Tag Archives: Royal

Violent arrest as pickets protest Art Society fundraiser for Israel

Protest: picketers gather outside the RSA to demonstrate against its fundraising event for Israel, whose military are currently committing genocide against the people of Gaza.

Who would have thought the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce would blot its copy-book like this?

The RSA decided to hold an unpublicised (which indicates that the organisers have a guilty conscience) fundraising event for Israel today (December 14, 2023) at its headquarters in 8, John Adam Street, London – next to Charing Cross Station.

In attendance were said to be Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog (did we even know he was in the country?) and Tzipi Hotovely, that country’s racist ambassador to the UK.

Staff walked out in protest and started to picket, and calls soon went out for others to join them.

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Inevitably, violence was bound to happen. And it seems to have been initiated by the Metropolitan Police – against a Jewish protester:

Here’s how events unfolded, courtesy of the social media:

This is a developing story. Hopefully This Site will be able to provide further information later.

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Royal College of Nursing halts strike action after too few nurses voted on it

A nurse: this person will receive less pay than she needs to live on, after the Royal College of Nursing’s latest ballot on strike action failed to receive the necessary proportion of votes to be considered indicative.

It has just been reported (on the BBC’s Politics Live) that the Royal College of Nursing is giving up its strike action for better pay and conditions – because too few of its members took part in a ballot on whether to go on.

The RCN has a threshold of 50 per cent of its members taking part in a ballot before its result can be taken as indicative and only 43 per cent voted in the latest poll, it seems.

So these nurses must now capitulate to demands from the Tory government that they accept a pay cut (it’s a rise that doesn’t even meet current inflation levels, let alone counter the enormous pay cuts inflicted by the Tories since they came into office in 2010).

For the National Health Service, this means more nurses will quit and find work elsewhere in the UK, or perhaps in other countries (Politics Live is now discussing doctors moving to Australia).

That will create more strain for those who are left and will push the health service closer to the collapse that the Tories want, in order to open the floodgate for a fully-privatised, US-style sickness industry that will keep you as ill as possible in order to make the biggest profits for the “health” companies and their shareholders.

And you can’t expect a Labour government to improve matters; Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and the other Labour leaders are all in the pockets of the healthcare corps as well.

The best advice This Site can give you now – especially if you life in England, is that offered by Neil Kinnock in the 1980s:

“Don’t get sick.”


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If RCN nurses are getting a pay deal they don’t support, what will it mean for their strike?

Steve Barclay: ask him to use any of the equipment behind him and he couldn’t. He’s only useful for punishing the people who can.

Is Steve Barclay trying to outflank the Royal College of Nursing?

It seems that, after talks with 14 health unions, he is going to impose a pay deal on more than a million NHS workers including ambulance workers, nurses, physios and porters,

The deal is a five per cent pay rise plus a one-off payment of at least £1,655 which This Writer understands is to raise overall pay for the last (2022-23) financial year.

From the way it’s being presented, the deal is also being imposed on the three unions that haven’t accepted it – including Unite (which has a limited mandate for strike action) and the RCN (which needs to ballot for more).

This leads to an obvious question:

What if the RCN (or the others) strike again and win a better deal?

Won’t that upset members of the other unions?

And isn’t that what Steve Barclay wants?

Tory philosophy can be summed up with the words “divide and rule”.

I reckon he’s hoping that the RCN – and the others – will be discouraged from going further by the possibility of losing solidarity with the other unions – or if they go ahead, strike, and get a better deal, the other unions will turn their collective back on them.

And that will probably mess up any collective action in the future, meaning the Tories can bully these unions to their hearts’ content.

It’s vile, verminous behaviour from a government that owes any credibility it kept during the Covid-19 crisis to the dedication of these professionals.

Each one of the staff who are now to receive a derogatory pay cut (in the face of higher-than 10 per cent inflation) is worth far, far more to the nation than Steve Barclay.

But, of course, in backwards Britain, the rewards are reversed:

There is a simple way out of the dilemma Barclay has set.

It is to remember that Steve Barclay is creating any problems – not the unions, their members or their leaders.

And one more thing, for people in England and Northern Ireland:

A vote against the Conservatives (and/or their allies) during the local elections on Thursday is a vote in support of the health unions.


