Monthly Archives: May 2018

Leaked Labour plan on anti-Semitism reveals the corruption in its current system – and potential future pitfalls

Jennie Formby: The recommendations are intended to address failures in Labour’s complaints procedure but they seem certain to cause even more problems.

This is utterly despicable behaviour by the Labour Party.

I had hoped to write a glowing review of the leaked Labour action plan to reform the way the party investigates allegations of anti-Semitism.

But reading the document has revealed shocking failures in the way the party handled the complaint against me that suggest a horrific level of corruption.

According to the document published by the Huffington Post, the complaints team currently logs each complaint alleging anti-Semitism, assigning it to an Investigations Officer (IO).

It states: “The Investigating Officer reviews the information provided and applies a set of tests to determine whether, on the evidence provided, there is a prima facie breach of the Party’s rules.” This clearly did not happen in my case.

The evidence against me was the Campaign Against Antisemitism’s smear article about me, published in order to harm my chances of being elected to Powys County Council in 2017, and the piece obligingly includes links to my own articles.

Anyone following those links would have realised that my words, as featured in the smear piece, have been doctored – altered to produce a misleading interpretation that was not what I intended. The only logical conclusion, having seen this, would have been that there is no prima facie case to answer.

Instead, Labour rushed to suspend my party membership. To me, this suggests corruption for political purposes. It is known that I belong to the left of the Labour Party (and the centre-left of politics in general), and it seems that right-wingers in the party’s administrative echelons thought they could use the false allegation of anti-Semitism to get rid of me.

“In almost all cases where the evidence is documentary (social media/email), the respondent will be provided with all the evidence which has been used to make the decision to take further disciplinary action along with a set of questions which they are asked to respond to within 14 days.” I received a printed copy of the CAA smear piece and notice of my suspension. There were no questions.

Why not? It seems extremely strange that an allegation as serious as that against me would not prompt even the mildest curiosity on the part of the investigator as to my side of the story. It turned out that they simply didn’t want to know, as you will discover. In the meantime, I was told I could not take part in party affairs and left in the dark for five months.

“Once these answers are provided, the Party will normally have enough information to conclude the matter either by ending the investigation or by writing a report to go to the next quarterly meeting of the Disputes Panel.”

As I was never sent any questions to answer, the Party did not have any evidence from me and could not end the investigation or send a report to the Disputes Panel (although, considering what was done with the information when I did finally have a chance to provide it, the Disputes Panel might as well have considered it immediately). What was going on? All I can suggest is that the process was delayed in order to keep me suspended for as long as possible.

“In rare cases, the respondent’s answers require further interrogation; this may be done via an interview or more likely via further correspondence.” Interrogation! What an interesting choice of wording. As mentioned, I never received any questions by mail or email correspondence. In October last year I was summoned to an interview at Transport House in Cardiff, Labour’s Welsh HQ. I attended, with a friend who was to act as a silent witness, and spoke almost non-stop for 100 minutes, answering questions that were presented to me blind – I had no idea what they would be, in advance of the interview, and I was never told exactly how they related to the allegations against me. At one point I asked the IO whether he had read my articles and he replied that he had not; he had merely been told to highlight passages in particular articles of mine and to ask me about them. I noticed also that he was not taking many notes. In hindsight, it seems he had been instructed to listen for particular answers and to note whether he received them or not. My guilt, I think, had been decided in advance of the evidence and he was just there to confirm it.

“The NEC’s Disputes Panel consider a report on the matter at their next meeting, which may be as many as 17 weeks away, and decide whether there is a case to answer and therefore refer the matter to the National Constitutional Committee (NCC) to be dealt with under their rules… This generally takes the form of a hearing.” My interview was in October 2017 and the NEC considered the report in January 2018 – around 10 or 11 weeks later. This consideration was carried out, not as part of the main agenda, but under “Any Other Business”. This means no papers were provided to members before the meeting and they relied on a verbal report from the IO. As I understand it, this person relayed none of the information I provided in my interview, preferring only to quote the CAA’s smear piece and saying my answers were “vague”. Readers of my articles on the subject will know that I am anything but “vague” about it. In those circumstances, though, it is no wonder that NEC members came to the wrong decision. As I suggested, it seems the intention was to find me guilty, no matter what evidence was put up in my defence.

