Robert Stevens | ukwatch.net

Work for Benefits

Alex Doherty — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:31:16 +0000

The Labour government in Britain has escalated its attack on the unemployed, the disabled and other vulnerable people with an announcement in a green paper to introduce a work for benefits scheme.

The Green Paper—“No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility”—follows the Welfare Reform Act 2007 which will phase out Incapacity Benefit and replace it with Employment Support Allowance. The Act is a wide-ranging attack on millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people who rely on Incapacity Benefit (IB) as their primary social security payment. Currently recipients of the benefit are deemed unable to work due to poor physical or mental health. The government plans to reduce the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefit by one million by 2015.

Among many other changes, the green paper proposes that people who have been on benefit payments for 12 months or more will be required to do four weeks’ work in their neighbourhood, or lose the right to benefit.

Anyone who has claimed Job Seekers Allowance for more than two years will be made to take full-time community jobs in return for their benefit payment and will be required to “sign in” each day. This would mean claimants working a full 35-hour week to earn a £60.50 Job Seekers Allowance payment. This equates to £1.70 an hour, less than a third of the minimum wage.

In a move aimed at the further privatisation of welfare provision, firms in the private sector and voluntary organisations are to be awarded contracts and bonus incentives to find work for those on benefit.

Incapacity Benefit and Income Support are to be ended by 2013 and replaced with the new Employment Support Allowance, which comes into operation in October. All 2.7 million recipients of Incapacity benefit will be forced to undergo stringent tests by doctors other than their own to determine whether they can work.

Under the new proposals lone parents with children aged seven or more will be expected to seek work.

Announcing the Green Paper to Parliament in July before its annual recess, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said, “The longer people claim, the more we will expect in return. At three months and six months, claimants will intensify their job search and have to comply with a back-to-work action plan. Work works and it’s only fair that we can ensure that a life on benefits is not an option.”

The measures were immediately supported by the Conservative Party opposition. Leader David Cameron said, “Great—the government has taken up our ideas. I am absolutely thrilled at that. What (Mr. Purnell) has done is very much taken the ideas we came up with in January, that are very clearly thought through and involve tough choices.”

So right-wing and authoritarian are the proposals that Conservative work and pension’s spokesman Chris Grayling told Parliament, “Since these are Conservative proposals we will certainly support them. I know you will have some difficulties getting them through your own party. Can I assure you we will help you get them through this House even if you have a backbench rebellion to contend with.”

The measures lay the basis for a final break with any welfare-state consensus that existed in the postwar period. Remarking on the importance to any future Conservative government, Grayling added, “It’s particularly helpful that they’re bringing them forward now because we always expected the reforms to take a couple of years to prepare before being ready to yield results.

“So in reality what this announcement means is that the next government will inherit a set of proposals that have been turned into action and are ready to bring about real change to our welfare state.”

The Liberal Democrats merely criticised the already “complex benefit system” and called for more “careful thought.” They were most concerned about the effect the measures would have on the private sector.

Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman Jenny Willott said, “James Purnell may think that privatising all back to work support marks out his modernising credentials but it lacks foresight.

“If recession takes hold it may not be profitable for companies to bid for welfare contracts, yet the public infrastructure will have been completely eroded. There needs to be more careful thought about how the market would operate in a severe downturn with rising unemployment.”

The paper is presently going through a “consultation period” to last until October. A legislative paper will then be drawn up by January, with the measures expected to become law in the Spring of 2009.

One of the central priorities of Labour when it was elected in 1997 was to make drastic cuts in state spending on the unemployed and benefits as a whole and that they sought to implement the measures to do so. The report states, “In 1997, we inherited a largely inactive welfare state. For the last 11 years, the Government has gone about transforming it into an active one.”

Lauding its “New Deal” programme the paper boasts, “In return for extra support, young people were expected to take up jobs and training or see their benefits cut. It was the beginning of the end for the idea that people could sit at home and claim benefits if they were able to work and had the offer of a job.”

The paper boasts, “Together with a growing economy, these reforms moved a million people off key out-of-work benefits, including almost halving claimant unemployment. As a result, we are spending over £5 billion less on benefits for unemployed people”.

Whilst lambasting the unemployed for “sitting at home,” the paper makes no mention of why swathes of people were unemployed in the first place and forced to live on a pittance. This was wholly due to the economic and social policies of the previous 18 years of Conservative Party government, which saw tens of thousands of jobs destroyed as part of smashing up nationalised industries in order to facilitate privatisation and drive up profitability.

Upon assuming office Labour continued in the same vein, with the stated aim of creating a “flexible labour market” for Britain’s service sector and a low wage economy for the corporations. The New Deal programme was aimed at forcing the unemployed—especially the young—off welfare benefits into low paid jobs at the newly set minimum wage level.

With its green paper the Labour government is stating that these policies did not go far enough and that further attacks on what remains of the welfare state are required if the British economy is to remain competitive internationally. The document frames the attack on the unemployed as being bound up with “the need for people to get the skills to progress in an increasingly competitive and globalised society.”

“Work for your benefit”

The paper states: “Our objective is a social revolution: an 80 percent employment rate—the highest ever.” This drive to reduce the unemployment rolls is to be based on the creation of a massive pool of cheap labour. Essentially the unemployed and most vulnerable members of society are to be used as a battering ram by employers to cut pay and conditions in general.

There are already 2 million more people employed in Britain than in 1997. Britain has the highest work participation rate of any of the world’s richest nations.

Under the section “an obligation to work,” the paper states, “Throughout the course of their claim their responsibilities will increase. The longer people claim benefits, the more they will be expected to do.”

Anyone who has been unemployed for 12 months or more “will be transferred to a private, public or voluntary sector provider who will be paid by results. No one who completes 12 months with a provider without moving into work could do so without having undertaken at least four weeks of full-time activity.”

Labour outlines the punitive measures to be implemented against the unemployed. In the section “Work for your benefit,” the document states, “We want to send out a clear message that people capable of work but who have not found a job by this stage will be required to work full-time or undertake full-time, work-related activity in return for their benefits.”

Under the section “A stronger sanctions regime,” the paper proposes the loss of up to two weeks’ benefit for those who don’t attend appointments and interviews or to sign on in time.

Those benefit claimants currently receiving Incapacity Benefit will face being coerced into “work-related activity” or have their benefit cut. Up to 40 percent of those claiming Incapacity Benefit are mentally ill or physically disabled.

The paper states, “We will enact powers in the Welfare Reform Act 2007 to require new customers in the Work Related Activity Group to undertake general work-related activity. Customers who do not meet these requirements will have their benefit reduced. We will also extend throughout the first two years of a claim, the period during which new customers are required to engage with us by introducing Work Focused Interviews.”

Those deemed fit enough by a doctor will be moved from Incapacity Benefit to the new £82-a-week Employment and Support Allowance and will be expected to look for work.

Private sector to bid for contracts

The paper outlines the further privatisation of welfare under a new “Right To Bid” scheme. Private companies will be able to bid for lucrative contacts and be paid for the number of people they dragoon into employment, whatever form that takes.

Companies that currently deal with the mentally ill provision will, for example, be allowed to run schemes aimed at finding them work. They will then be paid a bonus for each person who finds employment.

These measures were first proposed in March 2007 by David Freud, an investment banker hired by the government to advise on welfare policy. He authored the report “Reducing dependency, increasing opportunity: options for the future of welfare to work.”

The previous month Freud had claimed that “up to two thirds of people claiming Incapacity Benefit are not entitled to the state handout.” This included some 1.9 million people who Freud claimed were perfectly able to work, despite being assessed by a doctor and certified unfit for work.

Freud’s comments, which were roundly condemned by organisations representing the mentally ill and disabled, were a deliberate attempt to whip up the media-led campaign denouncing Incapacity Benefit claimants as “fraudsters” and “cheats.”

The Disability Alliance pointed out that Freud’s figures were vastly exaggerated and that the “most recent official figure for incapacity benefit fraud suggests it is below half a percent.”

In his report to the government Freud proposed a “greater use of private and voluntary sector resources and expertise so harder-to-help benefit claimants receive more employment support, particularly existing customers who have been trapped on benefit for long periods of time.” His report recommended “the use of private contractors because no one else could raise sufficient capital. It is proposed that there will be eleven regions, one contractor for each region. Voluntary sector organisations may be subcontracted for certain services.”

The new work for your benefit measures are to be implemented in six pilot areas before being introduced nationwide. These include Greater Manchester and Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth in London, inner city areas which have been blighted for generations by poverty, unemployment, an increase in mental illness, low mortality rates and other social ills.

Earlier this year statistics released by the Conservative Party, based on Department of Work and Pensions’ Neighbourhood Statistics, found that 820 out of 1,074 working-age adults in Falinge and College Bank, two districts of Rochdale in Greater Manchester, were claiming out-of-work benefits. The figure of 76.4 percent was the highest in the country.

According to the figures there are 60 wards (local districts) of Britain in which more than half of all adults are unemployed and on benefits. The statistics were seized on by the national press and highlighted as an example of “welfare culture.” The Sun described Rochdale as the “the scrounge capital of the UK.”

