SOCIALIST UNITY

Great event, glad to take part last year, do take a look if you are Oxford based.

oxfordradicalforum.wordpress.com/
oxfordradicalforum.net/

We are excited to announce the current programme [see below!] for the Oxford Radical Forum 2010, which will be taking place Friday – Sunday, 5 – 7 March.

Once again Wadham College will play host to a broad range of critical debates and discussions on the radical left, with leading speakers, commentars, activists and academics. As always the event is entirely FREE and we are also pleased to announce a Forum dinner on the Friday night, and an evening social on the Saturday night.

We hope to see many of you at Wadham over the course of the Forum and hope that you will join us in making this another successful and fruitful event.

oxfordradicalforum@googlemail.com

Getting to Wadham College: http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/images/files/wadhmaprev.pdf

<< We view re-energising popular discussion and action on the left a necessity. Our belief in the need for an event in Oxford bringing together progressive politics stems both from a conviction in the continued and critical relevancy of Marxist and leftist ideas and theory and from the sad and persistent weakness of focused or organised progressive political organisation locally and nationally, despite such pressing conditions of political and economic crisis, and despite the very many who would under more favourable circumstances participate in such interventions. Therefore, and with the encouragement of the recent moments of resistance both in Britain and internationally, we are hosting again this forum which will continue to address these issues and draw in individuals from the two universities in Oxford, the city and beyond to consider critically ideas about social progress and transformation. Ultimately ORF seeks to contribute to a critical culture of left debate, theory and action, as well as to cement political and intellectual links between individuals and groups who will have a basis upon which to work in the future. >>

CURRENT TIMETABLE (more…)

Remember that it was the Tory Party in the General Election in 1964 who used the slogan in the Smethwick constituency, “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour”

In an uncomfortable echo of that ugly racism, Conservative Home highlights this leaflet being put out in the Romford constituency, in the here and now, in 2010.

Download PDFs of the front and back of the leaflet.

A ConservativeHome survey of over two thousand Tory members found 84% wanting immigration to be a top Tory pledge.

This is from International Socialism here

Martin Empson
John Bellamy Foster, The Ecological Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2009), £13.95

The conclusion of John Bellamy Foster’s latest book is one that may not strike a chord with many traditional environmentalists—”today, the transition to socialism and the transition to an ecological society are one.”

Foster has been at the forefront of rescuing and reasserting a Marxist critique of capitalism in the context of environmental destruction over the last decade. The Ecological Revolution is the coming together of much of that work. Capitalism is an “unstoppable accelerating treadmill that constantly increases the scale of the throughput of energy and raw materials as part of its quest for profit and accumulation, thereby pressing on the earth’s absorptive capacity”.

Foster spends the greatest part of his book developing the notion of the “metabolic rift”. This concept was at the heart of Foster’s most important book, Marx’s Ecology, which examined the way in which Karl Marx’s understanding of human society’s relations to the natural world developed. The metabolic rift “suggests that the logic of capital accumulation inexorably creates a rift in the metabolism between society and nature, severing basic processes of natural reproduction. This raises the issue of the ecological sustainability…of the interaction between nature and society under capitalism”.

Marx came to this concept in part by looking at the greatest environmental question of his own time—the crisis of capitalist agriculture caused by declining soil fertility as farming became more and more intense. He was greatly influenced by the chemist Liebig who was developing a critique of the methods of industrialised agriculture that were systematically stripping the soil of nutrients. Scientists such as Liebig saw life as based on metabolic relationships between organisms and the natural world around them. Marx in turn defined the “labour process” as the “metabolic interaction between man and nature”. Capitalism had thus created an “irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism”.

Foster points out that in recent years this concept is increasingly understood by environmentalists and scientists, even if they don’t locate its origin within the thoughts of Karl Marx. But Marx took things a step further, showing how the precondition for healing this rift was the replacement of capitalism with a socialist society.

Today the ecological impact of almost every area of capitalist production has its critiques. Many of those at the forefront of campaigns today owe a debt to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring, a devastating attack on the chemical industry and the pesticides it introduced to agriculture.

