WHEN
the Tory party handed the keys of 10 Downing Street to Boris
Johnson his first
instinct was to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament by proroguing it.
This behaviour eventually found its way into the courts and Johnson
was judged to have been a very naughty boy.
When
the story emerged that an unelected ‘special
adviser’ had
driven someone suffering from Covid19
some 400km to another part of the country, when such actions were
expressly forbidden by a law passed by his own government, Johnson’s
first instinct was to behave in a way that would
make it very difficult for any police force to investigate this
matter, determine
whether it was ‘reasonable
travel’ and if
necessary issue fines to both the driver and his passenger.
It is not for Johnson
to decide whether Dominic
Cummings’
actions fell within the
definition of ‘reasonable
travel’.
My
understanding is that the Daily
Mirror and theGuardian
newspapers had approached Downing Street for comment before
the story was published. The
pair of them had plenty of time to ‘get
their stories straight’.First
Johnson sought
to exonerate Cummings
by standing in front of the television cameras and saying that he
‘did not mark him
down’.*
Meanwhile Cummings was
given to opportunity to get into ‘post
facto rationalisation’
mode and prepare a long statement which he was then
allowed to present to
the assembled media over a 70 minute period in the Rose
Garden of Number 10
Downing Street. Take your pick of the excuses
he gave for moving his
Covid19 infected
wife across the
country; he was just being a good husband and father,
he and his infected wife were likely to be ‘harassed’
if they quarantined themselves at their home address, it was all a
‘media plot’
anyhow.
What
we are seeing here is Johnson using his power to subtly influence
how the law operates. It will take a very strong minded senior
police officer to insist
on asking
Dominic Cummings some pointed questions. Fortunately
they still exist. Johnson
is not alone in this endeavour,
Michael Govetried to tell us that
at the time the
law was different from what the rest of us understood it to be.
The
media have decided to concentrate on the ‘human
story’ side of
all this with accounts of spouses and children unable to be beside
the bedside of a
relative who died. If
the political parties take this line Johnson’s subtle abuse of
power will go unnoticed and unchecked. Johnson
and Cummings are well matched. Spot the video clip where Cummings is
using his thick black notebook to waft
away the gaggle of
reporters who are trying to ask him questions. It
rather reminded me of Hastings
Banda and his fly
whisk.
THE current PRIVATE EYE'sTUC NEWS columnreminded the Unite union's membership of 1.1m that though they may be worried for their jobs or in fear of Covid-19, their union is assuring the libel lawyers that they can count on bounteous harvest of refreshers following the lucrative case of Turley v Unite the Union. Totting-up the costs of the trial which took up 7-days of court time, legal experts have told PrivateEye'the premium would be around £200,000' and the 'final bill to its luckless members members [of Unite] may be not far short of £2m.'
The Eye concludes: 'London's libel lawyers won't be going hungry any time soon.'
However, only last January Ms Anna Turley was claiming on twitter that:
'Unite
and Skwawkbox have failed to pay the damages and costs following my
libel trial last month as ordered by the court. My solicitors are
starting enforcement proceedings in the morning.' pic.twitter.com/pS8wpwIekF
At that time Guido Fawkes reported these developments on his Blog: 'In the latest development, the former MP has published a letter from her solicitors declaring given Unite’s failure to pay up, “The
only conclusion we can draw is that your clients have deliberately
chosen to cause further distress to Ms Turley or they are incompetent.
Which is it?”, going on to say'
“We have
prepared enforcement papers that will permit bailiffs to attend at your
clinets’ premises to enforce the two final judgements. We shall issue
these when the Court opens on Monday morning if the full judgement
debts, together with ongoing interest, have not been satisfied.”
Guido Fawkes claimed: This is much more entertaining than the Labour leadership contest… UPDATE: Unite and Skwawkbox have finally coughed up
And Private Eye described the squabble as 'even by Labour's internecine standards it was a vicious fight.'
And then Ms. Turley was to announce on twitter:
'Unite
& Skwawkbox have belatedly paid the damages and costs as ordered by
the court. Proving after all that they are not above the law. What an
avoidable waste of members’ money. Lesson is... don’t break the law.'
The judgement of Justice Nicklin J held that Unite was responsible for the defamatory
statement because its Director of Communications sent the Second
Defendant [Skwawkbox] a press summary fully aware that he intended to publish an
article which would identify the Claimant and contain substantially the
same defamatory sting about her 'being dishonest'.
The Defendant's
Unite and Skwawkbox had claimed the Claimant “should have known” she was ineligible for Unite Community membership, but his Lordship emphasised that, even if that had been so, “negligence is unlikely to provide an objective basis upon which to reasonably suspect dishonesty” [134].
Skwawkboxthe website that published the offending report had claimed that Turley, then Labour MP for Redcar, had called the leader of Unite an 'arsehole' and had joined Unite at cut price rate reserved 'exclusively for the unwaged' so she could 'undermine Jeremy Corbyn'. Steve Walker, who runs Skwawkbox according to theMail Online 'Mr Walker, .... is the sales director and CEO of a company
called Foojit, which provides mailing solutions to the NHS.'
Meanwhile Ms. Turley managed to lose her Redcar seat at last December's general election when the Labour Party backers Unite had declared in the High Court that she was 'not fit to be an MP'. The £84,500 paid to Turley in aggravated damages, should help ease the pain of this defeat. Probably Unite and its leader, Len McCluskey, now wish they had settled out of court when Turley's solicitors offered a settlement last June, if Unite agreed to pay her £25,000. Now because the union refused this compromise it must now pay interest of 8% on the costs. By rejecting this offer, it also lost the right to demand that Turley's legal advisors prove their costs were reasonable.
