tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53726502623278129212024-02-19T17:20:42.873+00:00Sometimes It's PoliticalI moved the soapbox over hereGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-74753676539866592562011-03-27T21:29:00.003+01:002011-03-27T21:32:46.470+01:00A friend who works for the census...... has told me that <i>partially</i> completing and returning it is the best way of being non-compliant, whilst avoiding prosecution. They have instructions to visit (possibly daily) 'soft refusers' - people who make excuses for not doing it, and to refer 'to be prosecuted' people who simply refuse, on ideological or political grounds, to fill it in at all. But my friend thinks that no action is planned for partially completed forms.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-11487986968995650162011-02-08T07:59:00.004+00:002011-02-08T08:19:05.944+00:00On regulationI’ve always liked the philosophy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space">shared space</a>, which "removes the traditional segregation of motor vehicles, pedestrians and other road users. Conventional road priority management systems and devices such as kerbs, lines, signs and signals are replaced with an integrated, people-oriented understanding of public space, such that walking, cycling, shopping and driving cars become integrated activities."<br /><br />This is the part in which I’m particularly interested: <br /><br /><blockquote>Accident figures at one junction where traffic lights were removed have dropped from thirty-six in the four years prior to the introduction of the scheme to two in the two years following it. </blockquote><br /><br />And I can understand why, from the rare occasions when our local traffic lights stop working: everyone’s a lot slower and more careful because they’ve got to think about their own safety. <br /><br />In the UK our lives are officially regulated in many ways now. We’ve even got <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178048/Red-warning-labels-junk-food-traffic-light-packaging-plan.html">traffic light warnings on some of our food!</a> As well as the bewildering array of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11092590">street signs</a> and traffic management schemes, we’re constantly bombarded with state sponsored regulation in the fields of health and safety, childcare, fuel usage and the nature of our many interactions with bureaucracy. <br /><br />Which brings me to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12360045">this article</a> by Swiss multi-millionaire and philosophical writer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_de_botton">Alain de Botton</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12360045"><left><img src="http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/9186/nannystate.png" border="0" alt="In Defence of the Nanny State"/></left></a><br /><br /> - which conversely complains that: "Modern politics, on both left and right, is dominated by what we can call a libertarian ideology," and cites the root cause of this, for example, in the famous John Stuart Mill quote: <br /><br /><blockquote>"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."</blockquote><br /><br />De Botton compares our modern secular society, cluttered as it is by advertisements "nudging" us to buy, with the more traditional and religious societies - pitied by the West for being compelled to live by stricter codes of conduct. He suggests: <br /><br /><blockquote>A libertarian state truly worthy of the name would accept that our freedom is best guaranteed by an entirely neutral public space.</blockquote><br /> - although he fails to observe that the banning of advertisements itself would be a severely anti-libertarian stance, before going on to propose similar ‘remedies’, all of which would involve the imposition of more central decrees! <br /><br />Like the proponents of ever more traffic regulation, he seems to work on the basis that people are inherently stupid, uncritical beings ("If we tend to think so often about eating crisps and buying cars, but relatively little about being nice or just, the fault is not merely our own. It is also that these two cardinal virtues are not generally in a position to become clients of Saatchi and Saatchi.") which, although I can appreciate the elegance of the argument, completely fails to take into account the phenomena of such a dramatic drop in the rate of accidents in ‘shared space’ towns. <br /><br />The more we’re told what to do, the less we think for ourselves. <br /><br />The author then goes on to make the case for increased paternalistic authority in our lives, on the apparent grounds that it’s good for us, and that we prefer it really. <br /><br /><blockquote>In the modern world, there is so much that we would like to do but never end up doing, there are so many ways of behaving that we subscribe to in our hearts but ignore in our day-to-day lives. And perhaps most significantly, there are so few people around us who dare to exhort us to act well.</blockquote><br />To which I would venture to say: "Speak for yourself," on both counts – with true appreciation of our collective remaining freedom to do so. And while I might share his concern that day-to-day modern life is perhaps too bustling, cut-throat and commercialised to engender the calm and measured state of mind that invariably leads to considerate behaviour between people, I’d prefer to look more deeply for its cause than "our original childhood need for constraint endur[ing] within us."<br /><br />Mr de Botton’s father, from whom – according to his Wikipedia page – he inherited his millions, was a former president of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschilds">Rothschilds</a> in New York. His <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_de_Botton">stepmother</a>’s family founded <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Universal_Stores">Great Universal Stores</a>, the corporation which now owns Argos and the Experian credit management company. None of which is his fault, of course, but I personally would cite some of those names as possible causes of any modern behavioural malaise – certainly for contributing to the proliferation of advertising! – before the "laziness" of ordinary people "about being nice". <br /><br />I think the article’s last paragraph in particular warrants a full examination: <br /><br /><blockquote>It is perhaps in the end a sign of immaturity to object too strenuously to sometimes being treated like a child.</blockquote><br />I’ve read this through several times and it still doesn’t make any sense. If we complain about being treated like children, we’re being childish? Given the author’s background and position I can only wonder at his motives for suggesting this. Put it this way: I doubt that anyone will ever dare to treat <i>him</i> like a child, unless they’ve been specifically instructed by him to do so. <br /><br /><blockquote> Why does the idea of a nanny state always have to be so terrifying?</blockquote><br />Because some of us have been brought up according to limiting and constraining rules about obedience that were at one time necessary for the survival of the lower and middle classes, but thankfully – in most cases – no longer are? Having seen what paternalistic authority did to the lives of our parents and grandparents, having spied a chink of light in the cage door, our generation made a break for intellectual freedom. And – speaking for myself – we’re not giving it back!<br /><br /><blockquote>The libertarian obsession with freedom ignores how much of our original childhood need for constraint endures within us,</blockquote><br />There is absolutely no ‘original childhood need for constraint’ enduring in me! What kind of constraint are we talking about here? The physical, swaddling clothes, reins and playpens that are now completely absent from the lives of our own children, thank goodness? Or the more verbal “DO AS YOU ARE TOLD, <b>FIRST</b> TIME OF ASKING! DO NOT ASK ‘WHY’!” style of constraint that was deafeningly thundered at me on a regular basis and of which I am unspeakably glad to be rid now, having had no <i>need</i> of it at any time. I like to think that parents in those days knew no better than to unthinkingly pass on the parenting style that had been inflicted on themselves. In these enlightened days there can be no such excuses. <br /><br /><blockquote> and therefore how much we stand to learn from certain paternalistic strategies.</blockquote><br />That the freedom of the people can, perhaps, be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_protests">terrifying</a> for the ruling classes in some circumstances? <br /><br /><blockquote>It is not much fun, nor ultimately even very freeing, to be left alone to do entirely as one pleases.</blockquote><br />We reap what we sow. We take responsibility for our own decisions. We grow up. Being left alone to do entirely as one pleases is breathtakingly fun, phenomenally freeing and invariably <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest">beneficial to communities</a>.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-5853897626165891182011-01-23T07:08:00.010+00:002011-01-23T08:48:41.335+00:00Unfortunate turn of phrase, Mr Narey?<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/21/adoption-barnardos-chief-martin-narey/">"If we are absolutely clear that a child will be significantly better off if they are taken away from their parents, then we have to do that."</a><br /><br />I know there are a small number of children from a range of social backgrounds who are tragically living in unbearable circumstances of cruelty and neglect with their birth parents, and of course I wouldn't argue with anyone who wanted to offer them an improvement to their lives, but I usually hear the term 'better off' in purely financial contexts.<br /><br />In fact, a person could be forgiven for wondering whether outgoing Barnados chief Martin Narey has been in conversation recently with the Labour MP <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/19/graham-allen-interview-early-intervention">Graham Allen</a>, who has recently published <a href="http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/g/graham%20allens%20review%20of%20early%20intervention.pdf">a report about early intervention into children's lives</a>.<br /><br />Mr Allen has the grace to say in his report: "It is not <b>just</b> about money," which is good, because I can think of some children of relatively affluent parents who might be <i>emotionally</i> "better off" in more caring, albeit economically poorer environments - if we're going to try to play God with people's 'life chances'.<br /><br />It's not just about money. It shouldn't be <i>even</i> about money. Are these people - these men in high places - seeking to create a rich/poor apartheid in the official treatment of British families? If you're sufficiently wealthy, you get to be left alone, but if your income is below average then you can expect your child to have to undergo an early intervention programme? Your <i>two year old</i> child, who is essentially still your baby?<br /><br />I know some people hold deeply anti-family beliefs. Through their own unfortunate childhood experiences, or some misguided Brave New World ideas about political utopia, they'd prefer any issue of the great unwashed to be surgically removed to a quiet, ordered place of unemotional clinical sterility, where it can be summarily cleansed of any potential lack of productivity and other irritating traits and I wouldn't like to put Messrs Narey or Allen into this bracket without further knowledge of them.<br /><br />But I think, through their use of such unfortunate phrases, they might be in danger of straying uncomfortably close to it.<br /><br /><br /><br />(More about the Allen report from Pete Darby <a href="http://petedarby.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/youre-turning-me-into-a-paranoid-lunatic-again-tories/">here</a>.)Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-38727556913005520932010-10-15T16:02:00.003+01:002010-10-15T16:15:27.706+01:00This seems somehow pertinent this week.From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Knight%27s_Tale">one of my favourite films</a>: <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz0GHedS4CvF9twU4ymVx-50JBoQxtWUJ3LaDQQAv_6aSnRZvsBP1ZaZDwd_qa8L1RNlsGp8OtHCSLpua59VQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-69444157946399360852009-03-01T03:16:00.001+00:002009-03-01T03:17:10.318+00:00Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms - by Philip PullmanAre such things done on Albion's shore? <br /><br />The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake's prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today. <br /><br />We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys. <br /><br />We are so fast asleep that we don't know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of? <br /><br />The new laws whisper: <br /><br />You don't know who you are <br /><br />You're mistaken about yourself <br /><br />We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless <br /><br />We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you <br /><br />And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised <br /><br />The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasizes about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that: <br /><br />Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity <br /><br />Whatever your opinions are, we don't want to hear them <br /><br />So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are <br /><br />And we do not want to hear you arguing about it <br /><br />So hold your tongue and forget about protesting <br /><br />What we want from you is acquiescence <br /><br />The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream. <br /><br />You are not to be trusted with laws <br /><br />So we shall put ourselves out of your reach <br /><br />We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition <br /><br />You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them <br /><br />You do not need to hold us to account <br /><br />You think you will get what you want from an inquiry? <br /><br />Who do you think you are? <br /><br />What sort of fools do you think we are? <br /><br />The nation's dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again. <br /><br />And the new laws whisper: <br /><br />We do not want to hear you talking about truth <br /><br />Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours <br /><br />We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on <br /><br />We do not want to hear you talking about innocence <br /><br />Innocent means guilty of things not yet done <br /><br />We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence <br /><br />You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt <br /><br />We do not want to hear you talking about justice <br /><br />Justice is whatever we want to do to you <br /><br />And nothing else <br /><br />Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don't mind if we are. They don't think we care about it. <br /><br />We want to watch you day and night <br /><br />We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you <br /><br />We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people <br /><br />We can see you have abandoned modesty <br /><br />Some of our friends have seen to that <br /><br />They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible <br /><br />In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide <br /><br />We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural <br /><br />We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things <br /><br />One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that: <br /><br />We know who our friends are <br /><br />And when our friends want to have words with one of you <br /><br />We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need <br /><br />It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law <br /><br />It is for us to know what your offence is <br /><br />Angering our friends is an offence <br /><br />It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. <br /><br />Inconceivable. <br /><br />And those laws say: <br /><br />Sleep, you stinking cowards <br /><br />Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms <br /><br />Freedom is too hard for you <br /><br />We shall decide what freedom is <br /><br />Sleep, you vermin <br /><br />Sleep, you scum. <br /><br />Philip Pullman will deliver a keynote speech at the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London tomorrowGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-4079236847709272592009-01-08T11:30:00.000+00:002009-01-08T11:31:31.591+00:00What it's like to live in Palestine this week<a href="http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/55781/2009/00/8-094521-1.htm">Dad, when are we going to die?</a>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-3881302508261317842009-01-04T08:55:00.005+00:002009-01-04T10:42:30.454+00:00About Gaza<a href="http://sewq.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/have-mercy/">Qalballah</a> and <a href="http://exuberantconnectedness.blogspot.com/2009/01/terrorism-healing-praying-for-peace.html">Shukr</a> have both blogged eloquently about this, and I've just watched <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RTaJUFLapZ8&feature=related">America's only intelligent politician</a> talking about it and other things. Well worth a look. <br /><br />I want to know what we can do, though? How do we stop these so-called 'pre-emptive' strikes, as Ron Paul describes them? If an aggressor is determined to be aggressive in the face of universal opposition, if governments are determined to bankrupt their own countries, if people with great power throughout the world persist in acting in this way, <i> what can we do</i>? Protest? It doesn't stop them. What will?<br /><br />I've read quite a bit about what's happening in Gaza and am as outraged as everyone else, but <a href="http://babsindk.blogspot.com/2009/01/waves-of-compassion-on-ocean-of-sorrow.html">this post</a> by 'Babs' perhaps comes closest to my thoughts on it, such as they are.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-20770613667648725392008-12-07T18:19:00.005+00:002008-12-07T19:04:10.303+00:00Demented.. dementors..Jacky Fleming's "Demented" strips in the You magazine are usually brilliant, but this week's is so good that I couldn't resist scanning and posting it in a picture link to her site. I hope she won't mind. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.jackyfleming.co.uk/"><img src="http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/4882/demented4tq6.jpg" border="0" alt="Jacky Fleming: Demented"/></a><br /><br />Remember JK Rowling's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementors#Dementors">dementors?</a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementors#Dementors"><img src="http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/949/dementors2kc2.jpg" border="0" alt="Dementors"/></a><br /><br />Well, for some reason <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529">this article</a> about a "Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic funded by Bill Gates, the Rockefeller family and the GMO giants (amongst others) which I've also been reading, reminds me of them. <br /><br />Apparently they've been selling seed with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_seeds">'Terminator' gene</a> to developing world farmers, leading to their financial disaster and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html">thousands of suicides</a>, whilst at the same time spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this project to preserve as many <i>natural</i> seeds as possible. <br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault"><img src="http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/8852/seedvault2iv5.jpg" border="0" alt="Svalbard Global Seed Vault"/></a><br /><br />Suspicious? <br /><br />I suspect the only way to ensure the freedom to harvest one's own seeds in future will be to hand-weed one's own food crops.