Outside Left

The last post: Thank you and goodbye from Outside Left

2011-12-01T11:00:01Z

The end is nigh. Inspired by the Greek debt crisis, Community Care is having a haircut and a hirsute Outside Left is sitting grim-faced in Sweeney Todd's chair, awaiting the inevitable opening of the trap door.

So this is just a few sentences of gratitude to you readers for your time, patience, indefatigability (copyright George Galloway) and comments, supportive and otherwise, over the past three-and-a-half years.

In the early days, readers' views were expressed mainly at the end of the blog; now most are conveyed through tweets or even personal email.

For all those comments I am grateful, even those that have demonised me as a "prat", a "wanker", as "putrid", "an utter dork" or, most damaging to my egg-shell ego, "Why doesn't McNabb just take the picture of himself off the blog which is quite obviously trying to state 'I know, I could quite easily be in a Blur, or similar middle class lefty tribute band'."

It also became apparent that the most provocative posts involved religion and politics, with a UKIP parliamentary candidate proving that it is best to avoid disclosing one's feelings late at night (second comment).

For those interested, I understand my old frenemy Paul Wiffen is back in active politics and will be standing for election to the Greater London Authority next year.

But now it only leaves me to recall the words of sports commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme who, as jubilant England fans pre-empted the referee's final whistle and ran on to the Wembley pitch in the closing moments of the 1966 World Cup final, famously uttered the words: "They think it's all over..."

Well, it is now.

Picture: Rex Features

Strike: An inconvenient truth for Michael Gove

2011-11-29T11:27:11Z

Education secretary Michael Gove (pictured looking his best) was absolutely correct yesterday to highlight the inconvenience caused to families by public sector workers who will strike in their millions tomorrow.

It is encouraging that a Conservative minister has such foresight to realise that families may indeed be inconvenienced.

For, if action is not taken now, in decades to come it will rest upon the shoulders of the children of tomorrow's strikers to bear the considerable financial onus of helping their parents whose public sector pensions will have dwindled in value by so much that they will be worth squat.

That is what he meant by "inconvenience", wasn't it?

Why social care should strike tomorrow

Picture: Rex Features

30 November: Francis Maude counts the cost...selectively

2011-11-24T12:41:51Z

As a Conservative, it is natural that Cabinet secretary Francis Maude (pictured getting the beers in) would speak out against the public sector workers' pensions strike on 30 November.

Last week he suggested that, instead of taking to the streets, employees engaged in a nice a cup of tea and a sit-down for 15 minutes. Today he has been counting the cost to the economy of the one-day stoppage: £500m, he estimates. Frightening.

What, then, is his opinion of last week's sale of Northern Rock by chancellor George Osborne at a loss to the taxpayer of between £400m and £650m, depending on whose figures you believe?

If Maude's £500m estimate of the cost of next week's action is accurate, that makes a cumulative hit to the nation's balance sheet of about £1bn in a couple of weeks, half of it due to the government's intransigence over pensions.

With accountancy management as exemplary as that, the Coalition should now perhaps review its willingness to blame Gordon Brown and the Eurozone for the nation's economic woes.

Oh, and just to get you in the right frame of mind for next week's pensions strike, the Daily Mirror reports that Maude is in line for a £731,000 retirement pot.

As if you needed any encouragement...

Picture: Rex Features

More reasons to strike on 30 November

2011-11-23T12:56:17Z

Many public sector employees, including social workers, can only dream of the prospect of a 2.3% pay rise. That is the going rate, according to figures from IDSPay.co.uk, published on Left Foot Forward in a blog by Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke.

With inflation hovering around 5%, October's figure is a comparatively paltry sum - yet one that is lower than the 2.4% average awarded in September.

The publication of these statistics could not have been better timed. This week, the High Pay Commission reported that top earners have enjoyed - and "enjoyed" truly is the word - a piss-taking rise of 4,000% over the past 30 years as the average wage increased just threefold.

Mind you, it didn't deter headhunter Dr Heather McGregor from telling Radio 4's Today programme that anyone who thought the disparity unfair ought to consider moving to Cuba.

A more enlightening piece of analysis from a person who holds a doctorate is difficult to imagine...

...Enter Dr Vince Cable (pictured, thinking), seemingly intent on rubbing the entire deposits of a salt mine into a gaping wound before adding a squeeze of lemon. The business secretary has concluded that employers are finding it too difficult to shed staff and employment law should be reformed to make it easier for them, the poor lambs.

Two-and-a-half million people might disagree with his assessment of employment law, of course.