Ms Turley, MP for Redcar
before losing her seat in the General Election, has said she was 'thrilled
and relieved' after winning the case
Editorial Note: NV was sent the e-mail below from John Wilkins a friend of Zulfiqar Ali, who is a former Rochdale Mayor. We publish this without comment, but we anticipate more information. Mr. Zulfiqar Ali writes:
Hi,
I am writing this email in concern to the high numbers of deaths
within the black and minority ethnic community (BAME) due to the
Covid-19 pandemic.
Amongst the numerous factors that may have contributed to the high
number of deaths within this group. One main factor that has been
highlighted is overcrowding and poor housing situations.
The government is uncertain on how to address these issues and
improve the well being of the BAME community. If these issues are not
addressed in the near future it will have severe consequences for the
communities.
15 years ago, in the Manchester Metropolitan Borough the local
council was given a golden opportunity to address the issue of poor
housing and overcrowding within one of its wards that was identified as
being one of the most deprived areas in Rochdale.
The local council was given the European Regeneration SRBS funding
to invest in community housing to resolve overcrowding and poor
housing.
Old housing and mill sites were allocated following numerous
planning and consultations, it was proposed that affordable low cost
right to buy homes would be built.
Families in the community desired to live in the same community due
to easily accessible amenities/ facilities i.e. school, healthcare and
places of worship.
Allocated sites included Nile Street, Edward Road and Gower Street.
The local community was eagerly awaiting these developments. In
2012 the proposal for the development was finalized. But then the
development project was given to ‘countryside housing’ who built the
houses ‘to let’ for those in employment which was a major
disappointment for the locals.
This would have been a good opportunity to tackle the issues of
poor housing and over crowding by offering and affordable right to buy
scheme rather than ‘to let’. This would have tackled the issue of over
crowding and poor housing which is a main factor
of transmission of disease during the pandemic.
The WHO (World Health Organisation) identifies inadequate housing
and overcrowding as one of the major factors in transmission of the
disease.
The local community is wanting answers to the issues raised in this email.
THE
Care Quality Commission identified 3,200 deaths of
elderly people who were receiving care in their own home in the
twenty eight day period 10 April to 8 May. This figure is
about 2000more than the average number of deaths for
the same period in the past three years. I am sorry to have to say
that this jump in the numbers does not surprise me.
My
wife and I are both in this age group. For our own protection we
closed our door to the rest of the world on 21 March. Two kind
friends drop off food about once a week and we get occasional
deliveries from a supermarket. Milk is delivered to us three times a
week. Post arrives most days.
Before
anything is allowed into the house it is either sterilised or
quarantined for three days. Cans and bottles are sprayed with
diluted bleach, left for ten minutes, then washed bleach free.
Anything which is double wrapped, and most foods from supermarkets
are, has the outer packing cut away with scissors, the food tipped
out and the packaging goes straight into the outside bin. Other food
is quarantined. Post which has come from a mailing list and will
have been machine handled has the end of the envelope cut away, the
contents tipped on to the floor and the envelope goes straight to the
paper bin. After the weekly waste collection the handles on the bins
get the bleach treatment. Hands which have touched anything which
might be contaminated get the
Lady Macbeth treatment.
Pedantic,
careful, we don’t mind what you call us, we just intend to remain
safe.
One
of my neighbours who is much
the same age as I, has been
receiving ‘in home’
care since being discharged from hospital. There has been a regular
stream of people involved in that care going in and house. I watch
them. Some put on face masks, aprons and gloves, and some do not.
Some come in clean white uniforms; most do not; they
come in ‘clobber’
wearing backpacks. I have struck up conversations. If they come
with some kind of PPE I mention how seldom this happens. I can
usually guess, but ask politely,‘are you Care Service or
NHS’?
Yesterday
I tried this with someone I could tell was from the NHS. When I
mentioned how seldom people from the Care Service come with proper
PPE the response was ‘We keep trying to get into their
heads the importance of infection control’.Trying, but failing, it would seem.
Thankfully
it is not my wife who is receiving ‘in
home’ care. If it
were I would not let the buggers in the house until they matched the
standards of infection control
I impose on myself.
BETWEEN
10 May 1940 and 23 May 1945 Labour MPs were part of a coalition led
by Winston Churchill. Initially Clement Attlee was a
member of the five man Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal.
From February 1942 Attlee was also Deputy Prime Minister.
In
other words any planning for the post war world, including planning
for an overhaul of the health care system, was as much done by Labour
politicians as it was by those from other parties. Labour didn’t
just ‘get lucky’, implement existing plans drawn up by
someone else and take all the credit for the formation of the NHS, as
two recent contributors would have us believe.
Listening
to Jeremy Hunt this morning I was left with the impression
that one of the responses to the staggering number of deaths in Care
Homes and similar facilities is likely to be a coming together of
the Care Services and the NHS. This has been a long term ambition of
Andy Burnham who has written and spoken about this since he
was Health Secretary 2009-2010. If, as I expect, legislation
to bring this about will be in a future Queen’s Speech will
the two recent contributors who are so keen to deny Labour credit for
establishing the NHS be demanding that Burnham receives a share of
the credit for a coming together of the care and health services?
Personally I am happy to give credit for this to whatever government
brings it about.
