Levelling The Gradient

by Les May

A COUPLE of weeks ago Kirsty Wark, the presenter of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight, introduced an item which was supposed to deal with the question of discrimination in Britain using as an example the fact that there ‘weren’t many black CEOs’ (Chief Executive Officers). This intro told us little about whether there really is discrimination, and a lot about Wark’s priorities.

The assumption that you can lump all black, brown, Asian people together and label them BAME is a favourite modus operandi of armchair sociologists and media pundits.  This lazy approach to avoid thinking more deeply is akin to what has been called the ‘ecological fallacy’.  One example of this is the assumption that if one group is found to have, say a higher average income than another, then all members of the first group will have higher incomes than anyone in the second group. This is clearly nonsense.  Some individuals in the second group will be doing very nicely thank you and have incomes which are much higher than many of the people in either of the groups.   I have little doubt that Wark is significantly more wealthy than a very large number of white and non-white people alike.  She certainly has more power and influence.

By concentrating on single issues the questions raised by the huge inequalities in income, wealth, power and status we experience in the UK get ignored.  People like Wark give no sign of wanting to disturb the status quo and the hierarchies it fosters.  Without exploring the variation in income etc within BAME and white population we can never be sure that we are not mistaking differences caused by inequality as being caused by discrimination.

Is the observation, and at the moment it is just an observation, that people in the BAME population seem to be disproportionately affected by Covid 19 disease due to the factors which also disadvantage many of the white population, such as huge differences in income, wealth etc?  Asking this does not exclude the possibility that it results from discrimination, cultural norms or the prevalence of morbidities caused by so called ‘lifestyle’ factors such as diet and exercise, which in turn may themselves be a reflection of differences in wealth.

There is little appetite in the UK for recognising the effects of our very unequal society on the lives of our citizens, irrespective of their skin colour.  Even when studies to examine the impact of inequality are done, their findings are ignored. And it’s not just the Tories who are wilfully blind.  In February two of the candidates for the Labour leadership felt that a Jewish pressure group and a ‘trans’ pressure group needed their public support, but when the Marmot review which looked at differences in health outcomes appeared later in the month it had zero impact on the campaign.

The media gave prominence to only one finding; that ‘Female life expectancy declined in the most deprived 10 percent of neighbourhoods’ and ignored both the large disparity in life expectancy (LE) between people of higher and people of lower economic and social status, and that, irrespective of economic status women tend to live longer than men. (see page 18, Figure 2.4) reported in the review. (my emphasis).

http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/marmot-review-10-years-on/the-marmot-review-10-years-on-full-report.pdf

These disparities also exist with regard to the disability free life expectancy (DFLE), i.e. the number of years of life someone will have free from disability.  The review referred to these differences as forming a ‘social gradient’.

What the review showed was that in England, the difference in life expectancy at birth between the least deprived 10% of the population and the most deprived 10% was more than 9 years for men and more than 7 years for women.  Life expectancy at birth for men living in the most deprived areas in England was 74 years, compared with 83 years in the least deprived areas; the corresponding figures for women were 79 and 86 years in 2016-18. (see pages 15-17, figures 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3) in the review.

With regard to disabilities in later life the review said, ‘The social gradient in disability-free life expectancy is steeper than the gradient in life expectancy.  As a result, people living in areas with more disadvantage not only expect to live a shorter life, but also to spend more of that shorter life with a limiting long-term illness.’ (my emphasis)

The effect of ongoing and future rises in the age at which people become eligible to receive a state pension (SPA) will be felt most strongly by those of lower economic status (aka ‘the least well off’).  Only people in the least deprived 20—30% of areas will reach SPA before they can expect to develop a disability. Those in the more deprived areas will spend years with a disability before they reach SPA.

The Marmot review simply referred to ‘people’; not ‘black’ people, not ‘brown’ people, not ‘minority ethnic’ people, just people.  There seems to be no data on differences in life expectancy between these groups and ‘white’ people which are free of the influence of the socio-economic characteristics of the areas in which they live, i.e. the ‘social gradient’.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the differences in life expectancy (LE) and disability free life expectancy (DFLE), which show a clear gradient with socio-economic status, will be equally applicable to these groups also.   Getting a few more ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘ethnic’ faces around boardroom tables will have no positive impact on the life chances of the people who happen to have the same skin colour.

