FREE ‘Keep Warm Cafe’ in Southwark on Wednesday 6th November 10am-12.30pm

Fuel Poverty Action’s first free ‘Keep Warm Cafe’ is next week! 

6th November 10am-12.30pm 

at 307 Camberwell Road (Southwark Pensioner’s Centre), London, SE5 0HQ.

Absolutely everyone of all ages are welcome!

There will be:

Free tea, coffee, biscuits. Friendly chat. Advice on your bills, debt and keeping warm. An opportunity to hear about what causes fuel poverty and what we can do about it.

Accessibility and transport information:

The building is fully accessible.

The nearest mainline and overground station is Denmark Hill, where there is a boarding ramp for wheelchair users. TfL advise that you call ahead to pre-book assistance for your journey on: 0845 601 4867.The station is 700 metres from the centre.

The buses 12, 35, 40, 42, 45, 468, 171, 176,  and 68 all stop at the bus stop next to the centre- Medlar Street stop.

Buses 40, 42, 68, 176, 468 goes via Denmark Hill station or very near the station to Medlar Street stop.

Please send round to your members and let us know at fuelpovertyaction@gmail.com or 07586482157  if you or your members can make the morning.

Feel free to get in touch with any questions.

It should be a great event and we hope to see you there!

Clare and Fuel Poverty Action

P.s. If this coffee morning is a long way from where you are based could our ‘Keep Warm Cafe’ at Crossroads Women’s Centre, Kentish Town on 29th November 10am-12.30pm be more convenient? Get in touch if so. We will also be holding more coffee mornings in the new year in other parts of London- watch this space for information.

DPAC

French police attack, dismantle Roma camp

‘French police have dismantled a Roma camp in northern France, as the controversial treatment of the Roma population in the European country continues.

Police attacked the Roma camp on Tuesday in the northern city of Lille and forced tens of Roma people, including women and children, to leave the place.

Several syndicates and NGOs in the country have denounced the move.’

Read more: French police attack, dismantle Roma camp

Parliamentary Committee grills energy suppliers for price hikes

‘The British parliament’s Energy and Climate Change Committee has grilled heads of energy supplier giants as public is cut between the fast approaching winter and the ever-soaring prices.

British Gas, Npower, SSE and Scottish Power – four of the largest energy suppliers in the UK have already announced plans to raise bills by an average of 9.1 percent.

They are accused together with bosses from Ovo Energy, EDF, E.ON and Co-Operative Energy of systematically overcharging customers by £3.7billion a year.

As they were being grilled before the parliamentary committee on Tuesday, the heads of giant energy providers were taken to task by one of their smaller rivals, Ovo Energy’s chief, who said he “cannot explain any of these price rises” as his company is buying gas for 7 percent less than it was two years ago.’

Read more: British Parliamentary Committee grills energy suppliers for price hikes

With such elaborate spying and surveillance …

Report highlights major free speech dangers of Lobbying Bill

Charities, advocacy groups, academics and think tanks have published a new report raising serious concerns about the Lobbying Bill.

A diverse coalition of prominent charities, advocacy groups, academics, think tanks and online networks has published a report raising serious concerns about the government's Lobbying Bill, which is being rushed through Parliament at present.

There is growing alarm about the likelihood that charities, churches, civil society organisations, trade unions and pressure groups will face a “chilling effect” on their legitimate activities around election times as a result of the bill - which has been described by critics as "a huge assault on free speech".

The report, 'Non-Party Campaigning Ahead of Elections', is being launched at the UK Parliament today by the independent Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement.

The Commission represents an unusually broad coalition, including groups that would otherwise be antagonists – from the Lancashire Badger Trust to the Countryside Alliance, and from the National Secular Society to the conservative Christian Institute.

The government did not consult voluntary organisations, the public, or even the Electoral Commission responsible for regulating elections, before publishing the legislation, they point out.

The independent Commission has been taking evidence from across the UK to ensure the widest range of views are heard on this issue in a very tight timescale.

It is making recommendations to Parliament about appropriate regulation of non-party campaigning activity ahead of elections in time for the Committee Stage of the Bill in the House of Lords in November 2013.
Churches are concerned that the pre-election hustings meeting they have been hosting for many years will be rendered illegal if openly racist parties are excluded. Their briefing and advocacy is also effected.
Civil society groups of all shapes and sizes, including unions, also face a potential bar on speaking out on issues of public concern ahead of general elections.

In his foreword to the report, the Commission’s chair, Lord Harries, the former Anglican Bishop of Oxford, warns: “There is no doubt, from the evidence that this Commission has gathered, that ... the Bill risks profoundly undermining the very fabric of our democracy by significantly limiting the right of organisations – from charities and community groups to think tanks and blog sites – to speak out
on some of the most important issues facing this country and the planet."

He continues: “Whether we agree with these organisations or not, their role is essential in order to have an informed, engaged electorate.”

Lord Harries adds: “It is a mark of bad governance for legislation to be bounced on Parliament and those directly affected without any consultation. When matters of democracy are at stake it is a very grave error.”
Andrew Lansley MP, Leader of the House of Commons and the Minister leading the Transparency in Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, declined to give evidence to the Commission.

Tom Brake MP, who had agreed to give evidence to the Committee on Monday 14 October, was subsequently withdrawn from giving evidence by Andrew Lansley.

Angela Eagle, Shadow Leader of the House, Graham Allen, Chair of the Political and Constitutional Select Committee, and Hywel Francis MP, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights gave evidence on Monday 14 October.

Ekklesia has joined the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement and is making the new report widely available (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/19330), alongside other coalition members.

Simon Barrow, the Christian think-tank's co-director, commented today (29 October 2013): "There are numerous problems with the UK government's Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill as it presently stands.

"In terms of calling powerful corporate lobbyists to account, it is too weak. But in Parts 2 and 3 it institutes limits on the freedom of expression of charities, civil society organisations, think-tanks, advocacy groups and trades unions that effectively amount to a gagging order against many non-party commentators at election times.

"The independent Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement, which we are pleased to support, has brought together civic groups from across the spectrum and produced a detailed, thoughtful and constructive appraisal of section two of what the government is proposing.

"Sadly, the Minister leading on the Bill has so far refused to engage properly with a huge coalition of concern and with the framework of independent scrutiny across the country provided by the independent Commission. This Bill is an issue of major public concern, and we hope that politicians can be made to listen before going down what looks to be a significantly anti-freedom of speech route. At present it is not fit for democratic purpose."

Supporters of the Commission on Civil Society and Democratic Engagement include: 
A Rocha, Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, Amnesty International UK, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Better Transport, Big Brother Watch, Bond, Centrepoint, Change.org, Children England, Christian Aid, Christian Institute, Citizens UK, Countryside Alliance, Democracy Matters, Ekklesia, Electoral Reform Society, Electoral Reform Society (Wales),Friends of the Earth England Wales and Northern Ireland, Gingerbread, Greenpeace UK, HOPE not hate, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Lancashire Badger Group, Lumos, MADE in Europe, Micah Challenge, Mumsnet, Muslim Council of Britain, National Secular Society, National Union of Students, NCVO, Oxfam GB, People & Planet, Peter Tatchell Foundation, Quakers in Britain, Runnymede Trust, RSPB, Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK), Small Charities Coalition, STOPAIDS, Stop HS2, Sue Ryder, 38 Degrees, Global Poverty Project, Royal British Legion, Vegan Society, Wildlife Trust, Woodland Trust, Unlock Democracy, Unite Against Fascism, WaterAid, Womankind Worldwide and the Women’s Institute.

