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Monday 13 September 2010

Lucy Rodgers | 11:32 UK time, Monday, 13 September 2010

Here's what we have planned for tonight's programme:

We have a hard-hitting investigation from Tim Whewell into private fostering in Britain. He finds that poor regulation of the practice is leaving hundreds of children, many brought into the UK from abroad, vulnerable to abuse.

We follow the journey of one young Nigerian, Tunde Jaji, now 24, who was brought to London when he was five years old to live with a woman he called his "aunt" only to discover, years later, that they were not related.

Ministers tell Newsnight that they are looking at what more can be done to increase the numbers of privately-fostered children who are known to local authorities.

Also in the programme, Political editor Michael Crick will be reporting from the TUC conference in Manchester, where delegates have backed joint industrial action should what they call the coalition's "attacks" on jobs, pensions and public services go ahead. We will be asking what this means for the Labour leadership with David Miliband, who will be joining us fresh from the party's hustings.

And Matt Prodger will be asking whether we really live in noisier times after poet Ian McMillan's public call to reduce our noise footprint, made up of such things as the tinny beat emanating from iPod headphones, the repetitive thud of road drills, or what he terms the burglar alarm's "version of house music". We'll also be speaking to Ian McMillan about why he wants us all to live a quieter life.

Do join Jeremy at 10.30pm on ±«Óãtv Two.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    "Ministers tell Newsnight that they are looking at what more can be done to increase the numbers of privately fostered children who are known to local authorities."

    As I understand it, as a consequence of widespread cuts in public services, many of these problems will soon 'go away', as will a lot of crime.

    Whilst I would really like to see some well thought through reporting from Newsnight and the BB, I'm going to be disappointed aren't I? To see why this may be the case, perhaps if you looked into the gender balance in personnel?

  • Comment number 2.

    I watched Channel 4's "I Am Slave" a few weeks ago - it can still be viewed on the 4oD site

    It was inspired by a real life story of a girl who was kidnapped from her parents and sold into slavery in Khartoum and then transported to London, who eventually fled back to her parents. The numbers of children abused in such a way is shocking :o(

  • Comment number 3.

    #115

    There's no comparison to what the Japanese and the Germans on the whole are now from what they were like during World War II.

    You seem to be taking an almost 'sick' interest in what I write. Why is that, 'table'.? I shall not enter into any discussion with you about the rest of your post, as it is testimony to your 'appreciation' of cruelty and violence of almost unheard proportions that Hitler's Nazis committed, massacres, attempts at the annhihilation of all Jews, etc., etc.

    Or you only joking and 'clowning around'?

  • Comment number 4.

    #3 addendum

    I wonder how much blackmail and how many lies have been used so far, of all sorts, going right to the top here and there and 'everywhere'?

    Monika Magdalena Burbo

  • Comment number 5.

    CIA, The Council on foreign Relations et al are linked to the ground zero mosque so says the New York Observer. I've always had the feeling the Islamic world are been set-up - from the west - as the enemy. And if that is the case, they've been doing a very good job of it.

  • Comment number 6.

    Here's a question which has come to trouble me having read your blogs and watched Newsnight etc in recent times.

    We know we had a bit of a baby-boom after the war and into the early 60s. This coincided with a period when Britain and the USA went a bit socialist or at least, a bit welfare statist. If you have doubts about that, just think back to Kennedy and then Johnson and the Great Society (before this new bunch poached the term to implement exactly the opposite Murray-Plan). Then, the welfare state provided a safety net, and people were encouraged to work for their country for the common good. I know it sounds really daft today, but lots of people in the 50s and early 60s really did think that way, they had communities.

    Now, what I don't understand is this. Population pyramids are a bit oddly named as they come in all shapes and sizes depending on where the birth booms are, how good health care is, etc etc. What I'd like the ±«Óãtv or ONS (another state body) to look into is where in the Socio-economic bands the post war baby boom was. Was it uniform across all groups or was it skewed statistically? More recently, now that the boom has shrunk well below replacement so we have turned to importing lots of people to make up the short-fall so the number of consumers doesn't shrink too much, how is the birth rate distributed now? What sort of society are we creating if we are cutting back on the welfare state? Is it going to affect those areas of the population where we need skilled people in the future, or is it going to be uniform? These questions never seem to be asked and I don't know why? Instead we seem to assume that all people are the same and so such questions don't matter? But if people are all the same, why aren't all nations throughout the world equally productive, inventive and prosperous? The OECD figures says they are not, so perhaps some clever people at the ±«Óãtv and ONS etc might look into these questions and let us know before staff are cut back in the interest of economy/efficiency drives?

    PS Please don't let people just make up answers either, as this
    requires some serious number analysis, so it's best to look for some maths and computing types to do it (if you have any left who have not been driven mad/out by all the excited chatter/gossip which seems to have taken the place of sound investigative journalism in recent times).

  • Comment number 7.

    politically motivated strikes by trots trying to subvert the outcome of elections is not what unions are meant for. Hijacking unions by people with scenes from Battleship Potkemkin hardwired into their blinkered imagination has never worked.

    class is not the highest idea of the mind. class belongs to the same group of words as 'tribe' and 'caste'. these are not progressive ideas but regressive. anyone think tribalism and casteism is where the uk should be going in 21st century? to turn uk into a waziristan?

  • Comment number 8.

    'UNDUE INFLUENCE' through 'FALSE INSTRUMENT' breaking 'REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT'.

    So Woolas (Labour) is accused of using a false instrument to apply undue influence under the Representation of the People Act with the intention of defeating Elwyn Watkins (Liberal). It is being heard before two High Court Judges.

