Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
All white: look at the police faces behind Boris Johnson at this speech he made in 2019 – not one of them is from an ethnic minority.
Remember when the Tory government released a report claiming that the UK is an “exemplar” of racial equality in all its institutions?
Now members of one of those institutions – the police – are having to apologise for “racism, discrimination and bias”. Bit of a contradiction there, don’t you think?
In a new race plan, to be launched next week, the National Police Chiefs Council and College of Policing will state:
“Many people believe policing to still be institutionally racist and have grounds for this view.
“We accept that policing still contains racism, discrimination and bias. We are ashamed of those truths, we apologise for them and we are determined to change them.
“[The] need for change is evident. Policing lags behind almost every part of the public service as an employer of choice for Black people. Confidence levels are much lower, and our powers are disproportionately applied to Black people. In some crimes, victimisation rates are higher.”
The plan avoids admitting institutional racism but declares that police chiefs are “ashamed” about racism remaining in law enforcement.
One chief constable who supports accepting policing is institutionally racist said: “All the figures show it still is.”
There will be a consultation on the plan, so it may change.
I wonder if the Tories will try to remove the admissions of racism from it, to conform with their Big Lie?
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Michael Gove: that’s a Chelsea FC scarf he’s wearing. His love of that team led him to fly to Portugal where he had close contact with people who had Covid-19. He didn’t follow the rules that we must; he put himself on an elite ‘daily testing’ scheme instead, potentially endangering his work colleagues. And now he’s threatening to deny people who don’t have the vaccine access to events like the one he attended. What a barefaced hypocrite.
It’s a classic ‘nudge’ strategy: you want somebody to do something, you make them feel guilty about it.
So Michael Gove probably thought it was perfectly reasonable to say people who don’t want the Covid-19 vaccine are selfish; that they are endangering the rest of us.
'If you can be vaccinated and you refuse to, that's a selfish act' Michael Gove
— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) July 27, 2021
Trouble is, he‘s the selfish Tory minister who refused to self-isolate after the Covid-19 app on his phone pinged him for close contact with infected people when he flew off to Portugal to watch the Champions League final. Instead, he availed himself of a ‘daily test’ regime available only to a select few.
So he added another stick to poke the non-vaxxers into the vaccination centres: anybody turning down the vaccine may be barred from events he described as requiring a certain level of safety.
Like football matches?
His argument doesn’t work. His own history makes this another “one rule for Tory ministers, a different rule for everybody else” situation.
And if the vaccine is so fantastically good, then the people refusing it will be the only ones likely to die if they catch Covid-19. Everybody else will be protected – right?
Right?
The alternative is that there really is a covert reason for making us all have these injections.
Are the conspiracy theorists right?
What are these Tories pumping into us?
So now Gove has gone from making us feel guilty if we haven’t had the jab to making us all worry that the injection is secretly an attack against us.
And what does it mean?
It means if I hadn’t already had my jabs, I’d be seriously considering turning them down. I don’t go out much anyway.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
This woman is a health minister: Nadine Dorries once used a derogatory description of people with mental disabilities to describe her critics on Twitter. Now she has appeared on the radio, telling women that they can expect no help from her if they suffer sexism from doctors [Image: The Prole Star.]
Nadine Dorris is a perfect example of the Tory government having to promote people beyond their abilities.
The health minister who once used the description “window lickers” (an insult against people with mental disabilities)…
The Minister of State (Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health) Just to clarify “Window lickers" is a derogatory term for people with LD and/or Autism. pic.twitter.com/YtI5d5ZcTU
Those who have already heard the car-crash interview had nothing but derision for Dorries…
Can't believe what I'm hearing on @BBCWomansHour. Nadine Dorries *health minister for patient safety!!!* @DHSCgovuk says the onus should be on women patients to push back against sexism in the system. Worrying lack of basic insight into patient-clinician power dynamics.
So, according to Nadine Dorries, I should be going to my GP and demanding to be referred to a consultant. 'Don't be fobbed off' she suggests. Has she tried 'going to a GP' recently? @BBCWomansHour please could someone return her to reality
Nadine Dorries on @BBCRadio4#womenshour is an absolute disgrace. The level of hypocrisy and female patient shaming is sickening. Kudos to the presenter though, fantastic questioning.
