Manifesto is a new film out this week that explores in depth local Labour Party activists and their fight to get a Labour government elected in the December 2019 general election.
It is an unusual film as it covers a constituency – Liverpool, Walton – ignored by the national media -concentrating on the passion of grass roots activists in one of the poorest parts in Britain. It is also Labour’s safest seat.
The film conveys the idealism of the campaigners and how the last Labour manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn would have meant real change for the people of Walton – many relying on free school meals and food banks – by providing better schools, a better NHS, more worker’s rights and better wages. But it was not to be. Instead Labour lost the general election in the fog of the Brexit row where unknown bureaucrats in Brussels were scapegoated as holding the working class back and depriving them of their ” freedoms”.
A street in Walton. Still from the film
The prism the director Daniel Draper ( who was born and grew up in Walton) uses is to tell the tale through the eyes and voices of local activists -a group that are normally completely ignored.
He intersperses their views with quotes from Robert Tressell’s work The Ragged -Trousered Philanthropists – regarded by George Orwell as a ” book everyone should read”. This tells a semi autobiographical story of a house painter’s struggle to get work in Edwardian England. He died from TB in Liverpool Royal Infirmary and was buried in a pauper’s grave in the city. The link between today’s activists and his legacy is vividly portrayed in one scene in the film.
He also intersperses the dialogue with stills of part of the constituency showing the poverty and both neat and neglected streets.
A thoughtful Ian Byrne during the 2019 election count. Still from the film
The result is a bitter sweet documentary. The campaigning in Liverpool was a great success – with both Parliamentary candidates who are on the left of the party, Dan Carden ( Liverpool Walton) and Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) returned with thumping majorities.
But in the rest of the country Labour lost badly -including two seats Walton activists were sent to help the party in Blackpool and Crewe.
Since then internal struggles in the Labour Party -including in Liverpool – have divided Labour activists and I am pretty certain Liverpool Walton is not a priority for the new leader Sir Keir Starmer – precisely because it is such a safe seat where Labour voters are taken for granted.
But in my view this would be a mistake. Labour has always been a broad church and the hopes, aspirations and frankly, eternal optimism to create a better society from the people portrayed in this film should not be ignored or squandered by party bosses in London.. The present mess and chaos we are in under this Tory government is too bitter a pill to swallow not only for the voters of Liverpool Walton but for everyone else. As Dan Carden, the MP for Walton said on the film before the result: “We can’t afford another five years of Tory government.”
Dan Carden during the campaign Still from the film
Initial screenings:
16 June: Picturehouse At FACT, Liverpool (Q&A: MP Ian Byrne, activist Alan Gibbons, director Daniel Draper, hosted by Ross Quinn)
16 June: Glasgow Film Theatre (Q&A: MSP Paul Sweeney & former MSP Neil Findlay, hosted by Ruth Gilbert)
17 June: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle (Q&A: MP Ian Lavery, Laura Pidcock from People’s Assembly, activist Ben Sellers, director Daniel Draper)
30 June: Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds (Q&A: MP Richard Burgon & director Daniel Draper)
DATE TBC: Savoy Cinema, Nottingham (Q&A: MP Nadia Whittome & director Daniel Draper)
3 August: Duke’s At Komedia, Brighton (Q&A: MP Lloyd Russell Moyle & director Daniel Draper)
Sir Keith Lindblom Senior President of the Tribunals Pic credit: gov.uk
This week sees the launch of a campaign by doctors, whistleblowers, journalists and members of the public to seek a big change in the way the employment tribunal system works.
It follows a series of judgements against whistleblowers – some have been carried on this blog- where the judgement itself ignores or twists facts and where the whistleblower – often but not always a litigant in person – has to defend himself or herself against big battalion lawyers brought in by employers.
Many of the cases involve issues like hospital and patient safety, bullying, harassment, racial and sex discrimination where a claimant is sacked for suggesting anything has gone wrong rather than the issue being sorted.
