Duty of care?

The government have decided that to follow their policy is somehow good sense, even when the exiting head of the CBI points out that it is doomed to failure. To feign suprise about the economy when following an economic policy that puts potential consumers out of work while raising prices, petrol is now at a record high, and then talk about long term growth. How is this policy going to help the country recover from what is an international debacle concerning the banking system.
Where are the reforms that have been promised? The idea that banks can be self governing is wrong, in fact the the best way to get over the financial crises is by putting a levy of 1p in the £1 on the banks profits. Now to whom do we owe this money tht helped save the bank, why other banks of course. The sense of irony is so tragic that we shoud be laughing not crying. Strangely I agree that the banks should be getting their bonuses if it does attrct the best people, but then surely we want to attract the best in every profession, nursing, teaching, transport, and the police. Yet when they put in for a pay rise the answer always to seem be a problem about funds. Actually on a serious note if I was a shareholder in a bank and the bonuses were really high while the interest rates were low I would start making the executives feel very uncomfortable.
They could say that the bank rate is low but actually they still charge a high rate to borrowers according to their status so why the pitifully low rate for investors. Just look at the rates of the credit card companies, the highest they have been for a very long time. Making it harder for people to pay back and so delaying the mythical recovery of the economy.
We have a government that is so out of touch and the worst of it they as a class always have been. It is the 21st century which means that all information is now accessible, and yet they remain out of touch. People are taking to the streets in protest yet nothing has even been discussed. I would have more respect for them if they actually admit that they were wrong. They just don't care. They may to prfess that they are doing the best for everybody but its not true. They just don't care and the trouble is I don't think they ever will.
As a postscript it took a long time for me to vote for the LibDems. I never will again as they have betrayed me and my optimism for a pocket full of magic beans called vanity. I really don't know who to vote for and until I see some form of duty of care for the men and women of this country then I am adrift in a sea of despair.

Education

The main problem with the government's eduation poliy is that it is based on cost, when it should be based on value. Not the value that is produced by statistics as in the league tables, which are a complete misnomer, much like the World Series, in that it assumes that everybody starts from the same point. No two shools will ever be the same so why should they be judged on a qualifiation based system, where qualifiations may not be appropriate.
I am talking about the value to the person, the community and the country. You annot judge a hilds eduation in money but in potential. How much faster would we have broken the 4 minute mile if the country had allowed working class manual workers to participate. People whose very existence is based on physical activity for 8 hours a day. Who an say that the child forbidden to go on to higher education not due to a lack of academic achievement but a lack of money might be the one to make a breakthrough in medicine, science or peace negotiations.
Are we now reduced to exporting potential students to abroad, giving the Australian, Canadian and Amerian Universities our best potential, not because of knowledge but beause of money. The very same potential graduates that will make officers for some God forsaken useless war. Loyalty and duty are not of a single path going in one direction. The idea that a ountry annot afford to educate it's young shows that the priorities are all wrong.
Why do the government insist on persuing this train, this juggernaut of quasi politial doctrine when it just omes down to a small minded provincial policy that was outdated in the 60's. It's why things changed then beause a prime minister saw the potential that eduation an give.
Now we have stastically operated systems that mean children still leave school being unable to read or write properly, where they feel rejeted by a society that they have yet to beome a part of or even understand. Why are the prisons filling up with young people, whose only life is dulled by a surfiet of drugs, alcohol and violence. As far back as the ancient Greeks they knew the power of eduation as an improving force.
We have given the young consumerism, technology and a disdain for the elderly, not the very things they do need; respect for themselves, for their society and for the people within that society. The young need to understand that education is all about individual responsibilities and understanding the consequences of actions. Something this government does seem to be able to do. They are destroying a complete system of education while blaming something else and not realising the consequences that this policy will have.
I just wonder if we are pulling out of the Middle East to save resouces for another conflict in the South Atlantic. Imagine it could be a hild from a working class family without GCSE's but just armed with common sense who might be able to solve the problem.