* Read the full report here: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/19330

Source

Cuckoo! The IT Programme In The Centre Of The WCA Nest

Reblogged from Work Test Whistleblower:

Many readers will have heard it said that the computer programme used to put together WCA reports is less a useful tool than a fundamental part of the problem with the assessment process. I used to be quite sceptical about this idea, but something an expert on disability benefits said to me last week, and a read of the Atos Annual Report 2012 sent to me via Twitter yesterday, have made me think again.

I am by no means an expert on IT and I have no special knowledge of this subject from my time at Atos - I was too far down the totem pole to be told anything about wider company strategy. But the more I've thought about the idea, the more it seems to hold water, because it might answer the question of why a giant IT company is interested in a not-all-that-profitable (by their standards) disability assessment process.


A short history of benefit agencies

Before outsourcing was even a twinkle in Margaret Thatcher's eye, disability assessors were fully paid-up civil servants, albeit with medical degrees; then they found themselves working for the Benefits Agency, rather than a government department. After that their role was outsourced to a private company and as medically-qualified civil servants retired from practice, the new doctors who replaced them were taken on as employees of that private company, a company which could be bought and sold on the open market.

Until 2003 the company that employed these disability assessors and also contracted GPs to do that work was Schlumberger, an engineering company normally operating in (naturally enough) the oil, gas and mining industries - the name sounds German because the founder was from Alsace, the historically-disputed and culturally German region of France, but it is actually a French multinational.

In 2001 Schlumberger acquired Sema Group after the dotcom crash and renamed it SchlumbergerSema. Prior to that, Sema had been an Anglo-French IT company with a background in mid-level software development. SchlumbergerSema began to develop the programme that is still used to carry out WCAs. Atos now owns this software, not the DWP.


A short history of UK healthcare IT systems

After New Labour was re-elected in 2002, the stop-cocks of NHS spending were turned on. But the Department of Health also fancied a national computer system (even though few clinicians felt the need for one that ran beyond their own region and that was conceived primarily as a giant data hoover for the bureaucrats in Whitehall).

SchlumbergerSema was the favourite to win choice contracts at the heart of the 'National Programme for IT in the NHS' at the time when it was bought by Atos in 2003.

As we now know, this grand project turned out, because of unrealistic aims set by the DoH, to be a multi-billion pound disaster which the Coalition, to their credit, finally killed off in 2011.

So Atos bought the company that looked like it was going to be a big hitter in NHS IT, which also happened to run the (then) uncontroversial assessments for claimants of medical benefits.


Healthcare and information technology

Rarely a week goes by without a news story on how robots will soon be performing heart surgery or how nanobots will monitor our bowel flora from the inside and send the findings to our iPads, and we already have a plethora of websites that tells us about which countries pose a malaria risk, etc. There are some where you type in your symptom (a dry cough) then answer some supplementary questions and it tells you the most likely diagnosis (anthrax). Large organisations like NHS Direct employ something like this, but it is so risk-averse that the answer is too often 'see your GP', 'go to A+E' or 'dial 999'.

The challenge for software designers is to take this decision-making software and make it reliable. Then it could, in theory, be used by patients to self-triage and by healthcare workers to make some clinical decisions, particularly by those professionals who are not comfortable about making a decision without getting some sort of top cover first.


Social security and information technology

One of the major themes of the Universal Credit project is to get claimants to provide the details of their claim online. The ultimate aim must be for an algorithm to then calculate the level of entitlement, in a similar way that self-assessment for income tax operates already.

But what if the algorithm could also assess your level of disability at the same, using the date you've punched in yourself? Think of the manpower costs that could be saved - no disability assessor and no DWP decision maker!


The 2012 Atos report

This claims that:

• The public sector is facing an unprecedented challenge to think more creatively and pioneer new methods.
• There needs to be better engagement with external stakeholders based on increased online delivery.
• Changing demographics mean an ageing population and a corresponding increase in chronic disease, which will have a massive impact on healthcare planning and provision.
• Atos has 3000+ business technologists worldwide specializing in healthcare.
• From the Atos perspective, an exciting new age for the public sector is starting, in which healthcare will be more customizable.
• The future is likely to involve technology without barriers.

What does this have to do with the WCA?

As is widely acknowledged, the WCA involves the computer sitting perched on the desk while a harried assessor and a frustrated claimant try to feed more and more unprocessed data into its open beak. Why?

1. The DWP - I suggest - has been conducting an undeclared trial of a self-administered disability assessment, with the assessor acting as a data-entry clerk on behalf of the claimant.
2. Atos - I reckon - saw an opportunity to further develop its expertise with decision-making software.

Naturally these weren't the only thoughts in either party's mind, but they go a long way to explaining the elevation of the status of the report-generating computer programme above that of a mere word processing tool.


Here's the twist

As the computer software and its usefulness to both parties' future ambitions brought the DWP and Atos closer together, will it also drive them apart?

In July the DWP accused Atos of furnishing it with unsatisfactory reports of unacceptably low quality. Yet it claimed in a press release that if a report is graded 'unsatisfactory' it does not mean necessarily that the assessment was wrong in its recommendation as to the claimant's fitness for work; it might just be that the report lacked "the level of detail demanded by the DWP". Since the whole purpose of a report is to make a recommendation on work capability, this explanation sounds bizarre, if taken at face value.

If Atos sees the software as an early example of their expertise in designing decision-making software, it is not going to take kindly to this criticism. Atos would probably only see the need to gather enough information - which importantly includes findings from the examination and observations - to allow the software to make a suggestion to the assessor on the claimant's eligibility, while the DWP in this context seems only to be preoccupied with mining masses of data from the 'Typical Day' history.

Has this dichotomy proved the fault-line in their relationship?

Filthy Britain’s Wall of Shame

Reblogged from thecolemanexperience:


 

These are some of the famous faces who have died in mysterious circumstances over the past 20 years.

Without a shadow of a doubt they met their end because they had knowledge of Britain’s dirty secrets.

How many more deaths have been passed off as ‘accidents’, ‘suicides’ or ‘bondage’ games gone wrong?

We may never know.

One thing we do know is that the British Establishment will stop at nothing to cover their filthy tracks.

And that includes murder.

It’s high-time the police looked again at these and all other unexplained deaths in the UK.

After all, why the hell wouldn’t they?

IDS weighs in with support for Tory bid to impose right-wing bias on BBC

Reblogged from Vox Political:




The Secretary-in-a-State about Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has joined Grant Shapps in attacking the BBC with entirely fictitious claims that it has a left-wing bias.

Smith, affectionately known as ‘RTU’ or ‘Returned to Unit’ by this blog because of doubts about his achievements in the Army, is a serial spreader of falsehood, as has been documented here many times.
It seems he missed his true vocation and should have been a farmer; he spreads muck so vigorously.

