UN must investigate chemical weapon charges against Sudan

An edited version of this was published in todays i newspaper. See link below:

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/united-nations-must-investigate-chemical-weapon-charges-sudan/

The first genocide this century is underway in Darfur. Despite it being acknowledged as such a decade ago, it continues – unfettered by UN intervention.

An Amnesty International report published today presents overwhelming evidence that the Government of Sudan, emboldened by international indifference, is using chemical weapons on its own civilians. The report, which makes for harrowing reading, documents interviews with 184 survivors. It seems that the Khartoum regime is primarily targeting Fur civilians, living in the Jebel Marra region, not rebel forces. These attacks include the aerial bombardment of villages, ground assaults on civilians and the frequent use of chemical weapons that have killed more than 250 people, perhaps many more.

The Jebel Marra region in Darfur has been under siege by Sudanese government militias since mid-January. Some 34,000 people were displaced in the first 10 days alone. Since the genocide began 13 years ago, 4 million people have been displaced. Forced from their villages into camps, they are now dependent on aid, meagre though it is, for survival.

Amnesty reports that as many as 250,000 people have been displaced in the region with a death toll thought to be many thousands. Rapes and violent attacks are rampant.

That the Sudanese government is now allegedly using chemical weapons should come as no surprise to UN officials. Here’s why.

Firstly, the minutes of a meeting with senior Sudanese officials, including President Bashir, were leaked to renowned US Sudan expert, Eric Reeves, last year. One official was reported as saying, "We shall expel UNAMID from Darfur…We shall make it hell for them”. This would pave the way to forcibly repatriate IDPs [international displaced persons] so that “the job can be finished off”. The document contained an alarming reference to "dirty" chemical weapons. One of the officials allegedly said, “We have started to transport radioactive materials containers to Jabel Um-Ali, with the aim of using them to make bombs and missiles for aerial bombardment and artillery shelling".

But aerial bombardments never stopped (the UN no-fly zones were never actually implemented). They abated for a short time when satellite images captured evidence of bombed villages and mass graves. Aid agencies were expelled so that starvation and mass rape were increasingly deployed as preferred weapons of war. With most of the rebels now deployed to protect territories in the South and the world’s media focused on Syria, Khartoum has once again intensified its genocidal campaign in Darfur.

Secondly, this is not the first time Khartoum has been accused of using chemical weapons against civilians. In 1999 Medicine Sans Frontiers (MSF) raised concerns when the villages of Lainya and Loka were bombed with chemical weapons. The UN took samples, the results of which were never disclosed. MSF expressed concern at the non-disclosure and the fact that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was not asked to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons. Although the OPCW has the powers, in order to act, it requires an official request from another party state. None was forthcoming.

Having failed to act on the warning flagged in the recent leaked minutes, the UN must not allow Khartoum to evade the OPCW scrutiny that should be triggered now in light of Amnesty’s revelations.

Instead of leading the charge, the British envoy to Sudan, Christopher Trott, was shamefully silent today. Having visited Sudan last week, Trott’s trip notes make no mention of the Darfur genocide. The obsequious language seeks to legitimise what is a known genocidal regime, whose president is wanted in The Hague for crimes against humanity and genocide.

British and UN officials, whose lack of resolve is as reprehensible as it is irrefutable, are being outplayed by the barbaric Bashir, who interprets their silence as tacit approval. There are two decisive actions that the UK could, and should, take in response to Amnesty’s revelations.

Firstly, request an immediate, unfettered investigation by the OPCW, ensuring that the findings are publicly disclosed. Secondly, sustaining a genocidal campaign is expensive. Sudan has accrued a $46 billion debt which it can’t repay, much of which is held by Paris Club creditors, one of whom is the UK. As Foreign minister, Boris Johnson could work with European colleagues to terminate talks of debt relief until attacks on civilians stop, aid is allowed through and threats of repatriation are removed.

Beleaguered Darfuri civilians have been failed by successive British and US leaders. Promises of “never again” long abandoned to political expediency. For every broken promise there are countless broken bodies, And still we bury our heads in the[oil rich] sand.

The only thing standing between Jeremy Corbyn & number 10 now is the next PLP plot

The glass door opened onto a fusion of multi-coloured faces. If it wasn’t for the school girls, still in uniform, I could’ve been at a UN convention – not Momentum HQ.

Jeremy Corbyn renewed and strengthened his leadership mandate today – in spite of the McCarthyite tactics employed against him by the New Labour elite. He won because he has a vision and ideas that speak to people throughout the country. His appeal spans ethnicity, class, age and religion. When I visited Momentum on Tuesday, the people I met didn’t fit the media’s reductionist stereotype.

There was a middle aged Jewish woman who organises cake sale fundraisers, a grandmother who knits for Christian aid, the 70 year old Muslim man who left Labour when Blair “took it to the right” but returned when Jeremy Corbyn became leader. I met a white working class lad who listens to Nick Ferrari (to understand right wing views) and a couple of black school girls, to name a few. None of them fitted the description of “rabble”, “groupie” or “hard” anything. They were kind, welcoming and open (in spite of the previous night’s Dispatches stitch up) but above all – they were organised. Confident of winning the leadership election, they had already moved onto their next campaign: JC4PM.

