Monthly Archives: April 2009

More G20 Videos

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Over the last week there’s been a steady stream of video’s of the police violence at the G20 protest – it seems strange we’ve not seen anything from the police surveillance cameras: weren’t they working or do they show something worse? Here are some videos from The Guardian.

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Man walking away from police bitten by dog.

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Plainclothes policemen with batons.

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Press photographers told you will go to jail if you continue taking photographs.

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Riot police break up climate camp

Something out of a dictatorship not a democracy.

UK Child Wellbeing UK Ranked 24th Out of 29 European Countries

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It’s depressing that after all these years of A Labour government the UK fares so badly. Here’s the table in full.

1 Netherlands
2 Sweden
3 Norway
4 Iceland
5 Finland
6 Denmark
7 Slovenia
8 Germany
9 Ireland
10 Luxembourg
11 Austria
12 Cyprus
13 Spain
14 Belgium
15 France
16 Czech Republic
17 Slovakia
18 Estonia
19 Italy
20 Poland
21 Portugal
22 Hungary
23 Greece
24 United Kingdom
25 Romania
26 Bulgaria
27 Latvia
28 Lithuania
29 Malta

Source: BBC.

The table includes 43 separate indicators summarised in the report into seven categories.

Health including indicators on infant mortality and birth weight, the UK ranked 24th
Subjective Wellbeing including indicators on how children feel about their lives and health, the UK ranked 21st
Relationships including indicators on how easy children say they find it to talk to their parents and get on with their classmates, the UK rankled 15th
Material Resources including indicators on child poverty, the UK ranked 24th
Education including indicators on achievement and youth inactivity, the UK ranked 22nd
Housing and Environment including indicators on overcrowding and housing problems, the UK ranked 17th

Source: Child Poverty Action Group.

Still don’t be fooled that the Tories will be any better – they’ll leave it to market forces and a quick look around the world reveals that market forces is pretty keen on using children as slave labour.

Nutcases

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We really shouldn’t place any faith in the market – personally I don’t and here’s a perfect example why you shouldn’t.

A German great-grandmother called Maria Thun is wielding huge influence on the British wine industry.

A calendar she first published in the 1950s categorises days as “fruit”, “flower”, “leaf” or “root”, according to the Moon and stars. Wine is best on fruit days, followed by flower, leaf and root days. The worst day is marked as “unfavourable” in the calendar.

Tesco and Marks & Spencer are the latest supporters of her philosophy. The two supermarkets have revealed that they have a policy of inviting critics to taste their wine only on days which the calendar says are favourable.

Her theory is that wine is a living organism that responds to the Moon’s rhythms in the same way that some people believe humans do. The so-called “lunar effect” has been widely dismissed as pseudo-science but its followers think that as the Moon exerts such a huge impact on the tides, it must follow that it affects the water in the human body and therefore human behaviour. BBC.

See they’ll believe any old bollocks – would you trust a company that believes in something that’s little more than superstition?

We Still Shoot the Messenger

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A nurse who was struck off for misconduct after secretly filming patients being neglected is considering appealing against the decision.

Margaret Haywood, 58, filmed at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton for a BBC Panorama programme in July 2005.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council said she did not fulfil her nursing obligations and struck her off. BBC.

Whistle blowing is still career threatening – what message does striking off Margaret Heywood send?

Oxfam’s FRED Campaign

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Oxfam FRED campaign says the UK is fast becoming a nation of FREDs.

Forgotten by those in power.
Ripped-off by taxes and the benefits system.
Excluded from opportunities.
Debt-ridden because they can’t afford to get by

Source: Oxfam’s Fred campaign

Oxfam has a six-point rescue plan.

Fund Low-cost Credit
Help people get through a crisis by setting a maximum interest rate on loans, and make government crisis loans easier to get.

Cut Taxes for People on Low Incomes
Make the tax system fairer by increasing the level of earnings that are exempt.

Create Sustainable Jobs
Get Britain ready for the future by major new investment in renewable technology, affordable housing and free child and social care.

Raise Benefits and Tax Credits Now
Make sure that everyone, in and out of work, has a basic income that is enough to live on.

Reform the Welfare System
Make it easier to move from benefits into work and help people achieve a decent income.

Protect People at Work
Provide better job security by properly enforcing the national minimum wage and other rights at work.

Source: Oxfam’s Fred campaign

It seems a damning indictment of the Labour government when Oxfam’s running a campaign that really should have been government policy since elected back in 1997.

Police Block Ambulance at G20

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Dave Highbury has a video that apparently shows the police blocking the ambulance sent to Ian Tomlinson – even if this wasn’t the actual ambulance it contradicts the police’s claim that they did everything possible to assist Tomlinson

Hat Tip: Liberal Conspiracy.

Guardian Video of Riot Office Attack on Ian Tomlinson

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This video from The Guardian shows the attack on Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest in London, shortly before he died. It shows Tomlinson, who was not part of the demonstration, being assaulted from behind and pushed to the ground by baton-wielding police.

How many others where assaulted? We’ll never know – the police did everything in their powers to keep photographers away, such as reported by The British Journal of Photography when police used Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to move journalists during the demonstration. Are we on the road to a police state or am I being over dramatic.

BBC Commercial Arm Must be Scaled Back

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The BBC is funded by licence fee payers and free to air what’s wrong with the BBC maximising profit? If this improves the quality of programs and reduces the license fee what complaint can there be – Oh wait the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee says

New activities undertaken by BBC Worldwide risk jeopardising the corporation’s reputation and adversely affecting competitors. BBC.

The first point is questionable and the second is what on earth are we worried about? I’ve not travelled to many places around the world admittedly but to the places I have the BBC beats the competition hands down for quality – why would we want to jeopardise that because commercial competitors feel they’re disadvantaged: to be quite honest they’d still claim that regardless of the BBC’s commercial arm – MP’s have yet again been taken for a ride by business. Then again there’s nothing in the fact that Sky is owned by Rupert Murdoch who just happens to also own The Times and The Sun newspapers?