    Well there's a thing!

    The Conservatives tried to influence voting in Newbury (and a minimum of 15 other constituencies) by distributing a flyer with the claim: CONSERVATIVES MUST WIN HERE TO STOP ANOTHER 5 YEARS OF GORDON BROWN. I can see no way this can, or could have been, true. I have challenged it widely, and been consummately ignored. NO POLITICAL OFFICE, OR PARTY, OR MP, HAS FELT MOVED TO POINT OUT THE ERROR IN MY REASONING.

    I contend this is all part of the Westminster Malaise. ALL PARTIES believe they can get away with deceitfulness in election literature (Advertising Standards may not lift a finger, BY LAW).

    I shall now redouble my efforts to get my 'liar flyer' looked at by media and, ultimately, by our much trumpeted Rule of Law.

    Will Newsnight now take it up?

  • Comment number 9.

    assuming paul is not just a WP 'sleeper' maybe he can explain the logic of joint union action not to fight for their staff but to project a trot agenda?

    ..They [Workers Power] see the current stage of their life as being a 'fighting propaganda group', and thus intervene into struggles such as the June 2007 CWU strike where they call for rank and file committees, organised balloting with other public sector unions and an all out strike....

    look at the tub thumping and emotive language used by the trots at their organising meeting of the Coalition of Resistance.

    ..Paul Mackney spoke about the vicious nature of the Tories. 'I’m sure we can wipe the smug smiles off their ugly faces!...

    Lee Jasper from Black Activists Rise Against Cuts (BARAC)..black communities would fight back because otherwise they will be obliterated..

    A speaker from Socialist Resistance called for an international conference to coordinate the fightback across Europe.



    see what happens to people when they make class the highest idea of the mind? not much good in it.




  • Comment number 10.

    Oh dear! Phil Woolas is in the news for the wrong reasons.....

  • Comment number 11.

    "7. At 1:24pm on 13 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:
    politically motivated strikes by trots trying to subvert the outcome of elections is not what unions are meant for. "

    OK, you have an interesting take on politics and history which seems to be at odds with mine. Can you please tell us why Trots were expelled from the USSR in the late 1920s and why they were then purged en masse as 'double-dealers' in the 1930s (before WWII)? Why were they treated as allies of the Capitalists in fact?


  • Comment number 12.

    #8

    chemical singie

    Do you honestly think Newsnight doesn't have anything better to do than talk about your flyer?

  • Comment number 13.

    2. At 12:31pm on 13 Sep 2010, Mistress76uk wrote:

    "The numbers of children abused in such a way is shocking "

    It's terrible isn't it. Some girls are also forced into stripping, and some even work as prostitutes as there's no better way to pay their iPhone bills etc.



    Children is as children think? never mind, under the new Government most of these problems will soon go away along with the nasty fascists who have been monitoring what's been going on. Without them, it just wouldn't be happening. The state is an extremely evil thing. Ask Mimpromptu, she knows about this first hand.

    Soon we will be all be freer, nobody will be telling anyone what to do, and we will be able to twirl and worship celebs 24/7.


  • Comment number 14.

    9. At 1:47pm on 13 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:

    "see what happens to people when they make class the highest idea of the mind? not much good in it."

    "It was then and there that Fred and I met, but we had already been preconditioned to see eye to eye on most of what mattered. Back in the 20's I had imbibed behaviorism at Oberlin from Raymond Stetson, who had wisely required us to study John B. Watson's Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. In Czechoslovakia (5) a few years later I had been confirmed in my behaviorism by Rudolf Carnap's physicalism, his Psychlogic in physikalischer Sprache. So Fred and I met on common ground in our scorn of mental entities Mind shmind; on that proposition we were agreed. The things of the mind were strictly for the birds. To say nothing of freedom and dignity."



    The above is something for you to think about perhaps Jauntycyclist? Why would he say such (on the face of it peculiar) a thing do you think? if you ever do think about it, maybe you'll be thinking like a philosopher?

    When one asks questions, the trick is to listen to oneself very carefully, and to note that, when asking questions, it's a sign of ignorance,and that demands some humility.

  • Comment number 15.

    @ Tabblenabble #13 - I mean slavery in the sense of not getting paid and forced to work...
    :p The article you cited from The Sun is about women who are getting paid to do stripping/lapdancing. They are consenting adults and aren't doing it for free either. They are being paid for their time and effort.

    The child slavery issue is different as the children are kidnapped and sold off to work for nothing.....

  • Comment number 16.

    From previous NN blog

    #109 tn01 wrote:

    'Are any of the Liberal-Democracies economically suffering more than others? If that is the case, why might that be the case?'

    ----------------------

    Catholicism!...this seems a little far fetched. Italy's not doing too badly at the moment and Greece is 97% Greek Orthodox.

  • Comment number 17.

    14

    you will not find philosophy in the universities that are there to merely inform not transform. think about that. so i will never be a 'university' philosopher because to me they are not in love with anything other than their own sophist games. which is why their language is 'constipated straining' and are unable to explain what they mean. which is why the public reject them as irrelevant.

    everything unfolds from what a person takes as the highest idea of the mind. it is the centre point of the circle.

  • Comment number 18.

    11

    because people who take class as the highest idea of the mind are confused and still lost in the labyrinth so do not act rationally.

    i find people who take class as the highest idea of the mind are usually emotionally unstable and fly into fits of rage which is probably where the popular phrase 'trot fit' comes from.

  • Comment number 19.

    Mistress76uk

    I do know all about evil first hand knowing.at the same time who's inflicting it 'romantically'.

    mim

    PS. It's good of you to show concern about kiddies. They need to be protected at all costs.

