Time to stand up and fight for Herongate and Galleon wards at Wanstead hospital

The battle to save the Heronwood and Galleon wards at Wanstead Hospital continues. Local people made their views quite clear some time ago with a 5,000 strong petition calling for the retention of the wards and the vital rehabilitation services they provide. The health executives and local politicians though chose to ignore that message.

 

All that has been evident to the local populace over recent months has been a combination of high handed choreography involving health service executives and councillors seemingly wrangling about just how far away these services can now be located from the people that need them. So first we saw  plans to move the service out to King Georges hospital and now even further away into the hinterland of Barking and Havering.

 

It would seem that the time has come once again for local people to remind those they have elected and those whose salaries they pay that these services must remain at Wanstead Hospital.

 

There are any number of people who have used these excellent services over recent years who will testify to their quality. It is time for people in the area to stand up as they have done so often in the past and say no to those seeking to cut basic health services from the area. It is also time that certain local councillors and health executives woke up to that fact.

 

11/6/2015  "Its time to getbehind the fight at hospital" - Wanstead & Woodford Guardian 

11/6/2015 "Time to say no to cuts" - Ilford Recorder

Labour Party must stop patronising own members and the public

 The news that the ridiculous “Edstone” idea passed through 10 meetings of the Labour high command says much about how detached the leadership has come from reality. It won’t surprise party members, who are generally treated as a volunteer army to be patronised at will. The succession of patronising missives varied from how to vote (Justine Miliband) to “why haven’t you given us any money recently?”If Labour ever wants to win power again it needs to re-democratise and reconnect to the grassroots. To continue with a careerist-led, detached hierarchical structure that disempowers members and the public alike can only in the long term lead to political oblivion.
- Guardian - 10/6/2015

We need a rational debate on assisted dying

The immediate negative response of those opposed to any form of assisted dying to the reintroduction of Lord (Charles) Falconer’s bill typifies the polarised and emotive nature of the debate thus far. 

Following the very full media coverage of the death of Jeffrey Spector, who went to Dignitas in Switzerland to end his life, Lord Falconer announced he would be reintroducing his bill, seeking to provide assistance for terminally ill patients, who have formed an intention to end their life, subject to the approval of two doctors and a high court judge.
The response from Baroness (Sheila) Hollis and opponents of any form of euthanasia was to cry foul, claiming the bill would be a starting point from which the criteria for termination would be expanded.
One of the problems with the debate over assisted dying at the moment is that it seems to be being guided by one sensational media story after another. Emotions run high while cold hard logic runs a long way behind.
My own position on assisted dying has changed over recent years. I witnessed my mother go through years of physical suffering, declaring almost every day she wished she was dead. I remember regularly arguing that there were people worse off than her. My Mum’s mind was excellent right up to the end, when it came, a couple of years ago. However, since her death I have had time to reflect.
Mum underwent a steady physical deterioration over a number of years. She did not have a terminal condition but had had enough. She’d lost most of her sight, hearing and movement.
I learned to be a little more understanding of those suffering, looking down the barrel of things simply getting worse until that final moment of death comes. It’s not a great quality of life.
My experience has made me believe that the type of proposals being made by Lord Falconer’s bill at least deserve a proper debate in the public square. The assisted dying terrain is dominated by potential pitfalls: there is the slippery slope argument, that once assisted dying is conceded the conditionality will be loosened. Doctors will object. Many rightly claim they came into medicine to save, not take, lives.
Then there is the economic argument, that once assisted dying is on the statute book, pressure on NHS resources and staff will contribute to making euthanasia the default position for the sick and dying. What of the elderly person alone in the hospital bed, without family or friends to fight their corner? Or the elderly person in the hospital bed surrounded by greedy relatives who want to get their hands on his or her wealth?
These are all valid concerns: what is clear is that the present situation serves no one very well. What is needed is for some rationality to be brought to the assisted dying debate. Perhaps a Royal Commission or similar body to take evidence over a set period of time, then come up with suggestions as to how things can move forward. It seems like we are creeping toward legalising assisted dying but not in a rational way. There should be change - but it has to be undertaken after a logical look at the facts and implications. Then maybe the situation can change for the benefit of all.

