Will Quince MP: “Hateful.”

It is interesting – if disappointing – that Tories have leapt up to berate the Corbyn-supporting organisation Momentum for its latest video on the social media.

The video satirises the attitude of middle-class voters who have achieved their life goals with the aid of government policies that have since been withdrawn, low house prices at the time they bought their home, and work opportunities that came their way because they knew the right people.

So we have a graduate who doesn’t want Jeremy Corbyn to end university tuition fees, even though he never paid any for himself; a homeowner who paid £20,000 for her house in 1981 – it’s now worth £1.5 million – saying people have to “work hard and save up” to get on the housing ladder without stopping to think that prices are much higher and wages are much lower; and a man saying people think they “deserve a job without doing the necessary work to get it”, adding, “Nobody ever helped me out”, even though he get his job through his father, who started the business with money from his father.

Here’s the video:

Finally someone said it 😂 pic.twitter.com/FoPN9jmIbZ

— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) July 27, 2017

They are all valid criticisms.

This Writer was among the last generation able to benefit from student grants; the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher replaced them with loans, intending to put poorer students (who weren’t able to benefit from their parents’ money) into debt for the majority of their future careers.

I have never been able to consider buying a house; mortgage costs were already too high when I left school, let alone when I left college – and despite having been a newspaper editor, my salary was never enough to pay for that as well as all my other outgoings. My parents own their house, but if they become ill and need to go into full-time care, under current rules the value of that house will be used to pay for it.

And even in the 1990s, when I graduated, we all knew the power of the ‘Old Boy’ network (sorry ladies, it is a sexist term – although I think it may (still) stand for something that is dominated by men in real life). “It’s not what you know, it’s who!” – as I used to be told 38 times a day by my fellows at the temp agency. My first job was obtained via a tip-off… by somebody I knew.

Of course, the facts haven’t stopped Tory MPs from complaining bitterly about the video. The Guardian quotes these two buffoons:

A masterclass in motivating people using resentment of bourgeoisie caricatures. Lenin would be proud. https://t.co/m77uYJSt4I

— James Cleverly (@JamesCleverly) July 27, 2017

People need to see that this is what has become of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, just hateful. pic.twitter.com/PY9s3NsxVa

— Will Quince MP 🇬🇧 (@willquince) July 27, 2017

If the cap fits, fellows, wear it.

It isn’t hateful to point out attitudes that people genuinely – and mistakenly – hold.

Perhaps the portrayals of the characters in the video are a little extreme (although people like that certainly do exist, James Cleverly) – but the video is asking an important question: Do the rest of us want to be identified as standing alongside them?

And it is true that Jeremy Corbyn’s son Seb has been criticised for taking advantage of the “Who you know” network to get a job working for John McDonnell. Doesn’t that support the argument that’s being made, though – that even an MP’s son had to rely on this system to get work?

But the most effective defence of Momentum’s video is probably the easiest.

If the assertions it makes are so offensive to Conservatives, then why are they based on Conservative policies of the past 40 years?

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Under-pressure firefighters outside the Grenfell Tower blaze last month [Image: PA].

Well, guess what?

Firefighters are quitting that service for the same reasons.

They say the workload is increasing but bosses – and the government – are intimidating them.

According to the Mirror report quoted below, Fire Brigades Union national officer Dave Green said, “Firefighters feel really undervalued, I speak to them all the time. When something like Grenfell or the floods happen we’re the toast of politicians – yet individually they can’t stand us, they continue to pay us pittance.”

With the police, This Writer envisaged a moment when the Conservatives would be able to claim the nationally-funded service was not fulfilling its obligations – without ever mentioning the fact that this is due to their underfunding and understaffing of it – and bring in G4S or a similar gang of profit-driven numpties to protect the very rich and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

Now, it seems I must repeat that comment, with regard to the fire service.