  • Comment number 20.

    David Jason The Battle of Britain

    Listen 2 them Merlins its A kind of Magic

    did you clock his Motoring Bike

  • Comment number 21.

    Who is paying the legal costs of trying to unseat Phil Woollas. Can he claim them on his Members' expenses?

    He could always get a job as Joanna Lumley's PR Consultant!!

  • Comment number 22.

    Janet Tavakoli along with William Black should be regulating the banks :-




    "All of the large Wall Street banks generate huge risk in foreign exchange, commodities trading, interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives and more. The Dodd-Frank Bill's so-called financial reform leaves the entire financial system at great risk from "customer transactions."

    In Third World America, Arianna Huffington explains how Wall Street bought off Congress. America's middle class is caught in the middle of a bi-partisan betrayal. Righting these wrongs will not be easy. Among other things, it may require an amendment to our Constitution to prevent money cartels from buying off our elected officials."



    "I know you think your an pessimist your actually an optimist - its actually worse "

    "There are more losses yet to be disclosed"

    "extend and pretend"

  • Comment number 23.

    Union representatives and Labour politicians give the impression that they know all about the cuts that are going to be announced in October. They know what is going to be cut, by how much and when. All day I've heard ±«Óãtv presenters interviewing them, agreeing with them and failing to ask for details. Instead of just saying, "Yes and when are you going to go on strike", would you please ask them for chapter and verse to back up their claims to inside knowledge of what's going on in the Treasury.

  • Comment number 24.

    "The child slavery issue is different as the children are kidnapped and sold off to work for nothing....."

    Did you never work for 'slave labour' prices as a child? As to foster children, some of them are 'got rid of' by parents. Why would that ever happen do you think? Do you have any idea what some kids will say their parents do or don't do? How often, when you watch these highly emotive programmes, do you ever see any critical analysis from the reporters? I suspect you have little or no professional experience in any of these areas. Ask social workers, teachers, criminal justice staff, psychologists and psychiatrists etc about this - you'd be surprised.......It's always female reporters with very soppy voices and 'caring' (clueless) dispositions.

    17. At 3:50pm on 13 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:

    "which is why the public reject them as irrelevant."

    Or the universities reject those who through their school performance or interest aren't able to benefit from doing a course in philosophy at university and can't be told anything?

    It's a tough call isn't it? Those people who go to university to study philosophy by that very act of behaviour clearly believe that they don't know very much about philosophy and so applied to learn from those who have shown that they could, whilst those who didn't just miraculously knew it all already without any such education! It's enough to make one wonder if not marvel isn't it, or then again maybe it isn't.

    It's just like those doctor types. they know nothing about medicine so have to go to medical school for ages, but we all know that there are people who use crystals and homeopathic potions which are just as good, if not better much of the time, don't we?


    18. At 3:55pm on 13 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:

    "i find people who take class as the highest idea of the mind are usually emotionally unstable and fly into fits of rage which is probably where the popular phrase 'trot fit' comes from."

    Maybe you are very clever and every one else is really really stupid? By the way, how and where did you learn the English language? Did you invent all the verbs, nouns and adjectives etc which you use, or did they all just arrive one day 'in your head' without you ever noticing?

    Class is indeed fundamental. It is basic to logic and mathematics. If you studied some philosophy you would get to know how and why, but you'd have to have good A levels as it is difficult stuff. Class and set are often used interchangeably. Resolution of paradoxes of set theory is very important, and is what a lot of philosophy was about in the last century. Trying to sort the some of those problems was enough to drive some folk a bit mad.

  • Comment number 25.

    3. At 12:35pm on 13 Sep 2010, mimpromptu wrote:

    "There's no comparison to what the Japanese and the Germans on the whole are now from what they were like during World War II."

    Do you think Russia is anything like what it was like during and after the war? Do you think people change? if so, how does that happen and if it does, why can't be make everyone equally clever/nice?

    Do you think this author below is sick, or is he telling us something of interest?



    Britain is currently celebrating 70 years since The Blitz. It lasted 70 odd days and wasn't very pleasant, so I'm not sure what we are supposed to be celebrating are you? Maybe it's to remind us that Germany was really bad? Do you think the war was worth it? Do you think that Poland benefited from it? Who did benefit from it if not Poland?

  • Comment number 26.


    We already know from the original winter of discontent (with ridiculous wage claims of up to 40% increase) that there is absolutely no alternative to spending money that doesn't actually exist.

    You can talk of spending more money, promise eveyone a job for life, a mansion, a swimming pool and so on but with out any money then it is merely useless utopianism.

    The spending cuts and the public sector jobs losses will happen (if this government doesn't do then the IMF will simply step in force us to do it) needs to happen and this is a fight that the government must win.

    The alternative is that Britain default's on its borrowing, inflation and interest will soar out of the government's control and the IMF being called in and imposing spending cuts and massive public sector job losses anyway.

    Can any commentators or journalists please explain to me why it supposed to be an ideologically "bad thing" to want a small state that saves the taxpayers a vast fortune that is wasted on an expensive, monolithic bureaucracy that can only ever micro manage the lives of its citizens?

    Isn't arguing for a big state actually "ideological"?

    I ask because I have heard plenty of Labour politicians use this term as though it is actually a bad thing and this has virtually been unchallenged by Con-Dem politicians, journalists or any media commentators.

  • Comment number 27.

    25.
    Nobody is celebrating the blitz. It is being commemorated.

  • Comment number 28.

    #25

    benefits? Dad with a destroyed stomach, one Grandad dead, two Great Uncles dead, Two Grandmas distraught by their losses, Warsaw and lots of other cities and towns in ruins, extreme poverty and so on and so on. benefits?

