March For The NHS This Saturday: "The NHS Will Last As Long As There Are Folk Left With The Faith To Fight For It" (Nye Bevan)

In towns and villages throughout Britain, an invisible army of NHS foot soldiers have been fighting cuts, closures and the creep of privatisation for years. On Saturday, the army will march on London and I’ll be there with my placard wielding 9 year old.

Ever since my child was nurtured back to health by the NHS having been seriously injured in a car crash, I’ve been part of a local campaign to safeguard both of the county’s A&Es. I live in one of the most rural counties in Britain, with journey times to hospital of over 1 hour already for some. Our Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) wants to reduce a population the size of 19 Birmingham’s to just one A&E. What started as a handful of people is now one of the most formidable health campaigns in the country, with thousands of members who have seen off 2 health chiefs, thwarted 4 attempts to close an A&E and won the respect of the local press, who were initially hostile.

The clue is in the name, accident & emergency.  When patients are faced with life threatening injuries/illnesses, time is absolutely of the essence. There was a 25% increase in deaths when Newark A&E was closed, even though that increased the average travel time from 7minutes to 12 minutes. The distances to A&E where I live, are already further than anywhere else in the country. 

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine cautioned recently, ‘Emergency care pressures are not going to go away, just by closing an A&E department. In many adjacent areas, most A&Es are already pretty full, and most hospitals are pretty full with regards to admissions. It only takes a small change to tip the balance to a hospital being congested. To close a department is likely to have a domino effect on other hospitals.’

A legal Requirement for any major restructuring within the NHS is to do a patient & public needs assessment & an impact assessment on neighbouring hospitals, primary care, social care & planning data. None of this have been done and not a shred of clinical evidence has been forthcoming.

We were promised a network of rural urgent care centres and increased community investment to support the huge predicted transfer of care into the community. Instead, urgent care centres have been scrapped, community hospital wards have been closed and GPs are creaking under the strain of increased workload with no additional resources. That’s before they shut an A&E.

Both A&Es are already stretched beyond capacity. Ambulances are regularly held up in a queue outside both hospitals preventing them from being able to respond to blue light calls. The ambulance service is underfunded and under resourced & they’re regularly taking over 1 hour to get to patients in my region. The air ambulance is a charity staffed by 6-7 volunteers. The fleet is old, can’t land in dark, fog, even drizzle.

In September, the architect of the Health and Social Care Act, Lord lansley, said the act was supposed to be about promoting better services to patients but admits the focus is becoming increasingly about reducing costs – not improving quality of patient care....

“We must not allow reconfiguration to be used as a means of constraining demand – by restricting supply. The NHS must have the resources it needs for a sustainable future. These necessary resources are not anticipated in the current spending review”.

Having failed to invest in social care & the community infrastructure necessary to take pressure off hospitals - the founding tenet of this act - acute service cuts cannot be allowed to proceed. Having immersed myself in consultant speak for over 2 years, I’ve spotted that “improved patient pathways”, and “strategic Transformation Plans (STPs) can be translated as “cuts”. The pathways are designed to divert traffic away from hospitals even if it means into the morgue.

Then there’s the corporate heist of the NHS by private health providers. The Health and Social Care Act removes the responsibility of health care provision from the government. Section 75 compels tendering for contracts, £16bn of which have been awarded to private contractors since 2013.

While the media lens was focused on Richard Branson’s spat with Jeremy Corbyn in August, Virgin Care was quietly signing an NHS 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.

In July, 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 or employee wellbeing. A recent study showed that mental health related absences in the NHS, due to stress, depression and anxiety, have doubled under this government. Apart from the tragic human costs, sickness and absence costs the NHS millions every year.

One senior A&E sister who left my local hospital in the last few years said, “It’s like being in a war zone every day. There was never enough staff on duty to cope with demand, so we were working under constant stress. Every time you’re forced to deprive a patient of the care they need, it chips away at your soul until eventually there’s nothing left to chip away at and you just stop caring. That’s when most of us realise it’s time to leave the profession”.