Policy problems

Is it me or did I wake up and found myself back in the 80's? The record so far in this coalition government has been rather despicable. Coalition in the same respect as the American/ UK coalition in Iraq. The poor liberal democrats who started as the only hope left to those members of the voting population with some kind of moral conscience have now become the very epitome of the modern day bourgeoise. Someone willing to sacrfice their principles to win. These days they call them yuppies, but I think that has more to do with the lack of education so preventing either an understanding or even the correct spelling.
It does seem that modern government policy probably did seem like a good idea at the time after an expensive meal at Simpsons perhaps written on the back of a napkin. The idea that somehow letting schools carry on without repair, so creating a mirror image of despair. Do they think that by letting schools slowly fall into rack and ruin will either improve the moral of the pupils or teachers? Do they think that the lack of repair will not equate to a lack of respect by society and then be reflected back in the increase in vandalism to schools, the increase in attacks on staff and a lack of respect towards society as a whole. Bearing in mind that for some children school maybe the only hope they have to escape a situation that is not o their making. How can they resect society if they are not even worth respect of a habitual place to study. This at the same time they are cutting back on the police. Strange that the amount of policemen in Birmingham city centre increased to enormous numbers while the conservative conferance was on. A helicopter patrolled overhead continuously. The air ambulence has to raise donations for every trip to save lives. Still I am sure that it mahis is the point of this government, they don't care. They may act and talk in flowing rhetoric but they don't care.
It seems as though their policies have very little capability of actually solving any fiscal problem but a great deal in causing a great deal of hardship. After all we all have to make sacrifices, so I would be really interested in what sacrifices the government front bench are making, perhaps not claiming their expenses or paying for the petrol in their governmental vehicles when they go to visit to promote their policies and have their picture taken. A good idea for them to cut back would be to not be paid if they have other jobs, such as a barrister or a lobbyist. Let their companies sponsor their members. I pay for my MP through my taxes, to represent my interests, not to subsidise another agenda.
Of course we could just privatise everything that is a problem or rather that maybe allow the population to have a decent life. What about education? After all they are running it down, allowing people to run schools who have no experience or training in an industry that s over regulated so that they can then sell it off to private enterprise and pay the commission that would pay for every child to have a decent education. I told you it was the 80's.

Justice for Ian Tomlinson

You may remember that Ian Tomlinson was killed as a result of action during the G20 summit protests. As far as I'm aware the CPS is still looking into this but it has now fallen off the press pages and as a consequence off the radar of most people. The Government recently released statistics on the rise in complaints against the police and it is time there was a serious debate about the role and management of the police in the UK.

Perhaps it would be useful to revisit Peel's 9 principles of policing:

Principle #1: The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

Principle #2: The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.

Principle #3: Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

Principle #4: The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

Principle #5: Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

Principle #6: Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.

Principle #7: Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."

Principle #8: Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

Principle #9: The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it

These still look pretty relevant to me.

An article from the Guardian that I would have missed had I not heard the reference to the Inquest findings on 5Live:

"Incident diary reveals ordeal of mother who killed herself and daughter

Fiona Pilkington, found dead in burning car with 18-year-old daughter, kept log of harassment by local youths

• Buzz up!
• Digg it

• Peter Walker
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 September 2009 14.23 BST
• Article history

Francecca Hardwick, 18, and her mother Fiona Pilkington, whose bodies were found in a burning car in 2007. Photograph: Leicestershire police/PA

A vulnerable single mother who killed herself and her disabled daughter after years of harassment wrote about sitting in darkness in her house as youths yelled abuse outside, an inquest was told.

Extracts from a "harassment diary" Fiona Pilkington, 38, kept for her local council were read to the hearing at Loughborough town hall . She kept the diary for a short time about six months before her death in November 2007.

An extract from May 12 read: "They were shouting outside the window from 11.30pm until it went quiet at 2.30am." Pilkington had opened the living room curtains to see if she could scare away the gang, who regularly gathered outside her 1930s semi-detached house in Barwell, Leicestershire. This failed and she turned off the light. The entry ends: "Sat in the dark until 2.30am, stressed out."

The gang returned the next day, the diary records, attacking her hedge.

"It's chucking down with rain," she wrote at 4pm. "Fed up. Cheesed off. Why can't they just walk past without doing anything? Why can't they walk on the other side of the road?"

The last entry was written late at night on June 2, another Saturday. Youths had pelted the house with stones. "They then went [next door] to number 57, lit a fag and then tried to set fire to fences between the houses. Really cheesed off. Can't they just walk down the street without doing anything? It seems impossible."

