide evidence of the impact  of the cuts.

The agency Disabled People against Cuts (DPAC) which was formed by people with disabilities documents the impact of cuts on people with disabilities and mobilizes people to oppose the cuts. It also runs workshops to assist people build resistance to ATOS and the cuts. 

The Broken of Britain is a  group of people with disabilities who aim to provide a non-partisan representative voice for disabled people affected by the cuts and welfare reform. They also campaign against negative coverage of the disabled.

The Coalition of Resistance provides a clearinghouse and national focus for all the local campaigns being organized against the cuts.

One Million against the Cuts is an online campaign to organize one million people to promote the campaign against the spending cuts.

National Days of Protest against Benefit Cuts are being organized and a People's Convention to Build Resistance to Cuts and Austerity has recently taken place.