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-12605448858684491522008-11-12T05:14:00.002+00:002008-11-12T05:20:05.439+00:00Complaint to BRE and Early Day MotionThis is what I sent to some home ed lists yesterday: <br /><br /><br /><blockquote>Please cross-post this widely.<br /> <br />Regarding the welfare reforms, some of us have put in a formal complaint to the Better Regulations Executive about the scope and breadth of DWP's consultation targets. It's a bit late in the day, but BRE is supposed to respond within 15 days of our email which will take us to the day before the first changes are due to be implemented (25th of this month). Ideally, we want another consultation with the most important stakeholders (individual Income Support claimants) being informed about it this time, so that they can have a say in these life-changing decisions. Letters have also gone to MPs in West Yorkshire, asking them to press for a delayed implementation date pending the result of the complaint. <br /> <br />If you want to help in delaying these reforms to allow for more, essential thinking and debating time, please write to your MP, asking them to press for a postponement of the first implementation date pending the outcome of our complaint to BRE. You can also ask them to sign Lynne Jones's Early Day Motion (ED 2434). If you've never done it before, writing to your MP is very quick and easy via http://www.theyworkforyou.com/. You just key in your postcode, write your message then confirm it by email. Your MP is obliged to at least read and reply to your message. <br /> <br />You could also make a complaint to BRE yourself, which might strengthen the call for a rethink. (Email address: regulation@berr.gsi.gov.uk). It is in keeping with their Code of Practice on Consultation (http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file47158.pdf) to expect DWP to inform all IS claimants about the consultations by post, which they have neglected to do up to press. <br /> <br />This is what we sent to BRE: <br /> <br /><blockquote>Dear Sirs,<br /><br />We would like to draw your urgent attention to the matter of imminent key changes to the Welfare System, particularly in regard to the public consultations: In Work, Better Off (DWP, July 2007) and No One Written Off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility (DWP, July 2008). <br /><br />These consultations, whilst being open to responses from all interested parties, nevertheless failed to effectively represent a significant section of primary stakeholders and a group whose lives will be directly affected if the changes take place: lone parents on Income Support.<br /><br />We feel that DWP was negligent in disseminating the necessary information about the process of Welfare Reform, including the two relevant consultations, and that DWP could and should have written to every Income Support claimant to inform them of the consultations, so that they were in a position to have a say about this life-changing issue. <br /><br />Lone parents on Income Support also have to attend regular Work-Focused Interviews with DWP staff at job centres and have been routinely misinformed about the process of changes, with many being told that the decisions had all been made and would definitely be executed. We do not know of any lone parent who has been told about the consultations by their Lone Parent Advisor, so DWP has failed to “be proactive in disseminating consultation documents” at least via these two glaringly obvious channels of contact with this key group of stakeholders. <br /><br />We would like BRE, therefore, to urgently consider the overall validity of the aggregate responses to the two consultations in question, bearing in mind that the first phase of change is due to be implemented later this month, that an Early Day Motion has been laid down by Lynne Jones, MP (http://tinyurl.com/6ds6ew EDM 2434<br />SOCIAL SECURITY [LONE PARENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS] REGULATIONS 2008 - 06.11.2008) and that the Social Security Advisory Committee itself recommended that the Government does not proceed with the regulations (http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm74/7480/7480.pdf). <br /><br />In conclusion, DWP has failed to notify the majority of lone parents of the two consultations pertaining to the changes and is therefore in breach of BRE’s Code of Practice on Consultation, criterion 4. <br /><br />Yours faithfully, <br /><br />Gill Kilner<br /><br />Founder: West Yorkshire Home Educating Lone Parents (WYHELP).<br /><br />NB: This is a formal complaint.</blockquote></blockquote><br /><br />(My MP's lovely admin assistant has also kindly forwarded our BRE complaint to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, who are responsible for the Better Regulations Executive.)Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-20766202150609528982008-10-21T15:31:00.002+01:002008-10-21T15:40:22.212+01:00"We are people, not pit ponies" - my response to the Benefits Reform consultation (deadline: tomorrow)Here is my response to the latest consultation on benefits reform: <a href="http://www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/noonewrittenoff/">No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility</a>, the deadline of which is tomorrow. <br /><br />I've been putting off responding because I'm very consultaion-weary at the moment, life is busy, etc., but it was important to me to put the time aside to do this because, although I think my views will be ignored, it makes me feel better to express them in the right place anyway. And once I got started, I actually enjoyed answering the questions. <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility</span><br /><br />List of Consultation Questions<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 1: How long should ‘work for your benefit’ last at different stages in the claim?</span><br /><br />I feel very strongly that lone parents should not be expected to work for money at all. Children of all ages – especially children who only have one parent living with them – need the security of full-time parental availability. Ignoring this need will cause mental health issues in young people due to further fragmentation of their family lives. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 2: How could capacity and capability to provide full-time work experience in the community sector be provided and incentivised to produce the best employment outcomes for participants?</span><br /><br />By making it a matter of choice, not compulsory. Forced labour is not productive labour anyway, and stay-at-home parents are doing an absolutely crucial, but vastly underrated job by being available for their children at home. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 3: Is full-time ‘work for your benefit’ as an alternative to a sanction of loss of benefit for repeated non-compliance with work search requirements an effective option for some jobseekers? How should it be targeted?</span><br /><br />Neither option is a good idea in my opinion. Financially penalising people who are already trying to raise families on breadline benefits will plunge those families further into poverty, and forcing lone parents into the workplace is bad for children’s mental health and safety. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 4: What penalties do you think would be most effective to deter more people from committing benefit fraud?</span><br /><br />Make the benefits system properly fair and usable. Better train your advisors to advise people well and to actually help them, instead of just threatening them. The system must be sympathetic to individual cases – this cannot be just about money and using stick and carrot measures to achieve economic aims. <br /><br />You should also consult far more widely about your plans. I know many single parents on Income Support and not one has been told about this consultation by their lone parent advisor. How can you call it a public consultation when most of the people who will be directly affected don't even know about it? This is a vitally important point which needs to be addressed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 5: Do you think it would be appropriate to reduce or withdraw entitlement to benefit after a first offence? How long should the sanction period be?</span><br /><br />People who commit fraud are in need of extra help, not punishment in my opinion. There should be no sanctions, only investigation, counselling and further assistance. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 6: Do you agree with the proposed approach for identifying problem drug use? How should it be implemented? Do you think that everyone claiming a working-age benefit should be required to make a declaration of whether or not they use certain specified drugs? </span><br /><br />Drug use (both legal and illegal) is a symptom of a broken society. The government’s time would be better spent trying to better understand why some people feel the need to escape from the day-to-day reality of life in the UK. This is not a problem that can ever be solved by taking the ‘strict parent’ approach. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 7: What elements should an integrated system of drug treatment and employment support include? Do you agree that a rehabilitation plan would help recovering drug users to manage their condition and move towards employment? </span><br /><br />Drug addicts will only get clean when they want to, not when the government or anyone else wants them to. I don’t think any incentives will work. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 8: When is the right time to require ESA claimants to take a skills health check?</span><br /><br />It should always be an option to them. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 9: Should ESA customers be required to attend training in order to gain the identified skills they need to enter work?<br /></span><br />Not required, but free to do so as and when they wish. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 10: In view of the need to help lone parents develop the skills they need to find work, are we right to require lone parents to have a skills health check and training as a condition of receiving benefit? <br /></span><br />Absolutely not. The first and most important job of a lone parent is that of parenting. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 11: Should we pilot extra benefit payments for lone parents in return for training, and if so, when the youngest child is what age?</span><br /><br />No, you should focus on allowing them to be available for parenting if you are at all concerned about people’s long term mental health and safety. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 12: Are there any other circumstances where customers cannot get the skills they need to enter employment under present and planned arrangements?</span><br /><br />It’s difficult if one is dealing with benefits staff who obviously don’t care. This situation is improving but there are still some bad apples. Tightening up the rules and regulations for claimants will only exacerbate this problem in my opinion. Better training for staff and better selection of staff is needed. Also, asking claimants for feedback about staff would seem sensible. I’m amazed you don’t do this already. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 13: How might we build on the foundations of the current rules so that they do not discourage unemployed people from volunteering as a deliberate back-to-work strategy, while retaining a clear focus on moving off welfare into paid employment?<br /></span><br />I disagree with your ‘clear focus’. There is no need to have everyone in this country – even 80% - in employment and I would question the motives of those who propose such agenda. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 14: Do you agree that the WCA and WFHRA should be re-focused to increase work-related support? </span><br /><br />No. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 15: What expectations should there be of people undertaking the personalised support we will now be offering in the Work Related Activity Group? Could this include specific job search?</span><br /><br />No expectations. Only help if they want it. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 16: How can we make Access to Work more responsive to the needs of claimants with fluctuating conditions – including mental health conditions?</span><br /><br />Primarily by making it non-compulsory. People with mental health conditions are the last people (after lone parents) you should be pushing into jobs. It would be better instead for the government to work towards developing a better understanding of the real reasons why so many UK citizens suffer from mental health conditions and to set about remedying those on a long term basis. Economy-based stick and carrot governance is not the best thing for people. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 17: What additional flexibilities in the system or forms of support would claimants with multiple and complex problems need to enable them to meet the new work-focused requirements proposed in this Green Paper?</span><br /><br />The support should be non-compulsory and not based on ‘getting them off benefits’. Public money is used for many potentially questionable purposes. Using it to keep the poor, the abandoned and the sick from starvation is not one of them. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 18: What are the key features of an action planning approach that would best support employees and employers to take the steps for the employee to make a swifter return to work?</span><br /><br />A swift return to work should not be the priority. We are people, not pit ponies. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 19: There is no Question 19.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 20: What approach might be suitable to assist partners of benefit claimants who can work into employment?</span><br /><br />It would be better to allow them to choose when and if they want to work for money. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 21: What are the next steps in enabling disabled people, reliably and easily, to access an individual budget if they want one? Should they include legislation to give people a right to ask for a budget or will the other levers the Government has got prove sufficient? What are the safeguards that should be built in? How can this be done? <br /></span><br />I don’t know enough about this to answer it properly. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 22: Is a system based on a single overarching benefit the right long-term aspiration? How could a simpler system be structured so as to meet varying needs and responsibilities?</span><br /><br />Provide a breadline benefit, like Income Support, for all who need and want to claim it. Relax planning laws to reduce the price of land and houses, and support and enable more people to produce their own power and food, so that living is cheaper. We are more than units of economy. We should not be seen as resources to be mined. Paid employment should be an option for all who can get it, not a necessity. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 23: Would moving carers currently on IS onto JSA be a suitable way of helping them to access the support available to help combine caring with paid work or preparing for paid work? <br /></span><br />Of course not. They wouldn’t be known as carers if they weren’t needed to care for someone. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 24: How might we reform Bereavement Benefit and IIDB to provide better support to help people adjust to their new circumstances while maintaining the work focus of the modern welfare state? </span><br /><br />The modern welfare state shouldn’t be work focused and I would question the motives of anyone who said it should. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 25: Are lump sum payments a good way of meeting people’s needs? Do they give people more choice and control? Could we make more use of them?</span><br /><br />You could certainly be providing people with help to make down payments on their homes. I’d also like to see more grants for wind turbines and solar panels to reduce people’s living expenses. Also the provision of an allotment or similar land to grow food. These measures, taken individually, will better enable our country to weather the new global economic situation. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 26: What information would providers need to make the Right to Bid effective? How would the evaluation process need to work to give providers confidence that their ideas would be evaluated fairly and effectively? How do we get the balance right between rewarding those who come up with new ideas and the obligation to tender projects?</span><br /><br />If this is about employing private companies to force benefits claimants into jobs, I am strongly against the whole process. Putting profit before people is a horrendous idea, on so many levels. I think everyone knows this intrinsically. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 27: What would the processes around contributing to commissioning and performance management look like in a range of different partnership areas? How might they best be managed to achieve the desired outcomes?</span><br /><br />If this is about employing private companies to force benefits claimants into jobs, I am strongly against the whole process. Putting profit before people is a horrendous idea, on so many levels. I think everyone knows this intrinsically.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 28: How could a link be made to the radical proposals for the pilots set out in Chapter 3, which seek to reward providers for outcomes out of the benefit savings they achieve?</span><br /><br />If this is about employing private companies to force benefits claimants into jobs, I am strongly against the whole process. Putting profit before people is a horrendous idea, on so many levels. I think everyone knows this intrinsically.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Question 29: How effective are current monitoring and evaluation arrangements for City Strategies?</span><br /><br />I don’t know enough about this to answer it properly. </blockquote>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-81301660194117601282008-10-19T19:17:00.002+01:002008-10-19T19:29:13.810+01:00Compulsory ID by the back door<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece">Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones</a><br /><br />"Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. <br /><br />Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society."<br /><br />Does this remind you of any other databases, by any chance? Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_DNA_Database">the one that collects DNA</a>, which wasn't going to be compulsory but now just happens to include information on <i>nearly 5 million</i> UK citizens? <br /><br />I'm trying to keep up, but so far it seems to me that if you want to avoid being on a database, you need to:<br /><br />1. Not have <a href="http://www.databasemasterclass.blogspot.com/">children</a>;<br />2. Never have any dealings with the police or courts;<br />3. Not use the <a href="http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/spine">NHS</a>; and<br />4. Not buy a new mobile phone. <br /><br />And counting.