Foster draws our attention to her “wider, ecological critique, challenging the whole nature of our society”. Foster dwells on this because he sees Carson as part of larger, growing revolt by scientists and intellectuals. Scientists who saw themselves as socialists directly influenced Carson’s critique. For instance, the concept of an ecosystem—the interacting plants and animals of a particular natural area—had been introduced by a Fabian socialist, Arthur Tansley. Tansley himself learnt his trade from the Darwinian biologist Ray Lankester who had been a friend of Marx.

This link from the modern environmental movement back to the original thoughts of Karl Marx is important, particularly as socialists today are often accused of coming late to the debate on ecological destruction.

Foster fills in the intervening years with examples of other Marxists who had developed ecological aspects to their arguments. Karl Kautsky published The Agrarian Question in 1899, further developing Marx’s criticism of capitalist agriculture. This work influenced both Lenin and Bukharin, the latter developing a further critique of the relations between society and nature in the 1920s.

The Ecological Revolution is an important work but it is not without faults. Whole chunks are lifted wholesale from other writings. This in itself isn’t a problem, but it leads to regular repetition.

But my biggest criticism of the book is the conclusion. Despite developing a critique of capitalism that points to the madness resulting from irrational, unplanned, undemocratic production, there is no attempt to explore how a rational, democratically planned economy could help solve the metabolic rift, at the same time as providing for the needs of the world’s population. Despite these reservations, The Ecological Revolution is a book that should be essential reading for socialists.

The Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic are once again the subject of a dispute between Britain and Argentina. Back in 1982 a military conflict over the islands lasting two months resulted in the deaths of over 600 Argentinean servicemen and over 200 British. It erupted when Argentina invaded in an attempt to seize control of the islands by force. It was a war that should never have been fought, as British control of the Falklands (known in Argentina by their Spanish name of Las Islas Malvinas) was and remains a part of a shameful history of British colonialism around the world.

Located 300 miles from Argentina and some 8,000 miles from Britain, the Falklands have long been the subject of territorial dispute. At the beginning of the 19th century Spain held sovereignty over the islands, occupying them for 40 years up until 1811, when its former colony of Argentina asserted sovereignty. The islands came under British control in 1833, after they were seized by force, and have remained a British territory ever since.

The war against the then Argentinean government’s attempt to seize back the islands in 1982 proved a turning point in the fortunes of the nascent and up to then deeply unpopular Tory government, led by Margaret Thatcher. Jingoism swept the country, allowing Thatcher to press ahead with the structural adjustment of the UK economy, which in the process devastated working class communities and delivered a resounding defeat to the trade union movement over the course of a series of hard fought strikes and industrial disputes throughout the early and mid 1980s.

The argument against British sovereignty of the Falklands was harder to make in 1982, though still correct, as back then Argentina was governed by a brutal military junta which had violently and savagely suppressed any and all dissent to its authority at home. Almost 30 years on, however, the situation is markedly different. Argentina is now a centre left democracy, one of a series of progressive governments that have swept the region over the past decade or so, and is pursuing its claim through the UN rather than through military means. Significantly, Argentina’s claim received the support of neighbouring Latin American and Caribbean governments at the Rio summit last week in Cancun, Mexico. In a statement of solidarity with Argentina’s claim the summit declared: “The heads of state represented here reaffirm their support for the legitimate rights of the republic of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute with Great Britain.”

Regardless, the British government continues to refuse to negotiate sovereignty of the islands, citing the democratic rights of the 3,000 British citizens who currently inhabit them. It should be noted that the same rights were not granted to the inhabitants of another distant British colony, the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, who were forcibly repatriated to Mauritius, 1,000 miles away, to make way for a US airbase in the mid 1960s. The former inhabitants of that island and their dependents won a historic High Court judgement back in 2000 declaring their expulsion illegal. In response, the then Blair government promptly rejected any possibility of them being allowed to return to the island, citing Britain’s treaty with the US handing it over for use as a military airbase. It should not be forgotten, of course, that the former inhabitants of Diego Garcia happen to have dark skin while the 3,000 residents of the Falkland Islands are white, English speaking colonists.