His call prompted Unite to describe the proposals as a "charter for bullies and rogue employers".

So next week, when trade union members strike about proposed changes to public sector pensions, it may be worth them also bearing in mind the signals sent from those who very much have - like the top earners and their apologists - and those who want to remove what workplace rights you have - like Cable.

Because when the pensions fight is won, another battle will inevitably start.

Picture: Rex Features

Social worker poised for Xmas number one?

2011-11-21T13:06:17Z

Someone ought to have told the TUC that the inviolable Cliff Richard (pictured discovering atheism) had a god-given right to an annual crack at the Christmas number one.

Short of The Pogues coming up with something half-decent, I hope the nation's affections will turn to a single by a newly formed band, The Workers.

Under the auspices of the TUC, they have released a remix of the Canned Heat classic, Let's Work Together, to mark the day of action by public sector employees on 30 November.

One of the stars of the popular beat combo is Margaret Greer, a social worker from Enfield, north London, who once auditioned for The X Factor. She didn't appear on the programme so clearly she is talented.

Greer is quoted on the TUC website as saying: "If we don't take action we are walking blindly into poverty. Every worker should be striking as our future - and the future of young people - depend on it."

So why not buy Let's Work Together? With some judicious downloading, you can time it just right to deny Sir Cliff his annual pilgrimage to the top of the charts.

You need not feel (too) guilty about it either: 40p of each sale goes to Age UK.

Council intent on evicting jobless tenants

2011-11-15T12:31:00Z

The London Borough of Wandsworth is home to the subway (pictured) in A Clockwork Orange where a homeless man was beaten up by the droogs. Forty years later, the council appears to be threatening to deliver a good kicking - metaphorically - to its housing tenants.

First, it warned that entire families could be evicted from its properties if just a single member of the household was convicted of involvement in last summer's riots - with an arrogant disregard of the deleterious effects of homelessness on the very young.

Now Wandsworth is turning its guns on unemployed people.

Going even further than work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith's draconian plan to cut the housing benefit of tenants who have failed to accrue enough working hours for entitlement (under the government's subjective measure), the south London council has warned that unemployed people could lose their homes if they remain jobless two years after moving in.

Wandsworth Council is expected this week to approve the changes to the conditions of housing tenure, under which fixed-term tenancies will be introduced to facilitate the eviction process.

In times of rising unemployment and seemingly perpetual economic crisis, it falls upon Wandsworth to finally turn the screw on those on low incomes and at risk of vulnerability.

What William Beveridge (left), with his emphasis on access to decent housing, would have made of this, one can only imagine. Actually, you could have a darned good guess.

Pictures: Rex Features

Don't strike on 30 November, take a coffee break

2011-11-14T12:04:01Z

Industrial action and the Conservatives are not natural bedfellows, notwithstanding (pictured drinking water) education secretary Michael Gove's appearance on a picket line in a former life as a journalist.

What his current colleagues think of Militant Mike's picketing past can only be the subject of conjecture (youthful impetuosity, perhaps?), but at least he stuck it out longer than the 15 minutes to which Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has suggested the public sector unions limit themselves on 30 November.

In a gesture that could be described as avuncular - or patronising - Maude pointed out that, by nipping out for only a quarter of an hour, staff could avoid being docked pay.

It sounded like he was recommending a coffee break, a sip-in perhaps.

I may be making assumptions but I cannot imagine Maude's boss, Dave Cameron, being too impressed with the prospect of our nation's public servants heading for the canteen or a coffee shop to sit down with a hot drink when they could be behind their desks.

Why? Well, on Friday, the prime minister made known his disapproval of protests that were not done "on two feet".

I will not nitpick this particular use of words, but already this year the students have tried the two-feet option, as have thousands of trade unionists, something, by a process of elimination, Cameron ought to support.

We all know he didn't but the question has to be asked: which protests DOES he support?

Picture: Rex Features

How well is your council coping with the cuts?

2011-11-09T15:49:59Z

Think tank Demos has devised an index to evaluate how local authorities in England and Wales are managing the public spending cuts.

Called Coping with the Cuts, website visitors can use a pull-down menu to see how their local authority's disability services score on personalisation, eligibility and budget changes.

Although there is an explanation as to how Demos arrived at its rankings, I was surprised to find the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham coping "well", even though the cuts level was assessed as "very high".

This is a council seemingly on a mission to make life difficult for its service users, including disabled people.

Although the Demos research is a useful pointer on the impact of the cuts, the Hammersmith summary has left me feeling a need for a definition of "coping well".

Um, "cutting well"? Hope not.

