Feted in Mayfair but flouted in Nuneaton: The extraordinary Labour local election performance

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Tiffany’s in Bond Street,London now in an area represented by Labour:

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Now I have had time to look further into  Labour’s performance in the local elections a rather extraordinary picture is emerging among the losses and gains made by Labour on the night.

The election has been presented as a boring status quo result but if you drill down into the figures it  shows two rather extraordinary trends – Labour is losing among the UKIP more Brexit minded white working class voters to the Tories but making major progress in some of the most affluent  areas that  stayed Tory strongholds  even under Tony Blair.

Probably one of the most striking results was in Westminster. Now Labour failed to make the huge headway – just  gaining four seats overall though they narrowed the gap between Labour and Tory across the borough to 1.8 per cent. The Tories  held the one seat they had in Pimlico after a defection  last year.

Labour took one  of three seats in the West End ward – covering Mayfair, Soho and Fitzrovia in Central London.  What’s more the person who won – Pancho Lewis- did so with a by-election style rise in votes. In 2014, the party’s candidates received a total of 1,281 votes and this year the figure stood at 2,858 – more than the 2,831 votes for the three Conservatives. This means  that Oxford Circus, Park Lane,Bond Street, Grosvenor Square, the Dorchester hotel, Savile Row, Regents Street and for that matter the editorial offices of Private Eye are represented by a socialist. Since the ward was created in 1978 Labour have never been in sniffing distance.

The Westminster result mirrors  earlier council wins for Labour in the City of London where Labour won its first seat in the Portsoken ward in 2014 and then went on to win five seats -including one in the Barbican – in the next election.

A similar surprising victory for Labour  was in Harrow where Labour increased its majority to seven over the Tories. It was where it was won  that made it surprising.Labour took Harrow on the hill – one of the poshest bits of the borough – that includes Harrow School and a private hospital – not normally natural Labour territory. The Labour candidates put on 1500 votes between them.

And in Barnet amidst the carnage for some of the Labour councillors in Hendon – Labour did make a GAIN  by two votes -ousting a Liberal Democrat in Childs Hill  just north of Golders Green – in a diverse ward that included Jewish, Arab and Somali voters.

And in Redbridge – Labour which made a double digit number of gains – included the new ward of Wanstead Village where homes can go for £750,000 – again not natural Labour territory.

Outside London Labour did amazingly well in Worthing. Worthing has never had a Labour councillor since Harold Wilson’s second victory in 1966. Last year Labour won a seat in a by-election in the centre of the town. Last week it won another  four council seats and came close in a number of others. They also gained three seats from the Conservatives in next door Adur –  better known as Shoreham on Sea -while the Tories took two from UKIP. The MP for Worthing East and Shoreham , Tim Loughton, who has a majority of  5,106 over Labour should be worried.

The reverse can be shown in Nuneaton which if the council had a full election – it seems certain Labour would have lost it to the Tories. Labour lost eight seats – some by big margins- in a result that gave the Tories 51 per cent of the votes on a 32 per cent poll.

Nuneaton is 88.9 per cent white British with a large proportion of pensioners – immigration hardly exists –  the biggest group are Poles -but it had strong support for UKIP. which has transferred to the Tories.The census figures showed it was overwhelmingly Christian with just 12 Jews and 2895 Muslims out of 126,000 people.Nearly two thirds of the population are working class – classified as C2, D or E.

This makes an interesting  dilemma for Labour they are still gaining votes in areas that Tony Blair could not even dream about  but equally they are losing votes in traditional English working class areas where they need support. But Labour  need to progress in both old England and new diverse England to succeed. If there is any post mortem to be had after these elections – this is it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Local Elections 2018: Reality triumphs over expectation

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Local elections 2018 Pic credit:BBC

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The local elections have been portrayed  in the mass media as a disappointment for Labour ,a shot in the arm for Theresa May and a revival for the Liberal Democrats

In the pre election scenario Labour were expected  to  sweep all before them winning Tory councils in London and elsewhere, Theresa May was going to face a dire night and the Lib Dems were not going to do so well because of their poll ratings.

Yes  Labour are partly to blame for creating this scenario  with the promise of a Momentum style surge knocking  the Tories out of Barnet, Westminster, Wandsworth and Hillingdon in London and winning Swindon, Plymouth and Trafford outside the capital. They had high expectations after the surprise  rebirth under Jeremy Corbyn in the last general election and thought another heave would do it.

But it would be very foolish to write up these elections as the end of Labour’s progress or  ruling out a slow revival of the Liberal Democrats.

For a start the final analysis of voting by the BBC shows that if there was a  general election was based on these voting figures Labour would have got another 21 seats, andbecome the largest party in Parliament . The Tories would have lost 38 seats and the Lib Dems gained another 10. If that had  happened last year Theresa May would not have been able to form a government and it would be Labour plus a coalition that would be negotiating with Brussels.  And if you compare it with last year’s council elections it was the Tories making nearly all the gains. not Labour.