When Jeremy Corbyn arrived to thank volunteers for their work, no one fainted at his feet. There were no selfies. These are measured, discerning individuals who are signing up to a vision of hope – not a cult of personality. Having spent 6 months undercover with Momentum in a “sting” that exposed that there was nothing to expose, I couldn’t help wondering why Dispatches hadn’t chosen to investigate the movement behind Owen Smith’s campaign.

The right wing Labour movement, progress, who the GMB accused of instructing Labour’s front bench to support Tory cuts and wage restraint in 2012, backed Smith. Large sums of money have been donated to Progress by corporations such as Pfizer, for whom Smith worked as a lobbyist.

Save Labour, which instigated a major recruitment drive for Smith supporters (though this wasn’t called “entryism”) was bankrolled by former Blair spin doctors, according to the electoral commission. Donations were made via a company founded by Blair loyalist, David Blunkett, called Labour Tomorrow Ltd. Donors include Blair’s former spin doctor, Peter Mandelson, and a hedge fund manager. The company has reportedly given Save Labour £117,000.

I was dismayed when JK Rowling endorsed the Save Labour campaign to back Owen Smith. Her defence of New Labour’s record on single parents seemed incongruous. She is a woman I admire greatly and I read Harry Potter to my son every night, but her hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn is misplaced. One of the first things Tony Blair did when he became PM was to cut benefits to single mothers. Jeremy Corbyn defied Blair and voted against cuts to lone parents.

Under New Labour, inequality almost doubled reaching levels not seen since the 1920s.  Decades of market-based capitalism has left the UK one of the most unequal countries in the OECD. It was Tony Blair’s de-regulation of financial services that precipitated the recession, which left the richest, 64% richer and the poorest 56% poorer. Privatisation of the NHS and education was also promoted during the Blair years (which Smith has previously said he’s comfortable with).

Despite Labour HQ trawling through members’ social media accounts and purging 130,000 individuals on specious grounds (such as tweeting comments on the Tory leadership election), Jeremy Corbyn emerged victorious today. He has made the Labour party relevant to ordinary people and inspired an unprecedented surge in membership. With 600,000 members, Labour is now the biggest left of centre party in Europe.

The only thing standing between Jeremy Corbyn and number 10 now is the PLP plotters who have serially undermined him. If BP executives resigned en masse and sought to topple the CEO with a smear campaign (damaging the company brand in the process) they wouldn’t expect their old job back when their treachery backfired. The pugilistic plotters will need to earn back, not just Jeremy Corbyn’s trust, but that of battle weary Labour members and supporters. 

Grammar schools are fact factories that specialise in social engineering

This piece was published in today's Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/grammar-schools-social-engineering-my-child-moved-away-11-plus-exams-good-of-the-children-theresa-a7232591.html

Corbyn's NHS Message De-Railed by Tax Exile Richard Branson

This piece was published in Open Democracy & the Huffington Post

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/tess-finch-lees/corbyns-message-on-nhs-was-de-railed-by-branson

The corporate heist of the NHS by private health providers, made possible by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, is a national scandal. Not just because it involves dismantling services, selling off public assets and demoralising frontline staff, but because it has largely gone unreported in the media. Jeremy Corbyn’s pledge to renationalise the NHS yesterday served as a much needed lifeline to those fighting A&E closures and NHS cuts.

I went online to hear Corbyn’s press conference. The Mirror’s website beckoned to “view” Jeremy Corbyn “unveil” his NHS plans, but clicking on the link led me to old footage featuring Owen Smith. Then I clicked on Sky’s link to Corbyn’s speech but instead of showing his renationalisation pledges, it showcased their reporter badgering Corbyn to respond to tax exile Richard Branson’s release of dodgy cctv footage (for which he’s being investigated for breach of data protection laws).

Traingate backfired when Virgin passengers waded in to support Corbyn’s version of events, but it didn’t stop the media sabotaging his message. Some journalists missed the memo that it was an NHS news conference and made the story Corbyn’s refusal to be diverted from that.

As a last resort I clicked on the BBC link to Corbyn’s press conference. Despite it being the British Broadcasting Corporation, there was no footage of Corbyn speaking. The leader of the opposition, voiceless and silenced on one of the public’s biggest concerns. The systematic dismantling of the NHS. Apart from a few random quotes, the segment was mostly given over to facile “analysis” by the BBC’s health correspondent.

There was no mention of the Health and Social Care Act, which removes the responsibility of health care provision from the government, section 75 of which compels tendering for contracts, £16bn of which have been awarded to private contractors since 2013. Nothing about the fact that Corbyn warned in 2000 that PFI would saddle the NHS with debt (now £222bn). Yet another thing, along with Iraq, Austerity and de-regulation that Corbyn got right and New Labour got wrong.

Perhaps the greatest omission by all the media’s “analysis” is that Corbyn’s NHS renationalisation announcement had been de-railed (forgive the pun) by one of the biggest beneficiaries of NHS privatisation. Sir Richard Branson. At the same time as Corbyn’s NHS pledges were being hijacked by Traingate, it emerged that Branson’s Virgin Care had beaten off a joint local NHS bid to win a contract, worth £17.6m a year to co-ordinate adult community health services in Guildford.