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-17453733305915744342008-08-16T09:02:00.001+01:002008-08-16T09:04:38.184+01:00Reasons to home educate, part 873462<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/your-school-is-failing-ofsted-tells-fouryearolds-in-letter-898984.html">Your school is failing, Ofsted tells four-year-olds in letter</a><br /><br />Words fail me.. (But don't tell Ofsted that, or they'll be writing to my one-year old)Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-85133269810945720282008-08-14T07:43:00.002+01:002008-08-14T07:53:10.210+01:00The Public DefenderSomeone linked to <a href="http://www.tpuc.org/">this site</a> on one of the home ed lists, and I'm so glad they did. What exciting, refreshing reading it is! <br /><br />As well as the political posts, which are mindblowing, there are enlightening sections on <a href="http://www.tpuc.org/node/262">homoeopathy</a> and <a href="http://www.tpuc.org/node/269">flouridisation</a>. But my personal favourite so far, I think, is this: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.tpuc.org/node/235">After 5 years of refusing to pay Income Tax they now credit money to me I have never paid!</a>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-59499816713898286442008-08-12T05:12:00.008+01:002008-08-12T06:42:33.828+01:00What's really going on in South Ossetia?According to the West, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7554507.stm">Russia is the aggressor.</a> According to the North, <a href="http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/11-08-2008/106053-georgia_ossetia_russia-0">Georgia is</a>. There are <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKL872256820080808">reports</a> and <a href="http://georgiamfa.blogspot.com/2008/08/statement-concerning-russian-federation.html">accusations</a> of ethnic cleansing, and it looks like a terrifying place to be right now. <br /><br />A key <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4484849.ece">oil pipline</a> runs through the area, which also lies between Russia and Iran. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HwiBprnvygTcmLZdd1s7YPvJfaGmqVt4RsIwWmj_q_fdZeiZrJF3OjH-wloKSIQskimVgp6QdhUwSYQMTNIaG48AeiC5r_jqCSfW0OK9VM-Sv4y-isnQaA5Y6Bix9FkVGy2w9MmXtW7c/s1600-h/caucasus.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5HwiBprnvygTcmLZdd1s7YPvJfaGmqVt4RsIwWmj_q_fdZeiZrJF3OjH-wloKSIQskimVgp6QdhUwSYQMTNIaG48AeiC5r_jqCSfW0OK9VM-Sv4y-isnQaA5Y6Bix9FkVGy2w9MmXtW7c/s320/caucasus.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233486045109881490" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Guardian, amongst others, calls this <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia1">a proxy war</a>, and there is news of <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104249809&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull">arms being supplied to Georgia by the US.</a> <br /><br />I wouldn't have thought much about it, but my sons were discussing it over breakfast yesterday. They'd heard that some <a href="http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_international&Number=296412994">basements were being flooded</a> to prevent people from sheltering from the bombs! <br /><br />It seems that the world's public opinion matters though, to <a href="http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/11-08-2008/106058-georgiaossetiapublicopinion-0">both</a> <a href="http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2059267/posts">parties</a>, which surprises me somewhat because our own government usually <a href="http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2007/9/7/3214308.html">ignores</a> any <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2765041.stm">inconvenient protest</a>, however widespread it may be.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-69859443903304856272008-07-30T07:42:00.006+01:002008-07-30T08:23:21.658+01:00The government is planning to abolish Income SupportI've known about <a href="http://www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/noonewrittenoff/">this</a> since news of it appeared on the home ed lists a couple of weeks ago, and wearily thought it was about time I got around to blogging it. It's a DWP Green Paper setting out "plans for improving support and work incentives to create a system that rewards responsibility". <br /><br />My thoughts about it won't surprise anyone, but I'll set them out briefly here, for clarity: <br /><ul><li>"Improving support" is one thing, but trying to make the take-up of that 'support' compulsory is a whole other, less ethical thing. I wish they'd stop dressing up coercion and trying to pretend it's something else. </li><br /><li>My dictionary definition of the word 'work' does not imply that this solely consists of activities known about and condoned by the government for which money is received and tax paid. Our language is being manipulated to suit HM Treasury.</li><br /><li>Responsibility has its own reward, thank you very much. I have lots of responsibility, and lots of reward.</li><br /><li>The incentive to do paid work would presumably be the salary. Is this not enough?</li><br /><li>Children are not best brought up by strangers in institutions, while both of their parents are in paid employment. This will dehumanise them, making it difficult for them to put down roots and know where they belong in the world. Two hours of frantic and fraught parental care in the evening plus one in the morning does not constitute an upbringing, by the way. </li><br /><li>Fine: abolish Income Support. It's not fair that the slightly more wealthy in this country should be made to fund the slightly less wealthy anyway. But give us back our birthright instead. Give us access to our land again, so that we can build houses for ourselves that we can afford to live in, produce our own food and give our children the freedom and space to play and learn, instead of trying to make slaves out of us and prisoners out of our children.</li></ul><br /><br />I've made use of the word 'trying' a couple of times in the above points, because luckily, <i>try</i> is all the government can do. People will still find ways of avoiding the traps, no matter how carefully they're set. Family life is too precious to throw away for the sake of a few pounds. <br /><br />For what it's worth, there's to be a <a href="http://www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/noonewrittenoff/consultationtoolkit.pdf">consultation</a> on this, to which I will probably be contributing, even though I think it's a waste of time because the decision has been made now by both major political parties and the only real debate is about how it will be implemented.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-68117948644981889962008-06-22T06:35:00.008+01:002008-06-22T06:52:43.303+01:00Re-post: Modern Myths: No.1: Poverty - Nov 06I want to use my blog this week to get a few things straight about a few things, because reality seems to be completely divorced from some popular concepts at the moment. All the concepts involved are suspiciously being pushed very hard in the media and are currently the subject of vast public spending and policy and legislation changes. My next few blog posts will address these myths individually, because there's too much to cram into one post. I will deal with them in order of priority, with the issues being pushed the hardest and financed the most, first.<br /><br /><strong><u>Myth 1</u>: <i>Relative</i> poverty is a social problem which desperately needs addressing, because it is at the root of all public disorder issues and failures in the education system. </strong><br /><br /><u>Truth:</u> Relative poverty only means you have <i>less than some other people</i>. It does <b>not</b> mean that you don't have enough of everything you really need, which is the definition of real, material poverty. Material poverty has all but disappeared in this country due to our state welfare system. Where people are unable to afford to eat or pay their bills, this is usually due to financial mismanagement, not lack of income.<br /><br />To quote Charles Dickens: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." This quotation was widely repeated throughout my childhood by my chartered accountant stepfather, who in the course of his work had seen a lot of misery. It annoyed me then but has stayed with me resolutely ever since. <br /><br />Relative poverty is only a problem for the family involved if they succumb to the marketing campaigns and peer pressure to constantly acquire the latest thing, when they don't actually need the thing. This is a choice everyone is free to make.<br /><br />Furthermore, a family living in relative poverty who is satisfied with their lot has many advantages over their more affluent counterparts. Being happier with less, there is more spare time freed from working to devote to family, house, garden and children. Having just enough money, as opposed to too much, is a far less stressful way of living. I know this because I've lived through both situations. Surplus cash is just as much a cause of worry as lack of cash, but this is something most people won't believe unless they've actually experienced both.<br /><br />For individuals and families, <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/re-post-money-dec-04.html">poverty</a> is a state of mind which is <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/re-post-cosmic-supply-company-feb-05.html">easily cured</a>.<br /><br />The acceptance or choice made by swathes of the population to live in relative poverty is, however, a huge problem for those people who devote their lives to the goal of keeping our country's economy artificially inflating. There is no such thing as a stagnant financial situation: the economy is either shrinking or growing. When people stop increasing their spending rate, the economy starts shrinking and we are classed as being in a depression. I would argue that a healthy, naturally run economy has natural ups and downs (booms and busts) like everything else in life, but governments stake their success on avoiding slumps, for which they are invariably held responsible. <br /><br />I see that David Cameron has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6179078.stm">jumped on the 'relative poverty' bandwagon</a> now, saying: "In the past we used to think of poverty in absolute terms - meaning straightforward material deprivation. That's not enough. We need to think of poverty in relative terms - the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear - the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty," because of course the issue goes way beyond party politics and Mr Cameron is setting up his stall for his time in office which will, I'm sure, be little different from Tony Blair's in terms of policy and legislative program.<br /><br />The think tanks are working hard to 'prove' the relative poverty argument. The <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/">Joseph Rowntree Foundation</a>, whose research papers are widely used and <a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10024.asp">quoted by Tony Blair</a> has worked on very little else in the past few years. <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/child-poverty/">JRF's page on poverty</a> forms a main part of their website hub. If you read it you will notice that the term 'relative' has strangely disappeared, although relative poverty is undoubtedly the subject of the page, not absolute material poverty. I expect this to be an increasing trend in the near future.<br /><br />Being seen to be trying to solve the (invented) 'problem' of relative poverty has many benefits for government and big money/power people, including:<br /><br />1. Giving them an excuse to introduce a raft of surveillance and social control laws and measures, such as:<br /> - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6166902.stm">Imposing full-time childcare on children from as early as two years old</a><br /> - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4999922.stm">The targetting of poorer families for compulsory intervention programmes</a><br /> - <a href="http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1955872,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1#article_continue">'Contracts' between citizen and state</a> (drawn up by states not citizens, naturally.)<br /><br />2. Enabling them to keep the economy artificially growing, by:<br /> - <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Documents/Enterprise_and_Productivity/ent_index.cfm">Increasing productivity</a>, whether people really need more things or not.<br /> - <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pre_budget_report/prebud_pbr03/assoc_docs/prebud_pbr03_ademployment.cfm">Increasing employment</a>, whether people really want or need to go out to work full-time.<br /> - Increasing spending, both <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spending_review/spend_index.cfm">public</a> and <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=361">private</a>.<br /><br />3. Using people living in relative poverty as public whipping boys for issues like <a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/page2344.asp">rising crime</a>, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6170848.stm">failures in the education system</a> and major <a href="http://www.performance.doh.gov.uk/HPSSS/index.htm#sectiona">public health</a> problems.<br /><br />4. Drawing attention to the so-called 'poverty' issue makes government look...<br /><br /><p><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/272472/Love-a-lot%20carebear.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/913627/Love-a-lot%20carebear.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />..cuddly!</p><br /><br /><p><br /></p><br /><p><br /></p><br /><p><br /></p><br /><p><br /></p><br /><br />As opposed to looking like the greedy<br />$$ warmongers $$ they really are.<p> </p><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/318926/Warmongers.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/766518/Warmongers.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />----------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />16 Comments:<br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />It seems to me fairly obvious that you shouldn't define your own poverty by someone else's wealth, or vice versa. <br /><br />Compared to Madonna I am very poor, compared to most of the population of the world I am very rich.<br /><br />However, I do think there is a real problem ( I linked to this from another post of yours) Top fifth 4 times better off than bottom fifth.<br /><br />Amongst other things, the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny section of the population needs to be addressed - the reality at the moment is that those who are moderately wealthy are the ones who get stung by tax of all kinds while the wealthy can afford to exploit all sorts of exemptions to protect their income and to pass on their wealth to their children, thus perpetuating inequality.<br /><br />Also, I do think we need to take a decision that if we need someone to do something, like care work, or caring for children or elderly parents or whatever, then we also need to pay them properly for doing it. The salaries earnt by some of the least useful people, like lawyers, are obscene and need to be reined in.<br />1:32 PM, November 27, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />I agree with you Tim, the people in the middle of the wealth range are actually the most disadvantaged and the top fifth has far too much money. <br /><br />Maybe the frenzied anti-'poverty' drive has an added purpose in distracting our attention from this too. It does seem to seek to promote an us-v-them mentality between those who have a bit spare and those who have nothing spare.<br />5:39 PM, November 27, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />I think the people who are probably the most shafted are those who are struggling along in the second quintile.<br /><br />These are probably people who are not on benefits, but have little more income than if they were.<br /><br />However, going to work costs money, you have to pay for travel, clothing, maybe food too, so I suspect they can easily end up slaving away at thoroughly horrid jobs, being treated like doodoo by all and sundry and effectively paying for the privilege.<br /><br />As far as the bottom quintile is concerned, to a degree we are talking about people who are reliant on what are effectively subs from the people in q2,3,4 and 5 so: <br /><br />1) I think it is very important that, as a society, we ensure that everyone is warm, fed and able to live decently.<br /><br />2) they are not entitled to expect the rest of us to keep them in beer and fags too.<br />6:58 PM, November 27, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Agreed. Though my experience of state benefits is that they're not enough to fund beer and fags, so I think the amount is probably set right. <br /><br />Better not to have one group of people working long hours in horrible jobs and another group doing nothing though IMO. The part time option is surely preferable, and I kind of like the WTC system (if it worked properly) for going some way towards allowing for that option.<br />7:52 PM, November 27, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Allie said... <br /><br />I think that managing on very little money can be much more complicated than you make out.<br /><br />How about unexpected expenses that are far out of your budget? Like a sudden family crisis that involves travel. Or an ill child in hospital that means you can't plan all your spending as easily as you might if life just trundled along. Life throws people shitty surprises and my (limited)experience of life on benefits is that there is no scope for dealing with those things. That's how people living in poverty end up getting loans that they have no hope of paying off. I got a bit of junk mail from the Provident today that had typical APR of 177%!<br /><br />If people don't have anyone in their life who has a bit of money to help them out in crisis situations then they get trapped.<br /><br />Also, people get dependent on drugs of various kinds, people also get depressed and ill. When those things happen then can spell financial and personal ruin for anyone. When they happen to people living in poverty there is usually next to no useful help available that they can afford.<br /><br />I think you're right that the goverment has a vested interest in making people feel that they should be aspiring to material wealth. But, on the other hand, I think that people struggle really hard to get by in this country and way too many people suffer needless pain and stress because they could do with a few more quid coming in.<br />11:35 PM, November 27, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />Allie, that is fair comment.<br /><br />The way the system is set up means that someone who becomes unemployed can (probably) meet their day to day expenses, and get by, but there is no flexibility, if the fridge breaks, there won't be the money to replace it and that is quite tough.<br /><br />You mention debt. I do think that we have a misguided enthusiasm for debt and for most people who have been working and become reliant on benefit this is going to be an issue - it is one thing to service credit card debts from a salary, another to fund it from benefits which are barely sufficient anyway.