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SATS - New Labour's education failure in microcosm

Ellie Keen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:16:03 +0000

If you are looking for the reason why New Labour has spent more on education yet failed to improve it, look no further that the present entirely predictable crisis over SATS – Standard Assessment Tests. All the three notions that are wrong, and foolish, and muddled about government education policy are there:

First, the notion that if you hand anything at all over to the private sector, it will magically improve. Second, that if you want to make teachers and schools perform better, you set them arbitrary targets, and kick them if the targets aren’t met. And third, that everything in education can be measured in crude tick-box forms, which can be completed by anyone who can read, because no sophisticated judgements are required.

How else could we have got to a situation where schools have to revolve round the demands of simplistic little tests on their pupils; where those tests can be marked by people who have no qualifications or experience in education; and these people can be employed at a pittance by an American company to do work which could be done far better and with much greater understanding by experienced and qualified people whom the British taxpayer already employs?

And that is not the worst of it. Our government not only insists on finding someone – anyone – from the private sector to do work which the public sector could do better and cheaper; it then gives them a contract which means they can foul up as badly as they like, and still not be fired without a golden goodbye of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

SATs are the tests taken at ages five, 11 and 14, to chart the progress of both schools and their pupils. They have always been unpopular with teachers, pupils and parents, but popular with politicians, for whom they provide a source of meaningless statistics which can be deployed to prove more or less anything. The administration of these tests has been outsourced to an enormous multinational company called ETS, or Educational Testing Services. ETS have been given a five year contract which is apparently binding no matter how badly they foul up. Nice work if you can get it.

As schools break up for summer, almost one in five primary schools still does not have a full set of marks, and many of the results for 14-year-olds are likely to be delayed, perhaps until September. The results we have are clearly flawed, and teams of ETS employees are searching for thousands of test papers which have apparently been lost. We know of incomplete marking, of pupils wrongly marked as absent, of pupils’ work being left to moulder in the schools, and much more. Any school putting in this sort of performance would be in special measures, and rightly so.

We hear calls for the resignation of the education secretary, Ed Balls, but that will change nothing. What we need is what I fear we’re not going to get – a change of policy.

An Example to Others

Ellie Keen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Parading with our trade union banners at Tolpuddle and enjoying the music, speeches and stalls on offer is fun for all the family. But Tolpuddle is not a monument to an ancient historical period. It is of sharp relevance to the present.

The judge told the six comrades that they were being transported to a New South Wales penal colony “not for anything they had done but as an example to others.”

He understood that the law is not neutral in industrial relations and that, as long as capitalism exists, its political representatives will seek to skew the legal balance in favour of those who own the means of production and against those who sell their labour power.

In the early 1970s, conspiracy laws were used, after a successful national pay strike, to fit up building workers at Shrewsbury, with six of them being sent to jail.

The late Des Warren, who served his three-year stretch in full, told the court that the only conspiracy had been between the government and the building employers.

Their victimisation too had been intended as an example to others.

He pointed out that the employers, “by their contempt of the laws governing safety regulations, are guilty of causing the deaths and maiming of workers, yet they are not dealt with by the courts.”

That struggle continues with a campaign for a public inquiry into the political conspiracy against the pickets.

Gordon Brown and his new Labour acolytes are fond of reiterating that there can be no return to the 1970s, as though this was some kind of nightmare era.

At that time, trade union membership stood at 13 million and 82 per cent of workers were covered by collective agreements. Today, membership is 6.8 million and collective agreements cover only a third of the workforce.

The Tory governments that held sway from 1979 until 1997 brought in no fewer than nine measures of anti-union legislation, weakening the ability of workers to defend their pay and conditions.

Labour has failed, during the past 11 years, to repeal this body of discriminatory laws. It has championed less regulation for business but not for trade unions.

And the party set up by the trade unions over a century ago continues to take the side of the employers in industrial disputes.

Gate Gourmet workers ought to have been working for British Airways, but privatised BA contracted out cleaning and catering, so that, when other BA workers walked out in solidarity with Gate Gourmet staff, they and their union were threatened with legal action.

Trade unions are due to raise the question of union rights at Labour’s forthcoming national policy forum at Warwick. Legalisation of solidarity action should be their core demand.

How can the unions continue to throw money at a party that forces their members to fight with their hands tied against employers for their basic rights?

How many more trade unionists must be victimised as an example to others?

Union Militancy and New Labour

JamieSW — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:28:27 +0000

This week’s big two-day public sector strikes (detailed coverage with pics and on-scene reports here) is to be followed up by further local actions by PCS workers. There are picket lines by the Coastguard and Home Office employees across the country today. A nationwide three-day strike is now planned for Autumn. Passport workers in Northern Ireland have just voted for strike action as well. Employers are predictably talking down the success of the strike, saying only 100,000 turned out, but they protest too much. As Socialist Worker points out, the BBC regional correspondent reported 70,000 on strike in Yorkshire and Humberside alone.

Much as one may wish that strike actions were not so brief and the period between them so long, there is evidently something bigger percolating away here. The rate at which public sector workers are opting to fight the government is not just a manifestation of reviving industrial militancy in the most unionised sectors of the economy. It is poison for the government’s electoral chances, who are now positioning themselves as the class enemy of some of their key constituents. Yet New Labour is so wedded to this policy that it is trying to defend a heartland Glasgow seat with a mountainous but threatened majority with a candidate who will not say a single word of criticism about the policy, preferring to rely on contrived prolier-than-thou credentials. Clearly, the SNP would have to fight a serious battle to take the seat, but the difficulty for New Labour is that its voters won’t turn out to match their standing in the polls. The union leadership is evidently still hoping to force a change of policy with this rank-and-file pressure as an added bargaining lever. They know the governing party is short of cash and will be tapping them for it, just as surely as they know they will provide it unless the members force a decisive break with Labour. Despite the calamitous state of would-be alternatives for the time being, the scale of the government’s attack on workers is likely to intensify moves in that direction. Absent a viable national alternative, funding may well tend to be distributed in a more fragmented fashion with some even going to the Liberals (yech, can you imagine?).

The opposition, despite its venomous hostility to trade unions, is keeping relatively quiet about this. In fact, it is bigging itself up as the party of the poor. Not only that, but when David Cameron made his lousy statement about absentee black fathers, he got the backing of a selection of ‘community leaders’ (how I hate that phrase and everything it implies), who said that the Tories were more progressive on social investment than Labour. This probably doesn’t forebode an upsurge of working class conservatism as in 1979. After all, the Tories are concealing their agenda, not aggressively propounding it as the way forward. But with every passing day and every new action by the government, which has never seen a bungled attempt at right-wing ‘populism’ that it didn’t like, it becomes more and more obvious that Labour voters are going to stay at home in droves, repelled by the government and unafraid of the Tories. New Labour is about to discover the true meaning of the phrase ‘things can only get better’.

The crisis fuels discontent

JamieSW — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:12:53 +0000

Where did it all go wrong for Gordon Brown? Was it his failure to call a general election last October? Was it the attempt to impose a pay freeze? Was it the vote in parliament to extend detention without trial to 42 days? Just one year into Brown’s premiership a recent Gallup poll showed Labour’s popularity at its lowest ebb of support since Gallup first asked people to declare their voting intention in 1943. The government is in a crisis that appears out of control and the central issue that is derailing Brown is the economic crisis.

This crisis is not confined to the boardrooms of big companies and the financial markets. This is a crisis that affects every single household in Britain. Rocketing price increases have become the topic of conversation on every bus, in every workplace and college. When basic foods go up by 12 or 14 percent everyone but the very rich feels it. One Daily Mirror front page stated: “Cost of living up 11.6 percent… Mirror index shock increase: food up 15 percent; transport up 16 percent; utilities up 13 percent.”

The housing market, which once fuelled the boom, is now helping to precipitate the crisis. Repossessions have doubled in the last year, house prices are falling but at the same time people’s mortgage payments are actually rising as fixed payment deals expire and interest rates rise. The Guardian financial pages reported that there has been a 60 percent fall in people buying new build houses in the last year.

Rising fuel, food and transport prices are causing misery for millions. But how has the government got into this mess? Only a few years ago Brown was boasting that his economic policies had got rid of the boom and slump cycle.