Despite operating as a tax haven and, according to Tax expert, Richard Murphy, Virgin Care is unlikely to pay tax in the UK in the foreseeable future, the company has been awarded contracts worth millions to provide NHS services across England. All hidden behind the NHS logo.

Last week Virgin Care lost its contract to run Croydon’s Urgent Care Centre in the wake of criticism by the CQC, which found patients were being streamed by untrained reception staff which compromised safety. 30-year-old Madhumita Mandal died of multiple organ failure and sepsis caused by a ruptured ovarian cyst after a receptionist at the urgent care centre failed to refer her to a medic.

The problem is, private companies are not bound by the same accountability as public services and they’re driven by profit, not patient care.

Trainsgate’s smokescreen served to divert attention away from the NHS, which is Owen Smith’s Achilles heel. Having been a corporate lobbyist for pharma giant Pfizer, his claims of being a “socialist to the core” are unconvincing.  Pfizer was recently accused of breaching UK law by increasing the cost of an epilepsy drug by 2,600 percent resulting in the NHS bill for the drug rising from around £2 annually to more than 40 million in 2014. Pharma giants, like corporate lobbyists, are not known for their socialist credentials.

Smith previously extolled the virtues of PFI and private sector “choice” in the NHS. He says he has since seen the light of socialism and assures us he is now firmly anti-privatisation. I’m minded of the saying, “Someone who stands for nothing is likely to fall for anything”.

In a bid to scupper Corbyn’s NHS announcement, Heidi Alexander also launched an ill-advised diversionary attack obligingly published in The Guardian last week. Criticising Corbyn for disobeying her instructions not to join junior doctors on the picket line raised questions about her own judgement, as then labour MP responsible for health. Why had she failed to support striking doctors and Caroline Lucas’ NHS reinstatement Bill, designed to reverse the blight of privatisation?

Post Brexit, the integrity of journalism, as well as politicians, is under scrutiny. Subverting or distorting Jeremy Corbyn’s message on a subject so important to ordinary people as the NHS does little to regain public trust.

If Female Labour MPs Want to Tackle Misogyny They Should Denounce Austerity Not Jeremy Corbyn

Doing an interview on Irish radio last week, discussing how it feels to be a "foreigner" in Britain post Brexit (not very good), I got a job offer live on air. I was tempted, but declined. 

The article below will be published on the Huff Post in the next few days. This will be my last blog post for at least 3 weeks. I'm off to retrace my childhood holidays, touring the west coast of Ireland with my family in a campervan. No screens allowed....except for absolute emergencies.

Having opted out of social media because of death threats, I’ve encountered the dark misogyny that seeks to silence opinionated women. So I despaired when I saw this very real malaise being hijacked by prominent Labour MPs, including Heidi Alexander and Angela Eagle, to score points against a man they want to oust. Women in politics face many threats, Jeremy Corbyn isn’t one of them.

Anger expressed as abuse is unacceptable and it’s scandalous that women in public office are subjected to significantly more than their male counterparts (though Blairite Ian Austin’s recent bullying of Corbyn during PMQs was disgraceful). Regarding Labour’s leadership election, all the evidence suggests that members, and the public, are angry at proponents of New Labour - irrespective of gender.

Ordinary people are under constant siege. Relentlessly having to mobilise and ward off threats to our libraries, leisure centres, schools and hospitals. Bit by bit the heart of our communities are being ripped asunder by ruthless, ill-conceived Tory cuts. In this, the country’s hour of greatest need, Labour’s NEC has banned constituency meetings. The wrath unleashed by Labour plc, who fiddle 

while Rome burns, should come as no surprise.

Austerity has hit women twice as hard as men. Women in work are reliant on food banks and skip meals to feed their children. 85% of all the cuts have been at women’s expense and recent research shows violence against women has increased with austerity cuts to domestic violence services.

Is it any wonder the public is angry with Alexander, Eagle, and their New Labour colleagues who back austerity and failed to vote against Tory welfare cuts? It was Tony Blair’s de-regulation of financial services that precipitated the recession, which left the richest, 64% richer and the poorest 56% poorer. Decades of market-based capitalism has left the UK one of the most unequal countries in the OECD. When David Blunkett announced in 1997 that “re-distribution of wealth is no longer an objective of the (New) labour party”, he wasn’t kidding.

Far from getting the £350m a week extra promised for the NHS, within days of Brexit, plans to accelerate the closure of my local A&E were approved.  As the party that founded the NHS, Labour should be providing strong opposition to Tory cuts. That wasn’t the case under Heidi Alexander’s stewardship. Her failure to support Caroline Lucas’ NHS Reinstatement Bill (reversing privatisation) felt like a betrayal to those of us on the front line (mostly women) in a battle for which the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Angela Eagle angered her CLP, who backed Jeremy Corbyn, when she defied them and stood against him. It’s ironic that she called upon Corbyn to resign because he couldn’t command the support of his PLP, yet her own CLP passed a vote of no confidence in her last week.

Anarchy is what happens when those with power abuse the democratic process, not least by stifling and criminalising legitimate dissent.