Following the release of the figures, Paul Rowen, the Liberal Democrat MP for the town, commented on the widespread poverty and social misery, “You cannot destroy British manufacturing and expect it will not also destroy some of our working-class communities.” “Falinge scores highly in all the wrong ways—deprivation, joblessness and ill health. The large-scale shutdown of factories in the ’80s and ’90s has decimated the area.”

Even while posing the question as to whether the residents of Falinge were “feckless scroungers,” the right-wing tabloid newspaper the Daily Express had to acknowledge that a council estate visited by its reporter in Falinge was “a depressing warren of poverty.”

Rochdale, as with most of the towns in south Lancashire, once employed tens of thousands of workers, mainly in textile manufacturing and other industries. Over the past 30 years these have closed, leaving a legacy of unemployment, poverty and ill-health. According to figures by Rochdale Borough Council, “life expectancy for men and women in the Borough is less than the national average and in some wards is ten years less than in other parts of the Borough.”

National Health Service denies kidney cancer drugs to patients

tim — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:37:31 +0000

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has ruled that patients with advanced kidney cancer will be denied four treatments on the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales. NICE is the government’s drugs advisory body. It ruled that the drugs—bevacizumab, sorafenib, sunitinib and temsirolimus—do not offer “value for money.”

The drugs are routinely available in the United States and in the rest of Europe. The brand name for the drugs are Avastin (bevacizumab), Nexavar (sorafenib), Sutent (sunitinib) and Torisel (temsirolimus).

More than 7,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer annually in the UK, and of these, around 1,700 patients will be diagnosed with advanced cancer. Although the drugs are not able to cure renal cell carcinoma or cancer that has spread from the initial tumour, they are able to extend life by five to six months.

Drugs can be prescribed on the NHS once NICE has given them approval. The body was established by the Labour government in 1999 with a remit to offer “independent” advice on drugs and clinical best practice for the NHS. However, its main criterion for assessing drugs is whether they offer “value for money” and are “cost-effective.”

In accepting or rejecting drugs for the NHS, NICE adheres to a formula called the “Quality-adjusted Life Year” (QALY). Within this, a drug is deemed to be cost-effective if it delivers an extra QALY at a cost of roughly £20,000 a year or less. The four kidney cancer drugs were primarily rejected, as their QALY was above £20,000. Extending a patient’s life by six months was deemed to be uneconomical.

Some patients in England and Wales are currently using the drugs on a trial basis pending the decision from NICE. Many of them had to wage a protracted campaign to get treatment.

Jean Murphy, a terminally ill 68-year-old from Manchester, was denied the drug Sutent despite a High Court ruling in her favour.

Murphy said, “I can’t see any reason why it can’t be funded on the National Health Service if it’s a case of living or dying. The only thing that will help me is the Sutent…. It’s like manslaughter because if I can’t get this I will die.”

Murphy was only able to get the drug this month following an anonymous donation of £10,000.

In its assessment of the drugs, NICE admitted that they provided “significant gains” in survival. However, its final ruling on rejecting the use of the drugs was strictly based on financial considerations.

Professor Peter Littlejohns of NICE said, “The decisions NICE has to make are some of the hardest in public life. NHS resources are not limitless and Nice has to decide what treatments represent best value to the patient as well as the NHS. Although these treatments are clinically effective, regrettably, the cost to the NHS is such that they are not a cost-effective use of NHS resources. Bevacizumab, sorafenib, sunitinib or temsirolimus have the potential to extend progression-free survival by five to six months, but at a cost of £20,000-£35,000 per patient per year.”

“If these treatments were provided on the NHS,” he added, “other patients would lose out on treatments that are both clinically and cost effective.”

NHS resources are limited as the result of government policy, determined by the demands of a financial elite that views funds devoted to public health as a drain on profits.

The inevitable result of the NICE policy is that patients who could be offered treatment are being condemned to death unless they can buy the drugs themselves. The decision prompted an outcry from patients, healthcare campaigners, healthcare professionals and particularly doctors who treat kidney cancer patients.

Kate Spall, an activist on behalf of cancer patients, said of the decision, “We plough billions into cancer research but the benefits of that research—some remarkable drug treatments—are not available to all who need them. Patients are disregarded and given up on because they cannot get the drugs they need.”

Professor John Wagstaff, an honorary consultant in medical oncology at the South Wales Cancer Institute in Swansea, told the media: “The possibility that we clinicians may be prevented from offering Sutent to our patients is an outrage and a devastating blow to the kidney cancer community.

“If this draft guidance is not overturned, there will be no point in me accepting referrals of patients with metastatic renal cell cancer as three quarters of patients do not gain any real benefit from interferon, leaving only the option of palliative care.

“This decision will mean that the UK will have the poorest survival figures for metastatic renal cell cancer in Europe. Sutent produces a remarkable effect on survival for patients. It is now no longer ethical or reasonable for patients to have access to treatment with only interferon.”

Two years ago, the NICE “citizen’s council”—27 members of the public who advise the body—recommended that it should adopt the “rule of rescue” as a general policy. “It is human nature to help in an emergency,” one member of the council said.

NICE rejected this principle. “There is a powerful human impulse, known as the ‘rule of rescue’, to attempt to help an identifiable person whose life is in danger, no matter how much it costs,” NICE responded in a document entitled Social Value Judgments. “When there are limited resources for healthcare, applying the ‘rule of rescue’ may mean that other people will not be able to have the care or treatment they need…. The Institute has not therefore adopted an additional ‘rule of rescue.’ ”

NICE also rejects both what it calls the “utilitarian approach” and the “egalitarian approach” in allocating health resources, in favour of its own guidelines based on “procedural justice.”

It describes the utilitarian approach as allowing an “efficient distribution of resources, but sometimes at the expense of fairness. It can allow the interests of minorities to be overridden by the majority; and it may not help in eradicating health inequalities.”

NICE defines the “egalitarian approach” as the effort to distribute “healthcare resources to allow each individual to have a fair share of the opportunities available, as far as is possible. It allows an adequate, but not necessarily maximum, level of healthcare, but raises questions as to what is ‘fair.’ But an egalitarian approach cannot be fully applied when there are limits on resources.”

According to NICE, the fundamental basis of “procedural justice” is that it provides for “accountability for reasonableness,” which is essential because the “NHS is funded from general taxation, and it is right that UK citizens have the opportunity to be involved in the decisions about how the NHS’s limited resources should be allocated.”

Having rejected the recommendation of the 27-member “citizens’ council,” NICE cannot legitimately claim that it is responding to the interests of the public. The decision of NICE to deny treatment to patients is in fact a reflection of the interests of a small plutocratic layer who can pay for their own medical treatment and have nothing in common with the majority of the population who rely on the NHS for care.

Arrest of Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza

Tim Holmes — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:00:47 +0000

Hicham Yezza, a University of Nottingham member of staff, faces the threat of deportation to Algeria. On June 2, he was forcibly moved to the Citadel detention centre at Western Heights, near Dover.

Yezza and Nottingham student Rizwaan Sabir were both arrested on May 14 under the Terrorism Act 2000. Sabir is a master’s student in politics and was researching his dissertation on “the American approach to Al Qaeda in Iraq.” As part of his preparation, he downloaded, from a US government web site, a copy of an Al Qaeda training manual. He e-mailed the document to his friend, Yezza, and asked if he could print it for him. Sometime after this, a university employee contacted the police stating that the manual had been seen on Yezza’s computer.

The two were held for six days and then released without charge on May 20. Subsequently, Yezza was rearrested on immigration legislation. He was denied the right to attend a scheduled hearing, and, on May 23, the Home Office issued an order to deport him to Algeria. The planned deportation was cancelled on May 30, due to an application to the High Court that same day, seeking a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision.

On June 2, Yezza’s solicitor, David Smith of Cartwright King of Nottingham, said,

“Following the issue of our client’s Judicial review last Friday, the case is now with the Home Office’s legal advisers (the Treasury Solicitor), to whom we have put detailed representations about certain aspects of the case. We very much hope that this will shortly lead to our client’s release, if necessary on restrictions, while the case is thoroughly and properly reviewed at the most senior level.”

Students and academics in Britain and internationally have stated their opposition both to the arrests of Sabir and Yezza and to the attempt to deport Yezza, despite the University of Nottingham continuing to justify the decision to call the police on to the campus.

Previous arrests at Nottingham

What makes the arrests of Sabir and Yezza even more disturbing is the fact that both have been high-profile political campaigners at the university.

During his time as a student, Yezza served as a member of the Students’ Union Executive Committee and on the University Senate. He was the president of the Arabic Society and the editor of Voice magazine, a journal for international students. For the past five years, he has been the editor of Ceasefire, the political journal of the Nottingham Student Peace Movement.

On November 29 last year, Sabir was involved in a protest, organised by the Palestinian Society, against the construction of the Israeli West Bank wall. The protest included erecting a mock “wall” outside the campus library that was painted with slogans and images. After the students were approached by University of Nottingham security, the police arrived. According to the Indymedia website, “This resulted in the threat of arrest to a number of students. For ‘breach of the peace’, ‘assaulting a police officer,’ ‘filming a police officer’ (!), obstructing a police officer and obstruction of the highway. One student was arrested to ‘apprehend a breach of the peace.’ ”

Sabir was the student who was arrested for a “breach of the peace.” Following his arrest, he said, “A University campus is meant to be a place where an exchange of ideas and beliefs through peaceful means is encouraged. The University’s clamping down on this fundamental right highlights the restrictions that peaceful protestors face when undertaking peaceful protests on issues such as Israel, which it seems to me is becoming taboo to even talk about.”