This is not an economic crisis confined to Britain: it is a world economic crisis creating instability across the globe. Capitalist crisis links the teaching assistant in Bradford who can’t pay her gas bill with the woman who joins food riots in Senegal. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation states that the world’s poorest countries could see their annual food import basket cost four times as much as it did in 2000. According to the World Bank, food riots have already hit more than 30 countries in the past year.

There have been major strikes and protests across the world, including South Korea, Egypt, Spain and France. Last year right wing ideologue Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential election. He was being hailed as the new Margaret Thatcher, but one year later his plans to break the French unions and privatise industries lie in tatters as strikes and protests have shaken his government. The rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is further evidence of increasing resistance to the political establishment and its neoliberal priorities.

This crisis and the resistance to it are not only creating a crisis of political legitimacy for mainstream parties but also creating the conditions in which many people begin to question the very nature of capitalism.

It is important to understand that Britain is not immune to this process. The struggle may not be as bitter and deep as some countries, but nonetheless it is growing and creating massive problems for the government. Many media pundits are already warning of a “summer of discontent”. The detonator for this panic was the victory of tanker drivers employed indirectly by Shell. This small group of workers organised a militant strike that forced the bosses to concede a 14 percent pay rise over two years. The strike showed the willingness of private sector workers both to join the pay revolt and to give solidarity, even if it meant breaking the law.

This victory is also being used as a benchmark for other workers. In fact, the Financial Times expressed the growing concern of bosses that so many inflation busting deals are part of two and three year deals linked to the Retail Price Index, which a year or two ago employers clearly believed was a safe bet to stay low. But it reported that four out of five deals over 4 percent were not linked to the RPI and so have been won by unions. “Mr Darling and John Hutton, the business secretary, argued last week that the Shell settlement was a one-off. But other recent deals include Drax Power, which in April agreed a 7 percent pay rise for 600 workers [plus a £1,500 lump sum], forming the second year of a two year deal. Babcock Engineering recently agreed a 7.6 per cent increase with 500 workers. Barclays has implemented a 5 per cent pay increase for 55,000 workers at the bank, as the first leg of a three year RPI-linked deal”.

This wage fight is continuing to escalate. As Socialist Review went to press half a million local government workers in Unison voted to strike over their pay. The action planned for July has the potential to intensify the wage fight, and unlike previous strikes this involves a Labour affiliated union. This will take place alongside action by other unions.

The PCS civil service workers’ union passed a motion that is likely to lead to a national ballot over pay and other issues in September. The NUT teachers’ union conference backed a ballot for further strikes as a follow up to the stunningly successful multi-union strikes on 24 April, which drew new layers of militant workers into the movement.

Pay cuts

The CWU postal conference supported a strike ballot over pensions, mail centre closures and defence of the post office network – and the leadership responded positively to calls for a mass demonstration at the Labour Party conference.

The fury over pay cuts – and the fact that those cuts are driven centrally by Gordon Brown – combines with a wider disillusion with Labour to produce an unprecedented questioning of the unions’ links with the party. At almost every conference the issue of whether (or at least to what extent) to continue supporting Labour was raised openly.

The firefighters’ FBU union broke from Labour in 2004 after the government had behaved so aggressively against the union during its national strike. At last year’s conference some delegates called for renewed affiliation to Labour. This time there were only a handful of votes against the decision to remain separate from the party.

The GMB union voted overwhelmingly to remove funding from up to 35 Labour MPs who had not measured up to a union assessment of their “value for money”. GMB leader Paul Kenny dryly remarked, “We’ve examined the records of MPs both at local level and national level and many are doing a fantastic job, but there are a number who seem at times to be embarrassed by their relationship with the union. We don’t want to embarrass them by giving them union money.”

Kenny also told the conference, “We are going to consider our affiliation levels to ensure they represent the realistic level of support within the union for the party.”

At the CWU, motions to disaffiliate from Labour or to democratise the political fund were defeated heavily. But this was largely because the leadership had supported an emergency motion which said that unless the government had sharply changed its policies towards privatisation and the running of Royal Mail by March 2009 “then the CWU membership will be balloted on whether they believe the union should fund the Labour Party at the next general election”.

Speaker after speaker (including several Labour members) spoke to underline that this was the party’s “last chance”. Setting this deadline defeated those who wanted an immediate change in the relationship with Labour. But it is now a ticking time bomb that could explode and cause serious damage to the party.

Even at Unison, where the leadership worked hard to prevent a discussion about Labour, the issue was forced on to the agenda. Towards the end of the conference the delegates have a chance to vote for motions they think should be shunted up the order paper. This year every region of the union decided that the priority was a motion on having a review of the union’s political fund and support for Labour. In the event it was defeated, but only very narrowly.

Earlier, Unison general secretary Dave Prentis had to declare that the pay deal in the NHS (which the union leadership had pushed) would have to be renegotiated if inflation continues to rise. He warned Brown, “It’s time for the government to raise our people up, or our people will bring Gordon down.”

The background to the conferences is a collapse in support for Labour among its core supporters and a widening sense of opposition to the system – challenging neoliberalism is now common currency among trade unionists. For example, the NUT and UCU conferences both agreed to campaign against military recruitment in schools and colleges, and the question of how best to build opposition to the fascist BNP was discussed at every conference.

The bitterness about Labour was underlined by an opinion poll commissioned by Unison just before its conference which showed Labour’s traditional supporters deserting the party in their droves. Almost half of those who have regularly voted Labour at past elections now say they are less likely to vote Labour than they were in 2005. In addition, 51 percent of the general public say they are less likely to vote Labour than they were at the last general election compared to 4 percent who say they are more likely.

Who could have believed that the man who replaced Tony Blair would have managed to drive Labour support down so far and so quickly, by his handling of the economic crisis? Bank of England governor Mervyn King made it clear that things are only going to get worse when he said, “Rising fuel, gas, electricity and food prices mean that average real take-home pay will stagnate this year. It will not be an easy time, and I know that some families will find it particularly difficult.” A new study by accountants Grant Thornton reported that official figures show that income inequality under Labour so far is already higher on average than it was under Thatcher.

One thing is certain. As with any economic crisis in history the government and bosses want workers to pay the price. This has sometimes been successful in the past. Attacks on conditions and financial hardship in times of crisis can have the effect of subduing class struggle. But such attacks can also lead to people questioning the system and fighting back. Such periods of instability polarise society, as we are seeing now. But polarisation does not necessarily mean that people move to the left. The election results for the BNP and the rise in anti-immigration sentiments are proof of this, and a warning. Polarisation is exactly what the word means – a move away from the centre of politics.

The government is on the rocks. Millions of workers want to see a serious battle to defend living standards, to take action for affordable housing, to halt the spread of privatisation and to defend secure jobs. What socialists do and how they react to events will make a difference. The left has already played a major role in shaping the pay revolt as it has developed. The anger felt by ordinary members in unions like the PCS, NUT and UCU found expression in the lead given from the unions’ leading bodies.

This in turn has increased the pressure on Labour affiliated unions like Unison to move. The left has won an argument over the idea of joint action and turned it into a reality. Socialists have to continue to place themselves at the centre of the moves for action and unity across the unions. That means pushing for joint action where we can and supporting initiatives like Public Services Not Private Profit, Organising for Fighting Unions and the National Shop Stewards Network that attempt to build unity between trade unionists nationally and in the localities.

The left also needs to be able to raise a political as well as an industrial response to the crisis. We need to popularise a set of demands that activists from different political backgrounds, or none, can rally round. And we have to continue to raise the urgent need for political alternatives to New Labour, no matter how difficult they are to construct. This year’s union conferences with the increasing attacks by New Labour make this project more important than ever.

Nothing is more important

JamieSW — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:03:38 +0000

There is a tangible shift occurring in British politics. Gone are the days of traditional class politics, when the working class voted en masse for Labour and the more privileged for the Conservatives. A new force is emerging, which will, if left unchecked, prove disastrous for both Labour and the left in general.

Magnus Marsdal’s article talks about the changing politics of Norway and finds comparisons with the rest of western Europe. It is a phenomenon that is also taking place in Britain, albeit a few years later than in some other countries.