“The IO then formulates the finalised charges; NEC’s opening submission to the hearing and the bundle of evidence and supplies to the secretary of the NCC.” This never happened in my case. The NEC simply found against me and – after spirited defences by some members – decided to lift my suspension only on condition that I attend “training” at the hands of the highly questionable Jewish Labour Movement – which of course I declined. I wonder whether there was an intention to put me in a situation I could not tolerate, as an incentive for me to leave the Party of my own free will. Not likely! It would have appeared to be an admission of guilt and, as you may have noticed, I’m determined to establish my innocence.

Now we move on to some of the recommendations:

“This document recommends that the NCC is asked to make greater use of provisions … which allow the NCC ‘in what they deem to be appropriate circumstances, to dispose of a case without hearing and to rely solely on written representations’. While there are some cases which this would not be appropriate for, the evidence in the vast majority of current antisemitism cases is entirely documentary and it would therefore be appropriate for the NCC to make use of these procedures in order to speed up the process.” No, thank you! If anything, procedures should be altered to ensure that the respondent has more opportunity to address those who are likely to judge a case, not less. In my case, I had absolutely no opportunity to attend any hearing at which my case was considered. That is not justice. That’s a stitch-up.

“NCC cases are delayed because they have taken on a litigious nature, meaning that respondents sometimes invest in extensive legal representation and take out court injunctions to delay cases to provide maximum time for solicitors to prepare cases… Respondents should be reminded of their right to bring other types of representation – e.g. Trade Union representative – that are not a lawyer to their hearing.” At a time when the Party itself is lawyer-ing up? Is this deliberately intended to put the respondent at a disadvantage? If one side has legal representation, all sides should have it. Anything else is an offence against natural justice.

“There is a perception that cases are not dealt with in a consistent manner due to political forces influencing decisions with particular respondents – particularly at the NEC Disputes Panel stage of the process. Recommendation: The reports on antisemitism are anonymised when they are put to the 3 member antisemitism panel in a similar way to how names are redacted from papers which go to the NEC Sexual Harassment Panel.” I’m not sure how this would work, but it does seem the best recommendation in a bad bunch. I’m sure my own case was affected by political forces. Remember how the report to the NEC Disputes Panel was skewed against me, and I couldn’t put it right because I was not allowed to attend? After the NEC heard this pack of lies and made its decision, both were then leaked to a newspaper reporter who then used it to libel me. This was obviously not an accident. Somebody on the NEC made a conscious decision to use the findings of the NEC’s kangaroo court against me in the press. That doesn’t happen without malicious intent.

Finally: “Respondents seek public attention to campaign against their suspension, which in turn creates wider problems both for themselves and other Labour Party members who campaign on their behalf. Recommendation: All parties should be reminded that public conduct may adversely impact progress of an ongoing investigation. Such conduct may appear to be grossly detrimental to the Party.”

I’ll accept no lectures from anybody in the Labour Party about public conduct.

I initially found out about my suspension from a newspaper reporter who telephoned me because the Party had contacted him to tell him about it immediately after emailing the notice of my suspension to me. I had not seen the email and had no opportunity to digest what was happening before this man dialled me up and demanded a response. Was that good public conduct? I think not.

The organisation whose article triggered my suspension – the Campaign Against Antisemitism – took glee in reporting the Labour Party’s actions against me, despite knowing that there is no factual basis for them. Labour’s recommendation seems to be suggesting that I should do nothing in response to this casual flouting of the facts. Is that good public conduct? I think not.

The Labour Party itself passed defamatory information about me to a third party – that’s libel – which allowed The Sunday Times and several other right-wing papers in turn to libel me as a Holocaust denier. Was that good public conduct? Of course not.

And it seems to me that there is a threat in that recommendation. Public campaigning is said to create “wider problems both for themselves and other Labour Party members who campaign on their behalf”. Why? Because Party officers and representatives will take note and take action against such people? “Such conduct may appear to be grossly detrimental to the Party” – this is a clear threat of expulsion.

But giving newspaper reporters prior notice of a member’s suspension is grossly detrimental to the Party. What punishment was given to the officer who did that? Libelling a party member in the press is grossly detrimental to the Party. What punishment was given to the member(s) who did that? In fact, the whole manufactured anti-Semitism row is grossly detrimental to the Party but I see none of those responsible taking any punishment for it at all.