As
for the ‘Libertarian Left’ if it does not like the
‘statist’ model we have now it has had 73 years to bring
into existence a viable alternative to the NHS and has done precisely
nothing. It is always ready to snipe from the sidelines, but never
wants to devote time and energy to giving some thought to exactly
how an alternative system would deliver specialist as well as routine
care; how it would deal with epidemics of, for example, winter flu;
provide a vaccination service for children which by its nature relies
on ‘herd immunity’ to be fully effective; or how it would
be funded. What would its response to the Covid19 pandemic look
like? How much thought has it given to international trade or
international terrorism, cyber hacking or effective strategies to
combat climate change?
Any
answers to questions like this will be a long time coming, not least
because so many of those who sail under the flag of the ‘LibertarianLeft’ have lost themselves on the barren shores of
‘trans issues’, both for and against.
LES MAY engaging with Carl Faulkner's comment and considering the founding of the NHS, writes:
'As my Libertarian friends endlessly remind me there were other
schemes in operation even before the NHS was a gleam in anyone’s
eye.
'Bevan
would have been familiar with the Tredegar
Medical Aid Societyas
he was the local MP. In
return for contributions from its members
it provided health care free at the point of use. (my
emphasis)
'This
model of funding was rejected by Bevan.'
Les clearly admires the Attlee government of 1945, which formed the first Labour majority government and in particular he favours its Keynesian approach to economic management aimed to maintain full employment, a mixed economy and a greatly enlarged system of social services provided by the state. This amounts to a supreme faith in what in the 20th century amounted to Fabian managerialism. It is a view that after the Second World War prevailed in which it was considered that as George Orwell observed in 1946: 'For quite fifty years past the general drift has almost certainly been towards oligarchy'* (James Burnham & the Managerial Revolution [1946]).
At that time after the war it must have seemed that big government was onto a winner, and Orwell then felt able to write: 'The ever increasing concentration of industrial and financial power; the diminishing importance of the individual capitalist or shareholder, and the growth of the "managerial" class of scientists, technicians, and bureaucrats; the weakness of the proletariat against the centralized state; the increasing helplessness of small countries against big ones; the decay of representative institutions and the importance of one-party regimes...'
The problem with this approach is that it represented a shift from the capitalist and the dividend grabbers to a 'new boss class' of the technical elite functionaries blessed with cushy jobs and all on a generous state stipend. As Orwell observed above it became 'the weakness of theproletariat against the centralized state'. There was still the spirit of entitlement of the elite and the dependency of the working-class.
The difficulty is still that this analysis is too mechanical as well as managerial and top-down. It lacks an evolutionary grasp of how the concept of social welfare entered and developed inside our culture.
Colin Ward described how the social concepts permeated sociologically: 'Anarchists are frequently told that their antipathy to the state is historically outmoded, since a main function of the modern state is the provision of social welfare. They respond by stressing that social welfare in Britain did not originate from government, nor from the post-war National Insurance laws, nor with the the initiation of the National Health Service in 1948.' **
Rather as Mr Ward argues: 'It evolved from the vast network of friendly societies and mutual aid organizations that sprung up through working-class self-help in the 19th century.'
This is what is implied by Carl Faulkner in his perceptive comment on this Blog: 'It could be argued that is was predictable that the NHS was established
by a Labour government due to it being elected in 1945 - when plans for
what was to be called the NHS were well advanced but lost in the mists
of time.'
Indeed it was 'lost in the midst of time', as the anarchist Mr Ward explains: 'The founding father of the NHS was the then member of parliament for Tredegar in South Wales, Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Government's Minister of Health. His constituency was the home of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, founded in1870 and surviving until 1995.'
It gave medical care for the local employed workers, who were mostly miners and steelworkers, but also (unlike the pre-1948 National Health Insurance) for the needs of dependents, children, the old, the non-employed: everyone living in the district.
A retired miner told Peter Hennessey that when Bevan initiated the National Health Service, 'We thought he was turning the country into one big Tredegar.' Alas, it was not to be, and as Mr. Ward observes in his brief book: 'In practice the Health Service has been in a state of continuous reorganization ever since its foundation, but has never submitted to a local and federalized approach to medical care.'
More seriously Ward argues 'ever since full employment and the system of PAYE (automatic deduction of tax as a duty of employers) was introduced during the Second World War, the central government's Treasury has creamed off the cash that once supported local initiatives.'
Furthermore, in keeping with the spirit of local spontaneity Colin Ward suggests: 'If the pattern of local self-taxation on the Tredegar
model had become the general pattern for health provision, this permanent daily need would not have become the plaything of central government financial policy.'
There is a price to pay for the pattern of State funding medical care applied by Nye Bevan and approved by Les May, and it now being played out as different governments enact various outsourcing schemes promote what Ward called 'the virtues of profit-making private enterprise.' What follows from this debate is what will be the consequences of the pandemic for the psychology of the general population? Will people look to the state for salvation in fear of a repeat performance of another potential pandemic threat or second wave? If so, I suspect it will represent a reactionary response to the politics of the pandemic.
* Oligarchy, government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Oligarchies in which members of the ruling group are wealthy or exercise their power through their wealth are known as plutocracies.
** 'ANARCHISM: A Very Short Introduction' by Colin Ward (Oxford) 2004.
TodayJeremy Hunt admitted that in the UK, as well as in much of
Europe and the USA, the response to Covid19 had been based on how an
Influenza pandemic would be dealt with. This would explain
why testing was largely abandoned on or about 8 March.
Because
the progress of Influenza epidemics is well understood, after initial
testing to identify the Influenza strain which is circulating in the
general population, it is usually abandoned with no deleterious
effects. It may be restarted after the first peak of infections has
passed if
a
second peak seems to be coming, in order to identify whether
it is a different strain.