In this latest instalment of the dispute over the Falklands, the determination of the current British government to hold onto them undoubtedly has much to do with the fact that significant deposits of oil have been discovered at the bottom of the ocean close to the islands and drilling just begun by British oil companies. It is this which has been the the catalyst for the Argentina’s anger in recent days.

It is entirely understandable that Argentina should find British oil companies drilling for oil so close to the shores of disputed territory off its own coast an unacceptable act of provocation, especially since Argentina maintains that Britain has continued to ignore attempts to renew dialogue on the sovereignty of the islands since the war in 1982. In 1995 both countries signed a joint declaration to cooperate on off shore oil explorations in the South Atlantic. However in 2007 Argentina voided the declaration because Britain refused to view it as a step towards meaningful negotiations over sovereignty.

If the sovereignty of Hong Kong can be returned to China without any undue controversy at the end of a lengthy period of leaseback, surely the sovereignty of a tiny group of islands in the South Atlantic, occupied by just a few thousand people, can be placed under joint ownership or a similar leaseback arrangement made.

Interestingly, the Obama administration has been less supportive of Britain’s position during the current imbroglio over the disputed territory as the British government would like. Thus far the administration has refused to endorse Britain’s sovereignty over the islands, nor has it backed British claims that oil exploration around the islands is sanctioned by international law. Instead the position of the US government is that the issue is a bilateral one, refusing to be drawn into supporting either side of the dispute. Many British commentators have suggested that the neutral position adopted by the US is payback for the recent decision of the courts in Britain to publicise information about the torture by US interrogators of Ethiopian-born British resident, Binyam Mohamad, a former detainee at Guantanamo who is currently pursuing a legal case alleging complicity in his torture by British intelligence while he was held in Pakistan.

Whatever the reasons for the neutral position taken by the US government, Britain must surely be aware that the economic drain of maintaining this distant colony will not be offset by revenue from oil if the vocal support for Argentina’s claim throughout the region turns to active support in the form of a trade embargo. Latin America has emerged from centuries of European and North American domination and is determined to assert its rights accordingly.

The Falkland Islands constitute one of the last remnants of British colonialism, part of a history of economic piracy stained with the blood of millions who suffered as a consequence. The sooner this history is brought to a close the better.

Saturday 13th March 2010

South Camden Community School, Charrington St, London NW1 1RG

Download the flyer here.

The conference

The failure of politicians to come to an agreement at Copenhagen has meant that the struggle against climate change takes on a new urgency. Here in the UK, the huge demonstration before Christmas shows that millions of people want to see serious action on climate change.

The Campaign Against Climate Change trade union campaign for “One Million Climate Jobs” is going from strength to strength. We have sold thousands of copies of our pamphlet and there is a real sense amongst campaigners far wider than the established trade union movement that this is an important campaign.

The third Campaign Against Climate Change trade union conference takes place against this backdrop. We will be bringing together trade unionists and environmental campaigners to discuss how best we can build a movement that wins both climate and social justice.

Come and discuss with Vestas workers how to win the fight for green jobs. Hear from contributors to the “Million Climate Jobs” pamphlet about how action now could reduce emissions and create jobs. Discuss with leading trade unionists from across the country how we should organise in the coming months to save the planet.

The conference takes place on Saturday 13 March at South Camden Community School, Central London. Organised in a “teach-in” format, there will be plenty of time for delegates to join in the discussions. There will also be break out sessions on Climate Jobs, Organising at Work, the Climate Emergency Demands and The International movement post Copenhagen.