Worse some of most egregious offenders are in the public sector. They are the hospital and trust bosses, the management of Sellafield and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and Greater Manchester Police to name a few current examples. They spend millions of pounds on expensive barristers and solicitors fees all funded with your money – the taxpayer – rather than using your money to correct the problem.
They then go and try and bankrupt whistleblowers or drive them into abandoning their case by putting in six figure cost claims against them. Or use taxpayer’s money to give them six figure pay offs in return for a non disclosure agreement.
Judge Barry Clarke, President of the Employment Tribunals of England and Wales
All this is presided over by the judges who have a whip hand – they don’t record the proceedings or keep transcripts. They keep notes but they are for their private use and you cannot get them -even through a subject access request.
The only public record is their judgement – and if it misses out some of the evidence – there is no record that the evidence was ever given to the tribunal. And you cannot make a recording of the hearing – that is a criminal offence. Employers with more resources can employ their own note-takers – very useful if it goes to appeal and their lawyers won’t share their transcripts with the claimant.
The only safeguard is mainstream media which might report the hearing – though even then some employers try to get some of their evidence held in camera. But with the parlous state of the media , especially local media, journalists are rarely there.
Judge Shona Simon; President of the Scottish Employment Service
That is why the campaign has begun with a letter to the three top employment judges in the UK – Sir Keith Lindblom; Judge Barry Clarke and Judge Shona Simon, seeking a fundamental change to facilitate open justice- that transcripts of the proceedings of employment tribunals should be kept. The letter argues that the principle of a fair trial – enshrined by the European Court of Human Rights – cannot take place if only one side can afford to keep a record. It gives the employer a permanent advantage.
The decision to write the letter was taken at a meeting of Justice for Patients and Doctors – but supported by other whistleblowers who are not in the NHS.
With the help of my journalist colleague Philip Whiteley, Sellafield whistleblower Alison McDermott, cardiologist whistleblower Usha Prasad and junior doctor whistleblower Dr Chris Day,, the letter was circulated on social media.
Within just seven days we had backing from well over 300 people – from a former economic adviser to No Ten Downing Street, Sir Adam Ridley, 80 medical consultants, numerous GPs, nurses, teachers, to a former deputy groundsman at the Chelsea Pensioners hospital, a lorry driver, an actor, writer and a poet. This seems to suggest there is a wide ranging feeling that there is something wrong in the justice system.
This is the roll call of honour:
Sir Adam Ridley former Downing Street adviser and economics adviser to Nigel Lawson and Sir Geoffrey Howe
Jane Somerville, Emeritus Professor of Cardiology, Imperial College
David E Ward, former cardiology consultant, St George’s Hospital, London
Michael Byram Professor Emeritus University of Durham
Dr Philip Howard MA G Dip Law LLM MA MD FRCP Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist
Prof Brendan T Barrett Dip Optom Bsc Psychol PhD MCOptom FAOI FHEA
Gautam Appa Emeritus Professor of OR Dept of Management, LSE
Dr Chris Day, Emergency Medicine Doctor A&E Agency
Dr Usha Prasad MBChB FRCP FESC Former Consultant Cardiologist and Lead Clinician for Heart Failure Epsom & St Helier University Hospital; Currently Locum Consultant Cardiologist at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Dr Arun Baksi, Emeritus consultant physician
Dr Michael Eden, consultant pathologist
Susan Burell, consultant sonographer/ radiographer
Dr Louella Vaughan, Consultant Physician in Acute Medicine
Dr Kit Byatt, retired consultant geriatrician now working in human rights medicine
Dr Ravi M Kare Consultant Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals
Dr Paul Garrud Hon. Associate Professor, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham
Dr Margaret Beedie Retired consultant psychiatrist
Dr Susan Read MBE, FRCN. Retired Professor of Nursing Research at Sheffield University.
