Social workers - by Richard... Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Social workers - by Richard... Tuesday, August 03, 2010

The voice of experience. We know there is a massive problem here. Time and again we get confirmation of it, yet no one in authority seems to be able to do anything about solving it – not the judges, not the lawyers, not the MPs, nor even the Boy.

But ignoring a problem does not make it go away. This is not going to go away, and the longer it is left, the more chances there are that irreversible damage will be done to the very fabric of society.

To paraphrase a familiar saying: you can ignore all of the people some of the time; you can ignore some of the people all of the time; but you cannot ignore all of the people all of the time. We will be heard.

COMMENT: BOOKER THREAD

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Day 24 - Battle of Britain - by Richard... Monday, August 02, 2010

The news of the day was the Hull registered steamer Highlander (1,220grt - pictured, pre-war at the quayside in Newcastle), under her master, Captain William Giflord, which steamed into Leith harbour with parts of a Heinkel 115 seaplane draped across her stern.

The ship had just survived a bombing attack and downed at least two of these machines, returning in triumph.

The action has started the previous day, just before midnight, when the Highlander was passing along the East Coast, about three and a half miles from land. On hearing a low-flying aircraft, the ship's two light guns were manned and speed increased.

This turned out to be a wise precaution as the aircraft dove into the attack. Machine-gun bullets swept the steamer's superstructure, riddling the funnel and deck fittings and piercing the side. There were no casualties. The aircraft passed astern, circled, and then returned for a second attack, at still closer range.

Read more on DAYS OF GLORY

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Twenty years ago - by Richard...

You really would not know it from the reaction of the British media, but twenty years ago today, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. It was, to say the very least, a game-changer. Readers will be pleased to learn that Saddam's effigy is still on display at Madam Tussauds. Gone, but not quite forgotten.

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The dreadful Huhne - by Richard...

Autonomous Mind ruminates on the worst possible energy minister we could possibly have – until the next one. Even those of us who knew Cameron was going to be bad have been stunned by his choice of Huhne to do the job – a man who is as incompetent in his day job as he is tawdry in his private life.

Normal people who behaved like this man would be ashamed to show their faces in public. But this is the political class and anything goes. So up he pops, now as the great political guru, and he gets a hearing. It is no wonder people are switching off from politics big time.

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That's The Boy stuffed - by Richard...

Employers have been warned that unpaid internships could break the law, says The Daily Telegraph.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and campaign group Internocracy, employers are almost certainly breaking the law when they take on unpaid interns. They should be giving them wages if they work. They are mistaken in believing that they are allowed to take on unpaid interns as long as both sides know it is a voluntary position.

"Private companies will normally be under a legal obligation to treat people employed on internship programmes as workers and to pay them the appropriate minimum wage," says the report by Kayte Lawton, a research fellow at IPPR and Dominic Potter, director of Internocracy.

Now, although not stated (surprise, surprise), this has a strong EU dimension. We are talking about equal treatment, and that is covered by the EU's Employment Directive.

That basically stuffs The Boy's "Big Society", which majors on " a new volunteering programme to help 16 year olds develop their skills, mix with people from different backgrounds and get involved in improving their communities".

Mr Cameron can only do what the EU lets him do. He knows that the EU is really in charge and his is just the front man. And if his masters say volunteering - i.e., unpaid labour - is out, then that's an end to the matter. The problem he has is that people are beginning to notice.

When the Tories fought the general election, says Melanie Phillips, they promised they would yield no more power to the European Union, and that they would even seek to regain from the EU some of the powers that Britain had already lost. 

These pledges were designed to take the sting out of the fact that they were not, after all, going to offer a referendum on the European constitution. 

Three months on, it looks increasingly as if none of their promises to safeguard British power is going to be kept. Indeed, the coalition administration even seems to be going in precisely the opposite direction.

This can hardly be a surprise. 

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