A more detailed analysis shows why this is true. Although Labour did not gain the breakthrough to take another four London boroughs from the Tories, their vote share was much nearer than their seat share. In Westminster where the Lab vote share jumped by 7.6 per cent – the difference in percentage support between Labour and the Tories is not much more than point. In Wandsworth there is only a 150 votes difference between the Tories and Labour running the council.

Even in Barnet where Labour’s self inflicted wound over antisemitism  led to a 13 seat Tory majority- the Tories biggest gains – the Labour share of the vote went up 2.8 pc but was trumped by a 6.6 per cent rise for the Tories.

Also not noticed in London is that Labour increased the number of seats on councils they already run, notably in Ealing, Enfield, Harrow, Hammersmith and Fulham and Waltham Forest – which will make it difficult for the Tories to regain Parliamentary seats.

In Swindon where Labour gained just one seat more people voted Labour than Tory but obviously not in the key wards. Interestingly in Plymouth where Labour won the council, more people voted Tory than Labour but not in the right places.

Also where councils switched from no overall control to Tory control – it was often by a couple of seats in places like Peterborough. The one exception was Nuneaton and Bedworth where the Tories were robbed – they got 51 per cent of the vote there but could win enough seats to take the council.

The other big factor which stymied Labour  and helped the Tories was UKIP. Many UKIP voters became Tories so they could get a hard Brexit. In Basildon and Great Yarmouth this gave the Tories the edge over Labour.  Labour did take  back seats from UKIP, but the Tories took more. In Great Yarmouth former UKIP candidates actually became Tory candidates. Britain Elects shows this disparity examining 81 UKIP losses with the Tories gaining 47 seats from UKIP while Labour gained 30.

It should not be a total surprise that the Lib Dems do well in local elections, they have won quite  a number of by-elections over the last year. But in three councils- where the whole authority was up for grabs – they did spectacularly well, trouncing the Tories. These are South Cambridgeshire, Richmond and Kingston, where they won sweeping gains pushing the Tories out. They also won seats in Hull, Sunderland  and Gosport but were pushed back in Birmingham and Newcastle upon Tyne.

So what is the prospect? The Tories can take comfort that they were not trounced and could claim a mandate for a hard Brexit after hoovering up  much of the UKIP vote. It is rather ironic that Theresa May treated councils she had not lost  as a victory parade-normally you go to places to celebrate a Tory gain.

Labour need to tackle the antisemitic issue promptly and to reflect soberly on how they need more than an incompetent government to form a majority administration. And the Lib Dems need to build on their local government base as a springboard to win  more seats in Westminster.

The reality for all parties is that it is going to be a hard slog to get or stay in government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revealed: Dishonest Eurostar’s disabled unfriendly direct service to Amsterdam

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The new Eurostar Amsterdam Service : Not fit for the disabled Pic Credit: Eurostar Jo on Twitter

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It should have been a synch. A brand new train service direct from London to Amsterdam to a hotel opposite the city’s Central Station. An ideal break for myself and my disabled wife with passenger assistance.

The technology works – the superfast new Eurostar trains make the journey there on time- a cool three hours 41 minutes door to door- and could probably do it quicker as the train slowed through Antwerp and leaving Brussels.

But the rest was the stuff of nightmares and the return direct journey is  a fake  forcing everyone to change at Brussels onto other trains – due to the British obsession of  ” taking control of our borders”. And this is before Brexit takes effect.

But the real scandal is the way Eurostar treat disabled people by making false promises and leaving people in the lurch – made worse by poor internal communications and different national systems.

I made sure we had disabled help by contacting Eurostar in mid March and was promised help in London, Amsterdam and Brussels. So it should have been no worries.

The help at London St Pancras worked both on the way there and the way back and the train left on time.

It was only on the journey that things started to go wrong. The service is packed to Brussels – which is the first stop – but then most people get off including the entire train crew. The service then  takes on Dutch crew and becomes a bit of ghost train with few passengers yet going on to Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

We were a bit puzzled by first the Belgian crew and then the Dutch crew asking what disabled assistance we wanted – which was some wheelchair assistance at Amsterdam from the platform to the exit. A few minutes before arrival we were told that there would no wheelchair assistance only someone to help get my wife off the train.

The person did arrive and was more concerned that my wife didn’t fall down the gap between the train and platform – as they wanted to lock the train up. We were then left entirely in the lurch by both the Eurostar staff and the station staff to find our own way out.

I tweeted my complaint to Eurostar and they responded with this:

Thank you for your details. We can see that the Eurostar Assistance Team sent a request to assist you on 14th March to our counterparts. We are sorry to hear this did not happen and have forwarded your feedback. For your return please go to the Information Desk in Amsterdam Centraal Station on arrival and they can arrange for your assistance to Thalys train. At Brussels Midi you need to go to Eurostar Assist Desk by ticket gates . Each terminal has been advised of request of assistance.

