Want to Live with the Common People

God, how long has IDS been banging on about 'Broken Britain'? Although British people are very partial to a moan, a tut and a sigh after a while they tire of criticism and get a bit defensive.

So it is with Cameron's electoral carping about our wider social failures; the focus groups are apparently turning against the relentless diatribe. For one thing the people find it hard to stomach the hectoring words of privately educated and privileged Tories decrying the life choices of the lower classes.

The growing perception is many of the intractable problems the Cons identify, are drawn from statistical analysis of various reports rather than life experience itself.

This suspicion was rather confirmed with the Tory report published this week, 'Labour's Two Nations'. On teenage pregnancy, it states with unfaltering confidence, "In the most deprived areas, 54 percent are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18." You are quite entitled to spit your tea out over that dodgy stat which was repeated three times in the report.

The true figure is 54 in 1000 or 5.4%. But to the pompous suits in central office, it may be entirely reasonable to assume more than half of teenage girls are pregnant. And notice they even use the 1950s style phrasing of 'falling' pregnant. It's only one step away from saying 'fallen women.'

The country has big social problems for sure and many which one hoped a Labour Government would have done a whole lot more to address. But I doubt whether our serious social ills will be cured by these remote patriarchs of the Tory Party.

Look Within

Several years ago, when but a junior official, I put in an application for a promotion. The curiously titled post of 'Presenting Officer' was a rare opportunity to climb a small rung of the civil service ladder. The job entailed appearing in court as the Home Office rep who would counter the appeal proceedings brought by 'illegals' who were facing deportation. The benefits of additional income when belts were already tight did not, in the end, outweigh my political objections to the immigration system. Eventually I failed the interview deliberately and happily in an almost Pythonesque manner.

David Wood, current strategic Director for Criminality and Detention at UK Border Agency has no such qualms. His press statement during the ongoing hunger strike of women at Yarl's Wood (pictured) was a lesson in obfuscation and shameless dissembling. He claimed the protest was, "resolved" on 9 February when women are still denying food in protest at the obscene amount of time they have been held.

In essence, Wood was only referring to the arrest and imprisonment of four women deemed 'ringleaders'. Wood said the the UKBA "aim to keep detention to a minimum". But Home Office figures obtained by the Independent show 225 people have been held for more than 12 months and 45 for at least two years.

Here's a taste of life in Yarl's Wood which, despite appearances, it must be stressed it is not a prison.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/inside+yarlaposs+wood+detention+centre/3267842

Wood chose his words so carefully when he said the detainess had access to legal advice and healthcare facilities. During the initial lockdown last week several women were caught in cold communal areas without access to food, water warm clothing or even a loo. It may be hard to convince those into their third week of hunger strike that they are being treated with "dignity and respect".

An Iranian family released after 51 days in Yarls' spoke of how traumatised their children were. Despite the manifold levels of safeguarding in schools and wider society to protect children, the Home Office deem it acceptable to lock up their children aged 6 and 18 months for nearly two months.

One of the sparks of the women's protest was the treatment of children by UKBA - 2,000 are held for various periods of detention every year. The Agency seems to have arrived at the welcome conclusion children should not be incarcerated - however their solution is to now separate parents from their little ones.

In times of economic hardship it is not difficult to find staff to implement these brutal regulations, indeed some staff seem to thrive on humiliating and intimidating vulnerable asylum seekers. Louise Perrett worked briefly for UKBA and catalogued routine racism and mocking of 'inmates'. She mentioned a stuffed monkey was "placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application." A Congolese family were granted the 'right to remain' but a senior manager unilatarily overruled the judgement and ordered their deportion.

She told the Guardian she witnessed, "hostility" which was "horrific" and said, "major changes are needed at senior management level". This last comment will ensure the establishment draws in and acts very defensively, dismissing the unsubstantiated claims of a disgruntled civil servant.

Disgruntled she maybe but at least she has her conscience and had the courage to expose this systematic and cruel treatment of the hopeless by our Government's officials.

One Way or Another

I am the last person who would seek to condone an unlawful arrest from a corrupt policeman but the conviction today of Commander Ali Dezaei has some very questionable aspects to it.

Having seen the CCTV evidence, it would appear Dezaei was wrong to arrest some pain-in-the-arse guy hassling him for an unpaid bill of £600. But the language used to describe his actions by the bastions of the plod establishment would better equate Dezaei to the institutional corrupt Met coppers of the 1970s rather than this piffling affair.

CPS said these actions amounted to "serious offences of corruption". Met Chief Stephenson said Dezaei had, "damaged the reputation of the entire police service." The not so Independent Police Complaints Commission said he was no more than, "a criminal in uniform."