And this is the case today. The Daily Mail has reported in its usual bombastic style that RTU is angry because the BBC keeps describing his charge on social housing tenants who the government deems to be “under-occupying” their homes as a “bedroom tax”.

His “furious” letter states that the corporation has been misleading viewers because the phrase is “innately politically and indeed factually wrong”.

Oh, is it, Iain?

Let’s have a look at his reason for saying this: “A tax, as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear, is a ‘compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the  government on workers’ income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services and transactions’.”

That’s right – and the state under-occupation charge (to give it it’s correct title) is a compulsory contribution to state revenue, added to the cost of a service. In this case, the service is rental of a dwelling. There can be no doubt that the contribution is compulsory, and it is clearly the state that receives (or rather, keeps) the money.

It is a tax. And we can say that, since the number of spare bedrooms in a dwelling is used to apply the charge, it is a bedroom tax. It’s the same principle as was used to describe the ‘Window Tax’ of the 19th century or thereabouts.

Some pundits have stated that it cannot be a tax because it is not paid by everybody, but this is also nonsense. Does everybody pay Inheritance Tax, or Capital Gains Tax? No. Even the corporations don’t pay Corporation Tax any more, according to all the reports we hear about tax avoidance!

And it may also be stated that the BBC is simply reflecting public parlance in its use of the phrase. People do not talk about the “underoccupation charge” or the “removal of the spare room subsidy” – they talk about the Bedroom Tax.

So RTU can whine all he likes; the BBC is factually correct in using the phrase, and it also reflects public custom in doing so.

His letter continues by claiming the BBC has adopted the language of the Opposition, stating, “We do not believe it is the job of the BBC to use misleading terms and promote the views of the Labour Party.”

Again, he is wrong to claim that the BBC has a left-wing bias. You may get tired of reading this, Dear Reader, but research by Cardiff University has shown that “The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, Eurosceptic, pro-business version of the world, not a left-wing, anti-business agenda”. Read the report for yourself.

The Daily Mail goes on to report that former Immigration Minister Damian Green has been unhappy with the Beeb’s reporting of immigration data, saying it was “mystifying” that a 36,000 drop in migration was described as “slight”.

But it is Mail readers who should be mystified at this claim. Didn’t they read, only last month, that more than two million immigrants have been given British passports since 2000 – one every two and a half minutes? Was this not accurate? In comparison to that figure, 36,000 is indeed “slight”.

And Mr Green might have had a little more sympathy for the BBC report if he had bothered to read the latest information on immigration by the Office for National Statistics, which stated that a drop of 39,000 long-term migrants between December 2011 and December 2012 was “not a statistically significant fall”. This is the information used by his government.

Of course we all know the reason for this latest round of BBC-bashing – the Tories are putting out a ‘marker’ for the general election.

They are telling the BBC, in no uncertain terms: “Behave. We don’t want any trouble from you in the run-up to May 2015 – just nice stories saying how great we are. Otherwise it will go badly for you after the election.”

Considering the evidence that the BBC already has a right-wing, Conservative-supporting viewpoint, it would be perfectly understandable if any high-ranking member of the corporation, receiving that message, did the exact opposite.

These Tories are ungrateful. They should know it is impossible for the BBC to hide the vast amount of cock-ups, miscalculations and intentional harm they have inflicted on the nation in the last three years. Attempted intimidation can’t alter the facts.

But then, threats are a part of the Tory way of life – especially for Iain Duncan Smith.

That is clear to anyone who has spent a few months signing unemployed at a Job Centre.

Jeremy Hunt loses appeal as Lewisham hospital cuts ruled illegal

Health secretary looks to change law after court confirms government does not have power to downgrade hospital

Jeremy Hunt: 'We are now looking at the law to make sure that at a time of great challenge the NHS is able to change and innovate.' Photograph: Neil Hall/PA

The health secretary suffered another embarrassing legal defeat on Tuesday, as court of appeal judges ruled he had acted illegally in cutting A&E and maternity services at Lewisham hospital.

The judgment handed down against Jeremy Hunt before lunch on the second day of the hearing in London was greeted with delight by campaigners and Lewisham council, even though ministers are already taking steps to "put beyond doubt" emergency powers to reconfigure health services.

Tony O'Sullivan, director of children's services at Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and a member of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, said it was a complete victory.

He derided ministers and the special administrator of the now defunct South London Healthcare Trust (SLHT) Matthew Kershaw, who put forward the cuts to Lewisham hospital, run by a different trust, as part of a package changing services across south-east London.

O'Sullivan said: "We always said they were acting unlawfully and undemocratically in using an emergency process to bypass meaningful consultation and destroy a excellent hospital."

Alan Hall, spokesman for the controlling Labour group on Lewisham council, said: "This quick decision vindicates Lewisham overall and the council.

"The government has already sneakingly tabled an amendment to their care bill to render this judgment ineffective for everyone else, so we must continue the campaign to prevent any future backdoor reconfiguration of NHS services."

The shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, called the decision a humiliation for Hunt and said it raised major questions about his judgment. Burnham said the health secretary had squandered thousands of pounds' worth of taxpayers' money "trying to protect his own pride and defend the indefensible" by appealing against a high court verdict in favour of Lewisham campaigners and the council in the summer.

Calling for a commitment from Hunt that he would not try again to downgrade the hospital's A&E services, Burnham said: "He is diminished by this ruling and has let down the NHS. The court has done an important public service today in standing up to an arrogant and high-handed government and a secretary of state who is trying to close A&Es across London in the middle of the worst A&E crisis in living memory."

But Hunt was unrepentant. "I completely understand why the residents of Lewisham did not want any change in their A&E services, but my job as health secretary is to protect patients across south London - and doctors said these proposals would save lives," he said. "We are now looking at the law to make sure that at a time of great challenge the NHS is able to change and innovate when local doctors believe it is in the interests of patients."

The judges, headed by the master of the rolls, Lord Dyson, said they would give their reasons for the decision as soon as possible. They would also give a verdict on another aspect of Hunt's appeal against the high court's decision in July.

This relates to whether Hunt and Kershaw had met procedural requirements on the proposed structural changes, including consultation and the approval of local GPs.

The SLHT has already been formally wound up, with hospitals and services transferred to other trusts. The changes at Lewisham hospital have not gone ahead pending the legal decision.

Though ministers seemed to be preparing for the defeat by their recent moves to add new legal force to the regime of trust special administrators, the appeal court verdict is a bitter blow since Lewisham's was the first case under the regime to be considered by the courts.

Lawyers acting for Hunt and Kershaw had claimed they had the necessary powers to recommend and carry out changes to Lewisham services, despite Kershaw being instructed to investigate a separate failing trust of which Lewisham hospital was not a part. Any solution in dealing with the problems of SLHT had to take into account the wider NHS context, Rory Phillips QC had said.

The government tabled amendments to its care bill in the Lords earlier this month. In a letter explaining the case for further changes to the regime, Lord Howe, the parliamentary undersecretary for quality, said these would "put beyond any doubt that the trust special administrator has power to make recommendations, and the secretary of state and Monitor [the regulator] the power to take decisions, that affect providers other than the one to which the administrator was appointed."

Requirements for consultation would also be clarified, said Howe.