<br /><br />I would stress that I am not saying that we should be mean in benefit provision, but that we should be balanced and measured. I think there are, unfortunately, always going to be just enough people successfully milking the system to keep the media supplied with their round of dole scrounger living in mansion stories and that certainly doesn't help.<br /><br />One big problems is that the system seems to be set up to prevent people from helping themselves. Any attempt to earn a few pennies extra can quickly mean your benefits are cut or lost.<br /><br />When I had to change career ten years ago, I would have struggled much more had it not been for an excellent DSS manager who explained to me how I could, legally, be unemployed, self-employed and employed all at the same time as claiming income support. There is no way that I would ever have worked out how to juggle all that for myself. His advice meant that within a very few months I just stopped bothering to sign on (I still have a couple of giros made out for 10p lying around) and very shortly after that was able to earn good money using the new skills I had acquired.<br />8:19 AM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />That's true Allie - benefits don't usually allow for savings. If one of my children became desperately ill elsewhere in the country, for example, our food budget would shrink to bread & jam/ beans on toast rations for a week or two so that I could fund the train travel to get to them. But it would be worth it and we would stay solvent, just. <br /><br />There are social funding loans for emergencies, aren't there? Very low rates of interest, if any at all. We considered taking one out when we needed a fridge, but then decided to do without the fridge instead, until someone gave us one. Perhaps these should be publicised more than they are. Also repayments come out of essntial benefits payments, albeit in small amounts, but they would still be felt. <br /><br />Debt and drugs (and drink - the 3 ds!) are the huge problems I agree. Lives do spiral out of control on these and that's horrible, but I'm not sure how being in employment makes it easier - I suspect it just delays the point where catastrophe hits. <br /><br />Far better, IMO, to look at the root causes of debt/drug/drink problems and see if there are ways of preventing them, by allowing for strong families perhaps. More space for people? The work being done on social bonds (towards weakening them) and social bridges (towards strengthening them) is extremely worrying in this respect, because it encourages people to become more reliant on professional strangers than known and trusted relatives, friends and neighbours for their support network. <br /><br />Tim, you can't do that self-employed thing any more! Well, you can, but it's far more complicated now. Basically the DWP holds your business bank account and pays you benefit which has to come from the account ASAP. You have a certain time within which you have to turn a profit and you HAVE to attend courses, regardless of your previous experience. *rolls eyes*<br />9:06 AM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />I have often thought that they WANT people to stay on benefits, they make it so hard to get off them.<br /><br />Removing the chance to do self emplyed work is another example.<br /><br />Don't know whether this has changed too, but it used to be that you could do a course, but you had to be "available" for work. Any course which would give you a qualification/skill of any real value was a) not capable of being funded b) very expensive and c) meant you went over the hours limit so were no longer eligible for benefits. <br /><br />Like I say, I think it would be wrong if benefits were generous, because that would be unfair to the people out of whose pockets they are paid (NB it isn't the Government's money, Government has no money of its own, just what it takes from taxpayers). On the other hand, it is of no advantage to taxpayers if people at the lower end of the income scale are trapped, depressed, oppressed and alienated. That costs a lot financially but socially far more than we can afford.<br />10:25 AM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Lucy B said... <br /><br />Very interesting post, thanks Gill, and tapping into a lot of the things I am struggling with lately ... inspired me to start a journal to try and sort out what my thoughts are about stuff! Missed you yesterday - hope you had a good meeting. :-)<br />11:27 AM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />I think they have done things to make it appear that they're trying to get people off benefits Tim - whether thats the same thing as them wanting ppl to get off them is another matter! <br /><br />If you were to ask them they would say they've tried to make it easier, not harder, for people to go into self-employment when in actual fact they've just got more standardised and control-freakish about it. <br /><br />Interesting point about courses - I'm not too sure which they will and won't fund, but I think they're going more towards loans and away from grants and benefits for students, which is of course very offputting for any prospective students.<br /><br />I agree benefits should not be generous and they aren't.<br /><br />"On the other hand, it is of no advantage to taxpayers if people at the lower end of the income scale are trapped, depressed, oppressed and alienated."<br /><br />Indeed, but since when did governments do things in the interests of taxpayers? LOL To appease taxpayers when needs be, maybe, but they actually act more in the interests of big money people IMO. And it's in *their* interests to have the poor and the slightly less poor busily at one another's throats and conveniently forgetting about the very rich, who, as you say, seem to get away with a lot and pay comparatively little.<br /><br />Hi Lucy, we missed you too! Hope you're all well :-) Glad you liked the post :-)<br />12:26 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />New Labour is very big on appearance and illusion. <br /><br />On the courses, when I was in the position of wanting/needing to be able to do one, I was outside the age range they were prepared to help, there was a big thing about yoof unemployment and if you were over 24 you were pretty much stuffed. They were spending all the money on "initiatives" but not supplying people with the help and support they wanted, needed and were asking for. Just as I was moving on they started New Deal 1 (same as Old Deal, but brighter colours).<br /><br />There is indeed an old saying that there has never been a tax system arranged to the benefit of the taxpayer. <br /><br />There is one other thing which just crossed my mind. A long time ago, we used to have a grant system for students. Again it didn't make students rich but it did mean that if they were careful they could get through a degree and finish with their bank account in the black. <br /><br />Now we have a loan system. <br /><br />We want to encourage people to reduce personal borrowing. <br /><br />The Government has a special web site dedicated to encouraging young people to get hugely in debt before they ever see a pay cheque. <br /><br />How does that work then?<br /><br />Why doesn't Webcameron say he will revert to the pre-Thatcher system? It'd get my vote.<br />12:52 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />I'm kind of in two minds about the students loans system.<br /><br />On the one hand it's a really bad idea to have people starting their working life in debt, and as you say this will encourage the kind of ethos which sees debt as being a normal thing. This is obviously bad news for the individuals concerned. <br /><br />But on the other hand I don't like the idea of education all being geared up specifically towards employment and all being money-orientated. <br /><br />Surely at one time people were proud to be apprentice-trained craftsmen, for example, whereas now it's more the done thing to attend a prescribed degree course in an -ology.<br /><br />Surely our universities should be funded and financed in such a way, however and by whoever, so that they facilitate learning for learning's sake and not just some 'playing at training' way of keeping the yoof off the streets?<br />2:32 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />At some point there was this study done which said that 50% of all jobs would, in future, require degree level skills.<br /><br />All the university dons rubbed their hands with glee at this and so did all the lecturers in tech colleges who saw straight away that this was their big chance to step up to the pay scales of their university colleagues.<br /><br />But, big but. A degree level qualificiation does not necessarily mean a degree. It could mean, training to be a chartered account, a surveyor, a omputer programmer, or an engineer, for which you don't need a university at all. Or, for that matter, as you rightly say, a master craftsmen, trained in the traditional fashion as a toolmaker, cabinet maker or mason could scarcely be said to not have skills of at least that level.<br /><br />But we wouldn't want our children going off and doing anything which involved getting their hands dirty, much better that they get pointless degrees and equally pointless jobs which don't involve them actually making something useful.<br /><br />I think I agree with what I think you said, we should keep universities for learning, for research make them places where you go to expand your mind, to drink beer, not to make it. And we can then have technical colleges where people go to learn to do stuff. :)<br />2:57 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />That sounds like a much better idea :-)<br /><br />We seem to have lost our way when we started putting professionals with degrees on a pedestal, then deciding we all wanted to be 'equal', therefore we should all have degrees. <br /><br />But I have more respect for a good cabinetmaker, for e.g., than I do for a lawyer. <br /><br />Globalisation and knowledge-based economies seem to be to blame. We're importing everything we possibly can that's tangible, including skills, and leaving our own people with very little left to do. <br /><br />Maybe we're all destined to sit around thinking here in the UK. Or blogging!<br />3:45 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />...or driving round in white vans made in Japan or Germany, burning petrol produced from Saudi Arabia, delivering goods made in China.<br /><br />"Yeah look at them yo-yos <br />Thats the way you do it, <br />You play your guitar on the MTV <br />That ain't 'a workin', <br />Thats the way you do it..."<br />5:17 PM, November 28, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />*That*'s why I love Dire Straits! The true gurus ;-)<br />6:10 PM, November 28, 2006Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-3522482571522183622008-06-22T06:35:00.006+01:002008-06-22T06:48:46.881+01:00Re-post: Modern Myths: No.2: Single parenthood - Nov 06You probably guessed this one would be next on the list, but actually I think it's received a lot less coverage recently: the government seems to have finally remembered, albeit a little late in the day, that single parents have the vote too. They must think we have very short memories though.<br /><br /><b><u>Myth 2</u>: As single parents, we are the lowest of the low, the single biggest cause of all the country's problems. We are usually feckless parents who care little about our children and only care about getting a free flat/house. Our pregnancies are usually unplanned and our children poorly cared for and badly behaved.</b><br /><br /><a href="http://www.civitas.org.uk/">Civitas</a> has led the think tank opposition to single-parenthood. Indeed, its entire <a href="http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/familyMain.php">'Family'</a> page is devoted to the running down of single-parent families. Lone mothers "May have more problems interacting with their children," some righteous researcher proclaims. I followed the reference to find the source of this supposition and was led to <a href="http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/archdischild%3b78/2/104">this paper</a> on Parents, Parenting, and Family Breakdown by J H Tripp and M Cockett, but even having read this thoroughly I can find no evidence or even suggestion that single parenthood alone causes this effect. The Tripp and Cockett paper rightly confines itself to the effect of parental conflict on the children of divorce and separation which is a different matter entirely. <br /><br />So much for social <i>science</i>. It seems to be common practice to say what you want to say, find someone else whose work vaguely agrees with yours, list theirs as your reference, call it truth and present it to politicians so they can use it for whatever purpose suits them best.<br /><br />Various newspapers (Daily Mail being top of the list of course) have jumped on any studies which have found against single parenthood. Here's a smattering of such examples: <br /><br /><a href="http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialcare/story/0,,1953959,00.html">Schizophrenia much more likely in children of single parents</a> - Sarah Hall, health correspondent, Wednesday November 22, 2006, The Guardian. Now who on earth funded that particular piece of research and why..? Well, despite the catchy title it turns out to be more about racial differences: "The researchers, who had been investigating the incidence of psychosis among different ethnic groups in south London, Nottingham and Bristol, found that African-Caribbean people were nine times more likely to develop schizophrenia than white Britons and eight times more likely to develop manic psychosis. Black Africans were six times more likely to develop schizophrenia and six times more likely to develop manic psychosis. ... Long-term separation was almost twice as common in African-Caribbean communities compared with white British, with 31% of African-Caribbean families separating compared with 18% of white British families." If it's true that African-Caribbean people are nine times more likely to develop schizophrenia than white Britons, there are surely many other possible reasons than single parenthood. The long-standing social history of African-Caribbean people suffering from the actions and decision of their counterpart white Brits being conveniently overlooked for the purposes of this propaganda.<br /><br />Guardian again: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,525843,00.html">Underage sex linked to single-parent families</a> - James Meikle, health correspondent, Monday July 23, 2001. "The study, by the Family Matters Institute, involved questionnaires completed under supervision in 21 schools. It found that 18% of boys and 15% of girls had had sex. More than seven in 10 who had not had sex came from a family where parents were married to each other, compared with only half of the teenagers who were sexually active. ... The survey indicates that three in four parents of sexually active 13-year-old girls do not know their daughters are no longer virgins and that one in five young teenagers lost their virginity when they were drunk. A quarter of sexually active 13-year-olds have had four or more sexual partners." This cleverly implies, but does not actually say, that single parents are less aware of their children's sexual status. Again, it completely ignores other factors like post-separation parental conflict and the negative influence of stepfathers.<br /><br />Here's just one example of the Daily Mail's long running campaign against single parenthood: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=414679&in_page_id=1770">Married parents are best, admits Blairite think tank</a> By STEVE DOUGHTY & JAMES SLACK, 5th November 2006. "Yesterday the policy institute acknowledged that research clearly showed that 'children who grow up with both biological parents do better on a wide range of outcomes than children who grow up in a single-parent family'. It added: 'While this research may be instinctively difficult for those on the Left to accept, the British evidence seems to support it.'" The story refers to a paper by the <a href="http://www.ippr.org.uk/">Institute for Public Policy Research</a> which in turn draws its findings from the <a href="http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.ioe.ac.uk/bedfordgroup/publications/userguide1.pdf">Millennium Cohort Study</a>, a survey by the Institute of Education in London of nearly 20,000 children born in 2000. "This, it said, 'has shown that children of cohabiting couples do worse than those of married couples.'"<br /><br />It's like a game of Chinese Whispers. Do worse by whose standards? "The report said: 'Single parents, it has been shown, can be less emotionally supportive, have fewer rules, dispense harsher discipline, are often more inconsistent in dispensing discipline, provide less supervision, and engage in more conflict with their children.'" I've spent half the morning searching and can find no research to support these strangely unsubstantiated allegations. <br /><br />"And yesterday - when the institute made its full report available - it said the breakdown of the traditional married family was at the root of this disturbed teenage behaviour. It said: 'Changes to families, <b>such as more parents working, <i>and</i></b> rising rates of divorce and single parenthood, have undermined the ability of families to effectively socialise young people.'" [my emphasis].<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/652868/cassatt_mother-child_pastel.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/527634/cassatt_mother-child_pastel.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Dig a little deeper and the news is not all bad. "However, children in single-mother families did not differ from those in two-parent families in the warmth and closeness of their relationships with their mothers and described more shared family activities," comment Judy Dunn and Kirby Deater-Deckard in their report, Children's Views of their Changing Families outlined <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/Knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/931.asp">here.</a><br /><br />And you have to go across the Atlantic to Cornell University to find <a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/04/5.13.04/single_parents.html">this piece</a> by Susan Lang on Henry Ricciuti's paper: the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth. "Being a single parent does not appear to have a negative effect on the behavior or educational performance of a mother's 12- and 13-year-old children. What mattered most according to the study, is a mother's education and ability level and, to a lesser extent, family income and quality of the home environment. He found consistent links between these maternal attributes and a child's school performance and behavior."<br /><br />Recent government comments about single-parenthood have confined themselves to the financial points - single parents, of course, being more likely to be in receipt of some form of state benefits. You have to be very determined to find anything negative about single parenthood still available on <a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp">Tony Blair's website</a>. But I found this: "In the Dunedin Study in New Zealand, boys from single parent families were disproportionally likely to be convicted; 28% of violent offenders were from single parent families, compared with 17% of non-violent offenders and 9% of unconvicted boys (Henry et al., 1996). Based on analyses of four surveys (including the Cambridge Study), Morash and Rucker (1989) concluded that the combination of teenage child-bearing and a single-parent female-headed household was especially conducive to the development of offending in children." hidden in this cited paper on <a href="http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page10035.asp">Childhood risk factors and risk-focused prevention</a> by David Farrington, Professor of Psychological Criminology, University of Cambridge.