Saturday 19 December 2009

Truth, Justice, Racial Violence and Belief


Over the last five days I’ve had to give a redundancy notice to a pregnant women and had to hear the ultimate abuse of a Council Worker of twelve years who has been told that they don’t know what will be happening with their job or whether they will be made redundant or redeployed in the next few weeks.

That and writing off my car (again!) Thursday morning only to have another car collide into my courtesy vehicle on Friday makes it officially a danger zone. So in situations like this it is about the fundamentals. Those have to be words like truth and justice and making them more than words.

Work at the moment is hard ... harder than ever ...we always say that it is hard ... but the search for truth and justice seems harder than ever.

So in the context of this turmoil news comes of this. So is it better to feel that there is the potential of people in the then institutionally racist Met being brought to justice for the failure to properly investigate a murder that happened sixteen years ago or is it right to focus on the fact there has been sixteen years with no individual accepting or being apportioned blame.

Perhaps the most important thing is to belive that truth and justice will be brought to the front of our minds regardless of collusion of those who do not value these ideals for the world of today or the future.

Saturday 12 December 2009

So when does it matter what people say?


At Weston Favell School staff, students, community and politicians have spoken and it still doesn’t seem to matter. So when does it matter what people say?
Following consultation from everything from public meetings (one of which only allowed three questions from members of the public) and OFSTED surveys when everyone says that they don’t want this school to be an academy why has it still been voted by a Tory cabinet to be on track to turn into one.
At the end of the day it is all about Northampton. The reason why a Tory cabinet can stumble into this decision is only because there is no heavy representation from Northampton what do Tory;s from rural South Northants or Kettering care about Northampton.
So why should they care? They should care because students at Weston Favell went on strike twice over Wednesday because they cared about their school. They were threatened with exclusion but felt passionately about the millions of public money invested in their school over the past couple of years being handed over lock stock and two smoking barrels to a company which has been deemed by the Government as having no capacity to manage any more schools.
There is now a hastily arranged full council in January to discuss the issue. Politicians panic stations!

Thursday 10 December 2009

moving forward


It seems that people have been talking about me and my news.
So guess it must be time to have my say.
Since being told that I was no longer in the Labour party I have
• had good friends who has expressed genuine love and affection for me and a wish for me to move forward in a positive way.
• contacted by a Tory M P expressing profuse regret and stating respect for my hard work and integrity
• contacted by a recently born again Independent wishing to “share my pain”
• a Labour group leader looking for the mobile number of a colleague
For all those from all political persuasions who have given me messages of support, thank you for your very generous words.
To the BNP who reverted to gloating at the situation I find myself in ... all the more time to do anti-BNP campaigning. The events surrounding my exclusion from the Labour Party do not cloud my judgement about who are real political enemies.
The task now is to get political change for Northampton which delivers real benefits for the people living here and destroy the evil ... the racist and the fascist views in our communities.