Students at the university mounted a further protest on February 19 to demand “Freedom of Speech” and to oppose the November arrest of Sabir. Among the demands of the demonstration were:

* The right to free speech on campus and the official recognition of students’ right to engage in protest, demonstration or campaign on university property.

* The right to engage in a peaceful protest without the fear or threat of having police called on campus to break up non-violent demonstrations.

* The right not to fear intimidation or arrest by university authorities, university security or the police when engaging in a peaceful demonstration.

* The right not to be fined for or prohibited from having or distributing a petition or having or holding a peaceful demonstration.

* The right to engage in the aforementioned activities without having to request prior permission.

Sabir spoke at the demonstration.

These events were the immediate background leading up to the arrests of Yezza and Sabir on May 14, when the university authorities called in the police once again.

These events have rightly caused widespread concerns amongst students and staff members at the university. On June 5, dozens attended a roundtable discussion called by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (Politics) and the Centre for Research on Identities, Citizenship and Migration (Sociology & Social Policy). The remit of the meeting was to “foster debate among staff and students on the important questions arising from the Nottingham arrests under the antiterrorism legislation. It seeks to discuss critically but constructively the Nottingham arrests and their ramifications for academic life and community relations.”

The main speakers were Vanessa Pupavac, a lecturer in international relations, and Sofia Mason, a postgraduate student involved in the campaign to defend Yezza. Julia O’Connell Davidson, professor of sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, chaired the event.

The registrar of the university was invited to attend the meeting as was the university spokesman Jonathan Ray. Both declined. The university stated that it had set up a committee that was looking into the matter but gave no further details.

Mason said there was a real threat that guidelines would be issued by the university detailing what activities students could undertake. She raised the danger that these guidelines may be particularly aimed at political activists and groups on the campus.

There was a general concern both from the platform and from the floor as to the implications of the arrests. One member of the audience said that some students have already said they will be careful now as to what they research. Another said that they feared that peace activists might be brought in for questioning. One member of the audience said it was important to find out what measures are in place at the university for calling the police onto campus. He said in the case of Sabir and Yezza, the police had arrived in about two minutes.

Some of the students and academics at the meeting said that more was at stake than the particular events at the University of Nottingham.

What was the role of the university in the arrests?

A speaker from the International Students for Social Equality spoke in the discussion and said, “What has been discussed today is very important, particularly the discussion on the role of the university. The fact that the university has refused to speak here today is indicative. It is not able to speak to students and academics about arrests that took place on its own campus.”

“It is necessary to look at the wider political dimensions of this case. Both Rizwaan and Hicham were politically active people on the campus. For several years now, there has been increasing state surveillance, and in the last few years, this has increasingly included university campuses. At Brunel University in London, guidance was drawn up by one of its departments advising the government to increase surveillance of activists on campus.”

He said that it was very important to establish what role the universities are playing in monitoring political activists. “If it is the case that the police arrived in two minutes after being contacted by the university, it is important that questions are asked. Were Rizwaan and Hicham being monitored, and, if so, for how long?”

A member of the audience said he “did not think it was helpful” to bring up the question of “surveillance and conspiracies” in the meeting. In reply, Bettina Renz, the tutor of Rizwaan Sabir, said, “You could not rule out a link to political activism.” She said that when she was interviewed by the police following the arrests, they constantly asked about Sabir’s political activities.

Sofia Mason also addressed these questions in her summing up. Speaking about the arrests, she stated that “it would be naive to see these arrests as not politically motivated.” One had only to look at the amount of time the police spent on asking about the political views of Yezza and Sabir and about politics on the campus.

Professor Pupavac said that the campaign had won a lot of sympathy and that these questions were also close to the hearts of journalists and those who work in the media. Sometimes, journalists had of necessity to undertake research that some may find offensive.

The ISSE urges all our readers to demand the release of Hicham Yezza. Letters of protest can be addressed to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith below:

E-mail: indpublicenquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Fax: 0208 760 3132

The web site set up by the Stop the Deportation of Hicham Yezza campaign can be accessed at the link below:

http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/

Welfare Reform Act to force sick and vulnerable into work

tim — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:05:25 +0000

The draconian measures laid out in the Welfare Reform Act 2007 are now being implemented in Britain by the Labour government of Prime Minster Gordon Brown. The Act represents a wide-ranging attack on millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people who rely on Incapacity Benefit (IB). Recipients of the benefit are deemed unable to work due to poor physical or mental health.

Under the new legislation, their entitlement to financial support is being replaced with new, conditional Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). From November, those registering for the first time as too sick or unable to work will only be entitled to ESA, whereby payments are determined by national insurance contributions, and are subject to means testing. All existing IB claimants will then be transferred to the ESA.

The main aim is to force people into work under threat of poverty. The government has stated it intends to cut the number of Incapacity Benefit claimants by 20,000 each year.

Attacks on welfare have been a central plank of Labour’s policies since coming to power in 1997. Unemployment benefit has been restricted and Lone Parent Benefit reduced.

The government has stated that 2.4 million people currently receive Incapacity Benefit and that up to one million should not be entitled to it. This figure is actually a distortion as statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that only 1.4 million of the 2.4 million unable to work due to illness actually receive any additional payment. The rest receive standard national insurance credits only.

Since the measures were first mooted in 2006, a campaign based on demonising Incapacity Benefit claimants has swung into operation. This has been fuelled by incessant media scare stories about Incapacity Benefit “scroungers”, “spongers” and “cheats” who claim the benefit “fraudulently” instead of working.

According to recently published research, the number of cases of Incapacity Benefit “fraud” is so low it is almost impossible to measure accurately. It is estimated to account for less than 0.3 percent of total Incapacity Benefit payments.

The tabloid press would have us believe that recipients of “generous” Incapacity Benefit live a life of luxury. But those who are on the benefit are among the poorest people in society. Basic Incapacity Benefit payment ranges from £63.75 on the “short-term lower late” to £84.50 on the “long-term higher rate.” Research conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2004 found that claimants on Incapacity Benefit and or Disability Living Allowance/Income Support met only 28 percent of the costs of people with low-medium needs, 30 percent of the costs of people with intermittent/fluctuating needs, 35 percent of the costs of deaf people and people with visual impairments and 50 percent of the costs of people with high-medium support needs.

On April 4, the Daily Express ran a sensationalist headline “Outrage At £8.5m A Week For Jobless Junkies And Winos,” claiming that “Taxpayers are forking out £8.5million a week in benefits to support jobless drink and drug addicts.”

The article cited statistics from the DWP revealing that 51,410 people whose medical record included a diagnosis of alcoholism received long-term Incapacity Benefits. The figures also showed that a further 49,890 on Incapacity Benefit were drug addicts.

That so many people, including young people, are victims of alcoholism and drug addiction is a societal problem—not only an issue of dependency, which constitutes a genuine illness that causes untold suffering. The turn to alcohol and drugs is exacerbated by the steady erosion of stable job opportunities, the decline of many industries, and decreasing access to quality education, health care, and to drug treatment programmes.

Most of those in receipt of Incapacity Benefit reside in inner city areas in London, the North-West, the North-East, Scotland and Wales. Many of these workers would have previously been in secure, relatively stable jobs in industries like mining, steel and shipbuilding. Over the past 25 years these jobs have been decimated, with millions forced into lives of poverty and the attendant problems such as debt and ill health.

Currently claimants have to pass a rigorous “personal capability assessment” (PCA) in order to quality for IB. A new “work capability assessment” is to target all Incapacity Benefit claimants, with only the terminally ill excluded from the requirement.

Under the remit to “focus on what people can do, not what they can not,” a distinction will be drawn between “being eligible for benefit and being capable for work.” If it is found that the claimant is capable of doing some sort of work, they can receive benefit only on the condition that they retrain and look for work. The penalty for not doing so will be the loss of benefit.

Under the new rules, eligibility for benefit will be decided on a DWP doctor’s evidence and “capability for work” could be assessed by other unspecified “health professionals”.

At present, the severely mentally impaired are exempt from being assessed. Under the new measures, these claimants are required to be assessed and have to agree to look for work in order to qualify for ESA. They are also obliged to attend courses to improve “employability.” They will also be compelled to “manage their health” in work and undertake therapy for their mental health problems.

In order to speed up the number of claimants denied benefit payments, doctors and “care teams” will be directly involved in ensuring that their patients are removed from IB and forced into employment. The Welfare Reform Act follows proposals made in 2005 to allow “employment advisors” from Job Centres to be based in doctors’ surgeries. The pilot schemes began in 2006 in six areas of the UK.

“A revolution in our welfare state”

The Conservative Party has proposed its own assault on Incapacity Benefit. In January, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling announced what he termed “revolutionary” welfare proposals.

Under a Tory government, anyone who failed a “work capability” test would automatically lose their entitlement to Incapacity Benefit. They would then be placed on Job Seekers Allowance, immediately resulting in a welfare payment cut of £20 a week.

The plans also specify that those on IB with the “potential to work” would be referred to “welfare to work” providers. These would include private-sector companies.

