Tag Archives: Justice

Privately-run prison’s officers ignored pregnant teenager in labour – so the baby died

Bronzefield prison: the death of baby Aisha happened after at least four other incidents involving pregnancy there.

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT

This is what happens when you let your government put people’s lives in the hands of a private corporation that exists only to make a profit: PEOPLE DIE.

That is exactly what happened at privately-run Bronzefield Prison, on the outskirts of Ashford in Surrey, which is run by Sodexo Justice Services.

An inquest has found that teenage mother Rianna Cleary was found in her cell, covered in blood, her dead baby Aisha cradled in her arms, after she had twice called for help after going into Labour during the night – and both calls were ignored by staff. She had to bite through the umbilical cord.

She should have been monitored five times during the day before the birth but the nurse who had been on duty at the time admitted that this had not happened. A nurse had tried to get Ms Cleary moved to the prison’s healthcare facility but no bed was available.

When she went into Labour, Ms Cleary used the cell’s intercom system to tell an officer she needed a nurse or an ambulance – but the officer on duty did not call for any help. About half an hour later, in what was described as “unbearable” pain, she repeated her request – but the call was disconnected in the guard’s control room. This meant the call bell from her cell was disabled from that point onward.

The senior coroner for Surrey, Richard Travers, said systematic failings at both the prison and the hospital that looked after the mother meant Aisha died; she might have survived if Ms Cleary had been discovered in Labour and transferred to hospital.

These events occurred in September 2019 and the inquest has only just happened – taking a month to be heard.

A glance at the prison’s history shows that this outrage is far from unique: at least four times in the two years to 2019, women gave birth in upsetting and potentially dangerous conditions.

A report by The Guardian in November that year states that in addition to Ms Cleary’s case, “On at least four occasions in this period, women held at the privately run Surrey prison have given birth in distressing and potentially unsafe circumstances, including one woman who gave birth in her cell and another who was left in labour at night-time supported only by another pregnant prisoner.

“In December 2017, one woman suffered a stillbirth and another baby was admitted to neonatal intensive care, in both instances after women were transferred from Bronzefield to hospital at a late stage of labour. In the latter case, it is understood that the woman alerted the prison to concerns two days before she was eventually taken to hospital.

“Board meeting minutes from Ashford and St Peter’s NHS trust, from July 2018, refer to the two incidents, stating: “Adverse outcomes were reported in both cases … significant learning and process change were identified for both hospital and prison teams.”

“The minutes state that Bronzefield, Europe’s largest female prison, intended to review its policy concerning the transfer of pregnant women to hospital and its criteria for risk assessment.

“Sodexo Justice Services, which runs the prison, said that following the December 2017 incidents it had worked with Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital and changed arrangements with its midwives.”

So there can be no excuse for what happened.

But: “The Guardian also heard of a woman who alerted prison staff that she was in labour in July 2018. She was not seen by a midwife and was left in labour during the night, supported only by another pregnant prisoner.

“In March 2019 a woman, understood to have been in the prison on remand, gave birth in her cell with no midwife or doctor present. A nurse reportedly delivered the baby.”

The Ministry of Justice, contacted in November 2019, said that Sodexo had not incurred contractual penalties relating to the levels of care to pregnant women in custody in the previous three years – and declined to comment on then-recent incidents at HMP Bronzefield.

Former prisoners, including one from Bronzefield, said midwife appointments and scans were frequently missed as a result of prison staff shortages.

It all adds up to a failure of service caused by privatisation, in This Writer’s opinion. Private corporations, brought in to run a service like a prison, do so in order to make money and cut corners in order to achieve those profits.

Even when they are found to be at fault, those failings continue to go unremedied, meaning more – and worse – tragedies are likely to happen.

And what is done by the government that hired these – call them what they are – incompetents? It turns a blind eye.

One final point: if you think what happened at this privately-run prison is a traumatically-shocking outrage, ask yourself what will happen to the National Health Service when it is given to private firms like Sodexo.


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The news in tweets: Thursday, July 13, 2023

Martin Lewis: he’s really not happy with Oliver Dowden.