The £25 membership fee is entirely in keeping with the New Labour exclusive brand, wherein the right to vote was extended only to those who could afford to buy it. Owen Smith, whose proclaimed anti-austerity credentials are risible, didn’t object to the fiscally prohibitive membership fee, despite it discriminating against those most impacted by austerity. Unfortunately for Smith, the public are more discerning than in the Blair era and, having been spun to within an inch of our lives, post Brexit we’re reading the small print.

We can deduce, for example, that Smith is the candidate supported by the right wing Labour group progress who the GMB union accused of instructing Labour’s front bench to support Tory cuts in 2012. Large sums of money have been donated to Progress by corporations such as Pfizer, for whom Smith worked as a lobbyist. Pfizer was recently accused of breaching UK law by increasing the cost of an epilepsy drug by as much as 2,600 percent. As a result, the NHS bill for the drug rose from around £2 annually to more than 40 million in 2014.

In 2006, Smith extolled the virtues of PFI (which is bankrupting the NHS), private sector “choice” in the NHS and academies. He also seemed nonchalant about Iraq.

If New Labour MPs are concerned about the misogyny endured by ordinary women on a daily basis they should denounce austerity, which the New Statesman described as “an economic and cultural assault on women”. They should also countenance the wisdom of Einstein who understood that “Problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them”. 

Are “Snakes in Suits” destroying our world? Lessons from Chilcot and Brexit

This blog was published by The Huff Post today. Feel free to share the link & leave a comment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tess-finchlees/learnings-from-chilcot-br_b_11009958.html

The only thing standing between me and loose women is Tony Blair. A promising career in Broadcast media, brought to an abrupt end when I accused Tony of hijacking publicity on Channel 4 news.

At the same time as I was congratulated by the editor for doing “an outstanding job”, my name was being erased from the “expert contributor list”. Number 10 (which I took to be Alistair Campbell), I was later told, had called while I was mid interview demanding that I be ejected from the studio. My criticism of Tony Blair’s handling of the Darfur genocide was, apparently, beyond the pale.

One of the greatest unspoken tragedies of the Iraq war is that Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Hilary Benn turned their backs on the first genocide this century. Resources and troops that should have been deployed as peacekeepers to prevent another Rwanda, had been expended fighting an illegal war in Iraq.

A few months ago, a young Sudanese man, fleeing the genocide in Darfur, was crushed to death by a truck in Calais. Thousands more languish in refugee camps throughout Europe. This is a direct result of Tony Blair’s failed foreign policy.

In between episodes of Benefits Britain and Can’t pay? We’ll take it away, I managed to read the entire Chilcot report into the calamitous Iraq war. There are two recurring presages that emerge in almost all post crises critiques. Group think and psychopathy. In each case, the signs that could have averted catastrophe were missed. Lessons, though documented in post-mortems, are rarely learned.

And so, as with most post disaster autopsies, such as Enron, Challenger, and the global financial crash, there it was in Chilcot’s report. Groupthink. A phenomena wherein “like minded” clones make the big decisions, excluding dissenting views and questioning voices. Every business school and leadership manual in the world warns that decisions made in this way are perilous. Chilcot exposed Blair’s cosy “sofa style” private meetings involving just a handful of unquestioning yes men, from which even members of his own cabinet were excluded.

Instead of toeing the party line, the excluded MPs should have spoken out and demanded more and better evidence. They chose not to do so. They failed to raise the alarm, putting self-interest ahead of the national interest. Sitting Labour MPs who backed Blair’s reckless war should now do the decent thing and resign.

There is a direct causal link between that war and the rise of so-called Islamic State. Many of the terrorist attacks which killed people in Europe and the US in recent years were carried out by young disenfranchised Muslims radicalised by the Iraq war and its aftermath. Of that, there can be no doubt.

The invasion, and the lies about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) used to validate it, have also undermined confidence in political leadership in the West. The Chilcot report documents in shocking detail that the political and governmental structures which planned the invasion were unworthy of public confidence.

The second theme that, although seldom articulated, is invariably evident in post disaster inquiries, is the prevalence of psychopathic leadership behaviours. Dr Robert Hare is an expert in psychopathy. He maintains that people in power tend to score higher in psychopathic dimensions than the rest of us. In his book “Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work”, he says psychopaths are motivated by “their own selfish desires, regardless of consequences to others”. He describes them as “superficially charming, manipulative, lying, guilt free, lacking in empathy, ruthless and unwilling to accept responsibility”.

All of these adjectives have been used to describe the behaviours of the main political players post Brexit. Having unleashed a tsunami of hate and havoc on our nation, they abandon the sinking ship without a care in the world for the traumatised souls left drowning in a sea of excrement. Not a single life boat to cling to.

Still living with the devastating consequences of the doomed Iraq invasion, this country has been thrust into yet another cataclysmic, life altering upheaval. With the same hallmarks of groupthink and remorseless psychopathy, I wonder how much more chaos and reckless abandon, this weary world can take. 