In preparation for their welfare announcement, the Tories studied welfare systems in a number of countries, and were particularly praiseworthy of measures taken in the American state of Wisconsin, which had cut the number of people on benefit rolls by 82 percent in three years.

Grayling said of the proposals, “For Britain such an approach marks a revolution in our welfare state. It marks an end to a situation where the receipt of incapacity benefit is an unconditional entitlement. In the future, it will carry with it the responsibility to do everything that you can to get back into work and help lift yourself out of the poverty trap that the benefit can represent for so many people.”

The response from the government was merely to complain that the Tory proposal would cost too much to implement. Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said, “The Conservative proposals could cost an extra £3 billion to £4 billion on top of planned spending in this area.”

Labour and the Tories agree that public spending must be slashed in order to make the British economy more competitive with its European and world rivals. When the initial bill was first proposed in 2006, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton said the welfare state “must help UK companies succeed in the global economy.”

As well as forcing IB claimants into work, the government is also targeting 300,000 more lone parents and one million additional older workers, including those over retirement age.

Welfare and health provision and the private sector

A critical element in slashing access to benefits such as IB is to facilitate the privatisation of both welfare and employment service. Over the past decade, the private sector has been utilised to step up attacks on the welfare state and to profit from providing services.

A prime example is Atos Healthcare, a subsidiary of a French-based computer firm, which employs 50,000 people worldwide and has annual revenues of 5.4 billion euros. The new Employment and Support Allowance medical assessment system is to be run by Atos Healthcare.

Atos Healthcare was awarded a £500 million seven-year contract by the DWP in 2005 to provide medical advice and assessment services. These include Incapacity Benefit, Disability Living Allowance, and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits.

Employees of the company were recruited to be on the technical working groups which drew up the new harsher, Work Capability Assessment. The increased cost of examinations is expected to be in the region of £200 million up to August 2015.

The company also plays a direct role in the provision of medical services. Then known as Atos Origin, the firm won an £8 million contract to operate the first privately run walk-in NHS clinic for local residents and commuters near Manchester’s Piccadilly railway station in 2005.

In January this year, Atos won a 10-year contract to run St Paul’s Way Medical Centre in Tower Hamlets, East London. The former state-run surgery was one of the first to be taken over by a private company. The Tower Hamlets takeover prompted a demonstration by dozens of doctors, nurses and local residents. One doctor who has worked in the area since 1983 told the BBC, “This practice is in one of the poorest areas in the country. There is overcrowding, poverty and a lot of people who are having difficulties with English. There is a huge amount of ill health. The residents are very angry that their health care is going to be sold for profit rather than for personal care.”

In London alone, the government has identified a further 150 GP surgeries that could be taken over and run by private firms.

Science cuts threaten Jodrell Bank radio telescope

tim — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:03:43 +0000

The Labour government of Prime Mister Gordon Brown is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts in the UK science budget, with many critical programmes and facilities now threatened. In March, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) outlined a Programmatic Review listing all the science projects it funds in order of priority.

The review followed the STFC’s December 11 budget announcement proposing severe cuts to the budgets of critical physics research and astronomy projects in the UK. The council cited an £80 million shortfall in its £670 million triannual budget as the reason for the cuts.

The report divides scientific projects into High, Medium-High, Medium-Lower and Lower categories. Scientists fear that funding may be withdrawn from those facilities deemed to be “Lower Priority” and some of those listed as “Medium-Lower Priority.” Some 18 projects are listed as “Medium-Lower Priority” and a further 25 as “Lower Priority.”

Among the many projects described as being of “Lower Priority” are the following:

MERLIN, e-MERLIN and “Jive”—The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an array of radio telescopes centred on the world-famous Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire and is operated by the nearby University of Manchester. The array is distributed around Britain, with separations of up to 217 km. The project is preparing to complete a full £8 million upgrade to fibre-optic cables, enabling the full use of each dish to be made. The latter is known as e-MERLIN.

Astrogrid: An open-source project leading worldwide efforts in partnership with established astronomical archives and facilities to establish a Virtual Observatory. The project has already designed much of the infrastructure to enable simultaneous access to most astronomical catalogues, images, spectra and other datasets in a standardised way from anywhere in the world.

BiSON: The Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network consists of a network of six remote solar observatories monitoring low-degree solar oscillation modes.

CASU/WFAU: The Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) is part of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University, and is mainly involved in survey astronomy.

Gemini: The Gemini Observatory consists of two of the largest telescopes in the world, one in Hawaii and one in Chile. Gemini North is both a very advanced and the largest telescope UK astronomers have access to in the northern hemisphere.

EISCAT: The EISCAT Scientific Association project operates three incoherent scatter radar systems, at 931 MHz, 224 MHz and 500 MHz, in northern Scandinavia. EISCAT monitors and studies the interaction between the Sun and the Earth as revealed by disturbances in the magnetosphere and the ionised parts of the atmosphere. It is these interactions that produce the spectacular aurora known as the Northern Lights.

UKIRT: The United Kingdom InfraRed telescope is located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It is currently carrying out the most extensive survey of the infrared sky ever attempted.

UKATC: Based at the historic and world-renowned Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre is the national centre for astronomical technology. UKATC designs and builds instruments for many of the world’s major telescopes.

ING: The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes has been listed as a “Medium-Lower” priority. The ING consists of three important telescopes on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain.

Also listed as “Medium-Lower” is the UK Solar System Data Centre (UKSSDC). This is a central archive and data centre facility for Solar System science in the UK, supporting the archives for all the researchers in the UK’s solar system scientific community.

Jodrell Bank

Immediately following the publication of the STFC review, there were protests throughout the astronomy and physics communities and among scientists in general. Sir Bernard Lovell, who founded and oversaw the construction of Jodrell Bank and who still works there at the age of 96, said, “We are all astonished. I’m sure some solution will be found. It is the wrong time to close it. The work is of such fundamental importance. It would just not be sensible for them to pull the plug now.”

Prominent astronomer Patrick Moore condemned the STFC plans. He said, “If we lose Jodrell Bank, it will be a devastating blow not only to British radio astronomy, but to astronomy all over the world. The amount involved is not very much in the bigger scheme of things. It’s about the same amount claimed by Cabinet ministers last year for their expenses.”

Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society said, “We are very concerned about these plans—they are a real threat to Jodrell Bank. Jodrell Bank is a world-class facility and to save £2.7 million a year by axing something the UK is so good at is terribly disappointing. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Since it was constructed in 1957, the huge 76.2 metre (250 ft)-wide Jodrell Bank radio telescope dish located in the Cheshire countryside, 20 miles south of Manchester, has become known and loved by millions of people. One letter published in the local newspaper, the Manchester Evening News, said, “I can’t believe that this is happening. I was inspired to study science myself by visits to Jodrell Bank as a child and I know that a lot of other people had the same experience.”

Such is the public affinity with Jodrell Bank that in 2006, it was named the winner in a BBC News online competition to find the UK’s greatest “Unsung Landmarks.”

For more than 50 years, the Jodrell Bank Observatory, originally known as the Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, has been at the forefront of worldwide radio astronomy. Sir Bernard Lovell had worked on radar in the Second World War and wanted to investigate the phenomena of cosmic rays. He had originally used a 218-ft wire mesh Transit aerial on the same site. Unlike the aerial, the dish could be pointed to any part of the sky to detect radio waves emanating from space. It was built at an estimated cost of £260,000—at least £3 million at today’s costs.

Despite the great advances in radio astronomy since 1957, and the building of many other dishes worldwide, the Lovell remains the third-largest steerable radio telescope in the world today. Today, there are four radio telescopes of varying sizes on the site, with the main one being the Lovell.

Over the past five decades, Jodrell Bank has made an astounding contribution to science and our understanding of the universe.

Stars, galaxies and other objects in the universe emit different types of radiation—from visible light to invisible X-rays, gamma rays and infrared. Prior to the advent of Jodrell Bank and the radio telescope age, astronomers were only able to view the visible light emitted by stars. Overnight, it revolutionised astronomy, as it was able to detect radio waves from objects at the far reaches of the universe. The Lovell telescope allows these radio waves to bounce off its dish onto an aerial and radio receiver at its centre.

Among its many achievements, it has developed our understanding of the age of the universe and what it is made of. It has led the way in the understanding of quasars, pulsars and supernovae and played a critical part in a number of space missions. Today, it researches various fields in physics and astronomy including gravitational lenses, cosmic microwave background, active galaxies, stellar Physics, solar plasmas, starburst galaxies and supernovae.

On becoming operational in the summer of 1957, it was the only telescope able to track Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite launched into space by the Soviet Union. On October 12, 1957, Jodrell Bank located the satellite.

In 1959, Jodrell Bank received the very first pictures transmitted from the far side of the Moon by the Soviet probe Luna 3.

Jodrell Bank also tracked the NASA probe Pioneer 5 between March 11 and June 12, 1960. It was also used to send commands to the probe, including the one to separate the probe from its carrier rocket and the ones to turn on the more powerful transmitter when the probe was 8 million miles away. It was the only telescope in the world capable of receiving data from Pioneer 5.

Recalling the tumultuous era that marked the beginning of humanity’s exploration beyond Earth, Lovell commented in 2003, “Both the Soviets and Americans had the ability to launch payloads into space, but no means of tracking them!”