That’s how it works, according to Noam Chomsky:

It leads to the obvious question:

Who would have put out the fire in Grenfell Tower – and rescued the surviving residents – if there was no publicly-funded fire and rescue service and nobody there could afford to pay for private firefighters to attend?

Fire services face a “ticking time bomb” after the number of staff quitting to take other jobs almost doubled since the Tories took power.

Some 1,044 people resigned from Fire and Rescue Services “to take other employment” in 2015/16 – up from just 537 in 2010/11.

The toll of fire service personnel leaving for outside work has now risen for three years in a row.

And the number of fire service staff taking normal retirement is also higher than at any point in the last five years, hitting 1,415 last year.

It comes as the Tory government faces pressure to end the 1% pay cap on most public sector workers and invest in firefighting after the Grenfell Tower blaze.

Firefighters were recently offered a rise of 2% but branded it not good enough.

Fire Brigades Union national officer Dave Green blamed the “incredible” rise on pay freezes, pension changes, spiking workload and an “air of intimidation” from bosses and the government.

Source: Fire services face ‘ticking time bomb’ as staff leaving for other jobs DOUBLE since Tories took power

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[Image: Christopher Thomond/the Guardian].

The Trussell Trust – the UK’s biggest food bank charity – and the Labour Party say more than a million children in England could go hungry over the school summer holidays, while nearly four million more whose families are living in poverty may not be able to afford extra food costs.

And the IFS has already stated that the number of children in poverty could reach five million by 2020 – knocking into a cocked hat Tory claims that a fall in the number of children in jobless families means a fall in poverty, because “it always pays to be in work”.

Even in the face of this damning indictment, the Tories are still saying “employment is the best route out of poverty”.

It would be – but only if the Tories ensured that employers are paying a living wage, not their government’s silly version of it which only pays a fraction of the necessary amount.

This is from the Huffington Post report:

In response to a written question from shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, the government admitted it “has made no assessment of the number of children who are at risk of experiencing hunger during school summer holidays in 2017.”

“It is a national disgrace that millions of children across the country are at risk of going hungry this summer,” Rayner said.

“The government has admitted it has no plans to assist children who are facing hunger during the school holidays.

“The Conservatives are failing in their duty of care to children in poverty, whose numbers are increasing to Dickensian levels under Tory austerity.

“With the IFS forecasting that child poverty will rise to 5 million by 2022, Labour is demanding that the government brings forward a new strategy to tackle child poverty.”

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[Image: iStock].

Legal judgements in 2014 – nearly three years ago – mean that an employer who requires workers to a sleep in at their workplace must include that time in calculations for the national minimum wage.

The union Unison reported at the time, for the benefit of its members: “This means that members, and potential members, who sleep in and are low paid, may be entitled to a pay rise and possible back pay.

“This issue will particularly affect low-paid members in the private or community and voluntary sector who do regular sleep-ins.

“However, some employers may not be able to afford a straight pay rise and this could lead to detrimental implications for other terms and conditions.”

The union said its approach was to negotiate with employers to resolve the issue.

From the government’s latest announcement, as reported on This Site, it seems this approach is not working very well.

A commenter, who wishes to remain anonymous but whose profession may be deduced fairly easily, told me: “We are contractually barred from going to the press and very few social care employers recognise unions. Because of this the only voices you hear in the press are the CEOs and they also have sole access to Parliament.

“The union (Unison) understood the financial pressures and [was] ready to negotiate. Yet the employers were in denial and decided to ignore the judgement and tell us in no uncertain terms that we were not entitled to full minimum wage for hours worked. Behind the scenes have been lobbying to retrospectively change legislation through an astroturf group called Learning Disability Voices.

“The stance suddenly changed on April 1, 2017 with top-up payments to meet National Minimum Wage rates. The increase was sold as a goodwill gesture and the accompanying FAQs simply said ‘Am I entitled to back pay?’ ‘No.’ This is still the official internal advice despite the pending enforcement action.