The whole case against me has been a corrupt farce from start to – well, the present day; there’s no end in sight, thanks to the current system.

It seems to me that I will be well within my rights to contact general secretary Jennie Formby, point out the huge injustices that have been done to me, and direct her to end my suspension and publish a full and frank public apology for the harm that the Party has done to me.

After that, I would want to see positive steps taken to identify those responsible and expose them to some proper justice.

That should not be too much to ask. But I’m prepared to bet it is.

Source: Revealed: Labour’s New Plan To Tackle Anti-Semitism By Fast-Tracking Complaints And Removing ‘Political Bias’


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The Tories are ‘paying a private smear factory’ with links to Donald Trump ‘to dig up dirt on Labour’ – Mirror Online

 

All the rest of us have to do, to dig up dirt on the Tories, is keep track of the day-to-day news.

Theresa May’s Tories are paying a private ‘smear factory’ staffed by senior former party officials to dig up dirt on Labour, the Mirror has been told.

Senior Tory sources said the Party has engaged the services of UK Policy Group, a private ‘dark arts’ firm to carry out opposition research.

Source: The Tories are ‘paying a private smear factory’ with links to Donald Trump ‘to dig up dirt on Labour’ – Mirror Online


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Vox Political proved correct as DUP threatens Tories over NI abortion law reform

Theresa May and Arlene Foster: Still on good terms (but only just).

This is exactly as Vox Political predicted.

It goes right down to the fact that the Northern Ireland assembly is currently suspended, meaning it is impossible to have a referendum on abortion in that part of the UK for the time being.

I observed that it seems unlikely the assembly will sit again before the next general election.

Doesn’t that have serious implications for the Good Friday Agreement and the fragile peace that has existed in NI for the last 20 years?

The DUP have warned Theresa May her Government could collapse if she tries to reform abortion laws in Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister is under enormous pressure to act following the overwhelming vote in favour of legal abortion in the Republic.

But the Tories’ weak grip on power relies on the support of the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs.

The party, led by Arlene Foster, is strongly opposed to any reform to Northern Ireland’s strict laws.

And yesterday they told her she “would regret” allowing her party to have a free vote on any bill to reform their current laws.

Source: DUP threatens to abandon Theresa May if she reforms Northern Ireland’s abortion laws – Mirror Online


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‘Hostile environment’: ID checks searching for NHS ‘health tourists’ find too few to make it worthwhile

Jeremy Hunt: He warned us that ‘health tourism’ was costing us a fortune, five years ago; it isn’t.

Tory racism rolls on without much ado.

This aspect relates to so-called ‘health tourism’. Remember a while ago we were being force-fed reports that people from foreign countries were ripping off the NHS for £2 billion a year?

The total cost to the 48 people listed in the Evening Standard article quoted below was less than £160,000. It does not represent the cost of ‘health tourism’ in the 18 NHS trusts that participated in the pilot scheme for around two months last year – just the amount paid by people who identified themselves as foreigners when they were asked. That’s an important distinction to make.

If those figures were replicated across all the NHS trusts in England, the total amount payable by foreign patients would be less than £12 million per year – less than 1/167th of the amount suggested by the Tories in 2013.

Now get ready for the punchline: “The Department of Health declined to say whether the ID checks would be abandoned in light of the trial.”

This is throwing good money after bad (don’t forget that the cost of running the pilot scheme was paid by the NHS – and ultimately the taxpayer – and takes funds away from healthcare.

There could be only one reason for continuing with ID checks:

The persecution of Johnny Foreigner – and, for that matter, any UK citizen who can’t produce two forms of ID. Can you?

A pilot scheme set up by Jeremy Hunt to check whether patients were entitled to free NHS care found only a tiny number were ineligible, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Figures from London hospitals which asked 8,894 people for two forms of ID prior to treatment showed that only 50 — or one in 180 — had to pay for their care. Campaigners today called on the Government to abandon any plans to extend the pilot nationwide as they branded the attempted crackdown on “health tourism” a “waste of time”.

Source: 8,900 checks on NHS ‘health tourists’ find just 50 liable to pay | London Evening Standard


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Faked Babchenko death makes fools of Tories and their supporters

Very much alive: Arkady Babchenko.

The news has been full of the apparent murder and miraculous return of a Russian journalist named Arkady Babchenko.