Little more than six months later, after she had abandoned recording the incidents of abuse or, apparently, informing the council about them, Pilkington drove her blue Austin Maestro to a layby on the nearby A47 and set it alight. Inside, fire crews found her severely burned body and that of her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca.

An inquest has been told that the ever-changing gang of around 16 local youngsters seemed unable to leave the family in peace because they were perceived as different and vulnerable, and fair game.

As well as Francecca's disability, Pilkington's son Anthony, now 19, has serious dyslexia. She herself had borderline learning difficulties and had experienced depression, the inquest has been told.

Although Pilkington called the police 33 times, no one was ever charged over the harassment. In the diary she noted that on the night of May 12 she opted against calling the police again. "Know from experience that no one is usually available from Friday to Monday as it is busy elsewhere. This is a low priority."

Yesterday it also emerged that the council failed to pick up on the family's vulnerability, or share information with local police, even though both organisations knew the identities of the children behind the harassment, most of whom lived on the same street.

Tim Butterworth, a community safety officer for Hinckley and Bosworth borough council, sent Pilkington the diary after visiting her at her home in February 2007, and he read the extracts to the inquest. His only other recorded contact with her was a 10-minute phone call in April.

The coroner, Olivia Davison, noted that in a matter of weeks during that period, police recorded three separate incidents involving the family, including youths throwing stones at Anthony as he rode his bike, and that the council was informed.

"Did it not concern you to explore why this was occurring to this family?" Davison asked. Butterworth replied: "At this point no, because I had no concern for the family." He said he had not picked up on Pilkington's slight learning difficulties and knew nothing of her children's conditions.

Had he known the family's situation, Butterworth said, he would have treated the matter as a suspected hate crime and pursued it far more vigorously.

The hearing heard how the police and the council identified the same hardcore group of tormentors, but seemingly failed to share the information. Both organisations particularly picked out children from a household further down Pilkington's road, which was referred to at the hearing only as "Family A". Earlier this week it emerged that this family had persistently refused to cooperate with officials, remained known troublemakers and still lived on the street despite efforts to evict them.

The inquest has heard that members of the gang, some as young as 10, would pelt the house with stones, eggs and flour, and put fireworks through the letterbox. Once a key member of the group was heard to shout: "We can do anything we like and you can't do anything about it."

The inquest is expected to finish on Friday"

I simply cannot understand how something like this could possibly be allowed to go on for so long. Surely repeated reporting of this kind of activity should lead to a more proactive response from the police/council. I'm sure those 'kids' would have found it much less fun if the were constantly being picked up/detained/fined or, in the case of those who are considered below the age of criminal responsibility if their parents were constantly asked to come and pick them up from the station, or fined.

That this situation is allowed to occur is a shaming indictment of the society we live in. A lack of care, a lack of responsibility and an apparently total lack of support/protection for victims. Who will those 'kids' pick on next? How many of them will end getting into more/worse trouble and ultimately causing further harm and costing more money (either in cleaning up or prosecuting further crimes).

Lockerbie economy

I hope that the Lockerbie bomber was let out on compassionate grounds. It shows that this country at least is capable of compassion. It was a difficult outcome and would be controversial whatever may happen. If it wasn't based upon a humanitarian reason then really it does put us in the same position as the rest of the world. If I was a relative of the a victim of that outrage then I too would be upset, but also think on this. If we by this gesture stop more Lockerbies from happening isn't that a good thing?
I know the Americans are angry about it but wasn't a deal done to get the two journalists out of North Korea or the American idiot who now has stopped the pro democracy leader in Burma from participating in the next election, so enabling the military powers to keep power for another long term. Do the Americans send a senator to protest, (I didn't hear anything), no he gets the American out of jail and back to the USA.
I dare say it was about oil. It generally is these days. Which leads me on to the idiocy of raising tax in a recession. It's not just the duty on petrol but the VAT on the duty. I am not sure but is the government taking 65% of the price of petrol in tax, plus in March unless the money runs out the scrappage scheme stops. Well that really helps the economy.It doesn't help the car industry but it helps the banks or finance houses that give the loans to buy the new cars. Does it really help the car industry? What car industry? Does the government mean car imports or cars built here for foreign companies who make more profits for their home company? If governments, any governments want to aid the economy then lets drop the cost of VAT on building. If you buy materials you pay VAT plus vat on the services, such as employing a plumber. We complain about houses falling into disrepair and not enough houses in the first place well how about dropping VAT on materials by half. The amount of work that would take place would easily cover the first instance shortfall in government revenue. Householders would be able to employ builders or even do it themselves so stimulating the economy through retail and the housing market through improved sales.
We now need a radical rethink in policy. Instead of the simple methods of more of less public spending which never works, depending on who is in government lets have some stimulating ideas about running the economy. Instead of nuclear power lets start by giving houses the opportunity of buying solar panels (without VAT) and proper grants. Have you tried to read the material about getting a grant to put in solar panels? I am reading a book on French revolutions series of economic blunders which led to the reign of terror and that is easier to understand than the documents from the government.
Lets actually stop and think about how to maintain a decent economy, without recourse to oil, but then without oil we wouldn't be in the Middle East,but then that brings us back to Lockerbie.