Guardian

Welcome To Conservative 'Sweatshop' Britain!

George Osborne and Boris Johnson
In
Communist China

Welcome to Conservative Britain in 2013 where the rich are getting richer and the "plodders, the poor and vulnerable" are getting screwed daily. The true saviours of this country, those who work in the public and private sectors alike and who toil in the offices, the factories, the hospitals, the schools and the shops doing a myriad of different jobs all interdependent and equally as important as the next, are being treated no better than rat droppings on steps of 10 Downing Street. These people are being used by the Coalition government to divide our country in order to allow the introduction of right wing dogma from a particularly nasty extreme right wing Tory controlled government.

The writing is there and is clearly written on the wall and it's now time to look closely at the evidence!

David Cameron, George Osborne and their banker and corporate buddy mates are laughing assassins who smile while they stab "hardworking people" in the back. Look past the Tory bluff and bluster and you will see how they are insidiously removing workers rights and driving down pay and conditions. They are also being helped by right wing fanatical press tycoons who have vested interests in retaining Conservatives in Downing Street.

The Tories (enabled by their poodle lap dogs the Liberal Democrats) are busy passing laws and changing the rules to enable them and the bosses of industry to control workforces across the country by using intimidation and fear of job losses. Slowly but surely they are rendering the workers of this country impotent. This country is not progressing, it's regressing and slipping back in terms of education, healthcare and working rights. Bosses and business leaders have gained carte blanche from this government to use the fear of job losses as some kind of metaphorical cattle prod to force change of contracts and loss of pay and conditions while keeping the workforce in their 'rightful place. Some may think this is happening to other people (not them) so they don't worry too much and then suddenly out of the blue it's their turn to be treated like dirt and pushed around. The way things are going soon people will not be able to call on any union for help and all workers rights will have been previously stripped and they will have been left impotent and utterly powerless! Those that knock unions need to think very carefully about this.

Divide and rule is all part of the Conservative plan of course and has been from the start. Right from the start it has been the Tories agenda, to weaken people then set worker against worker, the private sector against public sector; turn workers against the unemployed, able bodied against disabled people, young against the old. Those on benefits were held up to be ridiculed and the public invited to abuse them with insults and to spit venom at them, like some kind of virtual modern day equivalent of olden day stocks where people were once pelted with rotten fruit. Today those stocks often take the form of the extreme right wing newspapers like the Sun, Sunday Times, Daily Mail and the Express, where gullible and vulnerable people have been fooled into inviting reporters into their homes to have their stories taken they have been led to say things and then their words have been twisted and spun out of all recognition. These people are then plastered all over the newspapers and then pilloried by inviting 'rotten fruit throwing' in the shape of comments from the nasty "hang 'em and flog 'em brigade", who really do live under the misinterpretation that this government 'doesn't' mean them. Well one day they too will be in for a very nasty shock.

Once divide and rule was established it was followed by the gradual removal of workers rights. Employment law reforms have been announced by Liberal Democrat Vince Cable (no less) which will allow company bosses to exploit and bully workers. Companies now have stronger legal protections to pay off who they accuse of being  under-performing staff, or simply invent stories to get rid of staff they don't require any longer and employees rights have been eroded and now any employee is open to this kind of abuse. Workers face a drastic cut in how much compensation ordinary working people can claim if they win a case for unfair dismissal and that is only if they can afford to bring the case in the first place! Bosses have literally been given a license to discriminate against their workforce by this Conservative controlled Coalition government.

Ordinary workers are being blamed and treated as if the global recession and international banking collapse is their fault, they didn't cause it, but they are being made to pay for it while those that did cause it are allowed to get away with their crimes. Not one single banker in this country has been prosecuted for their part in the demise of the global economy and the Tories have allowed them to get away with it. In fact just a couple of weeks back, while the leader of the opposition Ed Miliband was sticking his head above the parapet getting a kicking from the energy companies, the banks, and the Tories for trying to get a fairer energy deal for the consumer (us), George Osborne was busy defending bankers bonuses and arranging to take the EU to court on behalf of the bankers and forcing us the taxpayers to pay the millions in legal charges. On the same day that Osborne announced he would be defending bankers bonuses at the European Union, Michael Spencer a former Conservative Treasurer who has donated at least £5 million to the Tories was named as being in the middle of a political and financial storm after his firm was named by City watchdogs for its role in the Libor interest-rate fixing scandal. Yet where on the BBC, ITV or Sky News was this reported? You can't really make this up! Meanwhile the workforce who actually keep this country running are being kicked, right left and centre!

There is a clear erosion of trust and hard fought for rights in the workplace and the Government are allowing bosses to get away with this  in clear cut cases of abuses of power, and it will not create one proper job with one proper wage/salary, all that is being created is low paid and more often part-time work, or worse still zero hour contract positions but the government know this of course. They are giving the green light to company bosses to change your working contracts, cut your hours, cut your pay and cut your pensions and if you think this is an overreaction then you only have to look to Grangemouth for confirmation. Grangemouth is not a one off, this kind of practice is now sweeping right across this country and mark my words it is coming to a private company, a public service, a hospital, a school, a factory, or a shop near you! The odds are being deliberately and heavily stacked against the workforce and in favour of the companies. Many of these companies are also being allowed to get away with paying little or no tax to the Treasury and to make matters worse, George Osborne has pledged to lower corporation tax, which means they'll be paying even less to exploit their workers!

Take Grangemouth and Ineos for example: Ineos has been allowed to avoid paying UK tax for years and its finances are a complete mystery yet this has been ignored. How many workers and small businesses would be allowed to get away without paying their tax? What about Vodafone they owe the British Treasury at least £6 billion and still more in interest, yet Osborne instructed their tax to be written off. Top Tory donor Sir Christopher Gent and personal friend of George Osborne and David Cameron was the former CEO of Vodafone!

Ineos and Jim Ratcliffe are out of control and they are holding Scotland to ransome. They've created a climate of fear and have forced decent working men and women into signing away their rights and pensions for which they have saved all their working lives - is this right? Think it cannot happen to you?

Last July the Government brought in rules that will now cost you between £160 and £250 to lodge a claim for unfair dismissal, with a further charge of between £230 and £950 if the case goes ahead and if you are forced to take your employer to tribunal for discrimination, detriment and dismissal, these claims attract even higher fees. The Ministry of Justice also charges fees of £400 to lodge an appeal and £1200 for a full hearing. Question: "How many people who have been unfairly dismissed will have the money to challenge for unfair dismissal at a tribunal?" The Government and Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, Vince Cable have in effect stymied those affected and removed any chance of challenging corrupt practices and they have got away with it, mainly because this Tory controlled government have managed to divide and rule the public and the workforce we are nothing but lowly pawns in their power games!

The scales are being loaded in favour of the banks, the bosses, the conglomerates, the corporations and the multi-nationals. What happened to the workers of Grangemouth could now happen to any worker anywhere in this country, workers are left bare and and badly exposed and defenceless and open to abuse. All those ordinary people call yourself workers, or middle class or whatever you want who are cheerleading for this Tory led government need to realise it could be their turn next and probably will be! Not too many companies are going to carry on paying their workers properly and provide proper pay and conditions when they can get away with paying nothing on zero hour contracts or are being sent a regular supply of full-time labour from Jobcentres under the guise of a government workfare scheme!