Another milestone in the history of Jodrell Bank was in February 1966. The telescope tracked the Soviet Union’s first unmanned moon lander, Luna 9. It was able to detect the facsimile transmission of photographs from the moon’s surface being relayed back to the Soviet Union.

Perhaps the most outstanding moment in the history of Jodrell Bank was when it assisted in tracking the Apollo mission that put man on the moon on July 20, 1969. During the descent of the Eagle lander to the surface of the moon, Jodrell Bank mapped out a plot chart of it based on Doppler Shift measures. This plot showed a very discernable movement that marked the exact moment when the crew assumed manual control of the craft and momentarily changed course in the last seconds before landing. This was because they had seen a potentially hazardous crater that may have jeopardised the mission.

Today, that plot chart can be seen by visitors on the wall of the cafe in the Jodrell Bank Visitor Centre.

Even as recently as 1993, the Lovell Telescope was asked by NASA to help in the search for the lost Mars Observer spacecraft. Although the craft was not detected, the Lovell was the only instrument on Earth with the capability to do so.

Scientific observations carried out by the telescope included using radar to measure the distance to the Moon and to Venus. It has also observed pulsars and discovered various types of pulsars including millisecond pulsars and the first pulsar in a globular cluster.

In 1979, it inaugurated the field of the study of “gravitational lenses” as its radio observation led to the discovery of the first such lenses. Gravitational lenses had first been predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of General Relativity at the turn of the last century. Einstein conjectured that instead of light from a source travelling in a straight line (in three dimensions), it is actually bent by the presence of a massive body. This allows the observer to see the object that is further away and would not actually be detected without the presence of the large object.

Further discoveries in this field were made in 1998 with the joint Jodrell Bank/NASA detection of a special type of gravitational lensing known as Einstein Rings.

In September 2006, Jodrell Bank announced that following three years of observing a double pulsar with three of its telescopes, the attending results showed that the general theory of relativity is accurate to 99.5 percent.

Last but not least, the telescope also plays an important role in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Jodrell Bank’s latest groundbreaking research

Jodrell Bank/MERLIN has recently been instrumental once again in another monumental scientific breakthrough. On April 2, the team at MERLIN in collaboration with a network of scientists in the US announced the discovery of the youngest planet ever detected.

The planet is still in the process of formation and is known as a “protoplanet.” The gas planet and its surrounding mix of rocky particles and dust is thought to be just a few hundred years old and orbits around the star HL Tau. The parent star itself is very young and is estimated to be less than 100,000 years old. It lies in the direction of the constellation of Taurus at a distance of 520 light years. Our own Sun, in comparison, is 4,600 million years old.

The discovery reveals a new planetary system in the process of formation. The evolving planet is a gas giant, some 14 times the size of our Jupiter. Prior to its discovery, the previous youngest planet was confirmed to be 10 million years old.

The HL Tau star region was initially imaged by the Very Large Array (VLA) of radio telescopes in the US at emission wavelengths. These were specifically chosen to detect rocky particles about the size of pebbles. Scientists hoped that the presence of such tiny rocky material would reveal that they were beginning to clump together to form planets. MERLIN, including Jodrell Bank, was able to study the same system at longer wavelengths. These observations confirmed the emissions were from rocks and not from other sources such as hot gas.

Dr. Anita Richards, one of two scientists at Jodrell Bank who analysed the data, said, “The new object, designated HL Tau b, is the youngest planetary object ever seen and is just one percent as old as the young planet found in orbit around the star TW Hydrae that made the news last year. HL Tau b gives a unique view of how planets take shape, because the VLA image also shows the parent disk material from which it formed.”

Jodrell Bank’s future is bound up with the e-MERLIN project, which is currently being finalised. It is due to be operational in late 2008 or early 2009 at a total cost of £8 million.

It has also been selected as the headquarters of a larger international project—the Square Kilometre Array. This proposes to connect dozens of radio dishes at a remote facility to be built either in South Africa or Australia at a cost of about £1 billion. This project is not intended to be fully operational until 2020, meaning that Jodrell Bank is reliant on the continuation of the e-MERLIN project.

The upgrade of Jodrell Bank associated with e-MERLIN will increase the resolution and sensitivity of the system by 30 times. This would result in the telescope being able to observe a much wider range of objects in the universe. The scrapping of e-MERLIN would result in no new science being achieved from the £8 million investment and the possible closure of Jodrell Bank altogether.

Phil Diamond, the director of the observatory, said, “It means there is a threat to the whole facility. We are coming to the end of the £8 million MERLIN upgrade, which when it comes on stream, will make us one of the most powerful telescopes on the planet, so it is unbelievable.”

The cuts being proposed by the STFC have been aptly described as “scientific vandalism.”

For several generations, Jodrell Bank has been a powerful symbol representing scientific achievement and progress. For many school children, including this writer, seeing the giant telescope up close as a child left an indelible memory. Tens of thousands of people still visit Jodrell Bank each year and marvel at the structure and what it represents historically. Lectures are regularly held there that continue to play an important role in the dissemination of the latest developments in the fields of radio astronomy and physics.

Precisely due to the great advances in scientific understanding and discoveries, in which it played a major role, today Jodrell Bank and the other projects threatened in the STFC review are ever more critical in both enhancing and promoting scientific enquiry. The slashing of the science budget is bound up with a general onslaught being carried out by a government whose policies are based on facilitating the requirements of big business. The pursuit of science and knowledge is being sacrificed to the narrower and more immediate demands of corporations for returns on their investments.

A web site www.savejodrellbank.org.uk has been set up by students at the University of Manchester in response to the threat.

Labour makes Massive Cuts in Higher Education

Ellie Keen — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:35:00 +0000

The Labour government of Prime Minster Gordon Brown is implementing significant cuts in higher education.

Last September the government announced that it planned to remove £100 million of funding from students studying for a second degree. These students are known as Equivalent or Lower level Qualification students (ELQs). The measure was announced in a letter from the Universities Secretary, John Denham, to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), instructing it to remove £100 million a year from the funding of ELQ students.

It is estimated that the policy will affect an initial 170,000 mostly part-time students. The changes will be introduced in the next academic term of 2008-09. Since the measures were announced, more than 18,000 people have signed an online petition to the prime minister. The petition supports a call from the Open University for the decision to be delayed.

The government has attempted to justify the cuts on the basis that the lost funding would instead be redirected to students taking their first degrees. The reality is that the proposals are a vital part of the government’s strategy to deregulate and privatise higher education, in order to make it the preserve of more affluent layers.

The £100 million represents a tiny fraction (0.1 percent) of the government’s higher education budget, but its removal sets a precedent. The government intends to incorporate the private sector directly into the provision and funding of higher education. As part of its proposals, the government is calling on private sector corporations to pay towards the costs of ELQ students. The letter stated, “In many cases, it may be appropriate for the employer to pay at least a proportion of the costs of such re-training.”

The hardest hit higher education institutions will be the Open University and Birkbeck College, London. The Open University is the largest academic institution in the UK by student number, with more than 180,000 students enrolled, including more than 25,000 students studying overseas. According to research carried out by the Universities College Union (UCU), the withdrawal of its ELQ funding will leave 29,000 OU students without funding and will cost it £31.6 million in teaching funding by 2014.

David Vincent, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University said, “The Open University is threatened with a loss of more than £30 million of its teaching income. It will have a real impact on those who have a degree but want to continue with their education, to develop their skills, to improve their employment chances or further their careers. For the OU and other institutions in the part-time sector, this is the biggest cut in funded numbers the English higher education system has witnessed for a generation.”

Nine out of ten of the higher education institutions facing the largest ELQ cuts in percentage terms are located in London. An estimated 54 percent of students affected by the loss of funding study in the capital. At Birkbeck College, a third of its students have ELQ status. The university is set to lose £7.8 million in teaching funding by 2014.

Birkbeck issued a statement opposing the cuts and revealed the devastating impact they will cause: “Many Birkbeck students embark on the major step of studying for a second qualification later in life in order to become more employable or to change career direction. Across the sector, ELQ students are mostly part-time and clustered at institutions like Birkbeck and the Open University, so these highly targeted cuts will have a disproportionate effect on the part-time sector.

“If urgent action is not taken to support Birkbeck and other part-time institutions, these cuts will have an immediate and detrimental effect on all part-time students and the government’s skills agenda. Classes will be vulnerable to closure, choice will be reduced and the student experience will be impoverished.”

A further 24 institutions will lose over £2 million each in teacher funding.

The financial cost to students themselves as a result is set to immediately escalate. Universities have warned that the cuts will mean that fees for such students will be forced up above £7,000 per year. Many of the OU’s students are part-time, on low incomes or benefits and rely entirely on government funding in order to study. Some 13 percent of OU ELQ students live in areas of severe multiple deprivations (within the bottom 25 percent of areas scored against the Index of Multiple Deprivation). OU statistics show that 3,500 ELQ students have special needs and 600 are unable to work owing to illness. OU Vice Chancellor Professor Brenda Gourley said the university was already seriously looking at charging higher fees: “Our core mission is to bring in more students at the lower end of the scale, and we will continue with this aim. But we’ll have to carry out market surveys to see what people will pay. While the government thinks employers are willing to fund their staff’s education, that hasn’t been our experience.”