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Nurses strike again – in the face of right-wing propaganda

Nurses have gone back to the picket lines, striking for better pay and conditions in the NHS in a 28-hour strike that ends at midnight on May Day (May 1).

It was supposed to be a full two-day strike, ending at 8pm on May 2, but Health Secretary Steve Barclay had the part of it taking place on May 2 halted via the courts.

He said that, since nurses were balloted for strike action on November 2 last year and such mandates last for six months, no strike action could take place on May 2. But that would imply that the ballot, its count, and the announcement of the result all took place on the first second of November 2 – which is of course impossible. So This Writer’s opinion is that the High Court has sided with the wrong side (again).

And look how some of our (hem-hem) friends in the media have responded:

Notice the references to “walking out of wards”, to nurses from intensive care and A&E have joined the strike, having “rejected” a government pay offer (without mentioning that it’s a huge pay cut), and the repeated question, having passed these comments: “Do they have your support?”

To which the answer can only be:

Yes, they bloody well do!

Nurses have taken a de facto 20 per cent pay cut since the Tories took power, meaning they work one day a week for free. This has put many off staying in the NHS, meaning those who remain have to do more work than they should, to make up the shortfall.

This has caused morale to plummet and has created mental and physical health problems for nurses.

This in turn has worsened the problem of nurses leaving.

And this has worsened the quality of the care provided by the NHS.

Nurses are striking because they want to halt the destruction of the UK’s greatest institution that is being deliberately caused by the Conservative government, personified by Health Secretary Steve Barclay.

He, by the way, appears to have been telling falsehoods – firstly by saying strike action by members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is “disrespectful”…

Speaking to broadcasters yesterday, Mr Barclay said, “I think this strike is premature and is disrespectful to those trade unions that will be meeting on Tuesday.”

… and secondly by saying he has been talking with the RCN over the weekend:

So, once again, nurses are fighting for our health service while their despotic paymasters take to the media to falsely claim that they are harming it, and to lie that they are trying to resolve the situation when they are not.

Remember: these Tories were all-too-keen to stand on their doorsteps and applaud nurses who worked – and in some cases died – during the Covid-19 crisis. Perhaps they did so because it didn’t cost any money. Now they are treating the same people like traitors.

Who are you going to side with – the hard-working nurses who want the NHS to be the best health service possible, or the lying Tories who are actively trying to ruin it?


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‘Darkest day’ for UK nursing as High Court cuts short May 2 strike

‘Talks not courts’: RCN general secretary Pat Cullen outside the High Court in London.

The High Court has upheld a government claim that a nurses’ strike planned for the Bank Holiday weekend is partly unlawful.

The Royal College of Nursing had promised to abide by any decision, meaning that strike action from midnight until 8pm on May 2 has been called off.

So the government that clapped nurses during the Covid-19 crisis has now taken them to court – and took £35k in costs from the RCN – for having the temerity to ask to be paid enough money to live on.

Nurses outside the High Court in London made the point by brandishing placards bearing the question: “Who takes their heroes to court?”

The Tories are already pushing their narrative that nurses are being selfish by denying NHS patients “the service they deserve”.

But the simple fact is that nobody deserves a health service that is on its knees because of constant de-funding by the Tory government that is driving good, qualified nursing staff away in search of work that pays enough for them to survive.

The Tory rhetoric is nothing more than emotional blackmail, which is a form of bullying.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay is already being accused of intimidating his staff. His treatment of nurses indicates a precedent for those accusations.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen made the obvious point in her response to the ruling:

Cullen, who joined nurses outside the court in a demonstration on Thursday morning, said she accepted the ruling but claimed it could rally her members to support further strikes.

She said: “The full weight of government gave ministers this victory over nursing staff. It is the darkest day of this dispute so far – the government taking its own nurses through the courts in bitterness at their simple expectation of a better pay deal.

“Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today’s interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month’s reballot for a further six months of action. Nobody wants strikes until Christmas – we should be in the negotiating room, not the courtroom today.”

The High Court hearing was unusual in that the RCN did not send lawyers to represent nurses, saying it did not want to “give credence” to Barclay’s legal action and the trade union legislation on which it was based.