Speakers include

Alex Gordon (RMT), Tony Kearns (CWU), Manuel Cortes (TSSA), Chris Baugh (PCS), Prof. Barbara Harriss-White, Phil Thornhill (CaCC), Jonathan Neale (Million Green Jobs Commission), John Stewart (HACAN), Graham Petersen (UCU), Larry Lohman (Cornerhouse), Ian Terry (former Vestas worker

Admission £10 (£5 concessions)

Make cheques payable to “Campaign Against Climate Change” and send to:

Martin Empson, Treasurer, Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union Group, 611 Canon Green Court, West King Street, Salford M3 7HB
More here

The shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, could be in charge of the British economy in just over two months. So it is well worth looking at what he stands for.

Last Sunday he came up with the stunning idea 

 “to sell shares in the nationalised banks to ordinary Britons at a discount in order to reward them for seeing their money as taxpayers rescue the troubled financial institutions. Young people and those on low incomes will get even steeper discounts as part of an aim to “recapitalise the poor”. “The bankers have had their bonuses,” Mr Osborne told The Sunday Times, and Conservatives plan “a people’s bank bonus for the people’s money that was put into these organisations.”

Let us look at the enthusiastic reaction to their economics frontman in comments on Conservative Home:

“Sell the shares by all means, but by open subscription at the top price possible. I want my money back and I don’t expect to pay to get it back.”

“Oh god. So stupid from Osborne. … Every penny must go to cutting the deficit. The deficit is either the number one issue or it isn’t. The Tory leadership must make their mind up.”

“David Cameron needs to get tough and boot out this grinning buffoon and Conservative vote loser”

Ian Cowie, personal finance editor of the Daily Telegraph is scathing:

The State owns about 41pc of Lloyds and 73pc of RBS – formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland and including subsidiaries such as NatWest and Coutts. But what about the views of the owners of the rest of the equity in these banking groups; including 3m private shareholders at Lloyds and 195,000 individual investors at RBS?

They only own a tiny minority of the shares by value but they hold a substantial proportion of the votes which are likely to be cast in the next General Election. Few will be pleased when they realise that whatever discount to the prevailing market price Mr Osborne offers any buyers to make his “people’s bank bonus” attractive must cut the value of existing shareholdings.

So, for example, if the State were to sell its stake in Lloyds at a 20pc discount to the market price today, the disposal of such a large line of stock at a fifth below the going rate would be likely to cut a tenth or so off the current price of 52p . The same discount applied to RBS today would cut its price from 36p to something like 32p.

So George Osborne’s wheeze would cut the value of stock held by around 3.2 million individual shareholders, most of whom can be assumed to be conservative voters.

Remember that just three years ago, RBS was trading at 600p and Lloyds at 400p a share. According to the National Audit Office, the effective price at which the State obtained its stake in Lloyds was 74p and it paid an average of 50p for RBS.

Now looking at the current share price, and the price paid by the government to shore up the banks, it is clear that some public money was jeopardized by buying before the share prices hit the bottom of the trough. But nevertheless based upon historical trends, the government’s stake was bought at a bargain price.

There are two ways forward with this. The best way would be to leverage off the advantage and bring the banks permanently into the state sector, thus increasing the economic footprint of government and providing a direct mechanism for the state to control and boost borrowing, especially to small and medium size businesses who are unable to raise money by more sophisticated means; thus pushing productive investment.

But more cautiously, they could simply wait until the banks’ share price rises again to nearer their historical norm, as they will, and then sell at a profit.

This hare-brained scheme from Osborne of a fire-sale of bank shares is worth looking at because its rashness undermines the attempt he made this week at the annual Mais lecture to present himself as a serious economic figure, which if we judge him by the press reaction, he achieved with some success.

Clearly, there are very serious weaknesses in the UK economy. Sterling had been sustained at too high an exchange rate for far too long, to the benefit of the financial sector, but to the detriment of manufacturing jobs in the English regions and Wales, and Scotland. The level of private debt was and still is unsustainable; and the financial markets have been out of control.

Most damagingly, the government’s direct stake in the economy has become relatively peripheral, so it is reduced to only fiscal measures to nudge the economy. It is worth comparing to the economies who have been least affected by the recession, China and Brazil, where increasing state investment in the productive economy provided sufficient stimulus, based upon an existing substantial state sector. (This is, of course, a criticism George Osborne would not make)

Naturally, given these real problems then all George Osborne needs to do to sound sensible is to acknowledge some of them, and his question “where will future growth come from” is a very good one; and one which the current Labour government struggles to answer.