<br /><br />We are accused of being one of the main <a href="http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:aXl1lVq4Jw8J:www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/downloaddoc.asp%3Fid%3D265+single+parent+family+site:.gov.uk&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=193&lr=lang_en&client=opera">Drivers of Social Exclusion</a> in a report by The Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of York which was commissioned by the spookily-named <a href="http://www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/">Social Exclusion Unit</a>.<br /><br />Last year there was a huge raft of 'single parents: baaad' government website references and links, but these have all but disappeared now and I can hardly find any of them. I'm convinced this is a deliberate pre-election attempt to rescue some single parent votes. We are, after all, a <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1163">fast-growing sector</a> of the electorate.<br /><br />I found (and then subsequently lost) an interesting quote amongst the research papers that made reference to a definite move towards a matriarchial society and I think this hits the nail on the head. The balance of power is changing, as predicted by the <a href="http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/98june2.html">Mayans</a>, (who reckoned the nature of power changes its essence from either male to female every two thousand years) and other ancient people. <br /><br />This is evidenced by the recent feminist movement and the rise in numbers of female-headed households. Far from being a cause of concern, I think this is a normal and natural process which is only disruptive in the process of change itself. <br /><br />My own experience of single-parenthood has been 100% positive, especially when compared to my experience of being in a marriage, in relationships and as a child growing up with one natural and one step-parent. My relationship with my children is closer, healthier, more harmonious and more 'in touch' when I'm not in a relationship with a man, than it is when I am. I think there are problems as a result of divorce and separation of parents but these are more to do with new relationships and the step-parent factor than the experience of single-parenting alone, in my opinion. <br /><br />The best situation for a child in my experience, is unlimited contact with its non-resident natural parent on the child's terms: this relationship and right of the <i>child</i> to dictate the terms of contact being held sacrosanct by both parents. This has proved to be a much better arrangement than any other I've tried or seen in practice. <br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/301514/Celtic_village.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/347474/Celtic_village.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I know some marriages work well, but I still look (perhaps idealistically) back to a more tribal extended family arrangement that provides mothers with much more support from female relatives than our current nuclear families can hope to provide.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />11 Comments:<br /><br /><br /> Rosie said... <br /><br />This one is bound to make my blood boil, having been at the receiving end of ignorant prejudice for the last 20 years, although more recently, being the slightly more acceptable version (seeming to be co-habiting parent). Not only have we have been the scapegoats- the root of all evil in society, but grossly misunderstood and stigmatised.<br />and, no, I havent got a chip on my shoulder- I don't really care what people think of me any more. <br />I still have to put up with things like "Rosie's husband...." repeatedly in minutes of school meetings, even when I have mentioned being a single parent at that meeting!!!<br /><br />Well the root of all this (married parents are better...etc) is prejudice. People have thought this for a long time- now it has been "proved" "scientifically" using "research" and "data" and "statistics". <br />Well, let me just point out that most of the conclusions drawn in these examples don't prove anything apart from the preconceptions of the people behind them. In other words, BOLLOCKS.<br />I shall soon be releasing my own paper entitled Black=white, Rosie B****, BSc (which is all the credentials you need to be called a "scientist" and publish research.)<br /><br />And, yes, it's the ideal of the isolated nuclear family, as created by capitalism, that I have a problem with.<br />5:14 PM, November 29, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Allie said... <br /><br />Hmm, yes, I think this one is particularly horrible. I think that most of the research done has an agenda about benefits - and scapegoating single mothers (especially young single mothers) for just about any social ill that the PTB choose to address.<br /><br />I grew up with divorced parents but, interestingly, never thought of myself as a child of a single parent family (or broken home in 1970s lingo.) I think that was because I had regular contact with my dad but also because I was encouraged to think of our family as just 'what it is' and not to label it.<br /><br />I think that it is outrageous that so many assumptions are made about families based on categories as clumsy as 'single parent'. We are also meant to believe that a range of family structures is somehow 'new'. This is another stupid myth. I have two aunts who were raised by a step-mother, father and step-grandmother. They referred to the women as 'Mummy X' or 'Mummy Y'. This was back in the 1930s. People have always lived in a range of family structures - just look at the effects of world wars.<br /><br />This current obsession with 'single parent families' is just so much insulting bunkum. It is a horrible feeling when people make assumptions about your family based on stereotypes and if the government really think that 'every child matters' they should stop it with the constant drip of insults about some people's home and family structures.<br />6:08 PM, November 29, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />I think the key mistake is the failure to grasp the simple fact that statistics and research about a group tell you little or nothing about individual members of that group.<br /><br />Much better to deal with individuals as individuals rather than as members of some group or other.<br />11:52 PM, November 29, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />However, doesn't it absolutely makes a trip to France when you see a Frenchman with a hooped jersey, Gauloise firmly wedged in mouth, beret on head, pedalling along on his bicycle, with the strings of onions hooked over the handlebars?<br /><br />So, I am very sorry, Gill, but I will just have to hold on to my picture of you, sat there in Yorkshire (whippet asleep on t' floor in front of t' open fire, coal in t' bath), a single mother (wearing an Adidas shell suit, a day's worth of Special Brew cans littering the table, used hypodermics littering the floor), home educating your children (New Age wind chimes tinkling, tie dyed t shirt, John Lennon glasses, om). <br /><br />:)<br />12:14 AM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Carlotta said... <br /><br />Wow, Gill, Thanks so much for all that...and I go with Tim all the way. There seems to me to be no point in applying generalisations to individual situations.<br /><br />Having said that, would be very curious to know if one could counter any of their stats with statistics that show that children suffer in families that stay together, but are very unhappy.<br /><br />I agree also with your tribal suggestion. We did the Center Parks thing a couple of years ago with a bunch of other HE families, staying in chalets separated by about 30 yards and it was SO easy: the easiest week I've ever had when living with a toddler. It really seemed to me to bear out the truth of the sentiment in your last paragraph.<br />No, Tim has it imo<br />6:42 AM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Rosie, I was amazed at the change in people's attitudes when my ex-husband and I finally, officially split. Keeping the marriage going had been much harder work and more isolating for me and personally I was relieved about the split. But overnight I was treated like a different person, especially by the children's schoolteachers at the time. It had to be seen to be believed! <br /><br />Then again, my nextdoor neighbour's atttude changes when there's a man around here. Suddenly I'm worth treating with respect whereas when I'm obviously a single mum I'm not, regardless of what kind of man he might be and his relationship with the children. I really don't get it, but obviously the kind of establishment-fuelled prejudice listed in the blog post plays a part. It really does affect how some people think and behave. <br /><br />I agree Allie, it's down to finances. Good point about the history of other kinds of families! The Every Child Matters tag is just a joke isn't it? Given all this background. <br /><br />Tim, I think the key point is their research and statistics are bunkum! I couldn't verify any of them, not even by checking out other research and statistics they claim to be drawn from! It's a real hall of mirrors, in which, for e.g. children going through troublesome marriage breakdown in their families and showing inevitable behaviour problems because of it, become 'badly behaved because they're brought up by single parents'! There is a lot of fudging and downright fibbing going on, by people who should have the integrity to know better, but sadly don't.<br /><br />LOL did I ever blog about the day Baz and I went to Richmond? We'd just been conversing in the car about how those Yorkshire stereotypes aren't at all true - and as we walked down an old cobbled backstreet, out came three old guys in flat hats with whippets and racing pigeons! <br /><br />But the spin machine seeks to manipulate the stereotypes nowadays to suit its purpose IMO. For example, they're working towards the single parenting and the HEing image being one and the same I think. John Lennon shades might imply I had at least half a brain and a smattering of moral integrity! <br /><br />Hi Carlotta. Do you know, I'd hate to do that kind of research! I'm sure some children in those situations are far more unhappy but I couldn't make an issue out of that just to prove the PTB wrong about single parent families. No, we'll just carry on pointing out the inconsistencies of their arguments and living well and happily - that in itself is so unusual in these sad times that we do draw quite a bit of attention to ourselves! <br /><br />The Centreparcs way of living is brilliant isn't it? It's years since we've been but I remember coming away every time thinking, normal life should be like this.<br />8:58 AM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Louise said... <br /><br />I for one absolutely love being a single parent and am not sure I could co-parent.<br />But I am aware of societies attitudes to sp's, and it just 'aint fair. There are many kids growing up unhappily in two parent families, hell I was one and would have loved just my Mum to be there.<br />I also get infuriated when people call me MRS!! I AM NOT nor ever will be a MRS and the assumption that I am because I have children bloody riles me!!!<br />9:15 AM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />LOL Lou, I use the Mrs tag when it suits me, it doesn't annoy me that much. You don't have to be married to use it and I reckon if certain people are daft enough to confer a higher status on someone called 'Mrs' then they deserve to be misled! (pardon the pun ^^ )<br />12:24 PM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Rosie said... <br /><br />yes, I agree with most of whats been said (except i would say a "staffie" is now the "dog of choice").<br />And, yes, Lou, after 10 years of trying, and failing to make co-habiting parenthood work, (in my small scale, long-term, controlled study!) I would say that I prefer being a single parent. Why do people have a problem with this?<br />And I use the title "Ms" because a man is "Mr" whether they're married or not. However, it probably says "obstinate feminist" to most people! This is so not fair and anachronistic. I mean we have "firefighters" and all sorts of job descriptions that don't have "man" at the end. But when you're a parent and you're not "Mrs" its a whole lot of fumbling and embarrassing tumbleweed.<br />5:39 PM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Leo said... <br /><br />Are they likely to bother rich single parents who are not on benefits less?<br />10:11 PM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Who, Leo, the people making the assumptions about us? I don't think so. Rich people have self esteem to damage too, don't they?<br />5:30 AM, December 02, 2006Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-63010491114093132022008-06-22T06:35:00.004+01:002008-06-22T06:45:12.540+01:00Re-post: Modern Myths: No.3: Children need discipline - Nov 06<b><u>Myth 3</u>: The current problems with social unrest and unruly, disruptive young people are caused by lack of discipline. If parents, schools and other people in authority were stricter and punishments harsher, young people would behave themselves and the world would be a better place. </b><br /><br />You don't have to look very far, in the current climate, to find this myth being fuelled, furthered and funded on a vast scale. In fact, stand still for long enough and it comes to find you. Along with <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/modern-myths-no1-poverty.html">the one about relative poverty</a>, it is being used to sanction incoming laws which will restrict our liberty and lead to forced state interference into private family life.<br /><br />With a funky new image, name and website, here is the <a href="http://www.respect.gov.uk/default.aspx">Respect agenda</a>, which is the shop window for the 'new reforms'. Read and be awed ;-) <br /><br />Tony Blair is panicking about the nanny state argument and refutes it before anyone has chance to make it in every speech he makes and article he writes about this issue. Here he is in <a href="http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10448.asp"> his article for The Sun newspaper</a> nine days ago:<br /><br />"The 'nanny state' argument applied to this is just rubbish. No one's talking about interfering with normal family life. But life isn't normal if you've got 12-year-olds out every night, drinking and creating a nuisance on the street, with their parents either not knowing or not caring. In these circumstances, a bit of nannying, with sticks and carrots, is what the local community needs, let alone the child."<br /><br />Sticks and carrots. Well, that's the nature of the power system we call <i>authority</i>. Based on the principle that most people are innately bad or stupid and need strict coercion to be made to comply with society's interests, we set up our systems to try to <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/re-post-people-who-try-to-control-you.html">control each other</a> thus. <br /><br />But I think the nature of power is changing. Authority (power over others) is on its way out, thank goodness. People increasingly don't trust it, don't like it and don't want to work with it. Its 'fluffy, liberal' couterpart, <i>autonomy</i> is the kind of power system we're moving into. Ancient belief systems, including <a href="http://www.kachina.net/~alunajoy/98june2.html">Mayans</a> and <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/tgl/tgl001.htm">Taoists</a> refer to these contrasting types of power as male and female, respectively. In <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Ching-Book-Changes-Arkana/dp/0140192077/sr=8-1/qid=1163671949/ref=pd_ka_1/203-3503293-8131166?ie=UTF8&s=books">I Ching</a> terms, we're talking about the first principle (The Creative) and the second principle (The Receptive) - yang and yin, which swap places roughly every two thousand years.<br /><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/368369/yinyang.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/466242/yinyang.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> Just to prove <a href="http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=37623200&postID=116475386712927458">Tim's stereotype theory</a> ^^ here's the image, which you can if you like imagine to be slowly rotating through 180 degrees every 2 millennia or so. You can picture me wearing pink or yellow-lensed shades at the same time also, if it helps! <br /><br />Each kind of power has its benefits and drawbacks in equal measure, of course, and it is not the purpose of this post to denigrate the essence of male, creative, authoritative power - only to say that because of the changing time in which we're living, that those methods and systems are becoming less effective - hence our current social disorder problems. A government who authoritatively, desperately clings onto the old kind of power is a government who fails to understand the situation and which completely wastes its time and energy.<br /><br />Well, I've been a mother/stepmother for twenty years now and I have found through trial and error that imposing rules, regulations, boundaries, sticks and carrots on children is not the best way to create a harmonious, educational environment for them at this time. Sure, it will work to some extent and with limited effect, but it's very difficult to impose and there is always a backlash: i.e. the child will rebel eventually. If you are very strict and you impose a system of full surveillance, you may delay this rebellion for years, but not forever. <br /><br />I have dozens of empirical accounts to back up my conclusions in this respect, but in the interests of brevity will just blog a few key ones. <br /><br /><li> My own children, who have no externally imposed boundaries, rules or punishments, are peaceful, respectful, 'well-behaved', considerate people who are interested in learning about the world around them. If I'm ever tempted to say "Do this, don't do that," they immediately respond in a negative way, which reminds me that 'power over others' is not the best way to go about things. </li><br /><li> All of my own behaviour which has been negative, damaging and self-destructive has stemmed from other people trying to impose their authority on me. </li><br /><li> Out of the many children I have known, the ones who have the most authoritative parents exhibit by far the most extreme behaviour problems, because most things they do are a reaction against that authoritative power. </li><br /><li> One girl I was at school with was an only child whose parents were even more determined than mine were to impose their authority on her. She was monitored all the time, pushed, furthered and assisted by them constantly. She complied with their wishes as a child and a young teenager because they gave her no choice. Of course they meant well and only wanted what they thought was the best thing for her, but as soon as she went away to Oxbridge and was able to rebel, she did. She went to live with a religious cult in America and hasn't been in touch with her parents ever since. </li><br /><li> The most secure, content, productive and peaceful people I have known have been those who were brought up with trust, love and very little parental discipline.