ALMOST
every Sunday afternoon I
watch the Politics Scotland programme. Unlike his English
equivalents, the presenter Gordon Brewer, never tries to trap
the politician he is questioning into a ‘TV moment’ just
to boost his ego. Instead he is quiet, courteous, persistent and
gets results.
A
week ago I watched him question the Scottish Health Secretary,
Jeane Freeman, about the situation in Scottish care homes and
specifically about the release of people from hospital into care
homes. She ‘waffled’ her way through an answer claiming
that care homes should and could provide for such new residents an
unrealistic level of nursing support. On 15 May the guidance was
changed, perhaps because Freeman realised she had been well and truly
‘skewered’.
Almost
a half of the deaths in Scotland resulting from Covid19
disease have been in care homes. At one such care home in Portree,
the main town of the Isle of Skye, nearly all its 34 residents
and half its staff have contracted Covid-19 and in the last 10 days
seven residents have died, with dozens of staff sent home and told to
self-isolate.
In
order to stabilise the situation NHS Highland has stepped in
to play a greater role in running of the home on Skye after the Care
Inspectorate raised concerns. The Scottish Government has
announced it will fast -track emergency laws which will allow it to
step in and take over the running of failing care homes. On
yesterday’s programme Gordon Brewer raised the question of whether
the care home sector should be ‘Nationalised’.
Using
the ‘N’ word will not be well received in some circles,
but it is surely worth asking why we are farming out the nursing care
of the elderly and frail to private companies, designed to return a
profit, instead of giving them the best nursing care available from
NHS staff.
'It could be argued that is was predictable that the NHS was established
by a Labour government due to it being elected in 1945 - when plans for
what was to be called the NHS were well advanced but lost in the mists
of time.
'Contemporary news reports from 1944 demonstrate that
plans for the NHS were already well advanced. They had moved on
considerably from the Beveridge Report in 1942 (see: Towards A Healthier
Britain - (Minister Of Health's Speech 1944)
'Unfortunately, the
whole issue has been claimed by Labour and its supporters as 'theirs',
with seemingly total and utter reverence towards one man.
'Like
the substitute who makes his first appearance late on and scores the
winning goal in the FA Cup finaal, it is often the politician who is in
the right place at the right time, who receives all the praise - even
if they never claimed nor asked for it themselves.'
CARL Faulkner’s comment above about
my original article rather misses the point of what I was trying to
say. As my Libertarian friends endlessly remind me there were other
schemes in operation even before the NHS was a gleam in anyone’s
eye.
Bevan
would have been familiar with the Tredegar
Medical Aid Societyas
he was the local MP. In
return for contributions from its members
it provided health care free at the point of use. (my
emphasis)
This
model of funding was rejected by Bevan. The
scheme that was eventually introduced was, and is, funded from
taxation. That
is why I think we should be happy to say; ‘Thank
you Nye Bevan’.
And
I make no apology for saying so.
The
advantages of not making it a contributory scheme can best be seen by
contrasting it with National Insurance. In the 1970s many married
women were seduced into paying reduced NI contributions. When
they reached the pensionable age for women they only then realised
the disadvantage they had brought upon themselves.
At
some point we are going to have to rethink how the elderly, infirm
and disabled members of our society are cared for in
order to bring some parity between the Care Service and the NHS in
terms of provision of resources in the form of personnel and
resources. I would argue strongly for a service funded by taxation
on the basis that we all run the same risk of needing such care at
some time in our life just the same as we all run the same risk of
needing care by the NHS.
An national federation of women’s groups from Spain’s Roma community
has complained of a spate of racist and anti-gypsy messages being
disseminated via both traditional and social media in Spain since the
outbreak of the country’s coronavirus epidemic.
The Federación de Asociaciones de Mujeres Gitanas Fakali on
Tuesday denounced what they say are racist episodes, including the
dissemination of malicious fake news and information via social media
that they say are “promoting racist psychosis in various parts of our
country.”
The anti-gypsy xenophobia on social media include attacks on the Roma
community in La Rioja, where a funeral in late-February for a member of
the local gitano community brought together about a hundred
people and is believed to have been the initial trigger for an outbreak
of coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease in the province in and around
the city of Haro.
In the nearby Basque Country, false claims were circulated via social messaging apps via an audio recording with a woman’s voice claiming that gitanos
in the Basque capital of Vitoria were swarming the local health
clinics, falsely claiming coronavirus symptoms so that they could be
treated by healthworkers before others.
In a statement, the Fakali federation said that “Experience tells us
that episodes of discrimination, racism and intolerance often flourish
in the most difficult moments”. The organization called for “calm and
understanding” to prevail and encouraged all groups in Spanish society
to “come together to beat COVID-19 and the virus of racism.”
A TOP SAFETY law academic has accused prime minister Boris Johnson of
criminality and ‘social murder’ after he called for an early return to
work. Steve Tombs, professor in social policy and criminality at the
Open University, said “the government must know
that construction workers are exposed to and unwitting carriers of
coronavirus. In my view this is criminal negligence, it’s manslaughter,
it’s social murder.” Professor Tombs was commenting in a Reel News
online criticism of the government’s policy, featuring
construction workers and their family members and construction, legal
and safety experts.
The video was produced by the grassroots Shut The
Sites campaign, which is calling for the closure of all non-essential
building sites and for all workers to be paid
irrespective of whether they are employees, self-employed or agency
workers. It says the same day the government urged all construction
workers to return to work, Office of National Statistics figures showed
“keeping sites open has led to three times as many
deaths of construction workers as healthcare professionals. Hundreds
more will die if this appalling policy is allowed to continue - so Shut
The Sites are calling for collective organisation to stop the carnage.”