Despite almost universal opposition, a January 9 vote in Parliament supported the cuts by a majority of 53 votes. As part of a phony “consultation” exercise, the government asked for submissions from individuals and organisations prior to a House of Commons’ select committee which took evidence on the ELQ issue in mid January. The government had no intention of changing its course even though the vast majority of the 478 submissions—470—stated they opposed the policy.

On January 17, in an attempt to deflect the widespread criticism to its plans, Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell announced that an extra £10 million would be directed towards funding part-time degrees. This would increase funding for students on part-time courses from £20 million to £30 million. The move was described in various quarters including by the opposition Conservative Party as a “retreat.” It was nothing of the sort. The £100 million cut remains in place.

The University and College Union, which represents 117,000 members in higher education, stated that the cuts were part of an overall slashing of the budget of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The government previously announced that it plans to implement “efficiency savings” rising to £1.5 billion a year by 2010-11. However, the UCU also made clear that it is not opposed to cuts in principle but wanted to be consulted.

Businesses being primed to run higher education

On February 25, in an article entitled, “Blueprint for bosses to shape degrees,” the Financial Times reported that “Employers would gain significant new powers to shape higher education degrees under a confidential blueprint circulating inside Whitehall.”

The article cited a document, produced by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, under the title “Higher Level Skills Strategy.” According to the FT, it “sets out the case for devoting the bulk of extra university funding over the next three years to degrees jointly designed and funded by employers” and states that universities should offer a range of reforms “that an employer and employee will want.”

The document continues, “We expect the great majority of this growth to be in provision that is developed with employer input—either foundation degrees [two-year vocational degrees co-designed by employers] or employer co-funded places.” The report warns that such growth will be “initially concentrated in those institutions which have shown they are able and willing to commit to working closely with employers.”

On March 6 an article in the Guardian on the governments annual higher education budget revealed that cuts were being made to the number of students allowed access to leading universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, University College London and the University of Manchester. From next term the government’s budget for “widening participation” will increase by £15 million to £364 million but according to the Guardian’s research 50 out of the 90 English universities are facing cuts in their “widening participation” budgets. Cambridge will lose 44 percent of its funding and Oxford will lose nearly 37 percent. University College London, Bristol and Manchester University will have budget cuts of between 6 and 22 percent.

Universities students face massive debt crisis

The cuts to higher education are being carried out at a time when universities have borrowed millions of pounds in order to finance construction of much needed new buildings and the upgrading of existing buildings. Steve Egan, deputy chief executive of Hefce, told the Guardian, “The level of borrowings, as compared to the level of total income, is the highest since 1997. In actual terms (that is, the amount rather than a percentage), the level of borrowings in 2005-06 was higher than ever before.”

Many universities already rely on the income from international undergraduate students, who currently account for eight percent of total university income.

The debt crisis has resulted in significant job losses. Britain’s largest university, the University of Manchester, has an operating deficit of £12.4 million. It is planning to shed 650 mostly administrative jobs through “natural wastage.” Up to 20 percent of these will be academic staff. At Sunderland University’s the deficit has increased from £1 million in 2005/06 to £4.2 million in 2006-07. As a critical part of managing the debt, universities have been forced to sell of large parts of the estate they own. The University of Manchester recently sold off the 3,600 acre Tabley House Estate in Knutsford, Cheshire, for £35 million, without which its debt levels would be far, far higher.

At the University of Sussex, management has published restructuring plans that will mean cuts in established areas of study in favour of more lucrative areas such as business and management and international security. Increasingly universities are seeking direct contracts with big business in order to finance their operations. Last September the University of Manchester announced that it was establishing a £50 million venture capital fund with a commercial partner to invest in “intellectual property” in order to facilitate bringing academic research to sell in the market place.

Tuition fees introduced by Labour are currently £3,145 for this academic year, but it is expected that a government review will recommend a further increase in the fees for 2008/09. But this is only a part of the prohibitive financial scenario facing students. Research by the Student Union found that when living costs such as rent, textbooks, utility bills and travel are added, the average cost of a three-year university degree comes to more than £45,000 in London and £39,000 outside the capital. Students are forced to take out “Student Loans,” which are to be paid back after graduation when they enter employment, leaving them saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. In addition, the credit reference agency Equifax found that 83 percent of parents are footing their children’s education bill.

Brown Government Slashes Science Budget

Tim Holmes — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:50:22 +0000

On December 11, the Science and Technology Facilities Council announced severe cuts to the budgets of critical physics research and astronomy projects in the UK.

The cuts are being imposed as the result of a £80 million shortfall in the annual STFC budget of £678 million. The council said this was mainly due to the higher-than-expected running costs at several large-scale projects.

While there has been an increase in the expected running costs of projects such as the Diamond Light Source project in Oxfordshire, the central factor determining the cuts is the slash in science funding announced in the Brown government’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Under the October review, the STFC was granted a 13.6 percent rise in its budget to £6.5 million in 2011. When the running costs of new facilities are taken into account, this equates to a 7 percent cut in the budget of the STFC and leaves it unable to maintain research at its current level.

This will have a devastating and long-term impact on UK involvement in groundbreaking projects such as the International Linear Collider and the Gemini observatories in both hemispheres, which have contributed greatly from the knowledge and resources of British scientists and researchers. All UK research in ground-based solar-terrestrial physics and high-energy gamma-ray astronomy will be halted.

The STFC is a government funding body formed in April of this year, following the merger of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. Its remit is to fund science projects in the UK, including allocating research grants to university departments, financing research infrastructure, and numerous training and knowledge programmes. The STFC’s budget for physics and astronomy includes funding for research into particle physics, nuclear physics, space science and both ground-based and space-based astronomy.

The cuts follow a November announcement by the STFC that in order to save £4 million it is to pull UK funding and scientists out of the Gemini observatory. The UK is withdrawing its support for this project after investing some £35 million into it.

Gemini consists of two large telescopes, one in Chile and the other in Hawaii. They are critical to international astronomers, as they are able to provide total and unobstructed coverage of both the northern and southern skies. They are among the most advanced optical/infrared telescopes available and can be operated remotely due to their networking capabilities.

As well as the cuts to a raft of projects announced by the STFC, warnings have been sounded by many in the scientific community of large-scale cuts in research grants allocated to universities. Hundreds of highly qualified scientists could lose their jobs as a result.

According to information circulating on astronomy and physics research blogs, the STFC has informally asked universities if they would be able to cope with a cut in existing research grants of between 25 and 40 percent.

In response to the STFC announcement, Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said, “I have it from a very reliable source that we are looking at a 25 percent cut in grants over the next three years. Programme cuts could even result in some existing research grants being canceled. Both of these are truly awful for universities.”

In its spending plans the STFC stated it will be “necessary to withdraw from or cut back on other planned programmes and facilities.”

Among the programmes and research being threatened/halted are:

Withdrawal from the planned International Linear Collider, a 40-kilometre-long tunnel for electron-positron collision. This next-generation particle accelerator is essential to the future development of physics and will collide electrons and their anti-particles, positrons. Its primary objective will be to investigate what the universe is made from, reveal the origin of mass, what dark matter is and how it came to be. It promises to revolutionise our understanding of the universe.

Funding for the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Funding for MERLIN, the network of radio telescopes operated by Dorella Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester.

The Liverpool Telescope on La Palma in the Canary Islands. This is the world’s largest research robotic telescope and, due to its (RINGO) optical polarimetre instrument, was recently awarded the “Research Project of the Year” by the Times Higher Education Supplement. The team operating RINGO produced a research paper this year, “Measuring Gamma-Ray Bursts.” Commending the research, Professor Philip Esler, chief executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, said they had made a “brilliantly innovative discovery into the fundamental nature of the Universe that could have profound impacts in the decades ahead.”

UK involvement in the Dark Energy Survey. This project seeks to establish what dark energy is and the possible reasons why the universe is accelerating. Scientists and researchers at five universities in the UK have been involved in this international project: the University College London, the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Portsmouth and the University of Sussex.

Funding for the Zepplin3 underground search for dark matter.

The £14 million AstroGrid project which was set up to form the UK contribution to a global virtual observatory. One of its key goals is to establish a working datagrid for key UK databases and a set of tools for online database analysis and exploration for use by the astronomy community. The AstroGrid is set to play a very important role due to the sheer massive amounts of raw data being collected by many international astronomy and physics projects. The Astrogrid website explains the factors driving the necessity for such a project. “Firstly, there is an explosion in the size of astronomical data sets delivered by new large facilities like the ESO VLT, the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), and VISTA. The processing and storage capabilities necessary for astronomers to analyse and explore these data sets will greatly exceed the capabilities of the types of desktop systems astronomers currently have available to them. Secondly, there is a great scientific gold mine going unexplored and underexploited because large data sets in astronomy are unconnected. If large surveys and catalogues could be joined into a uniform and interoperating ‘digital universe,’ entire new areas of astronomical research would become feasible.”

Planned investments and research are to be abandoned in ground-based gravitational wave astronomy.

The STFC said it intended to reveal the extent of the cuts it plans to make in the targeted areas following further internal meetings. However, it has not taken long for the axe to begin to fall.