The offence does not look remotely proportionate to a sentence of four years imprisoment - for most officers it would pass with a disciplinary hearing and a mild rebuke.

Dezaei was arrogant enough to pursue the arrest and his legion of enemies in the Met must have cheered long and hard when they realised they had finally come across some evidence of wrongdoing. The media reports are all referring to how Dezaei had evaded justice previously in a "multi-million pound trial" as if he were already a serious crim who had got off before on a technicality.

The fact that the Met spent over £3m of public money pursuing him over some insignificant expense claim says more about the senior officers desire to prosecute a colleague who accused them of racism than Dezaei's probability of guilt. The case was dismissed through a lack of evidence.

"Senior sources" at the Yard were quite content to feed libellous stories to the media about Dezaei frequenting prostitutes, using drugs, employing illegal immigrants, money-laundering even spying for Iran. The News of the World was the latest paper to pay him extensive damages.
Whether Dezaei can be freed soon on appeal may be doubtful, certainly his police career is stone dead. But the relish with which he was condemned so roundly by his peers for a effectively an incident of wrongful arrest, which must happen regularly, makes me have deep suspicions of their motives.

It may not be the fair name of British Justice which was being protected but the fair skin of those who uphold its institutions.

He is Expected to Say

David Cameron's postured anger yesterday about Gordon Brown being the predominant opponent of Parliamentary reform, underlined his lack of political experience. The public are never going to believe the expenses farago is essentially a Labour problem; one only need mention the words 'duckhouse' 'moles' or 'moat' to be reminded of manifold Tory excess.

His much trailled speech yesterday was embargoed until midnight Sunday and the accompanying press release was written mainly in the future tense, "he will say this...he will mispresent that... he will be a total hypocrite..."

But when it came to it, he had been compelled to changed the text. He held back from walking headlong into contempt of court proceedings by continuing to make party political points which could seriously compromise the criminal cases against the four Parliamentarians.

Speaker Bercow had made clear all MPs should be mindful of 'sub judice' rule. Someone close to Cameron with a lawyer's brain (perhaps Sir George Young) was smart enough to pull Dave back from going big on Tory PR chief Andy Coulson's tabloid style attack.

The dismal furore over the clutching-at-straws defence of Privilege will soon pass. The intention of 1689 Bill of Rights was clearly to protect freedom of speech and not insulate members from the legal consequences of any potential criminal wrongdoing. But the trials won't begin in earnest until the Autumn so the leaders will for reason of timing and legal probity have to find another arena to battle it out before the May election.

Cameron is still touchy about party funding as chief fundraiser Lord Ashcroft has never deemed it necessary to be explicit about his tax status. Here is a series of exchanges between commentators and senior Tories refusing to answer this simple question.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/08/lord-ashcroft-tax-status-uk

It may be more than a healthy dose of wishful thinking but Cameron has looked decidedly shaky in recent weeks. Osbourne may maintain that arrogant swagger of a man certain of his views but he is an serial flip-flopper which offers no reassurance to the markets And most encouragingly, there appears to be a party schism opening up over green taxes - an inevitable consequence when there is such a strong element of neo-con climate deniers in the senior ranks.

If the Tories weren't up against such a wholly unpopular figure as Gordon Brown they'd be in real trouble. But the Good Ship Cameron is starting to take on a little more water as it nudges uncertainly against the political icebergs.

Broken Bonds

The Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated last week. The Guardian included interviews with six of the dwindling number of survivors living in the UK. Each told a deeply traumatic story of personal tragedy amid unspeakable wickedness. But in each case they emerged from their horrors into the unending relief of the predicatable safety of a routine existence.

Sabina Miller (pictured) lived an almost feral existence in the forests of Northern Poland in the early 1940s but soon after the war settled in Hampstead London, raised a family and lived a comfortable life. On her reception into English society, this remarkable lady said, "For the first two or three years I was still apprehensive to tell people I was Jewish. I fell in love with this country because what I got was kindness and acceptance." Here is a great example of our common humanity as a country to protect the persecuted- it should be a source of immense pride to us.

It was once but we seem to have regressed into an altogether more selfish and pernicious view of the needy and vulnerable who come to our shores for sanctuary. Or laws and institutions reflect this hardening of hearts.

A more modern version of Britain's treatment of an asylum seeker is Carmen Quiroga. She arrived with her children from Bolivia in 2002 and despite prima facie evidence of persecution and torture had her claim for asylum refused. Like a huge proportion of similar cases, she was successful in gaining a hearing for judicial review.

However, with a legal case still pending she and her family were arrested illegally, forced from their home and incarcerated in Oakington detention centre. The staff there routinely abused Mrs Quiroga, food and medicine were denied her children and twice they attempt to deport this family.