  • Comment number 29.

    @ Tabblenabble #24 - Thankfully, I never worked as a child, and nor did I get any pocket money :p (Parents prefered to buy whatever it was I wanted so they would know where their money went.)

    Yes, unfortunately there are parents who sell their children or dump them into care either through lack of family planning/drug addiction etc, but why should these children be exploited?

  • Comment number 30.

    26. At 5:26pm on 13 Sep 2010, ChaosMagick wrote:

    "Can any commentators or journalists please explain to me why it supposed to be an ideologically "bad thing" to want a small state that saves the taxpayers a vast fortune that is wasted on an expensive, monolithic bureaucracy that can only ever micro manage the lives of its citizens?"


    I'll have a go.

    How about because the alternative, i.e even more anarchism (deregulation), the ideological promise that market-forces will save in the end has only ever been corrected in the past (be it Stalin in the late 1920s, Mussolini in Italy in the 20s/30s, Roosevelt's New Deal in the USA in the 30s, Franco in Spain in the 30s, Hitler in Germany in the 30s or the (real) Labour Government after WWII, has been regulation, i.e Big Government.

    Otherwise, some people, a self-interested minority will work together as a cartel to drive down asset prices and then buy them up for a song at the expense of the majority, thus further dispossessing and impoverishing them. Just think back to the past when you've heard it said that those who are poor or lazy only have themselves to blame. What if they are in fact just made that way like children and skewed birth-rates ,and can't plan ahead, can only live on weekly wages, and can't manage a cheque book or credit card without getting into terrible debt just like a child?

    That is why we have a state. That is why societies with low level mean human capital are totalitarian. It is paternalistic. It is not patronizing to be realistic about human diversity and how it changes in time demographically and geographically. Note that across the Liberal-Democracies, most females do not do anything productive, but do compete in the work force and do have massive spending power which drives what is in demand, even though, looked at critically, it really is not of much value. Like it or not, the old phrases, 'women and children first' is because they are very similar in their cognitive and emotional behaviours, which is why Governments which have sorted these problems out in the past have been referred to as authoritarian.

    Inevitably, where these regimes exist in the world today, they are our enemies..

  • Comment number 31.

    "27. At 5:32pm on 13 Sep 2010, MaggieL wrote:
    25.
    Nobody is celebrating the blitz. It is being commemorated."

    I wouldn't be too sure about that. What's being celebrated is the nation standing up to the alleged evils of Nazi Germany, which was, at the time trying to change Europe's economic system away from naked capitalism which threatened to destroy it. Oddly enough we pretty much embraced national socialism after the war. That was when the NHS and nationalisation of the means of production, exchange and communication took place. So what exactly were we fighting off?

  • Comment number 32.

    "29. At 6:27pm on 13 Sep 2010, Mistress76uk wrote:

    Yes, unfortunately there are parents who sell their children or dump them into care either through lack of family planning/drug addiction etc, but why should these children be exploited?"

    If one asks loaded questions one will only ever get expected answers. Of course children should not be exploited. The question is what is exploitation?

    Here's a picture of a happy chap, why is he happy (this requires an understanding of boys):





    Much that we're seduced into funding through the media isn't what it
    seems at all. Much that we're told isn't what it seems generally. Not
    long ago one would read all sorts of, on the face of it, noble appeals
    from the likes of Martin Narey of Lord Ramsbotham about there being too
    many children in custody. But as the crime rate peaks in the late teens
    there are always going to be children in custody, as legally, anyone
    under 18 is a child, and what is one to do with them? Nothing in the
    community works. Some kids are a nightmare, and are better off sent out
    of their country. I am just saying that most of what appears on TV is
    uncritical, and I've now stopped watching any of it for that reason. You
    should look into how Margaret Mead was duped too. Kids are not all
    innocents. Many adults exploit kids - journalists for example.
    Sometimes it's their producers with an agenda.

  • Comment number 33.

    "28. At 6:20pm on 13 Sep 2010, mimpromptu wrote:
    #25

    benefits? Dad with a destroyed stomach, one Grandad dead, two Great Uncles dead, Two Grandmas distraught by their losses, Warsaw and lots of other cities and towns in ruins, extreme poverty and so on and so on.
    benefits? "

    So maybe it would have been better to let Germany have Danzig and The Corridor etc, and maybe those who were doing destructive things with their economy should have stopped? Maybe there's a lesson to learn? Or is that too much to ask? Will many of us soon have to go through it all again just because they're too stupid to learn from other people's mistakes?

  • Comment number 34.

    To the Unions

    You need to understand that the govt is not your problem because they are just doing what their puppet masters tell them. Your issue is with the banks. Do you seriously think that arranging some strikes, demonstrations and a bit of a shout-up is going to sort out matters in your favour when they want to get rid of you anyway ?

    The issue is nothing short of changing the whole banking system.

    First you need to have a temporary banking method and then you need to remove money from banks en mass. THAT'S the way to deal with the crime that's going to be committed against your worker members.

    You can talk rant and rave all you like, it means nothing to banksters.

  • Comment number 35.

    To the Unions - listen to Bob Chapman on Greece :-

  • Comment number 36.

    Now read this :-

  • Comment number 37.

    24
    what you call philosophy and what i do are two different things. the perverted dead kind that is almost autistic in its expression is the kind parroted in universities. Philosophy is about transformation not information.

    class maybe the highest idea of the mind for you which is why you say the things you do. but any idea of human organisation based on class is another idol that demands human sacrifice. Look at the emotive language used by those who claim class as the highest idea of the mind. Hardly rational? I understand that for those who worship class that makes me a 'counter revolutionary' and probably first to go in the inevitable gulags such class analysis requires in order to create its hallucinations of 'equality and fairness'.