If we accept the narrative that NHS cuts are necessary, it follows that we concede privatisation is inevitable. If we relinquish the principal of public health care for all, we’re signing our NHS over to corporate providers. That is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. 

Brexit is the greatest fraud perpetrated on the British public

An edited version of my blog (below) was published in today's Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-referendum-alternative-facts-brexit-bill-white-paper-european-union-a7558886.html

You might also be interested in reading a pre EU referendum piece I wrote debunking the myth that immigration is bad for Britain: 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

Brexit is the greatest fraud perpetrated on this country since Tony Blair’s dodgy Iraq dossier. It was predicated on lies and tonight it was legitimised by deceit.

MPs who voted to remain in the EU in June, queued up to give Theresa May carte blanche to trigger article 50, which sets us on an irreversible course of self-destruction.  The only honourable justification for MPs, who hitherto vehemently believed remaining in the EU was in the country’s best interests, not opposing Theresa May’s bill tonight, would be if they had been persuaded that the opposite is true. Instead they all hid behind the vapid UKIP mantra, the so called, “will of the people”.

The idea of being driven to economic ruin (for which the poor will pay) for political expediency is, in my view, an act of constitutional vandalism. Worse still, it flies in the face of all the emerging evidence indicating the will of the people has changed since June.

Professor Low of Staffordshire University has analysed the result of 13 polls since the Brexit vote in June, all of which ask variations on the question, “would you vote the same way again”. A staggering 11 of the 13 polls show that, were there to be a second vote, Remain would produce a decisive victory. Whilst the remain vote held firm statistically, a significant number of people who voted to leave would now change their vote.

In December, the West Midlands Express and Star newspaper published this: We DON’T want out anymore: shock poll reveals Express readers have changed their minds.  When asked before the referendum how they would vote, 80% of readers voted leave and 16% remain. When asked the same question in December, an incredible 62% voted to remain with only 37% voting to leave. 

The Express and Star conceded that it was the biggest survey the paper had ever carried out, with 10,000 respondents.

Why was Brexit fraudulent?

1. It traded in “alternative facts”, or lies. Most notably the promise of £350 million a week to the NHS which was rescinded as soon as the vote was in.

Families in my community have fallen out because older members admitted they voted leave, believing the NHS would get the promised cash. The younger ones feel betrayed by their parents and grandparents and the parents and grandparents feel betrayed by the politicians who deceived them. 

2. Only 37% of the population voted and of them only 26% voted to leave. This is not a representative or legitimate outcome.

3. The referendum did not require the 2/3 majority which is the norm when the outcome involves major constitutional change. 

4. In the wake of the Brexit win, a significant number of those who voted leave told the media they regretted it, or didn’t understand it, or thought it could be reversed at the next election, or that they did it as a protest against austerity and the Tories.

An irate local farmer told me he voted to leave as a protest against EU bureaucracy that delayed payments of his subsidies. When I pointed out that Defra was responsible for the delays, he said, “That’s right!”. He thought Defra was an EU department. He didn’t realise it was the department for rural affairs and that the EU had fined our governmental department for its incompetent administration of subsidies. No matter, we got our country back, even if it means losing the subsidies and keeping the incompetence.

Britain’s farmers received £2.4bn last year in EU payments and the NFU has already warned that many farms would fail without these handouts.

5. There was no mandate to leave the single market, sell off the NHS to US private health insurers or to turn the UK into a tax haven.

6. EU membership already has built in border controls under the “right to reside” test. This provides conditions to entry, such as, having a job or being financially self-sufficient. There are no immediate, automatic entitlements to benefits, which require further conditions. Most other EU states impose these controls rigorously but the UK has been less assiduous in its implementation. If immigration is such a problem, why did Theresa May not sufficiently implement the EU controls at her disposal in her 10 years at the home office? 

Brexit has divided the nation. For Theresa May to unite the country she must heal wounds and take the public with her. This can only be done through a second referendum, which eradicates the fraudulent failings of the first.

As Churchill said, “Never give in--never, never, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”. Brexit is neither, so I’ll never, never, never give in.