The British National Party (BNP) was formed in 1982 out of an earlier split within the National Front and for many years it languished on the fringes of politics. In 1999 Nick Griffin became its leader and his more political and media savvy approach enabled the party to exploit rising racial tensions in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001. Since then, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, a growing eastern-European migrant workforce and New Labour’s fixation with Middle England, the party has risen steadily. It now has 55 councillors and last month secured a seat on the London Assembly.

And all this in a period of supposed economic success.

The BNP has long been dismissed as a cranky fascist party, made up of thugs, criminals and Nazis. While it is true that the leadership has its ideological roots in fascism, it is time we had a better explanation for the party’s rise and appeal.

Society in Britain, like much of the industrialised world, has become dislocated over the past few decades. Globalisation and the increasing dominance of international finance and corporations have shifted power far away from local communities. This, coupled with the loss of empire, Britain’s changing place in the world and even the possible break-up of the United Kingdom have all challenged the identity of many, particularly those towards the bottom of the economic ladder, who naturally are more concerned about change.

Politically, there has also been the growing divorce between the political parties and their electorates. The preoccupation with a small number of voters in a few key marginals has resulted in New Labour echoing the whims and prejudices of a mythical Middle England. Class has been removed as an economic and political category in Westminster discourse. Labour’s traditional voters feel ignored, taken for granted and even abandoned. At the same time, the Tories have for decades ceased to offer a real opposition in many traditional Labour areas, leaving a dangerous vacuum.

In 1968 US sociologist Don Warren described the emergence of the ‘middle American radical’ to explain the rise of right-wing presidential candidate George Wallace. He saw a radicalised group of voters, drawn largely from the skilled working class, who opposed the political and economic elites while simultaneously despising those who they regarded as undeserving poor. A white identity emerged that had no political articulation.

A similar phenomenon is occurring in today’s Britain. The Labour Party too often fails to articulate the concerns of large swathes of its traditional working class supporters. Over the past 20 years turnout has slumped in Labour heartlands. Suddenly, as the BNP has emerged as a political force, many are now turning out to vote for them. Towns like Stoke-on-Trent reflect this change. Only a few years ago Labour held every seat on the council. Today, it holds just 16 out of 60, with the BNP close behind with nine. The local ethnic minority population is comparatively small, suggesting that voters are flocking to the BNP for some far more fundamental reasons.

Nor is there much comfort for parties to the left of Labour. It is easy to blame New Labour for the rise of the BNP but few have questioned why the far-left parties fail to attract significant support from white working-class voters. If anything, the far-left vote has actually shrunk since 1997 and the occasional successes of Respect or the Greens have been based on specific ethnic minority communities or middle-class liberals.

Race is a prism through which many voters view their world but it is not the underlying issue. That is why immigration minister Liam Byrne’s attempts to quicken the introduction of the Australian points system will ultimately fail to deal with the political problem. He might hope to appease voters’ concerns over immigration but unfortunately he, like many others, is misunderstanding the rise of the BNP.

Britain might have been slower to see the emergence of a major far-right party than elsewhere but this could change very quickly. Next year’s European elections, contested under proportional representation, will give the BNP its greatest chance to break into the mainstream.

The rise of the BNP is not a passing phenomena. We must now debate new strategies for organisation and policy, counter- organise on the ground and deal with the material issues that lie behind its popular support. Nothing is more important for this movement.

Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham. Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine

Louise Casey is tired of human rights

Ellie Keen — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:55:00 +0000

In the government-commissioned “Engaging Communities in Fighting Crime” report Casey argues, among other things, that people doing community service should have the added shame of wearing high visibility jackets stating that they are being punished. She also argues that websites, leaflets, posters and public meetings should be used to name and shame those guilty of crimes such as vandalism and tell people what their punishment will be. She also suggests giving community support officers the power to detain and fine people – a bit like budget versions of Judge Dredd.

“We’re all a little tired of hearing about the human rights and civil liberties of people who break the law,” said Casey.

While there is little evidence to suggest that public humiliation would stop crime, that doesn’t seem to be the reason for the new measures.

“More offenders than ever are brought to justice and punished more severely – partly reflected in a doubling of those now locked up in prison and 93 percent of offenders being made to pay their fines,” Casey acknowledges. But the public still “don’t believe wrong-doers face adequate consequences for the crimes they commit. They don’t believe that crime has fallen when they are told so.” So crime is going down and sentencing is going up – but since people don’t understand that, it’s time to make life even more intolerable for graffiti artists and litter bugs.

Plastering a town centre with someone’s mug shot would seem to serve as an attempt to show that the government is being tough on crime. No more of this politically correct nonsense about being “tough on the causes of crime” – this is the modern equivalent of being tarred and feathered.

Casey is a long-term friend of New Labour. She can boast being one of the brains behind the anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos), and Tony Blair’s “homelessness tsar”. In 1999 she accused charities of “perpetuating homelessness” by giving out sleeping bags and soup (how are we expected to rid the streets of the homeless if people don’t just let them freeze to death?).

Home secretary Jacqui Smith is said to be enthusiastic about the report, always salivating at the opportunity to make Britain a pioneer in ineffective draconian punishment. But these tactics have not always gone down too well. In Shenzhen, China, 100 people convicted of offences related to prostitution were paraded through the streets in yellow tunics in 2006. This caused such a wave of public revulsion that the government didn’t dare use the punishment again. So the question is: can crime fighting duo Smith and Casey succeed in offender humiliation where the Chinese government has failed?

Foreign Bodies

Ellie Keen — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:13:27 +0000

As Schnews Investigates Dictated Racism in the NHS

As the NHS sinks into a privatised pay-as-you-go American style health system, SchNEWS has decided to take an overdue look at the state of NHS Plcs’ treatment of foreigners who have the misfortune to get sick over here. They’re having their right to health taken away from underneath them by a swathe of new laws being passed.

Despite free healthcare for all being enshrined in the NHS charter, overseas visitors’ access to treatment has been systematically attacked since 1989, when the Tories brought in the first charges for foreigners. Neo-labour has (as always) smoothly stepped in where they left off, further tightening the noose. The latest piece of legislation was passed in 2007.

Thanks to the efforts of successive tightfisted and racist regimes, overseas visitors (anyone who’s been resident in the UK for less than a year) will only be treated when it’s absolutely necessary. For any treatment deemed not immediately necessary they must cough up or go home (not exactly an enticing offer for someone whose fled from persecution and poverty back home).

Whether it’s an attempt to save money or (more likely) pandering to tabloid induced fear of ‘health tourists’ comin’ over ‘ere and swamping ‘our’ NHS (not that foreigners would ever come over here to work in the NHS), the logic of the system simply doesn’t add up. If it’s ‘not immediately necessary’ to provide a patient with drugs to hold a heart condition at bay, before not too long it’ll be necessary to pay for open heart surgery to save his or her life, at a massively higher cost (about £10,000 for open heart surgery versus a few hundred quid for a GP visit and some drugs). It’s nice to know though that if a ‘chargeable’ foetus is delivered in a UK hospital, it is not charged, just its mother.

The latest Neo-Labour wheeze to squeeze the poor and the brown out of their fundamental rights is the new post of NHS Private and Overseas Patients Co-ordinator’. These staff are the attack dogs of this latest approach to maltreatment. They function as NHS debt collectors, who’s job it is to go bed to bed hunting down foreigners and making them pay or turfing them out of the country. These jobs are being advertised around the country- government diktat is that every NHS trust must have one.

Things are a little better in GP’s surgeries, where doctors can operate with a greater degree of freedom than within the over-bureaucratised NHS. Luckily as GPs are self employed it’s at their discretion to accept any person, including overseas visitors, to be fully registered as an NHS patient or as a temporary resident. Because nurses at a GP’s Practice are employed by them and not the NHS Trust, they’re exempt from the laws as well. Unfortunately not many of them seem to know this. However, GPs should know that any random generosity on their part will extend no further than their surgery. For example if the GP wanted to send them for an x-ray, the patient would have to pay up.