During one interrogation, she was struck by a guard for failing to keep eye contact. This assualt, for merely showing defiance in the face of oppressive bullying, was carried out in front of her children.

Within two years they had all been issued with passports and citizenship but had to wait eight years for any offer of compensation for this unforgivable brutality from the British state. She'll be waiting a while lot longer for any apology.

Just Not Satisfied

England captain, John Terry, was awarded 'Dad of the Year' a couple of months ago. It would seem only the sporting accolade of leading England is under threat of being rescinded following the murky details of his adulterous affair revealed in the Sun yesterday.

Like many millionaire footballers with a hugely puffed up view of their own importance, Terry thought flashing his fat wallet at the lawyers could make all the media coverage go away. He first ensured his lover, Vannessa Perroncel, was silenced under a confidentiality agreement.

His lawyers' attempt at combining their legalese with Terry's crude West London parlance, resulted in this rather clinical wording. "As a result of my dealings with you there has been speculation of a relationship with you. Whilst I do not make any admission as to the truth or otherwise of such speculation, I do not want such speculation to be disclosed. "

What JT wants, he expects to get, so instructed his lawyers to take out a super-injunction order preventing any articles appearing in the media and even any reporting of the existence of the order. Thankfully, the judge, Justice Tugendhat, thought the arguments for simply protecting Terry's privacy were not proportionate owing to the "fact of the relationship". In other words the Sun had the simple justification of it being a true story.

The lawyers also incurred his Honour's wrath by not even notifying the media about the order which meant the judge, "had not the benefit of arguments in opposition." In refusing the maintainence of the order he added with some irony, " I am not satisfied." Terry with £6m wages a year, a beautiful wife and the pissest of easy jobs in the world could not have put it better.

His lawyers may have had more success if they had followed the example of a Premiership manager who was caught visiting a brothel last month. They argued for defamation not privacy and the press still not dare publish although his identity can revealed in searching for about five seconds in any football chatroom.

But so much for the media's self-congratulation about busting the order. They are also guilty of failing to condemn these incredibly wealthy and arrogant half-wits filling the Premiership. The tone of most coverage implies their celebrity status gifts them additional value as people - disgraceful behaviour, even domestic violence, is labelled mildly as an, "indiscretion".

Here's a perfect example of how the collusion between footballers and the media obscures their utter selfishness and limitless apathy over the lot of the general public. A couple of years ago, all players were universally praised for "digging deep" for nurses. The campaign was for all Premiership players to give only one day's wages to the noble cause.

Far fewer papers covered the outcome which showed precious few fulfilling their widely publicised pledges. Although some clubs like Fulham and West Ham paid in full, Chelsea, led by their "inspirational" captain Terry, gave nothing at all.

Aussie Rules

Traditionally, it has been the Conservative Party which has cast an eye to matters Australian for inspiration at election time. Lynton Crosby, master strategist and good buddy to old PM John Howard, has been summoned from Down Under more than once to advise Tories about campaigning.

Senior Labour figures have been looking even further back into the Antipodean past, pondering how the ‘Mighty’ Bob Hawke (pictured) managed to win three landslides for Labour in the 1980s. However it is not the official election strategists who are looking for lessons to learn but the arch anti-Brown plotters.

Bob Hawke gained the leadership for Labour in February 1982 just a month before the General Election where he thumped the incumbent Malcolm Fraser with his superior communications skills, known locally as being a “bloody good bloke”. The rejuvenation of the party following the very late defenestration of the dullard Bill Hayden is preying on minds of key Brown haters such as Charles Clarke.

It was all too much for Geoff ‘Mogadon’ Hoon and Patricia ‘Pat’ Hewitt this week when they issued a letter on Wednesday inviting MPs to get in a huddle and count the number of dissenters. It would not be hard to find 100 if they could be persuaded to be honest for a moment; that would have been enough to maim Brown’s premiership.

But they figured without the constitution of the party which requires a drawn out contest and a special conference. Only Brown’s resignation could kick start a quick election. Hardly a likely prospect from this Great Political Limpet.

There was one other fundamental difference: Hawke was stratospherically ahead of all other candidates; whereas Labour has no outstanding alternative. Hawke’s appeal was multi-layered, he was a good knockabout Parliamentarian and moderate ex-union leader aligning him perfectly with the central tenet of Aussie philosophy – every bloke (and Sheila) "deserves a fair go.” His electoral hopes were hugely enhanced by the revelation he briefly held the world record for sinking a yard of ale. Let’s face it, three pints of ice-cold lager in eleven seconds is really going some for any cobber.

And there’s no doubt that accolade gave him more cred with the public than David Milliband ever could with his banana.