Trump's ban on Muslims is divisive and dangerous.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets throughout Britain last night to protest against Donald Trump’s declaration of war on Muslims. That’s what the ban on Muslim countries amounts to. 1.5m people in the UK signed a petition to prevent Trump’s “state visit” to our shores and parliament voted unanimously to repeal Trump’s immigration ban, leaving Theresa May isolated in her sycophantic, shameful acquiesce.

This show of solidarity and defiance against the US miscreant affords some much needed succour to my jaded soul. This country will not be divided by hate and fear.

Article I of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Donald Trump’s contempt for human rights is not breaking news, but his executive ban on Muslims shows a chilling incognisance of history, human psychology and national security. Far from being safer, by depicting all Muslims as suspected terrorists, Trump is making the world a more dangerous place. His dehumanisation of an entire people based on their religion is sinister and dangerous.

Dehumanization negates the humanity of people different to us, who are portrayed as imbecilic and sub-human. It desensitises us to the plight of “other” and makes the conditions for discrimination and oppression possible. Slavery, the Holocaust, the Rwanda and (ongoing) Darfur genocides are just some examples of how the dehumanisation of people, based on colour or creed, can become justification for persecution and ethnic cleansing.

In order to diffuse the dirty bomb of hate that Trump has detonated, we must counter the narrative that conflates Islam with terrorism. Throughout the reporting of “the troubles in Northern Ireland”, I never heard the words “Protestant” or “Catholic” followed by the word “fundamentalist”.  Not since the holocaust have human beings been so universally demonised because of their religion. Standing by and allowing it to happen again would be unconscionable.

Dehumanisation is expedited with stories depicting the outgroup as evil. When we have little contact with people who are different to us, we become susceptible to the shorthand of stereotypes, which is why we need to get out more and share our positive stories.

At seventeen, in my naivety, I decided to trek across Europe (from Ireland) to visit my friend who was au pairing in Switzerland. The route involved two boats and three trains. On the final leg, I was exhausted and, having chatted to brothers (19 and 20) on the Harry Potter style train for a couple of hours, I dropped off. They watched over me while I slept and missed their stop so that I could be protected and not disturbed. I was struck by their respect for me as a young woman. They were Moroccan Muslims.

In response to Trump’s Muslim ban, Jeremy Greenstock, a former chair of the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee, said  “I don’t think Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to western democracy. If there is to be a global anti-terrorist coalition that is effective, it’s got to deal with some of the causes of it, rather than the symptoms. It’s got to deal with governance in the Middle East.

There’s no evidence that the 7 banned countries pose a terrorist threat in the US, but there is proof that hate speech incites violence and divides communities, which does undermine national security.

In just ten days of Trump’s presidential win in November, 900 hate crimes were documented, 40% of which invoked Trump’s name. 

On Sunday night, 6 Muslims were killed and 8 injured when a Mosque was attacked in what Canadian Prime Minister, Justine Trudeau, called a terrorist attack. The right wing media here and in the US initially reported the gunman as being a Moroccan Muslim, with Trump’s press officer citing it as justification for the ban on “bad dudes”. These claims were false and a suspected white supremacist has now been charged.

In the UK, the Global Terrorism Index reported that the number of terrorism fatalities had steadily grown since the Iraq war and the former head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, said the Iraq invasion led to a huge increase in the terrorist threat to the UK.

Every pound of Muslim flesh that Trump and May feed the far right unpicks another seam in the increasingly fragile fabric that binds our communities together. Shame on Theresa May for her complicity.

How being adopted by a Muslim family and a chance encounter with "white van man" gave me hope for 2017

Chrsitmas got off to a bad start. One of the bikes got stolen from the back of our campervan on the first day of the holiday. Since my parents died, Christmas has been the hardest hurdle. Their absence at the table is agonising. All the fairy lights in Piccadilly can’t ignite the light that grief extinguishes at Christmas. For the past 2 years, we’ve gone away. Left cold by the icy, xenophobic winds of Brexit, and being Spanish speakers, we headed for Spain.