Craig Jerwood MBBS, FRCA, FFICM Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine
Dr Chantal Meystre MB ChB MA FRCP UKCP Palliative Medicine Consultant and Integrative Psychotherapist
Thomas R. Lee, MB, BChir, FRCP, MRCPC retired Paediatrician
Dr Jenefer Sargent Consultant Paediatrician
Dr Catriona Connolly MBBS FRCA Consultant Anaesthetist
Julia Bodle Consultant obstetrician
Lesley Pavincich Consultant Psychotherapist
Dr Rakesh Aga FRCP, Consultant Gastroenterologist, Nobles Hospital Isle of Man
Shona M Hamilton Consultant Obstetrician (Retd) BSc, MB ChB, LLB, PGCert, MPhil FRCOG
Dr Nancy Redfern Consultant Anaesthetist.
Dr Katharine McDevitt, MBBS, MRCPCH, FRACP, Consultant Paediatrician Peterborough City Hospital
John A Hamilton FRCS Edinburgh & Glasgow Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon (Retd.)
Dr D S Wijayatilake Consultant Intensive Care Medicine Queens Hospital Romford
Milap Rughani Consultant Plastic Surgeon
Dr Hugo Farne Respiratory Consultant, Imperial College London
Eleni Gounari Paediatric consultant
Therese Walsh Anaesthesia Fellow
Mr Ismail Hassan Consultant Obs. & Gynae Birmingham Women & Children Hospital
Book cover of Social Media & The Seven Deadly Sins
I am not a competent authority on using social media. I am no gamer. Indeed I haven’t played a computer game in my life. Yet I do worry as a journalist about the effect of social media on our lives. How it created a super rich elite, how people’s personal data can be manipulated for huge financial gain, how ” fake news” can spread in an instant and how democracy can be destroyed by dark forces on line.
This is a remarkable, well written first book. Its author, Rory Wilmer, is an insider who has made money from digital marketing and advertising for big companies. As he says himself: “I have got to a moral crossroads within myself… I too, have been part of – making a living and a career on the back of surveillance capitalism, data mining and the exploitation of people’s addiction to social media”.
He points out how we, the avid consumers of social media, who never read the terms and conditions of the websites we sign up to – submit to exploitation by allowing companies to make huge profits by “leeching your data and selling it to the highest bidder”. They do this by using clauses allowing them to change the terms and conditions without” even informing you of why and how.”
How an atheist takes a Biblical script
The book is cleverly constructed taking, as an atheist, a Biblical script of the Seven Deadly Sins and dividing the faults of social media between them.
His chapter on lust – reveals the scale of a male dominated internet – and how pornography and sexual titualation. is rife. Put one search for girls on Instagram – and you will find 8 million images of girls. Put one for boys – and you get 2 million images. Everyday 95 million images are loaded onto Instagram – that is 4 million an hour.
He cites Twitter as a site that allows pornography and sexual exploitation of children and is scathing of some of activities of dating sites in protecting data.
His gluttony chapter covers everything from celebrity chefs, promoting diets to wanting the perfect body. His chapter on greed looks at our appetite for viral blogs and clicks while sloth looks at our laziness in discerning the truth -leaving us to believe fake news and be prey to ideas that the earth is still flat and covidiocy. It also deals with sinister Q-Anon movement and interference in elections, topically including Russia.
Making money out of wrath
This book challenges us to look behind what we click and also not to fall for provocations. The chapter on wrath looks at trolls and the nasty Incels movement – the misogynist white supremacists who use the internet to rage that they have not been laid by women and act out fantasies on the internet of raping and dominating women.
This is a thought provoking book. There is of course another side of the internet – its virtues in bringing people together, making people aware, revealing the truth about disastrous situations like the current invasion of the Ukraine and allowing ordinary people the freedom to develop their own ideas and publish them without having to get approval from officialdom. The author is promising a sequel- the seven virtues of social media. I await this with interest.
Social Media & The Seven Deadly Sins by Rory Wilmer. Available from Amazon £14.99 hardback, £8.99 paperback and free with Kindle Unlimited
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An amazing new book by ex MP Simon Danczuk and author Daniel Smith
New book published today reveals child sex scandals dating back to the 1980s and a thwarted Met Police investigation that wasn’t the discredited Operation Midland
An amazing new book today reveals the notorious history of one of London’s iconic block of flats – the 1930s built Dolphin Square overlooking the Thames- home over the last nine decades to the rich and famous, spies, Fascists, entertainers and glitzy film stars and even the unofficial home of the Free French army during World War II.