In a bizarre twist of government logic, the 65 page document detailing who is and isn’t eligible for free treatment is big on avoiding discrimination. The most important principle (according to the document) is all patients should treated as foreign until proven innocent, not just people who appear foreign (ie funny accents and dark skin). Theoretically, everyone who goes to hospital should be asked “Have you lived in the UK for the past 12 months?” and “Can you show you have the right to live here?” Anyone who has enough foresight to bring their proof they have lived legally in UK for 12 months before treatment should be OK. Of not expect a visit from the NHS debt chaser.

These new laws are compounding the lack of access to health of the poor, immigrant communities that are a micro third-world in large British cities, replete with developing country-style diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis. In Tower Hamlets (poor and multi-ethnic London borough) the rate of TB infection is eight times the national average.

Bucking the trend, the French-based NGO ‘Médecins du Monde’ set up a clinic, ‘Project London’ in Bethnal Green two years ago. MdM broke away from the more famous Medicine Sans Frontiers, and, like its larger parent organisation, is more used to working in slums and refugee camps than a scant few miles from one of the world’s financial centres.

Staffed entirely by volunteers, Project London aims to help the immigrant poor access medical services- assisting them to overcome language and cultural barriers. More than three quarters just needed help to register with a GP, and in 85% of cases they were able to get them registered. This suggests that if staff on the front desk aren’t deliberately excluding people are too scared to seek help or no-one can actually work out who is and who isn’t entitled to care.

The Médecins du Monde style is the basic ethos of health workers- good old fashioned humanistic philosophy. Inside hospitals doctors and nurses are having to lie, cheat and break rules in order to protect the rights of patients, having to work against what amounts to an NHS anti-immigrant secret police.

As the UN Special Rappotuer Paul Hunt puts it: “The right to health applies to everyone, regardless of Immigration status…Governments are required to ‘refrain from denying or limiting equal access’ to health services for all persons including ‘illegal immigrants’.”

The ‘Project:London’ clinic is found at:
Praxis, Pott Street, London E2 0EF.
Tube: Bethnal Green, Bus: D3, 8, 106, 254, 388
Tel: 0208 1236614/07974 616852

Open every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 1pm – 5pm No appointment necessary. (No admission after 4.30pm)
www.medecinsdumonde.org.uk

Contempt for unions

JamieSW — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:58:32 +0000

IT is no secret that Business Secretary John Hutton was a Tory when he was at university. The only question is whether he has ever changed his politics.

Everyone knows that government ministers don’t commission a report unless they can be reasonably sure what conclusions it is likely to draw.

Putting DeAnne Julius, a former Bank of England monetary policy committee member, an ex-director of vulture capitalist conglomerate Serco and current director of BP and Roche, in charge of the commission makes it a pretty safe bet that the principle of publicly owned and operated services is not likely to be high up on the list of recommendations.

Not that this was a surprise. The fact that Mr Hutton announced this commission at last December’s CBI public services forum spoke volumes for the intent behind it.

It was intended to signal further opportunities for big business to dine out at the public expense and the subsequent invitations to, among others, Cap Gemini Consulting, Logica, Spire Healthcare, Babcock, KPMG and Serco conjured up images of troughs and slavering pigs.

The Julius commission’s priority is corporate profit, so it is axiomatic that she urges the government to open up even more public services to privatisation.

It is not enough that 6 per cent of the economy that was previously in the public sector is now part of the profits mainline for these dividend junkies.

As long as there is the capacity for privateers to milk the public purse, this parasitic sector will expand to take it up.

Mr Hutton borrows the overused and threadbare line of Tony Blair that “what matters to the public is not who provides but how well a service is provided,” as though government actions are dictated by pragmatism rather than dogma.

But, in fact, there is no practical assessment taking place. The government opts for private as a matter of course.

And Ms Julius does the same, referring to “clear benefits” to taxpayers in hiving off public services to the privateers.

If cutting costs and enabling private profits are the sole criteria, privatisation obviously makes sense, but it omits the key questions of value for money and quality of services.

So confident are the trade unions of the superiority of public over private that, at TUC congress and Labour Party conferences, they have successfully proposed in-depth examination of private finance initiatives and their comparison with government-financed schemes.

New Labour has refused to proceed with these evaluations because, as with Ms Julius’s commission, it knows the answer already.

Most bizarrely, in light of the tidal wave of fury expressed by trade unions, Mr Hutton claims that “the ideological battle over using private and third-sector providers is over.”

By this he means among the circles in which he moves and to which he listens and that doesn’t include trade unionists.

No-one should imagine that Mr Hutton is a maverick out of step with Gordon Brown. They are in step with each other and they couldn’t give a toss about the unions.

The point at issue is what the unions are prepared to do about a party that holds them and their members in contempt.

The true cost of privatised public services

JamieSW — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:25:27 +0000

Today’s report by the free market economist DeAnne Julius celebrates the multibillion pound profits private companies are now making from our privatised public services.

Proving what PCS has been saying for some time – that New Labour has privatised more than the last two Tory governments combined – the report joyfully proclaims that what is sinisterly referred to as the “public services industry” is now worth an eye-watering £79bn, a 130% growth since 1995.

These figures are the stuff of dreams to economists and business leaders; and, it would now appear, Labour cabinet ministers.

But it is worth reflecting on what it means. What it shows is the ideological drive to sell off the vital public services on which this country relies has now gathered such pace that we are in a position to parade contracts around the world as a shop window to attract yet more buyers.

Instead of commissioning an economist to investigate how much can be sold off, the government should ask itself, what is the essence of public service? Instead of privatising workers who have won awards for the services they provide, it should reverse its obsession with prioritising profits over people’s needs.

The report offers no reliable evidence for the assertion that public services are improved by privatisation and outsourcing. It is fitting that it is published in the same week as the Commons public administration select committee confirmed PCS’s long-held view that there is no compelling evidence to support the government’s claim that the third sector is “transforming” public services.

If she had wanted evidence, Dr Julius could have looked no further than the report, Water as a Public Service [.pdf], by David Hall and Emanuele Lobina of Greenwich University’s public services international research unit, which leaves no room for doubt about the need for public provision of this most vital resource.

She could also read Allyson Pollock’s devastating analysis of private involvement in healthcare, NHS plc, which exposes the damage done by PFI.

Dr Julius might have thought twice about citing welfare reform as an area of success of marketisation, if she had read the Department for Work and Pensions‘ [.pdf] own research, which shows that non-contracted out job centre teams outperform private-sector teams.

As Steve Davies, of Cardiff University, points out in Contracting Out Employment Services to the Third and Private Sectors: A Critique, the evidence of the success of outsourcing is just not there.

As I said on Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, the fact this review was commissioned, and has been endorsed, by business secretary John Hutton sums up all that is wrong with this Labour government; a government which is now more obsessed with putting profits in the pockets of millionaires, than caring about the lives of the millions of people who rely on public services.

We now face the horrifying prospect of a Labour secretary of state jetting off round the world to persuade developing countries that they should follow suit and privatise their services.

My union, through the Public Services Not Private Profit campaign, will continue to lead the fight against this trend at every possible turn. I believe we enjoy the support of the majority in our opposition to this programme of so-called “reform”, which is ideological in intent and devastating in impact.

It's no surprise that the BNP's rise and New Labour's demise are linked

JamieSW — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:19:57 +0000

On Wednesday evening around 7pm, the Reverend Roger Gayler, vicar of St Marks parish, went to answer a knock on the door. It was the night before the Chadwell Heath byelection for Barking and Dagenham council in Greater London, and Gayler had recently written an open letter to his flock.

“I rarely enter the party political arena and do so very reluctantly, but as a matter of Christian principle I feel this time I must,” he wrote. “The [British National party] would divide our community, spread fear through lies, and reduce services to those in our community who most need them (they proposed huge cuts in services for the elderly and young people in their budget). They preach the politics of hate.”

The man at the door was Robert Bailey, BNP leader on the council. He was clearly agitated. “He asked me whether I’d written it,” recalls Gayler. “I said ‘yes’.”

“This goes against the democratic process,” said Bailey.

“It’s all part of the democratic process,” replied Gayler.

“You’re just a fascist,” said Bailey, and then scrumpled the letter and threw it at the vicar.

“There was no shouting or screaming but it was obviously a visit from a very rattled person,” says Gayler.