  • Comment number 38.

    #34 flicks2 wrote:

    'To the Unions

    You need to understand that the govt is not your problem because they are just doing what their puppet masters tell them. Your issue is with the banks.'

    -----------------------------

    ...and you seriously believe that the Unions don't do as they're told by the very same puppets masters?

    John Monks [ex General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK from 1993 until 2003, who then became the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)]

    ...is soon to be Lord Monks.

    /blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/09/lord_monks_and_the_tattooed_bo.html

    He has been a loyal Trotskyist, a Socialist International servant...and for this loyal service, this Judas has been rewarded with the ultimate '30 pcs of silver'.

  • Comment number 39.

    #38

    Are you in debt, 'juggler?

    And do you know whether the 'puppet masters' 'install' useful idiots in high places, i.e. governments, judges, bankers, TV and Press Directors & Managers, not speaking of members of Royalty? Were they by any chance responsible for the births of them as well and should The Queen, Prince Philip, the Princes, Princesses, Dukes and so on, be grateful to them for having been brought to life?

  • Comment number 40.

    37. At 8:47pm on 13 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:

    24
    what you call philosophy and what i do are two different things....

    Do you understand that six is a class? Do you understand that animal is a class?

    I respectfully suggest that you try to grasp that you don't know what I am talking about, and therefore that you don't know what you are talking about either. One can't go about making up what words refer to, i.e one can't disregard what one's community tells one words' correct usage is without behaving very oddly.

    What sort of sacrifice are you talking about, and are you sure that you are not writing and thinking floridly (i.e emotional) and confusing that with what you read others writing?

  • Comment number 41.

    #33

    I know only too well where you're trying to aim, table. It's nothing to do with real Gdansk, is it?

    However, if you read its history from the Middle Ages till now, you'll realise that the Nazi Germans didn't have the right to it. It was not theirs and anyway, it has always been surrounded from all sides by the Polish land.

    1308-1454: as part of the territory of the Teutonic Order
    1454-1466: Thirteen Years' War
    1466-1569: as part of the Kingdom of Poland
    1569-1793: as part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
    1793-1805: as part of Prussia
    1807-1814: as a free city
    1815-1871: as part of Prussia
    1871-1918: as part of Imperial Germany
    1918-1939: as a free city
    1939-1945: as part of Nazi Germany
    1945–1989: as part of Polish People's Republic
    1989–present: as part of Republic of Poland

    Perhaps you ought to enrol on a history course. It might do you good and more reflective in your thoughts before you start pontificating on similar subjects.

  • Comment number 42.

    I've just read about a 'spooky' scandal in France with the current French government having been called before the French judicial system for spying on a journalist of 'Le Monde'. Once I've read a bit more about it in the newspaper itself, I shall get back with further details.

    mim

  • Comment number 43.

    At long last we will have a litmus test for spending cuts and level of real confidence in the ConDem government.

    The police superintendents have warned that the police won't be able to contain unrest if the current levels of ±«Óãtv Office cuts goes ahead. The inference is that cutting 40,000 front line police officers, plus support staff will end the police's operational capability to maintain public order.

    "We will require a strong, confident, properly trained and equipped police service, one in which morale is high and one that believes it is valued by the government and public."

    He will say from the Peterloo massacre in 1819 – where 15 people died in a cavalry charge on a demonstration for parliamentary reform – to current alcohol-fuelled disorder "history teaches us that there will always be widespread threats to the public peace".

    "It is a fundamental duty of government to ensure the security of the nation. When, as history shows us it is inevitable, not because of this particular Government, but at some stage, there is widespread disorder on our streets, it will not be PCSOs, or Special Constables, or non warranted police staff, journalists or politicians to restore order on our streets."

    "It will be our Police Officers and we must be sufficiently resilient to enable us to respond properly, professionally and safely with the minimum of force."

    If the government alientates the police, the military and local government by major cuts in provision, the risk is clear - civil unrest that cannot be contained - this happened with the RUC in the 1960s when days of rioting sapped the RUC's manpower and Jim Callaghan was forced to send in the Army - but with the Afghan War fully occupying the Army, this would not be a viable option - and if it is true that soldiers returning from Afghanistan face redundancy, there is going ot be little appetite for opposing demonstrators who agree with opposition to cuts.

    What will the government do, if rioters take control of a major inner city city - Liverpool, Toxteth or Brixton? There is no National Guard as in the USA - the risk is huge and the number of security personnel available to regain control is tiny.

    I went through the riots of the 1980s in the London Ambulance Service, so I know how bad it was. David Cameron will be a VERY brave man if he cuts the police service to even a msall fraction of what is being suggested - he will be running the risk of the complete breakdown in law and order in huge swathes of the country - in other words, political suicide - and all it will take is a vote of confidence in the Commons -one that all minority parties will feel able to support.

    So the litmus test is now about to be applied - if the ConDems shrink from police cuts, they clearly accept that their policies are going to lead to a real risk of massive civil unrest - if they go ahead, they are prepared to take a massive risk with THE most fundamental duty of government to protect its citizens and the rule of law - if they back off, they are scared.

    I can see Tory MPs being up for this, but we are a hell of a long way from LibDem policy and politics - are LibDem MPs really going to vote for either option in this Hobson's Choice?