Late on Christmas Eve we parked up on a square in Arco de la Frontera, said to be one of the prettiest Spanish villages. Morale (robbery) and provisions (shops shut) were low.  The next morning, Christmas day, three brothers came out with a football shouting, “Feliz Navidad” (happy Christmas) and invited our 8 year old to play with them. Having spent several hours playing together, the children’s parents appeared with a tray of biscuits, cake and refreshments. Mum was wearing a hijab and spoke Arab to the children. Unable to reciprocate their hospitality, we were reluctant to accept but it was clear that rejecting this gesture of kindness would be rude.

We were invited in for a meal. Mortified, I said, “You don’t even know us”, to which they replied, “We’re all brothers and sisters of the world”.  Overcome by this simple act of humanity, on Christmas day, I hugged the stranger whilst surreptitiously wiping away a tear. After all, 2016 wasn’t exactly the year of compassion.

We were treated to traditional Msmen flatbread and Moroccan mint tea. The sweet amber liquid was poured from a lavish silver tea pot into ornate glasses with golden rims. My son, who had only got a few stocking fillers from Santa (who deposited the main pressies at home), shared what he got (a 4 pack of funky pencil sharpeners and a selection box) amongst his new friends. He wanted to hand my stocking filler over too but when he realised it was a pocket guide to Trumpisms, he relented. “I don’t want them to know that Trump hates Muslims” he reasoned, though I suspect they already have an inkling.

Afterwards, while the children overcame the language barriers by playing the card game “UNO” on the floor, we learned that, although the children were born in Spain, their parents were Moroccan. They met in Northern Spain and had established a thriving business on a market stall. When their oldest child developed life threatening respiratory problems they moved south, hoping to increase his life expectancy. Although he has made a full recovery, the family are struggling to make ends meet. Dad sells clothes out of his boot and both worry for the future of their children in a country that has a youth unemployment rate of almost 50%.

That night, curled up in our van, adorned only by tiny fairy lights (lovingly & thoughfully gifted to us by friends), my son drew parallels between the Christmas story and us being far from home, in a strange place, being shown the kindness of strangers. It’s ironic that my child learned the real meaning of Christmas from a Muslim family whose code of ethics is clearly a way of life, not just for Christmas.

The next day we drove down to the Costa del Sol and parked up in a town where British expats almost outnumbered locals, 60% of whom don’t speak a word of Spanish (though I understand  no language/citizen tests declaring allegiance to the King are imminent). My son struck up a friendship with a British boy on the beach. His father, a self described, “white van man” (WVM) from Rochdale, sat down beside me. He asked if I’d heard about the “nutters” who’d driven a lorry into Christmas shoppers in Germany. I had deliberately avoided all news so I hadn’t. I braced myself for an Islamophobic tirade, after all, he was a white van man and from Rochdale, so he must be racist right? Wrong.

He was horrified by the attack but he was also angry about how Muslims were routinely portrayed as terrorists by the media.  He was particularly angry about the BBC’s reporting on the plight of Palestinians. Turns out, he knew a Palestinian refugee whose family had been killed by an Israeli mortar attack in Gaza. When the Palestinian was walking in the park to keep warm, he came across a gang who had cornered a younger boy and were threatening violence. Rather than walk by, the man risked being deported by stepping in and saving the boy, with whom my son was playing. Since then, WVM has been an active campaigner for Palestinian human rights (unlike Theresa May).

WVM confided that he voted to leave the EU because he wanted to teach the Tories a lesson. He was angry at his Tory led council giving themselves wage increases while bins are left unemptied and deprivation soars throughout Rochdale. He was angry that his local A&E was shut and that the Tories allow fat cats to legally avoid paying taxes while he is vigorously pursued for every penny.

He admitted that he had to work 6 days a week just to get by and that Saturday had to be cash in hand. “I’m not proud to admit that” he said, “but I have to put food on the table for my family”.

He was more ashamed about voting to leave the EU than he was about taxdodging. “It was a protest vote”, he said, "I didn't expect it to count". All the polls said we’d remain. So I figured, what the hell, I’ll give the Tories a bloody nose. My vote won’t matter". Living in an area that also voted to leave, this has been a recurring theme, but it seems the Tories would rather take this country into economic Armageddon  than admit the truth. That the electorate may loate them even more than immigrants.