Instead it relied on a witness statement by Ms Cullen – which Mr Justice Linden told the court suggested she had accepted the government’s legal position. He suggested that much of it had been written for a “different audience”.

The RCN is set to re-ballot its members next month, seeking a legal mandate to continue its strike action from June to December.

Will nurses be discouraged by the court ruling – or will they be infuriated by the government’s intransigence and demand redoubled strike action, simply to get a fair rate of pay?

Source: Nurses to cut short strike as court rules second day of action unlawful | Nursing | The Guardian


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Why is Steve Barclay taking legal action against nurse strike – on a technicality?

Did you understand that Health Secretary Steve Barclay is taking legal action against the Royal College of Nursing, not because its strike from April 30 to May 2 is illegal in itself, but because he disagrees with its timing?

When the RCN balloted its members for strike action on November 2 last year, the mandate was to last six months.

Barclay reckons that means the mandate ends on May 1 and therefore most of the second day of the 48-hour strike (it ends at 8pm BST on May 2) falls outside the RCN’s mandate to strike.

The RCN disagrees (obviously) – and This Writer tends to agree. If the ballot takes place on a particular day – it seems to me – any mandate must begin on a subsequent day; the following day seems the logical choice.

The RCN’s argument seems to corroborate this, as it quotes a precedent from a miner’s strike from 1995 that gives it until midnight on May 2.

Here’s Taj Ali to provide some background:

The threat of an interim order to stop the strike has been considered offensive by many:

The request for an order that stops strike action until a court has decided whether it is legal could be a double-edged sword for the government.

If the court rules in the government’s favour, then the RCN has said it will abide by the decision.

But if it rules against Barclay, then he will have hindered a legal strike for no good reason at all. That would be a public-relations disaster for him and his government.

They would have force-halted a legal and reasonable strike for no good reason.

They would have demonstrated that they are not to be trusted on any level in negotiations over pay.

They would have shown that they are unfit to serve the UK as its government.

Right?


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Nurses to strike on May Day bank holiday after rejecting Tory pay offer

Nurses are going back on strike after rejecting a Tory pay offer that simply wasn’t enough.

Nurses from the Royal College of Nursing have rejected a government pay offer of half the rate of inflation plus a one-off payment and will strike again for 48 hours on May Day.

How appropriate for the Tory government.

The walkout will last for 48 hours from 8pm on April 30, involving NHS nurses in emergency departments, intensive care, cancer and other wards.

Some critical care services, such as intensive care, will not be staffed on strike days – something which did not happen in previous strikes.

The Tories have claimed that this is an escalation in strike action and the RCN nurses should be ashamed.

But isn’t it more shameful that the Tories could find billions to spaff on duff PPE and any number of other fraudulent offers by their buddies, but reckon they can’t afford to pay the nurses who kept us all alive during the Covid-19 crisis?

Unison nurses (and ambulance workers) have accepted the five per cent pay offer plus one-off payment of £1,655 to top-up their salaries for 2022-23.

You may also have an opinion about that.


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Should the Royal Household take anti-racism training from the charity whose boss it abused?

As This Writer suggested in a previous article:

Mandu Reid, the leader of the Women’s Equality Party, has told Sky News that Meghan Markle’s claims of racism within the royal household have been “validated”.

It comes after Lady Susan Hussey, the godmother of Prince William, asked charity boss Ngozi Fulani at Buckingham Palace “what part of Africa are you from?”.

I really like the moment in this clip in which Ms Reid said she didn’t want Lady Hussey to step down, but to step up – acknowledge that racism exists in the Royal Household and that they will take steps to remove it.

Perhaps they could start by taking training from Sistah Space, the charity to which Ms Fulani belongs. It’s what that organisation does.

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Palace race incident was at supposed ‘safe space’ event

Charitable: Ngozi Fulani has said she would not like to see Lady Susan Hussey “vilified” because of her ill-chosen words.

At first, I thought this was a story about Prince Harry’s wife Meghan, and in a way it is.

She denounced racism in the Royal Household some time ago. I seem to recall she took a lot of stick for it – but now it seems she is vindicated after a charity representative from an ethnic minority was repeatedly asked where she was “really” from, by Prince William’s godmother.