Nevertheless, central to Osborne’s vision is cutting the deficit. This week he warned that Britain will face “savage and swingeing” public spending cuts and a loss of economic sovereignty unless a start to reducing the record £178bn fiscal deficit is made this year. Osborne says that financial markets will panic unless a “credible” plan to reduce the deficit is introduced this year.

This is a controversial position, for example,

“according to analysts at UBS AG, the British Pound may fall below parity with the Euro and drop to $1.05, the lowest level against the Dollar since the mid-1980s, if the government tackles the country’s debt burden too early.

Mansoor Mohi-Uddin, chief currency strategist at UBS in Singapore, said yesterday that, “if the next government was to prematurely curb the fiscal deficit, without the economy reaching a surer footing, the consequences for sterling would be grave”

There is a very real danger that cuts in the public sector, quite apart from their effect on services, will kill the fragile economic recovery. Generally the measures taken by the government, the bank bail-out, the car scrappage scheme, the cut in VAT rate, the quantitative easing were effective in preventing the recession deepening into a depression, and were effective in preserving the jobs and prosperity of millions of working people.

The Tories opposed or pooh-poohed these sucessful measures, and advocated suicidal laissez faire.

As socialists we need to be clear that state intervention was effective, and we can see from other countries where greater state intervention was used, more state intervention can be even more effective.

Of course neither the Labour Party and the Tory Party are presenting socialist economic policies, but that doesn’t mean the differences between them are unimportant. The response from the government to the banking crisis was significantly better from the point of view of ordinary working people and our families than the policies of the Tories.

The pro-market prejudice of New Labour – including Gordon Brown – has been dealt a savage blow by the events of the last eighteen months. Now is the time to press our advantage and argue for the broader labour movement to again adopt policies in favour of social ownership and state direction of the economy, allowing the economic priorities to be placed under democratic popular control.

That means that we all need to see the Tories as a great danger, a Tory government could close the window that has opened, as well as blighting the lives of a generation.

Socialist Resistance Public Meeting
Wed March 3 @ 7.30
Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, London (Warren Street Tube)
Speakers: Derek Wall (Green Party) and Liam Mac Uaid

I am pretty busy pounding the streets for the General Election but very pleased to be invited to this meeting with Socialist Resistance, who have proved to be serious ecosocialist comrades.

Come along and debate or insult me in person rather than just in the comments box.

Down load poster here.

by Gregor Gall, from the Morning Star 

The Strawbs famously sang: “You don’t get me, I’m part of the union” in their 1973 hit song. The line in the song is most commonly now remembered as “you can’t get me - I’m part of the union.”

Turn the clock forward some 35 years and the depressing reality is that if you’re part of the union, then employers can and do “get you.”

And the most obvious part of a union that a member can be is a union activist. So when union activists, as the Strawbs sang, “say what [they] think … that the company stinks” they grab the attention of employers.

Last year saw the final unearthing of an open yet difficult to prove secret of blacklisting. This mainly concerned employers preventing certain workers gaining employment in the first place in onshore construction. Just before that employers in offshore oil and gas came to an agreement with unions to end their longstanding use of blacklisting. In so doing, they admitted to what the oil workers’ unions had long argued - that the “not required back” system was used to victimise workers who spoke out on behalf of themselves and others.

But onshore and outside construction, there has been a rising spate of victimisation of union activists after they have started employment. In the last decade to the mid-2000s, 20 union activists were victimised each year in this way through either dismissal or suspension leading to punishment. But since then the number annually has begun to rise significantly. So in 2008, the number was 62 and last year the number was 59.

These numbers may not seem vast, but the significance of each victimisation is not just the individual activist concerned and their job and livelihood, important as they are. Rather, it also the impact of undermining collective protection for all the members they represent and the message sent out to others - see what you’ll get if you’re an activist and stand up for others.