The moral of the story is not rocket science. Most Muslims are not terrorists and most white van men are not racist. If the only interaction with people who are different to us is limited to prejudice infused stereotypes, fed to us daily on a shovel by the media, the likelihood is that you will believe the opposite to be true. It’s no coincidence that those parts of the UK with the highest number of immigrants voted to stay within the UK. Contact with people who are “other” removes the sense of fear and perceived threat because we’re interacting with three dimensional human beings, as opposed to a two dimensional stereotypes.

To counteract the rising xenophobia and hate crimes unleashed by Brexit, we should all get out more, or rather, put ourselves out there more. Make 2017 the year you speak to people you would never normally engage with. Strike up conversations in the room/bus stop/at the school gates with the person least like yourself.  Open your heart and mind and reach out to your brothers and sisters of the world. You never know, they might surprise you. 

The Casey report is a dead cat. Britain is broken, not because of Muslims or immigrants, but because of gross wealth inequalities.

This blog was published here:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/tess-finch-lees/immigration-isnt-responsible-for-falling-living-standards

“The British people have spoken, so f**k off back home”. Those were the words used by a thug who recently racially abused a Sikh woman where I live. The fact that the woman was British and home is around the corner was a mere fact that didn’t get in the way of an unbridled act of hatred.

A UN report lambasted the EU referendum campaign for using divisive, anti-immigrant rhetoric. It criticised politicians for entrenching prejudices and emboldening individuals to carry out acts of intimidation towards minority communities. UKIP’s immigrant invasion poster still haunts my 8 year old who lives in fear of deportation.

Rather than trying to tame the monster they helped spawn by invoking anti-immigration rhetoric in the EU referendum, the Tories, not to be out flanked by UKIP, are feeding it. The constant drip feed of dog whistling, whether it’s Amber Rudd’s lists or Theresa May’s “Christmas is under threat”, every utterance evokes a wave of nausea. Every attack unpicks another seam in the increasingly fragile fabric that binds our communities together.

We’ve been here before. Shortly after 7/7 I was giving a lecture when a participant arrived late. He had been jumped on by a gang of “skin heads” who shouted “Go home Paki” while beating him up. He was a cockney atheist bus driver, albeit with a deep tan.

Having worked at the frontline of race relations for 20 years, I see the Casey report on integration for the dead cat that it is. Another ennobled government tsar parachuted in to confirm that Muslims, not austerity or Brexit, are to blame for Britain’s woes. Islam is the political scapegoat of choice, which is good news for blacks, dogs and Irish.

Politicians have long since employed the dead cat strategy. In a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the fact that the Iraq invasion made Britain (and the world) less safe, Tony Blair found an easy target in Islam. Scaremongering reports were commissioned confirming that Muslims, a) don’t integrate, b) don’t speak the language and 3) are therefore, all potential jihadists. The solution? A Britishness test and English classes. Ed Miliband also called for language tests, even though the 2011 census showed that only 0.3% of the total population didn’t speak any English.

The only good thing to emerge from Brexit is evidence that integration has been a success in Britain. The areas with the highest level of immigration voted predominately to Remain, because close contact with “foreigners” expunges fears of “otherness”. Instead, they see real people making valuable contributions to their community, without whom GP surgeries and schools would have to close. People who pay their taxes, while esurient corporate bosses pay themselves 140 times more than their shop floor workers and legally avoid tax.

It’s no accident, I believe, that the Casey report coincided with Bank of England boss, Mark Carney’s lecture this week. He warned that globalisation is associated with low wages, insecure employment, stateless corporations and “staggering wealth inequalities”. He cautioned that, unless wealth is distributed more fairly, those left behind will reject open markets altogether.

It’s these left behind people, struggling in austerity Britain, that predominately voted to Leave and, according to the IFS, are also the people likely to pay the lion’s share of the predicted £50bn Brexit bill. The report describes this as a lost decade with living standards the worst since the 1920s, which is a “dreadful and extraordinary” situation.