On the way back the real drama began. At Amsterdam Centraal yes they knew we had assistance but we were suddenly told they do not provide wheelchairs except for emergencies. If my wife had fallen over or fell off the train they would help. The information office is on Platform 1 and the train departs from Platform 15 and you only get 20 minutes notice of which platform.

Luckily the woman took pity on us – since no way could my wife get to the train on time – because she walks slowly and was suffering as well from an arthritic knee to add to our problems.

The member of staff  broke the rules and despite being reprimanded by another staff member en route took my wife on a wheelchair to the station platform allowing us to get the train.

Then there was Brussels. There was no one to meet us off the Thalys train and although it came into Brussels Midi at platform 3 and Eurostar is on platform 1 there is a long walk through a shopping mall to get there. So given Eurostar allowed less than 50 minutes for the change, it took us nearly 30 minutes to hobble along in pain. I did go ahead to Eurostar to get assistance but there was a huge queue which spilled  onto the concourse for the train. When I tried to reach the assistance office inside the entrance I was blocked by other passengers ( there were no staff at the entrance) for queue jumping and they wouldn’t let me pass.

When we did get there – Eurostar had to act fast and the wheelchair man was almost running to get the train. Only to be delayed by British immigration  who were quizzing two dark skinned people in front of us about their right to come to the UK. The woman immigration official  reading as though from the UKIP handbook told them ” We don’t just  allow anyone to come into our country” . I suspect she was personally recruited by Theresa May to create ” a hostile environment” for people of colour.

We got there just in time but the train left late because of ” boarding problems” caused I suspect by the immigration jam. I suspect all Eurostar trains will leave late after Brexit.

Back in England West Midlands trains provided an excellent service at Euston and on the train back to Berkhamsted with the guard personally making sure my wife could get off the train there. Ironically West Midlands trains is mainly owned by Dutch railways.

Frankly if you are disabled do NOT go by Eurostar to Amsterdam, fly instead. Their service is not fit for purpose and the Brussels interchange is likely to continue until the end of 2019 because there are no customs facilities at Amsterdam. I am doing a separate investigation into why this has happened and the news will not be good for British  people wanting to travel to Europe by rail.

Eurostar responded:

 “We can see that you and your wife did not receive the right support during your recent journey. As part of the booking process, our teams did not correctly request the assistance services at each point of the journey and for this we sincerely apologise. I would like to respond to your specific questions as follows:

 We offer assistance services (for wheelchair users and other passengers with reduced mobility) in Amsterdam which are provided by NS, the Dutch railway operator. These services are available for passengers booked in the dedicated wheelchair space, and also for other passengers traveling in standard seating. These assistance services are available by contacting Eurostar at least 48 hours in advance of travel. The special assistance service provided by NS at Amsterdam is an escort from the meeting point to the platform. Unfortunately, NS does not provide wheelchairs as part of this assistance service. ( my emphasis)

–          On arrival into Brussels on a Thalys service, the special assistance services are provided by SNCB, the Belgian railway operator.  SNCB will meet the passenger at platform level and escort the passenger to the Eurostar Assist welcome point at the Channel Tunnel Terminal. From this point, Eurostar team members will escort the passenger through Eurostar check-in and up to the platform to board the train bound for London.

–          At Eurostar stations the Eurostar Assist welcome points are located on the main concourse with all check-in facilities. There are Eurostar Assist welcome points when departing from London, Ashford, Ebbsfleet, Lille, Paris and Brussels.  In Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Marne-la-Vallee, Lyon, Avignon, Marseilles and ski destinations – there are Special Assistance points in these stations usually provided by, or on behalf of, the station manager. We will pass your feedback on regarding your experience and your inability to access the Eurostar Assist welcome point due to congestion.

 “We do strive to make Eurostar journeys as seamless as possible for all of our travellers, and will be sharing your comments with our partners. In addition, we will be updating our website with more information about the Special Assistance services, and specifically about the connecting return journey from Amsterdam, in direct response to your feedback. (my emphasis) We thank you for your feedback which has helped us to continue to improve our services to passengers with assistance needs.

Britain: Sleep walking into the valley of death

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Glasgow Necropolis; Glasgow is nearly at the bottom for life expectancy for men and women. Pic Credit: historicgraves.com creative commons

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Britain is literally dying. Ever since the Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition came to power a 50 year improvement in the  death rate year on year went into reverse. Whether it is the weather’s toll on the elderly,  more homelessness or the NHS failing to cope, something has happened and nobody either  notices or wants to know.

The figures are not speculation. They are official and were published in a report from the House of Commons library just before Parliament came back after the Easter recess.