We have heard a lot in recent weeks about ‘flattening the curve’.  When we know that there is a socio-economic gradient which means that women and men in affluent areas have a life expectancy at birth which is 7-9 years longer than those in poor areas, then I would suggest we direct our collective effort to ‘levelling the gradient’.

Obsessing over ‘race’, to the exclusion of all other considerations is a form of identity politics which allows people, who by any reasonable measure are privileged, to pose and be seen as, victims.   This comment is equally applicable to other forms of identity politics.   I would suggest that it is the inequalities in the UK of income, wealth and power which should be the main focus of attention for those of us who see ourselves as being ‘of the Left’ and not the politics of identity.  This would benefit far more people than a narrow focus on skin colour, sex, gender or preferred sexual partner.

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Library vows to 'Decolonize' its collection!

Nazi Book Burnings

Last Friday, the Royal Holloway University of London Library, announced that it would be taking measures to 'decolonize' its collection of books. The library said that in an effort to combat 'structural racism' in British society, it would be removing certain titles from its collection. In a statement, the library said:

"We've taken time to reflect on our role in this and recognise that we must do more to combat systemic racism and support the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) community. With this in mind, we've created a reading list of resources to help you to understand the struggle against  racism...Going forward we will be sharing details on the steps we are taking to decolonize and diversify our collections, make our services more inclusive and tackle racism and discrimination. Now is the time for lasting change."

While book burning was a craze in Nazi Germany and was often led by student activists, the actions of libraries like the Royal Holloway, look more akin to book binning. There is of course, nothing new in British libraries eliminating reading material that was considered not conducive to the tastes, of what is nowadays, dubbed by some, the 'woke' left who object to reading material that is not in line with socially liberal causes, such as feminism. During the 1960's and 1970's, many looney-left London authorities, discreetly destroyed thousands of books that were considered 'sexist', 'imperialist', 'colonialist', 'homophobic and racist.'

While it is not altogether clear what 'decolonizing' literature actually means, or what is likely to be censored, or how objective it is likely to be, it looks like Kipling is destined for the dustbin, and other famous English writers such as Dickens, Thackeray, Waugh and Orwell, might also be in serious peril of being thrown down the memory hole.

At a time when statues are being toppled and thrown into the drink, many movies and television programmes that are now considered offensive to the trendy-left, are also being purged of their content, so as to not offend left sensibilities and the so-called 'BME Community'.

Unpalatable Truths About The Slave Trade

by Les May

WHATEVER the courts finally decide, to many people the slow death of George Floyd under the knee of a policeman was murder and we should not lose sight of this as different groups compete with each other to use his death to foster their own agenda.

A few evenings ago a news programme carried an item in which the interviewee complained that although Tony Blair had expressed his regret about the transatlantic slave trade he had not ‘apologised’.  Now it has never occurred to me to ask Queen Elizabeth to apologise on behalf of her family for presiding over a system which kept my people in serfdom for some 400 years, nor that I should demand the stained glass windows which depict these monarchs in Rochdale Town Hall should be taken down, but I’ll let that pass.  The interviewee blamed this on Blair’s ‘white privilege’ seemingly blind to the fact that he is enjoying the privilege of living in a First World country with all the benefits that brings.

But there was more to this than an exercise in gesture politics.  What the interviewee seemed to be trying to do was resolve the question of what we should do with the statues of slave traders and the like, by capturing the narrative and presenting what is in effect a sanitised version of the transatlantic slave trade suited to modern prejudices.

This was a business enterprise and the transport of 12 million Africans across the Atlantic into slavery was just one part of it.  As it came to full development in the 18^th century it worked like this.  Metal goods made in Birmingham and cloth made in Lancashire were taken to Africa and traded for slaves. Slaves were transported across the Atlantic and traded for sugar in the Caribbean.   In turn this was transported back across the Atlantic to ports like Bristol and Liverpool which grew wealthy on the proceeds.  Then of course the cycle started up all over again.