* Published 5/6/2015 on www.thetablet.co.uk

How corrupt is Britain?

The reader is left in no doubt what the answer is to the question posed in the title, come the end of this engrossing book. The answer is very corrupt, bordering in fact on bandit status.

David Whyte has expertly brought together 14 different sharply written essays covering the vast span of the corruption eroding life in the UK and beyond. The starting point for the book came with a conference held in Liverpool on May 10, 2013 titled How corrupt is Britain. It was the contributions on that day that began the process that led to the book.

The unique element of the book is in exposing institutional corruption in such a broad span of public life. So it starts with an examination of neo-liberalism. This exposes how the private sector has virtually taken over the public, with a revolving door operating between the two. A whole new moral compass being established that judges everything according to the market.

Police corruption is the next area examined. So there is the exposure of the gross corruption that involved the likes of the West Midlands Police, which had already been mired in controversy over its handling of the Birmingham pub bombings in the 1970s, somehow finishing up playing a major role in covering up the corruption of the South Yorkshire police in relation to what happened at Hillsborough in 1989.

There is exposure of the totally ineffectual nature of bodies like the Independent Police Complaints Commission, largely staffed with former and serving police officers in bringing about any justice. The separate chapters written by different writers move from Hillsborough to the murder of Stephen Lawrence and finally the death of Mark Duggan – shot by police in 2011.

There is then a section of four chapters on the corruption of government and institutions, encompassing the role played by the British state in torture in Northern Ireland and beyond, institutional child abuse and the operation of the Private Finance Initiative.

The final section deals with corruption in finance and the corporate sector, looking at how the banks have got away with huge corruption both in the UK and through the tax haven networks. The different chapters are well written, punctuated with facts that bring you up short, such as that the mis-selling of private pensions costing individuals £11 billion-“dwarfing the costs of almost all estimates of all forms of ‘street’ crime put together.”

Author Steve Tombs chronicles how the banks defrauded people of billions over private pensions, endowment schemes linked to morgages and the PPI scandals. Then quietely reminds the reader that these corrupt practices were undertaken by the retail side of the banks, the part that there has been the great focus on separating off from the investment (casino style) banking that is credited with causing the financial crisis of 2008.

The tendency with such a book could be to just drive the reader away to bury their head under a pillow but the different chapters from separate authors help the book retain a refreshing sharpness. David Whyte deserves great credit for the way he has brought these different aspects of the corruption picture together into a coherent narrative. He outlines that narrative in the introduction, which effectively summarises all of the parts that come in the chapters that follow. It is a broad span of corrupt practices found in almost all elements of public and private life in the UK today. Arguably there are other areas that would also warrant a chapter, such as phone tapping by the newspapers and the corruption of MPs expenses. However, overall this is an excellent if disturbing read that exposes they hypocrisy of a country that so often likes to portray itself as some sort of beacon of probity in a corrupt world.

* Published by Pluto Press £16.99

Review - Not as nice as we say we are - Tablet - published 6/6/2015
 

Need to look beyond narrow confines of punishment and restrictions in debate on alcoholism

The news is out that Charles Kennedy’s death was caused be alcoholism  – cue public debate on alcoholism.

We’ll leave aside here the ludicrous situation, whereby a social problem only gets discussed when it effects someone in the public eye. Anonymous people can die alone from alcoholism on park benches, bedsits and hospital beds and it attracts no media coverage at all but that is how society is ordered here.

The present debate on alcoholism is another that seems to be attracting a lot of heat but little light.

Why is it in this country that addressing such a problem almost immediately reduces to moves to restrict the freedoms of the mass of people.Take the  Newsnight debate last night, Clare Fox rightly argued that there was a major difference between social drinking and alcoholism – they are not two sides of the same coin.

The media debate such as it is on the subject of alcohol is the same as it is on so many other areas of public life. Take a skewed view as a result of giving some interest groups, with employees to pay, a disproportionate say in the debate. The result, we end up with a restrictive/ punitive solution. In the case of alcohol this will mean higher prices for everyone and ideally some way of locking people up more easily for drink related activities.

