Labour Leadership Election 2016; Why I'm Team Jezza

A few minutes ago I received my online ballot for the labour leadership election: Anyone I have ever had a political discussion with will probably assume I voted for JC.... You are right. Yes I did.

Throughout the leadership election I was inclined to vote JC because he was the man who inspired me to join the labour party to begin with, and because I view the election we are going through as a attack on him & an anti-democratic coup rather than an election to exercise a democratic right.

Before JC became leader I looked at the labour party and saw what looked to me like a shell of its former self, and doubted that it could play more than a minimalistic role in the workers movement leading to a fairer, more egalitarian society. JC's commitment to restoring that party to a party of social change, a party about standing up for the metaphorical 'little guy' and a party of the most fundamental of socialist values; equality, liberty, democracy and peace made me re-evaluate that belief; I now believe that the labour party can be saved, and I stand by my belief that the leader best placed to do that is now and will be for the foreseeable future JC.

In the interest of fairness I read the statement provided by Owen Smith on the voting form and wasn't that impressed. Namely because I don't actually believe that he is the 'unity' candidate that the 'anyone but Jezza' crowd are demanding.

Jezza is who I voted for because he IS a unity candidate in my view; namely because of his his pledge to democratise the party and his willingness to work with those who have made it perfectly clear that they don't agree with his views despite there open and destructive opposition - it beggars belief that an open hand was treated like a clenched fist simply because it was JC who held it out.

Not only do I have every faith that JC has the skill and the determination to unify the labour party, I believe that he has the skill, the drive and the compassion to unify the country and deliver a labour victory in the 2020 general election.

Why we should all support the creation of a National Social Care Service

With people living longer who are sick, funding social care is very hard. One of the actions of the current government which is very controversial is the way that they propose to fund the care of the elderly. According to The Telegraph 340,000 people entitled to home help will soon get none.

It doesn’t surprise me when I hear horror stories about the way people in care area treated. When the state cannot afford to provide a public service they often sub-contract it out to a for profit agency, usually the one who claims they can do it while charging the government the least. The result of this is people working for private care providers aren’t properly trained because the company operates on a ‘for profit’ basis; so any training beyond the bare necessities is in their eyes a waste of money, and cuts into their balance sheet.

This is also why people working for private care companies are often not paid well. I am personally aware of 3 legal loopholes that are used to avoid paying the national minimum wage to people working for private care companies in the area where I live.

The first is regards to agency work, a care home will need people to cover a shift and will ask a temp agency to provide the cover offering the NMW to the worker sent, of which the agency wants a ‘finder’s fee’ which they deduct from the already minimum wage.

The second is regards to community care; a care worker is working an 8 hour shift (for example), but they are informed that they are only ‘at work’ when they are actually inside a client’s home, the time spent travelling from 1 clients home to another counts as travelling to work, not work itself – so the worker gets paid a fraction of what they actually work. When the cost of keeping a car on the road is factored into this equation such employment becomes almost pointless, earning a few pounds per week above what they would be entitled to on state benefits.

The final one is regards to working night shifts at some elderly residential homes. At night most people would expect a worker to get a wage enhancement for working anti-social hours, but no… there are some care homes which don’t do this, in fact they don’t even pay night staff a ‘wage’, they pay them an ‘on call rate’ after the residents have gone to bed which is a fraction of the minimum wage and enhance their pay to the NMW for each our that a resident is disturbed or in need of assistance.

So I cannot help but wonder if any subcontracting of state care to private companies will inevitably result in abuse or mal-treatment due to poor training, and poor conditions. Care is a high-responsibility job, yet many carers are paid low wages… well no: the minimum wage of for minimum responsibility jobs, the major high-street supermarkets pay people a few pence an hour above the NWM to stack shelves, some of the smaller chains pay over a pound an hour above the minimum wage. And yet if someone wants to work in care, they have to have the lives of vulnerable and sick people put into their hands for a pittance? Where I ask in the incentive to do that I can’t help but wonder?

Pussy Riot member on hunger strike

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/23/pussy-riot-hunger-strike-nadezhda-tolokonnikova

I think that it’s important that everyone who can spare a few minutes takes the time to read this shocking account of life inside a Russian jail.

I’ve heard this quote attributed to everybody from Churchill to Ghandi, so I’m not quite sure who first said it but it’s good advice no matter who said it (evidenced by the fact that some may people seem to have said it):

‘If you want to judge how civilised a nation is; look at how they treat their prisoners’

My take on the right to die debate

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/judges-reject-assisted-suicide-appeal-091541993.html#H60F57C

Although I agree that a person should have the right to die if they desperately want to and their life is unbearable, I don't see how the patients will be protected from feeling bullied by family members who treat there disabled relatives as a burden and try to bully them into asking the doctor to be euthanized with the pretence of well-meaning sentiment like 'don't you think it's time for you to go'. I recall in GCSE history a Nazi propaganda piece of a disabled woman being 'persuaded' by her husband that euthanasia would be in her interests. So how long would it be before 'right to die' would be seen by carers who want to get on with their lives as a 'duty to die' and look down on people as selfish who decide they want to live on? This is one civil liberty which is yes needed, but also open to the most serious abuse when people realise there interests conflict with those of the people they are supposed to be looking after. So how much of this would be ‘I want to die’ compared with ‘My family would be better off without me’.

“Lawyers warn over lads mag’s sales”: why I think this is a bit daft.

Relating to the news article @

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/lawyers-warn-over-lads-mag-sales-082158770.html?bcmt_s=m#LOZihsS

There are 2 ways of seeing this: in the case of the employee they chose to apply for a job there and if such a thing is objectionable to them then they shouldn’t have: I'm a vegetarian - I therefore have to accept that if I choose to apply for a job in a supermarket I'm going to have to handle stuff from the deli counter whenever I'm asked to work on tills - I couldn't ask them to close the deli counter because I would find it objectionable. In this case I would have 2 choices, put up with it or find a new job: Such is exactly the policy I enforced on myself when I was working in a pub - I didn't refuse to carry steak to the customers because I found it objectionable, I accepted it was a part of the job – because I had been a regular there for a while the manager knew I was a vegetarian and made sure I could accept this before giving me an application form.
On the other hand I supported the smoking ban because I found it made the environment unpleasant, so a part of me wonders if not supporting this move is a touch hypocritical because it people asking for the environment they are in to be made more pleasant to them. It seems perfectly fair therefore to ask that 'lads mags' to be wrapped in the shop shelves with only the title of the cover showing.

The other issue regards to this is that of the sex industry: The sex industry will always exist; the more it is criminalised the more people will turn to the black market. All this action does is put sex workers in more danger than they are already in. Asking for the fronts of the magazines to be covered is one thing, but banning them from 'mainstream' stores just pushes the problem underground. It’s the same principle as drug over-regulation - except that now we have a government which is considering relaxing drug regulation criminal gangs will need a new source of income. My guess is they will start people trafficking if we over-regulate the sex industry. At least if the sex industry is allowed to be out in the open then it can be observed and its members protected. So although I respect the oppinions of the abolishonists who are against the existence of the sex industry because they see it as exploitative, the only effect that their actions will have will be to create a whole new problem for sex workers in that their actions are illegal and that as sex workers will find it harder to claim the protection of the law they will be more open to exploitation.