Lady Susan Hussey, resigned after she repeatedly asked that question of Ngozi Fulani, a black British charity boss, at an event to support the Queen Consort’s campaign against domestic violence at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday (November 29).

Ms Fulani recounted how said Lady Hussey, 83, approached her and moved her hair to one side to allow her to read her name tag – which some might say was already extremely presumptuous; high-handed.

Then – well, here’s Ms Fulani’s own account:

Lady SH: Where are you from?
Me: Sistah Space.
SH: No, where do you come from?
Me: We’re based in Hackney.
SH: No, what part of Africa are YOU from?
Me: I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records.
SH: Well, you must know where you’re from. I spent time in France. Where are you from?
Me: Here, UK.
SH: No, but what Nationality are you?
Me: I am born here and am British.
SH: No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?
Me: ‘My people’? Lady, what is this?
SH: Oh I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you’re from. When did you first come here?
Me: Lady! I am a British national, my parents came here in the 50s when-
SH: Oh, I knew we’d get there in the end. You’re Caribbean!
Me: No, lady, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality.
SH: Oh, so you’re from…

Ms Fulani said she believed the member of the Royal Household was trying to make her denounce her British citizenship, and the incident had led her to question how a situation like this could happen in a space “supposed to protect women against all kinds of violence”.

She said: “Although it’s not physical violence, it is an abuse.”

She added, charitably, that she did not want to see Lady Hussey “vilified” over her behaviour.

But that was always going to happen, I think – especially after some ill-advised Royal supporters chipped in to support Lady Hussey with the excuse that “she’s 83”:

George Stephens’s point is extremely strong – if also strongly-worded.

This Writer’s mother is of the same generation and would never treat another person in such a way. It simply would not occur to her.

I would say it was people of the generation before hers who may have displayed casual racism because they didn’t know any better. Most of them have passed away and that kind of behaviour should have passed with them.

If members of the Royal Household are displaying such traits, then it raises serious questions about standards there.

If I were from an ethnic minority, or an organisation that includes ethnic minorities in any way, I would certainly be having second thoughts about attending any Royal event in the future.

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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Nurses to strike on December 15 and 20 after the government TURNED DOWN talks

A nurse: I’ve said this before and it still rings true – doesn’t this person deserve fair pay, after working to keep us all safe from Covid-19 for the last six months – and facing what could be a much worse period in the immediate future?

Nurses across the UK will strike on December 15 and 20, after the government refused to take part in negotiations over pay and conditions.

Patricia Marquis of the Royal College of Nursing England, said Health Secretary Steve Barclay was “not willing” to talk about what needs to be discussed – pay and safe staffing.

Here’s the gist from Good Morning Britain:

This may strike you all as a naive take on the situation, but here it is:

We know that governments spend whatever they want to meet their goals every year – they create the money to do it.

We also know that taxation takes money out of the system in order to counter inflation. This can be done to correct inequalities in society, if the government of the day is minded to do so.

UK society is currently unequal on a shocking scale; millions of people are in poverty, relying on food banks (including nurses), while a relative few millionaires and billionaires are profiting hugely from the overbalanced system that Tories like Steve Barclay have created for them.

The solution is clear: tax the super-rich, then the country will be able to afford to pay nurses their due.

The added bonus of this, of course, is that the money will go to people on the bottom tier of society and will go through many pairs of hands before it is taxed back out, creating a huge boost to the economy. Money that goes to billionaires gets banked in the Cayman Islands (for example) and is no use to the economy at all.

Barclay is misleading us when he says that the country “can’t afford” to pay nurses properly. He simply doesn’t want to.

Worse still, he and his cronies – both within the government and outside – will whine that the strikes will disrupt a health service that is already at breaking point. But it was the choice of his government to push the NHS into that situation, with under-funding, privatisation and poor staffing.

Here’s the proof – a Sky News report emphasising that “patients will suffer” (watch until the focus shifts to wider strike action, around the five-minute point on the clip, which is quite long):

Possibly one good argument to use against Barclay is simply to ask how far his own pay has risen since 2010 – and how many lives he has saved during that time.

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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