The next evening, in Dagenham’s council chamber, a multiracial team of council workers tallied the votes. The BNP had 12 seats on the council and was hoping this would be their 13th. In the end, a seat vacated by Labour was won by the Tories by a comfortable margin. Nothing strange there. The BNP candidate came third with 25% of the vote in a ward the party had never contested before. Sadly, there seemed to be nothing strange there either.

Terry Justice, the Tory victor, said he looked forward to working with all his fellow councillors. When I asked Margaret Mullane, the Labour candidate, what she made of the size of the BNP vote, she said: “You’ll have to ask the BNP about that really.” Leaving Dagenham civic centre, with the clock nudging closer to midnight, I felt I was heading back to the 30s.

Bailey is not the only one who should be feeling rattled. True, under the circumstances, the fact that they didn’t win could be regarded as a victory. But those circumstances are dire.

The BNP’s advances have been spotty – still limited to particular towns and regions. But over the last decade those spots have become larger and more widespread. Back in 1993, its gain of a single council seat in London’s Tower Hamlets produced a brief, but intense, moment of national introspection. Today it has more than 50 councillors in around 20 councils plus a member of the London assembly. By increments it has become an accepted, if contested, fact of British municipal life.

For all the talk of Islamo-fascism – that desperately belligerent phrase that some hurl about in the hope that it may one day land on a coherent meaning – plain old-fashioned fascism is the force truly making gains. Elsewhere in Europe, where the far right runs councils and holds cabinet seats, things are far worse. In Italy, the state recently started fingerprinting Gypsies, along with a promise to take Gypsy children not attending school into custody. In Switzerland, the far right is in government. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard-right, nationalist and anti-immigrant parties regularly receive more than 10% of the vote. In Norway, it is more than twice that; in Switzerland, the figure it is almost three times as much.

If our Enlightenment values really are under threat, then the primary challenge seems to be domestic – and far more familiar and entrenched than some would have us believe. This is not a handful of young, nihilist men with backpacks – it is marginalised communities with ballot papers.

None of this denies or excuses the rise in jihadism. Indeed, it is only possible to make an effective stand against either by recognising the potency of both. The “tolerant, liberal” society that immigrants – particularly Muslims – are being told to join has long been eroding. While multiculturalism has been under assault, nostalgic visions of a mythological monoculture have been given a new lease of life.

Just as there is more to racism in Britain than the BNP, the BNP’s rise tells us more about Britain than just racism. It is a canary in the mine – an early warning system signalling the complacency of our political culture in which our political class has been complicit. Trapped in a hopeless spiral of negativity, people will vote against anything – immigration, the Tories, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Scottish nationalism, Gordon Brown or Europe, to name a few. But it seems a long time since large numbers of people voted for anything.

So the fact that the BNP has performed best in Labour strongholds should come as no surprise. Its rise and New Labour’s demise are linked. The government is failing even on its own modest terms. Child poverty and pensioner poverty are up. Economic inequality is now greater than under the Tories. Inflation is rising, house prices falling, and last week workers were again asked to tighten their belts. Never mind no return to boom and bust – many feel like they are about to crash and burn. People are desperate.

There is nothing inevitable about this shift from despondency to demagoguery. Black and Asian people are overrepresented among the poor and vulnerable, and they aren’t voting for the BNP. Nor are the overwhelming majority of white working-class people. Nonetheless, the trend has always been likely and logical. A party that has its historical roots and electoral base in the working class and then fails to advance the interests of that class will engender cynicism. New Labour’s electoral project is based in no small measure on the calculation that the poor have nowhere else to go. A small but determined minority have retreated into their laagers in search of solutions and solace.

However, New Labour’s decision to follow them there made no sense, either morally or strategically. Following the strong showing of the BNP in Burnley, Anthony Giddens, the architect of the third way, spoke of being “tough on immigration and tough on the causes of hostility to immigrants”. Tony Blair prioritised “crime and social behaviour” and “immigration and asylum”.

But these populist responses hold no sustainable answers to the particular and urgent material needs of the white working class. Incarcerating asylum seekers or bashing the niqab built no houses, created no jobs and educated no children. That does not, in itself, necessarily make them wrong – but as a response to the concerns of Labour’s base they were worse than useless. New Labour’s legislative shortcomings made a BNP revival possible; the government’s rhetorical excesses made it electorally palatable.

Given its huge majority, Labour could have made the case against racism and xenophobia. But rather than stand on principle, it has preferred to pander. Having ducked the major challenges, it has left it to the likes of Rev Roger Gayler to literally face the consequences of the failure head on.

Victory in the Courts: BAE Saudi inquiry ruled unlawful

tim — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:06:16 +0000

The decision followed a legal challenge brought jointly by CAAT and The Corner House, a respected organisation that has worked on anti-corruption issues for many years. In a strongly worded judgment on 10th April, the Court described how BAE and the Saudi regime had lobbied Tony Blair and his ministers to have the investigation dropped. The judges went so far as to describe the Saudi threat as a ‘successful attempt by a foreign government to pervert the course of justice in the United Kingdom’.

The history

The legal challenge began sixteen months previously, at the end of 2006. At that point, SFO investigators had spent two and a half years delving into allegations that BAE paid multi-million pound bribes to Saudi princes to secure the arms deals known as Al Yamamah. In autumn 2006, the media reported that the Saudi regime was threatening not to sign a deal with BAE for Eurofighter Typhoons if the investigation was not stopped. Apologists for the arms trade appeared in the media to make wildly exaggerated claims about the number of British jobs dependent on the sale.

The investigation was terminated on 14th December 2006. Within days CAAT and The Corner House had instructed solicitors at Leigh Day & Co and barristers from Blackstone Chambers to begin a claim for judicial review. This is the process by which a court considers whether a public body has behaved unlawfully.

A long process followed, with moments of both joy and exasperation. BAE spied on CAAT and got hold of an email containing advice from our lawyers. A comedy gig organised by Mark Thomas, with comedians including Russell Brand and Ed Byrne, raised thousands of pounds for the legal challenge. We applied successfully for a Protective Costs Order, placing a limit on how much CAAT would have to pay if we lost the case. Our claim for judicial review was initially rejected, but in November the High Court gave permission for it to proceed. Finally, in February, the hearing took place.

Documents released during the hearing exposed the lengths to which BAE was prepared to go to stop the investigation. They revealed that the company had lobbied the SFO to have it dropped as early as 2005. At that point, the SFO told BAE quite clearly that commercial and political considerations were not valid reasons for stopping a criminal investigation. During the following year the SFO obtained access to Swiss bank accounts and Tony Blair was personally lobbied by the Saudi prince Bandar – an individual who was himself at the centre of the corruption allegations. As his threats included the withdrawal of cooperation over fighting terrorism, BAE and the UK government were able to use ‘national security’ as a fig-leaf to cover up their motivations.

Decision unlawful

Contrary to Blair’s claim to be protecting the UK, the High Court found that the UK’s adherence to the rule of law had been undermined by the decision to drop the investigation in the face of the Saudi threat. The judges, Alan Moses and Jeremy Sullivan, ruled that the SFO’s director ‘failed to appreciate that protection of the rule of law demanded that he should not yield to the threat’. They added that surrender to a threat ‘merely encourages those with power, in a position of strategic and political importance, to repeat such threats’. It was not the investigation, but the decision to cut it short, that had endangered national security.

The judges went on: ‘There is no evidence whatever that any consideration was given as to how to persuade the Saudis to withdraw the threat, let alone any attempt made to resist the threat’. They then moved on to a vital point about motivations: ‘Too ready a submission may give rise to the suspicion that the threat was not the real ground for the decision at all; rather it was a useful pretext. It is obvious, in the present case, that the decision to halt the investigation suited the objectives of the executive. Stopping the investigation avoided uncomfortable consequences, both commercial and diplomatic.’

The judgment was welcomed by a wide range of newspapers (see page 12), politicians from all the main parties and others. Messages of congratulation flooded in to the offices of CAAT and The Corner House, by post, email and phone. The Government and BAE were alarmed. Clutching at straws, several right-wing columnists – who sixteen months before were confidently predicting that our challenge had no chance of success – suddenly revived their commitment to British jobs. Their claims were even less believable this time. BAE has already admitted that most of the jobs created by its latest Saudi deal will not even be based in the UK. Lord Woolf’s report into BAE’s ethics was greeted with similar derision for its failure to consider some of the most basic ethical issues about the arms trade (see page 3).

