Is the Internet sending us backwards?

The internet is becoming ever more prevalent in British politics. The rise of social networks, especially Twitter and YouTube are to thank for this. Modernisation of politics - finally. In the run up to the 2010 general election, all three candidates aimed to use the internet to appeal to younger voters, arguably the Lib Dems and the Tories utilised this new media to their advantage the best.

But the internet isn't all glitz and glamour for politics. In fact, exactly the opposite could be said to true. Is it modernising politics? Or is it reinforcing the old, negative sterotypes of British politics? You know what I'm talking about; the Tories hate the NHS, the poor and anybody else who isn't a billionaire. The same for the Labour party; love benefit culture and do as the unions tell them too. Lib Dems; erm? Irrelevant? I kid.

The easiest target for this reversal of political thinking is obviously the incumbent government. Which just so happens to be the Tories. So what do people do? They criticise them for being like "evil Mrs Thatcher" (by the way, people hate her, yet they still call her Mrs Thatcher - that's respect for you!!!). Cameron's Tories are miles apart from Thatcherism (to the disdain of many Tories right-wingers), but yet still the critics wade in.

Viral posters hammer home the negative sterotypes

Making their misguided criticisms even more absurd is the fact that we are in a Coalition government, with the Lib Dems, who are far from Thatcherite. 

One issue with social media is that it is even more short-termist than the papers. The papers have scandals and stories that go on for days, on Twitter, trends change in hours and people's knowledge is diluted to snippets they read with #hash-tags in front of them.

Constantly bloggers/tweeters criticise the Tories for cutting everything. But lets not forget, 13 years ago, Labour did not inherit a massive deficit from the Tories. It is the Tories who are mopping up the mess left behind. 

Names such as UK Uncut and 38 degrees keep popping up, but as Robin alluded to in a previous post, they must choose their battles wisely. They can not try to save everything, because it is not the Tories fault that everything can't be saved. Cuts are needed. But the Tories aren't cutting everywhere, they have prioritised and people must remember this. Yes things will be tough, but shouting loudly isn't going to get you anywhere, because Labour wouldn't be doing anything differently. 

And if you disagree with that, then simply - you are wrong. Why do you think Ed Miliband hasn't come up with an alternative to New Labour yet? Why do you think Andy Burnham hasn't come up with a different idea to the English Bacc and Academies. Ed Balls is still shouting on about "the deficit he never created". The only person making any noises aren't on the front benches, namely Peter Mandelson and David Miliband. (Read George's post below)

The problem with social networking sites, is that they are littered with Liberals, far too liberal as well. Without making sweeping generalisations, some are anarchists, they like to criticise everything, because that is the easy thing to do. It's like the 10 o'Clock Live Show 24/7 for these people. They have given rise to partisan blogs, including (the very good) Left Foot Forward, (the not so good) Political Scrapbook and gives a voice to many columnists who are so biased their heads must be up their arses not to notice - yes that's you Toynbee! 

It's not just the left that does the bashing, the right are at it as well. Guido Fawkes for example. Letting Boris Johnson write in The Telegraph is like asking a 6 year old how we should fix the deficit - with ice cream please.

Rant over - for now.

The Cuts Campaigners Need to Improve their Game

If the anti-cuts campaigners want to be successful they need to do three things.

1. Pick their battles
2. Stick to the facts
3. Talk persuasively, not just loudly

Picking Battles

Anti-cuts campaigners need to realise there are going to be cuts, and they are going to be big. That does not mean that they should give up, there are cuts which can be uncut, policy reversals which can be forced. The policy turnarounds on school sport and forests shows battles can be won, but only the right ones. From now on anti-cuts campaigners need to pick areas where a wide base of support can be built, where the issue speaks to as many people as possible. Those are the battles where the coalition see that the loss of face that comes with a U-turn is better than continued negative headlines and loss of support.

One quick nod to scepticism here: it should be noted that Gove managed to cut £50,000,000 from school sports funding and leave anti-cuts campaigners feeling like they'd won a resounding victory. Hmm

Sticking to the Facts

There are enough things wrong with the way this government is cutting that the anti-cuts campaign shouldn't need to make things up. This week a report by website False Economy claimed that the NHS is to loose 50,000 jobs over the next four years. That's pretty eye-catching and certainly shocking. It's also a gross abuse of statistics; for example the report counts doctors moving hospitals as job cuts. The way the government proposes to reform the workings of the NHS may not be all rosy but its funding commitment is solid, funding for the NHS will increase in real terms.

Campaigners need to focus on what Lansley and Gove will do to the NHS and to education. Lying just gives the pro-cut lobby ammunition whilst distracting from the real arguments.