Health and safety in the workplace, workers rights, pay and conditions are all up for change.

It appears that business leaders of big companies want all the gain of trading within the EU but do want to accept any responsibility for the health, safety and welfare of their workers in the workplace and we have a prime minister in the shape of David Cameron and a government hell bent on seeing that these unscrupulous companies get what they want. Once again we see the PM on the side of big business at the expense of the workers and people of this country.

Recently a taskforce of six business leaders delivered its report to David Cameron with 30 recommendations for cutting health and safety regulations to make it easier for their businesses.

Among those recommendations was:

• Acquired rights directive changed so that companies being taken over can change employees can have their contracts changed more easily by their new employers.
• New rules on workers rights and pregnant worker proposals should be axed.
• Removing the right of the company to have written health and safety records
• No right to sick leave
• More rights to hire people on zero hour contracts
• Drop plans for strict rules on food labelling
• Remove unnecessary proposals on shale gas

Can you see a picture emerging here?

1. Divide and Rule
2. Drive down pay and conditions
3. Remove Workers rights
4. Stack the odds in favour of the companies and their bosses
5. Make it difficult for workers to claim unfair dismissal
6. Relax Health and Safety Laws
7. Reformed disabled peoples rights in the workplace as well as stripping them of every benefit they can possibly be stripped of.
8. Drive the workforce who the Tories laughingly refer to as "hard working people" by fear and intimidation eg: work for peanuts or pick litter up in the streets, or work on a government workfare scheme full-time just for your JSA - your choice!

So what is it all about?

Recently the chancellor came back from communist China telling us we British are "second rate" people and Britain is a second rate country and we should all be more like China. Strange because just a week previously he was accusing Ed Miliband of "getting all his policies from Das Kapital"! But then George Osborne is nothing if he is not inconsistent! 

What we are witnessing is an unspoken Conservative ideological agenda in action. Having successfully and deliberately divided public opinion, setting one half of the country against the other, private sector vs public sector, employed against the unemployed, and encouraged a hate campaign against those on benefits using the specific Tory hate campaign rhetoric; "shirkers, idlers; wasters, skivers; scroungers" etc the government have successfully split public opinion and divided us and are now in the process of imposing their draconian austerity and their agenda in devaluing much of the British workforce. Cameron, Osborne, Clegg, Cable and Alexander have moved to deliberately drive down the wages and salaries and terms and conditions of working people both in the public sector and the private sector, in order that they can now encourage investors from countries like China where the workforce is treated as expendable commodities and to ensure that the companies already here and British companies etc can compete with the Chinese companies in terms of low wages and virtually non existent fair working conditions.

Get ready for sweatshop Tory Britain 2013, it's here and if we allow it, it will be here to stay.

We are at a crossroads as a country, do we carry on blindly accepting the false Tory narrative that Britain is broke? That the worst global recession for 80 years and the international banking collapse was somehow all the previous Labour government's fault and if we don't 'do something' then we will end up like "basket case Greece"? (We could never have ended up like Greece because we are a Sovereign country with our own currency and were kept out of the Eurozone by Gordon Brown who tried to warn other countries against joining it). Or do we say "enough is enough" and stop allowing this unscrupulous dishonest incompetent Conservative government to walk all over us and keep feeding us their lies? If we carry on as we are in around five years time few will have job security (except those at the top), the NHS will have been lost to Tory privatisation, as will state education and the police, fire and paramedic services as much of the prison service and the probation service have already been privatised. If we do nothing in a few years time our entire country will be being run by companies like G4S, Serco and Capita and we will have become a low paid demoralised sweatshop economy.

Why else do you think that the Tories are hell bent on privatising everything? The Tories "small government" means selling off all the county's assets to foreign investors (electric, gas, water, BT, the Railways, now the NHS, education, Royal Mail and partly state owned bailed out banks), so they can devalue the workforce, rule by intimidation and fear of losing our jobs and or homes and thus creating a two tier economy in a two tier society. remember the next job could be yours and you have no protection anymore and few rights you are now free to be abused by your boss and this applies to public and private sector alike. Pensions, sick pay, holiday pay either gone or under review - 'Conservative sweatshop Britain'

Living in an unequal society is bad for us, bad for our children's futures and ultimately will be so bad for society that it will push people over the edge, look forward to civil unrest, lawlessness, looting and rioting on our streets as hungry people try to feed their families, think I am wrong? Think back to the summer riots of 2011, not quite the same, but see how easy it is to ignite when people feel they have finally had enough? Think back to the Conservative party's and Margaret Thatcher's poll tax riots of 1990, the lessons of history are staring at us in the face.

How much do people want their children to grow up in a grossly unequal society where they feel grossly undervalued and have little or no prospect of getting a proper job with proper pay and proper conditions?

People must force themselves to think about the legacy they are handing their children if we allow this Conservative government to proceed unchallenged. It is not the legacy of the great 2008 global crash we should be worried about, it is the legacy that is now being mapped out in Downing street by a former PR con man in Cameron and an ex towel folder in Osborne aided and abetted by corrupt lobbyists and government advisers from banks, hedge funds, private equity companies, private health companies, energy conglomerates and corporations and a party called the Liberal Democrats who no longer knows it's arses from its collective elbows. We are being overrun by people from Eton who haven't a clue what it is like to live on the breadline or in fear of the postman and the next big energy bill falling on the mat, or finding the money to feed the family. Look at the sudden rise in the number of foodbanks and thousands queuing up to get long life food to feed their families on, this is all down to this government and their dogmatic agenda.

People must ask themselves if they really want their children to live in a country with little or no proper healthcare/NHS or adequate state education? Because this is what is happening, right here and right now and if we do nothing to stop it, so it will be and so it will be because we allowed it to be so!

This government are mapping your child's future out now, think about that and ask yourself do you really like the kind of selfish, harsh nasty society they are making? Sweatshops, part-time work, low paid work, zero hour contracts? Government workfare litter picking schemes? Being forced to work full-time for companies for under £80 per week JSA, the same companies who make hefty donations to the Conservative party coffers.  A country with little or no social  housing and virtually no chance of buying a place to live? What will be next, estates filled with boxes like in shanty towns where people are forced to live because they can no longer afford to live anywhere else?

Where is panicking George Osborne's 'Help to buy'  'Funding for Lending' schemes leading us? Another crash timed for just after the next election when interest rates will suddenly be increased by Osborne's Patsy Bank of England Governor Mark Carney?

Yet more ready made excuses to impose more austerity measures on us? Reduce our working rights, pay and conditions still further? Allow more Chinese companies in to set up their own sweatshops to supply their own cheap shops which will start springing up on every single High Street in every single part of this country, while Osborne reduces their tax burden and increases ours?

Allow more foreign investors in to create a monopoly of our markets, and force us to pay even more for our gas, electricity and water? The Tories have *ALREADY* subcontracted part of the running of this country out to these energy conglomerates and now they are allowing in the Communist Chinese Government and the French Government to place a stranglehold on what price we will pay for our electricity for the next 35 years. While in their respective countries they enjoy cheap energy because we in Britain are being forced to pay for it.