</li><br /><br />This is a time when people need to work their decisions out for themselves. They need to try different ways of living to find the one that suits them the best. Being told what to do and coerced into doing it can only have a negative effect on people now, because it impedes their own personal, autonomous development - the dominant type of power and therefore the motivation that intrinsically drives us all at the present time.<br /><br />My contention is that the only way to successfully, positively affect other people now is to teach by example, on the learner's terms and at their spontaneous request. There is no other method that will be 100% successful, without unwanted side-effects.<br /><br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />5 Comments:<br /><br /><br /> Paula said... <br /><br />I enjoy reading your blog. I was brought up by authoritarian parents and I rebelled big time. I think you're totally right, 'power over' just doesn't work, it certainly doesn't lead to happy relationships.<br />This summer I went to a workshop by Chris Johnstone that touched on the nature of power - interesting stuff!<br />6:12 PM, November 30, 2006<br /><br /> <br /> Rosie said... <br /><br />Yes, I think the problem is we are trapped in a cycle of carrot-and- stick coertion/control as that is what we were brought up and schooled with. Anyone who thinks outside the box can see it ultimately doesn't work and is unfair.<br />It's interesting that you can see it from a far off historical point of view, Gill. I seem a bit more black and white in comparison. ie- power over is unfair; autonomy= good. Maybe, as you say, this is because the former is obviously not working any more.<br />I think the combo of my mum and dad (autoritarian/encouraging autonomy) seemed not to have too bad effect on me- ie I was so empowered that I chose not to be controlled any more ;-). (Shame about my siblings though- )<br />7:27 PM, November 30, 2006<br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Hi Paula - hmm that name rings a bell! I'll google it, thanks :-)<br /><br />Hi Rosie, yes I think authoritative power seems to have worked well at one time, although its hard for us to be sure of course, because we only have the historians' viewpoints to go by. But the yin/yang theory does make sense and is correlated by a few of the very old belief systems. It's interesting to view things in that light, isn't it? :)<br />9:24 PM, November 30, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />I think you could just as easily say that the problem is lack of respect.<br /><br />People have no respect for themselves, because they are never shown that they have worth and are not given respect by parents, teachers or any adult they come into contact with. If you have no respect for yourself, why would you treat others with respect?<br /><br />If you learn when you are small that the only rule is that big people hit small people, when you get big you will obviously expect that it is your turn. Or, if you worry that there is always someone bigger than you going to hit you, you will start to carry a knife, or a gun.<br />4:52 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Yes I'm sure that's a major contributing factor to the problems, Tim.<br />5:34 PM, December 01, 2006Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-74424584348123023032008-06-22T06:35:00.002+01:002008-06-22T06:42:31.228+01:00Re-post: Modern Myths: No.4: Doctors know best - Dec 06<b><u>Myth 4</u>: The workings of our bodies are a complete mystery to us. We can have no idea what's going on inside us or why, or what outside threats we need medically protecting from, or how. Unless we've completed intensive medical training it's best to leave all this in the hands of someone else who has.</b><br /><br />First the finances. The above myth is in quite a few people's financial interests to perpetuate:<br /><br />First and foremost being medical drug companies: <br /><br /><a href="http://www.gsk.com/">GlaxoSmithKline</a> (formerly Wellcome Glaxo) made an operating profit of £2,023 million for the last quarter increased by 19% compared with the third quarter of last year. That's over £8000 million (£8 billion) per year. You can check out their balance sheet <a href="http://www.gsk.com/investors/reports/gsk_q22006/q22006.doc">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pfizer.com/pfizer/main.jsp">Pfizer</a> made $8.1 billion last year - nearly £4 billion. Their financial report is <a href="http://www.pfizer.com/pfizer/annualreport/2005/financial/p2005fin01.jsp">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.merck.com/">Merck</a>'s profit for the last quarter was $940.6 million - nearly $4 billion or £2 billion per year. Their financial report is <a href="http://www.merck.com/newsroom/press_releases/financial/2006_1020.html">here</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.novartis.com/">Novartis</a> made $6350 million (£3 billion) in the last quarter: roughly £12 billion over the year. Their financial report is <a href="http://www.novartis.com/investors/en/sales_reports/quarterly_results.shtml">here</a>. <br /><br />That's around £26 billion per year profit made by those four companies alone. A stupendous amount of money. <br /><br />To try to put these figures into some kind of perspective, our <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/">UK Treasury</a> handled an annual total budget of £519 billion last year, £83 billion of which came from National Insurance payments and £90 billion of which was spent on the Health service (including contributing heavily to the profits listed above.)<br /><br />That's £1500 for every man, woman and child living in the UK, every year.<br /><br />In addition to filling the drug companies' coffers, the £90 billion also pays health staff, including an <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=419539&in_page_id=1770">average GPs salary of £106,000 pa</a> - that's 7.5x my income, and sheds an interesting light on the issue of <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2006/11/modern-myths-no1-poverty.html">relative poverty</a>.<br /><br />Doctors are paid huge amounts of cash to supply drug companies' products to patients. You only have to watch the TV monitor 'Public Service Information' channel in our GPs' surgery to see the drug company ads, product placements everywhere and so on. That's before we even get into the debate about drug companies' funding of medical research and courses. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and a drug company funding a medical course will dictate the content and delivery: why else would they fund them? <br /><br />A large proportion of NHS activity is involved with screening. Another large proportion is dedicated to routine appointments and check-ups. <br /><br />My view of the Health Service is that I will use it when I desperately need it and not before. I do not believe the Health Service can do anything to prevent me from being ill, indeed with the over-use of antibiotics and the presence in hospitals of MRSA, I think any non-essential contact with the NHS is an increasingly risky decision to take.<br /><br />My family does not make use of vaccinations, pain killers, antibiotics or anything else supplied by drug companies. If we do become ill we take good care of ourselves, use homoeopathic and herbal remedies and boost our immune systems. <br /><br />You might say: "Well, you've been very lucky not to be ill. Not everyone is in your fortunate position," to which I would answer: We've had our share of illnesses. We could be in the GPs surgery at least once a month if we went there with every sniffle, every toothache, bump, pain, scratch, every worry. But those are just part of life and nothing to do with the Health Service.<br /><br />We've had serious illnesses diagnosed. I was diagnosed at 15 with <a href="http://www.nass.co.uk/questions.htm">Ankylosing Spondylitis</a> and advised against having children because my mobility would <i>definitely</i> be seriously impaired by the time I was in my late 20s and I would suffer increasing amounts of pain. When I believed this prognosis it was true. When I stopped believing it, it stopped being true for me. <br /><br />We have used and will use the NHS for:<br /> <br /><li>Setting broken bones</li><br /><li>Life-saving, essential surgery</li><br /><li>Anything the older teens want to use it for</li><br /><li>To cover us legally, for e.g. midwifery service</li><br />For those things I'm glad it's there, but I can't think of any other instance when I'd want to consult them.<br /><br />Humans survived without an international medical industry for thousands of years. Plants exist in everyone's habitat to heal the diseases that naturally develop in local areas: nature is synergetic. Bring money into the equation and we suddenly seem to think we need some complicated extract of a rare jungle plant, given a latin name and presented to us in a scientific-looking packet by a person with letters after their name instead. We don't. <br /><br />Our bodies are not the mystery we're encouraged to think they are. Nutrition, diet, health and medicine should be one and the same thing. A healthy mind creates a healthy body. Non-stop screening and the "What if? What if? What if?" mentality is counter-productive and very, very expensive.<br /><br />I would like the government to save people's £1500 each per year and allow us more space and time to develop and nurture our mental and physical health instead. But there's no profit, and no centralised power in that, so it won't happen.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />22 Comments:<br /><br /><br /> Paula said... <br /><br />Hi there again! Reading your post has reminded me of Christopher Titmuss: the 'experts' as the new priests<br />http://www.insightmeditation.org/politic.htm#religion<br />4:47 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Oh that's an interesting link, thanks Paula :-)<br />5:35 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Ruth said... <br /><br />I broke my elbow and set it myself and my foot. Mod roc is really good for stuff like that. However if the kids broke anything I would take them to hospital. I have also had 2 brain ops I couldn't do on myself to LOL. None of my kids have needed to see a doctor for illness in the past 6 years. Dh has not been since he was about 4. I am supposed to go for a smear and will need counselling if I refuse.<br />6:05 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />Woman carries out DIY surgery<br /><br />A friend of yours Ruth?<br /><br />More DIY ideas<br /><br />I must admit I am far from convinced on the merits of DIY bone setting.<br /><br />"The difference between lawyers and doctors is that lawyers only take your money. Doctors take your money and kill you." :-)<br /><br />I do think there is a place for professional medical care, and for moderate use of some of the drugs they use.<br /><br />"Humans survived without an international medical industry for thousands of years. "<br /><br />Yes and they died for thousands of years too. Often very young and in great pain.<br /><br />I don't agree with universal valiumisation and I think the enthusiasm for diagnosing children with autism, aspergers or adhd and pumping them full of drugs is downright idiotic. I think doctors are often put in a totally untenable position with parents demanding a diagnosis, sometimes for the simple reason that they need it to access some service their child requires, rather than in order to get it medical treatment which they know it doesn't.<br /><br />The life expectancy of new born children in 1999 was 75 years for boys and 80 years for girls. In 1901 baby boys were expected to<br />live for 45 years and girls 49 years. Also the longer lives we are living are often healthier lives.<br /><br />It is a combination of modern medical treatments and a range of public health measures which have achieved this.<br />7:19 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />"The life expectancy of new born children in 1999 was 75 years for boys and 80 years for girls. In 1901 baby boys were expected to<br />live for 45 years and girls 49 years. Also the longer lives we are living are often healthier lives."<br /><br />I'd like to see life expectancy figures from earlier points in history, because 1901 was in the middle of the period of industrialisation which saw many people living in slums without access to enough space, clean water and good food to be healthy. Also the work they were required to do then would not be, for the most part, conducive to good health I guess. <br /><br />"It is a combination of modern medical treatments and a range of public health measures which have achieved this."<br /><br />Granted, there are some excellent emergency life-saving procedures available to us now which were perhaps not before, but I don't think keeping health and medical knowledge in the hands of a minority group of professionals for the majority to rely on, is wise for public health. Nor do I think on-going routine prescription medication is helpful in many cases.<br />7:34 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />UK or England Life Expectancy<br /><br />1725 32<br />1750 37 <br />1800 36<br />1850 40<br />1900 48<br />1950 69<br />1990 76<br /><br />See Wrigley & Schofield Quinquennial Population Totals and Its Components (goes back to the sixteenth century.<br /><br />and<br /><br />Wikipedia - Life expectancy.<br /><br />So while I agree that there were a number of severe adverse factors in the 19th Century, life expectancy nevertheless rose overall during the period. <br /><br />Case proven? :-)<br />10:09 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />OK thanks, yes proven about life expectancy. Not about medical chemicals though.<br />10:24 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /> Ruth said... <br /><br />Hee Hee Tim. Tath lady is crackers. My DIY bone setting worked a treat but I was a Orthopaedic nurse so I did have a idea of what I was doing lOL<br />10:36 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Rosie said... <br /><br />yes, I agree with you on this one, too, Gill. a few examples:<br />When I had 2 children with whooping cough the doctors didn't have a clue what to do and were of no use, in fact denied it at first. (so we have the right to choose not to vaccinate but it can mean they will wash their hands of you)<br />When I had recurring ear problems I agree to have them syringed- this resulted in me going almost deaf and suffering 10 years of vertigo.<br />When I was 29 I was diagnosed with some complicated back problems and referred to a spinal clinic on the NHS, who were going to operate. My own GP actually advised me against this as it may have led to paralysis, but told me I would never recover and would be permanantly disabled. I have had 3 children since then and am not disabled any more. (I went to a chiropractor for a few years).<br />We are not expected to take responsibility for our own health.<br />Yes, the life expectancy in this country has gone up- what about the rest of the world?<br />11:01 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Blimey Ruth, that's impressive!<br />11:01 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Oh yes, we had the whooping cough thing too. Stepson was vaccinated but went on to contract the disease anyway and was left with a cough that wouldn't go away. Cured by a homoeopathic single remedy! Thanks to Dr Blomfield :-)<br />11:03 PM, December 01, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tim said... <br /><br />"Yes, the life expectancy in this country has gone up- what about the rest of the world?" World Life Expectancy Chart. <br /><br />At first glance I think there is a clear correlation between wealth/healthcare expenditure and life expectancy. If you don't agree Rosie, you can get the expenditure figures from WHO. Please do. <br /><br />As to the rest, I think it is a matter of balance. I do think that as a nation we are far to reliant on drugs - prescribed, non-prescribed and recreational. But there is a place for pharmaceutical drugs, for surgery as well as for a lot of alternative treatments (I visit my osteopath bimonthly). I would like to see more research done into homeopathy, because although the reasoning behind it seems so blatantly flawed, there is, I understand, good evidence that veterinary homeopathy works - on subjects who are not susceptible to placebo effects. I think the reason there has been so little research into it is that there is little profit to be had from it.. <br /><br />My guess is doctors are often confronted by demanding patients "diagnose me, drug me, cut me!", who would be far better off going home and getting a good night's sleep and some exercise. So we get circular diagnoses ("doctor my skin is inflamed, give me something"... "you have dermatitis, take these and just go away"). In such an instance, I think my sympathies are with the doctor. :-)<br /><br />I suspect that there are more than enough surgeons whose principle concern is building a reputation or paying for their new Bentley. To counterbalance that there are likely dozens who will resort to the knife only when it is essential and are true to the dictum "First do no harm". Bear in mind that the big money is in things like cosmetic surgery, where patients are seeking out treatments they simply don't need. <br /><br />As to vaccinations. Gill, do you think that all vaccinations are bad. For example, do you think that the elimination of Smallpox was a mistake? Or are you relying on other people being vaccinated so that you and you family benefit from herd immunity? Or are you selectively opting out on the basis of evaluation of vaccinations on a case by case basis?<br /><br />But returning to your original thesis, I do not believe it makes any sense to abdicate responsibility for your health, or anything else, if I have something wrong with my car, my first thought is can I fix it myself, the second is to take it to our local mechanic, that doesn't mean that I blindly do whatever he says and I agree with you that it makes no more sense to blindly do what a doctor tells you to do.<br />2:46 AM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />No I don't think the elimination of smallpox was a mistake, but nor do I think it was due to vaccinations. <br /><br />I looked into the vaccination issue in great detail when I was first offered vaccinations for my children, reading everything there was available to read at the time, because I had a completely open mind about it and wanted to make the best decision I could. Leon Chaitow convinced me in the end with his brilliant Vaccinations and Immunisations: Dangers and Delusions: What Every Parent Should Know, in which he looks historically at every disease claimed to have been eliminated by vaccinations in detail. I can't remember the exact detail about smallpox but there were a lot of factors involved in the passing of that illness. <br /><br />How did we get rid of the Great Plague, for e.g.? Not with vaccinations, but by building up natural immunity and by the disease itself naturally dying out, which diseases do when their time has passed. But if vaccinations had been developed just as that one did pass you can be sure we'd have all been taught that vaccinations eliminated it single-handedly. <br /><br />The immune system is what keeps us relatively safe from disease and vaccinations severely compromise that. Injecting anything through the skin into the blood severely compromises that: if I HAD to choose one vaccine to be forced to take I'd pick the polio sugar cube one because at least it takes a more natural route into the body, therefore stands some chance of being processed. <br /><br />I wouldn't have decided against vaccinations on the basis that I could rely on the herd immunity of most other people having been vaccinated: Chaitow demolishes that argument too. (And it would have been immoral of me ^^ ) Indeed, my stepson having contracted whooping cough after being vaccinated dispels the theory in itself. <br /><br />Vaccination is a highly profitable industry and anyone who tries to look into it too closely in a credible scientific way is very quickly persecuted and discredited. I think it's something our descendants will look back on with horror and shame. <br /><br />I'm especially stunned that we're pushing these things on 3rd World children, who surely have enough to contend with and probaby have no chance of researching the situation and making an educated choice. But Nestle pushes its formula feed on them with impunity, so I guess anything's possible.