Think Nadine Dorries is successfully hang herself out to dry. She repeated says she has no responsibility for certain areas of health, whilst blaming patients for not demanding more. It’s all about her I’m afraid.
Nadine Dorries was awful. I do not trust her with female health after hearing her interview today. Feeling very angry with her responses but not surprised as she is supports Conservative policy and cuts. Thank you @Emmabarnett for excellent interviewing.
Emma Barnett to Nadine Dorries, on 'Woman's Hour': "That's not how it works here. You don't get to answer the questions you'd like to be asked." Brilliant. A lesson for all journalists and interviewers.
Oh God, Emma Barnett on Woman's Hour struggling to interview Nadine Dorries. Give Emma a bonus and a month off for tackling a person with the intellectual complexity of the average tree stump.
— The Masked Prevenger (@zombiwombat) June 9, 2021
@BBCWomansHour and @Emmabarnett thank you for challenging and standing up to Nadine Dorries assertion that women should be confident to challenge their GP. The overwhelming evidence is that women are being failed, even when they challenge.
The message is starkly clear: if you are a woman and you are being failed by the Tory-run health service, you will get no help from the Tories who are running it into the ground.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
The Guardian has reported on what happened to these people – and it reflects very poorly on Priti Patel and her Home Office.
The 11 men were left destitute after being dumped in Madrid, Spain, by the Home Office chartered flight:
Barbara Pomfret, an adviser to corporate companies about social responsibility, who is based in Granada, said she wanted to offer support to the asylum seekers, especially when she learned they had been left in the street. The 40-year-old paid for food and a few days of accommodation for the group and set up a crowdfund page with her husband, Thomas Pomfret, to help support them.
“As a UK citizen I am ashamed that our government would leave asylum seekers on the streets with absolutely no support. As I see it the only difference between me and this group of people is luck. And if I was ever so unlucky as to find myself in a similar situation I hope that someone with more luck would be willing to help me.”
Several of the asylum seekers told The Guardian they had close family members in the UK. All had fled persecution and some had experienced torture.
All but one of them say they were removed from the UK without having their identity documents returned to them. Home Office sources said they were looking into this.
The Home Office has said it is under no obligation to monitor the treatment of asylum seekers it has returned to another country.
In other words, Patel and her cronies would have been happy if these people had starved, as long as it was on the streets of some other country.
I am reminded again of the words of Tony Benn: “The way a government treats refugees shows how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”
I am also reminded of the way the Tories have treated sick and disabled people they have unfairly cut off from receiving benefits; they never bothered to check up on the well-being of those people so we have no idea what happened to them.
So Ms Pomfret is right: we should all be ashamed of living in a country whose government turns its back on people who need help.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
‘Let our teachers be heroes’: is that because DEAD heroes don’t cause trouble for Tories?
The Daily Mail has scored a spectacular own-goal by not only attacking teachers who are fighting to keep our children safe from the coronavirus, but by doing it in a racist way.
The right-wing rag is supporting Education Secretary Gavin Williamson in his claim that teachers should “do their duty” and get children back into school at the beginning of June – despite the fact that Williamson has offered no evidence to reassure either teachers, parents or pupils that measures will be imposed to make them all safe from infection with the coronavirus.
This Site published information earlier, in which the Department for Education’s own scientific advisor admitted that reopening schools could potentially create hundreds of potential “vectors” – per school – that could then transmit Covid-19 into society at large. He offered no proof that scientific evidence had played any part in the decision to demand that schools reopen. And he admitted that he had not assessed whether the government’s proposals for opening schools safely could be implemented in an effective way.
In short, the plan to reopen schools is a deathtrap. And the Daily Mail supports it.