It added: “Construction workers on site are
being encouraged to join a union and take action collectively to
protect themselves and their families, alongside demonstrations by
members of local communities at sites near them.”
It said all
non-essential work should stop and any critical works must only
continue “with the highest level of health and safety possible to
protect workers.” This week the government said local planning
authorities were now expected to support the extension of site operating
hours to 9pm in residential areas. The ONS figures showed
‘Low-skilled workers in construction’ had a Covid-19 death rate of 25.9
per 100,000 males compared to the general working age population, five
times the rate for ‘professionals’. Reel News.
Shut the Sites blog.
Deaths in England and Wales related to Covid-19 by occupation, ONS, 11 May 2020. The
Guardian.
Good Morning Britain.
Construction Enquirer.
RESIDENTS of Madrid’s upscale Salamanca neighborhood have
been making headlines since Sunday with a series of street protests
against the government over its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Demonstrators
have been using the words “dictatorial” and “oppression” to describe
their situation under the ongoing lockdown. Madrid, the epicenter of the
coronavirus pandemic, is still in the early stages of a national deescalation plan that is expected to end in late June, if there are no new spikes in transmission.
The
protests reflect a view, held by some in Spain, that the state of alarm
introduced in mid-March to combat the coronavirus pandemic is really an
excuse for the central government to grab extra powers. Prime Minister
Pedro Sánchez, of the Socialist Party (PSOE), heads a minority
government and he has been facing growing difficulty to secure enough
congressional support for back-to-back extensions to the state of alarm.
The
sentiment mirrors similar feelings elsewhere in Europe, where
protesters from across the political spectrum are beginning to
demonstrate against prolonged confinement measures (see box below). A
recent report by Spain’s Civil Guard underscores the risk of social unrest in Spain if confinement measures are prolonged.
On
Wednesday, around 100 locals banged on pots and pans on Núñez de Balboa
street, without respecting social distancing rules. There were couples,
families and people with dogs. Some marched with face masks that had
tiny Spanish flags embroidered on them; others waved enormous flags
instead. The demonstrators called for the government to resign.
“I
pay my taxes and we have a government that is doing nothing,” said
María Jesús, 56, who was out with her husband Rafael, 60, and their son
Pelayo, 16. “That is why I am walking and protesting. You see these
gloves? I paid for them myself. And this face mask? I’ve paid for it,
too.”
“We’ve even had to pay for our own [coronavirus] test,” added her husband. “It cost me €80”
Wealthiest 1%
The
Salamanca district is named after a 19th-century marquis who was
instrumental in the area’s development. It is home to more than 150,000
people, including the wealthiest 1% in all of Spain and the wealthiest
3% in the Madrid region. Household income here is an average €50,376,
compared with €33,000 in the region and €28,417 in Spain.
Asun
(“I won’t tell you my surname, and you never ask a woman about her
age”) is a civil servant who has been protesting every day since Monday.
“You’d think we were criminals with so many police around. There is no
freedom. You should publish that [Pablo] Echenique and several other podemitas
live around here,eh?” she said, alluding to leading members of the
leftist Unidas Podemos group, which is the junior partner in Spain’s
coalition government.
“We are in a dictatorial system,
and I know what I’m talking about,” said Magdalena, a local resident who
works as a lawyer. “They are applying a decree that bans our freedom.”
The
demonstrations began on Sunday night. Several residents say that a
collective protest sprung up after several dozen youths gathered under
the balcony of an apartment that was blaring out loud music. Minutes
later, a police van showed up and handed out fines to 12 members of the
public for violating the lockdown rules. Several residents criticized
the police presence, crying out “Freedom!”
By Thursday,
however, the street protests had all but disappeared, with just a few
scattered people marching and chatting with reporters. One of them was
Laura Domínguez, 39, whose dog Barri wore a Spanish flag as a cape. “I
am here because I am sick and tired,” said Domínguez, wearing a face
mask and holding a cigarette. “They’re creating a country of idlers. And
now they want to take everything away from me.”
Barri the dog wearing a Spanish flag.Manuel Viejo González
On Núñez de Balboa street, nearly 50% of residents voted for the conservative Popular Party (PP)
at the last general election, held in November 2019, followed by the
far-right Vox with 23%, the center-right Ciudadanos with 6.7%, and the
Socialist Party (PSOE) with 5.4%. The leftist Más País and Unidas
Podemos attracted less than 1% of the vote.
The regional
premier of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the PP, has been encouraging
these street demonstrations. “I hope people will go out on the street –
the events of Núñez de Balboa are going to seem like a joke then,” she
recently said. Meanwhile, Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida, also
of the PP, said this week that “as long as [safety] conditions are
maintained, everyone is free to voice their opinion.”
Vox
leader Santiago Abascal has been pushing for anti-government
demonstrations and challenging authorities to ban them, arguing that
this would prove that fundamental freedoms are being violated. At a
recent session of Congress to extend the state of alarm, Abascal said
that his party would apply for permission to hold demonstrations against
the government on the streets of Spain’s main cities, but that in order
to respect social-distancing measures, the protests would be held
inside vehicles rather than on foot.
José Netto at the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la
Frontera
by Brian Bamford
Editorial note: I first met José Netto in March 1964, when I, my wife and baby 6-month-old son (born in Denia, Alicante had to leave Spain where we had been living and working for 12 month, and crossed the frontier in order to to comply with the then Spanish law.
