TMP Online

Labour Mayor of London Ken Livingstone’s online message ahead of the 1 May London elections.

How do we deliver equality in the 21st century? The wealthiest 1% of the population owns 21% of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 50% own 7%; recently it’s been shown that health inequalities have grown; the government faces controversy over abolition of the 10p tax rate; this year’s budget pledged an extra £1.7bn in the fight against child poverty: whilst a recent report warned that child poverty could double over the next 2 decades; 67% of ethnic minority communities live in the 88 most deprived wards; the median gender pay gap has reduced from 17.4% in 1997 to 12.6% in 2007.

The purpose of this year’s Compass national conference on Saturday 14 June will be to make the case for a more equal society and help change the terms of debate towards greater equality for all across a broad-range of policy areas. 

Helping make the case for greater equality will be major speakers throughout the day including: Neal Lawson, Derek Simpson, Ed Miliband MP (left), Ruth Lister, Douglas Alexander MP (second right), Bea Campbell, Danny Dorling, John Harris, Helena Kennedy, Polly Toynbee (middle), Jon Trickett MP, Jon Cruddas MP (right) and Chuka Umunna, who’ll be joined by other leading figures from across the left and wider progressive community.

For more information, log on to: http://www.compassonline.org.uk/conference/.

Amnesty International have released a letter signed by a host of high-profile figures voicing their opposition to the Government’s plans to extend pre-charge detention limits to 42 days in the Counter-Terrorism Bill, before it gets its second reading in Parliament today.

Signatories to the letter include Patrick Stewart, Vivienne Westwood, Colin Firth, A C Grayling, Iain Banks, Ken Loach, Sir David Hare, Nick Broomfield, John le Carre and Labour peer Lord Ahmed.

The letter calls on the Government to abandon proposals in the Counter-Terrorism Bill to further extend pre-charge detention to 42 days. It states that extending the limit would damage community relations and undermine human rights protected by international law. It concludes:

“Habeas corpus, which safeguards people from arbitrary detention by the state, is the bedrock of British justice. A convincing case that it should be eroded has not been made by the Government. The case that it should remain has been made for nearly 800 years.”

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

“‘The consensus against 42 days detention without charge is growing stronger and stronger. Despite a serious effort by the Home Office to ’sell’ these proposals, they have failed to make a convincing case.

“MPs should refuse to be part of this assault on UK civil liberties and oppose any extension of pre-charge detention limits. There is a real opportunity to defeat this Bill and take a stand for human rights.

“The British public can do their bit too - we shouldn’t sit back and let our rights be taken away. We must tell the government that these draconian measures are a step too far.

“Police in this country should not be allowed to lock someone up for six weeks without even charging them with a crime. Habeas corpus has long been a fundamental principle of Britain’s judicial system and it should not be undermined.”

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith MP has insisted that the increase to 42 days is needed and “would only come into force in exceptional circumstances, and would only last for a temporary period before automatically lapsing”.  Making the case for the measure on the Compass website in February, she said:

“[The measure] would be subject to judicial and parliamentary oversight throughout.

“Countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism is one of the most important priorities for government.

“It is an effort which goes much broader and deeper than the provisions of the Bill, bringing together central and local government, police and enforcement agencies, faith and community organisations to prevent people becoming terrorists in the first place by challenging extremist ideology and by supporting communities in rooting out its influence.”

Zimbabwe’s general election takes place tomorrow against a backdrop of a long-running and worsening economic crisis, political uncertainty and the likelihood of increasing political and criminal violence.

Observers will be watching keenly to see whether finally, after years of misrule, the Movement for Democratic Change’s Morgan Tsvangirai or former government minister Simba Makoni can topple President Robert Mugabe and, if so, whether the country’s secrutiy forces will abide by the electorate’s decision.

Ahead of this tumultuous day, Dr Knox Chitiyo, head of the Africa Programme at the Royal United Services Institute, has written an overview of the political situation in Zimbabwe for Chatham House which can be read here.

A report published last week found that nearly half of minority ethnic residents, including Muslims, said they had experienced race discrimination and 30 per cent of recent Muslim migrants had experienced religious discrimination. This was cited as a key barrier to a sense of belonging in Britain.

The report – Immigration, faith and cohesion – published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, was written by a team at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at Oxford University. It looked at what factors contribute to, or undermine, community cohesion in three urban areas in England with large migrant and Muslim populations.

Most migrants felt there was no conflict in having a sense of belonging to both Britain and their country of origin. Sixty per cent of long-term Muslim residents born outside the UK said the people most important to them were in Britain.