    I think not - the ground under Nick Clegg will simply met away. If the ±«Óãtv Office cuts don't materialise - o/o/m half a billion per year - this will be a serious issue and will lead ot higher cuts elsewhere to achieve the overall target - a dangerous precedent that won't be lost on the MoD and other departments able to point ot the security implications spending cuts.

    Lord Stockton put in succinctly: "Events, dear boy, events" - the reality of government compared to the theory of party policy.

    I don't support or condone rioting - but I understand what drives people to it - we all need to think about what is the responsible way forward.

  • Comment number 44.

    Since the 1980s, The Unions have become an an integral component of the Corporate Nazi machine which pulls the strings on our puppet politicians. They rely on the continued dominance of members of the Corporate Multinational Cartel to provide the incentive for their members to join. Without the corporate multinationals the unions would have been marginalised in the workplace by now.

    Over the past 15 years the unions have actively promoted policies directly aimed at putting up administrative costs for small companies. Now they would appear to support the " low carbon future " despite the fact that following the 2008 Climate Change Act many of their members are going to lose their jobs due to carbon taxes. Really small firms are already excluded, but only for the time being, yet those small companies who subcontract from the CMC are being forced to do carbon audits. Its all extra cost for no benefit, no actual jobs are created, small business people just have to work more hours for the same margin.

    It would appear that the primary focus of the Unions is to retain the Corporate Nazi status quo, even if they were bleating about a Robin Hood Tax today, its too late now the Tories are in.

  • Comment number 45.

    Heard Michael Crick tonight reporting from the TUC conference in Manchester. Apparently he thinks the industrial revolution started in Manchester, Mr crick it was in fact "coalport" in Shropshire as every school boy knows. What are you doing as a reporter if you can not get your basic facts straight or repeating marketing Manchester's hype.

  • Comment number 46.

    Very moving report by Tim this evening on the plight of "invisible" children who are abused and used as slave labour in the UK. Excellent interview by Jeremy with David Miliband on the proposed strikes :o)

    :p There are laws against noise pollution.

  • Comment number 47.

    Captain Beefheart.

    I've made a lot of noise in my time (still do) but the discovery some years ago of the benefits of quiet-time and meditiation are still a daily joy. The very idea that we can go through our lives without at least 20mins of peaceful silence everyday would be hellish. No wonder there is so many stress-heads about these days. We seek out some space for our minds to de-stress and then re-charge. Ask yourself why millions of people sit by rivers and lakes -and in all weathers -and spend all day fishing...ask Paxman, he'll know all about meditation, even if he's not fully aware that he does it. We all need to sit under a tree alone and chill from time to time, free from the madding crowd.

  • Comment number 48.

    #46

    I agree with you, Mistress76uk, that Tim Whewell's report was very good although the young man that he interviewed wasn't really used for 'slave labour' but rather was harshly mistreated by the lady who took him in and very hardly done by life itself. Luckily, he seems like a very fine, positive and talented young person, probably earning himself the care offered by his former teacher, who's obviously is a very kind and intelligent lady, and her family so hopefully Tunde will lead a relatively happy and fulfilled life in the future.

    I was also impressed by Mr Whewell's apparent determination to help Tunde find the truth about his family and taking interest in the young man's wellbeing.

    mim

  • Comment number 49.

    #42 update

    Having followed French politics quite closely for the last few years, I wouldn't be surprised that 'Le Monde's' claims were true.

    /news/world-europe-11293028

    There may be a similar scandal, affecting particularly the last Labour government, though on a much bigger scale, and I do mean much, much bigger, making it into the headlines in this country as well. I hope it does.

    mim

  • Comment number 50.

    Hi Mods

    I've just dedicated to you a listening session of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring' from a CD of mine 'Musique Moderne' which I've played very loudly on my iPhone04.

    I quite often think of you, sitting somewhere in a ±«Óãtv room, looking through quite a lot of drivel that's sent to you on a regular basis.

    Monika

  • Comment number 51.

    The Liberty Medal goes this year to Tony Blair:



    I haven't really followed his work in the Middle East but he certainly does deserve the award for his successful peace and democratic initiative in Northern Ireland, even if not everything in this part of the UK is honky-dory with some violence still being 'practiced'.

    mim

  • Comment number 52.

    #47 kevseywevsey wrote:

    'We all need to sit under a tree alone and chill from time to time, free from the madding crowd.'

    ----------------------------------

    What....just like how Dr David Kelly did once?

  • Comment number 53.

    39. At 9:20pm on 13 Sep 2010, mimpromptu wrote:

    "do you know whether the 'puppet masters' 'install' useful idiots in high places"

    Mimpromptu, I mean this kindly: Instead of asking sneering questions, why not just read some of the links provided and give a bit of time to some research into these matters? For example, you could start with paragraph four below.



    Within the decade, the ±«Óãtv office was declared 'not fit for purpose', and then split into two. Probation was all but privatised by the Management of Offenders Act, and what else has happened?

    I think you should really try to follow some of this instead of making unpleasant remarks simply because you find most of it unfamiliar. Some people posting here really do know what they are writing about, for reasons you don't understand. Others will..


    All I have asked you to do is consider a possibility as an exercise. Can you do that bearing this in mind?

    "In October 1938, Germany tried to get Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. Poland refused, as the alliance was rapidly becoming a sphere of influence of an increasingly powerful Germany."



    Shortly afterwards, Germany and the USSR signed the Non-Aggression Pact, and both marched into Poland, yet Britain never declared war on the USSR. In one document, the German Foreign Minister joked with Molotov that Berlin even Stalin might sign the pact



    Who might they have had in mind as their common 'Bolshevik' enemy given events in the USSR from 1928 through the 1930s?

  • Comment number 54.