The authors chronicle the lives of about 300 people who lived there from Oswald and Diana Mosley who were interned in World War Two, the Vassall Russian spy and Profumo sex scandals of the 1960s to murders down to an amazingly discreet character, Major Monty Chidson, who smuggled diamonds out of Amsterdam in a daring do operation during the German invasion of Holland. It kept them out of Nazi hands in the Second World War.
This book has been well covered by the Daily Telegraph magazine and other national media with one extraordinary exception. Not a single word has been written about the groups of men who used Dolphin Square for child sex abuse despite two chapters in the book devoted to their alleged crimes.
I am going to concentrate on these stories because you won’t read them anywhere else – I suspect because both the police and the media have been bruised by the activities of Carl Beech, a paedophile who posed as a survivor and fed elaborate and detailed stories of the rich and powerful abusing children and is now in jail for perverting the course of justice.
The terrible heart rending tale of David Ingle
The first story dates from 1982 is of David Ingle, described as an articulate and handsome youth from Lincolnshire, who was taken to Dolphin Square by a Lincolnshire farmer, Gordon Dawson,, after being repeatedly raped by him.
The authors write “According to David, he suffered abuse in three locales: in Lincolnshire, at Dolphin Square and in guesthouses close to the spectacular Blickling Estate in Norfolk. All the while, David’s life away from Dawson was unravelling. He became withdrawn and his previously high performance at school dipped steeply. His only real peace came in the company of the horses he loved to ride”
Dawson took him to London while on church business where he sub leased a flat in Dolphin Square. He took him to dinner with “important people” from the Church of England and MPs. Later he was taken back to the flat. The authors write: “He does have memories of waking up in the flat the next morning, sometimes hearing the voices of men milling about the apartment. He frequently experienced pain in his body that he knew did not correspond to the physical effects of the rapes that Dawson had perpetrated. In other words, he was assaulted by some person or persons other than (or in addition to) Dawson on these weekends. Unable to recall the specifics of the attacks, he would feel ashamed, stripping the bed of soiled sheets, removing the very evidence of his abuse in his anxiousness that no one should know what had been done to him.”
It took him to 2007 to go to Lincolnshire Police to complain about Dawson. The police told him that he was not the first to complain about him. They went to arrest Dawson but once he knew about David’s complaint he went into the woods and was found dead with a bullet to the head.. An inquest gave an open verdict.
The case was raised again in 2015 under the Met Police’s Operation Fairbank but because he couldn’t name anyone it was dropped. Lincolnshire Police also re-opened their inquiry but could not progress the case further.
“It felt to David as if he would only be listened to if he could come up with the name of a ‘big-hitter’ to investigate, or else he would need to produce a signed confession from one of his abusers, or perhaps a videotape.”
William van Straubenzee
The second story comes from the late David Weeks, Tory leader of Westminster about the role William van Straubenzee, a Tory minister who was solicitor to the Dolphin Square Trust and also a paedophile. Weeks said van Straubenzee was a gatekeeper to getting a flat in Dolphin Square. Straubenzee himself lived in a grace and favour flat in Lambeth Palace. The authors write, using evidence given to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse:
William van Straubenzee in 1970. Picture credit :BBC
‘In 1982, MI5 received information that suggested that William van Straubenzee engaged in sexual activities with young boys whilst in Northern Ireland [he had been Northern Ireland minister between 1972 and 1974]. This information was shared with the Cabinet Office, who shared it with the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher).’ MI5 confirmed that if this intelligence had been received today, under current policy it would be passed to the police.”
Incendiary evidence
The third story is the most dramatic. The authors write:
“Among the most incendiary evidence of wrongdoing at Dolphin Square came in a statement taken from a former police officer identified only as GB. It was entered into evidence only at the end of the last day of hearings in IICSA’s Westminster investigation and the witness did not appear in person to give evidence, nor were they seemingly provided with questions by the inquiry to which GB would have been legally obligated to give answers. The statement adduced in evidence dated from 20 December 2016 and was given as part of Operation Winter Key, the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into allegations of non-recent abuse.”