Government to appeal

The Government almost immediately announced its intention to appeal against the decision. The appeal will be heard by the House of Lords on 7th and 8th July. Considering the questions raised by the case to be of general public importance, the High Court has ordered the Government to pay all the costs both for the case so far and for the appeal regardless of the outcome.

The High Court’s decision means that the investigation is technically reopened. However, the new director of the SFO, Richard Alderman, has said that he will make no decision in practice until after the House of Lords has ruled on the appeal.

Regardless of the outcome, the political repercussions of the High Court victory should not be underestimated. The arms industry in the UK is struggling to get used to the fact that it can no longer expect to have everything its own way. Ministers know that their subservience to arms dealers is coming under greater public scrutiny. BAE has discovered that it cannot always bully its way to the desired result and the Saudi regime has realised that the British people do not share their Government’s willingness to submit to human rights abusers.

Just as importantly, public and media awareness has shot up on the issue of arms companies’ influence in the corridors of power. People from all walks of life are determined to campaign against this situation, recognizing that it is as harmful for the UK’s democracy and economy as it is for international peace and security. And more people than ever are now aware that CAAT is a key organisation working to change this situation.

One more thing is very clear. While staff at CAAT and The Corner House, along with our barristers and solicitors, have worked extremely hard on this case, we could not have done it with out the encouragement and help of thousands of supporters. Countless individuals have made donations to CAAT, lobbied their MPs, written to their local papers and gone out on to the streets to promote the campaign. Many have offered encouragement that has kept the staff going at the most difficult times. Our success would not be possible without them. This, then, is a victory for every CAAT supporter and for everyone committed to justice, accountability and peace.

Poor get hit as business walks free

tim — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:51:39 +0000

Even as the government admits to a £10 billion black hole in its finances caused by its gifting of tax back to businesses to plug their pensions holes, it looks set to U-turn on its policy to close corporation tax loopholes costing the exchequer tens of billions more every year.

Threats from major UK companies to relocate overseas or into tax havens has prompted a move to revise corporation tax rules following high-profile complaints that the UK’s taxation levels are significantly higher than elsewhere in the EU.

Pharmaceuticals giant Shire recently announced it would relocate to Ireland to take advantage of the low tax regime there.

While UK law stipulates a basic corporation tax of 28%, corporations on average pay closer to 22%, with some of the largest paying significantly under this figure.

A simplification of the rules mooted by the treasury last year would have closed loopholes which at present allow huge levels of tax evasion.

The UK has recently come under fire for itself maintaining more tax havens under British rule than anywhere else in the world, something which campaign groups argue has directly led to tens of thousands of deaths.

Corporate tax avoidance is thought to cost £25 billion every year – more than twice the amount these major companies were gifted by the government in tax breaks to allow them to refill the pension pots they themselves had emptied.

In two years, the same amount would pay for the total line of credit currently being offered to major banks as part of the credit crunch – £50 billion is being underwritten in loans to maintain the flow of money through the economy.

The same banks, along with a host of other companies, are already benefiting from government handouts this year to the tune of £10 billion, as they pour money into pension funds to keep them afloat.

This money, rather than coming from profits or business chiefs who were the investors who caused the problem, is being paid in from taxes.

Pension deficits have soared by more than £100bn in the past year, the Pension Protection Fund said recently.

Meanwhile, as the Treasury struggles to maintain its financial balance, fears are rising that the pensioners themselves could be at risk of falling prey to the 10p tax band changes which the government have proposed.

Up to 420,000 pensioners with small private pensions of up to £1,000 a year could start having to pay tax of £200 a year from next April, under new plans – potentially raising around £80 million a year.

The Silent Conflict: Harlow College

tim — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:37:47 +0000

A year ago, teaching staff at Harlow College staged a five-day strike: an unprecedented action for them but one which reflected the desperation of the situation as a politically motivated principalship, led by Colin Hindmarch, played an ideologically driven game with the interests of learners in order to smash the union. The conditions imposed upon teachers included a massive reduction in wages for many with the introduction of a new unqualified ‘tutor’ role, the imposition of an effective 56-hour working week and reduction of holidays from 45 to 30 days a year. This was imposed despite the fact that Hindmarch created more management positions and raised their pay by 11%. However, on top of all this, around 40 experienced teachers were denied opportunities to continue working there because they were deemed to be opposed to the new Teaching and Learning Strategy. A further similar number of teachers opted for voluntary redundancy, unable to accept such a draconian and spiteful regime.

Since the headline-grabbing events of last June, there has been little said and even less printed on the state of affairs at Harlow College. This is not because it has settled down. On the contrary, the situation has become ever more desperate, in particular for the students.

But why the silence? The college principalship was suffering most due to adverse publicity and news reports which exposed its cruel, politically motivated initiatives; it cleverly contrived a situation which would stifle criticism, in particular from the one source which should have been the most vocal: the Universities and Colleges Union. After the redundancies and the failure to abide by the law to meaningfully negotiate the new contracts, huge pressure from the union and Bill Rammell MP was placed on the college to accept ACAS negotiations. The college accepted this with the proviso that UCU would never publicly criticise the college. This UCU foolishly accepted.

In the wake of this agreement, a Working Party was established to find a way forward, due to conclude at Christmas 2007. However, enjoying the continued silence of UCU, the college pushed back this deadline month after month. It is now set to conclude in September. Coupled with a new learner agreement which students were obliged to sign upon enrolment which also prohibited them from making public criticisms, this has meant that the College is now able to bask in relative silence. Only a Guardian article of 18th March 2008 exposed a hint of the appalling conditions at the college, thanks to the bravery of the president of the local NUS refusing to sign the learner agreement. However, UCU, like the principal, was tragically ‘unavailable for comment’. The college continues to hold its remaining teaching staff and students hostage to a never-ending working party which the union foolishly allowed itself to be outmanoeuvred into accepting.

Now we must turn to the details of what has been happening at the college, tucked away from public scrutiny. The staff turnover rate continues to be alarmingly high; one principal tutor in English resigning after little more than a fortnight in position, a sociology teacher sacked after a month and a psychology teacher given two hours to clear his desk after having joined UCU less than 24 hours previously.

The LSC and Ofsted published damning reports on the college last autumn. Ofsted was most scathing, pointing out their shock at an ICT class of 100 students being taught via a personal address system.

At a public meeting effectively forced upon the Principal and Bill Rammell, Colin Hindmarch claimed that the costs of redundancies were not high, at only around £150,000. When pressed to reveal the actual figures, some months later, he acknowledged that the cost was just under £1 million. Now seeking further clarification, corporation board minutes reveal it to be more like £1.3 million.

Some may argue that this could be justified if the college improves its service to students and achieves better results. But this is perhaps the most tragic story of all. In March 2008, the college delayed releasing its winter A-level exam results to students for almost a week. When finally revealed, no details of grades were published but only a paltry 58% of AS-level exams were passed – a huge decline on the previous year. Following this, the chairman of the Corporation Board, Martin Coleman, said in the local paper, “We are happy with the way things are going.” The significance of these results are that these students have only experienced learning under the Hindmarch regime, including his peculiar ‘subject days’ where students learn the same subject once a week but for the whole day.

The college also rigged the elections to the posts of student representatives on the corporation board. Realising that the NUS leader would have won any open contest, they contrived a complicated delegatory system to avoid any public debate and to insulate the corporation board from hearing real concerns and criticisms.

The college is also engaging in the practice of withdrawing students from their exams weeks before they are due to be held. The students are then transferred onto short ICT classes which they cannot fail to pass. This then serves to distort the ‘success rate’ data because the student will receive certification and the failure to complete the course which has occupied them for the rest of the year would not be revealed in any figures. Accounts of students begging to be allowed to sit the exams that they have been studying for months, under wholly inadequate conditions, have been rife. Many parents have had pay for private tuition and are bitter that this may be exploited by the college as they may still take credit for the results achieved.