“One weapon used against us in the press is a statistic that only 0.3 per cent of nights are broken. All that means is that extra hours were only claimed for in 0.3 per cent of the sample checked. We could only claim for emergencies and the first hour’s extra time would not be paid. Extra support and broken nights are normal in many services but we just deal with it as part of the job and the flat-rate payment; logged in diaries and even plans but only claimed for in emergency situations.

“The ruling will be difficult to fund but finally makes the job viable long-term. Standard contracts have no increments, career path, unsocial hours payments, food or travel provision. Time off is often in office hours and so is interrupted with communication with managers and cover requests. Since April I can provide for my family which was barely possible before.

“Continuity of support is the single greatest benefit in this game to the people we work with. Remember that sleep-in staff support people who still receive 24/7 trained supervision after decades of cutbacks – we are never there without good reason.”

That is the current situation, it seems. This Site will inform you of further developments as there are legal cases still ongoing.

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Charlie Mullins apologised after the show for swearing ‘but not the sentiment behind it’ [Image: Tang/ZumaWire/Rex/Shutterstock]

Just when the Conservatives have been trying to blame left-wing politicians and their supporters for the rise of abusive comments against the political class…

And appoint their lead attack-dog on the subject to an inquiry about it…

Along comes one of their donors to engage in personal abuse of the Labour Party leader on national radio.

Nice one, Charlie Mullins! 

The BBC has apologised after Jeremy Corbyn was called a “twat” in a Radio 4 interview by Charlie Mullins, the boss of Pimlico Plumbers and a Conservative party donor.

Mullins was being interviewed on Radio 4’s World at One when host Martha Kearney asked whether the UK should attempt to remain part of the single market after Brexit.

Mullins replied: “Course we should be staying in; Jeremy Corbyn’s a twat, ain’t he?”

Mullins apologised after the show for swearing “but not the sentiment behind it”. He said on Twitter: “Brexit is a subject I’m very passionate about and I apologise for the word I used on BBC World at One, but not the sentiment behind it.”

A Labour source said: “Jeremy condemns all, and does not engage in any, personal abuse.”

Source: BBC apologises after Tory donor insults Jeremy Corbyn

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The minority Conservative government is patting itself on the back because more children are now living in working households – but child poverty in such households is now at a record high.

The Tories’ main strategy for dealing with child poverty has been to get more parents into work, and it is clear that this is succeeding (except in Northern Ireland, where ONS figures show the proportion unchanged over the last five years, at 17.6 per cent).

But it has been proved an utterly pointless effort: The real value of wages has fallen by more than 10 per cent in the last decade, meaning more working households are in poverty than ever before.

Around 67 per cent of the UK’s poor children are now in working families – up from 43 per cent in 1996-7 and 52 per cent in 2007. That’s an increase of one-third in the last 10 years.

The simple fact is that the quality of the jobs available under a Conservative government is far too low to affect levels of poverty. Child poverty as a whole is at its highest level since 2010.

And what do the Tories say?

They say: “Children living in workless families are significantly more disadvantaged and achieve poorer educational outcomes than other children, including those living in lower-income working families.”

Oh, so being at work and in poverty is better than being out of work and in poverty, is it? For whom? The working family or the employer who is creaming off all the profit?

They say: “The proportion of people living in relative poverty is near its lowest level since the 1980s.”

What about the proportion in absolute poverty?

They say: “There’s more still to do and we will build further on this progress with the roll-out of Universal Credit, ensuring it always pays to be in work.”

But Universal Credit actually pushes people further into poverty, with (for example) 12-week delays before people receive their first payment.

There is evidence it forces victims of domestic violence to stay with their abuser.

And there are other problems – see the Citizens Advice report for full details:

The government @DWP must fix problems with Universal Credit before it rolls out to 7 million households https://t.co/DXhyKFiZIR pic.twitter.com/HpTe4j10tA

— Citizens Advice GM (@CAGreaterMcr) July 18, 2017

But the minority Tory government thinks it is wonderful.