It is however remarkable that this abrupt change in trends has happened ever since successive governments committed themselves to austerity. The period also  coincides with a huge attack on the welfare state – including cuts in working benefits and  a £77 billion reduction in pension payments to  3.9 million women aged between 60 and 65 – soon to be 66 – which is known to have taken its toll.

What the figures show is that: Between 1961 and 2011 both the   crude  death rate( number of deaths per 1000 people) fell every year.

Since 2011, both the number of deaths and the crude death rate have increased. The number of deaths has increased more than the crude death rate, as some of the increase in the number of deaths was due to population growth.

Provisional figures on the number of weekly deaths indicate that winter mortality was higher than usual in early 2015, 2017 and 2018.

Improvements to life expectancy have slowed in recent years for both men and women, but estimates of life expectancy have not fallen compared with earlier periods.
Among the countries and regions of the UK, in the period 2014-16 life expectancy at birth and at age 65 was highest for women in London and for men in the South East. It was lowest for both women and men in Scotland.

This winter Theresa May presided over the largest number of deaths in recent years. The report reveals that during the first twelve weeks of 2018 the figure reached 154,684 and exceeded the 149,978 equivalent figure for  2015 – when it was known there was a serious winter flu epidemic.

This year’s flu epidemic numbers have not been as great as 2015 but the overall death rate is higher.

The report also reveals that life expectancy is still going up – but at a much slower rate than previously predicted and there is a huge difference between those living in London and the South East and much of the rest of the country – with many of the lowest life expectancy in  Scotland and the North. The difference between the metropolitan and the south and the North and Scotland is nearly 10 years.

Highest life expectancy for women ( between 86 and 86.8 years) is in Camden, Kensington and Chelsea, Hart,Westminster and Chiltern ( Chesham in Buckinghamshire).

Lowest life expectancy for women  ( between 78.7 and 79.6) is in West Dumbartonshire, Glasgow, Manchester, Blackpool, Middlesbrough, North Lanarkshire and Dundee.

For men the highest rates ( from 83.7 to 82.5) are Kensington and Chelsea,East Dorset, Chiltern,Hart and Harrow.

The lowest rates  for men  ( from 73.4 to 75.4) are Glasgow, Blackpool, Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire).

This disclosure suggests that since 2011 the country has been going into reverse and I don’t believe this is a coincidence. Nasty sharp government  policies are literally taking their toll.

 

The Crime Live event – “Real Life” Silent Witness but no time for sexual liaisons

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A previous performance of live crime with the two forensic scientists

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On May 10 not too far from the National Theatre on the South Bank a remarkable stage scene will be set up at the BPP Law University. A room with walls spattered with blood, a potential murder weapon and clues galore.

But this dramatic scene is not part of a rerun Agatha Christie play or some avant garde production on a pre West End theatre debut..

Instead of actors there will be two forensic scientists Tracy Alexander, Director of Forensic Services at City of London Police and Jo Millington, Senior Forensic Scientist at Millington Hingley both of whom featured in BBC’s Conviction: Murder at the Station.

They will take the audience through how you investigate a murder going into detail of how the evidence is gathered using the latest modern methods.

As Tracy Alexander tells the audience: “If you’ve seen Silent Witness you’ll know that Emilia Fox attends the crime scene, examines the corpse, looks for clues, performs the post-mortem, comforts the family of the victim, interviews suspects and sleeps with the senior investigating officer, all in the same nice suit without transferring vital evidence from one to the other. I can’t do all those things myself – well, not in an hour.”

The demonstration is put on by Inside Justice, a charity  which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice particularly where a fresh examination of forensic evidence can make a difference and only when they are convinced that the person usually serving a long jail sentence is innocent.

The charity’s director is Louise Shorter. She is best known for her 10 years as a producer/director of the BBC’s long-running miscarriage of justice TV series Rough Justice. Sadly with reduced media budgets such programmes are no longer made.

The last programme she made about the wrongful  murder convictions of Barri White and Keith Hyatt led directly to new evidence being found which resulted in their convictions being quashed. In 2013, Shahidul Ahmed, the real killer in this case was convicted following a cold-case review led by Inside Justice Advisory Panel member Tracy Alexander.

The charity’s panel which is largely composed of forensic scientists has since then taken up a series of cases – though faces a difficult battle in persuading police forces to release all the forensic evidence it holds to re-investigate cases.

The fact that Inside Justice exists is particularly important because of two issues- which are potentially conflicting. One is the march of forensic science which is now miles ahead of itself. The other is the effects of privatisation and cuts in police manpower and budgets.

As Louise explained to me  new developments in forensic science mean that a minute level of DNA is enough to trace one person to a spot even if he or she wasn’t there.

As she put it: ” Supposing we shake hands and I go off to the ladies toilet. I then touch something in the toilet and a trace of your DNA as well as mine is left there. Supposing unknown to either of us a crime is committed there two hours later. When the police arrive they will find a trace of your DNA at the crime scene. It is now possible to do this and you could become a murder suspect.”