The local MP and minister for the area, Bill Rammell, has been most reluctantly dragged into the dispute and now finds himself accused of complacency and expediency. He once criticised UCU publicly for their methods last year but refused to give details so they could be given an opportunity to justify themselves. He also disassociated himself from the article published in the Guardian but refuses to elaborate on those elements which he considered were untrue. He also claimed that academic opinion on ‘Subject Days’ for FE colleges were mixed, with some claiming they were a good idea. Can any reader enlighten us as to where subject days are deployed successfully?

Last month, Rammell and Hindmarch attempted to pacify critics by inviting a few select individuals around the college to see the wonderful new facilities. This may have made Rammell look good for the taxpayers’ money being invested but most concluded that the college could not blame poor resources for the college’s failures. Because of this, Hindmarch was subjected to wholesale criticism where he even conceded that ‘subject days’ were failing, citing the fact that May – a crucial month for exam preparations – has two bank holidays, depriving students of essential learning time for any course they study on Mondays. This was pointed out to him when he first tried to impose ‘subject days’ in March 2007, but he simply sacked those who raised such professional concerns.

Scandalously, Bill Rammell still opposes any calls for Colin Hindmarch to resign. He claims that to remove him would be the ‘populist’ thing to do but is not in the interest of the students. Even though Hindmarch has the LSC, Ofsted and the QIA almost constantly in residence, providing stabilisers for this child in blue braces who cannot ride his bike, Rammell insists on protecting him. His majority is only a tiny 97 votes and yet he has spoken up to protect Hindmarch’s position with far greater voracity than he ever did to protect the jobs of around a hundred teachers this time last year. No one believes that Rammell would ever send a child of his to an institution run by Hindmarch and most people are truly shocked at his attitude and downright complacency. The real reason why he will not call for Hindmarch to resign is because Hindmarch will ignore him. This will expose the reality of Rammell’s impotence and failure to properly act upon the incorporated status of colleges which allowed this wholly unaccountable situation to arise.

There is no end in sight for the conflict and it is foolish of Mr Rammell to continually search for the shortest route for a mystical Harlow College paper towel so that he can wipe his hands of the whole affair. The college faces a huge litigation bill when UCU goes to court for protective awards for the college’s failure to meaningfully consult over the redundancies, and there are cases for unfair dismissal and victimisation as well. Harlow College is a tragic saga and its full story will be known one day. This article provides just a glimpse of a curriculum’s worth of lessons that we could all learn from.

SEP speaks to voters in Cottingham and Willerby

tim — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:23:39 +0000

Chris Talbot is the candidate of the Socialist Equality Party in the July 10 by-election in the constituency of Haltemprice and Howden in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was called following the resignation of sitting Conservative MP David Davis in protest at government “anti-terrorist” legislation enabling police to detain individuals for up to 42 days without charge.

Angela Morkos is a mature student at Hull University and lives in Cottingham.

“I am familiar with all the issues that people are standing for. The SEP stands for more or less what I agree with,” she said.

“I am against the war in Iraq, I don’t like big business and I think David Davis is mobilising right-wing policies in Britain. I watch the news on TV and I suspected this. And I would never trust a Conservative anyway, to be quite honest.”

Angela said she fully agreed with the SEP’s aim of preventing Davis mobilising the popular hostility to the Labour government for his own right-wing agenda. She explained that she opposed all the attacks on democratic rights carried out by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

“I think Gordon Brown has been disappointing. I supported Blair when he first came into power but I was disappointed over the Iraq war. I didn’t believe all this about weapons of mass destruction when I heard about it on the TV. I think it was a bit like Maggie Thatcher and the Falklands War, that Blair wanted to be the next Churchill. I think he had delusions of grandeur.

“Before this election I have tended to support Liberal Democrat policies in Parliament.”

Angela said that she wasn’t aware that the Liberal Party were not standing their own candidate and that they were calling for a vote supporting Davis. The SEP explained that this showed how far the Liberals have moved in a right-wing direction, that they can now support an avowed anti-working class politician such as David Davis.

Angela said she supported the fact that only the SEP was putting forward a coherent programme representing working class people.

In response to questions about the impact of the worsening economic crisis on working class people, Angela said, “I think it very worrying. I am on a low income. I feel that around here businesses exploit me. I am on Disability Living Allowance. I think there is a prejudice against people who are unable to work. I am doing my best and am actually studying to improve my situation and I find I am just exploited.

“All the basics are going up—milk, cheese, butter. I have to live on lentils basically and people lending me a couple of quid because they feel sorry for me. That is not very healthy and I’m anaemic as it is.

“Then there are dental charges and I don’t know how I am going to afford those. I also have to take regular medication and I am just glad that at least prescription charges are free at the moment for people on Disability Living Allowance.

“I think all this stems from Margaret Thatcher anyway. Tony Blair said that he agreed with her and I think it all worsened right from the beginning with her. And the governments after Thatcher have just continued in the same vein since then”.

Kate Webster is a retired doctor’s receptionist and lives in Cottingham.

Socialist Equality Party members and supporters campaigned in the villages Cottingham and Willerby on July 2 and a reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site spoke to workers, students and youth about the issues raised in the election.The WSWS reporting team asked her what she thought of David Davis, the Labour Party and their attitude to the question of democratic rights.

“I don’t think David Davis stands for democratic rights. I thought the Conservatives are always for the richer people aren’t they? What I can’t understand is him resigning and then trying to get re-elected. What is all that about?”

Katie agreed that both the Labour Party and the Conservatives are right-wing formations, hostile to the working class.

“I wouldn’t have voted for Davis and I think the Labour Party are too right-wing. I saw that the NSPCC [a national child protection organisation] was trying to get smacking stopped, but Davis wasn’t interested in that.

“I didn’t agree with the Iraq war. The Labour Party are more like capitalists now. They are giving themselves a great big raise and the credit crisis is not affecting their pay is it?

“There is no party now for the working class. I will read the SEP election statement and I will vote for Chris Talbot,” Katie said.

During the campaign in Cottingham several other local residents told the SEP that they had heard about the party’s campaign and would be supporting Chris Talbot. Among these was a currently unemployed bricklayer, who said that he had read the SEP election statement a few days ago and that he agreed with a revolutionary socialist programme. He said he would like further discussion on the role of new left formations in Europe and the Socialist Workers Party. He added that he was going to attend the Eve of Poll meeting being held by the SEP at Cottingham Civic Hall on July 9.

During the day Chris Talbot was filmed and interviewed by a student from the University of Sheffield who was covering the by-election as her final project.

SATs school tests criticised by official report

tim — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:20:51 +0000

In May, millions of school children throughout England undertook their Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) in English, mathematics and science.

The statutory tests are widely considered to be flawed and almost universally reviled by teachers and children alike.

Numerous educationalists are critical of the Labour government’s fixation with increased testing, which is distorting the curriculum and having a detrimental effect on the long-term education of children.

The recent Report by the House of Commons, Children, Schools and Families Committee—Testing and Assessment (Session 2007-2008) paints a disturbing picture of the climate generated by testing and target-setting in schools.

The report declares its commitment to “a system of national testing,” but then draws attention to a number of studies conducted in recent years, including one by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) published in 2003, that found “the use of test results for the purpose of school accountability had damaging effects on teachers and pupils alike. Teachers felt that the effect was to narrow the curriculum and distort the education experience of pupils.”

It adds that “excessive time, workload and stress for children [are] not justified by the accuracy of the test results on individuals.”

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) considered that Key Stage tests provide only “one source” of performance data for both students and teachers, and that it is “hazardous” to draw too many conclusions from this data alone. They argue that “A teacher’s professional knowledge of the pupil is vital—statistics are no substitute for professional judgment.”

The Association of Colleges stated that performance tables composed from examination results data do not adequately reflect the actual work of a school and that the emphasis on performance tables risks shifting the focus of schools from the individual need of the pupil towards performance table results.

“The fact that the results of these tests are used for so many purposes, with high-stakes attached to the outcomes, creates tensions in the system leading to undesirable consequences, including distortion of the education experience of many children,” the report acknowledges.