Corbyn Coup Misjudges Public Mood

The article below has just been posted on The Huffington Post website. Why not click on the link & show Corbyn some love. Wherever you are in the world!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tess-finchlees/jeremy-corbyn_b_10760550.html

The Blairite coup against Jeremy Corbyn has sorely misjudged the public mood. The economy is in free fall and the rampant racism unleashed by the Leave campaign makes the “No blacks, dogs and Irish” signs of the 60’s seem welcoming. Vigilante bigots now roam our streets attacking “foreigners”, issuing unofficial deportation orders demanding, “We want our country back”.

The first parliamentary debate I attended ten years ago was on the Darfur genocide. I took my place in the press gallery just as the then secretary of state for International Development, Hilary Benn, stood up. His opening words served as my first lesson in political chicanery, “I am delighted to see such a full house”. There were 6 people present, including himself.

After wards, I asked John Bercow (my then MP and Darfur ally) why Benn had implied there was a full house. He said, “One word Tess. Hansard” (the official public record). Since then I’ve never taken what a politician says at face value.

The architects of the Corbyn coup, including Benn, defend their treachery by claiming that, if Corbyn couldn’t convince Labour voters to Remain, then he can’t win a general election. But, Corbyn delivered a 2/3 Labour majority for the Remain camp, something Margaret Hodge, who tabled the motion of no confidence against Corbyn, ironically couldn’t achieve. Her constituents voted to Leave. 

The truth is that the coup wasn’t staged because Blairites don’t think Jeremy Corbyn could win the next election. It was because they fear he could. A Corbyn win would be an unequivocal endorsement of his progressive Labour and yet another outright rejection of Blair’s right wing New Labour/Thatcherite agenda.

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople failed to inspire. Women, young people and ethnic minorities hardly got a look in. Producing the toxic trio though (Blair, Brown and Campbell), was the final nail in the coffin. I know people who voted Leave out of protest at being pontificated at by “The war mongering Bliar”. The idea that the men who presided over the global financial crash would boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, is in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

The Blairites went up against Corbyn nine months ago. He won the leadership with a landslide victory. The membership rejected their right wing austerity agenda, which lost Labour the last election. They rejected the “Tory light” candidates, who failed to vote against Tory welfare reforms last July, which proposed abolishing legally binding child poverty targets, cutting child tax credits and Employment Allowance, as well as housing benefit for young people.

Among the several thousand people that flooded parliament square on Monday to show Corbyn their support, were junior doctors. They weren’t there to mourn the resignation of Shadow Health Secretary, Heidi Alexander, who refused to stand by them on the picket lines. They were there to reciprocate the unequivocal support Corbyn showed them during their months of bullying by Jeremy Hunt.

New Labour supported the Con-Dem’s Health and Social Care Act, which sanctioned the privatisation of the NHS. Heidi Alexander had the opportunity to reverse elements of that by backing Caroline Lucas’ NHS reinstatement Bill, but she declined to do so. At a time when the NHS is under constant attack, Alexander lacked the conviction to fight for it.

One of the few people on the political landscape that people trust, whose integrity we cling to as we drown in a quagmire of Brexit fallout, has been stabbed in the back. The brutality of the attack has fuelled the contagion of hate and makes the Tories look like teddy bears.

When all Labour’s guns should be pointing at the industrial incompetence of the Tory wreckers, the Blairites are plotting to oust their own leader. Someone even they agree, is an honourable, decent man. They want to replace him with a Teflon Tony or a PR Dave. Media darlings they may be, but arguably two of the worst Prime Ministers in this country’s history. If ever there was a time for principled leaders, like Jeremy Corbyn, it’s now. 

Britain is Broken

In a vote that became about hate & fear v's love & hope, hate won. Like many immigrants waking up in Britain today, I'm not feeling the love.

My Independent article this week (below) unleashed a barrage of hate. Outrage at the temerity of suggesting that austerity, not immigration, is the cause of the shortage of school places, GP appointments and social housing. Immigrants didn't cause the global economic crisis & without our taxes the UK's debt would/will rise and, as for austerity? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Britain is broken. A piece of my heart is broken too.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-my-eight-year-old-thinks-he-could-be-deported-because-of-leave-rhetoric-clearly-its-time-to-face-a7095016.html

"Am I a foreigner mum?" Why I don't want any part of a little Britain

The article below was published in today's Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/now-my-eight-year-old-thinks-he-could-be-deported-because-of-leave-rhetoric-clearly-its-time-to-face-a7095016.html

An Ode to Michael-John

Remembering my dear Dad on Father's day. Michael-John Foley grew up on a farm in county Mayo, Ireland. He walked bare foot across the fields to school. He was my hero.

I remember your favourite colour was blue

That you liked crew neck jumpers & a dapper shoe

I know you had your fair share of strife

& that West Brom’s performance was the bane of your life

Never knowingly short of a yarn, your stories always had me gripped

Out for a stroll in Bridie’s field

A convincing ghost – you had us all tricked!

Poaching salmon on your neighbour’s land, who today would understand?

Foraging barefoot you brought home the grub

Your mother was proud, ‘till you became an honorary Dub!

You strutted your stuff on a Saturday night

The clubs of Camden provided much needed respite

Travelling around from town to town

The cold dank digs didn’t get you down

The crib you made with your own bare hands

For me that was Christmas, magical & clever

The bedtime stories you created

Enchanting & funny. Thanks belated

The Sunday roast you always cooked

Because, you said, “The Shelbourne is booked”!