So where did the 12 million slaves come from? Europeans had only a tiny foothold around the coasts of Africa and relied upon local rulers to provide the slaves, which they were more than happy to do in exchange for the manufactured goods they desired.  There was also a trans Saharan trade which supplied black slaves to North African countries.  The fact that African’s themselves were participants in enslaving fellow Africans is one of the unpalatable things we need to understand, and perhaps remind people of, when thinking about how we should respond to the demands that statues should be removed from our towns.   It should certainly be a part of the narrative surrounding the trans Atlantic slave trade in which Britain played a part.

What is not part of the agenda for these competing groups who seem so eager to rake over the coals of the past is the fact and the reality of modern day slavery. The estimates of the number of people in some form of slavery now are some two to three times higher than the 12 million or so Africans transported across the Atlantic over a period of about 120-150 years.

Anyone looking at the maps of modern day slavery will immediately become aware of the fact that it is not confined to countries inhabited by Europeans or by people of European descent.  The top ten countries for slavery are, China, DRC, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines and Russia. But that does not mean it is absent from First World countries.   It has been suggested that more than 10,000 people are enslaved in the UK today.

Like the trans Atlantic slave trade of the late 17^th to mid 19^th century modern slavery is a business.  A Guardian article suggests it generates more than £100 billion in profits each year.  What should disturb us all is that in many cases the products produced by modern slaves are bought by us.  The supply chains which produce our clothes and our high tech goods are unlikely to be free of the taint of slavery. Which of course means that many of the people tipping statues into the nearest dock will, like you and I, be beneficiaries of modern day slavery.

The unpalatable truths are that fellow Africans were quite happy to supply captives to European slave traders during the period of the trans Atlantic slave trade and that slavery has not gone away, it is still with us.  But we have a choice; we can obsess about the past or we can work to eliminate it in the present.  The first of these will give us a warm glow of self satisfaction; the second will be a hard slog and require us all to examine our consciences about why we are able to buy some imported goods so cheaply.

If you care to follow the link to what has been called the ‘Arab Slave Trade’, you may wonder as I do, whether the term BAME, which is frequently used to imply some community of interest amongst the groups included in the acronym owes a great deal to wishful thinking.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-trafficking-persons-one-in-200

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/opinion/modern-slavery-grows.html

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2011/04 vendor_abused_mexican_workers.html

https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-forced-labor-20161006-snap-story.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

Typing the search terms ‘economist modern slavery’ will lead to a wealth of detail about global supply chains and their links to slavery.

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After statutes, is it book burning next?

Statue of Edward Colston Toppled by Protestors in Bristol

I well understand why some people in Bristol wanted to pull down the statue of the Tory slave trader, Edward Colston, and I won't lose any sleep over that . But where does the toppling of statues lead to?  Certainly, it will lead to counter protests from the far right defending the statues, and the far right demanding the removal of monuments connected with the left, such as that of Karl Marx, in Highgate Cemetery.  I believe it already gets regularly vandalised.

And are we going to have ritual book burnings next, of books that contain racist, sexist, imperialist, colonialist, transphobic, homophobic, themes?  If we do, authors like Dickens, Trollope, Orwell, Conrad, and Waugh, had better watch out.

This trying to turn the clock back in order to transplant modern views onto the past to rewrite history, can set a dangerous precedent.  Are we trying to bury the past, hide it, and sanitize it?   It's not just the English imperialist Cecil Rhodes that they want to remove after taking his scholarships for donkeys years, but there is also a campaign by feminists to remove a bust of Arthur Koestler, from Edinburgh University, because they've accused him of being a 'rapist'.  I gather that vegans and vegetarians are also trying  to get a statue of 'Cow Pie' Desperate Dan, removed in Dundee.

There are also demands to remove a statue of the journalist, explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, (real name John Rowlands), which was unveiled in Denbigh in March 2011. Robert Aldrich, his biographer, says Stanley's birth certificate describes him as a 'bastard' who was abandoned by his mother and family and dumped in the St Asaph Union Workhouse, for ten years from the aged of six to sixteen.  He emigrated to the US in 1859 aged 18, arriving in New Orleans, and after working in various jobs and having fought in the civil war, he became a journalist working for the New York Herald.