    I've just learned that Stalin used to be beaten senseless by his father when he was only little. I should imagine that his cruelty stemmed from this childhood experiences. It's a classic psychological example, not that everybody who suffers similar beatings or abuse does grow up to be a cruel human being.

    mim

  • Comment number 55.

    "We have a hard-hitting investigation from Tim Whewell into private fostering in Britain. He finds that poor regulation of the practice is leaving hundreds of children, many brought into the UK from abroad, vulnerable to abuse."

    Would that be benefit abuse? Is the ±«Óãtv in favour of a larger British state? It would need an East German style Stasi and its network of informers to do that, not to mention a Great Wall of UK maintained by the Borders Agency to make that viable, and somehow, the EU would probably come over and arrest THEM for violating private foster parents' right to run a business, one of the Human Rights enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty!

  • Comment number 56.

    I was also impressed by Mr Whewell's apparent determination to help Tunde find the truth about his family and taking interest in the young man's wellbeing."

    "I quite often think of you, sitting somewhere in a ±«Óãtv room, looking through quite a lot of drivel that's sent to you on a regular basis."


    Are you sure you fully understand what you see and read? You did
    pick up that the programme was a somewhat euphemistic report on
    people trafficking (illegal immigration) and benefit fraud?

    The following is from Caroline Lucas' MP (Brighton) site:

    "Every year, hundreds of children from over 50 countries - some as
    young as 11 years old - are trafficked to and exploited in the UK. While
    trafficking for sexual exploitation remains the most common form of
    child trafficking in the UK, children are also trafficked to the country
    for other types of abuse including labour exploitation, forced
    participation in criminal activities, forced marriage, illegal adoption
    and domestic servitude."



    -to-combat-trafficking-of-children-and-young-people.html

    Here are just some of the problems: Social Services and Child Protection
    'agencies' are under enormous pressure today, not only in multi-cultural
    inner city areas like London but because of cuts in public services. In
    any borough, they have thousands of children to keep an eye on through
    schools and yet there are PC limits to how intrusive they can be given
    that so many 'parents' these days have extremely unconventional
    relationships and family lives. That's neo-liberalism - freedom. It
    effectively licences abuse.

    If you want to have better monitoring you are going to have to be
    receptive to the idea of a socialist, Stasi like state, yet every day
    you and others vilify exactly that!


    ±«Óãtv NEWS today reports that OFSTED is now saying that more pupils are
    labelled Special Education Needs than should be. One in five (20%) have
    SEN. But the media don't always make it clear that these are Non
    Statemented Special Needs which come under School Action and School
    Action Plus. Statemented SEN is only about 2%. Now we hear that they
    don't have Special Education Needs they just need better teaching, ummmm
    would that be.more special teaching than other kids by any chance? Would
    this mean that Christine Gilbert's hit squad will be telling 'failing
    schools' that the problem isn't their intake of low ability kids, but
    their bad teaching that's the problem? Might that lead to staff loses
    and conversion to Academies and Free-Schools?

    Here's a question for you (and thoughtful others) Mimpromptu: What
    proportion of kids in an average school are below average ability?
    Again, on average, what proportion of a school (class() will be below
    one Standard Deviation below that mean?

    Big questions: a) why do they fall there? b) Is it down to bad teaching?

    Christine Gilbert trained and worked as a history teacher? She was
    surprised that some kids at 14 and 15 could not read. What did she learn
    about education? Who taught her?



    I suggest that if you, or the ±«Óãtv or anyone else can't come up with
    answer to these simple questions, you can't possibly understand what is
    going on, and that the questions you ask will be like those of children.
    If you or the ±«Óãtv ask such questions, please show some respect for those
    who might know the answers as we are not all equals in all things, and
    despite what that nice Mr Blair and his friends said back in 1997,
    deference is an important pre-condition for learning and civilized
    behaviour..

  • Comment number 57.

    High Frequency Trading manipulation being brought to light and acted upon . This is the very tip of the iceberg :-



    "These folks were entering orders they had no intention of executing for the purpose of manipulating the price.

    That's illegal."

  • Comment number 58.

    #56

    It wasn't at all evident that Tunde might have been 'trafficked'.

    As you SHOULD have gathered by now I am against all kinds of abuse, including trafficking. I am also against Stalin, Hitler, stasi like indocrination.

  • Comment number 59.

    30 + 31 +32 + 40 + 42 + 52 etc there has 2 b a 2

    dont stop yourself/sell, I wont stop u 2

  • Comment number 60.

    I Love You Auntie..mayb

    last nite The Battle of Britain..dr/prof Howard/forward Tuck we/I need 2 see/c more of him

    Hurricane Pilot brought back 2 where he was shot down for the 2nd Time

    wonderfull, listen 2 them engines there could b an engine

  • Comment number 61.

    Not all cultures are equal

    which presents a bit of a problem for the social relativists. Not all views participate of the good to the same degree and thus they can be ranked in a hierarchy. it is rational to choose that which has more good in it over those that do not. people who fail to exercise that discrimination fail in their job of guardianship.

    Noise

    silence and light should be treated as human rights. the present situation means someone can be deprived of sleep for months before the council can do anything. Music originally was used as a medicine so people self medicating with music is a form of abuse which may explain why drug abuse and concerts go together as they are two aspects of the same thing. So inflicting your noise drugs on other people is a real form of violence. Also infrasound [like through those deep car bass speeakers] should be illegal as it causes internal bleeding.

    victims of noise are quite right to feel assaulted and that is how it should be viewed and sentenced.

  • Comment number 62.