Do you think it’s wonderful that working families are now increasingly likely to be as deeply in poverty as the unemployed?

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[Image: MTSOfan via photopin cc.]

The offending companies will not be fined, nor will they be made to pay the arrears they owe their employees, after the care firms whined that they could not afford to pay up.

In other words, the government is telling carers the work they do at night is worthless.

The simple fact is, if these companies can’t afford to pay their workforce, they shouldn’t be applying for contracts to carry out the work.

As a person who receives the pittance known as Carers Allowance for the work I do looking after Mrs Mike, This Writer is particularly incensed that people who devote their careers to this thankless work are being treated like slaves.

A press release from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy states: “The government… has temporarily suspended enforcement activity and is waiving historic financial penalties against employers concerning sleep-in shift pay in the social care sector.

“The government has worked closely with the sector in response to concerns over the combined impact which financial penalties and arrears of wages could have on the stability and long-term viability of providers.

“The exceptional measures announced today are intended to minimise disruption to the sector by recognising these unique pressures, and helping ensure that workers receive wages they are owed.”

How does that work? The government is waiving historic financial penalties against employers who have underpaid their workers for overnight sleep-in shifts before July 26, and is suspending enforcement of payments to the same people until October 2! Some will be thousands of pounds out-of-pocket.

“Social care providers play a vital role in supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our society and workers in that sector should be paid fairly for the important work they do.”

Fine words from an administration that has just snatched huge amounts of cash out of their hands.

“The government remains equally committed to making sure workers in this sector receive the minimum wage they are legally entitled to, including historic arrears.”

Where can we see any sign of that commitment?

“The long-term stability and success of the social care sector is a priority and the government has already allocated an extra £2 billion of funding to the sector, including an extra £1 billion this year.”

Who is getting this money if it isn’t being paid to the people doing the actual work?

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Tired and small: Theresa May’s appearance while delivering her January speech emulated the way the UK will appear to the rest of the world after Brexit.

Now both of the people who wrote Theresa May’s landmark (read: disastrous) Brexit speech in January have jumped off the sinking Tory ship of state.

Chris Wilkins, who resigned as her director of strategy before she scurried off on her walking holiday in Italy, co-wrote Mrs May’s Brexit speech, delivered in January, in which she outlined her plan for the hardest of ‘hard’ exits from the European Union.

The other writer was Nick Timothy, her chief of staff, who resigned the day after Mrs May’s Conservative Party lost their Parliamentary majority in the general election.

At the time, This Writer commented that “It is astonishing to see political commentators attempting to take Theresa May’s Brexit speech seriously. They should attack it for the rubbish it is.

“It is all nonsense and waffle. Theresa Mayfly might just as well have stood up and spent her time saying “Blah blah blah Brexit,” over and over again.

“She wants us to be both outside and inside the customs union at the same time… She said that both Houses of Parliament would be able to vote on any final Brexit deal – but did not explain what kind of vote this would be. It seems she wants to provide the illusion that our democratic institutions are involved, while actually trying to blackmail them into supporting her.

“One aspect we can all agree we knew already was Mrs Mayfly’s determination to control immigration – despite the fact that, as Home Secretary, she had access to EU-approved controls on immigration for six years and never used them. So her words, that while wanting to continue to attract “the brightest and best to study and work in Britain”, “we will get control over [the] number of people coming to Britain from the EU” ring hollow.

“A more plausible reason for leaving the single market, then, is Mrs Mayfly’s determination to stop the European Court of Justice determining matters relating to the UK – but she couldn’t even be honest about this. The European Court has influence only on matters of EU law, and cannot overrule any country on its own national law. Restrictions imposed by the European Court include maintaining workers’ rights, for example, and the quality of goods. Mrs Mayfly wants to scrap UK workers’ rights – and that’s why she wants us to leave the single market. But she didn’t want you to know that, so it seems the Tories have instructed their compliant media to distract us with complaints about immigration instead.”