I watched the unveiling of his statue on youtube, and there was a delegation of black people from the Congo.  One of them said that they realised that the name of Stanley was controversial (he was accused of being a slave trader and of using indiscriminate cruelty against Africans, including shooting them, which is all true), but they came and spoke at the unveiling ceremony.  I also know that William Morris and members of the Socialist League wrote pamphlets against Stanley and demonstrated at meetings.

Stanley is best known for finding Dr Livingstone and the source of the Nile.  But he also worked as an agent for King Leopold II of Belgium.  It was the Afro-Arab slave trader Tippu Tip, that helped Stanley to find Livingstone.  It is said that on one occasion, Tippu Tip, raided 118 villages, killed 4,000 Africans, and had 2,300 slaves, mostly women and children, bound in chains and transported to the markets of Zanzibar.

As regards the question of slavery, it's not just whites like Colston who were slave traders.  We must not forget the Muslim Barbary pirates who abducted people to sell them in slave markets all the time and who felt it was their religious duty to do this to the infidel.  This went on for centuries and in 1631, they abducted 107 people from the little village of Baltimore, in West Cork, Ireland, for a life of slavery in Algiers.  Today, this is known as the 'Sack of Baltimore'.

And should we start a campaign to remove the plaque in Ashton to the famous travel writer, H.V. Morton, who was born in the town?  It is alleged that he was a Nazi sympathizer and an antisemite.  In a diary entry from February 1941, he confessed:

'I must say Nazi-ism has some fine qualities', and, 'I am appalled to discover how many of Hitler's theories appeal to me.'  Another diary entry describes the US as 'that craven nation of Jews and foreigners.'

Let me know what you think.

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The myth of 'white privilege' down the pit

 by Dave Douglass

VERY good, you will note we have not pulled down the statue of the murdering mine owner union buster and general bastard Lord Londonderry during the annual Durham Miners Gala when 250,000 of us could have smashed it to bits and taken it home any year over the last 160 years.  Not because we want to honour him we would at many points in our history have smashed him up and shot him in person.  But that statute shows us what he thinks of himself, I use it to demonstrate talks and lectures on the coalfield struggles particularly those of the 1830's and 40s when virtual insurrections swept the coalfields.

The statue serves a useful purpose to show what those who put it there, and those of us whose families suffered under him think about him and the events which he lived through and to an extent was responsible for, the story how its told demonstrates the class division of history.  We do not want to forget this, him or this history and while we would portray him in a radically different manner than the dashing cavalry officer he is represented as, this statue does not stop our history being told, indeed it is as good a platform for that tale .

I have in mind that we should through our miners banner society organise a  'verbal' demolition of the statue, where we, march to it with the miners banners and expose his history in contrast to ours, it will be a public denunciation in the style of the Chinese red guard , and call upon miners to join us in it.  We will not be trying to pull it down physically as apart from anything we would like to do the public historic demolition every year, whats ye all think ?

Of course miners boys were bonded to the mine and the miner owner from the age of 6 , they worked 18 hours a day, were gassed, blown up, drownd, crippled, and sat in the total dark, as families had to buy their own candles and the wee laddies wage didn't run to that.  If they ran away their families would be jailed, if anyone tried to employ a run away pit lad they would be jailed.

When the miners struck they were charged by cavalry, clubbed and shot, leaders shackled into stables, families from the new born to dying evicted onto the streets, but some will still talk of 'white privilege'  not that with only six hours between shifts to eat and sleep a laddie would have any change to actually wash the black off of course so the white in white privilege would not have been visible, not least because they and millions like them didn't experience any.

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JOHN CLEESE SLAMS 'COWARDLY BBC'

by Brian Bamford

 Ludwig Wittgenstein said: 'Humour is not a mood but a 

way of looking at the world.'  'So if it is correct to say

that humour was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that 

does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or

anything of that sort, but something much deeper and

more important.'

Perhaps to understand what that 'something' is, it would be best

to look at humour as something strange and incomprehensible. 

