Save Our NHS for the Common Good

Caroline Lucas v Farage on BBC Question Time tonight

Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, will get the chance to take on Nigel Farage on BBC Question Time tonight.

The programme begins at 10.35pm o BBC1 and Grant Shapps, Shirley Williams and Chuka Umunna are also on the panel.

Eric Pickles urged to investigate Brent Council over handling of fraud allegations

Ex-union activist Nan Tewari has written to Eric Pickles, Secretary of Stae for Communities and Local Government, raising a number of issues concerning the handling of allegations that Cara Davani, Brent's Director of Human Resources misused her Brent Council Oyster Card.  The letter is written at a time when Brent Council has dismissed 11 workers over alleged serious breaches of financial regulations and the staff code of conduct.LINK

In the long and detailed open letter Nan Tewari states:

Now after more than a year later [after the initial investigation of the Oyster card issue], it appears that there is only a draft internal audit report of the investigation in existence. Why was the report never finalised? Might it be because the treatment of Ms Davani has been unduly lenient in comparison with others and would therefore not stand up to scrutiny? The audit committee minutes of March 13 notes that it was highlighted that 18 cases of internal fraud were found, resulting in five dismissals and 10 resignations before action could be taken. Ms Davani presides over, and advises on these very disciplinary and dismissal cases and it is difficult to see how her position can remain tenable given what she has done. She is at the head of the council's workforce and as such must be an exemplar of the highest standards of behaviour expected of every person employed to work in the council or provide services to it.

The internal audit report, which is available below, was written about a period of considerable turmoil  in the Council and tensions in the relationship between officers and leading Labour politicians. Following Muhammed Butt's election to Labour and Brent Council leadership, in succession to Ann John,  disagreements developed between him and Gareth Daniel LINK , Chief Executive, which eventually led to Daniel leaving his post. Members. The CMT (Corporate Management Team, had written a letter in support of Daniel.  Fiona Ledden, now head of Legal and Procurement stepped in as Interim Chief Executive.

The audit report is heavily redacted but gives a picture of events. CMT is Corporate Management Team. XXXX indicates redaction.

The TTIP threat to public services and labour rights

The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership) is slowly emerging as an issue in the Euro elections although public awareness remains low.  It is one of those extremely important issues where debate is limited by a combination of complexity and opaqueness.

This hustings should help shed light on the issue:

Take Back the Power

Global Justice and the European Elections

Monday 19 May, 7pm 

Small Hall, 
Friends Meeting House, 173-177 Euston Rd,

London, NW1 2BJ

Come and meet your MEP candidates and question them on their commitment to trade justice.

•        Jean Lambert, Green Party

•        Jonathan Fryer, Liberal Democrats

•        Seb Dance, Labour Party

•        Glyn Chambers, Conservative Party

•        Tbc, UKIP (invited)

Chair: John Hilary, Executive Director, War on Want 

On Thursday 22nd May, we will be voting for candidates to represent us in the European Parliament. Europe takes decisions on important global issues, including trade.

A major trade deal - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) - is currently being negotiated between the USA and the EU. New corporate trade deals like this threaten to increase global inequality, undermine democracy and hand public service provision to multinational companies. 

•        What effect will this deal have on our lives here in the UK? 

•        How can we ensure that this deal prioritises human rights, environmental protection and labour standards?

•        How can we ensure transparency and accountability in the negotiation of these deals?

Meet your European Parliamentary election candidates and hear what they have to say on these issues and what they will do to address them, if elected on 22 May.

Organised by North and East London World Development Movement


Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/655635101157740

Contact nandelondonwdm@gmail.com to find out more


Web: www.groups.wdm.org.uk/northandeastlondon

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for the  South East published a detailed report on the TTIP two months ago and I include it here for readers:

Cllr Mashari offers Preston Library Campaign volunteer library possibility

A crowded  public meeting of the Preston Library Campaign heard speakers from Brent Labour, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Greens and TUSC on the future of the closed Brent libraries. A full account of the meeting can be found HERE on my colleague Shahrar Ali's blog.