We had a 'letter of introduction' when we arrived at his council house in a working- class area on the Rock. He was living with his own young family and then worked on the tools in the Her Majesties Dockyard, but being an anarcho-syndicalist who had joined the then Syndicalist Worker's Federation while working in London in the 1950s. He and his mates helped to find me a job working as an electrician at the airport for the Ministry of Defence repairing the landing lights on the airstrip. One of José's close mates was Navarro, who was an anarchist supporter of the CNT, and had fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War in following the military insurrection in July 1936. Although José was an anarcho-syndicalist in Gibraltar the syndicalists were not sectarian and had close working relations with historic labour leaders like Albert Risso*, who became the first president of the Gibraltar Confederation of Labour which, in 1963, merged with the Transport and General Workers' Union, now Unite.
* Albert Risso was one of the first political activists
in the British territory of Gibraltar. at a very young age, he was one
of the campaigners for the involvement of the Gibraltarian civilian
population (and especially its working class) in governing the colony. In 1919, he was one of the members of a so-called "deputation of working men" who went to London to meet the Secretary of State for the Colonies and ask for the creation of a representative body that could succeed the Sanitary Commission, an unelected body whose members, usually belonging to the upper class, were nominated by the Governor. The campaign, driven by the trade unions, brought about the creation of the Gibraltar City Council in 1921.[2] By the start of World War II,[1] Risso was a foreman mechanic and a City Council employee. When most of Gibraltar's civilian population was evacuated, Risso was one of the few Gibraltarians that remained on The Rock. ****************************
José
Netto, the historic syndicalist anarchist trade union leader in Gibraltar in the last half
of the 20th Century, visited the Casa de la Memoria in Jimena de la
Frontera (Cádiz), on the 28th, January 2019, a few months after the
donation of a library of this entidad of five volumes of the encyclopedia El hombre y la Tierra,
a history of humanity written by Eliseo Reclus in 1905. Reclus was
a French scientist and creator of the Geografía Social, being one of
the first theoreticians of anarchism and a man of action who
participated in the Paris Commune, together with other famous
historic activists.
These
five volumes of El
hombre y la tierra were edited in Barcelona en 1933. The translation
is by Anselmo Lorenzo, the principle great leader of Spanish
anarchism and its representative in the First International.
These
volumes form part of the particular library of José Netto, and they
were offered up from the hands of a syndicalist of the Confederación
Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) when the Campo de Gibraltar had
suffered in 1936, and Spaniards in the area had struggled with death at the
hands of the military coup that rose against the Second Republic.
José Netto received the books from a man who had been an exile since the 1950s and
a few days after learning that that anarchist had committed suicide.
The donation to the Casa de la Memoria was effected months later
during the last session of the seminar of the Cursos de Verano
de la Universidad de Cádiz in San Roque, the son of José Netto,
Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the
Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to
deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.
In
his visit to the Casa, José Netto, who now lives in Atajate (Málaga), had also donated two poster images of the Second Spanish Republic.
**************************
The donación to the Casa de la Memoria took effect during the last session of the seminar
la efectuó meses atrás, durante la última
sesión del seminario de memoria histórica de los Cursos de Verano
de la Universidad de Cádiz en San Roque, the son of José Netto,
Michael Netto, in Gibraltar, and was received by the President of the
Foro for the Memoria del Campo de Gibraltar, Andrés Rebolledo, to
deposit in the Casa de la Memoria La Sauceda.
José
Netto wrote the following obituary for Jack Jones of the T&G:
My relation with Jack stretches back to the late 60s early 70s when I
was appointed District Officer in 1972, and he was the TGWU General
Secretary. He has always been my mentor, as we shared common ideology,
and has been a tremendous influence in my professional development as a
trade unionist. He was responsible for financing the construction of
our premises in Town Range, which at the beginning we used to call? La
Casa del Pueblo? He played a very leading role in supporting our fight
for parity of wages and salaries, against the MOD. As the British and
local government had rejected this claim, on the grounds that it could
not be sustained economically, a fact that was later proved wrong.
The intention of the fascist forces in Spain, during the Franco regime,
to strangle the economy, with its restrictions and the closure of the
land frontier, was defeated by the contribution of the labour movement
in Gibraltar, of which I feel very proud of.
I wish to pay tribute on behalf of the working class of Gibraltar, to
this comrade, so that we never forget how much we owe to him.
ON the 28th, April, Milton Pena placed the following comment on this NV Blog:
'It’s Gerineglicide
Derek, it has been happening for more than a decade and it has
worsened by the Pandemic.
'I read that the life span of
the elderly have been shortened by TWELVE years as a result of
becoming ill with this virus and dying of it.'
On the 29th, April, Blanco Posnet posted:
'I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'm
beginning to wonder if that Bunteresque Johnson, and his sidekick, Dom Cummings,
aren't exploiting this national emergency to kill off the elderly and the
baby-boomer generation in order to cut the social security/pension bill. It may
be a kind of “Shock Therapy”, disaster capitalism, approach to cutting public
expenditure.'
Social Care is a poor relation!
YET, what is happening in the social care sector is not new. For donkey's years under different governments social care has been the poor relation of the welfare sector. You can call it 'Gerineglicide' if you like. Or as I would prefer 'constructive manslaughter'.
It is 'constructive manslaughter' and not murder, since the intent is not to kill the victim, the mens rea required for murder
does not exist because the act is not aimed at any one person. Rather it is systemic in that it is built into the procedure for looking after the people at the end of their lives.