Talking persuasively, not just loudly

Last week, 10 weeks after the university tuition fees rise passed through parliament, I was canvassed by a group of anti-tuition fees campaigners: complete with music, shouting and leaflet thrusting. The leaflets reiterated the same arguments about the changes to the tuition fees system, I'm not going to discuss those arguments again, the problem here is that the debate around tuition fees, and cuts in general, has to move on.

In the coming weeks university leadership will be meeting to decide what fees their universities will charge students from September 2012. This is where anti-fees campaigners should now be focusing their efforts. But I don't think this is a battle where mass protest will be effective; instead student leaders need to be sitting down with both the politicians who will have to approve fees changes, and with the university managements themselves. Campaigners need to ensure that future students get the best deal out the system, like it or not, will be in place from September 2012. This will only be achieved through giving the management and politicians reasons to help, it won't be achieved by shouting at them.



The case against cuts can be made. But, it must be done so in a way which targets those cuts which are unfair, unjust, or foolish. Nor can the campaign be distracted by publishing misleading stories which allow the proponents of cuts to attack when they should be justifying the policies. Finally if campaigners are going to shout to get attention, they should make the most of our attention once they have it by making clear, persuasive arguments for their positions.

Lockerbie Bomber & The Day Justice Died.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines justice as "fairness in the way people are dealt with". 


Yet today we found out that Labour had traded any type of justice for the families of the 270 victims that were killed in the Lockerbie Bombing for commercial reasons (specifically oil)


Headlines today make highly disturbing reading:

The Guardian: Labour government did 'all it could to secure release of Lockerbie bomber'.
The Telegraph: Cameron attacks Labour after report finds government aided bomber release.
The Independent: Labour 'did all it could' for Libya.
BBC: Ministers 'wanted Lockerbie bomber released'

I could go on and on. It is irrefutable that Labour (and more specifically it seems, David Milliband) played a massive role in the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. Megrahi was sentenced to life imprisonment after being the only person charged with the terrorist attack. He appealed the verdict on separate occasions, only to have his appeal quashed. 


Yet in August 2009 he was released on compassionate grounds as his doctors informed the authorities that he had three months to live, as he was dying from terminal prostate cancer. At the time, the majority of Scottish people disagreed with the release of Megrahi, whilst in the UK the 45% of people believed the release was more to do with oil than compassion.


The decision was ultimately made by the Scottish Justice Minister, but Jack Straw the then UK Justice Minister had said that Megrahi shouldn't have been allowed to be up for release, but quickly changed his tune when he realised it "wasn't in the UK's best interests".


The shocking notion that this was more to do with oil than compassion isn't just fantasy, Liberian leader Colonel Gadaffi's own son admitted that there was an "obvious" link between trade and the release. 

David Cameron said at the time:

"But if this is about genuine release on compassionate grounds, I think it is wrong.

"This man was convicted of murdering 270 people. He showed no compassion to them. They weren't allowed to go home and die with their relatives in their own bed. And I think this is a very bad decision."

The report released today (commissioned by David Cameron) "showed UK ministers changed their position on Megrahi due to commercial considerations, including lobbying by BP, in Libya." - strangely enough, the lobbying by BP was always denied by all parties (what a surprise, BP doing something bad!) Ministers still argue that they were not affected by any external pressures. Yet the report goes on to say:

"..every area of government were attempting to facilitate the release of Mr al-Megrahi's release to go back home to Libya."

Cameron concluded on the report by saying:

"For my part, I repeat - I believe it was profoundly wrong.

"The fact that 18 months later the Lockerbie bomber is today living, at liberty, in Tripoli, only serves to underline that."

WikiLeaks noted that he could even have up to five years to live.

Vile celebrations were held when Megrahi returned home.

For those of you who wondered, injustice is defined as "a situation where there is no fairness or justice" - harrowing in its appropriateness.

Crazy talk.

More people die from suicide than road accidents and murder combined.

Hello everyone.

The government has just announced a £400 million pound drive to improve the mental health services in this country. They've also set the rather ambitious target of miraculously "curing" one million sufferers in the next 4 years. Mental health problems currently cost the economy £77 billion a year, with sufferers of such illnesses as depression, PND and anorexia dying 10 years earlier than the rest of the population.

The NHS is, I believe, the best thing about this country, the fact we have free health care, where abroad it could cost hundreds or thousands of pounds for when the worst comes to the worst, is incredible. But the state the mental health services have got itself into is appalling. GP's do not know whether to throw pills at patients or whether to send them off to a mental health practitioner. The current rule at the moment for people wanting to receive mental health help is that they have to first see the GP for them to

give the go-ahead for treatment. There is no way around it. Treatment for sufferers is being given out by people whose area of expertise is elsewhere. It's like asking a plasterer to fix a boiler. Thankfully, this rule is being scrapped, giving patients the right to contact specialists themselves, or effectively 'forcing' GP's to refer them to people who can help, with or without tablets.