He revealed another investigation called Operation Mileshogue.
“GB’s statement was wide ranging. It included allusions to surveillance of a London MP who was suspected of hosting young people overnight in his constituency office. But it also included significant detail of police operations concerning Dolphin Square in the 1990s.”
“MH was … an intelligence gathering operation revolved around a guy called [NAME REDACTED] … He had been a rent boy himself, living in Greenwich at that time. He had a series of young boys. One was [WM-A118] another was (WM-A119] and another 5 or 6. Those boys I interviewed on tape several times. suggested that these children were thirteen or fourteen when they were speaking to them but that their abuses had started when they were as young as 8.] “They claimed one another had been abused by other people, were taken to parties and things by [NAME REDACTED] himself he was like a modern day Fagan [sic]. He also had them doing robberies and burglaries but he was also an informant for the police, inform on them and then turn up as their appropriate adult. These were kids all from local Children’s Home”.
GB then referred to the ‘Fagin-figure’, saying: ‘He also mentioned Dolphin Square he had been there as a child himself, been abused.’ GB discussed how they had made requests for additional investigative resources to senior officers but their requests were repeatedly refused or bounced back as it was ‘too difficult to do at this time’ and ‘we weren’t regarded as a priority of the Paedophile Unit at that time, GB said: ‘They didn’t want to know about a mass operation with loads of kids to interview. They didn’t know how to deal with it.’ I asked the child sex abuse inquiry their reaction to this. A spokesman denied the inquiry had not weighed up GB’s evidence and pointed instead to an inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into GB’s allegations. and evidence from Met Police Commander Catherine Roper about the operation. She gave evidence on a number of child sex abuse investigations in London to the inquiry.
Whatever the disclosures both the inquiry and the book conclude there was never a specific VIP paedophile ring.
But they do say: “it is fair to conclude from a wealth of evidence, powerful individuals who did abuse children in Dolphin Square and who got away with it because of who they were and who they knew: in other words, they abused because they knew they could.”
Scandal at Dolphin Square: A notorious history . History Press £20
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Last night I did a live stream video for CEDAWinLAW explaining why I am supporting their campaign for a new Women’s Rights Bill to implement properly the UN Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women which Margaret Thatcher ratified in 1986.
Despite this happening 36 years ago it has still not been properly implemented by the government causing widespread hardship, discrimination and lack of opportunity for millions of women. Recently the UN committee supervising the implementation of the convention has taken the current government to task for its failings though you would not know this from coverage in the mass media.
This to my mind illustrates how marginalised women – particularly elderly and middle aged women – are treated by society.
The good news is that it looks like the Scottish government under Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National Party leader, is planning to introduce a new bill of rights for women. She may run into a dispute with the Westminster government which does not want devolved administrations implementing UN conventions until the UK government introduced legislation. At the moment there is no sign of the UK government doing this which is why we need a strong and powerful campaign to get it done.
Please donate to my blog to help me continue my forensic investigationsinto issues of the day.
Last year was the year when Brexit limited the right of millions of people to travel and work across 27 EU countries – ending not only the freedom of movement for people to come to the UK but also go abroad.
The situation has also been made much worse by the global Covid 19 pandemic which saw a huge shutdown across the globe where people could not go on holiday or visit countries for work.
While all this was happening there was an almost unnoticed countervailing trend which is seeing massive new opportunities for the young and tech savvy to leave the UK and the US and work elsewhere.
Countries across Europe and much of the rest of the world are falling over each other to attract bright young entrepreneurial and tech savvy people to come, live and work there with special visas and tax incentives and ignoring normal restrictions – including the new ones imposed by the EU after the UK left – to stop people staying there.
Post Covid 2022 could be the year of the rise of the digital nomad – that young, free wheeling person who with a laptop can run a business anywhere from any country.
This phenomenon was highlighted this weekend on the website Dispatches Europe which has just launched an updated guide to cope with growing number of countries now offering opportunities.