Co-author Hiranthi Jayaweera from COMPAS (right) said: ‘Evidence suggests that it is discrimination and the perception of being unwelcome, rather than attachment to their country of origin, that reduces migrants’ sense of belonging in Britain.’

Ninety-nine per cent of recent Muslim migrants strongly emphasised democracy, justice and security as the top reasons for living in Britain. Researchers also found that Muslims and non-Muslims shared a common concern about the problems of crime, drugs and pollution in the areas where they lived.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many commentators have taken a dim view of supporters of Senator Barack Obama’s campaign to win the U.S Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. 

Here is the New Stateman’s Andrew Stephen bemoaning the media’s treatment of Barack Obama in January:
“Obama’s relationship with the press and the electorate is still at the stage of starry-eyed infatuation. Yes, he is a mesmerising political orator who offers a magic elixir that somehow contains both stimulants and sedatives: that we need not worry about the present or future, because we can look forward to a new dawn of hope and reassurance in the safe hands of President Obama. Exactly how and why this would happen is not clear, but it is heady and exciting stuff.”

Pondering why the Democratic nomination race has become so fractious, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman said shortly after Super Tuesday back in February, in a piece entitled “Hate Springs Eternal”:
“I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.”

So readers of TMP may be amused to watch this video clip of an Obama supporter being interviewed by a reporter who appears to presume the said supporter has no knowledge of Obama’s policy positions or how they differ from the other Democratic candidates, but is simply a fan of the Democratic candidate’s personality. The reporter finds it turns out to be quite the opposite with this Obama fan.

Yesterday, former U.S. Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Gerldine Ferraro, was force to step down from her position as a member of Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign finance committee after she said that Senator Barack Obama, Clinton’s main adversary, would not be in the position he is in the Democratic presidential nomination race were he not an African American man.

On 7 March 2007, in an interview with a small local newspaper in Califiornia, the Democrat’s 1984 Vice Presidential nominee said,

“I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama’s campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against.
“For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on [Senator Clinton]. It’s been a very sexist media. Some just don’t like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she continued. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

Clinton has already sought to distance herself from Ferrero’s remarks by saying she “rejects” them but it took more than four days for Ferrero to voluntarily resign from Clinton’s campaign team. Obama has said he thinks the remarks are “absurd”.  In light of the Ferraro row, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, one of that U.S. news channel’s best known news anchors and commentators, has launched a stinging attack on Ferraro and the Clinton campaign’s use of the “race” issue which can be viewed below.

Senator Barack Obama, who - as expected - stormed to victory in the Mississippi primary last night, remains ahead of fellow Senator Hillary Clinton not only in the delegate count in the race to win the U.S Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, but also in polls pitting the two against the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain.

Obama won 61% of the vote in Mississipi and now has 1600 delegates to Clinton’s 1484. So far, he has won more of the popular vote to date than his rival - 13,855,890 votes to Clinton’s 13,754,871. This has led Obama to rubbish suggestions coming from the Clinton camp that he could run as Clinton’s Vice Presidential running mate, below.

Obama also continues to perform more favourably against Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, than Clinton. In the latest RealClearPolitics poll of polls, Obama leads McCain by 5.2 points whilst Clinton only leads McCain by 1.7 points. Obama has consistently outpolled McCain in recent months.

The next key test for both candidates will be in Pennsylvania on 22 April where 188 delegates are up for grabs.

New Statesman political editor, Martin Bright, has got himself into hot water by attacking the signatories to the Compass statement put out in support of London Mayor Ken Livingstone earlier this week, after it emerged that one of the signatories is his employer, Geoffrey Robinson MP, the owner and publisher of the New Statesman.

Bright’s Dispatches documentary, “The Court of Ken” which aired on Channel 4 on 21 Janaury 2008, attracted much criticism from centre left political activists. Bright (right), interviewed several disgruntled former acolytes and employees of the Mayor for the documentary and said in his New Statesman blog at the time that “like me, many of the people we spoke to had previously been supporters of the mayor, but are now unhappy with the way things have turned out.” Various unsubstantiated allegations were made in the course of the programme.

