Last week I wrote about the proposals to remove section 3 of
the Equality Act and amazingly enough following a defeat in the House of Lords,
the minister in charge, Jo Swinson
announced that she was U-turning. Of course I told my children that this was as
a direct result of my blog post ... but I really wonder why it was possible to
get a change of heart on this from Minsters and not on other issues like cuts in legal advice for discrimination
complainants, the destruction of the National Health service or the Bedroom Tax
to name but a few.
Did it make a difference that the proposals were being
debated in the middle of a series of local authority elections? Did it make a
difference that the removal of section 3 would have potentially had not only
national but international implications. Whatever it is I really wish we could
bottle it.
The Government has had its eyes on
the Equality Act for quite some time. Last year, I attended a consultation at
the Government Equalities Office in Victoria about the future of discrimination
advice. By the time I had left the building the Governments Red Tape Challenge
had been launched with a plan to scrap the general duty. For the longest while
they seemed to talk about launching a consultation without actually launching
one when they did actually launch it is came with a raft of other proposals
relating to the Equality Act.
The consultation responses
to keep the General Duty outnumbered those to scrap it by six to one. However still like a thief in the night the
proposal is not only here, but voted through parliament on a vote of 310 – 244 in
that 66 vote difference 41 Liberal Democrat MP’s voted. In the 2010 election,
the Guardian was urging many to vote Lib Dem to keep a Tory Government out to
protect a core set of values about civil liberties. Here those same Lib Dems
were vote en mass to remove the General Duty. Jo Swinson argued that it was
unimportant. The governments briefing on the reasoning to remove it was it
argued creating unrealistic expectations.
A significant
proportion of Lib Dems at their own conference expressed concern over the Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform Bill and there seemed to be some concerted lobbying to try
and get Lib Dem MP’s to at least abstain. It therefore comes as a surprise that
the Conservative Peter Bottomley felt able to rebel on this issue whilst only
David Ward was the only Lib Dem to do so. If you are still unconvinced about
the need to oppose the changes watch the video. If you want to do something about it write to your MP using this site here. If Peter Bottomley can be on the forces protecting Equality perhaps there's still hope.
As local elections
draw closer, the Lib Dems are trailing behind UKIP on many polls. In the
Borough elections two years ago, they suffered heavy losses in Northampton.
Some of the greatest of those were in student areas such as Trinity and St.
Georges. With overwhelming more Conservative County Councils being defended in
this election, and UKIP polling to get up to 20% of the Conservative vote, the
May elections are expected to bring significant change. It need not have been so for the Lib Dems. They
sold their souls for a Proportional Representation referendum and still feel
the need to pay for it.
Over the last couple of weeks there has been so
much it’s hard to make sense out of.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is.
Sometimes it’s not. One defining characteristic about 2013 is a level of
brutality on a personal, organisation, governmental and international level.
Earlier this month we had the conviction and sentencing of Mick and Mairead Philpott for their part in the deaths of the six children.
Then a subsequent news frenzy as rather than violence it was seen as the fault
of a benefit culture by senior Conservative figures. Earlier this week it came
out that Mick Philpott was a
Conservative voter an left bloggers alluded to the fact that it was his voting
practices rather than his benefits that created the culture that resulted in
the deaths of the children.
The inquest into Savita Halappanavar's death has unanimously
delivered its verdict: her death was as a result of medical misadventure. A
strong health young woman who was herself a medical professional died because
the medical professionals around her would not give her an abortion whilst
there was the presence of the foetal heartbeat despite and admission that the foetus
had fatal abnormalities. Whilst senior clinicians protected themselves by
citing the anomalies in the Irish law it was left to a midwife to tell the
truth about why Savita was denied an abortion.
It was not because an abortion wouldn’t save her ... as it would have it
was because of the country that Savita had the misfortune to be in when she had
problems with the pregnancy. Savita’s death created outrage in India from feminists
but supported by a wave of patriotic anti-West sentiment that turned a blind
eye to the need for greater access to abortion for Indian women in India and
more basic health care support for Indian woman and girls.