Most government including the current one under Boris have promised to resolve the problems of tackling social care, but have yet to come up with a satisfactory plan. The public have allowed this to happen partly because they are confused and think that their end of life care will be tackled by the NHS.
Clean plate club & one step nearer the grave!
People are closing their eyes to what's happening, and have been for ages.
Alan Bennett in his diary entry in 1995 describes events at a care home his mother was in, in Somerset:
'The turnover of residents is quite rapid since whoever is quartered in this room is generally in the late staged of dementia. But that is not what they die of. None of theses women can feed herself and to feed them properly, to spoon in sufficient mince and mashed carrot topped off with rhubarb and custard to keep them going, demands personal attention of a helper per person. Lacking such one-to-one care, these helpless creatures slowly and respectably starve to death.'
A neighbour of Mr. Bennett's mother has some difficulty:
'Joined the clean plate club, Lily,' says the girl who is feeding Hilda, her neighbour. 'Aren't you a good girl?'
Mr. Bennett says Hilda doesn't want her sweet and 'it is left congealing on her the tray while tea in lidded plastic beakers is taken round, which goes untouched also.' And he adds: 'So another mealtime passes and Hilda is quite caring and with no malice or cruelty at all pushed one step nearer the grave.'
Whose fault is it?
Not the government's surely?
Alan Bennett says: 'Her own a little. Her relatives, if she has relatives. And the staff's of course. But whereas a newspaper might make a horror story out of it, I can't.'
What would Milton Pena or Blanco Posnet do? Or, come to think of it, Charles Charalambous and those who signed his Woke Manifesto for trade unionists and other lefties, do about this?**
Alan Bennett concludes: 'Demented or not, if Hilda were a child there would be a story to tell and blame attaching. But Hilda is at the end of her life not the beginning. Even so, were she a Nobel Prize winner, or not a widow from Darwen but the last survivor of Bloomsbury, yes, then an effort might be made. As it is she is gradually slipping away, which is what this place is for.'
We need something better than slogans, rhetoric and virtue signalling to tackle these complicated questions. Essentially the problem in this country with regard to elderly people is a largely cultural one, as Alan Bennett's considerations suggest.* Milton Pena is a Chilean-born surgeon who arrived in Britain with his family in 1974 after being forced to flee General Pinochet’s brutal regime. Being Chilean he will probably have found it hard to understand the English attitude to old people as expressed by Alan Bennett and all too deeply embedded in our Anglo-saxon attitudes. * 'Untold Stories' [2005] by Alan Bennett
CARE HOMES across Western Europe
have been ravaged by coronavirus and in Spain alone there have been more
than 16,000 deaths, many around the capital Madrid. The true number may
never be known, but families are asking why so many of their elderly
relatives were lost.
Around lunchtime on 8 March, Rosana Castillo met up
with some close friends not far from her house in Lucero, a
working-class neighbourhood in west Madrid, and, as they did every year,
joined a protest to mark International Women's Day. They gave each
other a warm hug, held hands and marched to chants of "Down with the
patriarchy" and "Feminism will win".
Spaniards, then, could still
venture freely outside and coronavirus, which had already killed several
hundred in Italy, felt more like someone else's pain. Castillo, a
60-year-old retired primary school co-ordinator, had seen a few people
on the underground wearing surgical masks as a protection, but thought
most of them were probably tourists. "We weren't really talking about it
here," she said.
But it was preying on her mind. She had visited
Carmela, her 86-year-old mother, hours before at Monte Hermoso, the
care home near the square where the women had gathered. Arriving at the
main gate, Castillo was told she could not come in. A worker said two
residents had contracted Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and
visits had been suspended.
Castillo had seen Carmela, who had
advanced Alzheimer's, three days earlier, when her mother was discharged
from hospital after a week's treatment for breathing difficulties. The
doctor told her Carmela was going to be fine, that her case was not
related to the virus even though she had not been tested.
To
Castillo's frustration, the worker said nothing else and went back
inside Monte Hermoso. As she exchanged phone numbers with some
relatives, Castillo saw another worker rushing away, covering her mouth
with a piece of cloth. They had known each other for a long time but
when the woman left, without stopping to talk, Castillo became
suspicious. "At that moment," she told me, "I felt something wasn't
right."
It was already widely known, first from China, then Italy, that
elderly people with existing health issues were especially vulnerable to
the virus. Yet in Spain, where a fifth of the population is above 65,
or some 8.9 million people, the government of Prime Minister Pedro
Sánchez had announced little in response.
As Castillo followed
news of the outbreak, she wondered if enough was being done to protect
her mother or, indeed, anyone else. Unable to visit Carmela, who had
lived there for five years, her only source of information came from
infrequent, and usually very brief, phone calls from Monte Hermoso. No
matter how much Castillo asked, few things were said.
Consuelo
Domínguez, a long-time friend, coincidentally, also had her mother
living in Monte Hermoso, a red-brick, private centre with large windows
and rooms for up to 130 residents. She, too, struggled to get details.
Both daughters knew some staff had gone into isolation with coughs and a
fever, the most common symptoms of Covid-19, and were pretty sure there
was more going on.
Coronavirus was spreading in Spain at an
alarming speed and, on 14 March, the prime minister imposed a state of
emergency with a nationwide stay-at-home order. No-one was truly safe.
On that afternoon, Domínguez received an unexpected call from Monte
Hermoso. The worker was "very tense," she said, "you could feel it."
Surreptitiously, Domínguez was told that 70 people had been infected
with the virus and at least 10 patients had already died. "I was
frightened," she said. Domínguez called her friend. "I couldn't believe
it," Castillo recalled. "We weren't being told the truth."