Education

I understand that teachers are to be licensed with a view to their licenses being revued every five years, this comes in the same breath as the new policy on having individual tuition for every child who is falling behind in English & Maths. Is it me or does this not add up? So lets get rid of teachers in an all ready under populated industry while having the teachers who are already there having to take time out to tutor those children who are falling behind because there are not enough teachers to teach the children they have already got so you have to increase class sizes which makes things worse for the treachers who leave the profession, etc etc etc.
When will governments actually start taking responsibility for the the mess education is in. First it was the super headmaster at a giant salary, when in fact their higher wages would have been better served in recruiting more teachers to make the classes smaller so giving the children more attention. It's not rocket science, but yet again it is all down to cost against benefit statistics. Whatever happened to value? What we need is a proper cohesive education policy. One that involves negotiation with the teachers, and the parents as well as the civil servants and policy makers. This has to be done before policy is rubber stamped, not after.
Try looking at the Dutch system. You know the one where every child takes responsibility for its own learning, the country where children as young at primary school can speak another European language. Where children are allowed to flourish not be squeezed. In fact government should stop looking towards America for their solutions and start looking to Europe. After all are we not in the community now? If I go to Spain, or France or Germany and I have to go to hospital, there will be a doctor who will be able to explain things to me in English. I wish I could say the same here. I have had problems making myself understood in the a&e down the road.
We have become the village idiots of Europe.
We need to change the whole culture of education. Start by putting the word education back into the ministery title. Its not about skills and employment, its about long term belief that education is not about a series of short term fixes, but a long thought through strategy of improving this country through education. Start thinking in terms of education as a profession and not a caring industry. If teachers who are under enough strain have to worry about being tested all the time what do you think they will do, settle for a good old nine to five, with more money, better conditions and no stress, no fear of violence from pupils or parents and actually being able to take cheap holidays in term time; well what do you think they will do?
How about a bit of support from government? How about reinstating teaching as a profession? Bad teachers will leave anyway. Its pretty obvious that whoever thought up this policy has never stood before a class of thirty kids from an inner city estate. Do you know what? Even bad teachers are better than no teachers, now bankers, thats a different matter.
Stop rewarding failure. Stop allowing ceo's big payouts for putting people out of work and their homes. Now if you want to license one group lets start with CEO's of financial institutions. Where they have to show progress over five years, not just a large profit sheet but also social investment. How many small busineses have they helped over a five year period, not by lending them money but also with advice and guidence? How many first time buyers have they given the opportunity to buy their own house and advice on what grants are available to improve it? After all RBS is now owned by the government so why not instill the policy there as a start?
The problem is that MP's can only see everything in terms of their own tenure, but how about licensing MP's. Show us what you have done and we will renew your license so you can stand as an MP, if not it gets revoked so you can't. What about ministers. After all how many of them have been in the profession they are now in charge of. Perhaps a test on what they do every five years. Now thats what I call education.
By the way who ever is stealing our ideas please either stop or start giving us a credit, so we can appear on question time. I know its all there and it is nice that some of the solutions we came up with four years ago are now becoming policy, but give us a credit now and again. It won't hurt your reputation any, in fact imagine what we could do if we had the right backing and support.