Hide & seek in Phoenix Park

Picnics & caravans, up with the lark

Behind the curtain in economy class

You said, “I have a dream” & the passengers laughed

In Bogota, pursued in the street

Wearing a Chicago bulls cap – not exactly discreet!

There are those consumed by bitterness & anger

& there are those, like you Dad, who rise above rancour

A gentleman – you never complained

Whatever your burden you bore it alone

Your grandsons meant the world to you, in them your legacy lives on

Last Christmas with Archie was so very special,

Memories abound to look back upon

When mam died you were broken hearted

Death did you part, now at last reunited

A loving father right to the end

Determined to shield us from what no-one could mend

You died like you lived, with dignity & grace

No-one can ever fill your space

Wise, witty, warm & true

Our lives won’t be the same without you

Michael-John, you’ll be in our hearts forever

Memories of you we’ll always treasure

Child sex abuse stories buried under EU referendum hysteria

This blog was published in Monday's Huffington Post. Just before Clement Freud (BBC quizz show star & liberal MP) was exposed as a rampant paedophile.

Every child sex abuse news story triggers a Pavlovesque reaction in me. It’s as if a jagged blade is lodged in my heart and someone’s twisting it. The physical pain is searing.

Searing, but transient. It comes from having worked with, and opened my heart to, sexually abused children and adults. For survivors, the blade and the concomitant pain is constant. Every breath a possible trigger.

Stories of child sex abuse featured every day this week, albeit buried under EU referendum hysteria and spin. Although hard, survivors, who have often been silenced and disbelieved, welcome the truth about the scale of child sex being exposed to sunlight.

Twenty years after the Rotherham child abuse scandal, the first arrest was made yesterday. In the wake of the Jay report, which revealed the rape and trafficking of 1,400 children between 1997 and 2013, the National Crime Agency (NCA) began an investigation in 2014. This week it was announced that the investigation will take at least 8 years to complete. Two years in and having already been ignored by the South Yorkshire Police for a decade, this protracted timeline adds insult to injury for beleaguered survivors. Justice delayed is justice denied.

In January, Les Paul was convicted (for the third time) for abusing four boys whilst he was a care home manager in Lambeth in the 1980s. The Goddard historic child sex inquiry is currently investigating claims of high level systemic paedophile networks operating throughout Lambeth care homes in the 80’s and 90’s.

A recent Newsnight investigation revealed that, in 1986, Lambeth discovered that one of its care home managers, Michael Carroll, had a previous conviction of child abuse which he hadn’t disclosed in his job application. Yet, the conviction, and his failure to disclose it, did not result in his dismissal. It gets worse, when Carroll asked if he could turn one of the care homes into a centre to provide therapy for victims of child abuse, Lambeth agreed. It wasn’t until Carroll was sacked for fiddling his expenses in 1991 that the press was made aware of his child sex convictions.

In a report published yesterday, Leicestershire County Council pledged its full support for the Goddard historic child sex abuse inquiry. The council is one of several organisations required by law to contribute to the inquiry’s first investigation which is looking into allegations against former Leicester Labour MP Grenville Janner.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, some survivors have expressed misgivings about the pressure being brought to bear on Justice Goddard by lawyers representing the myriad of institutions accused of exposing children to abuse by powerful politicians.

When Justice Goddard took over the inquiry she promised to put survivors at its heart. If she is to instil trust and credibility, survivors’ voices cannot be silenced and side-lined by loquacious lawyers acting on behalf of powerful institutions and individuals.

I publicly criticised Justice Goddard’s predecessors. Their establishment links undermined trust amongst survivors, without which the inquiry could not claim credence. I gave Ms Goddard my conditional backing when she was appointed sixteen months ago. I said then and repeat again now, that survivors must have absolute trust in the integrity of the process. Otherwise, it will unravel.

Theresa May described the inquiry as “A once in a lifetime opportunity”. We owe it to survivors to get it right.

Other child sex abuse stories in the news this week:

·         Richard Huckle, described as “Britain’s worst paedophile”, was given 22 life sentences in a London court. He admitted to 71 charges of sexually abusing children in Malaysia and Cambodia from the ages of six months to twelve. He exploited sexual taboos to silence his victims.

·         While Nigel Farage was recently engaging in racist Brexit scaremongering about migrants sexually abusing Brits, a former UKIP aide, Aaron Knight, had just started a prison sentence for paedophile attacks on a boy.

·         A United Nations whistleblower, Anders Kompass, who was suspended for exposing the sexual abuse of children in the Central African Republic by peacekeepers, resigned over the organisation’s failure to hold senior officials to account.

·         Teenage sisters abducted a toddler from Primark in Newcastle. They had allegedly run internet searches on how to kidnap & rape children.

·        A former Eton student, Andrew Picard, eluded a prison sentence after making and sharing more than 2,000 graphic images of child abuse of children as young as two, which included rape and bestiality. His lawyers argued for leniency on the basis of the promising future that awaited him.