This one’s for all of you who want some real news alongside your daily revelations about “BBC presenter” – or who simply didn’t care about that ‘dead cat’ story.

Martin Lewis corrects the record after Oliver Dowden falsely claimed he supported the Tories

Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis does not take kindly to suggestions that he supports any political party over the others.

So it was only to be expected that, after Oliver Dowden claimed he supported the government on a point in the government’s Mortgage Charter, he would be… miffed.

Here’s what he had to say:

For those of you who can’t (or can’t be bothered to) click on “Show more”, he continued: ‘…benches.”

‘I am party independent. I’ve had constructive conversations with both the Chancellor and the Shadow Chancellor about mortgage support.

‘I do not appreciate being used in party-political spats. It is correct that I support those specific measures in the mortgage charter, mainly as they were my suggestions (so in a way ‘they’re’ supporting what ‘I’ said) and both major parties proposed similar – but that should not be taken as a read-across to favouring any party, even just within the mortgage agenda.’

This Writer wondered, after PMQs, how many falsehoods Dowden would be caught out on in deputy Prime Minister’s Questions this week. I named two at the time.

This is another. How many more were there?

Join the demonstration to save ticket offices

This is happening today (Thursday, July 12, 2023). Information courtesy of the Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn:

The government’s plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in England – this latest attack on railway workers – puts thousands of jobs at risk and, if these proposed changes go ahead, there will be serious implications on millions of elderly, disabled and vulnerable commuters who rely on the personal touch of a ticket office to arrange and support their travel.

We must resist these closures.

Tomorrow, the RMT is hosting a national day of action, leafleting and speaking to commuters outside train stations up and down the country. And in London there will be a demo outside Kings Cross with speakers including Jeremy Corbyn. Together, we must demand that ticket offices remain open – click here to find your nearest action.

The opposition to these ticket office closures has been immense, with commuters writing in to local papers, posting on social media and making it known that they oppose these closures. The government have also opened a consultation on these closures which closes in just two weeks. If you haven’t already, please fill in the consultation – click here, select your local train station and make your views known.

Write to your MP

You can also write to your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Parliament and support the campaign to save our ticket offices. You can use this letter-writing tool, created by our comrades at the RMT, which only takes a few minutes to fill out. As the consultation period is brief, it is absolutely vital that we ensure this issue is at the very top of the parliamentary agenda in the weeks to come.  Click on the link and demand your MP stands up for railway workers and the millions of commuters who rely on them to support their journeys.

Sign the petition to make sure the Tories stick to the law – and don’t send any refugees to Rwanda

Are we seriously being asked to believe nobody in Boris Johnson’s office or the government knows how to switch on a phone?

Look at this, which I believe is from the Covid Inquiry. Simon Case is the Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service:

“I thought it was handed over” is legal-speak to avoid actually saying anything.

In fact, we all know the phone wasn’t handed over. Apparently Boris Johnson has a ‘team’, alongside people from – oh dear – the Cabinet Office, trying to switch on ‘Phone 1’, but none of them know how to do it.

They say they fear security breaches, because the phone’s number was public knowledge for 15 years before Johnson twigged that this might be a bad idea and switched it off in April 2021 (if you believe in that sort of thing).

In fact, if anyone interested in breaching the UK’s security wanted to hack that phone, they would have done it long before Johnson got near the “off” switch. Also, any compromising information in it should have been changed long ago. There really is no reason not to simply switch it back on.

Alternatively, since WhatsApp messages aren’t actually stored on the phone anyway, why don’t they all just access the cloud storage that actually does hold that information, as people (including This Writer) have been telling them to do for many months?

While the government was defending itself for painting over mural at one child refugee centre, it was painting over other murals at other centres

This is cruelty for its own sake:

Lords defeat Tory government again over Illegal Migration Bill


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The news in tweets: Sunday, June 4, 2023

Rishi Sunak: he’s not known for being a Vox Political reader, but will he still be smiling if he chances upon this article?

Here’s this sunny Sunday’s info-dump  – and This Writer hopes it doesn’t cast a cloud over your mood.