Now this high level of DNA detection is good for crime detection but not so good if a hard pressed police force is anxious to get a quick conviction and you do not have an alibi. Given the growing concern about wrongful police convictions – from recent rape cases where the defence were not given all the evidence – this is not good news.

But in the  meantime it is obviously a  fascinating experience to see how forensic science can help solve real murders.

Inside Justice Poster SCREEN FILE There are two performances at the BPP Law University at 137 Stamford Street
London SE1 9NN. It is  five minutes walk from Waterloo station. Tickets for the event can be obtained from Eventbrite. GO TO WWW.EVENTBRITE.CO.UK
AND SEARCH FOR ‘CRIME LIVE’

 

Rochdale child sex abuse: A 30 year scandal that the authorities failed to stop

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Knowl View School, Rochdale Pic Credit: TheUKdatabase.com

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The report by the Independent Inquiry Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse into Rochdale is a  detailed devastating document of the failure of its senior local authority  officials , councillors, the CPS and even the Honours Committee to tackle  the issue of long standing abuse.

The only organisation that seems to come out well over this is Lancashire Police which tried to prosecute Sir Cyril Smith – the paedophile Liberal Democrat MP  – but was frustrated by a wrong and questionable legal decision by the Crown Prosecution Service. And it might be said the brave and diligent journalists on the Rochdale Alternative Press who did expose the scandal only to be let down by a feeble mainstream media who were too frightened to taken on the popular Sir Cyril.

The damning findings go well beyond the behaviour of Sir Cyril Smith – a VIP paedophile I doubt even Daniel Janner or Times columnist David Aaronvitch could defend – they show for three decades young children were sexually abused while very senior officials, council leaders and staff in the school and hostel did nothing or deliberately turned a blind eye.

There were two main sexual abuse centres in the town – Cambridge Health, a hostel for young workers – and Knowl View School, a  residential place for maladjusted kids which was supposed to be a refuge from pretty appalling homes.

Let’s be clear who we are talking about. The inquiry quotes  Diana Cavanagh (then Rochdale’s  Director of Education), writing in 1994, children who were attending Knowl View School “… have been unable to cope with mainstream and (often) their family circumstances. Many have a poor self-image, have been abused and are on the Child Protection Register, have not found it possible to make good relationships with other children. Some are extremely withdrawn, avoiding contact or relationships with others and running away if pressurised. Some are aggressive and violent towards their family, other pupils and staff, both posing a physical risk to others and disrupting other pupils’ education. Some manipulate or bully other children and constantly use inappropriate language or inappropriate sexual behaviour. They may be out of control and attention-seeking at home and school …”

These were the kids whom the authorities failed to protect from a predatory convicted paedophile,Roderick Hilton, from camping outside the school gates and entering the premises. They were the people who allowed Sir Cyril Smith to conduct bogus medical examinations  so he could cane the bare buttocks of young kids.

They were the people once it was known that kids from the school – one possibly as young as eight – were cottaging with sexual predators in public toilets in plain sight of the social services directorate’s office and tried to lambast the staff at the school for talking to an official from the local health authority who raised the alarm.

There is also a damning finding from the inquiry about the role of the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee in their deliberations in recommending a knighthood for Cyril Smith.

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Child abuser Sir Cyril Smith Pic Credit: dreamcatchersfor abusedchildren.com

The inquiry found far from there being a cover up about his appalling behaviour – they knew all about it but didn’t believe it. The report says:

“It is also clear from the correspondence that what was of most concern to the PHSC was fairness towards Smith and concern for the reputational risk to the honours system caused by adverse media coverage.

 “Concern for those who may have been abused by Smith did not feature.

“Moreover, the documents show a marked tendency to take Cyril Smith’s progress in local and national politics, along with his previous honour (an MBE in 1966), as evidence that the allegations were unlikely to be true.

“This demonstrates a significant deference to power and an unwillingness to consider that someone in a position of public prominence might be capable of perpetrating abuse. This matters because the conferring of a knighthood on Smith was to make him even more powerful. ( my emphasis in bold).”

An interesting comment given recent events.

Then there are the two  Rochdale council leaders – one Labour and one Liberal Democrat. The former Labour leader is branded a liar by the inquiry.

“It was in our view shameful and a dereliction of his responsibility as Leader at the time that Farnell not only refused to accept any personal responsibility, but also was perfectly prepared to lay the blame on the Directors of Education and Social Services as well as the Chief Executive Officer for his claimed state of ignorance.697 In so doing, Mr Farnell soughtto shirk his responsibility and render himself totally unaccountable for the ills of Knowl View and the children who suffered. This is the opposite of honest, dutiful and responsible leadership.”

They are equally dismissive of Paul Rowen, the Lib Dem leader and later MP:

“We felt, just like Richard Farnell, that he was prepared to blame others for their faults without acknowledging his own failures of leadership. At best, he was insufficiently inquisitive about Knowl View School when the evidence that he knew about was that serious problems persisted there, which would not be resolved quickly; at worst, he turned a blind eye to the very serious problems that were in his judgment low down on the priority list.