For example, the philosopher Wittgenstein enjoyed reading 

  American detective novels and the casual humourous way 

they bumped off their characters. For instance in 

'Rendezvous with Fear' by Norbert Davis desribes a man 

named Garcia cross-eyed with a thin yellowish face sat 

drinking beer the colour and consistency of warm 

vinegar.  Meanwhile, when Doan shoots Bautiste Bonofile, 

another 'bad man', the romantic but naïve heroine, Jane

asks with concern:  'Is he hurt?' 'Not a bit' says Doan, 'he's

just dead.'

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JOHN CLEESE has laid into the "cowardly and gutless and contemptible" BBC after an episode of Fawlty Towers was removed from a BBC-owned streaming platform.

A 1975 episode titled The Germans was taken off UKTV's streaming service because it contains "racial slurs".
In it, the Major uses highly offensive language, and Cleese's Basil Fawlty declares "don't mention the war".
Cleese wrote on Twitter: "The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats."
He added: "I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of human behaviour.
"One is to attack it directly. The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour."

Skip Twitter post by @JohnCleese

I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of
human behaviour

One is to attack it directly.

The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour

Thank of Alf Garnett...

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020

Report

End of Twitter post by @JohnCleese

He went on to compare the situation with that of Alf Garnett, the racist character in sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part and In Sickness and in Health.
"We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus we discredited them, by laughing at him," Cleese wrote.
"Of course, there were people - very stupid people - who said 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too. Now they're taking decisions about BBC comedy."
He continued: "But it's not just stupidity. The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats. It used to have a large sprinkling of people who'd actually made programmes. Not any more.
"So BBC decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs... That's why they're so cowardly and gutless and contemptible. I rest my case."

'Audience expectations'

UKTV also operates channels including Gold, and many of its channels and its digital player were taken over by the BBC's commercial arm BBC Studios last year. A BBC spokesman declined to comment.
A UKTV spokesman said: "UKTV has temporarily removed an episode of Fawlty Towers The Germans from Gold's Box Set.
"The episode contains racial slurs so we are taking the episode down while we review it. We regularly review older content to ensure it meets audience expectations and are particularly aware of the impact of outdated language.
"Some shows carry warnings and others are edited. We want to take time to consider our options for this episode."

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Not just about chlorine chicken

This isn’t just about chlorine chicken

 by Brian Bamford

GEORGE ORWELL wrote an essay 'In Defence of English Cooking' that:
'It will be seen that we have no cause to be ashamed of our cookery, so far as originality goes or so far as the ingredients go.  And yet it must be admitted that there is a serious snag from the foreign visitor's point of view.  This is that you practically don't find good English cooking outside a private house....  It is a fact that restaurants which are distinctively English are hard to find.' [1945]

Over half a century later in the Caterer & Hotelkeeper Millennium Supplement, on the 23 December 1999 claimed:
'Rationing was reintroduced in 1940, a year after the outbreak of the Second World War.  It continued until 1954, casting a shadow over any real culinary progression. Post-war London's leading restaurants were almost entirely run by Continental Europeans.'

And yet it goes on to argue:

'Outside the capital, though, the general state of food being served in most restaurants was abysmal, apart from rare exceptions such as Sharrow Bay in Ullswater (which opened in 1949) and the Bell at Aston Clinton.'


Raymond Postgate who went on to jointly write The Common People with G.D.H.Cole, helped to found The Good Food Guide.  Postgate a socialist, who helped to found the Communist Party of Great Britain, laid down some rules for fighting a war for English food wrote:



'Navigating a British restaurant during the middle of the twentieth century was in its way not so different from scoring a drink in Sweden before the outbreak of hostilities.  Postgate likened it to war.  The “Rules for Eating Out” published in the first Guide , from 1951-52, refer to restaurant staff as “the Enemy” and recommend battle tactics.'  And he advises:

“Take a long time reading the bill of fare, and see that your wife decides what she wants first. If the Enemy hears one of you say: ‘I’ll have whatever you do, dear’, he immediately decides he has no serious foe to encounter. What you want to impress on the establishment is that it has to deal with a pair of people who know exactly what they want, and are implacable.” ( GFG 19)