Some of the most severe cuts will be at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh in Scotland. On December 20, the Astronomy Technology Centre (ATC), based at the observatory on Blackford Hill, announced that its budget will be halved over the next three years, with cuts totaling up to £3.7 million a year. Due to its position and renown as one of the main designers, producers and suppliers of the sophisticated instruments for many of the world’s major ground- and space-based telescopes, the cuts at the ATC will do particular damage to international astronomy research.

The ATC currently employs about 100 staff and says that the cuts will mean the redundancies of about 50 percent of its staff. Professor Ian Robson, director of the ATC said, “We are very disappointed with the result of the spending review. We are looking at a reduction of 50 per cent in the workforce on site here unless we can generate external income. In terms of the UK as a hotbed of science and technology and a leader in Europe, this is all quite tragic.”

The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh has a distinguished history in the annals of astronomy. Its origins go back to the opening of the town’s college in 1583, where astronomy was taught from the outset. In 1786, the Chair of Astronomy was established at the university. The Astronomical Institution of Edinburgh was formed in 1811 and was the first society in Britain devoted solely to the burgeoning science of astronomy. The Royal Observatory was founded in 1822 as a result of the dedicated work of the Astronomical Institution of Edinburgh.

The Royal Observatory has since become synonymous with enriching global scientific understanding and progress in the field. The first Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Regius Professor Thomas Henderson, was appointed at Edinburgh in 1834. He became, chronologically, the first astronomer to measure parallax and in doing so determined the distance to a fixed star (Alpha Centauri). He carried out this groundbreaking work at the observatory at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Before his death in 1844, he made more than 60,000 observations of star positions.

Throughout the last century, the observatory played a critical role in international astronomy and physics research. In the 1970s and 1980s, the observatory designed, built and operated the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia, the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, also in Hawaii.

Widespread protest and indignation at “an extraordinary waste”

There has been immediate and widespread opposition to the cuts from university departments and leading professors, astronomers and physicists in the UK and internationally. Many international scientists have expressed incredulity and astonishment that a government would so willingly jeopardise and terminate years and even decades of scientific research at the stroke of a pen.

An online petition calling on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reverse the planned cuts was signed by more than 3,500 names on its first day.

Universities UK, the representative body for UK universities, said that it envisaged a “significant loss of staff at all levels” and “UK institutions would therefore lose leadership in world-leading projects and lose international collaborative partners.” It added, “Institutional investment in staff and equipment would not be fully exploited and facilities would become run-down.”

It also pointed out that as a result of cutting back research grants, “there will also be a considerable impact in parts of Chemistry, Biology, and Engineering.”

John Dainton, professor of physics at Liverpool University, called on scientists in other disciplines to protest against the STFC’s cuts.

Ken Peach, professor of physics at the University of Oxford, said the STFC three-year plan was a “truly appalling document which gives little idea of the depth of the financial crisis caused by the underfunding of STFC. There is already, today, damage to physics at home, where young researchers are afraid for their careers, and to our reputation abroad, where this abrupt change of attitude has been noticed by our international partners.”

Peach denounced the decision to withdraw from the International Linear Collider particle accelerator, stating it made no strategic or scientific sense.

Brian Foster of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at the University of Oxford said of the STFC plan, “It attempts to play down the damage that will be caused to particle physics and astronomy as well as the other disciplines that the STFC is supposed to serve. Physics departments across the country will be severely impacted by these proposals. This is a sad day for physics in the UK. It is scientific vandalism to throw all this away in order to make a small dent in a much larger STFC financial shortfall substantially brought about by the merger of two earlier research councils and totally unrelated to particle physics research or the merits of this project.”

Today, it is impossible to conceive of an astronomy or physics project that is not the product of years of work of scientists and researchers in at least several or many countries. Many human years of study and research need to be invested in such projects. This necessary collaboration of vast global human resources and knowledge are no more evident than with the International Linear Collider project, scheduled to be completed in 2010.

The website for the project states, “Planning, designing, funding and building the proposed International Linear Collider will require global participation and global organisation.”

The work is being led by an international team of more than 60 scientists and engineers who have established a Global Design Effort for the ILC. This team in turn formulates the design and priorities for the work of many scientists and engineers around the world.

Some 2,000 people from more than 100 universities and laboratories are collaborating in more than dozen countries to design and build the ILC. The UK has already invested £30 million in the ILC. The project has been supported since 1991 by the UK’s Linear Collider Collaboration and involves more than 100 scientists at 16 centres in Britain.

The ILC has now reached a critical stage, with physicists working on the detailed design of the accelerator. The estimated cost of building the ILC, excluding research and development, prototyping, land acquisition, underground easement costs, detectors, contingencies, and inflation, has been calculated at US$6.65 billion.

Professor Brian Foster at Oxford is also the European Director of the ILC. He said of the STFC plan, “For the UK to withdraw from the ILC at this crucial stage would be like refusing to refuel the lead racing car at the last pit stop before the finish line due to concerns about the cost of petrol.”

Professor Phil Burrows from the University of Oxford stated that the withdrawal “would alienate the international community which entrusted vital parts of the project to UK scientists, severely damaging our credibility in all future international scientific projects.”

Two German scientists involved in the ILC also criticised the decision. Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, research director at the DESY research institute in Hamburg, said, “Designing a machine to answer nature’s most fundamental questions takes time and effort, and losing leading scientists from the UK would be a major setback.”

Professor Albrecht Wagner, chair of the International Committee for Future Accelerator, stated, “This represents an extraordinary waste of the investment and leadership established by the UK in this truly international project.”

The UK government’s elimination of programmes and research that have taken decades to establish is a major setback to international scientific research, particularly into fundamental questions of physics and cosmology. This is social vandalism and sabotage on a massive scale.

The amount of money required to fund these science projects is less than £100 million—a minuscule amount relative to overall government expenditure. The fact that it will not fund even this sum required for its existing science budget is a clear indication of its broader intent to slash public spending to the bone in the interests of its corporate backers.

While announcing the cuts in the science budget, the STFC “Delivery plan” was also revealing in that it summed up the role that government sees for science in the UK. Scientific facilities are increasingly being subordinated to the requirements of big business. Under the section, “Improving UK Business Competitiveness,” the document states, “STFC has played an active role in ensuring that UK companies are able to tender for work at major research centres.” To this end, the STFC is promoting, a “coherent national programme to ensure that UK companies get the widest knowledge of the opportunities open to them and early intelligence about new developments.”

The STFC states, “Commercial use of the STFC facilities and technology programmes has grown,” and as an example cites “75 collaborative projects with industry with a value of £11.9m.”

This pro-business ethos is being spearheaded by the STFC. In the section entitled, “Commercialisation,” it reports that it has “worked closely with universities and international centres to encourage an entrepreneurial approach which has yielded success.”

The budget cuts and loss of accumulated experience and expertise due to the callous disbanding of teams of scientists, engineers and technicians is symptomatic of a government whose priorities are completely opposed to the development of scientific understanding and progress.

The Super-Rich Get Richer

Tim Holmes — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 22:58:22 +0000

For the vast majority of the UK population, the last year has been one of deepening economic hardship, ever-rising debt, bankruptcies and mortgage payments, house repossession and general job insecurity.

But for a few thousand city managers and financiers, it has been a year in which their enrichment has reached unprecedented levels. Preliminary data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that bonuses in the City of London have increased this year by 30 percent to a record £14.1 billion. The increase is double that recorded in 2006.

An analysis of the data published in the Guardian on August 28 revealed that bonuses across the economy rose by 24 percent this spring to £26.4 billion. More than half of this amount, £14.1 billion, is made up of bonuses accrued by city financiers. According to the Guardian, “the 300,000-odd people who work in the Square Mile account for over half of all the bonuses shared out across the rest of the economy, which consists of around 26 million employees.” In 2006 the figure stood that £10.9 billion.

Last year an analysis of hedge fund bonuses found that Noam Gottesman and Pierre Lagrange, directors of the London-based firm GLG Partners, took away bonuses of between £200 million and £250 million each. GLG Partners manages £40 billion in hedge funds.

The ONS statistics show a marked increase in the growth of profits among British companies. In the second quarter of the year profits grew by 16 percent, the biggest rise for nearly 13 years. In comparison wages grew at a rate of just 3.6 percent, the slowest in more than five years. The disparity speaks volumes about the level of social inequality that has developed in the UK.

The vast bonuses of managing directors and financiers are now so commonplace that such information is generally to be found on the business or inside pages of the news media.

The accumulation of fabulous wealth by a few and the meteoric growth in social inequality is the result of deliberate policies pursued by successive governments in Britain over nearly three decades.

The deregulation of the financial services, privatisation of nationalised industries and attacks on the social position of the working class was begun by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, but since being elected in 1997 Labour has facilitating an unparalleled growth of a new super-wealthy elite.

Labour’s pro-business policies are such that this week an official study by the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed that almost a third of the UK’s 700 largest businesses paid no corporation tax in the 2005-2006 financial year. Another 30 percent of the companies paid less than £10 million each.

The 700 businesses paid 54 percent of the total corporation tax paid by all British firms. But of the 700 businesses, 50 businesses or 7 percent, paid 67 percent of the tax while 210 firms each paid less than £10 million. The breakdown found that about 220 of the 700 largest companies in Britain paid no corporation tax whatsoever.