Britain is at breaking point alright, but it’s not because of immigrants. This is a mess entirely of the Tories’ making. Brexit is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the British people. It was predicated on the lie that the NHS would get £350m a week more and put immigrants in the frame (literally) for hardships generated by years of austerity and under investment.

David Cameron gambled this country’s economic stability and our children’s future in return for his 5 minutes of power. In so doing, providing the far right a platform to peddle prejudice and fear.

The trouble with going down UKIP’s rat infested alley is that it leads to economic Armageddon. Immigrants didn’t cause the global financial crash but our economic recovery is dependent on them.  A recent study by the OBR showed net migration added 0.6% to the output of the economy and claimed that, “without continuing high levels of net migration, even deeper spending cuts and higher taxes would be needed”.

Diane Abbott is right not to dance to UKIP’s tune. Labour must communicate the social and economic benefits of immigration and not be diverted by Tory dead cats.

Donald Trump: Fascim Can Never Be The Legitimate Outcome Of Democracy

This blog was published in the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tess-finchlees/fascism-must-never-trump-_b_13135302.html


Yesterday, Barack Obama asked world leaders to give Donald Trump a chance. To do what exactly? Create a Muslim data base? Build a wall to keep Mexicans (some of whom are nice, the rest are thieving rapists) out? Appoint a white supremacist to his cabinet, signalling that black lives don’t matter? Or, Replace workplace equality laws with a “grab a p***y” day?

If it’s possible to become the president of the United (now Divided) States of America by detonating a dirty bomb of bigotry, inciting hatred and civil unrest, we either accept that fanning the flames of fascism is a legitimate means by which to obtain power, or we reject it. There’s no middle ground.

I stand with the principled people of America and internationally who reject the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency. In a growing movement of conscientious objectors to the normalisation of fascism, one of the most powerful admonitions came from a fellow Dubliner, Senator Aodhan O’Riordain. In a speech which has gone viral, he lambasts Trump as “ a monster” and describes what’s happening in Britain as “appalling”.

Post Brexit, a UN report criticised the EU referendum campaign for using divisive, anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric. It read, “Many prominent political figures not only failed to condemn it but also created and entrenched prejudices, thereby emboldening individuals to carry out acts of intimidation and hate towards minority communities”. An EU referendum leaflet was found in the bag of the man accused of Jo Cox’s brutal murder. A man described as a white supremacist obsessed with far right extremism.

Donald Trump’s campaign bore all the hallmarks of Nazi propaganda. The slogan “Make America great again” and the proposed Muslim database, are straight out of Hitler’s handbook. Appointing Steve Bannon, a man accused of misogyny and endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, as chief strategist, was a gratuitous act of provocation.

Fascism thrived in the wake of the economic depression of the 30’s, preying on fears and pitting communities against each other, competing for dwindling resources. In the wake of a global economic crash now, the far right is invoking the same dangerous tactics.

Capitalism, the illegitimate child of corporate greed and de-regulation, has made a mockery of democracy. There is nothing free about the markets. Corporate giants, with their ubiquitous lobbies buy government policies favourable to their survival. Eroding competition, democracy, human rights and environmental protections in the process.

Rather than admit that unrestrained capitalism has failed, and unable to extol any discernible benefits for the masses, Trump, like neoliberal proponents in the UK and elsewhere, seek instead to divert public rage against those they perceive to be “other”. Lack of jobs, school places and affordable housing is blamed on immigrants, rather than a bankrupt ideology that starves public services of investment and siphons public funds into the pockets of the rich.

Bernie Saunders’ authentic socialist convictions would, I believe, have spoken to the 15 million disaffected families living in poverty in the US and inspired more people to vote for him. There can be no doubt however that, of the two presidential candidates, only one was qualified for the job. Instead, the richest man, bereft of any credentials, snatched it from the abundantly more qualified woman, Hilary Clinton.