The link to the guide is here. Basically much of Europe is covered plus the range of places goes from the Arctic Circle to the Caribbean.
For the most adventurous the most extraordinary place is Svalbard – a Norwegian island nearer the North Pole than Oslo ! You do not even require a visa to live there -only an address and a job – and you can stay as long as you like. It is cold -in the summer the sun shines for 24 hours a day and it is totally dark all winter. Intriguingly for a place with only 2000 residents it is nearly as diverse as London with 70 different nationalities finding their their way there. Watch the video below and seriously watch out for polar bears.
At the other end of the spectrum is the former Portuguese Cape Verde Islands nearer to the Equator than Lisbon. This year the authorities have released visas to attract Europeans and Americans to go and set up businesses there. just created Remote Working Cabo Verde, a tax exempt digital nomad visa designed to attract 4,000 foreigners, The visa is just 54 Euros valid initially for six months but extendable for up to a year. A video is below.
In the Caribbean visas have been set up for Aruba and Curacao, both self governing parts of the Netherlands and in the EU, the new Republic of Barbados, ( expensive visa costing nearly £1500) Bahamas and further north in Bermuda ( though the latter is aimed at high rollers – they can include staff and chauffeurs- and is expensive). So far 400 have come.
I wrote up a piece on Aruba when I visited it two years ago on a cruise – it is almost in South America as it is only 22 miles from Venezuela. It is a fascinating desert island. The link is here. The only thing you have to beware of is you can occasionally find a boa constrictor in the bath – but Aruba’s pest control are used to dealing with them. ( some foolish person brought them to Aruba and they have escaped and bred)
Curacao promotion aimed at the US market
An even more ambitious digital nomad project is planned for Italy where they have over 2000 ghost villages in the country and want to attract remote workers there- the fund could top 1 million Euros. So far one Tuscan village has jumped the gun- Santa Flora is offering 200 Euros a month rent subsidies for apartments there – and wants people to decide to settle a buy a home. So you can swap our drab winters for vineyards and olive groves.
Other countries planning to attract digital nomads include Spain and Croatia has just started a scheme – allowing you to be based on the Dalmatian coast and able to rent a place for 350 or so Euros a month. The visa is for one year in this EU country and digital nomads are exempt from income tax. They have to earn over $31,514 a year (just under £23,200), to qualify.
Compare all this to London and the UK. The UK does not seem to have any special digital nomad visas relying on a normal visa application to work here. It is regarded as an expensive country, housing costs are through the roof, public transport and fuel is expensive, though its cities are well known for cultural and night life. The best city for a digital nomad is said to be Newcastle-upon-Tune which has a good night life and is cheaper to live than elsewhere.
What seems to be clear from all this is that for many young people – the attraction of all round beach life ( unless you go to Svalbard), cheaper accommodation, combined with high speed internet and for young as opposed to old people, not too expensive health insurance make it a one way bet.
Boris Johnson has made much of claims of ” Global Britain” and the wonderful future he promises all of us. But looking at all these offers abroad I think clever young tech savvy people will see the wonders of a global life and opt to leave the country as soon as possible.
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Merry Christmas background with golden gift. Pic credit: Marco Verch Professional Photographer via Creative Commons
This is to say thank you to my readers who have followed and supported my blog over the last year.
Since I asked for donations in September I have received well over £1900 from supporters which has been very heartening for me. It is great to know my work is appreciated and I am absolutely delighted to get such support from so many readers. Thank you again.
I will be continuing my forensic work on this blog next year and you can also follow my stories on @BylineTimes which is well worth a subscription as the website and the paper have brilliant writers and investigative journalism that you don’t see in mainstream media.
Never more has there been a need for investigative journalism to keep this government under scrutiny and also to follow up what is happening behind the scenes in Whitehall, the National Health Service and some very serious individual cases where people are being shabbily treated by the state, the NHS and private industry. And to investigate thoroughly it needs persistence as these institutions prefer you to go away. I will be writing a review of the last year after Christmas.
In the meantime despite the pandemic have a lovely Christmas and here’s hope for a much better New Year.