People Power & A Child's Thwarted Rebellion. All For The Love Of Our NHS

“There’s no school tomorrow” announced my 8 year old the other day. Panic seized me like a python around my neck. Hyperventilating at the idea of arranging last minute childcare, I had a transient flash of lucidity. “There’s nothing about that in the school bulletin?” I said doubtfully, realising said bulletin had been languishing at the bottom of my child’s book bag for days. “It’s a strike,” he said casually, “we balloted for it today”. My heart sank like a brick as I braced myself for a call from the head master.

Some back story. My 8 year old was very cross when he discovered (in First News) that he’d missed the memo about the recent national children’s strike. He’s against academies, and tests of any kind of course, so he felt robbed of his day off school, I mean, day of protest.

With squinted eyes my disgruntled son sought to extract my motives for preventing him from going on strike. I explained that strike action is borne of a collective decision taken locally by a representative group or body having balloted its members. That was the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago.

Fast forward to this week and my child has put a notice on the school gates declaring tomorrow a day of strike action. For the NHS, no less. The “ballot” consisted of a petition to “Save our A&E” and, having gained several signatures from children and staff alike, the designated representative group (the Secret 7…which is more like the secret 17 because no-one who wants to join is excluded) voted in favour of strike action. To top it all, I was to blame.

Last week, I had been gathering baby booties from parents with small children at the school gates. The local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) were meeting last Tuesday in a fourth attempt to axe our A&E (the local health campaign group, of which I’m a member, thwarted three previous attempts). We knew the good men and women on the board who had previously voted against the (un)accountable officer (the boss), had come under intense pressure from above, so we didn’t expect a positive outcome this time.

We had submitted compelling evidence and had won the rational, clinical and intellectual argument. We needed a plan B now, to win hearts, as well as minds. Hence the baby booties. I arrived at the board meeting armed with 20 pairs of baby shoes and divvied them out amongst the public. The room was packed. My every move was watched by communications people whose job it was to spin the meeting to within an inch of its life. There were more PR people on the premises than there were doctors in the hospital.

I sat in the front row with my child’s first pair of moccasins. They were no bigger than the palm of my hand. I was there to speak up for him and the other children in this county who, had the A&E not existed, might not be alive today. Many of the booties came with a story of a child who had, at some point, fought for their life in the back of an ambulance. I realised I couldn’t share them all but I had to tell one.  Joshua’s mum had thrust his tiny shoes in my hand and said, “Put these in front of the chairman” and tell him my child’s story.

Doctors who become directors (CCG members are mostly clinicians) have conflicting interests. As doctors, their Hippocratic oath, Do no harm, takes precedence. As directors, corporate law dictates that finances and saving money trumps saving lives. The sterile boardroom arena, with spreadsheets and acronyms abound, is designed to keep the human element out of the decision making. I wanted to bring some humanity into the room, to remind doctors that the decisions they made would determine the fate of real children (as opposed to stats on a spreadsheet). Vulnerable human beings who depend on our generation to make the right decisions and leave them with a local health service that’s fit for purpose.

The public were reminded, “This is a meeting in public, not a public meeting”, which means we’re not allowed to speak unless or until the chairman says so. There’s the occasional display of low level civil disobedience, such as a local woman in her 80’s who regularly interrupts ever so politely with variations on the following, “I’m terribly sorry and I don’t mean to be rude…., followed inevitably by,….”but you’re talking total nonsense”, or “this is a farce”, thus the scene is set for theatre (heckling the baddies and clapping the goodies).

We waited patiently and then the public was granted 30 minutes to speak. Not nearly long enough for all the hands up but, that was our lot. The chair prevented the razor sharp, forensically informed chairwoman of the health campaign from speaking until the final moments.  But when she spoke, it was Hollywood gold. It was like being in a courtroom, listening to the closing arguments by an impassioned lawyer. Speaking as though her own life depended on it (it may well do), she set out a compelling case not to sign the death warrant of her client. In this case, the NHS. Nye Bevan would be proud. The rapturous applause turned to shouts of protest and slow clapping, when the chair malevolently announced he was drawing the public’s time to a close. Not only was he cutting our time short, he had allowed the (un) accountable officer to speak for 15 of our 30 minutes.

I stood up but the chair, seeing me armed with my BMDs (booties of mass destruction), tried to prevent me from speaking. Refusing to give me the mic I was forced to raise my voice to be heard as the meeting descended into chaos. This is Joshua’s story:

Joshua, age 2, had a severe fit a couple of weeks ago. He’s had a number of fits. Previously first responders came and waited with his distraught mother while an ambulance arrived. The wait is usually 15 minutes. On this occasion the ambulance took over 30 minutes during which time he stopped breathing. The first responder didn’t arrive.

First responders are increasingly not turning up, especially in critical cases. They’re local volunteers, trained in basic first aid only. They know ambulances are taking longer & longer to arrive & they didn’t sign up to holding people in their arms as they die.

In the ambulance Joshua turned blue and developed a rash. Paramedics changed route to allow them to get to the nearest A&E (having closed the children’s ward in our local hospital, children are now forced to travel almost twice the distance to get to another hospital). They made it clear that the best interests of the child was paramount & that meant getting to the nearest A&E as quickly as possible. Mothers at the school are terrified. If they shut our A&E, our children wouldn’t have that option and they could die.