In the last twenty-four hours there is a new atrocity to
focus on as a five year old girl is raped and physically abused in Delhi. The
reports of the abuse, and the police investigations when she went missed is gut
wrenchingly both horrific and tragic. As demonstrators demand that enough is
enough, the police alienate themselves even more by reports of one of them
slapping a protester.
The common thread is clearly the issue of power imbalances
against women and children. Rather than issues about the state, this
kind of inhumanity will continue as long as people think they can get away with
playing life and death over others because no one will stand up and be counted in defence of others that are more vulnerable or simply do not have the power.
In some ways you can argue that there are tough decisions to be made as no one
wants to be accused with no comeback but unless more people stand up for what
they believe in, then women and children will continue to die. Despite the fact
that deeply violent and disgusting things have happened in India ... at least
there is protest. All too often bad things happen in Britain and no one wants to know.
The real reason why people are sick to the back teeth of job
insecurity, rising food and energy costs, their friends and family members
losing work, becoming homeless, becoming ill or acquiring a disability and
finding it really difficult to get any support, but still not engaging in the
kind of numbers needed to effect change.
People really don’t trust anymore because they have been
lied, and lied and lied to. Politicians
of various hues have come along with a variety of policies and panaceas and are
repeatedly found out to be untrustworthy deceitful individuals.With Gloria de Piero, Labour MP for Ashfield
asking why people view politicians as “Axe Murderers” (strangely enough asking
people in Manchester, Yorkshire and South East London rather than
Nottinghamshire which is the place she’s paid to represent) the real issues is
the bare faced lies.
People know that they are being lied to because:
Of the U-turns
For so long people have heard that whether it be shutting down
libraries, youth centres, or the introduction of the pasty tax, the policy of
those in control is the only way forward ... only to find another way round it
shortly later.
Politicians hide the truth
Northamptonshire County Council like many other public
bodies is consulting on its budget with the headline to having to find £84.7 million of savings over the next four years. The Easy read version doesn’t even
mention that the decisions are predicated on the assumption that reserves or an
increase in Council Tax aren’t suggested.This doesn’t even take into account that with changes to Council Tax
Benefit rules Councils will have a tougher job than ever before in collecting
money that they need to pay for services from people who simply don’t have any
money.
With so much going on, the even more depressing news is that
traditionally trusted sources of information like the BBC feel it’s OK to
repeat spurious claims about the increase in Tax credit claims and tax credit
fraud. For further information take a look at Sue Marsh’ blog here.
I talk about immigration much of the time. I’ve just heard a
Labour PPC on the news stating the key reason Labour lost the General election in 2010 was as a result of
perceptions about immigration policy.
Labour lost that election because over a long period of time
they had made a number of wrong judgement calls, had leaders that saw
themselves above the jurisdiction of international law and had back bencher's
and cabinet members who’s egos just couldn’t help themselves from sticking the boot in at totally inopportune moments such as the day before an election.
It’s inconceivable that a political grouping can be in power
for three terms and not make mistakes but quite frankly these aren’t the
apologies that Labour needs to be making.
People in this country are more concerned about whether they
have enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month than anything else.
They are concerns about pay, concerned about job security, concerned about
youth unemployment way above their concern about immigration. It’s only those
on the level of Anders Brevik who still believe that immigration is the reason
for the economic crisis and recession that we find ourselves in. The arguments
people actually want to hear are the arguments which lead to solutions to
economic stability. Further tinkering
with immigration simply will not deliver this. In a month that saw immigration
advice providers deluged by concerned clients desperately trying to get their settlement visa applications in before a July deadline when income thresholds
to bring in spouses rocket from £5,000 to £27,500. This puts the right to
family life for people who choose to marry non-EU migrants well out of the
reach of those on average salaries. The
Con-Dem immigration zealousness has already damaged the stability of British
Universities with the restriction of foreign students, is Labour seriously
wanting to head in this direction.
Have discussion about immigration but look at the human
stories of the impact decision have on peoples ability to enjoy basic human
rights. Look at the impact on economic
recovery and check out that a policy isn’t being implemented that will further
damage a shaky, fragile economy to pander to people who just don’t like a lot of “them”
here. Look at more fundamental solutions
to problems. If school leavers cannot access employment, what is being done to
make them more able and more skilled? Was axing Education Maintenance Allowance
and increasing University fees really that bright an idea?