The news that such a large amount has been given towards helping erase the stigma of mental illness in these tough times is fantastic news of course. But the pessimist in me, and by god, is he a a pessimistic pessimist, cannot help but feel that it's been heard before.

4 years ago I started Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for OCD, after waiting a year and a half on the waiting list. As a sixteen year old, not knowing what the hell this meant, I researched CBT, and found that the Labour government at the time was pushing a new drive, employing 10,000 Cognitive Behavioural Therapists to try and solve Britains depression epidemic. My next paragraphs words have been carefully chosen in line with what Labour had promised.

The main reason why Labour liked the idea of CBT was that it was quick (taking round about 12 sessions to be cured), cheap (£173 million promising to permanently cure half of people with depression) and simple.

Let's just focus on the claims, they promise that CBT will permanently cure half of people with depression. There is not a single scientific study that supported this claim. It's true, CBT does help whilst you're on it, the main thought behind CBT is that negative thoughts and feelings will ultimately lead to anxiety, panic attacks and further depression, hilariously obvious, I know. The therapists are merely people who maim you into feeling good, throwing compliments towards you, never saying you're feeling or looking bad. Naturally whilst you're on CBT you feel fantastic, your confidence is up. As soon as you feel confident to go out into the mean wild world on you're own without CBT, quickly and surely, you fall back into your old patterns. This was my experience of CBT. But unlike Labour, I can back it up with scientific evidence. A widespread Scottish study in 2005 found that only 18% of patients who had received therapy for anxiety disorders still had no symptoms two years after treatment.

That's a long way off the 'half permanently cured' promise we were given, they've got to increase that figure by 32%.

5 years on, and they haven't been listening. They're employing hundreds more Cognitive Behavioural Therapists, for a therapy that doesn't work. It's as bad as having no treatment and giving the depressed nothing but Prozac. With the proposed return to GP fundholding as promised in this latest £400 million package, I cannot see GP's shelling out on expensive therapy sessions and specialised therapists when a prescription is so cheap and easy. The first thing this money should go on is cutting down the waiting list where people in need of mental help have been waiting for years.

If someone developed cancer, would they have to wait years to seek specialised help? Of course not. Then why should someone with a serious psychological problem have to? The package being given is a double edged sword. We're thankful for being given it, but extremely worried it's going to be spent in all the wrong areas.

Thanks for reading.

Have a lovely day.

JC

We will be paying for Labour's mistakes for decades to come.

It's been a while since I had a go at Labour, mainly because they are swanning along in the political world doing sod all. Perfectly reasonable for them to do so mind, watch the cuts hurt the public and instantly win the vote of the disgruntled - no brainer.

Since Thursday I've been intrigued by Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) - not the coolest thing to be interested I know! The notion of PFIs was raised on the 10 O'Clock Live show (which if you haven't watched is amazing). PFIs are essentially loans from private companies, but with interest rates that are more similar to Wonga.com rather than your high street bank.

PFIs put cash upfront to fund certain elements of government spending, including building new schools and hospitals. They then essentially rent the buildings back to the government - but at a massive cost to the taxpayer. The craze started under the Conservatives in 1992, but really took off under Blair and Brown, let's not forget Brown was Chancellor under Blair and made these types of decisions. To highlight the cost of PFI funding, here is a run down of how much each project cost originally and how much we'll pay back. For a quick summary, there are 920 PFIs, costing around £64bn but we will pay back £267bn!!!

One such PFI is Innisfree (the irony that the company name includes "is free" will not be lost on you) ran by a Mr David Metter. Heard of either of them? Nope. Neither has 99% of the general public. But taxpayers are paying his company, massive amounts of money, to the total of approximately £60m. One project he has funded cost £118m, but the taxpayer is set to pay back £1.2bn, 10 times the original value.

Future generations will have to break the bank to pay PFIs back

The whole idea of PFI stinks of New Labour, "spend, spend, spend" should have been their election slogan. Their continuous desire to keep spending when the coffers were empty was abhorrent and dangerous. So now they sit comfortably in Opposition whilst the Coalition gets blamed for trying to sort out their wretched mess. If the government didn't have enough money in the Budget for these new buildings, then they simply shouldn't have built them - that is the point of having a budget, isn't it? Liam Byrne's note back in May summed it up: "I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left" - sadly because of Labour's profligacy.