<br />11:02 AM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /> <br /> Tech said... <br /><br />Can I just suggest some reading material - Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton. <br /><br />Pharmas aren't generally designed to cure people, they are there to alleviate symptoms - cures don't keep people spending money, worse still is when the pills create other illnesses that then need further medication. Anecdotal evidence I know, but it's as good as any other IMO: my friend's dad went from being a healthy enough bloke to someone diagnosed with diabetes and heart disease needing major surgery, was put on a raft of pills, told to eat a diet which was full of chemical shit, and was dead within a year IIRC. It could be argued that he would possibly have died anyway, but I would put money on him having had a longer life expectancy without all that medical intervention. Apparently the biggest killer in the USA - causing the deaths of more than 300,000 - is alleopathic medicine. It's another form of control, just like mass schooling, and religion - take people's personal power away from them, make them believe in a higher being and you have a race of pliable, docile sheep (mostly!).<br /><br />My BIL was a research scientist for a well know company, and he left because he couldn't justify the dodgy results he was supposed to come up with. He got tired of seeing his colleagues who went into the business for good and decent reasons, turn into people playing the game until they could draw their pensions. He was really shocked by what he found out working in that industry. It's an all too common story though unfortunately - as Gill said *he who pays the piper calls the tune*.<br /><br />As a woman you find that to have knowledge of and trust in your body is tantamount to heresy where many consultants are concerned. Perhaps they should change their job title - to consult means to ask for an opinion does it not? It does'nt mean *listen to what I tell you and do as you're told*, which is what many birthing women find to be the case all too often.<br /><br />As to life expectancy rates, I think you might find that they are on their way down again now anyway because of our modern life styles. I've certainly read or heard figures which suggest that a few times.Will have to have a google later and see if I can come up with anything to substantiate that I guess, although I'm afraid I don't hold a great deal of faith in stats of any kind anyway.<br />12:02 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tech said... <br /><br />Re the plague, I've read an interesting theory about that - must go and dig it out, I think I may have blogged it saying that.<br />12:04 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tech said... <br /><br />Plague link - interesting read I think.<br /><br />http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1037.htm<br />12:09 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />Tech that is fascinating.<br /><br />Gill, I think we will have to agree to differ. <br /><br />This is nicely put together: Vaccine controversy<br /><br />On balance I will go with this Dr John R Gilbert.<br />2:41 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Allie said... <br /><br />Nope, not with you on this one Gill! Our kids are vaccinated and I use much of what is on offer from the NHS - dentistry, opticians, smear tests and so on. That said, my kids have only been to the GP on a handful of occasions in their lives.<br /><br />My kids are very fit and healthy - never reacted badly to a vaccination and haven't had the measles or whooping cough that do go round here from time to time. We live in an area of the country with lots of people who don't believe in vaccination.<br /><br />I have many friends who have kids who they have not vaccinated. One of them nearly lost her son when his whooping cough became pneumonia. Needless to say she then accepted all the NHS could offer - intensive care bed, drugs and care from doctors and nurses. That was, of course, her right but it was a good job those services were there.<br /><br />I think you're right about the big pharma companies making obscene profits and I am not of the 'all doctors are gods' school of thought that my grandmother was. But I am so GLAD that we have the NHS in this country and people don't have to watch as their children die from preventable disease.<br />4:09 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Oh well, glad we agree on the finance if not the science, Tim & Allie! <br /><br />That's a great link Tech. Thanks! Now why isn't that explanation better-known? ^^<br />6:32 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Tim said... <br /><br />On the finance, I have always pretty much accepted that patents and copyright are a good thing in principle, just some of the detail of the law may be in need of change. <br /><br />I am starting to think now though that all the arguments advanced in support of ps and cs, that they reward innovation and creativity etc, are a pile of rubbish. I can see Cliff Richards pov, but quite frankly, why should he still be being paid over and over for songs he recorded nearly 50 years ago?<br /><br />And so far as big business is concerned, it is far more lucrative to claim a slew of patents and copyrights and hire an army of lawyers to prevent anyone else innovating, than to develop better products, that way you save on retooling costs and shut out anyone who can afford less lawyers.<br /><br />This isn't particularly about drugs, it is a general point, although clearly drug companies are big in this area. It would be nteresting to how the total wage bill of Glaxo's lawyers compares with the total wage bill of all its researchers.<br />8:10 PM, December 02, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />I guess the importance of the finance argument regarding pharmaceuticals varies according to how much you think we need their products. <br /><br />In my blog post I drew attention to the sums involved in order to explain the motivation behind the myth.<br /><br />Beyond pointing out that I think it IS a myth, and beyond explaining why I think it is perpetuated so desperately, I'm not too interested in the details of how they seek to justify such large amounts of money. They just obviously have to find a way to try to justify it, whatever that may be. <br /><br />It saddens me that some very intelligent people devote their whole lives to trying to develop cures for all our illnesses for the very best of reasons, (and make some other people vast sums of money in the process,) because I simply don't agree that our lives are meant to be totally devoid of pain and suffering or that we're meant to take pills or injections to try to ensure that they are. <br /><br />However, at least they provide people with a choice, which can only be a good thing, *as long as it's always presented as a choice*. Whether most people are conditioned, capable or even inclined to view it as such is a whole other matter, I suppose. You could argue that's a choice too, ultimately.<br /><br />Some of my most vital learning processes so far have taken place as the result of almost unbearable pain and suffering. If someone had wandered by with a magical external cure I would be a different, weaker, more obedient, docile, unquestioning, depressed person for it today. I should maybe blog more about that kind of thing, I dunno. <br /><br />But it is the essence of what I'm trying to say. If you work through pain and suffering and try to resolve it within yourself and in a natural way, you end up physically and mentally far stronger than if you hadn't. <br /><br />That's not to say we shouldn't ever help each other, but I would like that help to be administered with extreme care and consideration of the whole person involved, the decisions being made by people who understand the above concept. <br /><br />I've met some doctors who do understand what I'm saying: one in particular who was writing a thesis on pain relief and spent quite some time taking notes for it while we talked about why I'd opted to decline pain relief for my broken wrist. It was difficult to concentrate when I was in so much pain, but I enjoyed the experience none the less! (The talking, not the wrist-break, I hasten to add, before you start thinking I might be some sort of masochist ;-)<br /><br />Unfortunately though, the vast majority of medical personnel I've come across were more or less robotically serving their masters, the drug companies.<br />7:06 AM, December 03, 2006 <br /><br /><br /> Daniel Haszard said... <br /><br />Eli Lilly zyprexa cost me $250.00 a month supply and has up to ten times the risk of causing diabetes and severe weight gain.<br /><br />My issue is Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.<br /><br />So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?<br />Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to 'encourage' doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved 'off label' uses. <br /><br />The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Daniel Haszard<br />5:46 PM, December 07, 2006Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-46566134266643941872008-06-21T13:05:00.006+01:002008-06-21T14:23:52.167+01:00Re-post: But why is nobody asking why? - Jan 07I’ve read and seen the news story, reported in various quarters, about <a href=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6238227.stm> David Milliband asserting this week that “There is no evidence organic food is better for you than conventional food,”</a> and seen the standard replies from the Soil Association et al, predictably saying well actually they think it probably <i>is</i>.. <br /><br />BUT it seems very strange to me that nobody is asking <i>why</i> our Secretary of State for the Environment has suddenly popped up to share his opinion on this matter, seemingly out of the blue. I didn’t notice a recent clamour of people questioning whether there was any evidence that organic food was better than conventionally grown produce – did you? So isn’t it slightly suspicious that Mr Milliband should decide to try to convince us that there isn’t? <br /><br />I think so. <br /><br /><i>If</i> I was a cynical person, I’d be looking out for more bizarre, seemingly random ‘public service’ announcements of this nature in the next few months, quickly followed by yet another public consultation pantomime on the subject of GM foods – courtesy of <a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/">Her Majesty’s Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs</a> - sponsored by <a href=http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/layout/>Monsanto</a>.<br /><br /><br />(Jun 08 update: I see GM food is <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/20/greenpolitics.food">yet again being touted by our government</a> as the way to go, as a result of global food shortages.) <br /><br />7 Comments:<br /><br /> <a href="http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/">Tim</a> said... <br /><br />I think there are two issues.<br /><br />1) Is organic food better for you, i.e. objectively healthier? As far as I know, no-one has done a twenty or thirty year blind trial with a group fed only organic/fed only non-organic. I could see that, if they did, there may be no discernable health benefit to organic, in fact, bearing in mind the effort non-organic farmers go to control diseases and pests, it is possible that non-organic might even be better for you. (I seem to remember reading somewhere about a widespread outbreak of madness in Central Europe in the Middle Ages which is ascribed to LSD growing in a mould on grain.)<br /><br />2) Is organic food better? I would say definitely yes, I think it tends to be better in flavour and texture and for my money, that is a good enough reason to prefer it.<br /><br />I don't know what provoked Milliband to pipe up but the man keeps bad company, so I have no problems doubting his honesty or motives. <br /><br />But today of all days, following Blair's latest on global warming, I think we should be glad that we live in a country which has some of the world's most expert industrial farmers, because we are going to bloody well need their skills if we are all going to be hope for science and technology to fix global warming.<br />12:09 AM, January 10, 2007 <br /> <br /><br /><a href="http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/">Tim</a> said... <br /><br />I think there are two issues.<br /><br />1) Is organic food better for you, i.e. objectively healthier? As far as I know, no-one has done a twenty or thirty year blind trial with a group fed only organic/fed only non-organic. I could see that, if they did, there may be no discernable health benefit to organic, in fact, bearing in mind the effort non-organic farmers go to control diseases and pests, it is possible that non-organic might even be better for you. (I seem to remember reading somewhere about a widespread outbreak of madness in Central Europe in the Middle Ages which is ascribed to LSD growing in a mould on grain.)<br /><br />2) Is organic food better? I would say definitely yes, I think it tends to be better in flavour and texture and for my money, that is a good enough reason to prefer it.<br /><br />I don't know what provoked Milliband to pipe up but the man keeps bad company, so I have no problems doubting his honesty or motives. <br /><br />But today of all days, following Blair's latest on global warming, I think we should be glad that we live in a country which has some of the world's most expert industrial farmers, because we are going to bloody well need their skills if we are all going to be hope for science and technology to fix global warming.<br />12:12 AM, January 10, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /><a href="http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/">Tim</a> said... <br /><br />Why do I keep repeating myself?<br /><br />I said, why do I keep repeating myself?<br />1:06 AM, January 10, 2007<br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />LOL, I dunno, but I do know that Blogger is playing up this week. I couldn't post to it for most of yesterday and it was refusing to load much at all last night. <br /><br />I might, if I get chance, have a comb through the DEFRA site today and see if I can glean more clues as to what was behind Milliband's statement. I must admit, the Monsanto link was just a wild guess. Maybe the pressure came from elsewhere. <br /><br />Either way, it's sure to be about money and it gets my goat that global big business dictates politics to this extent, then they have the nerve to tax UK people for silly Milliband's huge salary, and all the rest. Never was the 'render unto Caesar' sentiment more necessary. <br /><br />As for the rights or wrongs of the argument, well personally I'd rather, on balance and given an affordable choice, eat something that's been grown as naturally as possible because I do think it makes a difference. And you can get 'science' to back up whichever argument you want to make, so that wouldn't affect my decision I don't think. <br /><br />But *if* we're on the brink of an ecological disaster (and I still have my doubts about that which I might blog later) and *if* food around here gets as scarce as threatened, I don't think anyone will care whether they're eating organic or not, as long as they're eating - intensively farmed food being infinitely better than no food at all. <br /><br />So I can't see Milliband's bizarre statement being based on fears of future food scarcity. Nope, it'll be about the moolah. It's just that the sneaky, devious so&sos don't have the front to tell us that and the journalists are as bad for not asking. I mean, is it just me, or is it the first question that springs to mind? And yet it was totally overlooked by them, cos they've all got their noses in the same trough and they think (maybe rightly) that the dumbed down British public is stupid enough not to wonder why.<br /><br />Ranty ranty rant.. ;-)<br />9:49 AM, January 10, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /><a href="http://aspiehomeeducation.blogspot.com/"> Paula</a> said... <br /><br />You might like to listen to physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva http://www.planetaryvoices.org.uk/reclaiming_our_earth.html<br />3:56 PM, January 10, 2007 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Brilliant, thanks Paula. What a woman. I especially love what she says about water and the enclosure of commons and so many other things. Also globalisation. "Nothing can be produced locally under a globalised economy." And she brings the issues of medicine and agriculture together.. very good listening. "Freedom is the oxygen we humans breathe and I can feel it becoming depleted."<br />9:25 PM, January 10, 2007 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />"The most terrorised person in today's world is the American farmer." <br /><br />Blimey, that's a shock.<br />9:38 PM, January 10, 2007Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-54593053861591044652008-06-21T13:05:00.002+01:002008-06-21T13:15:13.014+01:00Re-post: State reformation - Jan 07The State is apparently undergoing a major reformation. Did you notice? Well, I think we all did, in increments. But <a href="http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/documents/rolesofstate.pdf">here's a lovely 'presentation pack'</a> from the <a href="http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/role_of_the_state/index.asp">Cabinet Office website</a> explaining the whole thing, at last.<br /><br />Perhaps this is what Tony Blair meant when he described his recent time in office as 'the most productive so far' in his interview last week with Jon Sopel on the BBC's <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6293605.stm">Politics Show</a>. ("I think in many ways actually, the last eighteen months has been our most radical, most bold on the domestic agenda.") And on Yesterday's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/">Today</a> show on Radio 4, he told John Humphrys that Labour 'still had to do more to address the growing wealth gap and improve "social mobility," particularly for the "10% at the bottom".' <br /><br />(In the same interview he also said it would "not be very democratic" to stand down earlier than he had planned. Hold the front page! TB cares about democracy? *Drums fingers, waiting for referendum on Iraq...*)<br /><br />So, back to the state reformation. It's a fascinating document and sets out clearly the changing role of the state over the past century. I was especially interested in the importance given to 'changing social attitudes': the document certainly gives more weight to public opinion than I thought mattered to the Powers That Be, 'decreasing deference' being a term used several times throughout.