Doncaster Council's threats to staff and the Miliband factor

2011-11-01T10:21:57Z

Labour leader Ed Miliband came in for some flak two months ago when he told trade union members caught up in the local government pensions dispute that they should desist from striking during negotiations.

Whether you agreed with Miliband or disagreed with him, it was a point of view honestly held (I hope). But it was also a standpoint that one could imagine the employers nodding along to, much like those toy dogs that were once the must-have accessory for rear parcel shelves of Ford Cortinas.

If Miliband's way is the key to a solution, what explanation could Doncaster Council possibly have for sending Section 188 redundancy notices to staff in the middle of talks about the authority's proposals to cut pay and introduce inferior terms and conditions?

The talks were planned to conclude on 14 November but Doncaster, in what looks suspiciously like an act of sabotage, is attempting to force the hands of 10,000 staff, or even cynically provoke industrial action in order to dismiss them more easily and re-employ the chosen few as it sees fit.

If it is wrong to take industrial action in the middle of negotiations, as Miliband believes, then it is equally wrong for employers to threaten thousands of staff with their livelihoods during talks that ostensibly are being held to seek a solultion.

The only message it sends is that the employer, in this case Doncaster Council, has no intention of thrashing out a deal.

Ed Miliband may wish to clarify that statement he made to the TUC conference.

Picture: Rex Features

Football manager tells of the child abuse lies

2011-10-28T10:42:12Z

What's worse: being dragged through the courts wrongly accused of murder or being dragged through the courts wrongly accused of child abuse? Stupid question? Hobson's choice?

Try suggesting that to former Premier League manager Dave Jones, who was falsely accused of abusing two teenagers as a care worker in a children's home after retiring as a footballer.

The former Southampton, Wolves and Cardiff boss, who has updated a book on his experiences, has told The Independent that it would have been preferable to have been fitted up for a murder he had not committed.

Once regarded as a bright, progressive young manager, Jones has not been offered a job in the top-flight of English football since the unfounded accusations went to court nearly 11 years ago.

The book's title, No Smoke, No Fire, is a reference to the judge's comments at the end of the trial, which collapsed when it became apparent that the two witnesses had concocted their stories in a greed-driven mission for compensation.

Despite the lies - and the judge's words - Jones's career was in shreds, his family placed under unimaginable stress. The verbal abuse has continued long after the trial.

And the police? Jones describes their investigation as "incompetent" but they were intent on ploughing on regardless, unquestioning of the motives of the complainants and ultimately bringing 13 charges. "I lost faith in the judicial system," Jones says.

Anyone who has been falsely accused of a crime as vile as this would surely sympathise.

As for the police, well, life just goes on.

Why blame the elderly for our housing shortage?

2011-10-25T12:34:26Z

Immigrants to the UK are probably accustomed to demonisation, as are single mothers and, of course, teenagers (usually for being, um, teenagers). To the genus scapegoat, we can now add older people.

We have in the past come close with the famous "bed blocker" tag, but the Intergenerational Foundation - a left-leaning think-tank of all things - has come up trumps with bedroom-blockers.

These are retired home owners who have the nerve to remain in their own properties long after their children have moved out and their partners or spouses have died. The bare-faced cheek of these people.

The foundation suggests that they should be taxed out of their homes and - I paraphrase - bugger off to a one-bed granny flat perhaps, and let younger families buy their home, the home that is a repository of memories and a place their children, grandchildren and relatives can stay. Kinship support anyone?

Speaking of support, there may come a time when that older home owner might need extra help, perhaps from a close friend or family member who could stay overnight or even move in as a carer. The alternative - a move into a one-bedroom flat - would make this support difficult, uncomfortable or just impossible to maintain.

But not to worry: we have a network of successful care homes where they could spend their final years, no? Well, we do, but that is assuming the companies running them do not go bust, that the settings meet inspection standards, they have enough staff, those staff are trained and all those horror stories we read are the exception. And who wants to end their days in even the best of residential care?

One other thing: no one before has thought of blaming the elderly for the nation's housing shortage, yet it is our inability to build housing, social and private, at both ends of the price range that is the root of the problem, whether the Intergenerational Foundation wants to admit it or not. Its efforts would be more appreciated by this blogger on addressing this and lobbying for new-build so we can all have somewhere decent to live.

Small mercies, though. The think-tank stopped short of describing older home owners as pension-snatchers; but that cliché "a burden on society" presses weightily on the lips.

Poverty? What poverty, asks former minister Currie

2011-10-18T12:09:29Z

Retirement from politics has done little to broaden the anthropological horizons of Edwina Currie (pictured in her finery). Perhaps her mind has been on other things, dancing perhaps, so she must be strapped for time to muck up on issues such as poverty.