Rishi Sunak won’t give public money to UK schools but with his wife has given $2.4 million to a wealthy US college

There will be more on ‘Eat Out to Die Out’ in another Vox Political article later today (June 4, 2023).

Is pre-election tax cut plan the reason for Rishi Sunak’s current war on sickness and disability benefits?

Tory MP begs Rishi Sunak to quit the European Convention on Human Rights – confusing it with the EU

For information: Andrea Jenkyns is a Tory MP who is currently deputy chairwoman of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG). Her claim that other Tories got the leader they wanted in Rishi Sunak suggests a developing schism among Tory MPs that could split the party as it grows – and let’s hope it does.

She certainly seems to be trying to undermine Sunak, with a letter that confuses the European Convention on (and Court of) Human Rights with the European Union and European Court of Justice.

For information: UK citizens have never – at the time of writing – voted to relinquish their rights to a free and fair trial, democratic elections, freedom of association (that is, the right to meet anybody we want to), privacy, or any of the others that the Convention upholds.

TWITTER catches Boris Johnson lying about the reason for London police station closures

DWP and police target criminal gangs involved in benefit fraud. What about those involved in tax evasion?

The video has been released after the Daily Telegraph published an online calculator to show readers how much of their salaries is being used to pay social security benefits in what many have dubbed an act of Nazi-style hate crime.

The argument against these acts by the government, police and media is simple: tax evasion costs the UK far more than benefit fraud and error but is investigated by far fewer people and nobody (to This Writer’s knowledge) has ever been arrested in a video clip. Here are some facts:

Corporate profits have nearly doubled since 2019 while average wages are lower than in 2007. Why are the government, Bank of England and bosses blaming wage rises for inflation?


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Five demands for a better Britain from the Peace and Justice Project

Jeremy Corbyn: his Project for Peace and Justice has just announced its five demands for government (of any stripe) to deal with the cost of living crisis and bring real prosperity to everyone.

After Jeremy Hunt announced his “E’s and Wizz” Budget and Keir Starmer brought out his “five missions”, here’s a message from the Project for Peace and Justice, brought to you by Jeremy Corbyn:

Last week, the Chancellor announced a budget that did nothing to alleviate the obscene levels of poverty and inequality in our society – instead protecting the riches of global corporations and the wealthiest in our society.

He should have used the opportunity to present policies to deal with the cost of living crisis with a budget that could have made a difference to the lives of all those that have suffered under 13 years of austerity, the Covid-19 pandemic and a decline in real wages.

That’s why we need an alternative budget that puts people first, based on the following five demands:

A REAL PAY RISE FOR ALL 

Everyone has a right to live and work with dignity. That means giving nurses, teachers and public sector workers an above-inflation pay rise, implementing a minimum wage of £15 per hour, banning zero-hours contracts and reversing cruel benefit sanctions.

DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

As millions struggle to pay their energy bills, fossil fuel giants are taking home record profits.  Private profiteering is ripping people off and destroying our planet.  Alongside water, rail and mail, it’s time we put energy back where it belongs: in public hands.

Democratic public ownership will empower communities, bring prices down and kickstart a Green New Deal that invests in clean energy.

HOUSING FOR THE MANY

Housing is a human right, not a commodity – everyone deserves a decent, safe, warm and affordable place to live.

We need an immediate rent freeze and reduction, an end to no-fault evictions and an urgent mass council home building programme.

TAX THE RICH TO SAVE THE NHS

After years of austerity and privatisation, our NHS is on its knees. It’s time to end outsourcing, invest in a fully public system of universal healthcare and build a National Care Service.

The government says there’s no more money for our NHS – but they’re wrong. We can give our public services the money they need by introducing a wealth tax, raising income tax on the top five per cent of earners and making corporations pay their fair share.

WELCOME REFUGEES AND A WORLD FREE FROM WAR

Refugees are being scapegoated for an economic crisis they didn’t create. We must work towards a world of peace, free from nuclear weapons where conflicts are resolved through diplomacy and negotiation. We need a humane migration system based on dignity, compassion and care, which gives asylum seekers the right to work, healthcare and housing.

The refugees of today are our doctors, teachers and neighbours of tomorrow.