“Although he boasted that the style of his administration was to be a departure from the past, his misplaced reliance on Council officers allowed him to sidestep his own responsibility, and blame others when he never made any or any sufficient enquiry either about the really serious problems that affected the school and its children or the efforts to deal with those problems while he was Leader. This demonstrated a lack of judgment and a failure of leadership.”

And two leading officials, were also criticised.

“ Ian Davey, the Acting Director of Social Services, chose not to pursue child protection measures, a decision that was professionally indefensible and extremely poor judgment on his part.

“Diana Cavanagh, the Director of Education, commissioned reports and producedher own report. While some of this was useful, each of the reports was flawed in some respects, including factual accuracy. There was no urgency on the part of these senior officials to address the problems of sexual abuse at the school, and matters were left to drift.”

This is a catalogue of horrors. More will no doubt come out when the inquiry examine Lambeth and Nottingham. But I suspect it is the tip of a very large iceberg that even this huge inquiry will not be able to investigate. What about Richmond in south London, what will come out in Telford. What about Oxford, Staffordshire, Islington Rotherham,Leicestershire. What about other big cities and  has it been solved now. I doubt it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Video:The time for 50s women pensioners to take action is now

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With less than a month to go before the local elections if the 3.9 million 50s women pensioners want to influence events the time to do so is now. These are the people who have been deprived of a pension for up to 6 years by successive governments putting up the pension age and were not given proper notice of the change unless they happened to be a nerdy Parliamentary watcher.

This website is supporting the #BackTo60 campaign because it believes this is one of the largest injustices to a group of women perpetrated by any government in recent times and it seems clear that many of the £76,000 a year MPs are not bothered about what happened to them. As a group their vote is taken as for granted by the present government. I have made a contribution to the film.

This film made in the London borough of Barnet because it is the most marginal council going to the polls in the country. It also has 18,200 people living there who have been affected by the decision. Every councillor standing in the May  elections needs their vote – which gives them an ideal opportunity to demand they do something for them.

This film contains contributions from two  existing Barnet councillors – one Labour, Andreas Ioannidis and another an ex Tory, Sury Khatri- who are prepared not only to listen to them but also to get something done.

There are also contributions from blogger Theresa Musgrove – best known in Barnet for her popular @brokenbarnet website- and campaigners Hilary Law, Prafula Shah and Anija Bablee. The narrator is Joanne Welch, who has put together the # BackTo60 campaign.

The programme was produced by Hello Dear films by Jaspar Warry, Joanne Welch and Yvette Greenway.

Watch it. Learn what is going on and then do something about it.

 

 

Postponed by Brexit: Vital investigations into the effectiveness of Britain’s border controls

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David Bolt, chief inspector of borders and immigration Pic Credit: gov.uk

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While the mantra of every enthusiastic Brexiteer has been ” we are taking back control” of our borders the irony is quietly over Easter the Whitehall body responsible  for checking it postponed vital investigations to ensure it happens.

David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, announced changes to the planned schedule of investigations – entirely because of the failure of ministers to sort out the Brexit negotiations.

The chief inspector’s job is to make sure that the UK has an efficient and fair system of immigration and customs controls – precisely because once we are out of the EU it will become even more important that they work properly. It also identifies risks of smuggling and illegal immigration.

However ministerial failure to sort this out – notably by Theresa May and David Davis the Brexit Secretary, now means that planned inspections cannot take place this year and have been postponed for at least 12 months if not longer.

The biggest casualty has been a big  350 day long investigation and inspection of West Coast ports – notably  Swansea, Fishguard, Holyhead,Liverpool and Stranraer among others – due to begin now and postponed until next year.

The reason is starkly included in the revised timetable. ” Deferred from 2018-19; timing subject to agreement on the CTA arrangements after the UK exits the EU.”

These sparse words basically mean ” Can no do because Britain and the EU cannot agree on the future of the Irish border and how the common travel area will work and it will be a waste of time to do it now because it could all change”.

It also means that we may not know whether the new arrangements are working until well after we have left the EU.

Nor is it the only investigation deferred. A similar investigation this year was going to look at customs control over freight operation scheduled for 2019-20. The timetable now says : Inspection scope and timing subject to agreement on the handling of freight after the UK’s exit from the EU.

Again failure to decide exactly whether there will be tariffs on goods means could well be delayed and we won’t know how this is working either.

Meanwhile this year an inspection into the ” points” system for immigration has had to be significantly widened to include rules for  Inspection of “Brexit preparedness”, focusing on resourcing and processes for the registration and settlement of
EU nationals.

There also has been a knock on effect on other investigations including  delays to a further in country investigation into modern slavery and a one year delay in investigating NHS charging because of insufficient resources. They could also be a delay to an investigation into illegal working in the UK.