Please continue to support my blog and my investigative work.
Issue much more widespread than the public realise
The recent Dispatches programme and article in the Times by journalist Matthew Syed highlighted the plight of whistleblowers in the NHS citing the case of Peter Duffy, a consultant surgeon, working for the Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust. Faced with failures at the trust in the emergencies department he expressed concern for two patients who subsequently died from kidney sepsis.
One would have expected the Trust to have remedied the situation. Instead they turned on him rather than admit any failings. As he told Matthew Syed: ” I was on the receiving end of allegations of bullying, abuse and racism. And so what I hoped would be an attempt to raise standards became an investigation of myself”.
It took five years of toxic attacks and tribunal hearings before he won his case for constructive dismissal. The sad thing is that this is not some isolated instance but appears to be growing in an NHS that is more concerned with its reputation than the safety of patients in its care and is preparing to spend millions of taxpayers money on lawyers fees to undermine any cases brought by whistleblowers. Furthermore it is prepared to spend literally years to wear down anybody who puts their face above the parapet.
Dr Usha Prasad
Readers of this blog will be aware of the case of Usha Prasad, a popular and competent cardiologist ( the General Medical Council has recently revalidated her) who has been driven out of the Epsom and St Helier University Health Trust ( now merged with St George’s Health Trust),
Today she starts a 16 day employment tribunal hearing as a whistleblower. She is backed by Dr Sola Odimuyiwa, from the hospital trust and two retired eminent cardiologists, Professor Jane Somerville and Dr David Ward, who believe her case is just one example of a malign system designed to cover up failures in the NHS. This week the latter two sent a letter to the Sunday Times which was edited down for publication. This is the full text:
“We thank Matthew Syed (Comment Oct 24) for his frank exposure of some of the “mistakes and weaknesses” of the NHS of which the persecution of medical whistle-blowers, as shown by the heinous story of the consultant surgeon, Mr Peter Duffy. He is one example of many.
It is a doctor’s duty of candour to draw attention to matters which are not safe for patients. This action, in good faith, prevents accidents thereby protecting patients. Hospital Trusts may not respond favourably to such complaints and may use their unbridled powers to instigate prolonged, expensive and vengeful disciplinary processes.
Medicine has learnt some of the lessons from aviation safety but the fair and open treatment of whistle-blowers is not one of them. Hospital Trusts are able to fund these processes because they can access public funds not available to the whistle-blower which is a gross imbalance of power. Shady external “management consultants”, who operate by their own rules, and expensive legal firms are hired by Trusts at great expense with the sole aim of ensuring the dismissal of the troublesome whistle-blower. This certainly affects the recruitment and retention of doctors the NHS so badly needs.
A serious consequence of this nefarious process has been the emergence of a cover-up culture in which the initial deficiencies or ‘protected disclosures’ are inadequately investigated. There is no oversight or regulation of the way Trusts investigate whistleblowers. What informal processes there are may have been designed deliberately to avoid or deflect scrutiny. We have been unable to find a body or organisation to whom to report a Trust’s bad treatment of a whistle-blower. Attempts by supporters of whistle-blowers to engage higher regulatory bodies such as NHS England are usually met with indifference.
For the victimised, whistle-blowing doctor the outcome can be devastating. Their careers are stolen from them. The reputational damage prevents them from securing another job. Serious physical and mental health problems are not uncommon and family lives are destroyed.
We think the investigation of NHS whistle-blowers, of which there have been many notable cases over the past decade, should open and accountable. It is a scandal unknown by the wider public and in need of an independent inquiry.”
A national problem
You can see they believe this is a national problem not an isolated case. It can be backed up by a roll call of cases ( some of which are not yet finished). You can click on the stories reported in various newspapers to get an idea of the scale of toxicity on this issue.
But this is not the end of it by many means. Since I took up Dr Prasad’s case I have become aware through a new group. Doctors for Justice, that there are as many as 35, yes 35, other cases. Nearly all the doctors at the moment are requesting confidentiality until their case becomes public at an employment tribunal hearing. There are many, many other doctors who have quietly quit trusts to find work elsewhere because they don’t want to have to fight their employers for years on end.