Ask yourself how many bosses in the Conservative supporting CBI, the banks, multinationals, energy conglomerates, corporations, hedge funds and private equity funds do you see waiving their pension rights? Their multi million pound bonuses? Their multi million pound pay packets? How much bedroom tax are these people forced to pay for their mansions?

Ask Sammy Laidlaw the boss of British Gas conglomerate Centrica who just hiked the price of our gas and

electricity  by 10% by pleading poverty for his energy company while forgetting to mention his company is both the producer and buyer of energy, so they set the price and buy off of themselves and refuse to tell us for how much. Mr Laidlaw has just applied for permission to build a second huge heated swimming pool in the grounds of his sprawling Cotswolds mansion. Don't be too hard on him though, after all he must try and spend some of the £5 million he earns each year (at our expense).

Eton educated as our prime minister and chancellor Sam Laidlaw has the PM covering his back and sticking up for him and his swimming pools and his millionaire lifestyle. The irony of him heating two huge swimming pools while David Cameron tells us to put on an extra jumper and stay in one room to keep warm rather than stand up to these energy bosses and force them to put their prices down. While this government deliberately drive down our standards of living and allow the cost of living to get completely out of control because the PM is in cahoots with all the bosses and the bankers. Until last December, Centrica boss Sam Laidlaw whose father was Chairman of BP Oil, was a close adviser of David Cameron in Downing Street.

Sam Laidlaw once had  words of praise for David Cameron, when he sat on the PM's business advisory council.

“The Budget we’ve just had was very supportive of business, and I think people need to judge by the track record rather than by some of the rhetoric. Business needs to be behind the Government as well.”

We are being governed by "predators" who have rigged the system and who are being aided to rig the system by the Conservative prime minister.

We are in effect gradually slipping back to the Victorian sweatshop age, no wonder George Osborne looks up to that age with such affection, it looks like he Cameron and Clegg have modelled their entire Tory controlled government ethos on it.

So if you want to work long hours in unacceptable conditions for low pay and you don't mind that this is all your children will have to look forward to, then vote Conservative at the next general election and give them permission to carry on devaluing our country and devaluing our workers and citizens, while standing up for the energy conglomerates, corporations and big business. Meanwhile I leave you to the words:

It is a national evil that any class of Her Majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions… where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organisation, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad and the bad by the worst; the worker, whose whole livelihood depends upon the industry, is undersold by the worker who only takes up the trade as a second string… where these conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress, but a condition of progressive degeneration.

Winston Churchill.

At least one Tory knew the value of our people.

Ayes to the Left

Cops Trying to Remove 'Private Eye' From Shops

Police are requesting “on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service” that magazine vendors refrain from selling today’s edition of Private Eye. This afternoon two plain clothes policemen asked this vendor working outside Farringdon Station to take down this week’s Eye. When the vendor, who does not wish to be named, asked them why, they said it was at the request of the CPS, specifically because of the cover featuring Rebekah Brooks. They showed identification. The vendor told the cops he would keep selling them unless they produced a court order. Chilling…

Down the road at the nearby Old Bailey potential jurors were asked if they were readers of Private Eye or Guido Fawkes during the selection process. If they answered affirmatively they were excused from jury service. Anyone else a little hacked off by all this?

UPDATE:  Index on Censorship - the free speech campaign with offices near Farringdon Station – went to check for themselves:

News vendor has confirmed to index that he was told potential contempt issues with @privateeyenews cover—
Padraig Reidy (@mePadraigReidy) October 29, 2013

The judge doesn’t find Private Eye amusing:

Judge tells jurors to ignore edition of Private Eye out today making 'bad taste' joke about Rebekah Brooks—
  (@CourtNewsUK) October 29, 2013

UPDATE: 17.24 

Private Eye front cover has been brought to our attention, but AG has decided proceedings for a potential contempt of court aren't required—
Attorney General (@AGO_UK) October 29, 2013

Source

Cameron: 'Migrants Take Jobs Our Young Cannot Do'

David Cameron has said it is time to say "no" to immigrants taking jobs in British factories and start educating children so they have the skills to be employed instead.

The Prime Minister said that in some factories across the country half the work was done by migrants from Eastern Europe.

But he said that they could not be blamed for seeking jobs in British factories when schools and colleges were not producing students with the required skills to do the work and the jobs were there for the taking.

Speaking at the Mini plant in Oxfordshire as he launched a new and tougher apprenticeship scheme, Mr Cameron said: "You can go to factories in our country where half the people come from Poland, Lithuania or Latvia.

"You can't blame them, they want to work, they see the jobs, they come over and they do them.

"But as a country what we ought to be saying is 'No, let's get our education system right so we are producing young people out of our schools and colleges who are fully capable of doing those jobs'."

He said that the welfare system required reform so it "does not pay to be out of work" and immigration needed to be restricted.

Mr Cameron said: "Let's have sensible controls on immigration, particularly from outside the EU where we can cap the number of people who come."

Linking education, welfare reform and immigration, he said: "Crack those three problems together and we can really get an economy that generates wealth for our people."

Mr Cameron was visiting the Mini factory at Cowley near Oxford

Mr Cameron was introducing a new year-long scheme which have been designed to deliver high quality training alongside a tougher academic assessment.

He also announced 100,000 vocational training schemes for young people over the next two years, modelled on programmes run by the Prince's Trust.

More than 60 firms, including Mini owners BMW, BAE Systems, Microsoft and Barclays Bank, have signed up to deliver the new apprenticeship schemes.

Mr Cameron, who studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, also hit out at "snobbery" aimed at certain degree courses such as music studies or golf course management.

He said: "What's happened with degrees is, because we are asking students to make a bigger contribution in terms of fees and paying them back over their lives, I think students are getting more fussy about what it is they are putting themselves in for."

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: "Cameron is once again looking to pull the wool over the eyes of the British public.

"He has finally acknowledged the damage that unrestricted Eastern European immigration has had on the prospects of British workers, especially our youngsters.

"Yet this is the same Prime Minister who supports Turkish membership of the EU and the open borders that come with it.

"The rise of Ukip may have prompted David Cameron into talking about immigration but whilst we remain in the EU, talk is all we can do."produce young people with proper skills.

SKY

Stop the war on the poor.

Reblogged from Social Awareness:

A letter a day to number 10. No 552.

Monday 28 October 2013. Stop the war on the poor.

Shares are encouraged and welcomed. If this letter speaks for you and you wish to send your own copy please feel free to copy and paste the text for your own letter.

Website updated, letters and replies plus bonus material featuring Mr Suggs, Eeyore and Ribbit.

Read more… 201 more words

Where do Disabled People fit in Labour’s ‘Tough on Welfare’ - The Party Response

Reblogged from jaynelinney:


As well as sending my letter asking Where Disabled People fit in Labour’s ‘Tough on Welfare’? to Kate Green, I also submitted it as a comment in to Labour.org; I received a reply from the Labour Party today -

Thank you for your email about Labour’s plans for social security reform. 

Because of this Government’s economic failure, the next Labour government must start planning now for what will be a very difficult inheritance. David Cameron claims the economy is fixed, but the welfare bill is going up, not down. Long-term unemployment is up; the housing crisis is pushing up housing benefit spending; and the growing number of people earning less than a living wage is costing the taxpayer more in tax credits and other benefits. 