It seems Mr Babchenko faked his own death in order to prevent an actual attempt on his life by the Russian government. The Ukrainian security services tell us they have made one arrest.

Of course Boris Johnson couldn’t resist making a dig at Russia:

He was obviously trying to use this incident as justification for the Tories’ stance against Russia over the Salisbury Poisoning – the attack by persons unknown against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. But – of course – his barb went wide of the mark because nobody has been killed, by the Russian government or anybody else.

Tory supporters made an even worse mistake – trying to attack Jeremy Corbyn over his measured response to the Salisbury crime by linking it to Mr Babchenko:

I wonder how Giles Dilnot now feels, in the knowledge that the Russians didn’t do this, and it was a conspiracy (although not by western powers and, for a change, intended to help someone rather than harm)?

As for Paul “The Original Centrist Dad” – perhaps he now appreciates the advantage in having the full evidence before coming to an ill-advised conclusion?

Am I right in thinking this was a case in which gammon chewed itself up?


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The Telegraph was right: Roseanne’s racism has shown us the shape of a Tory sitcom

Congratulations are due to the Torygraph, of all newspapers, for drawing parallels between Roseanne and the Conservative Party – although it is Ms Barr’s off-screen behaviour that suggests the closest similarities.

The US sit-com has been cancelled – despite being a huge ratings success – because Ms Barr published a racist tweet about an advisor to former President Barack Obama:

The Conservative Party has been revealed as a hotbed of racism after the revelations about Theresa May’s “hostile environment” that led to the Windrush Scandal.

Questions have been asked about a racial aspect to the Conservative government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire.

And multiple Tory candidates were suspended over alleged racism in the run-up to the local government elections this year.

So the Telegraph was right to compare Roseanne with the Conservatives – just not in the way the writer had imagined. As for it being a sit-com…

Like Ms Barr’s behaviour, some of us don’t think racism is funny.


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The Madeley moment: Is it really 21 years since an interviewer dismissed an evasive politician for failing to answer a question?

Confrontation: Richard Madeley “terminated” an interview after defence secretary Gavin Williamson failed to answer a question.

It probably isn’t, but I can’t think of any moment as memorable as Richard Madeley’s confrontation with Gavin Williamson.

Mr Madeley is to be congratulated for refusing to put up with the Tory gibberish that – for example – BBC TV presenters now accept without question.

The moment 21 years ago was on the BBC, of course – it was Jeremy Paxman’s dismissal of Michael Portillo after the #SadManOnATrain lost his Parliamentary seat in the 1997 general election.

The termination of that interview was prompted by Mr Portillo’s refusal to discuss his party’s future policy on the European Union’s single currency and, in hindsight, happened in a good-humoured way:

Perhaps it was because Mr Portillo was out of Parliament and his future influence would be limited to sofa-sitting on Andrew Neil’s This Week.

The Madeley moment happened on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on the morning of May 29 and is much more ill-tempered, at least on the party of the interviewer.

Perhaps this is because interviewee Gavin Williamson, the current defence secretary, was not only failing to answer a straightforward question but was doing it with a smug grin on his face:

Williamson knew what he was doing.

He was deliberately withholding, not only his opinion on his ill-chosen words about the Russian government, but information on whether the Conservative government acted prematurely in blaming Russia for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

The Tory narrative that the Russian government was responsible has collapsed beneath a barrage of factual information suggesting otherwise, with no facts to support it.

If Mr Williamson had admitted his words were ill-advised, he would have been accepting that the anti-Russia stance was a mistake – and opening the UK government to an investigation into its own activities. So he was between a rock and a hard place.

And he thought he could brazen it out on TV because mainstream media interviewers are now notoriously soft on Tories.

Well, the Madeley moment has changed all that.

But will it lead other interviewers to do the same?

The BBC will be reluctant to toughen its stance because too many of its top news team are Tories themselves.

But public opinion is turning against ‘soft’ interviewers like Andrew Marr and Evan Davis, and viewers are turning off. That, more than anything else, may trigger a change.

If so, it will be 21 years overdue.


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The mainstream media used fake maths to scare us about the extra cost of modernising the NHS

The NHS does not need £2,000 from every UK household to survive because the country’s progressive taxation system means poorer people would pay less.

That’s the argument in the Guardian piece quoted below.

The mainstream media outlets that suggested a flat-rate increase in tax of £2,000 per household failed to take account of the fact.