One thing is clear, the electorate is fed up of “centrists” who sit on the fence, hedging their bets. People are angry and demand change. Fielding insipid candidates and policies that fail to get people off their sofas to vote is a losing formula.

We need a strong left, unashamed in its defence of immigration, for example. Instead of pandering to the far right, the left should be expounding the virtues of immigration and the fact that an increase of immigrants by just 3% in the workforce of wealthy countries would boost world GDP by $356 billion by 2025. Immigrants didn’t cause the financial crash but we need them (of whom I’m one) to recover from it.

In the UK at least, there’s a vibrant resurgence of the left underway, driven by grass roots movements, like Momentum, inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist policies. Predicated on fairness, social justice, redistribution of wealth and equality, as opposed to self-aggrandisement, hate and fear.

But, for democracy to function and for the left to succeed in providing a healthy alternative narrative, we need a progressive, responsible media. Where are the regular forthright left wing commentators to counter the ubiquitous right wing goaders such as Katie Hopkins and Toby Young?

Last Friday I watched the BBCs Have I Got News For You.  A misogynist, xenophobic, racist had just been elected president of America. Yet, the most senior, accomplished, black female politician in Britain, Diane Abbott, was mocked for the way she speaks.

Trump and Brexit have dragged political debate into the gutter. The wounds inflicted will linger long after the stench of flatulent rhetoric has dissipated into the choke damp ether.

Now is not the time to hide in a bunker. If something’s worth fighting for, be it the NHS, libraries, equality, or multi-culturalism, get out and fight for it. It’ll take more than armchair activism to salvage any hope from this wreckage.

Trump has already made the world a lesser place

"You can't vote for Trump!" protested my 8 year old in response to his friends expressed wish to do just that. "Why not?" she retorted. Having explained that you have to live in America, he added, "...and anyway he hates girls and foreigners, which basically means, he hates you". Outraged, the 8 year old girl said she definitely wouldn't vote for Trump, even if she lived in America (& was old enough...).

They agreed that there was no danger of him becoming president though, followed by a joint, "phew". Why not? I asked them. "Who would vote for someone who hates girls and foreigners," replied my 8 year old, rolling his eyes with an implied "duh".

I hope they're right, but then I never thought I'd wake up to a Brexit Britain. If xenophobia and hatred can win here, anything can happen.

Who knows what kind of hell awaits us in the morning...

I don't buy the poppy propaganda. I won't be wearing one on my lapel

Once in a while someone says something that I wanted to say and does it so eloquently and rigorously, covering all the bases, that there’s nothing left for me to add. Robert Fisk did that yesterday in his article about poppies being the symbol of racism. I had worked on a similar piece for a week but wasn’t brave enough to press the send button. Like Fisk, The poppy on the lapel has always made me feel uncomfortable. I have never worn one & I never will. So much betrayal, hypocrisy, incompetence and deception, packaged up & marketed as something so sanitised & simplistic, it feels sinister. Never more so than in xenophobic, Brexit Britain.  

As Fisk so powerfully put it:

The Entente Cordiale which sent my father to France is now trash beneath the high heels of Theresa May – yet this wretched woman dares to wear a poppy.

When Poles fought and died alongside British pilots in the 1940 Battle of Britain to save us from Nazi Germany, we idolised them, lionised them, wrote about their exploits in the RAF, filmed them, fell in love with them. For them, too, we pretend to wear the poppy. But now the poppy wearers want to throw the children of those brave men out of Britain. Shame is the only word I can find to describe our betrayal.

That’s a hard act to follow, so I’ll keep my powder dry for another day. I give way to the unapologetic, angry, truth exposed by the magnificent Robert Fisk. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/poppy-symbol-of-racism-never-worn-one-never-will-robert-fisk-remembrance-day-first-world-war-second-a7394976.html

How many more babies will die before we protect them from dog attacks?