The vast majority of recent victimisation has taken place where there is already union recognition and collective bargaining. So it’s not been a case of employers fighting to stop union getting a toehold in previously unorganised workplaces. This makes the roll call of victimisation all the more serious.

So what we’re talking about here largely concerns victimisation of union activists in the public services and in sectors like the railways which are publicly subsidised. Traditionally, employers in the public sector have been regarded as more fair-minded and equitable than private-sector employers. The obvious manifestation of this was agreeing to union recognition and with it the rights to negotiation and facility time for union activists.

But what the Tories set in train new Labour has willingly continued - the undermining of democracy at work where not all considerations have to be about business, balance sheets and efficiency. So attacks were mounted and these longstanding agreements and rights overturned and eroded.

So it should come as no great surprise that the common denominator of victimisation has been union reps who are effective in voicing concerns and criticisms of the employers implementing government “modernisation” policies.

Otherwise why try to silence them if they are ineffective? These are no doubt the public-sector workers that Tony Blair, when PM, claimed had given him scars on his back for attempting to modernise the public sector.

What makes this situation all the more heinous is that when public bodies commit acts of such victimisation, they then use public funds to defend their actions including paying off the victimised workers instead of reinstating them. The suspension in 2007 and then sacking in 2008 of Manchester mental health nurse and Unison activist Karen Reissman for speaking out against her NHS trust’s plans to outsource the provision of services is a case in point.

But any employer which loses when taken to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal for union activities has the option of paying what they see as the “troublemaker” off. Less than 1 per cent of employers who have unfair dismissal cases proven against them reinstate the workers. All they have to say is that it would be impractical to reinstate the union activist.

At the moment victimisation can be hard to prove as the information required to do so is kept secret by the employer. So the first step would be to have an effective right of access to information.

The second step would be to bring back the special award, which was abolished in 1999, so that fines and compensation are genuinely punitive and, thus, discourage victimisation.

The third would be that any employer guilty of victimisation should be ineligible to bid for public contracts.

Gregor Gall is professor of industrial relations at the University of Hertfordshire.

More Tory spin and half truths being peddled by the right wing press

By Diana Smith / @MulberryBush

There were two big political news stories yesterday. One was the report on the News of the World from the Press standards committee, raising a number of questions about the regulation of the press. The other was the inquiry report on Stafford Hospital. This was the story that gave David Cameron his PMQ soundbite of the week, demanding yet another inquiry (on top of the six so far) on the “400 unnecessary deaths”.

On the face of it these stories appear separate. In my mind they are closely connected.

I live in Stafford, where for the last year we have lived with repeated assaults by sections of the press.

When I waited for the publication of the Healthcare Commission report last year, I fully expected it to be a difficult experience. Clearly there were things that had gone wrong, and lessons needed to be learned about what needed to be done better at Stafford Hospital. What I could not have imagined in my worst nightmare was the Daily Mail headline which claimed that 400 people had died unnecessarily. By the next day this had increased to 1200.

This was a huge shock. It also quickly seemed to me to be wholly improbable. So I sat down and I read the report. I found nothing. The figures are not stated in the report, and they are not implied. What there is, in the body of the report was a revealing section which looked at how mortality data had been collected within the hospital, and why it was seriously flawed. The hospital had been under-recording co-morbidity, which factors in underlying conditions. Under-reporting has the effect of raising the Hospital Standardised Mortality Rate – or HSMR – figures, making it falsely appear that more people have died than they should have done.

More research showed the Daily Mail had manufactured an “excess death figure” by extrapolating it from the HSMR figures. This is wrong on two counts. It makes improper use of a figure which the Healthcare Commission Report established as wrong. I do not know who briefed the reporter, though I do have theories. I would suggest that this is a job for an investigative journalist.

By the time I had read the reports sufficiently carefully to be certain that the figures had no foundation, these false figures had become “common knowledge” right around the world.