Would you like me to go on? You can read the full article here.

In the days after the June 8 election, Timothy and Fiona Hill, May’s joint chiefs of staff, quit, followed by the head and deputy head of her policy unit. Three senior communications advisers have also resigned since she called the vote.

Clearly both Mr Wilkins and Mr Timothy, at least, were not up to the jobs they held for Mrs May.

On the face of it, then, she should be glad to have seen the back of them.

The trouble is, prime ministers tend to start out with the pick of the advisors available to them – the best choice they could possibly have.

And that would put Mrs May in deep, deep trouble.

Of course, it is possible that Mrs May’s preferred choices were bad – but that would call her judgement into question.

And that would put Mrs May in deep, deep trouble.

In fact, given the information we’ve seen about the NHS, schools, Grenfell Tower, the trade talks with the US (chlorinated chicken, anyone) and pretty much every other decision made by the Conservatives, it seems that if anything is clear…

It is that Mrs May should be in deep, deep trouble.

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From This Writer’s point of view, this result is optimistic.

Our fellow politics site, Wirral In It Together, submitted a complaint to the police after Theresa May made the statement in the image above during a BBC Question Time debate in the run-up to the general election.

Her claim was that Diane Abbott wanted to wipe records of criminals and terrorists from the DNA database, if elected into office as Home Secretary. This was a blatant lie; Ms Abbott had – and has – no such intention.

So Wirral In It Together submitted a complaint to the police, alleging that a false statement had been made, contrary to s.106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983.

I had a doubt about it. See, the thing about the ‘false statements’ section of the Act is that it relates to a candidate’s personal character and behaviour; the claim must be about something that is not directly related to their candidacy for political office.

So, yesterday, the police responded. They said: “The statements made on the television programme concern Ms Abbot’s (sic) political conduct rather than her personal conduct or character. As such these statements… do not amount to a criminal offence.”

Case closed.

Why do I find this optimistic?

You may recall that This Writer was accused of anti-Semitism – or at least, of supporting anti-Semitism – in the run-up to the council elections in May this year. a charity calling itself the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) and Brecon and Radnorshire’s Conservative MP, Chris Davies, both made this false statement about me, in attempts to force Labour to deselect me as a candidate, and to persuade the public to vote against me. These attempts were successful, although no guilt has been proved (obviously, because I am not an anti-Semite).

Like Wirral In It Together, I informed the police that a crime of making false statements had been committed, contrary to s.106 of the 1983 Act.

Like Wirral In It Together, I was told that the police would not investigate it because the comments related to my political conduct.

Unlike Wirral In It Together, I was able to prove that this claim, by the investigating police officer, is entirely false. His contention was that he had contacted the Labour Party and asked whether my membership had been suspended pending an investigation. it has – this is what Labour does now, if members are alleged to have behaved below-standard in their personal – personal – lives. On the basis of this, the officer claimed that the matter related to my political conduct.

Of course, it does not. The allegation of anti-Semitism had nothing to do with my bid for election to Powys County Council. I was not standing on a platform of hatred for Jewish people, which is what the law would require for the claim to stick. What the CAA and Mr Davies had said was not, “Mike’s a bad candidate because his policies are bad” or, “He’s disreputable in his political dealings”; they had said, “Here’s something completely unrelated to his candidacy that means you should oppose him” – and that’s the point.

So I complained about the handling of my case and an investigation has been taking place. As part of that, I submitted case law evidence regarding Alistair Carmichael, the former Scotland Secretary who managed to make a false statement about himself, under the terms of the Act, by lying about a leaked claim that Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, wanted David Cameron to be prime minister after the 2015 election. The offence was committed because, while the information had come to him in his role as Secretary of State for Scotland, what he did with it – most specifically the part where he lied about what he had done – reflected on him personally.

I have been informed by the officer investigating my case that Dyfed Powys Police’s legal department has made a ruling on the law relating to my complaint, and I shall be hearing from the Professional Standards Department (which deals with complaints about the handling of cases) in due course.