Seamus Milne (left), associate editor of the Guardian, wrote of the documentary:
“Quite how Channel 4 managed to describe an hour of primetime vilification as a ‘fair and balanced investigation’ with a straight face will be a mystery to most of those who watched a programme without a single supportive interview. Instead, we were treated to a hotchpotch of allegations and denunciations from disgruntled ex-employees and political opponents, ranging from the bizarre and sub-McCarthyite to the more serious but unproven.
“Bright as a representative of Britain’s main centre-left political weekly and Nick Cohen, who has more openly lined up behind [Boris] Johnson, as an Observer columnist…share a broadly neoconservative agenda on Islamism and the ‘war on terror’ - though Bright opposed the Iraq invasion - and that is the central issue that has turned them and their allies against Livingstone.”

The Compass statement published on Monday attacked “writers and commentators who claim to be ‘on the left’ taking the fight to Livingstone in a way that will only result in a victory for Johnson and all that means for the poor and dispossessed of the Capital and the future politics of our country.”

Writing in his blog yesterday, Bright claimed that the criticism was aimed at him and said: “The signatories of [the statement] should be ashamed of themselves. I am particularly disappointed that individuals committed to democratic renewal such as Baroness Helena Kennedy and Anthony Barnett, one of the founders of Charter 88, chose to sign up to the letter.”

However, one of those who signed up to the statement was Geoffrey Robinson MP (above), the Brownite former Paymster-General and owner of the New Statesman – Bright’s employer. Nick Cohen helpfully pointed out this fact in the comments on Bright’s blog.

The statement was signed up to by 18 academics, 2 peers, 16 MPs, 2 MEPs, 5 people from the arts, 6 trade union general secretaries and others from across the centre left spectrum - from Blairites like Prof Julian Le Grand and Robert Philpot (chair of Progress), to people like Tony Benn and Diane Abbott MP (left).  Other signatories include Labour Party Vice Chair Dawn Butler MP and Claude Moraes, one of the first Asian MEPs and London’s first ethnic minority MEP.

A public opinion poll published by The Children’s Society today, as part of its ongoing Good Childhood Inquiry, reveals a consensus among adults that increasing commercialisation is damaging children’s well-being.

60% of respondents believed that young people’s self-esteem is damaged by the media’s negative coverage of their age group. The poll, conducted by GfK NOP, also highlighted adults’ concern about various areas of children’s lifestyles, with 61% saying that the Government should ban the advertising of unhealthy food and seven in ten (69%) agreeing that violent video games make children more aggressive.

Eighty nine per cent of adults felt that children nowadays are more materialistic than in past generations. Evidence submitted to the inquiry from children suggests that they do feel under pressure to keep up with the latest trends.

An overwhelming majority (90%) of adults thought that advertising to children at Christmas puts pressure on parents to spend more than they can afford. This could put parents and families at risk of debt in the early months of the new year and beyond.

The Children’s Society commissioned the GfK NOP poll to complement the launch of a summary of the evidence submitted to the inquiry on its fourth theme - children’s lifestyles. Professionals and members of the public submitted evidence on a variety of issues, ranging from places to play to children’s diets but a major theme emerging from their comments was concern about the commercialisation of childhood.

Dr. Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury, patron of the inquiry said: “Children should be encouraged to value themselves for who they are as people rather than what they own. The selling of lifestyles to children creates a culture of material competitiveness and promotes acquisitive individualism at the expense of the principles of community and cooperation.”

Professor Philip Graham, Emeritus Professor of Child Psychiatry at The Institute of Child Health, London and an inquiry panel member, believes that commercial pressures may have worrying psychological effects on children:

“One factor that may be leading to rising mental health problems is the increasing degree to which children and young people are preoccupied with possessions; the latest in fashionable clothes and electronic equipment,” said Professor Graham who is leading the inquiry’s lifestyle theme.

“Evidence both from the United States and from the UK suggests that those most influenced by commercial pressures also show higher rates of mental health problems.”1

Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of The Children’s Society said: “A crucial question raised by the inquiry is whether childhood should be a space where developing minds are free from concentrated sales techniques. As adults we have to take responsibility for the current level of marketing to children. To accuse children of being materialistic in such a culture is a cop out. Unless we question our own behaviour as a society we risk creating a generation who are left unfulfilled through chasing unattainable lifestyles.”

Over the next 12 months the inquiry will hold meetings on the remaining themes of health and values before publishing its final report in early 2009. The public can contribute to The Good Childhood Inquiry by logging on to www.hundredsandthousands.org.uk and sharing their childhood memories.

Last year the left pressure group, Compass, produced a report on the Commercialisation of Childhood which can be read here. The report detailed the intensity and effects of advertising to children and revealed an army of marketing experts and branding gurus spending billions every year to directly target children to sell products and groom them for a lifetime of consumerism.