It’s fake news. And scaremongering.

In fact, it doesn’t even address the other possibilities that don’t require any extra taxation at all.

Yet again, the Tories’ complicit news media are doing their work for them – asking us to believe a lie, that the NHS needs us to pay much more in order to survive in its current form.

That supports the Tory narrative that private corporations could provide a more cost-effective service. If they try to suggest that to you, they will be lying.

But the intention is to expose the public only to information that leads us in the direction the Tories want us to go.

That’s why this article is so valuable. It shows us the methodology behind Tory politics.

Knowing that, we can expose this and other attempts at legerdemain.

The IFS calculated its “average” figures by taking the total amount it calculated the NHS would need and dividing it by the number of households in the country. That’s certainly one way of doing it – it’s not wrong per se – but in terms of informing people about the actual impact on their own finances, it’s very misleading. We have progressive taxation in this country: not every household gets an equally sized bill. Could you pay more if the government chose to cover the cost of social care through a bump in income tax? Sure, but for the vast majority of the country it would be a few hundred pounds.

That’s without engaging with the underlying assumption that a bump in income tax is the way the government will choose to go. Some people have argued that, since the last couple of decades have seen wealth accumulate disproportionately at the very top, government should tax wealth rather than income. Alternatively, researchers have shown that health spending is one of the best ways to stimulate the economy, so the government could opt against tax increases in the short term and instead let healthcare spending act as a fiscal stimulus, at least until purchasing power had increased.

Source: The NHS doesn’t need £2,000 from each household to survive. It’s fake maths | Phil McDuff | Opinion | The Guardian


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Abortion issue means nobody in NI should expect their assembly back in action for years

A pro-choice rally in Belfast.

Northern Ireland’s devolved assembly is unlikely to be revived for years, after Theresa May said only it could change abortion rights in that part of the UK.

Why do I suggest that? Simple – Mrs May is reliant on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party for her majority in the House of Commons, and the DUP opposes abortion.

So, even though the DUP is the largest party in the NI assembly, it would not be in the Conservative government’s best interests to resolve the problems that led to the suspension of the assembly, more than a year ago.

Whether DUP leader Arlene Foster can live with that is an interesting question.

It will be interesting to find out.

Theresa May has no plans to help liberalise abortion rights in Northern Ireland following the Irish referendum result, Downing Street has said, insisting any change can only be made by the region’s devolved assembly, which collapsed 16 months ago.

The prime minister has faced intense political pressure over the law in Northern Ireland, where abortion remains illegal except in exceptional circumstances, after voters in the Republic of Ireland strongly backed liberalisation.

But while May indicated her support for the Irish referendum decision in a tweet over the weekend, she would risk alienating the Democratic Unionist party MPs who support her government and who back the existing law if she sought to move on the matter from Westminster.

Source: No plans to intervene on Northern Ireland abortion law, says No 10 | UK news | The Guardian


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Add a multi-billion pound GPS system to the list of things the Tories can magically afford in times of austerity

Philip Hammond: He thinks the electorate is composed of idiots. Since 2010, this assumption has been right about enough of us to keep the Tories in office.

I really hope somebody is keeping a list.

The Canary, which published the article quoted below, correctly notes the contradiction between Philip Hammond saying austerity must continue for the wider (poorer) population of the UK and the same man saying the UK government will pay for a multi-billion-pound GPS system duplicating one that is already in place.

It’s just another example of pure Tory waste.

They don’t need to spend billions duplicating the EU system. They’re just too proud to make the necessary alternative arrangement.

They are also too scared of the wrath of Brexiteers, despite the fact that a financial arrangement to take advantage of an existing system makes perfect financial sense.

It’s just further evidence that the government – as well as the population – left its intelligence at the door of the polling station on EU referendum day.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has said the UK will “go it alone” and construct its own GPS system in space if the EU does not grant the country post-Brexit access to its Galileo system. And people have reacted angrily.

Galileo is the European Union’s Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS), known as the ‘European GPS’. But after Brexit the EU may not allow the UK to access the state-of-the-art technology.

The Galileo system’s cost is £9bn until 2020. By comparison, the system in use by the US cost $12bn to put into orbit, and it requires a $750m investment to run annually.

Source: People are furious at Philip Hammond’s latest multi-billion pound plan | The Canary


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