I saw the distress that this was causing to so many people in Stafford and I was angry with the press and the BBC that this had been allowed to happen. When David Cameron came to Stafford, I naively believed he was coming to pour oil on troubled waters. I was very deeply distressed to find him using the story to make party political points. The highly inflammatory headlines which accompanied his visit did further harm.

This was the moment when in my mind David Cameron crossed the boundary. Clearly he had not read the reports. He had stepped into the “news of the world territory” linking himself with questionable but graphic stories that sell newspapers. This is scandal for votes.

There were more reports, the Alberti report is a study of what needed to be done to transform the hospital – much of which has now been put into effect. The David Colin-Thome report looks at monitoring systems. It was a relief to me to see in black and white that he actively contested the use that has been made of the HSMR figures. This assertion was clearly repeated at a public meeting with both the press and the pressure group present.

I expected the press to stop using the figures. But it simply did not happen.

Quietly, I began tackling the press. I talked to journalists who had not read the reports. I tackled the BBC on aggressive reporting. I wrote carefully worded letters to the press, and I talked for hours to the hundreds of constituents that raised the issue of the hospital on the doorstep.

Some of the reporting has moderated.  But not all of it. All this time the hospital has been changing, making things better, trying to restore the shattered morale of the staff and the confidence of patients, a job made a little more difficult with every negative headline.

So yesterday the latest inquiry report was issued; there was PMQs and then there was the statement from Andy Burnham. On the subject of the numbers, the inquiry report is categorical. See volumn 1 section G. They are “unsafe” should not be used and the sensationalism has been damaging to all concerned. Presumably David Cameron’s advisor had not read this when he quoted the numbers on PMQs. He did, however, listen to Andy Burnham’s clear points on their unreliability during his statement. I hope David Cameron finds time to reflect on this. Andy Burnham has recognised the unreliability of the current HSMR system and is establishing an inquiry to create better mortality statistics system for the country.

In the course of the afternoon, the BBC sent a reporter to interview me, and I expect this to be shown on the politics show this weekend. I would hope that with the BBC at least we will now see an end to the use of these false and damaging figures.

Throughout this year I have found it deeply frustrating that there has been no effective way of combating the debilitating misreporting by the press. I recognise that the majority of journalists I am dealing with are decent people trying to do their job, but the culture of checking the facts is not there. This needs to be changed.

Since his visit to Stafford, when he so disappointed me, I have been watching David Cameron closely. This casual use of headline grabbing figures for party political gain is happening far too often. From the leader of the opposition I think we have the right to expect more.

from Labour List

Up to 270,000 civil and public servants from across the UK are set to launch a month of industrial action with a 48 hour strike on 8 and 9 March in a dispute over unilateral changes to redundancy terms,PCS announced today.

Strike action could hit civil and public services every week of next month from Monday 8 March following strong support in a ballot which saw 63.4% of those voting backing strike action and 81.4% supporting an overtime ban.

The strikes, which will involve Jobcentre staff, tax workers, coastguards, border agency officials, courts staff and driving test examiners, are a result of the government and Cabinet Office making unilateral changes to the civil service compensation scheme.

The changes will see staff robbed of up to a third of their entitlements and see loyal civil and public servants lose tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of a job. The government is looking to save £500 million through the changes, based on the number of jobs it has axed over the last three years.

With all the main political parties planning deep spending cuts, the union fears that the cuts to the scheme will lead to tens of thousands of job losses on the cheap.

The union’s national executive committee will be meeting next week on 2, 3 and 4 March to finalise further strike dates, which could include national walkouts and targeted strike action.

Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “These cuts, which will see loyal civil and public servants lose tens of thousands of pounds if they are forced out of a job, are more about crude politicking than making savings.

“We have suggested ways in which the government can make these savings whilst protecting the rights of existing members, yet it seems intent on penalising the people who keep this country running.

“With civil and public service jobs increasingly at risk, this is a cynical attempt to cut jobs on the cheap which will ultimately damage the services we all rely on. The government needs to recognise the depth of anger which has been demonstrated by this ballot result and find the political will to negotiate a settlement that avoids a sustained campaign of industrial action.”