The following blog was published as an article in today's Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/archie-darby-dexter-neal-dangerous-dogs-attacks-child-i-watched-as-brother-mauled-a7365316.html

Four month old Archie Darby was mauled to death by a dog, thought to be a Staffordshire bull terrier, on Thursday. His 22 month old brother Daniel is fighting for his life. In August, 3 year old Dexter Neal was killed in a savage attack by an American Pitbull. A neighbour reported hearing “agonising screams” through the wall. In 2012, eight-day-old Harry Harper died after being bitten by the family's Jack Russell – the same breed of dog that killed 3 week old Reggie Blacklin in 2011. The list is long and distressing.

There have been 18 deaths from dog attacks in the past four years alone. Many of the victims were children. The traditional hand wringing, furrowed browed, empty rhetoric has, unsurprisingly, failed to prevent these atrocities from continuing to befall our children. At what point do the reactionary headlines and soundbites become steps to protect our children from further attacks?

When I was 3, I watched helplessly as my 2 year old brother was attacked by a dog. It was a beloved docile family pet - a border collie.  He just snapped. The vet informed us a tumour was the most likely reason for the uncharacteristic behaviour and warned that dogs are “never completely safe” around children.

Every time I hear news of another child being mauled by a dog, it triggers that latent trauma. Becoming a mother exposed the extent of my anxiety and, as a therapist, I know that irrational fears can be passed onto children who, in turn, become prisoners to them. I struggled to reconcile my maternal instincts to scoop my toddler up when approached by dogs in the park, and not wanting to inflict my “neurosis” on him.

Dog owners would reassure me that their dog was harmless and I would apologetically explain the source of my “hang-up”. By not being hostile, most dog owners were sympathetic and put their dogs on a lead when they saw us coming. It’s the irresponsible dog owners that are the blight of common public places.

Like the one who was nowhere to be seen when their large Labrador came bounding towards us, jumped at my two year old and knocked him flat on his back. When the owner finally caught up, her response to my bawling toddler was, “There’s no need to cry, he wouldn’t hurt you”. She failed to grasp that her dog had hurt my toddler. “How would you feel”, I replied, “if a giant bear pounced on you, knocking you to the ground”?  

Every time I lowered my guard, something else would happen. Like the time my husband was bitten on the ankle by a small yakking dog whose owner had only just said he wouldn’t hurt a fly. It turned out the dog had bitten several people and its’ owner was belligerently delusional.

There was the time when I was pinned against a tree by 2 dogs barking menacingly. Paralysed by fear I feigned calm, clinging for dear life to me toddler. There was no owner in sight. When he finally arrived, I asked him to control his dogs. He cited the fact that they hadn’t actually bitten us, as evidence that they were “harmless”.

For irresponsible dog owners, allowing your dog to terrorise and intimidate others using public spaces is fine – as long as no blood is drawn.

It’s hard to have a rational conversation with those dog owners who are hostile to the notion that small children are allowed to be “out of control” (off a leash), but dogs aren’t. The truth is, if parents let their toddlers wander around sniffing peoples’ groins and defecating on beaches and parks - pretending not to notice, we’d be reported to social services.

The bottom line is, we know that although most dogs don’t attack, some do. Parents of small children should be aware of that risk, especially when responding to random encounters with strange dogs. Almost everyone I know can recount an incidence of “low level” dog biting, be it another dog in the park, or a child. Only the most serious cases are reported in the media.

On our rambles, we often chat to people with dogs who invariably encourage my child to stroke them. Although I’ve taught my son to be cautious around strange dogs, he’s developed his own strategy of dealing with these situations. He politely declines, saying he doesn’t play with strange dogs, only the ones he knows. They’ll invariably reassure him, “It’s alright, she’s perfectly safe”, to which he’ll reply, “Well, I don’t know you either so I’m afraid I can’t take your word for that”! 

Having grappled with this throughout my child’s infancy, I realise that my anxiety around dogs and small children wasn’t just a manifestation of an early trauma. It was also informed by facts and maternal instinct to protect my child from danger. I realised that my fear of dogs was not irrational. A docile family pet did attack my brother and other attacks, whilst not pervasive, do happen and, we know from the tragic, needless death of baby Archie this week, they can be fatal.

How many more babies must die before we review the Dangerous Dog Act and make it fit for purpose?

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.