David Bolt adds: “I have therefore created space within the Plan for various ‘Brexit’-related pieces of work, the precise shape and timing of which are not yet fixed. I will announce specific inspections in the normal way via the website as soon as I am able.”

The organisation is one of the few not to suffer Whitehall austerity cuts but as people leave it is finding it difficult to recruit new people which could be a new worry.

His statement ends with a plea for people to join the service. “If you believe that you have the necessary qualities and are interested in joining the inspectorate, please keep an eye on the website, where any vacancies will be advertised.”

This seems yet another example of  how the failure to sort out an early timetable for Brexit is leaving a trail of unfinished business across Whitehall – and a fresh danger of chaos at our borders after we have left.

 

 

 

 

 

Shambolic Stansted: How you can grab duty free booze without leaving the country unchecked by short staffed customs and immigration

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stansted airport pic credit:London Stansted Airport

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Just before Stansted  was  hit by a bus fire which wrecked people’s Easter holiday flights Parliament received a damning report on the state of border controls at the airport by David Bolt, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders  and Immigration.

Rushed out with four other reports from the inspectorate at the close of Parliament it went unnoticed by mainstream media.

What it disclosed is that the airport has been at the centre of a duty free scam  under the noses of the border force enabling  UK residents to get cheap duty free fags, perfume and booze without leaving the country.

It worked like this. Buy the cheapest  air ticket from say Ryanair or Jet 2.com, get through customs and immigration control, go to duty free. Once there stock up with booze, fags, perfume. designer goods and then walk out of another exit to the baggage hall pretending you are on an incoming flight. Then leave the airport.

The scam first discovered in an earlier report in 2013 has been claimed by Stansted Airport’s management to have been stopped though inspectors are sceptical.

The report says: “Border Force and Manchester Airport Group (MAG)  (owners of Stansted) told inspectors that they had addressed this issue, and the number of such incidents had been greatly reduced. Border Force reported that “the newly created Stansted Crime Team had prioritised working with Duty Free Retail Partners as part of its routine to combat fraud and engagement with partners in this area had had demonstrable results with a number of cigarette seizures that were illicitly obtained.”

However inspectors checking arrangements last year had a different view.

It says they didn’t see any fraud but “they did witness individuals who had not travelled exiting the restricted zone via a channel marked “Returning Passengers”. A MAG employee was tasked with verifying that individuals using this channel
had not arrived from abroad (by asking to check their ticket) before allowing them to enter the baggage hall.
“There were no Border Force staff in the “Returning Passengers” channel, and the MAG employee did not appear to notify Border Force of individuals entering the baggage hall via this route. Inspectors did not observe any customs checking of these individuals as they exited.”

The report also finds a whole series of discrepancies between the management of the airport and the staff views of what is really happening. Management say staff are content while staff say they have low morale.

For a start it has never had a full complement of borders force staff and over a  third of its 199 full time equivalent staff is on stand by – so called seasonal workforce (SWF)- mainly retired ex policeman- called in during peak periods which now extended to most of the time  who can only monitor e-gates and sit on the immigration desk.

“Inspectors were told that levels of experience at Stansted were “dwindling” with fewer and fewer staff with the skills required to carry out a range of duties. As a result, managers were finding rostering increasingly difficult and time-consuming. Inspectors were also told that rosters were dependent on the availability of SWF, because there were not enough permanent staff. ”
“The main complaint from frontline staff was that they were not able to access skills training,especially the nationally-managed “Core Skills” training required for different Border Force roles.

“As well as impacting morale, particularly where staff believe that Border Force has failed to deliver on promises made to them about developing them as “multi-functional officers” and providing job variety, the failure to provide skills training has created inflexibilities in terms of how staff can be deployed.

“This is inefficient and damaging to Border Force’s operational effectiveness. It therefore needs to be dealt with as a priority.”

The inspectors found safeguarding issues – particularly in checking whether 12 to 17 year olds who could use e-gates  by themselves with hardly any monitoring.

And a disastrous re-organisation and centralisation of parcels checks meant that seizures of illegal drugs  collapsed at one stage and only just recovering. “This function was centralised to the fast-parcel hub at East Midlands Airport, which now generates alerts and targets for itself and for Stansted. Staff at Stansted told inspectors that, initially, this change had resulted in a “collapse” in seizures.”

Added to that :The customs teams working with freight and fast parcels told inspectors that they were hampered by a lack of suitable detection equipment, for example to test and identify controlled substances.”

And inspectors suspect that border force people may miss people being trafficked into the UK due to shortages of skilled staff.

The report concluded that management has just ” a tick box mentality” which did not correspond with the reality on the ground.

Stansted is the nation’s fourth busiest airport. Half the people using it are British and all but 10 per cent are from the European Union. One wonders what will happen post Brexit and post a plan to double the size of the airport if it cannot cope at the moment. This is not a pretty picture of British competence.