As we face the starkest cost-of-living crisis in a generation, we cannot afford to be timid. We need to offer a clearer alternative to the Tories’ failed economic experiment. As striking workers in Trafalgar Square demonstrated, there is an appetite for something different.

The manifesto [Labour] put forward in 2017 and 2019 gave hope to millions around the country – and now we must continue to build [a] radical alternative vision for our country. You can find out more about these demands in my article in the Morning Star.

We must unite, organise and build our vision for a fairer world.  I hope you will join me in demanding and campaigning for these policies, and sign up to support them here.

Fair enough?


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Now DOMINIC RAAB is facing bullying accusations

Rattled: Dominic Raab trying to explain himself during a grilling by the Foreign Affairs committee in September 2021. Look at the way his hands were twisting as he tried to justify his failures. Does he look like the kind of man who treats others with respect and kindness?

First Priti Patel was accused of it, then Gavin Williamson. Now Dominic Raab has been accused of bullying civil servants during his spell as Justice Secretary, between September 2021 and September this year.

Raab was sacked as justice secretary and deputy prime minister by former PM Liz Truss – in possibly the only sensible move she made in that role.

But he was reappointed by Rishi Sunak following his election as leader by Tory MPs in what may be yet another entry in an ever-lengthening list of howlers by the new prime minister.

The Guardian has reported that staff in the Justice Department were offered “respite or a route out” amid concerns that some were traumatised by his behaviour during his previous stint:

The Guardian has spoken to multiple sources in the MoJ who claimed that Raab, who first held the post between September 2021 and September 2022, when he was sacked by Liz Truss, had created a “culture of fear” in the department.

They alleged that his behaviour when dealing with civil servants, including some in senior roles, was “demeaning rather than demanding”, that he was “very rude and aggressive” and that he “wasn’t just unprofessional, he was a bully”.

It is also understood that Antonia Romeo, the MoJ permanent secretary, had to speak to Raab when he returned to the department to warn him that he must treat staff professionally and with respect amid unhappiness about his return. One source, who was not in the room at the time, claimed she had “read him the riot act”.

The allegations raise further questions over Rishi Sunak’s judgement, which is already in question after he re-appointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary despite concerns that she is more leaky than the migrant boats she is trying to stop crossing the Channel.

He also made Gavin Williamson a Minister Without Portfolio, only for him to resign within weeks amid an ever-growing litany of bullying claims.

Needless to say, there has been a bit of commentary about this – and about bullying in Parliament in general. Here’s Novara Media:

The revelations by Labour’s Charlotte Nichols are damning – she discussed a huge list of 40 MPs who are “known dangers”, from whom she had been told not to accept drinks and with whom she had been told not to allow herself to be alone.

Ash Sarkar discussed Labour’s Neil Coyle, who bullied a journalist with Chinese heritage (as mention by This Site after he asked a question during Prime Minister’s Questions). She suggested that he was treated as a credible source because he was an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn, with a blind eye shown to his (alleged) wrongdoing.

So it seems that bullying and intimidation are epidemic in Westminster.

But that is no reason for a UK prime minister to employ people who are known malcontents.

It seems that is exactly what he has done, not just with Gavin Williamson but also – we’re hearing – with Dominic Raab. And it is not good enough.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Why is this think tank so influential on Tory policy – and who pays for it?

The puppet PM-to-be? Liz Truss appears to be nothing more than a figurehead for shadowy business concerns. Are her strings being pulled by think tanks like Policy Exchange?

Remember the report the Tories pushed into both Houses of Parliament three years ago, attempting to claim that Extinction Rebellion is a terrorist organisation and its protests should be stopped?

A few months later it was revealed that ER had been listed as an “extremist ideology”, to be referred to the Prevent programme – which aims to safeguard vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism.

There was a row, and then the reference was described as an error and removed.

But it is widely agreed that the report played a large role in the drafting of Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act which heavily restricts protest, criminalises many peaceful actions, disproportionately targets minority groups including  people of colour and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

The report had been published by Policy Exchange, a right-wing think tank that is part of the Tufton Street Brexit Nexus which

ties together fossil fuel interests, climate denial groups and a whole array of Brexit campaigns, pushing for a deregulated low-tax playing field pushing profit and growth over people and planet. As well as close ties to most of the current Conservative right politicians, they reach deep into the media, influencing the output of the Telegraph and Spectator, as well as the Times, Mail, Express and Sun.