“In addition, the data derived from the testing system do not necessarily provide an accurate or complete picture of the performance of schools and teachers, yet they are relied upon by the Government, the QCA and Ofsted [the examinations board and the school inspectors body] to make important decisions affecting the education system in general and individual schools, teachers and pupils in particular.”

The City and Guilds awarding body is quoted as saying that “there is considerable obligation on the designer of tests or assessments to make them as efficient and meaningful as possible. Assessment opportunities should be seen as rare events during which the assessment tool must be finely tuned, accurate and incisive. To conduct a test that is inaccurate, excessive, unreliable or inappropriate is unpardonable.”

The present Key Stage tests fail on all these counts.

The National Curriculum in England is divided into four Key Stages, or areas of learning, for school children (Key Stage 1, 5-7-year-olds; Key Stage 2, 7-11-year-olds; Key Stage 3, 11-14-year-olds; and Key Stage 4, 14-16-year-olds). The government’s stated intention is to improve the average achievement across a school at the end of each.

Schools are given targets based on ensuring that children meet the expected levels for their age in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science. Key Stage tests are used to generate data on pupil performance, which is then collated and used, in the words of the report, to “measure trends across time, across schools, and by almost every conceivable characteristic of the pupils.”

The results for each school are aggregated into “performance tables,” which encourage comparison (and ultimately competition) between schools.

Government claims challenged

The report’s authors say that witnesses to its study have challenged the government’s assertions that its agenda of tests, targets and performance tables have helped “drive up standards.”

The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) states that there is little evidence that performance tables have contributed to raising standards of attainment. The report also contends that “a growing number of international studies show that other comparable education systems, including those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, have reached and maintained high educational standards without use of the performance tables.”

The NUT drew attention to the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information study (2004), which concluded that repeated testing and examination de-motivated pupils and reduced their learning potential, as well as having a detrimental effect on educational outcomes. Evidence showed that teachers adapt their teaching style to train pupils to pass tests, even when pupils do not have an understanding of higher-order thinking skills that tests are intended to measure and that National Curriculum tests lower the self-esteem of unconfident and low-achieving pupils.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), noting the government’s assertions of improving standards, questioned “whether this means that our pupils are learning more and better.” It referred to research at Durham University suggesting that pupils who reach the projected Level 4 at Key Stage 2 do not retain what they have learned over a period of six months to a year.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) considers that the aggregation of individual test scores creates a high-stakes testing system that it says will inevitably create a false picture of “progress.” It argues that the government has produced no evidence to support the assertion that targets and performance tables have driven up standards, a contention that “has taken on the aspect of a dogma.”

Results are now used to inform school decisions about performance-related pay, to inform Ofsted decisions about whether schools should be given “light or heavy touch inspections” and, combined with targets, to inform judgments about the advisability of educational initiatives.

The government is criticised for putting in place “accountability structures” that are strongly based on pupil performance in national tests. The distorting effect of these changes places competitive stress on schools and worsens the educational opportunities for most children: “Test results are not the output of education, but a proxy for the education taking place every day in classrooms across the country.”

One of the most destructive effects of this approach is “teaching to the test,” whereby the curriculum is narrowed to those areas likely to be the subject of examination. The report notes, “The Association of Colleges stated that, whilst a pupil may have the necessary grades to progress to the next level, if that learning is shallow, focussed only on passing the test, they may not have a full grasp of the necessary concepts or sufficient intellectual rigour to deal with the demands of the next level. They conclude that ‘This raising of false expectations resulting in a sense of inadequacy may well account for the high drop out rate at 17.’ ”

By narrowing the taught curriculum to what is tested, it is also possible for schools to inflate test scores without actually improving the underlying education of children taking the tests.

The reports’ authors also take issue with the official language of “success” and “failure,” saying that it highlighted a problem with the “standards agenda which the Government’s reasoning does not address.”

The NAHT states that children learn at different rates and in different ways. Schools should focus on assisting children to reach the goals appropriate for them as individuals.

The authors conclude their study by endorsing “the Government’s view that much can and should be done to assist children who struggle to meet expected standards,” But they express concern “that the Government’s target-based system may actually be contributing to the problems of some children.”

Tested to Destruction

Coinciding with the release of the report, the BBC screened an episode of its Panorama documentary series titled “Tested to Destruction,” which highlighted the disturbing effects of increased testing on the education of primary school children in England.

It explained that the SATs regime has only illustrated the underlying social and economic inequality in England today. The better results are achieved in schools in the more prosperous suburbs, and children who live in areas of deprivation tend to achieve lower marks.

Panorama interviewed pupils at the Phoenix Primary school in Liverpool, and invited some of them to draw pictures based on their thoughts and feelings about tests. This produced some very dark and negative images, epitomised in one child’s “SATs Monster.”

Professor Wynne Harlen of Bristol University said that the tests were a “way of telling you that you are less worthwhile,” and that children’s confidence and self-esteem are constantly under threat with every practice test they take. Moreover, “the nearer to SATs the more education was narrowed down to maths, English and science.”

By way of rebuttal, School’s Minister Jim Knight made the claim on the programme that children “don’t even notice” they are taking SATs.

While the other subjects were sidelined in the SATs’ year group, the programme posed the question whether concentration nevertheless led to an improvement in core subjects tested. Specialists insist that the opposite is true. Professor Margaret Brown said that because teachers were teaching to the tests, this was to the detriment of learning. Whole areas of maths, for example, are ignored as education is reduced to practising solving short test questions.

Chief Inspector of Schools Christine Gilbert recently announced that one in five 11-year-olds leaves Primary school unable to read, write and add up, and that overall standards had stalled. According to Professor Brown, “the government have pointed to rises in the test results. Teachers are good at coaching children to the test and it’s got to a ceiling.”

Rather than admitting the failure of government education policies, Gilbert outlined a more punitive inspection regimen beginning in September 2009. Snap inspections are to be introduced with no notice to schools and parents. Evidence of “bored” children can also trigger an inspection. Schools judged either “satisfactory” or “inadequate” will be inspected within a three-year cycle, while those performing better will be inspected every six years.

The SATs exist alongside a whole raft of exams that children in England have to take, including tests at seven, 14, 16 and 18 if they stay on at school. In response to the unpopularity of SATs, the government is piloting a supposedly more “child-friendly” single-level test, to be taken when the teacher deems a pupil is ready. Teachers on the programme said these revisions would be for the worse, as the worry caused by the tests would be ever-present and not just in the run-up to SATs.

Barry Sherman MP, chairman of the Commons Select Committee, said that there was a broad range of evidence showing that SATs were de-motivating and spoiling children’s enjoyment of education. “Testing” he said, “is ever present in schools. The success of a child, teacher and school is linked to testing, testing, testing.”

Keep Tyne and Wear Metro Public, says RMT

tim — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:17:12 +0000

The Tyne and Wear Metro is a public-sector success story and should be kept that way, delegates at the annual conference of Britain’s biggest rail union insisted today.

As RMT’s AGM called on the government to implement Labour policy on public ownership, RMT general secretary Bob Crow and Northern TUC secretary Kevin Rowan issued a joint plea for an end to the threat to fragment and privatise the northeast’s Metro network.

Letters sent today to Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly and Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive (Nexus) director-general Bernard Garner point out that the Metro is already achieving record levels of punctuality and ridership.

The letters express the concern that funding for a welcome upgrade of the network has been made conditional on splitting up and privatising the Metro’s operations and infrastructure.

Nexus bulletins indicate that the government has insisted on the break-up, overruling the PTE’s preferred option of maintaining Metro as a ‘vertically integrated’ railway.

“The model now being proposed for the Metro is in danger of repeating the mistakes of railway privatisation,” Bob Crow and Kevin Rowan say.

“Safety will be threatened as the Metro will be fragmented into different sectors, meaning less effective control and private companies cutting corners to save money.

“Fragmentation will lead to a less efficient, more expensive railway which is why Nexus were originally opposed to the break up of the Metro and why we remain opposed to it.

“Large amounts of fare revenue and public subsidy will be used to pay dividends to shareholders instead of being used to improve the Metro for the benefit of passengers and the wider community in the North East.

“And of course Metro workers’ pensions, jobs and conditions will be under threat as the private sector tries to maximise profits at the expense of Metro workers,” the letters say.