Would it not be more useful to actually look at the problem in a different way. Alcoholism is growing but why? Depression is a huge problem, look at the number of people on anti-depressants in the UK. Mental health problems generally are growing incredibly – there is predicted to be a mental health explosion over the next 10 years. Maybe UK plc really is not a very happy place?

Should we not be looking at the society being created that is incubating these problems. A society of low paid insecure work probably contributes. A consumer based society that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing – individuals are increasingly judged on what they have rather than what they are. A society where more and more people live alone, where traditional community links are breaking down. The psychological as opposed to physical draw bridges are being pulled up everywhere.

A society undergoing a huge physiological change as a result of the internet revolution – changes that no one seems interested in discussing.

It is the society that has been created that leads to problems like alcoholism, depression and other mental health issues. It is this wider debate that needs to be had, not the usual ill-informed rantings about restrictions and punishment.

BBC chief Alan Yentob conjures vista of Julian Fellowes on Strictly Come Dancing and Boris Johnson hosting Top Gear

The vista of Lord Julian Fellowes on Strictly Come Dancing and Boris Johnson hosting Top Gear were just a couple of the possibilities conjured up for future TV schedules by Alan Yentob.
Delivering the British Journalism Review sponsored Charles Wheeler lecture, BBC Creative Director, Yentob told how Fellowes had been critical of Strictly Come Dancing, prompting a challenge to the writer of Downton Abbey to "get his dancing shoes on."
Then in debate, responding to a challenge from Boris Johnson as to "who's taking over from Clarkson," Yentob asked: "are you available Boris?"
The BBC creative director defended the value that the corporation offered in "underpinning creative life in Britain" warning that people will miss the BBC if it is not there.

West Ham's season of what might have been

The West Ham season can be season up as what might of beens. Fourth at Christmas , the club then entered into faltering run that saw just three wins secured on the way to a final 12^th place in the Premership.

Manager Sam Allardyce paid the price, with virtually instant dismissal on the whistle of the final game against Newcastle. The rumours had been growing over the months that Allardyce was for the chop, so when it came the news was a bit of an anti-climax.

The manager had effectively been on probation since last August, when the club grudgingly gave him another one year contract, the conditionality being that he secure a top 10 finish playing attractive football.

Top players were provided: Aaron Cresswell from Ipswich, Cheikou Kouyate from Anderlecht, Enner Valencia from Mexican club Pachuca and Diafra Sakho from Metz. Alex Song, Carl Jenkinson and Morgan Amalfitano were taken on loan for the season. All went well up to Christmas. Song was pulling the strings, Sakho scoring the goals in an exciting new partnership up front with Valencia. Stewart Downing was rejuvenated in a new freer role to roam at the head of the diamond formation. At the back Cresswell and Jenkinson were a revelation, attacking down the flanks whenever possible.

After Christmas though it all fell apart. There had been high hopes of an FA Cup run but this crashed to a halt at West Brom in the fifth round. League form was no better, with just three wins after New Years Day.

Allardyce became particularly frustrated at his side’s consistent ability to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. Post match, he repeatedly cited the games at home to Manchester United and Everton and away to Spurs and Leicester, when the team were undone by goals in the last couple of minutes. He put this down to inexperience of some playing in their first season of the Premier League. Maybe so but the uncertainty around his own position can hardly have helped matters.

The constant speculation must have effected team morale and results. Without the speculation, could West Ham have finished two or three positions higher?

What does seem clear is that there were those who wanted Allardyce out whatever, maybe only securing Champions League football would have saved his job, what is for sure is that 12^th wouldn’t.

Now, it is a new era, the speculation has begun over who will replace Allardyce, with former player Slavan Bilic a hot favourite. The fans will be hoping for better results and more entertainment. The sight of more homegrown talent. They will hope for a change of style from the game of aerial bombardment that often typified Allardyce teams. What they won’t want is a relegation struggle. It is a sobering thought that former Allardyce teams Newcastle, Blackburn and Bolton have all been in relegation trouble shortly after his departure – not something that West Ham or their owners will want on the eve of the move to the Olympic stadium.