Castillo and Domínguez alerted journalists and, on 17 March, Monte
Hermoso became national news. Only then did the Madrid government
reportedly become aware of the devastating outbreak. Nineteen people
were already dead.
In the evening, Castillo received a call from
Monte Hermoso. Her mother, who shared her room with another woman in
similarly poor health, had a fever. "It shocked me," Castillo said. She
knew Carmela was unlikely to survive.
The relatives created a WhatsApp group, and
disturbing messages flowed in. "Staff were very nervous... Some
[residents] were even a little bit delirious," said one of a visit two
days before they had been halted. Aurora Santos, whose mother was also
at Monte Hermoso, recalled seeing residents unwell in the cafeteria
around the same time. "We didn't know anything the management had done,"
she told me, "the protocols they had followed, nothing".
She
joined Castillo and Domínguez in gathering information. They believed
patients with symptoms had not been separated from those without, before
the virus spread rapidly through the home. Staff who had been in
isolation after falling ill were reportedly not being replaced, while
those who continued to work were having to do longer, exhausting shifts.
Lacking adequate protection, workers had to make face masks at home.
"We were trying to help, our loved ones were there," Domínguez said.
"Why weren't they being honest with us?"
Monte Hermoso, it turned
out, was not alone. In fact, nobody seemed to know the true scale of
what was going on. For years, Carmen Flores, head of the Patients'
Defenders ombudsman group, had warned about precarious conditions in
some of Spain's 5,417 care homes. "The amount of messages we were
getting those days was insane," Flores told me. "I was thinking: You
can't let these people rot."
Three in every four homes in Spain are privately run and many
patients, like Carmela, have some of their costs publicly funded. José
Manuel Ramírez, president of the federation representing social care
managers, said fees received by the residences had not changed in the
past decade, a result of years of austerity in Spain.
Many
companies had to carry out savings somewhere to make a profit, claimed
Flores, who also alleged that some lacked equipment even in normal
times, while many operated with minimum staff. (Workers' unions also say
staffing was insufficient, which Ramírez rejected.) A worker at one
care home where more than 90 patients died told me: "For a long time we
had been saying something serious would happen. The conditions were
unsustainable. This isn't a surprise at all."
Crowded hospitals
were having to turn away patients from care homes and send them back,
often to die. Many residences did not have oxygen bottles, crucial in
treating a disease known to cause severe respiratory problems, or even a
doctor - Monte Hermoso, Castillo said, had one doctor, who most days
worked only in the mornings.
The Spanish government had
centralised the purchase and distribution of medical material amid a
worldwide run, so the homes asked officials to send tests and protective
kits. However, Ramírez alleged they were not given priority, and
pictures emerged of carers wearing gowns made of plastic bags. "There
was nothing that could be done without support," he said. "It was a
catastrophe."
The army was deployed to disinfect 1,300 care homes and Monte Hermoso
was one of the first. Margarita Robles, the defence minister, said
patients, in some places, were found abandoned without care, sometimes
dead in their beds, the bodies left for funeral services to retrieve. "Un horror," Flores told me.
Almost
6,000 people have now died in nursing homes in Madrid, after showing
Covid-19 symptoms. Spanish public prosecutors are investigating possible
crimes including manslaughter for neglect, mistreatment and
abandonment.
"I think there was a lot of wrongdoing," said
Castillo. "These people couldn't shout or say they were unwell. They
died in silence and alone." Monte Hermoso has not replied to interview
requests by email; when contacted by phone, an employee told me they
would not talk to journalists.
Return to work 'fumbled presentation' by Boris by Brian Bamford
TODAY the editorial in the Financial Times took a dim view of last Sunday's Prime Minister Boris Johnson's TV address and his plans for a phased economic reopening and scheme for rebuilding public confidence. The FT editor writes: 'The fumbled presentation, and impression that not all elements had been fully thought through, undermined the impact. they also risk widening the social and economic divide between those who can work from home and those compelled to return to their workplace.'
The restart in the government's 'Plan to Rebuild' does have some credible grounds for easing-up on the lock-down so long as the physical distancing rules are intact.
But the Sunday statement lacked clarity and provoked confusion as today's FT editorial showed: 'Making the statement without explaining sufficient, safe transport would be available - or whether workplaces could be guaranteed "Covid-secure" - suggested a more cavalier attitude towards the welfare of blue-collar workers than stay-at-home "knowledge" workers.'
For example men in some blue-collar jobs are already more than twice as likely as the general workforce to have died from Covid-19 according to official figures. The Office of National Statistics found that the highest mortality rate amoung men working as security guards, with bus and taxi drivers, chefs and retail staff also among those more affected.
Francis O'Grady, the Trade Union Congress's general secretary, warned of 'chaos' if people were forced back into work tomorrow as promised especially if their workplaces had not been prepared for proper social distancing. At the same time, it seems, there has been haggling between business leaders and employers about a return to work.
The FT which had previously excused the government's earlier errors before it later introduced the lock-down is now arguing: 'Mr Johnson's breezy assertion that workers should explore cycling or walking, and avoid public transport, betrays a metropolitan middle-class failure to appreciate how much more difficult that may may be for those in rural or small-town areas.'
Now the FT is saying: 'After earlier mis-steps, the government had a chance to prove it was getting on top of coronavirus policymaking, but has flunked it.'
Today I rung my eldest lad who works on the shopfloor at a fibre glass company in Burnley, he hasn't yet gone back to work and is expecting to be furloughed for the next few weeks. It's not going to be easy to return to anything like normal.
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