    #59 & 60

    very, very impressive
    emmersing yourself i'n engines, are you?
    that's definitely what a girl needs

  • Comment number 63.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 64.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 65.

    #63 & 64

    Tell me/us something about her? Is she pretty or is she rich? Or perhaps she does have some other powerful qualities? Please relieve the world of the suspense, aqua.

  • Comment number 66.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 67.

    #63

    And one more point, 'lover', though I don't know whose. Do you own David Cameron as you did Gordon Brown?

  • Comment number 68.

    Mimpromptu

    As Royal Mail is topical as a public service in decline, here's a subtle one from back in March. Can you see what this piece really encourages? It encourages neo-liberalism. What brought us indebtedness and the Credit Crunch?



    Before you reply, think, will that reply reflect you just observing what you currently think, but is what you currently think being challenged?
    Are you being educated, and do you resent that? If so, what is the point of any communication, with anybody?

    "58. At 10:14am on 14 Sep 2010, mimpromptu wrote:
    #56

    It wasn't at all evident that Tunde might have been 'trafficked'."

    What you mean is it wasn't at all evident to you.

    This that just reveals that you may not understand how many multi-cultural (African especially) communities operate in Britain today. If you were to ask many Social Workers or teachers privately rather than professionally, you'd get a better idea of what is evident, and how the media and police tread very carefully when reporting it. The sad reality is that very little can be done about this, and in the future, even less will be done for want of staff.



  • Comment number 69.

    "61. At 12:18pm on 14 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote:
    Not all cultures are equal

    which presents a bit of a problem for the social relativists."

    A culture is basically a group, a class, i.e more than one person, and when one has a group of people, standards tend to emerge. With that come means of measuring differences, or departures from a norm. This can be height, weight, intelligence, wealth etc. That is what normal means.
    These measures all relative because they are comparative, and in many cases (e.g. height, shoes size and performance in school) these are norm referenced for a peer group. That is just the nature of measurement and management. It is the basis of much of our rationality too.

    I don't understand a lot of what you post here, but one thing I know for sure, we have to conform to standards in order to be understood and to get on within a common system, i.e a culture. If anyone flouts that, they will come under pressure to conform. Such is socialisation. To destroy a culture, one just has to promote individualism and vilify collectivism, i.e standards.

  • Comment number 70.

    69

    relativism denies there is anything called the good. So it cannot discriminate between things which is why its called a pig philosophy that results in a pig society. Pigs are know for their lack of discrimination in food. e.g Police did nothing about honour killing for years because it was seen as acceptable part of culture? British born people murdered because of the pig society. More victims, more human sacrifice upon bad philosophy. Get philosophy wrong people die.

    there is no legal test to prove anyone is normal.

    a culture comes out of the common feeling shared by a group of people.

    pressure to conform to what? if its not the good why should anyone conform to the bad? those who lack the courage to choose the good are not an adult. If we listened to the monarchists there would never have been human rights and democracy. Socialisation is just another word for brainwashing.

    to destroy the supremacy of a culture you introduce groups of people with different common feelings. which is what mass migration does. unless you completely kill all the people it is impossible to destroy a culture. The Normans tried for 800 years with the welsh with various blindings, burnings maiming and tongue cutting outs for those who perpetuated welsh culture. Yet it still grows. The americans made native religion illegal until clinton repealed that law. It did not die because they kept 'the circle strong' as they might say.

    if conforming to standards [without saying what they are and on what basis they are chosen] is your highest idea of the mind then fine. Its not mine.

  • Comment number 71.

    70. At 8:23pm on 14 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote

    "there is no legal test to prove anyone is normal."

    There is. Every time one goes to a doctor and he or she takes measurements (e.g. BP, blood counts etc) one is referenced to what is normal. Normal here means average for humans, and there are acceptable parameters around a mean (average). Anything abnormal is taken a possible indicator of poor health. These measures of what is good (and
    bad) are standard across all professions. You are just wrong in much that you post. .

    "pressure to conform to what?"

    To what is normal. You need to try to understand what is being said, and you also need to think a little when you ask questions as you don't seem to pay attention to what a question signifies. It signifies ignorance and that should be followed by a willingness to learn. You are demonstrating precisely the opposite as it is just ignorant to say that ancient history is superior to what has been learned FROM ancient history. Think about it.

    You are behaving irrationally (obstinately). If you dig your heels in on this, you will, I predict, just find yourself behaving even more irrationally. A lot of people make this mistake. Try to learn instead.
    It is healthier. Talking of 'the good' is of no use unless you can measure it. That is because without clear measurement nobody really knows what one another is ever talking about.That is why the languages of science replaced metaphysical philosophy, and why philosophy became a hand-maiden to the languages of the sciences. This is true even with respect to law, which, when practiced properly is like a computer language applied to behaviour, normatively..

    "if conforming to standards [without saying what they are and on what basis they are chosen] is your highest idea of the mind then fine. Its not mine."

    Perhaps. But then if you just ignore what you are told because you don't already believe it, what is that generally called? Maybe you are confused? Maybe you believe things which are false? How would you decide if that is true or false? How do you know which things you believe are true and which are false? These are important questions.

  • Comment number 72.

    70. At 8:23pm on 14 Sep 2010, jauntycyclist wrote

    "there is no legal test to prove anyone is normal."

    Another couple of examples: 1) in assessing if someone is fit to plead especially for a capital crime, a normative tests of intelligence will often be done as part of that assessment. 2) assessing children for statemented SEN is done the same way, using normative tests The people who do these tests are either statutorily licensed or have delegated powers, which is why their assessments have 'authority'. I'm just pointing out that you don't understand some of these matters. Nor, it seems, does OFSTED.

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