I am therefore a ball of nervous energy at the moment.

In the unlikely event that the decision falls against me, I have a further case law argument, which I discovered after I submitted my evidence to the investigating officer. But the evidence I have seen suggests that I should have my way.

And then there will be a criminal investigation, which should be very brief as all the evidence is already available to the police.

And then, we shall see what we shall see.

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Congratulations are due to the trade union Unison, which has convinced the Supreme Court to rule that employment tribunal fees introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2013 were unlawful and discriminated against women and the poor.

The minority Conservative government will now have to repay £32 million to people who have been forced to pay the fees over the last four years.

Where will it find the cash? On the magic money tree? Or will benefit claimants be penalised again? You can be sure the Tories will find a way to use this against us and we must be vigilant to find out how.

This Site has long opposed the imposition of the fees. In 2013 I argued that they, along with plans to make it “tougher” for judicial reviews to be brought to court, were part of a plan to make it impossible for anyone to mount legal opposition against unreasonable Conservative/Coalition policies.

The government had changed the rules on Legal Aid to make it impossible to claim it for benefit-related and employment cases, and the changes to judicial reviews meant the only people able to bring them against government policy would be individuals who were directly affected and could not afford the cost.

With employment tribunals, the coalition government had introduced fees, meaning it would cost £160 to lodge a claim for matters such as unpaid invoices, with a further charge of £230 if it went ahead. More serious claims, such as for unfair dismissal, would cost £250 to lodge, and a further £950 if the case goes ahead.

Here’s what the imposition of these fees did to the number of cases being sent to tribunal:

That is what a 79 per cent drop looks like.

As I wrote at the time, “The plan here is clearly to make it impossible for an unfairly-sacked worker to take a firm to judicial review; how many poorly-paid working class people (and remember, wages have fallen by nine per cent since the credit crunch) have twelve hundred quid knocking around in their back pockets?”

(Wages have fallen again since this was written, and are now more than 10 per cent lower than before the financial crisis).

Unison is to be praised for staying the course, also. In December 2014 the Divisional Court dismissed its legal challenge, but gave it leave to take the case to the Court of Appeal. Lord Justice Elias ruled that, while he accepted the 79 per cent drop in claims was evidence that the system was “extremely onerous” for people in the position of the hypothetical claimants construed by Unison in their legal argument, it was “not so burdensome as to render the right illusory”.

Today’s result appears to render that opinion void. It was an illusion as far as most working people were concerned.

Here’s how the BBC has reported it:

The Supreme Court also found fees were indirectly discriminatory to women.

It ruled the government was acting unlawfully and unconstitutionally when it introduced the fees.

Fees ranged between £390 and £1,200 to get a case heard at a hearing. Discrimination cases cost more for claimants because of the complexity and time hearings took.

The Supreme Court found this was indirectly discriminatory because a higher proportion of women would bring discrimination cases.

It also said that some people would not bring cases to employment tribunals because paying the fees would render any financial reward pointless.

The court’s summary added claimants in low or middle income household could not afford the fees “without sacrificing ordinary and reasonable expenditure for substantial periods of time”.

In another BBC report (on television) it was pointed out that the imposition of tribunal fees meant the government was encouraging companies that abused their employees’ rights.

This in turn, of course, sets a bad example for companies that don’t.

The policy embedded corruption into the employment system.

So we should be glad that justice has been done.

Of course, the fact that a Conservative government thought such an unfair and discriminatory scheme should be imposed in the first place is a damning indictment –

Wasn’t their whole election campaign based on a claim that the Tories were the party of “fairness”?

– and this ruling should be used as another lever to push the Tories out of government.

Will that happen, though?

Would any Opposition politicians care to speak up and demand answers? This is a perfect opportunity to interrupt the minority prime minister’s walking holiday.

Why should she get to relax in foreign parts after having caused so much trouble for working people back home?

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