At the end of the meeting a show of hands clearly demonstrated support for a professionally staffed and publicly funded library with a slightly lower number in favour of a volunteer run library. However, afterwards some indicated if a voluntary run library was the only solution they would reluctantly support that.

Cllr Roxanne Mashari, lead member for environment, was clear that no budget existed for a re-opening of the library due to central government cuts in local authority funding. She cited her negotiations with the Friends of Kensal Rise Library as a precedent for Preston.

She said that when the ex-Preston Library building was no longer required by Preston Park Primary School in a year's time, the Council would be willing to rent it out to a voluntary group at a peppercorn rent. The Council would also be prepared to give the building ACV (Asset of Community Value) status. All this would be conditional on a robust business plan for the project.

John Hilary: Recipe for Ruin - the TTIP

Responding to one of the commenters below, here is John  Hilary of War on Want on the TTIP

Preston Library Hustings Tonight

Brent Labour councillor won't vote Labour in Euro election

Brent Labour councillor Claudia Hector has said she will not vote Labour in the European elections on May 22nd because of Labour's lack of concern over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The TTIP would open up public services to privatisation and un dermine workers' rights. In a Twitter exchange Cllr Hector expressed frustration at Labour Mep Calude Moraes' failure to engage on the issue:

1. Claudia ‏@HectorCllr Apr 24

   @ClaudeMoraesMEP Will you be supporting Andy Burnham's wish that the NHS be protected from the TTIP Treaty, as part of the euro platform?

   
   

   
   
2. Claudia ‏@HectorCllr Apr 25

   @ClaudeMoraesMEP You have not replied to my enquiry about TTIP. Is that because of ignorance or lack of interest?
3. Claudia ‏@HectorCllr May 5

   @ClaudeMoraesMEP Still no reply. I will not be voting Labour in Euro lctn, this is the greatest threat to our freedom in generations.
4. Benali Hamdache ‏@GreenBenali 9h

   @HectorCllr @ClaudeMoraesMEP @GreenJeanMEP & all @LonGreenParty MEP candidates pledged to oppose #TTIP.
5. Claudia ‏@HectorCllr 9h

   @GreenBenali @ClaudeMoraesMEP @GreenJeanMEP @LonGreenParty From the email I got from Claude Moraes it's clear he can't see the TTIP danger

    

 At the Green Party's Spring Conference, leader Natalie Bennett had this to say about the TTIP:

TTIP is a huge threat to hard-fought-standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy and our privacy and risks undoing decades worth of EU progress on issues like worker’s rights.”

Bennett stated that the proposed deal threatened to “blow apart the power of our democratic decision making.” She raised the spectre of the Edward Snowden revelations to demonstrate that the US state was “profoundly untrustworthy”.

It’s not surprising, really, when we hear Lib Dems trumpeting the proposed US-EU free trade deal as some kind of economic saviour. The Lib Dems are the lapdogs of corporate Europe, while the Tories are its war horses. In their support for the trade deal, the Lib Dems are reiterating the propaganda of multinational companies interested only in swallowing up new markets, consuming new societies whole. 

Let’s make no mistake, the proposed free trade deal is a huge threat to hard-fought-for standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy, workers’ rights and our privacy. One of the great contributions of the EU is to set a foundation of these standards – not good enough, not high enough – but a start. The proposed free trade deal is a supertanker of dynamite that would blow those foundations apart.

And more, it would blow apart the power of our democratic decision making. The deal provides corporations with new rights to sue the Government for legislating in the public interest – that’s definitely not acting for the common good. 

The banking lobby is so happy with the financial services proposals it has said that the text could have come straight from its own brochure – that’s acting in the interests of the 1%, not the common good.

And there’s more. It’s a deal being proposed with a state that the bravery of Edward Snowden demonstrated is profoundly untrustworthy. Yet there’s no openness – no democracy – about the negotiations: the mandate that the EU Council gave to the Commission is still classified as ‘secret’.