Under this system it is the patient that pays the price – and in a number of cases the ultimate price – death. That is why this blog is going to keep an eye on what is going on the NHS until someone has the guts to reform the system and take on a bureaucracy that seems more interested in preserving its reputation than improving patient safety.
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Damaged walkway at the Windrush exhibition where vandals smashed the glass pic credit: Evewright
The Afro Caribbean people who came to the UK in the 1940s to the 1970s-known as the Windrush generation after the first ship MV Empire Windrush that brought them from Jamaica, Trinidad and other West Indies islands- have suffered a lot in the last few years at the hands of successive Tory governments.
They were victims of the ” hostile environment” policy to immigrants set up by home secretary Theresa May in 2012 and continued to this day by Priti Patel ( herself from a family of Ugandan Asian refugees) they wrongly faced deportation, loss of jobs and homes after living in this country for more than 50 years because they were never issued with documents. Many were wrongly deported.
So it was rather good that an inventive Afro-Caribbean artist Everton Wright (Evewright) decided to launch an amazing art and sound installation as a tribute to that generation. He also based the exhibition at the port of Tilbury in Essex – the very place where MV Empire Windrush docked in 1948 and used the original walkway – still there – where what are known as the elders of Windrush made landfall in the United Kingdom.
It is an immersive visual art experience, installed on 432 panes of glass collaged with photographs, documents, original boat passenger tickets and memorabilia. The artwork is installed in an original passenger walkway 55 metres long. As you walk through, you can listen to audio stories about the lives of some of the elders whose images are featured in the installation. See http://www.evewrightarts.org
Sadly vandals this month broke into the exhibition and smashed many of the exhibits and damaged the walkway where it has held. This is some of the damage:
A damaged exhibit Pic credit: EvewrightWindrush exhibition: Another Exhibit smashed. pic credit; Evewright
The artist himself is keeping the exhibition open leaving the damage for all those to see.
Artist Evewright at the exhibition. Pic credit: John Ferguson Photography
Everton Wright said: “This artwork is made as a celebration of the lives and endeavours of Caribbean elders, from the Windrush Generation. It has been created through the need to preserve their stories and first-hand accounts so future generations can understand the importance of the contributions they made to Britain. This work has received an overwhelming positive response from the public and those who contributed their stories and images. The feedback from the public is heartfelt knowing these stories where being told. Yet there are a few who choose to damage this beautiful work. ” This is a targeted hate crime targeted towards the Windrush Generation. Who themselves had to show resilience in the face of the racism and barriers many of them experienced. I intend to keep the damage windows in place on the installation as a visible reminder of the hate and bigotry towards those that are seen as “other and foreigner” that still unfortunately still exists in our society today.
Essex Police have launched a criminal investigation: “
Another example of the damage. Pic Credit: Evewright
Essex Police has urged anyone with information to contact them and said it would “not stand by while people commit crimes in our communities”.
Supt Naomi Edwards, of the force, said: “Myself and colleagues at Essex Police were extremely saddened to hear that such a culturally and historically significant art exhibition has been subject to damage – this is unacceptable on every level.”These offences had not been reported to Essex Police, rather they had been reported to our colleagues at the Port of London Authority Police.
“However, such is our concern at these incidents, that we are working alongside our policing colleagues to support their investigation and are undertaking enquiries to establish who may be responsible in order that we can arrest them and bring them to justice.”
So far nobody has been arrested but the organisation say the police are treating it as a hate crime.
Contrast this coverage with the toppling of the Edward Colston statute
I cannot but contrast the coverage of this event in the media with the national coverage given to the toppling of the statute of Edward Colston, the Bristol slave trader, in a Black Lives Matter demonstration. This was given saturation coverage in the nationals and on TV and was linked to the debate on ” woke” and ” culture wars”.
This incident was only covered on local BBC TV, The Voice and as far as I can see, the Independent. I don’t need to make any further comment.
PicCredit: picpedia.org. Licensed by creative commons
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