Adding in his recommendations:  'While diners and waiters were engaged in conflict, rules of war did apply, and the encounter should be civil even if it was not yet civilized. “You wish to give the impression not that you are angry with this particular restaurant, but that you are suspicious, after a lifetime of suffering.” ( GFG 19)'

His basic justification for the founding of The Guide is clear:
 'The Guide had become necessary because the suffering had lasted longer even than the lifetime of many GFG users: “For fifty years now complaints have been made against British cooking, and no improvement has resulted.” ( GFG 7)'


Serious entertaining was more likely to be done in private houses, where most professional chefs were employed, or in gentlemen's clubs - there were 200 at the turn of the century, compared with about 40 today.  Restaurants were frequented mostly by aristocrats and the gentry.  Women, of whatever class, were rarely seen in such establishments.

Derek Pattison & the 'Veblen good'

In response to the recent news that members of the US Congress have written to the US negotiator, calling on him to get rid of the UK’s ban on chlorinated chicken ‘once and for all’ DEREK PATTISON writes:
'I think it is true to say that people are economic maximizers and though we can make choices, our choices are always constrained for a variety of reasons.  This could be economic and also due to our social/class position in society .'

So speaks Pattsion, the economist, on behalf of the most miserable of sciences; forever labouring the price of everything and the value of nothing.  What would Raymond Postgate, founder of the Good Food Guide have to say about that?

When I did my degree in sociology at Manchester Poly. it was structured around economics, because at that time it was considered  that of all of the social sciences it was the closest to a 'natural science' like physics etc.  Do we want to eat cheap chlorine chicken suitably swilled with the chemical from the USA?  Yet when we considered this science of economics our attention was drawn to 'inverted demand curves'  and the effect of what came to be called a Veblen good as a type of luxury good for which demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. A higher price may make a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure.  A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own. *

This is a sociological consequence which determines a price according to a snob value.   Here the effect on demand depends on the range of other goods available, their prices, and whether they serve as substitutes for the goods in question.  The effects are anomalies within demand theory, because the theory normally assumes that preferences are independent of price or the number of units being sold. They are therefore collectively referred to as interaction effects.

We can imagine that after Brexit cheap chlorine chicken will quickly become the food of the poor.

Another writer John Wilkins writes:  'And so we have the climb down.  The ban will be dropped and low animal welfare, chlorinated chicken will be UP on our supermarket shelves.'


The concession in this case has been that low welfare products will pay a higher tariff (the tax charged on imports) than high welfare products.  But even if the US agrees to this, there is no guarantee that the tariffs rate won’t be cut later on.

Mr. Wilkins adds:  'This is fundamentally about the right of our government or any government to set standards and regulations on things that people care about, whether on animal welfare, climate standards, workers rights, public health, environmental standards or anything else.'



Worryingly, the government is trying to present this as a win for the environment minister, because even though the promise that a ban would be maintained has been broken, it turns out that what the trade minister, Liz Truss, actually wanted to do was not only overturn the ban but also reduce all tariffs on chicken to zero! 

The Decline of English Food 

When George Orwell was writing in the post-war years there was rationing, and as he says 'Pubs, as a rule, sell no food at all, other than potato crisps and tasteless sandwiches.'  Meanwhile, at that time, the 'expensive restaurants  and hotels almost all imitate French cookery ... while if you want a good cheap meal you gravitate naturally towards a Greek, Italian or Chinese restaurant.'

Raymond Postgate believed that the decline in English cuisine went back to the Industrial Revolution, when he claimed that the young migrant women from the rural areas who moved into the cities had lost contact with their grandmothers thus distancing them from their traditional recipes and ingredients. 

The concession is that low welfare products will pay a higher tariff (the tax charged on imports) than high welfare products.

But we know agribusiness has been lobbying hard on this, and 47 members of the US Congress have written to the US negotiator, calling on him to get rid of the UK’s ban on chlorinated chicken ‘once and for all’.  Former trade minister, Liam Fox, said last month that “the US would walk” if it had to comply with the UK’s animal welfare standards.[5]

And so now John Wilkins says 'we have the climb down and the ban will be dropped and low animal welfare, chlorinated chicken will be UP on our supermarket shelves.  The concession is that low welfare products will pay a higher tariff (the tax charged on imports) than high welfare products.  But even if the US agrees to this, there is no guarantee that the tariffs rate won’t be cut later on.