Two-thirds of the tax was paid in the banking, insurance and oil and gas industries. Other multibillion-pound industries such as the alcohol, tobacco, car and real estate sectors paid out only a few hundred million pounds in corporation tax.

The super-rich are also largely exempt from tax. An estimated 60,000 wealthy individuals who reside in Britain but were born abroad are able to claim non-domicile tax status, declaring another country as their main home and only paying tax on that part of their income that is “remitted” back to the UK or is derived from the UK.

Analysing the clamour of the world’s super rich to move to Britain, including many of the Russian oligarchs and their families who have made London their home, Philip Beresford, the compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, said, “They have come for the tax, the social circles and the security. At first they were concentrated in London but now they are snapping up country estates. There’s the cluster effect. Russians have followed Abramovich, Indians are following the Mittals and Swedes are following the Rausings.”

On the occasion of the 2007 Sunday Times Rich List, an accountancy expert declared that the super-rich from overseas can “avoid paying virtually any tax in Britain apart from council tax.”

Britain and the Irish Republic are the only two countries in the world whose tax laws allow residents to declare that their real home is in another country. Tax avoidance in Britain has become an industry in itself.

One long-time “non-domicile” is the billionaire Mohammed al-Fayed who owns among other assets the exclusive west London store Harrods, the Ritz Hotel in Paris and Fulham Football Club, also in west London. In 1985 al-Fayed came to an agreement with the Inland Revenue that he would pay a fixed level of income tax of £240,000 a year and would not have to declare his real income. It is estimated that his real income tax level should have been up to £6 million a year.

In 1997, then Chancellor Gordon Brown said it that the government “will not tolerate the avoidance of taxation and will be relentless in its war against tax avoidance.”

In his valuable study, Rich Britain: The rise and rise of the new super wealthy, Stewart Lansley commented, “Increasingly, it appears, the rich are being treated as a special case in Britain, not in the sense of being required to pay more, but being legally allowed to pay much less.”

An example of this is that of the “home-grown” billionaires Philip Green and his wife, who own a string of High Street retail stores in Britain and have also been able to use, very lucratively, tax laws in which they have avoided paying about £300 million in tax. After describing more than a century of the development of “progressive” tax systems, in which the overall consensus was that the rich would necessarily pay a larger share of their income as tax than the poor, Lansley concludes that “today the tax war has been won by the super-rich, not just in the US but in Britain…

“Gradually, the progressive elements of income tax have been stripped away while the burden of tax has been switched gradually to more regressive indirect taxes including VAT [Value Added Tax] and excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.”

By 2002, the top fifth of taxpayers in the UK paid some 35 percent of their income in tax while the poorest fifth paid 37.9 percent of their income in tax.

Under Labour, social inequality has grown to levels unparalleled in British history. A recent study by the London School of Economics found that due to the growing gap between the highest and lowest paid in society the welfare state was not able to ensure that inequality remained static, let alone decreased. In the immediate years following World War II, welfare state measures ensured a more even distribution of wealth. By the 1980s rising unemployment and a shift to indirect taxation and lower direct taxes reversed this trend.

See Also:
Britain: Inequality at 40-year high
[9 August 2007]
London: The rich get so much richer under Blair
[10 March 2007]

"Friendly Fire" Deaths

Tim Holmes — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:25:57 +0000

Three British soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan on Thursday by “friendly fire” after an American F15E fighter plane dropped a 500-pound bomb on their position in the Helmand province at around 18:30 local time.

Privates Aaron McClure, Robert Foster and John Thrumble were with the 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment. Two of the fatalities were teenagers, on their first tour of duty in Afghanistan. Their deaths are the worst “friendly fire” incident involving British soldiers since 1991. Since 1990, “blue-on-blue” incidents involving US troops have resulted in the deaths of 12 British servicemen in Iraq.

According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) the incident happened when UK forces came under attack while on a daily mission northwest of a dam construction project in Jajaki and radioed for close air support (CAS). Two US F15E aircraft were detailed to provide support to the British troops and were given the coordinates of the Afghan fighters. The planes then dropped the bomb killing the three soldiers, who were declared dead at the scene. Two other soldiers were badly injured and were flown to a medical centre at Camp Bastion for treatment.

The fatalities bring to 73 the total number of reported deaths of British forces in Afghanistan since operations began in November 2001. Of these, 50 were killed in action while the other 23 died from illness, accidents or injuries not from combat. The 7,000 British troops in Afghanistan are centred mainly in the Helmand province in the south of the country.

The deaths of the soldiers at the hands of US aircraft are believed to be the second incident of its kind involving British troops in Afghanistan. In December Royal Marine Jonathan Wrigley, 21, is believed to have been killed as the result of being fired on by a US A-10 “Tankbuster” fighter plane. The MoD is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding his death. At the time, a British soldier who witnessed that attack said, “I saw it. It was the A-10. I was five feet away. We called in a strike on the next trench. Then I saw it swooping toward us. I will never forget that noise. It was horrible.”

Such incidents demonstrate the increasing recklessness of the US military in Afghanistan. In 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed when an American F-16 pilot on a night patrol dropped a 500-pound bomb near the southern city of Kandahar. In August 2006, a bomb dropped by a US warplane killed 10 Afghan police officers on a patrol in the southeast of the country.

These incidents have led to criticism of US operations and tactics by the British military. According to a report in the New York Times earlier this month, an unnamed senior British officer revealed that such were the differences in the approach of how to deal with the situation in Afghanistan that he had asked American Special Forces teams to pull out of the town of Sangin in Helmand. The officer stated that the actions of the US military were causing deaths and undermining any local support for the British troops.

In order to limit the damage from such an open attack on the US military, British Defence Secretary Des Browne issued a statement that the views were those of a single officer. Browne said, “It is not the view of the alliance. These things can be said in the heat of battle.”

The latest attack has caused alarm and consternation among British troops, according to reports. The August 24 Times cited comments expressing incredulity regarding the US air attacks. One soldier said, “I just can’t figure out how this has happened. How do you tell the families they were killed by supposed allies?”

Another added, “Whenever I hear we have American jets overhead I get f***ing worried. They just don’t seem to know what they are doing a lot of the time.”

Another said, “They have a different approach to us, they fire first and think later.”

“Here we are fighting the Taliban and they (US warplanes) are dropping bombs on us,” said another. “They are meant to have the best equipment, yet this still happens time and time again. You have to wonder what they are doing.”

Last month a Times reporter visited Sangin and was told by British soldiers that tensions resulting from the US military approach were causing problems for the British operation. One soldier commented, “They have a different approach to us, if we get in an ambush we pull back and assess the situation. They try and shoot their way through it and kill as many people as possible.”

Professor Sheila Bird of the Medical Research Council found that the rate of incidents of “friendly fire” have been three times higher for non-US coalition forces than for US forces. British troops had the highest ratio by far of troops killed in such incidents to numbers on the ground. She concluded, “The present rates in both theatres [Iraq and Afghanistan] are what you would expect for major hostilities, rather than the low-intensity warfare that the fighting is portrayed as being.”

The increase in the number “friendly fire” deaths is a clear indication of a sharp escalation in the war in Afghanistan. The official portrayal of an Afghanistan on the verge of “stability” is starkly contradicted by senior military figures such as General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, who wrote recently, “We now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected.” Reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan were “now almost nonexistent,” he added.

An August 26 Sunday Times article, “Bombed by their allies,” quoted the views of Brigadier John Lorimer, commander of the British taskforce in Afghanistan. Lorimer said that the British Army was completely reliant on US air support. “I can’t even begin to count the number of close air support missions that have been flown by American, UK and other coalition air missions in support of us in the past four-and-a-half months,” he said. “It is a daily occurrence and I can categorically say that American aircraft by dropping bombs have saved the lives of hundreds of British troops. Close air support plays an absolutely vital role in support to troops on the ground. We simply could not exist without it.”

In ominous tones, the Brigadier concluded, “This is hard-core, in-yer-face infantry fighting at its most visceral. This is soldiers on the ground closing with the enemy as their forefathers have done many years before. We should not dress it up. We are at war and we are fighting and mistakes can and will be made.”

Whilst British government war spending is now running at a level of £80 million a month, virtually nothing has been done to improve battlefield recognition systems. In 2002, a National Audit Officer Report on Ministry of Defence attempts to improve combat identification criticised the government for delays in the implementation of a £400 million “identification friend or foe system.” The report noted that this system was still not fully compatible with the systems of other NATO countries or Britain’s potential coalition partners.

The report summarised that while more needed to be done, “History shows that fratricide is an unavoidable feature of warfare.”

In the same year, the Public Accounts Committee attacked the MoD for being slow in developing “combat identification” systems. The committee said, “The department has only just approved a policy paper on combat identification, and many of the solutions required to implement that policy are years away from fruition.”

The following year, Lt.-Col. Andrew Larpent, who in 1991 had been the commander of nine British soldiers killed by US “friendly fire” in the first Iraq war, accusing the MoD of “serious negligence” in failing to introduce an identification system. Further criticism of the government came earlier this year from the Public Accounts Committee, which stated that critical equipment for identifying troop formations had been “delayed, deferred or re-scoped.” The committee report revealed that a “Battle Target Identification programme” slated for introduction last year was now unlikely to be available until the next decade.