Yet muck up she did, in a different sense, when she told 5 Live that she doubted anyone in Britain was going hungry in 2011.

Mind you, if listeners heeded the advice of Margaret Thatcher's former health minister and were left to choose between eating a boiled egg and starvation, malnutrition would surely follow.

But, in the real world, her poorly timed cry of disbelief came days after publication of a shocking report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies into child and working-age poverty.

The findings, summarised on the JRF website, indicated that the target for eradicating child poverty by 2020 looks unlikely to be met and, if anything, the figure is set to rise to 3.3 million compared with 2.6 million in 2010-11.

Despite enough anectodal evidence of parents, especially mothers, foregoing meals in order that their children may be fed, and of older people having to choose whether to eat or keep their homes warm, Currie insisted that these tales represented political point-scoring.

What she makes of the rise in food banks is anyone's guess, but charities have been launching them for a reason, one that seems to have eluded Currie.

It might be better that Currie has left politics because her comments about poverty (and why she was asked for them I cannot fathom) have left Egg-wina as a national yolk - and a rotten one at that.

Picture: Rex Features

Why did Burstow refuse to meet Southern Cross last year?

2011-10-14T11:58:22Z

He can't say he wasn't warned. It seems care services minister Paul Burstow (pictured) had been told about the financial difficulties care homes provider Southern Cross was encountering some months before they became public knowledge.

Not once, but several times. But Burstow, for reasons best known to himself, rebuffed requests to meet Southern Cross chief executive Jamie Buchan.

Buchan first wrote to the minister last August, forewarning him of the company's difficulties, and expressed concerns about expected spending cuts in local authority budgets, a primary source of funding for the provider. Burstow, Buchan was told, was not available, reports the Financial Times (you will need to register).

Two more requests for meetings led nowhere.

Burstow might argue that central government is not a customer of Southern Cross - and it is true that it isn't (not directly, anyway) - so why should it become involved in a local government issue. Well, probably because government funding of local authorities has been declining in real terms, while the cost of care home provision - paid for by cash-strapped councils - continued to rise. Something had to give.

Whether central government is ultimately responsible may be neither here nor there, but Southern Cross was responsible for 31,000 residents as well as an army of staff. And this ought to have concerned the minister for care services.

At the very least, Burstow needs to answer why he showed such apparent insouciance.

Complaint about Daily Mail's Motability rant

2011-10-12T13:25:00Z

Today is the day that Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre spoke up for quality journalism at a seminar set up by the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking and attacked unethical practices and hypocrisy. He wasn't being ironic.

Good for him. I wonder what he thinks of his employee Richard Littlejohn's rant about the Motability scheme for people with disabilities.

Littlejohn (pictured with moustache in rather more dashing days) described the scheme as funded by that much put-upon group, the British taxpayer. You can read his non-wisdom here.

The subtexts to any article that depicts the British taxpayer as being a disadvantaged group are "waste of money" and "political correctness gone mad" so we can see where the article was leading.

Littlejohn seems to have taken inaccuracy to new levels in this case because Motability is operated by a charity which raises its own funds. The cars are paid for by recipients of disability living allowance.

Sarah Ismail, who blogs on disability issues at Same Difference, has now reported the article to the Press Complaints Commission.

The same PCC for which Dacre today sounded a robust defence. I hope he doesn't have cause to change his mind.

Libraries or social care? Right-wing Tory has a point on cuts

2011-10-06T11:55:53Z

Assuming councils have to cut some services, where does the axe fall?

An article on The Guardian website written by the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire Council, Keith Mitchell, suggests libraries.

However, the bookish county has risen up, with its literati adding their outrage to the general disapproval.

Understandable, too. Morally, libraries should not shut, particularly as UK literacy rates continue to be a concern.

As a side issue, is not the running of them by volunteers one of the prime functions of a Big Society?

However, back to the point: cuts there will be. And Mitchell says it is better to cut library services than social care, although he would do well to remember that in February his council did vote for "savings" of £119m in adult care over four years.

Nevertheless, it was encouraging to read an article by someone who has a bit of reputation for verbalising what the right of the Tory party thinks actually speaking up for social care.

He ends the article: "Everyone involved in social care has a critical role to raise the public profile of social care. I am afraid the village shop, school, pub and library will always score highly with electors because of their visibility while the importance of social care will remain invisible to most electors until they or their loved ones need it."

Convinced? Let me know below.

Picture: Rex Features