'Worryingly, the present government is trying to represent this as a win for the environment minister, because even though the promise that a ban would be maintained has been broken, it turns out that what the trade minister, Liz Truss, actually wanted to do was not only overturn the ban but also reduce all tariffs on chicken to zero!' 


It is hard to believe that the quality of English cuisine will improve as a result of these recent developments in UK-US trade relations and animal welfare.

************************* 

*   Veblen goods are named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).^[1] A corollary of the Veblen effect is that lowering the price decreases the quantity demanded.^[2]

A Veblen good is a type of luxury good for which demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. A higher price may make a product desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own.

Veblen goods are named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).^[1] A corollary of the Veblen effect is that lowering the price decreases the quantity demanded.

Veblen goods are named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).^[1] A corollary of the Veblen effect is that lowering the price decreases the quantity demanded.^[2]

If Black Lives Matter Then Show It

by Les May

ROLLING statues into a nearby dock or demanding they be removed because of something the figure’s father did may give a warm glow of self-satisfaction to those doing it.   But if you really do think that ‘black lives matter’ is more than a slogan, then why not do something practical?

If an African child is unfortunate enough to be born with a cleft palette or similar disfigurement they are likely to suffer ridicule, ostracism and eventually find it difficult to earn a living.  To put it right takes an operation that in UK money costs about £150

If an African child has ingrowing eyelashes blinking is a torture.  It is often the result of an infection with the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.  Repeated infections cause permanent blindness. Infections can be eliminated by antibiotics costing as little as 15p per dose.

There are charities which work to raise money to rectify both these conditions Smile Train and SightSavers respectively.  Others such as WaterAid work to bring basic things like clean water and sanitation to people who lack them.

None of these problems result from colonialism.  They are the contingencies of life that some people have to face because of where they happen to live in the world.  You don’t have to be a Christian to understand, ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.

https://smiletrain.org.uk/

https://www.sightsavers.org/

https://www.wateraid.org/uk/why-wateraid

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Do we need to address 'Not Counting Niggers'?

AS I write statues are being toppled and historical figures are being denounced for alleged 'racism' and trading in slavery.  Dare I say it, it is as if a retrospective 'blacklist' is being drawn up by energetic individuals all over the world.

Back in July 1939, George Orwell wrote a telling essay for Adelphi entitled 'Not Counting Niggers' in which he questions what he calls the humbug of left wing politics generally towards what were then described as 'the dependencies'.  The long list of British dependencies as they were then called in the 1930s, were really the off-shore British proletariat.

Or as Orwell had it in 1939:
'What we always forget is that the overwhelming bulk of the British proletariat does not live in Britain, but in Asia and Africa.  It is not in Hitler's power, for instance, to make a penny an hour a normal industrial wage; it is perfectly normal in India, and we are at great pains to keep it so... It is quite common for an Indian coolie's leg to be thinner than the average Englishman's arm.  And there is nothing racial in this, for well-fed members of the same races are of normal physique; it is due to starvation.  This is a system which we live on and which we denounce when there seems to be no danger of it being altered.'

The fact is that over the last few centuries the people of these islands have all benefited from imperialism including the working classes. 

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Do Black Lives Matter?

  by John Wilkins

DISCRIMINATION of people from whatever social/ethnic group must be discouraged. Debate on Brexit unduly focussed on immigration, which sadly encouraged some with little knowledge of the benefits over centuries of immigration, to justify their xenophobia against East Europeans, people from BAME heritage and others.  Now we are faced with the apparent disproportionate infection and deaths in the BAME community and the renewed focus on discrimination by police forces in the US, and to a degree this country, against people of colour.   If we agree that discrimination is wrong, then it becomes far worse when it is institutionalised.

However, I want to focus on why people from African and Caribbean heritage need all our support.  My views on how we got to impasse were reinforced when I listened to a black health care assistant on ITV news.  She was sacked for complaining about poor quality of PPE and leaving work to get her own.   On her return to her shift she was fired.  Interviewer Emily Morgan asked her what her mother, a nurse, would have done in the same situation. The lady said her mother would have been more compliant and accepted the situation without complaining.