One Nation Labour will get welfare spending back under control, but based on our values, not the Tories’ failed approach. That means tackling the underlying problems in our economy that drive up welfare spending: unemployment, low pay and the housing crisis. 

The Tories have allowed long-term unemployment to rise. But under a Labour government, nobody who is capable of work will be left to live a life on benefits; people who can work, should work. We will guarantee anyone out of work for two years or more (or 12 months for under 25s) an offer of a real job, which they must take up, or risk losing their benefits. 

Labour will halt the race to the bottom in our workplaces, tackling low pay, insecurity and exploitation rather than leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill. We will strengthen the minimum wage, encourage more employers to pay their workers a living wage, and ban exploitative zero hours contracts. 

Under the Tories, Britain is building fewer new homes than at any point since the 1920s. As a result, rents are soaring, and for every pound spent on bricks and mortar, £19 is spent on housing benefit. Labour will turn this around. We’ll aim to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020, and if necessary, we will use ‘use it or lose it’ powers to force land-hoarding developers to build the homes that communities need. 

Labour will build a social security system that is fair for both those in and out of work. To restore the public’s faith in a system that sometimes appears to give something for nothing, we will look to better recognise contribution of people who have paid in to the system for years. And where the Government’s incompetent handling of welfare reform is costing a fortune, Labour will get a grip, reforming the Work Capability Assessment so it works properly and gives disabled people the support they need.

So it seems the Labour Party feel that reforming the WCA, which I totally agree is essential, is enough to reassure those of us too sick to work will receive the essential support we need. Whilst the ‘recognition of people who have paid into the system’ might refer to a change to the current time limit on claiming contribution based ESA; there is no mention of PIP, or any of the other benefit  losses such as the Independent Living Fund.

Given this and the lack of reference to disabled people having value as human beings  I await a reply from Kate Green herself with intrigue.

Petition to scrap sanctions hits nearly 2000 signatures in 1st few hours

Reblogged from the void:

A petition posted on the 38 Degrees website late yesterday afternoon and which calls for all benefit sanctions to be scrapped without exceptions has hit almost 2000 signatures already.




The petition – which wasn’t posted by me – uses some of the text from this earlier post discussing the brutal impact of sanctions to benefits which are driving hundreds of thousands of people into destitution.  Tens of thousands of sanctions are handed out every month for the slightest breach of Jobcentre diktats.  Single parents and most people on out of work sickness and disability benefits also face sanctions and this brutal system to soon to be inflicted on low waged part-time workers and people in precarious  self-employment.

A recent report from Citizens Advice warned that sanctions are creating desperate poverty with tragic stories of people going through bins to find food, attempting suicide and becoming ill due to having all money stopped.  Sanctions can now last up to three years.

No government ever changed anything because of a petition.  Power needs to be forced to make concessions, not asked nicely.  But strong support for this petition will show that there are many people in the UK who reject completely the idea that anyone should be left unable to feed themselves or their children in one of the richest countries in the world – for any reason.

So please sign, share, tweet, blog and post everywhere: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk

The WOW Petition, calling for an impact assessment into welfare reform, is also approaching nearly 100,000 signatures, so sign that too: http://wowpetition.com/

New minister for disabled must be made to listen to ignominies & cruelty of ATOS & bedroom tax - by Michael Meacher MP

With a new minister in DWP dealing with disability and a government increasingly riled by persistent reports of the mishandling of work capability assessments by ATOS, now is the time for a renewed push for fundamental changes in these two hated measures.   I continue to receive dozens of letters that tell heart-rending stories about lives that have been wrecked, even destroyed, by the callousness of government regulations as administered by the French IT company, ATOS.   One concerns Richard, a 62 year old blind man who was forced to take early retirement 12 years ago, now left in shock after it was ruled at an assessment that he is now fit to return to work.   He has been registered blind since he was 18 months old, and his wife is also blind.   He had previously received incapacity benefit for the past 10 years, but is now likely to lose that.

Even more distressing, I recently received a letter about a woman who took her own life when the stress of having to find extra money to stay in her home in the face of the bedroom tax became too much.   Stephanie, 53, had the auto-immune system deficiency Myasthenia gravis, an illness that weakens muscles.   On constant medication she was told she needed to pay an extra £80 a month or leave her 3-bed home after her two children moved out.   Already cutting back on food – Stephanie had just tinned custard in her cupboards – and too poor to put the heating on in winter, the demands of the bedroom tax drove her to walk out in front of a lorry on the M6 in May this year.   She had wanted to downsize her home in the West Midlands, but the council had nothing smaller available and the demands for extra money followed.

Another person who has written to me had a bad car accident in November 2000 as a result of which he has serious back and neck injuries and has been confined to a wheelchair for 13 years.   In his own words: “I suffer from fibromyalgia, depression, severe pain in the lower back and constantly have to have pain relief.   My left leg is useless as a leg and will if I don’t watch it get caught under my own wheelchair wheels as I’m not always aware where it is.   My right leg is better but standing upright for even a few seconds causes a massive increase in pain, then I collapse and have even passed out.   I do not work as to spend more than 4 hours out of bed reduces me to tears because of the increase in pain.   I have had 3 assessments by the occupational therapist in recent years, and all recommend I have my own separate bedroom because of my medical conditions.   Then we had a letter telling us our housing benefit was to be reduced by 14% as my wife and I have a 2-bedroom bungalow and we only need one.   We already do not have any heating on in the house except Sue has a Calor Gas heater for which she makes two bottles of gas last her the whole autumn winter and spring.   I have not had heating in my bedroom for 5 years.   I just pile on extra covers on my bed to keep warm and wear mittens to keep my hands warm when using the computer.   So I am now having to take a cut in my food.   I have devised a plan to bring my weekly food bill down to just £12.71.   I will have porridge for breakfast every day costing just £0.17 a day, with that I will have a herbal tea costing £0.04, then at lunchtime I will have a frozen meal which costs just £1 a meal.   For my evening meal I will have a tin of rice pudding, £0.15 every day and before Sue goes to bed I will have a cup of drinking chocolate costing just £0.07.   Add to that a bottle of flavoured water at £0.38 and that will be all my food budget for a week.

Michael Meacher MP

The scandal of UK health inequalities

Large gaps in health between different parts of the country are unfair and unjustifiable. They are driven by social and economic inequalities, and they are avoidable.

In this summer’s sci-fi blockbuster, ‘Elysium’ is the manmade space station where the wealthy have moved to escape diseased planet Earth by the year 2154. Earth has been ravaged by climate change and the majority of the population are living in poverty and sickness. There is no disease in Elysium however: the wealthy elite there enjoy a fresh new ecosystem and have special machines that can restore health within minutes.