Even healthy children are vulnerable to medical crises, such as anaphylactic allergic reactions, asthma, meningitis etc, where speed of access to A&E is of the essence. 

While I was speaking, people slowly emerged, like ghosts, from the public gallery and placed the baby booties on the table in front of the board. The solemnity and stillness of their movements was incredibly poignant. More so than I’d imagined when we’d planned it. I took my seat with the others and waited for the vote. To our astonishment, it was another victory and, even though we know the threat has not entirely disappeared, we savoured the moment. One of the board members approached me afterwards to say the blue fluffy booties I put in his hands made him think of his 2 year old. (I had reached out to him in particular because I thought he was one of the incredible doctors who treated my child in hospital).

The BBC had surreptitiously captured it all on a mobile phone and it was broadcast twice that evening. My son had seen it, which inspired his petition. Fortunately, by the time we got back to school, the rain had washed away any traces of the strike notice. The only evidence of a child’s thwarted rebellion clung to the tarmac, the blue ink bleeding a trail of destruction on a pulverised shred of white mulch paper. 

Anti-Semitism, Islamaphobia And Racism In Any Form Must Be Condemned.

There’s an acrid stench of stale turgidity emanating from the inexorable anti-Semitism headlines. This week, commentators accused Jeremy Corbyn of bias for standing against anti-Semitism and, racism in any form. Condemning anti-Semitism doesn’t count, it seems, unless it is singled out for special treatment.

To suggest that some forms of racism are more worthy of censure than others is a disturbing development. Racism, in all its forms, must be called out. There can be no hierarchy where the oppression of one group is deemed more tolerable than that of another.

In ten years of genocide prevention, I have worked with faith leaders of all denominations. One of them, a rabbi, called me yesterday. He was dismayed at how Judaism is being “hijacked by the unrepresentative, yet omnipotent, pro-Israel lobby”. In a misguided attempt to discredit Jeremy Corbyn (for the crime of speaking out against the plight of Palestinians), he said, “They are sabotaging our fight against real anti-Semitism”.

In 2009, Peter Oborne exposed the ubiquitous, insidious reach of the Israel lobby in his Dispatches programme. In it, Michael Ancram, a former Conservative shadow Foreign Secretary said, “The pro-Israel lobby is the most powerful in British politics”.

Speaking at a Conservative Friends of Israel (CIF) dinner in 2008, amid accusations of Israel’s human rights abuses in Gaza, David Cameron addressed the party’s “biggest donors”. Gaza didn’t merit a mention, but he promised, “If I become prime minister, Israel has a friend who will never turn his back on Israel”.  He who pays the piper calls the tune. Many believe that David Cameron’s BDS ban was pay back, or the first instalment.

The charges against the Labour party took root in February when Alex Chalmers resigned as co-chair of the Oxford Union Labour Club. He reportedly labelled the club’s support for Israel Apartheid Week, which aimed to highlight Israel’s “ongoing settler-colonial project and apartheid policies over the Palestinian people”, as anti-Semitic. It’s akin to accusing those who supported anti-apartheid in South Africa as anti-white. Conflating any criticism of Israel’s foreign policy with anti-Semitism is scurrilous, dishonest and an attack on free speech.

Then came Naz Shah’s tweets, which were sent two years ago when Ed Miliband, a Jew, was Labour leader. Why are they only emerging now? To cause as much damage as possible ahead of the local elections today. The media has made much of this being a test of Corbyn’s leadership, so right wing lobby groups, Blairites and the media, are seizing the opportunity to expedite his exit. Instead, it has galvanised his support.

The London Mayoral campaign has been plagued by dog whistling, with Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith accused of attempting to portray Labour’s candidate, Sadiq Khan, as a terrorist sympathiser. David Cameron was called racist in the House of Commons when he repeated accusations that Khan was affiliated with an imam he alleged to be an IS supporter. It transpired that Suliman Gani is a prominent anti-extremism campaigner and a Conservative supporter. He lambasted the Prime Minister’s personal attack as a betrayal. Boris Johnson was also accused of racism last week but the media is not calling for an inquiry into “rampant” racism in the Tory party.

Question Time on Thursday didn't raise any questions about the racist, scare mongering tactics employed throughout the mayoral election campaign by the Tory party. Instead it focused on Labour’s anti-Semitism allegations. The audience (and panel) was a sea of white faces. There was a pro-Israel panellist who licentiously attacked Labour’s “problem” with anti-Semitism. There was no Muslim voice to challenge the Islamaphobic rhetoric detonated by the Tories, like a hate bomb, spreading toxic contagion over London.

Earlier in the week, The BBC was forced to apologize after its presenter Andrew Neil also falsely referred to an imam as “a supporter of the Islamic State”. The man responsible for news and current affairs output (including Question Time) at the BBC is James Harding, an avowed pro-Israel proponent.

Jeremy Corbyn was right to condemn anti-Semitism and racism in any form. Whether it's Jews in the Holocaust, black Africans in Sudan or Muslims in Gaza, when it comes to human rights and racism, there can be no hierarchy of worthiness.