Voldemort Grayling: The transport secretary and his fantasy Hogwarts Express train service

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Chris Grayling: Transport Secretary and The Lord Voldemort of the Cabinet

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Just before Parliament went into Easter recess the real story about Chris Grayling’s decision to cancel three  major rail electrification projects was released with hardly any mainstream  news coverage.

It was fitting example of the present appalling career of Chris Grayling. This has caused misery  for millions and waste running to hundreds of millions of pounds. He has been  responsible for the botched privatisation of the probation service, slashing compensation for people beaten up by criminals and introducing sky high fees for people bringing tribunal cases (now scrapped thanks to a case brought by Unison)) , restricting legal  aid and putting up court charges.

He and Ken Clarke,when he was justice secretary, also wanted to work with the Saudi Arabian prison system with its obscenities of public beheading, stoning women and flogging men. He is the true Lord Voldemort of Theresa May’s Cabinet.

This latest investigation from the National Audit Office – while more prosaic than J.K .Rowling’s Harry Potter novels – reveals yet another tale of deceit and fantasy to cover up government having overreached itself on rail investment.

Last July just as Parliament was about to go into summer recess ( Funny this happens all the time) Chris Grayling announced the scrapping of three railway  electrification schemes.

They were the Midland Main Line north of Kettering (to Nottingham and Sheffield); the Great Western Main Line between Cardiff and Swansea; and the Lakes Line between Oxenholme and Windermere.

But the real story is that two of the projects were actually  cancelled in Match 2017 but the public was never told.
As the report  says: ” In March 2017 ministers agreed to cancel the Midland Main Line north of Kettering and Oxenholme to Windermere electrification projects but did not announce their decision until July.”

” Electrification of the Midland Main Line to Sheffield was a 2015 Manifesto commitment. The Manifesto also stated that work was underway to electrify the railway in South Wales.”

Hence the deceit.

The public went to the polls in June 2017  and the electors of Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Chesterfield. Sheffield and in Windermere and Kendal were told a lie – the electrification of their service was not going to happen and ministers had trashed their 2015 manifesto commitment.

The electrification of the line between Swansea and Cardiff was scrapped by Theresa May after the election.

But that is not the whole story. Chris Grayling promised to modernise the three services by buying new trains called bi- mode trains- running on both electric and diesel.

The NAO report said: “It will now use bi-mode trains to operate services on the Great Western Main Line and long-distance services on the Midland Main Line. Although bi-mode trains allow greater flexibility by being able to run on electrified and non-electrified lines, there are some disadvantages, such as increased track damage and higher energy costs, which the Department will need to take into account.

For Oxenholme to Windermere the Department had interim plans to use bi-mode trains and proposes to replace existing trains with new diesel trains. It has also asked the operator to explore the use of alternative fuel trains on the route.”

Grayling even promised on the Midland Main Line the journey from London to Sheffield will only be ONE MINUTE slower.

But here is the rub: Such  fast versions of these trains do not yet exist and have never been built for express services. The government hasn’t a clue how much they will cost. They are fantasy trains in the imagination of Chris Grayling. He might as well have announced that the London to Sheffield service was going to be run by Hogwarts Express – it is still in the realm of fiction.

As the NAO report says: “At the time of the decision to cancel in March 2017, officials had advised the Secretary of State that the bi-mode rolling stock with the required speed and acceleration did not exist. They said that the maximum speed of bi-mode trains being built at the time was 100 miles per hour in diesel mode and that the acceleration was not sufficient to meet the timetable of the route. There was also a very high degree of uncertainty over the price of new bi-mode trains.”

I asked for an explanation from the Department for Transport. They contested it.

A spokesman said:“As this report makes clear, we are focused on delivering better trains and services to passengers more quickly, at better value for money for the taxpayer, without the significant disruption to services that electrification can cause.”

 The ministry is said to be happy that bi-mode trains work having tested some on the Great Western l.ine claiming that they could reach 120mph in diesel mode- though this completely conflicts with the NAO investigation which says they are only designed to reach 100mph.

In the meantime this could be another dodgy decision by Chris Grayling. Only this time  he seems to be living in a fantasy world. I await him dressed as Lord Voldemort (He’ll be in the Lords by then)  launching the new London to Sheffield service from Platform 9 and three quarters at London St Pancras rather than Kings Cross.

Update: Since writing this I have discovered that Nicky Morgan, Tory MP for Loughborough and former Cabinet colleague of Chris Grayling reacted furiously to the NAO’s disclosure.She told the Leicester Mercury: 

“Now we see the decision to cancel it was based on fantasy trains that didn’t even exist and the Midlands being a guinea pig for an untested technology.

“This report justifies why people felt so shortchanged when it was cancelled and it makes me more determined to get the decision re-opened.”

 

 

 

 

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