“I promise you, one day I'll take you to Elysium” says the hero, Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) to his childhood friend. As an adult he fights for equality between the polarised worlds, attempting to bring the health and wealth of Elysium to Earth. “I promise you, one day I'll take you to Richmond” doesn’t have the same ring to it.  But given the data on health inequalities in England, we may well want to move there.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently released estimates for life expectancy and healthy life expectancy for people in the UK. These tell us (a) how long we can expect to live and (b) how many of those years we can expect to be in good health. They picture is one of stark contrasts:

• Richmond comes out on top for years in good health. Women in Richmond upon Thames have a Healthy Life Expectancy of 72.1 years and men 70.3 years.
• Tower Hamlets is bottom – with women hit worse than men. Women living in Tower Hamlets can expect to live only 54.1 years in good health, and men 55.7 years.
• Manchester also has poor results.  Healthy Life Expectancy is 55.4 years for women and 55 for men.
• Average Healthy Life Expectancy is 64.2 years for women and 63.2 years for men.

Nationally, there are gaps of 7 years for life expectancy and as many as 18 years for living in good health. If you live in Tower Hamlets or Manchester you can expect to see your neighbours getting sick and unwell nearly two decades earlier than you would if you lived in Richmond. Mortality rankings show high risk of developing heart disease, lung disease and cancer before the age of 75 in both Manchester and Tower Hamlets – along with Blackpool, Liverpool and Salford. In these areas, it is likely people will get unwell before they retire. These inequalities in health between the most and the least deprived areas in England are growing, even as overall life expectancies improve.

I fear that, if we allow these trends to continue, we will create ‘Elysiums’ in the UK – a handful of places where people have excellent health, while poor health persists elsewhere. International research concluded that inequalities in health originate in inequalities in the conditions of daily life, rooted in inequalities in power, money and resources. Danny Dorling has produced beautiful but concerning maps, tracking wealth and assets in the UK geographically since the 1980s. He has shown that wealth and assets have concentrated around particular places – leaving other areas with increasingly high concentrations of poverty.

Running parallel to geographical polarisation we’ve known growing social inequalities, described in our recent report: Distant Neighbours. Professor Michael Marmot, in his review of health inequalities in England and Wales (Fair Society Healthy Lives, 2010), highlighted five ‘persistent social inequalities’ that lead to health inequalities between people and places, in:

• early child education and development
• employment and working conditions
• housing and neighbourhood conditions
• standards of living
• freedom to participate in the benefits of society.

There’s such a powerful link between health inequalities and socioeconomic inequalities that change is unlikely unless these factors are addressed.

Since we can’t all move to Richmond, we must advocate for the change that will reduce economic and social inequalities, thereby changing the conditions of daily life that are leading to unfair differences in health and mortality.

A few principles for action:

1. Appreciate the importance of ecosystems and local environments in delivering well-being and good health – because the conditions of daily life in neighbourhoods, in terms of green space and access to nature, matter.
2. Push for economic equality, seeking coordinated action on a national level to break the cycle of income and wealth inequality. This would mean rebalancing the polarised labour market and changing structures of asset ownership.
3. Encourage social equality through childcare, education, improvements in working conditions and job security, social participation and support.
4. End austerity. The impact of austerity has been to deprive the public and private sector of resources, leading to an intensification of poverty and everyday insecurity. Our research reveals the growing prevalence of precarious working conditions, zero-hours and temporary contracts. There are mounting pressures to afford basic necessities such as food, utility bills, and rent; and an unravelling safety net as benefits and tax credits are becoming less generous, more conditional, and increasingly punitive. This is bad for people – for their physical and mental health. Austerity has been championed with powerful rhetoric but is not necessary. We need to convince the country of a different story.

Above all, let’s remember that health inequalities are not inevitable. The genes we were born with are only a small part of the picture. So much of what makes us healthy is found in our daily lives and can be improved: our social lives, our connection to nature and our patterns of work, rest and exercise. But we need to recognise the economic bases of these everyday decisions. They depend on having certain resources at our disposal. A healthier country will be one in which we not only make healthier ‘lifestyle decisions’, but in which there is a fairer distribution of resources (financial, social and natural) between people and places. The year 2154 is still a long way off – and if we put our energies into health equity and social and environmental justice, we shall have no need for Elysium.

new economics foundation

Latest UK well-being stats: what do they tell us?

Almost a year ago we revealed striking patterns for well-being in the UK, based on the Office for National Statistics’ Annual Population Survey. We found big differences in well-being between those parts of the country that were doing best and those that were doing worst.

For example, whilst only one in five (20%) people had low well-being on the Islands of Scotland, the proportion was almost double that (37%) in parts of the Welsh valleys. We also found there is more to well-being than material living standards. According to the ONS, Hull and Blackpool are at similar levels of material deprivation. And yet the proportion of people with high well-being in the former town is 17% higher.
Today, the ONS has provided more detailed breakdowns, allowing us to look at well-being right down to the Local Authority level across the UK. Data is available for both 2011/12 and 2012/13, creating an evidence goldmine for local authorities and health and well-being boards.

Which areas have the highest well-being? Which areas have the lowest well-being? And which areas have seen the biggest drops or rises in well-being over the last year? We’ve only just started exploring the data, but our initial findings show that:

• The highest well-being in the UK in 2012/13 was in Fermanagh in the south west corner of Northern Ireland. The average life satisfaction score there was 8.2 on a scale of 0 to 10 (compared to the UK average of 7.45), and anxiety levels there were the lowest across the UK.
• The lowest levels of well-being in 2012/13 were found to be in Harlow in Essex – with an average life satisfaction score of 6.8. The data shows a significant drop in well-being from their 2011/12 score.
• Which places are doing much better than might be expected based on traditional economic analysis? Well, Copeland on the Cumbrian coastline is ranked amongst the 25% most deprived local authorities in England, and yet average life satisfaction there has been above the UK average for both years of the survey. Ipswich, Weymouth and North Devon also have higher well-being than might be expected according to traditional economic analysis.
• At the other end of the spectrum, we wonder what is happening in Brentwood, Colchester and North Warwickshire – all areas with relatively low deprivation, but much lower well-being than one would expect. Colchester, for example, is amongst the least deprived areas in the UK – and yet life satisfaction was only 7.1 out of 10 in 2012/13, significantly lower than the national average.
• In some cases similar local authorities show very different results. What explains the differences in well-being between Merton and Bromley, two south Outer London boroughs?  Average levels of deprivation are similarly low in these two boroughs, and yet average life satisfaction in Merton is 7.2 whilst in Bromley it’s 7.6.
• The ONS has reported overall rises in well-being in the year to 2012/13, but are there places which have seen well-being falling during this period?  We found significant drops in life satisfaction in various places including Dundee and Chichester. We also found rising anxiety in many more areas including Somerset, Reading, the London Boroughs of Brent and Harrow, Sevenoaks, and Belfast.
• Lastly, we wonder what is happening in Hart in northern Hampshire. True, it is one of the wealthiest corners of the country, and it has the lowest levels of deprivation in England. But what can explain the huge increase in well-being there between 2011/12 and 2012/13, with life satisfaction jumping from 7.3 out of 10 in 2011/12 (which was slightly below average), to 8.1 out of 10 in 2012/13?

These are all preliminary analyses, and proper analysis will require the micro-data which the ONS will release in six weeks’ time. These initial findings raise some questions though (and hopefully some answers as well) for local authorities looking to navigate the challenging times ahead, and striving to improve the well-being of their residents despite severe budget cuts.


new economics foundation