This anecdote sums up the problem faced by the black people here and particularly in the US. Centuries of abuse have taught many to be compliant in order to firstly survive and then get educated, certainly if they wish to progress in society.  Why else would a some black people, including a lawyer on Channel 4 News, be so vociferous in defending Trump's handling of the protests over the killing of George Floyd?

As the song goes:  'The times they are a changing'. Large - scale protests in the US and across the world have been swelled by people of diverse ethnicity with one placard I like saying 'White silence = violence'. EU's Fundamental Rights Group stated that EU countries 'must try to eradicate discrimination, harassment and violence against black people'.  They also admitted that 'racial harassment, violence and discriminatory ethnic profiling are commonplace in Europe'.

Violence rarely succeeds in reversing discrimination, it often leads to greater violence.  What can be the way forward?  Black representation needs to increase in police and politics in particular, with more at the top of those fields and in the boardroom.  I will make my observations first before quoting from two leading black voices.

Now married to a Nigerian I have spent a lot of time contacting my previous MP about the worsening situation there with regard to sectarian violence in Nigeria.  Try as I could I found little real desire to speak out by African friends and found some dismissive of it as a problem.  I found a lot of Africans are happy to talk politics but do not wish to get actively involved.  Which is why I was saddened that one Nigerian, Deyika Nzeribe, was so involved he put up to challenge Andy Burnham for the Mayor of Greater Manchester, but tragically passed away shortly before the elections were held.

So I would like to echo the plea that Lord Simon Woolley made at a Black History Month event at Manchester Cathedral last year. #  He brought a few young people forward at the end of his presentation and urged them to work with their community and if possible get involved in politics.

Next a few comments which I found from Charles Critchlow, formerly National Chair of BAPA (Black and Asian Police Association).  Speaking from 30 years experience in the police he says “Black Representation matters greatly, but Black police leaders are of little use in the struggle for racial justice as long as they are selected, nurtured and developed exclusively within a system that maintains white supremacy”.  He adds: “Racism is so hardwired within the British system and psyche that it’s often impossible to penetrate”.  Therefore “this is why we need to develop our leadership as much as possible, independent of this poisonous system”.

Other groups have suffered from discrimination but have have found the ability to organise and get more involved in the political landscape and have been more vocal.  Although it is understandable that people from different backgrounds band together, this can lead, and has led, to those with the weakest voice losing out. In many cultures a black person is placed at the bottom of the pile.  Accounts of Nigerians' treatment in China and Chinese exploitation of Africa shows contempt for black people.  With regard to the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, a ritual to promote the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood by showing everyone equal in the eyes of Allah, there seems a hierarchy.   I am told by black Muslims it is Arabs first, SE Asian second and black Muslims bottom.  In S. Africa, even after apartheid it is whites followed by Asians, with most blacks at the bottom.  Even in the English language black has a surfeit of bad connotations, eg. black looks, blacklisted, black sheep of the family, black market, blackmail etc.

I will finish on a positive note. I see many young black voices coming out to seek an end to racism improve well-being and standing of the black community.  A local group here in Greater Manchester, CAHN (Caribbean and African Health Network), has raised awareness of medical problems more prevalent in their communities, such as diabetes, lupus, sickle cell etc.  They have also raised the profile of the black community through helping in events like Black History Month, remembering the Windrush generation as well as their health seminars.

I hope that the black voices will be more strident to chip away at decades of indifference to their plight.  Three things need to happen: stronger family units, better education and more political involvement.   Education is now more valued but there is, as Charles Critchlow says, a need for black leaders to come forward who can 'maintain a firm connectedness with the hopes and aspirations of our people and be in the vanguard of true black empowerment, this is the challenge for us in the 21 st. century'.   I hope we can use the evil of police brutality in the killing of George Floyd can be a catalyst for real change in reducing racism in ALL its forms.

# Lord Simon Woolley is a political and equalities activist.  He is the founder and CEO of Operation Black Vote and the Chair of the Prime Minister’s Race Disparity Unit.

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