<br /><br />So the state recognises very well that the nature of power and authority is changing and seeks to re-position itself accordingly. How? By sticks and carrots, of course. The only way it knows how; the only way it can, given that it is a body of <i>power</i>, in a position of <i>authority</i>. The old way, that it admits hasn't been working recently. ("We are increasing autonomy for good providers." Someone show them a dictionary: autonomy isn't something that can be bestowed by increments, with conditions attached.) They're just planning to get more determined and devious about it. <br /><br />More public consultations... "The citizen is beginning to be viewed as a partner in decision making." Beginning? Erm.. isn't democracy supposed to mean that we always were? And the state is apparently going to be an <i>enabling</i> rather than a providing state. <br /><br />But the most interesting phrase in the whole presentation is this one: "Growing awareness of the socio-economic consequences of parenting". The socio-economic consequences of parenting. What are these and who has a growing awareness of them and why? And hands up, those parents who felt a chill run down their spine when they read that phrase? I certainly did.<br /><br />And we apparently have an 'HMT Parenting Fund [which] is managed by the Third sector and gives grants to frontline parenting support organisations'. The use of battle terminology like 'frontline' gives the game away, in my opinion. This is war: a strong state needs weakened family structures. Strong family structures make for a weakened state. This document, and countless others, outline the future incursions and invasions into our territory. 'Interventions', as they're diplomatically known.<br /><br />Blogs even get a page to themselves:<br /> <br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/1600/638775/blogs2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2697/689/320/8701/blogs2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /> - though I couldn't help noticing they missed out the sentence beginning "At their worst.." ;-)<br /><br />So with voter 'apathy' at its height, could concerns about public engagement in debate in the form of the lack of a real mandate for power be the new 'enabling' state's Achilles' Heel? Or, as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_page_id=1772&in_article_id=432430&in_author_id=322">Richard Littlejohn</a> observed in Tuesday's Daily Mail, talking about the <a href="http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/"> new website set up by the Law Commission</a> to find out which laws the public would like to be changed, would "any idea that the public could have a say in framing laws [be] anathema to those in power"? <br /><br />This all makes me think, yet again, about the nature of power and how it really works. Hopefully I'll be back with more on this when it occurs to me. I'm certainly planning a powerpoint presentation along the lines of 'The Family Fights Back.' Because it's about time it did.<br /><br />Comments:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://greenhousebythesea.blogspot.com/"> Allie</a> said... <br /><br />That's all interesting stuff. Though I don't have a problem with the state providing services I think the problem has always been that they have often been more interventions that services in the true sense. Probably the only exception to that that I can think of is public library services, which have always been true services - there to be used as and when people want them. It's interesting that they are so well loved by their users.<br /><br />I'm not really sure that 'the family' has ever had much power or autonomy - surely it's always been under controls of state, church, feudal lords etc?<br /><br />I'm afraid my blood tends to run cold when people speak in defence of 'the family', just as much as when Blair and his lot hold forth. I guess I've heard it too often from people who claim rights to the term family and want to use it as a weapon. I've also heard it from people who want to use 'the family' as a place where children have no rights.<br />1:34 PM, February 04, 2007 <br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Hmmm I hadn't thought about it from that point of view Allie. When I think of the concept of 'family', it's with the idea of the option of homebased living and educating, unimpeded by the state, surrounded by blood relations who ideally would be on the children's 'side'. But in fact I should know through my own experiences that's often not the case. Thanks for your comment, it's making me rethink whatever it is I'm getting het up about ^^<br />1:44 PM, February 04, 2007 <br /> <br /> <a href="http://happyathome.homeschooljournal.net/">Sally</a> said... <br /><br />|Ah Gill, when I left you a comment response on my blog earlier ... I had no idea that I was addressing my thoughts to such an appropriate person! So, you may actually be able to answer the question I asked about the government's intentions regarding the (report already written?) discussions they want to have about modernizing laws regarding home ed????<br />5:38 PM, February 04, 2007 <br /> <br />Gill said... <br /><br />Hi Sally :-)<br /><br />I've tried my best.<br />6:10 PM, February 04, 2007Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-87127266913796182572008-06-17T19:53:00.002+01:002008-06-17T20:38:57.440+01:00Reply from my MPReceived this morning. Dated 9th June 2008. Franked 11th June and postmarked the 16th. <br /><br /><blockquote>Dear Mrs Kilner, <br /><br />Further to <a href="http://sometimesitspolitical.blogspot.com/2008/05/letter-to-my-mp.html">our previous correspondence</a>, I have now received a response from the Department of Work and Pensions. <br /><br />I enclose a copy of the reply I have received from the Minister, in answer to my representations on your behalf. <br /><br />Yours sincerely, <br /><br />PP Christine McCafferty MP<br /><br /><blockquote>Dear Chris,<br /><br />Thank you for your further letter of 22 May on behalf of Mrs G Kilner about the proposals that will affect lone parents from the end of this year. More specifically, as a lone parent who chooses to educate her children at home Mrs Kilner is concerned about flexibility issues in fitting paid work around her children's education. <br /><br />Details of the proposed changes to benefit conditionality, together with a set of draft regulations, were presented to the Social Security Advisory Committee on 7 May. As Mrs Kilner mentions in her letter, the committee has undertaken a public consultation exercise which commenced on 15 May (and runs to 13 June). After the consultation period the committee will produce a report to the Secretary of State for his consideration. The Secretary of State will then respond, by setting out what will be required of lone parents including those who home educate their children. Meantime, it bears repeating that the Jobseeker's Allowance conditions contain the flexibility to allow lone parents to tailor their availability for work according to their circumstances. <br /><br />If Mrs Kilner wishes to participate in the consultation, she can do so by writing to the Secretary, Social Security Advisory Committee, New Court, 48 Carey Street, London WC2A or via email at ssac@dwp.gov.uk by 13 June. <br /><br />Please pass my thanks to Mrs Kilner for taking the trouble to raise her further concerns about this with us. <br /><br />Stephen Timms</blockquote></blockquote> <br /><br />Judging by his use of the phrase "the proposals that <i>will</i> affect lone parents from the end of this year", I think it's clear that decision to make all lone parents on Income Support 'available for work' has already been made and this consultation is only about the details, if that. <br /><br />I'll look forward to finding out "what will be required of lone parents including those who home educate their children." <br /><br /><i>Requirements</i> are optional, right?Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-76846042114022181302008-06-12T21:14:00.001+01:002008-06-12T21:15:50.339+01:00My lone parent consultation responseDear Sirs, <br /> <br />Here are my comments on The Social Security (Lone Parents and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2008, as per <a href="http://www.ssac.org.uk/actcon.asp">your consultation</a> dated 15/05/08<br /> <br />I am a single parent home educator in receipt of Income Support, and if the proposed changes go ahead I will potentially lose my freedom to home educate my children and thereby my ability to personally ensure that my specific duties as set out in section 7 of the Education Act 1996 are complied with. My children might have to go to school if I am forced to seek paid employment because, contrary to the Minister's apparent belief, home education does not take place solely during school hours but more usually it happens organically throughout the child's entire waking hours and I don't expect to always be able to find a babysitter in the evenings or at weekends - if ever. The only reliable, free babysitter, I fear, is school.<br /> <br />I have already raised three children by home educating them and making myself 100% available for them and, in these days of widespread adolescent disaffection, my three older teenagers buck the current trend by being clean living, hard-working, emotionally stable, and highly self-motivated. My hope was to provide the same kind of upbringing for my younger two children - something I see as being essential for the enjoyment of childhood and good long term mental health - but this proposal would seek to thwart my intention to continue being a devoted parent to all of my children, who have no other actively involved parents to facilitate their upbringing. <br /> <br />I do not 'need a break'. I am not 'asking for help'. I do not wish to seek paid employment because it will take me away from the invaluable and priceless job of taking care of my own children, and put me in the ludicrous position of having someone else be paid to take care of them in my place. This might be good for the nation's economy, but it is most definitely not good for the nation's children or for its families. In particular, from my own point of view, it is most definitely not a good proposal for my family. <br /> <br />Income Support provides us with enough money to live on. We don't smoke, drink, go out to expensive places or have expensive holidays. We can pay our bills, our mortgage and have enough left for food and basic supplies, which is all we need. Regardless of what official statistics insist, my family is not living in poverty, because we do not go without anything which we really need. I resent being told that we live in poverty when it isn't true, and that this must be corrected by me being forced to abandon my children to strangers while I seek paid employment whether I like it or not. It seems that the government, in its relentless and unrealistic pursuit of the goal of 100% employment, intends to actively damage the lives of thousands of defenceless people. I feel that my children's well being and stability will be put at risk by this move and that, once I agreed that I am 'available for work' (which I am not) and committed the younger two to the school system, I would not be in a position to utilise the safety valve of deregistration that will still be available to other families, if things went wrong for them there. My children would be trapped in school and I will be trapped in my paid employment, unable to help them. There would be no other family member to help them in my place either: single parent means just that and we are by no means all blessed with the luxury of an interested and supportive extended family network.<br /> <br />There isn't even any financial benefit in forcing home educating single parents into paid employment. When every state school place costs around £6000 per year, it's obvious straight away that home educating families like mine are saving the state thousands of pounds. By the time any small income I earn is topped up by tax credits, the Treasury will definitely be out of pocket. And yet this idea has the steam roller effect of a done deal. I am not optimistic that my response hold any sway whatsoever. We're all just statistics under this frighteningly bleak new world order, aren't we? I seriously fear for all our children and our grandchildren. And this is not what our grandparents fought for in the war, and it is certainly not what my father spent the greater part of his life walking for miles to deliver leaflets and to campaign on behalf of the Labour Party for either. It's a mercenarily harsh political decision and "I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."<br /> <br />Gill KilnerGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-43110160539217162692008-06-03T08:39:00.004+01:002008-06-03T10:51:27.259+01:00Every single parent matters?<a href="http://www.ahed.org.uk/pc/"><img src="http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4341/postcardcampaignix6.png" alt= "AHEd lone parent postcard campaign" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.ahed.org.uk/">AHEd</a> yesterday launched its postcard campaign against <a href="http://www.ssac.org.uk/actcon.asp">the proposed changes</a> to the UK benefits system. People can visit <a href="http://www.ahed.org.uk/pc/">the page</a>, download the postcards, print them and send them off to MPs, the Children's Commissioner, etc. <br /><br />AHEd has decided to take the approach that any conditionality attached to Income Support for lone parents is a bad thing, and of course I agree with this view. In fact, I'd go further and say that all parents should be supported by a basic income to enable them to focus on the most important job of raising their children. The government's stubborn determination to rate only paid employment as 'work' is both short-sighted and dangerous to our children. Parents are not units of human resource: they are the essential guardians of the country's future.<br /><br />Why should you pay your taxes to fund this? Because you're already paying them to fund MPs' second mortgages, foreign wars, to bail out profligate bankers and all the other over-inflated, unnecessary and useless expenditure <a href="http://pbrcsr07.treasury.gov.uk/page_08.html">to which the Treasury is committed</a>, so you may as well also do something worthwhile with your money. <br /><br /><a href="http://sometimesitspolitical.blogspot.com/2008/05/letter-to-my-mp.html">My letter to my MP</a> calls for an exemption for home educators from the proposed changes, which will require all lone parents of children over the age of 7 to be 'available for work' as a condition for receiving their subsistence income but on reflection, I think I agree with AHEd that this is both unlikely to be granted, and would be unfair if it was. I don't know though: the government is saying that lone parents should take up paid employment while their children are in school and the point is that home educators don't use schools, but to make this argument is to agree with the original presumption, which I don't. School attendance is only 6 hours per day and a child might be ill for longer than the bureaucratically sanctioned two weeks a year. And of course, there are school holidays to consider. <br /><br />I see there is some talk on the home ed lists this morning about the proposed requirement for lone parents to declare vulnerability in order the qualify for exemptions to the 'available for work' status and I think that to get tied up in the minutiae of all this red tape is a waste of energy: a useless distraction. To talk to government in these terms is to condone this preposterous world view and we should not condone it in the slightest. We should take a firm view that the whole idea is unacceptable. <br /><br />My personal view is that I will not, while home educating, be signing anything to say that I'm available for paid employment. I will not jump through any government hoops or leave my children with strangers while I attend repeated appointments at the Benefit Office to prove I'm looking for jobs that I don't actually have the time to carry out. I'll take the money cut instead, and we'll manage somehow: we always have. When you don't smoke, drink, go on holidays, buy new clothes or have nights out then subsistence benefits do go quite a long way.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5372650262327812921.post-78407150364714829402008-05-22T07:47:00.001+01:002008-05-22T07:47:40.762+01:00Letter to my MPDear Chris McCafferty,<br /><br />Re: Lone parent home educators on Income Support<br /><br />Many thanks for your letter of the 21st April 2008 on this subject enclosing Stephen Timms' reply to your representations on my behalf. <br /><br />Mr Timms' reply included the following: <br /><br />"Home education presents certain flexibilities where unlike lone parents who send their children to school, they do not necessarily have to observe school hours, days or terms thus allowing them greater flexibility to fit work around their children's education."<br /><br />The matter is currently in consultation for a very short period of time (http://www.ssac.org.uk/actcon.asp) before the decision is finalised, so I would now ask that you urgently reply to Mr Timms on my behalf to correct the serious misapprehension under which he seems to be labouring.<br /><br />I would like you to explain to him that home education often takes place throughout all of the child's waking hours - not just in certain pre-arranged chunks of the day. Many people - myself included - educate our children according to the autonomous method which involves being constantly on hand to facilitate learning whenever opportunities arise. Far from allowing us greater flexibility to fit paid work around our children's learning, this means that we have no spare time whatsoever. <br /><br />We home educate in this way partly because many of us consider it to be the only way for us to ensure our compliance with our duties in section 7 of the Education Act 1996, which compels us to "cause our children to receive efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, and to any special educational needs they may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise." Many of us deregistered our children from schools in which the above legal requirement was certainly not being met and are therefore unwilling to risk further damage to our children's education by changing our present arrangements.<br /><br />If no exemption is made for home educators in the decision to move all lone parents on Income Support onto Job Seekers' Allowance, I imagine many home educating lone parents will, rather than opting to register their children at school, choose instead to forego the adult component of their benefits. This will of course exacerbate the issue of child poverty that the current proposals are supposed to improve. As you can see, lone parent home educators are likely to be placed in such an impossible position if and when this change goes ahead.<br /><br />I therefore urge you as my MP, as well as conveying the realities of the situation for lone parent home educators to Mr Timms on my behalf, to vote against this decision if it comes before the House. <br /><br />I am a member of AHEd (Action for Home Educators) and you can read more about that organisation's position and progress on this issue on its public wiki here: http://ahed.pbwiki.com/WelfareReformLoneParents.<br /><br />Thanks again for your invaluable support.<br /><br />Yours sincerely,<br /><br />Gill KilnerGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0