We don’t know the names of everybody who funds this organisation, but information that is available shows that its work – and therefore Conservative Party policy – is being driven by private business interests:

As well as receiving around £3million per year from undisclosed donors, it has received ‘sponsorship’ money from many UK energy companies for arranging meetings with government ministers, and these included Drax, E.On, Centrica, and lobbyist Energy UK. It also receives money from ‘American Friends of Policy Exchange’, a US non-profit organisation supporting Policy Exchange UK and backed by mainly anonymous donors. They were listed in a 2017 ExxonMobil worldwide-giving report  as receiving a $30,000 donation from the giant fossil fuel corporation. ExxonMobil has spent vast sums over decades on promoting climate denial.

And think about this:

Policy Exchange also funds something called the Judicial Power Project which seeks to limit the rights of our justice system to rein in the power of government ministers or question unfair or draconian legislation. Under the guise of concern over “how and by whom public power is exercised”, it’s basically pushing for more power for heavily-lobbied ministers along with less accountability to a judicial system that may be more resistant to corporate influence.

Other changes suggested by Policy Exchange include calls for amendments to the Overseas Operations Bill, giving soldiers impunity for war crimes, and for government control over appointments of judges; and it has published a major study on “judicial interference” over the government’s Rwanda deal and other anti-asylum proposals. The project strongly influenced the tabling of the Judicial Review Act, which limits citizens’ ability to challenge government decisions in court.

And now, as RealMedia points out,

we are about to face a leader elected by a tiny unrepresentative club, advised by secretly-funded policy units, and cheered on by a media owned by its rich friends and donors.

This will get messy and you will probably be badly harmed by what these people will do. The big question is: how long are you going to let them do it?

Source: The hidden forces pushing change in our democracy and rights – Real Media – The View From Below

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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EU to launch court action against Liz Truss’s smuggler’s charter for Northern Ireland

I can’t say I blame the European Union chiefs.

As mentioned on This Site before, Liz Truss’s plan to ease the burden on businesses caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit deal effectively creates a “smuggler’s charter”.

It creates the concept of “green lanes” and “red lanes” for trade, with goods coming from Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) into Northern Ireland and which are staying there using the green lane – meaning no checks and minimal paperwork, while goods moving from Great Britain through NI into Ireland or the wider European Union would use the red lane –  continuing to be checked at ports in Northern Ireland.

How would anybody know the “green lane” goods were stopping in Northern Ireland – or even whether the goods in the lorries were really as described in the paperwork?

I previously suggested that, alongside plans to ease checks on goods coming into the UK from the EU, this could create a people-smuggling pipeline all the way through to Ireland, wrecking any strategy to prevent it put up by Priti ‘Send ‘Em To Rwanda’ Patel.

The UK also wants the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) to have no future role in deciding disputes involving the protocol, with an independent arbiter sitting in judgement instead.

Independent, as defined by whom? I can see legal disputes over who should judge rattling on until Doomsday.

In response, the EU has indicated it will restart legal action it began in March last year, when it accused the UK of delaying, without consultation, the enforcement of parts of the protocol relating to customs checks – and may go further by taking the UK to the ECJ over claims it did too little to set up border control posts and share data with the EU.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the very law intended to remove the UK from ECJ judgments led to it facing just such a fate?

The problem facing the UK’s Tory government – particularly those dunces Liz Truss and Boris Johnson – is that unionists in Northern Ireland are likely to tear up the Good Friday Agreement if they can’t get free trade between the Province and Great Britain.

That could lead to a resurgence of the infamous “Troubles”.

Sadly, the Labour opposition has no better ideas. Keir Starmer has said negotiation with the EU is the best way forward – but advocated using “guile”, which implies that he wants to deceive the EU into giving UK vested interests what they want.

Level heads can see that no workable solution is being suggested by anybody. They all seem determined to upset each other rather than find a way forward.