Not only that, but the paper that supported Adolf Hitler in the run-up to World War Two (he was also a racist) has managed to demonstrate its own racism with the stock picture it used to illustrate its Tory government propaganda piece – by cutting out the children of minority ethnic parentage from the image:
Compare the #DailyMail front cover photo and the stock photo they used – and notice anything about the people they cropped out? pic.twitter.com/8dG38mU0vD
Fortunately, right-thinking people across the UK have been standing up to humiliate the Mail. Here’s just a sample of their comments:
With no fewer than 9 unions, including National Education Union, Nasuwt & National Association of Head Teachers wanting nothing more than to keep our children & staff safe this must be the most mind numbingly dumb headline you will read today. It is of course from the #DailyMailpic.twitter.com/Sr7igY5R5h
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) May 15, 2020
This reminds one of the mentality in WW1; over the top boys to almost certain death, but you'll die a hero. No doubt the writers of this garbage are all safely working from home social distancing whilst directing everyone else to die a hero. #DailyMailpic.twitter.com/llxs70weZt
— Sgt Arthur Wilson #wearamask (@SgtArthurWilson) May 15, 2020
Heroic or moronic? We’re asking teachers/pupils to do what NHS staff & all other UK workers wouldn’t – go to work in rooms where multiple people can’t social distance without protection.#DailyMail should stick to speaking for bigots & not me/teachers.#schoolsreopening#COVID19pic.twitter.com/o92yQ0inW3
#DailyMail My kid’s teacher is already a hero. She posts a register every day, she explains the daily work, she reads to the kids every day, she marks and comments on their work, all whilst going in to teach key worker kids. “Hero” is not about being in some specific building. pic.twitter.com/iHrTI76MDR
A reminder that the #DailyMail supported fascism in the 1930s.. the Spectator commented at the time ".the Blackshirts, like the Daily Mail, appeal to people unaccustomed to thinking. The average Daily Mail reader is a potential Blackshirt ready made."
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Shaun Howard was lucky: he had family who managed to attract media attention after the Department for Work and Pensions stopped his Personal Independence Payments.
What about people who don’t have family members who can step in when the DWP picks on them?
Mr Howard, 29, has a condition called global development delay. He is unable to read or write, struggles to socialise and cope with everyday tasks, and lives in sheltered housing in Clacton.
His financial affairs are handled by an organisation called Essex Guardians, that helps people who do not have mental capacity to handle their own money.
He was called in by the DWP for a PIP reassessment last month, and a decision was made to stop his benefits.
Essex Guardians was told – but Mr Howard didn’t receive a letter and did not know his benefit had been cancelled until that organisation informed him.
The DWP didn’t even have the courtesy to let him know it had cut off his lifeline.
Fortunately for him, his parents spoke to a local newspaper and when the DWP realised its decision had attracted media interest, the decision was magically reversed.
A spokesperson said his case had been reviewed.
But would the DWP have reviewed his case and restored his payments without the attention?
Of course not.
This story has a happy ending.
But it also shows why we need to elect a Labour government, close down the DWP and built a better benefit system.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
#WASPI women in the gallery of the House of Commons, at first stood up and turned their back on @GuyOpperman, then walked out on him, shouting 'shame on you!’ Can totally understand their anger. #Solidarity to the @WASPI_Campaign.
Mr Opperman had just refused to provide any transitional help for women who are facing an increase in the age at which they will be paid the state pension.
Changes to the state pension age for women were introduced in Acts of Parliament in 1995 and 2011 and mean that, by 2020, 2.6 million women will have to wait until they are 66 before receiving their pension.
Mr Opperman, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: “People living and staying healthier for longer is to be welcomed, but the Government must not ignore the fact that it also brings enormous financial and demographic pressures. The key choice that a Government face when seeking to control state pension spend is to increase the state pension age or pay lower pensions, with an inevitable impact on pensioner poverty. The only alternative is to ask the working generation to pay an ever larger share of their income to support pensioners.
“In July 2017 the Government published their first review of the state pension age, which set out a coherent strategy targeted at strengthening and sustaining the UK state pension system for many decades to come. It accepts the key recommendation of John Cridland’s independent review which was to increase the state pension age from 67 to 68 between 2037 and 2039.
“The review is clear about increasing life expectancy and the challenges it poses. People are living longer. Almost 6,000 people in the UK turned 100 in 2016, compared with 3,000 in 2002. By 2035 there will be more than twice as many people over 100 as there are now.”
It was while he was saying these words that the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) representatives in the public gallery stood up and, at first, turned their backs on Mr Opperman, before shouting “Shame on you!” and staging a mass walkout.