How sad to see our supposed national and international leaders squabbling like children.

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Six-figure payout for civil servant who endured ‘insidious’ Ministry of Justice racism

The face of the problem? It must be hard to clamp down on racism in government when the prime minister is a man who (allegedly) danced around in front of a black woman, waving a banana at her.

This may seem like a good result for Olivea Ebanks – but is it? Does the money really compensate for 20 years of racist abuse in the Ministry of Justice – of all places! – that she says broke down her body and mind?

And how is the government acting to end the racism that, it seems clear, is rife in all the corridors of power? Have the Tories lifted a finger to improve matters?

Let’s see what Ms Ebanks had to put up with…

She was called racially insulting names by a manager, prevented from progressing her career, and had her out-of-work activities monitored.

Ms Ebanks said working in an “abusive” environment led to her physical and mental health suffering.

“The first time I went to court, I lost my good mental health… The second time I decided to go to court, I lost my marriage and the third time, I lost my job.”

Ms Ebanks alleges managers blocked access to career-enhancing opportunities and training open to colleagues.

She says her work was unfairly scrutinised and managers began to “constantly” pick at her work, and claims her concerns about this were routinely dismissed.

One day after asking her manager why she was being treated differently to other members of the team during a meeting, she was shocked when the reply was: “Are you accusing me of racism?”

An internal probe, which pointed towards institutional racism within the MOJ, was triggered soon after.

She decided to write a book about her experiences – she says with her managers’ blessing. But Ms Ebanks found herself the centre of investigation and suspended from work for “bringing the organisation into disrepute”.

The former civil servant claims she was called racially offensive names by senior staff and was subject to privacy breaches, alleging her out-of-work activities following global Black Lives Matter protests was monitored.

Ms Ebanks says she complained about the incidents numerous times but claims she was ignored.

She resigned in June 2020 after the “situation became intolerable” and then began her third case against the ministry which was settled last year.

Ms Ebanks says she applied for upward of 40 promotions without any success and experienced a manager refusing to provide essential backing for a senior role because she “couldn’t see” Ms Ebanks thriving in such a position.

Reflecting on her ordeal Ms Ebanks described it as “exhausting” and said she suffered loss of appetite, insomnia and panic attacks.

“With the accumulation of illnesses, my body and mind were breaking down and I started to feel so unwell that I had to keep going back to the doctor.”

Her account of what happened when she tried to complain is particularly damning: “As a Black person, you complain to a manager, who has no understanding of racism.

“They then say there’s no merit to your complaint. You unpick their reasoning and appeal, and then your manager’s manager will then tell you – the only person who’s experienced the racism – that what you experienced was not racism. It’s torture without the bruising.”

The comment from the MoJ is risible:

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have a zero tolerance approach to discrimination of any sort. All allegations are investigated fully and action taken where necessary.”

I have a few doubts about that, considering Ms Ebanks’s story.

So let’s think: why would a government ministry make such a claim, in the face of evidence from a victim of sustained racism over a period of 20 years that has resulted in that ministry paying out a six-figure sum of money to end court proceedings?

(And let’s bear in mind that this is not the only case – the source story mentions Kay Badu, who also received a six-figure sum over racism claims.)

Well, isn’t it true that sustained racism of this kind has a “chilling” effect on people of the ethnic group against which that discrimination is being shown?

In other words, aren’t people of the same ethnic group put off applying for government jobs?

So by claiming not to tolerate discrimination – while actually perpetrating it time and time again – the government and its departments ensure that they remain the playgrounds of privileged white boys and girls.

Isn’t that the aim?

If not, then let’s see some evidence of good conscience. How many people have been sacked for perpetrating this “insidious” and sustained racism? What measures have been put in place to monitor it? What is being done to ensure that complaints are taken seriously?

I think we can all guess the answers to those questions: none, none and nothing.

Am I right, MoJ?

Source: ‘It strips your humanity’: Civil servant wins six-figure sum over ‘insidious’ Ministry of Justice racism

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Starmer abolishes fairness and natural justice from Labour’s expulsion rules. In as many words – SKWAWKBOX

Unfair and unnatural: the rule change was rammed through as part of a “take it or leave it” proscription rule package with the collusion of right-wing trade union leaderships (surely a contradiction in terms?) at last year’s farcical Labour conference.

This should sound the death knell for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

It is quite clearly nowhere anybody who believes in the founding Labour values of fairness and equality can stay any more – because Starmer has deliberately removed those values from the way his club treats the people who fund it:

The Labour party’s new 2022 rule book has abolished fairness and natural justice from its expulsion processes.

No, that’s not a joke – though perhaps it is a sick one.

The party’s rules now explicitly rule out those concepts from the entitlement of anyone it decides to expel.

Chapter 2, Clause ii.8 tells members they have a right to dignity, respect and fairness… Clearly that ‘right’ now only applies – and is therefore not regarded as an actual right by the regime – as long as the party feels like keeping you in as a member. If it decides to kick you out, your right to that ‘right’ doesn’t exist.

The regime slipped through this anti-justice horror as part of the ‘take it or leave it’ proscription rule package rammed through at last year’s party conference with the collusion of right-wing union managements.

There are plenty of genuine socialist parties springing up in the UK now, so there is no reason to stick with this hollowed-out hulk that Starmer is milking to destruction before jumping ship – probably to the Tories.

My advice to all members of good character and conscience: GET OUT NOW.

Source: Starmer abolishes fairness and natural justice from Labour’s expulsion rules. In as many words – SKWAWKBOX

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#Corbyn smears: Don’t be fooled by this poisonous fake of a website

As figures in the Labour Party move to smear former leader Jeremy Corbyn and push him out, supporters need to be aware of more subtle attackers.

For example: the “Project for Peace and Justice” website at https://projectforpeaceandjustice.com that attempts to satirise Mr Corbyn’s new organisation with smears that are neither accurate nor amusing.

The current version of this page offers a foul-mouthed tribute (if you can call it that) to the late Peter Newbon, a leading light of the pressure group Labour Against Anti-Semitism who brought it into disrepute by publishing a doctored image showing Mr Corbyn apparently reading anti-Semitic hate book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to schoolchildren. In fact he was reading Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Rosen’s entirely justified response to this abuse appears on the page, where he is described using a four-letter word beginning with ‘C’. Accurate? No. Amusing? No.

Another page attacks two campaigners who have demonstrated repeatedly that the current hysteria over anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is nothing more than a witch-hunt. It describes a fictional “Greenstein” award (named after Tony Greenstein) for services to anti-Semitism on social media being given to Simon Maginn for his #ItWasAScam campaign? Accurate? No. Amusing? No.

The indicia at the bottom of every page includes the message: “The Project for Peace and Justice does not adhere to the IHRA definition of antisemitism. I didn’t want to do this Laura made me” – an apparent claim that the site is operated by Mr Corbyn himself after his wife Laura demanded it. Accurate? No. Amusing? No.

Possibly the worst aspect of this is the call for donations that appears immediately whenever anybody visits the site. It doesn’t work – clicking to donate says it can’t be done – and this may put people who genuinely want to donate to the Corbyn Peace and Justice Project off doing so.

You can see this travesty yourself – if you’ve got the stomach for it – by visiting the website at the link above. But your time would be far better-used by visiting the genuine Peace and Justice Project site at https://thecorbynproject.com where you can learn about the four main projects: climate justice, economic security, democratic society and international justice – and may donate by using the proper system for doing so. This one does work.

Considering the hatred for Mr Corbyn and the concentration on fake accusations of anti-Semitism against people who have done nothing more than campaign for accuracy, This Writer wonders whether the fake site was set up by the former Labour leader’s critics on the right wing of that party.

It would seem reasonable, considering the fact that right-wingers like Steve Reed are now admitting their involvement in the creation of pressure groups like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, that has been found also to be involved in spreading such hate against figures like Mr Corbyn, to question whether right-wing Labour members are also behind the fake “Peace and Justice” website.

If so, it makes a mockery of their claim to be crusading against fake news.

But while it is important to be aware of these fakers and their lies, the best thing to do is simply to ignore them.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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