This Writer can sympathise. Not only was Mr Opperman quoting inaccurate statistics about longevity – people have started living shorter lives since the Conservatives came to office – but he was also wrong about an increase in the amount working-age people would be asked to spend on pensions – the National Insurance fund for Great Britain was in surplus by nearly £21 billion in October last year, while the Northern Ireland fund was half a billion pounds in surplus, and there is no reason to believe that the transitional arrangements being requested would put that fund into deficit.
One particularly strong argument in favour of transitional arrangements is the fact that the women who are being affected were not given sufficient warning of the change and will suffer considerable financial difficulty as a result.
So the WASPI women were right; Mr Opperman should be ashamed.
The debate served a useful purpose – the Commons agreed to call on the Government to publish proposals to provide a non-means tested bridging solution for all women born on or after April 6, 1950, who are affected by changes to the State Pension age in the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts.
No doubt the miserly Tories will refuse the request – they would rather provide useless tax breaks to bankers, after all – but their response will undoubtedly provide another nail in the coffin of the arrogant and incompetent minority Conservative government.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Mr Justice Bodey said he had sometimes had to cross-examine witnesses on litigants’ behalf [Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA].
This Writer has published many times on the national scandal that is the Conservatives’ removal of support for legal advocacy in our courts.
It has turned legal debate at hearings from expert discussion into farce, and justice into a thing of the past.
Fair play to judges like Mr Justice Bodey, but it is not their job to act as advocates for either side, let alone both.
How is justice served by this scurrilous and grubby Tory money grab?
One of the most senior family court judges has warned about the impact of legal aid cuts and said it was “shaming” to preside over cases in which individuals are forced to represent themselves.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark his retirement, Mr Justice Bodey explained how he sometimes had to help litigants in person by cross-examining witnesses on their behalf.
His comments highlight dismay among the judiciary about the Ministry of Justice’s slow progress towards reviewing the effect of the 2012 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (Laspo) Act.
The legislation removed more than £350m from the legal aid budget and ended the right to legal representation in large areas of the law on divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education.
Last year, Amnesty International said the cuts were far worse than anticipated and had created a “two-tier” system that denied the poorest people access to justice.
The family courts have been the worst-affected part of the justice system. More than a third of family cases involve litigants who are unrepresented on both sides.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
So the UK has a worse record for supporting United Nations recommendations on human rights than Saudi Arabia. That’s shaming.
Among those who should be particularly ashamed is Home Secretary Amber Rudd. We are being criticised over the fact that we can hold people in detention centres for unlimited periods of time and she is a serious offender – ignoring even court orders telling her to release at least one detainee.
Ms Rudd is also notorious for deporting people – sending them back to their home country where they may face danger or even death.
But that isn’t all. The Department for Work and Pensions, its ministers, and the minority Tory government in general, along with those who were Liberal Democrat and Conservative MPs during the time of the Coalition Government and the short-lived Tory government of 2015-17, are all guilty of failing to uphold the human rights of people with long-term illnesses and disabilities.
At the present time the Tories are busily denying having caused any harm to the sick and/or disabled, even though the statistics tell a different story.
It is hard to imagine the UK doing anything regarding recommendations on abortion either, with the minority Conservative government dependent on the anti-abortion DUP to win votes in the Commons.
And what will happen after this week’s showdown? I’ll tell you:
Absolutely nothing.
The UN has no power to force the UK into upholding the human rights of its citizens – and, it seems, is unable to impose sanctions on this country for failing to do so.
Therefore the Tories can continue to do exactly whatever they like to the vulnerable. And they will.
There isn’t even the possibility of the Tories feeling ashamed. They don’t get embarrassed about hurting anybody in a weaker position then themselves.
Just look at Amber Rudd.
Britain is heading for a confrontation this week at the UN human rights council over its failure to support more than 100 recommendations on subjects ranging from the rights of children to the international law on abortion.
David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), will attend the UN’s universal periodic review (UPR) of the UK’s human rights record in Geneva, a process which takes place for every country once every five years.
Among the recommendations that the government has declined to back, a number outline the need for the UK to limit how long someone can be held in an immigration detention centre. The UK is the only European country without such a time limit.
Britain has also declined to support recommendations on the detention of children in immigration centres. Of a total of 229 recommendations by UN members, the government will confirm that it is supporting just 96 – 42% of the total. The government has chosen simply to “note” the remainder.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
