All Around UK

Festive Greetings

2017-12-24T10:16:00.000-08:00

Image: Recolor

Dear readers,

I wish you all a joyful and relaxing Christmas time and a rocking new year 😉

Most of my stories can now be found on:

https://www.clippings.me/insidethenews

Thank you for visiting,

Federica

Autumn updates

2017-10-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

Downloading... Source: https://pixabay.com

Dear readers,

Some of you may have noticed that the blog has been updated on an irregular basis over the last few months.

Most of my stories can now be found on:

· https://www.clippings.me/insidethenews

Recommended shortcuts:

· https://www.fairplanet.org/author/federica-tedeschi

· http://magazine.storebrands.info/i/677274-spring-2016/21

· http://www.theaccountant-online.com/search?q%5B%5D=federica+tedeschi

· http://www.elgazette.com/features/comments/375-el-latin-america-2016-latin-americans-head-to-malta.html

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Federica Tedeschi

Your work is worth zero

2017-09-21T05:26:00.000-07:00

Zero hours contracts on the rise. Source: https://www.hrgo.co.uk

There are currently 883 thousand people on a zero-hour contract in the UK, which correspond to 2.8 per cent of the entire working population, according to data released in August by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey (period April-June 2017).

Since 2014 there has been a huge increase in the number of people reporting that are on a zero-hours contract as ten years ago only 0.6 per cent of the workforce had to deal with such unstable work conditions.

Those on this kind of contract are not guaranteed a minimum number of work hours during the week, but must be always available, otherwise their name will be removed from the ‘flexible workers’ list. It does not come by surprise that they are not entitled to holidays or sick leave.

Zero-hours contracts are extensively used by retailers, hotels and restaurants all over the country and the problem is affecting 3.4 per cent of women against 2.2 per cent of men, while the under 25s are those who have to bear the brunt of the market crisis, according to statistics.

Unite, which is Britain’s largest union, has urged the Government to ban zero-hour contracts and put workers’ welfare first.

“Staff are treated as throwaway workers with throwaway rights”, said TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, highlighting a serious need to improve rights and conditions in the workplace.

During last week TUC Congress in Brighton, Ms. O’Grady has raised concerns about the new technology that allows different ways of exploitation: in fact, casual workers can currently be fired via apps by bosses they never met or spoke to.

Back in September

2017-06-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

Summer time in London. Source: http://www.australiantimes.co.uk

Dear readers,

The blog will be up and running again in September, due to a new writing project.

Meanwhile, please follow me on: https://www.clippings.me/users/insidethenews

I wish you all a very pleasant Summer time.

Thank you for visiting,

Federica Tedeschi

Operation Sceptre to tackle knife crime in London

2017-05-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

Knife crime scene. Source: www.rateyourmusic.com

The number of fatal stabbing in London this year rose to 32 last week.

The recent scale of lethal knife attacks in the capital is shocking, with most people stabbed to death between April-May. Half of them were children and teenagers.

The Metropolitan police launched the Operation Sceptre in 2015, with the objective of reducing knife crime across the capital, by targeting not only those who carry and use knives, but also the supply, access and importation of weapons.

The launch coincided with new legislation according to which those convicted of carrying a knife for the second time will face a mandatory custodial sentence.

The operation has so far resulted in over 2,000 arrests, 473 of which were for possession of a knife or weapon, and the recovery and removal of nearly 1,500 weapons.

Tackling the problem through stop and search action plans is essential, but what about detecting and managing the symptoms to prevent these appalling crimes, currently on the rise in London?

In order to focus on why youngsters arm themselves and those around them, officers from the Trident & Area Crime Command have created and delivered a set of educational packages in schools across the capital. The aim is to persuade young students to think about the decisions they make and the consequences of violent actions to eventually deter them from joining gangs.

Earlier this year the Met had released an alarming report showing that between 2015 and 2016 the number of children carrying knives at school rose by a whopping 50 per cent.

Despite the effort in reducing the percentage of families affected by knife crime across the whole of London, they have also recorded an increase of 24 per cent in the number of knife offences in the capital.

It is worth questioning if their efforts are hindered by a lack of funding, which would lead to a lively and controversial political debate.

Unscrupulous landlords will be named and shamed

2017-04-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

The new City Hall database. Source: www.citizensadvice.org.uk

Councils across London will be able to share an online database set up to protect London’s two million private renters from unscrupulous landlords.

The measure was announced by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the beginning of the week and the new database will be published on his website this Autumn to report suspected dishonest landlords and agents whose accommodations and services fall below acceptable legal standards.

Britain has one of the oldest stocks of housing in Europe, with many homes leaking heat and letting in cold air and water.

According to the Mayor of London ‘Housing in London 2015’ report published by the Greater London Authority (GLA) at the end of 2015, ‘around 21 per cent of homes in London are below the official Decent Homes Standard and the proportion has fallen slightly faster in London than in the rest of England since 2006’.

The same document reads: ‘More than two thirds of all moves in London in the last years were either into or within the private rented sector’.

As if it was not enough, rents across the capital are high-priced. According to the Citizens Advice (2015), there are more than 100,000 households who pay more than £900 per month to live in an unsafe private home.

Therefore, not only an increasing number of Londoners is renting while struggling to get on the housing ladder, but also affordable and decent accommodations are extremely hard to find. In fact, high demand means some landlords exploit tenants by putting them in uncomfortable and often unsafe homes and the new City Hall database intends to bring together details of acceptable places to rent or buy.

The scheme, which will be built in partnerships with London Boroughs and will initially involve six councils, Newham, Brent, Camden, Southwark, Kingston and Sutton, will also provide details about landlords and letting agents who have been previously prosecuted for housing offences.

Brexit: where is the deal?

2017-03-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

Brexit is happening. Source: http://www.thedailybell.com

Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger Article 50 tomorrow, starting the two- year process of leaving the European Union.

Britain, which has been in a state of unprecedented uncertainty since the outcome of the referendum last June, has now to honour its commitments to the European budget by paying a hefty divorce bill of £50bn.

However, the country may fail to meet one of three negotiating priorities, as it is willing to pay only a fraction of that amount.

Mr Barnier, the EU chief who leads the Brexit negotiations and set the criteria, has warned of the possibility that the EU and Britain could fail to strike a deal with painful consequences for both economies.

His other priorities are not undermining the peace in Northern Ireland and deciding the status of the over 3 million EU nationals living in Britain.

The government should put into place an action plan aimed at protecting the rights of millions of people who have built a career and a life in Tanland, by not forcing them to move elsewhere. The act would help to maintain the current skilled and varied workforce and perhaps encourage more people from overseas to move to the UK and contribute to the economy, as it has been for many decades.

Otherwise, how is the British labour market going to cope with fewer and fewer EU workers choosing to move to the UK? The overall number of people in the European Union looking for a job in Britain has fallen by almost a fifth since January (Indeed, 2016), while the NHS hospitals have seen a sharp fall in number of EU nurses after Brexit vote, aggravating an already strained healthcare system.

To immediately guarantee the immigrants’ rights would make even more sense in the light of data revealing that 1,2 million British-born people reside in Europe and they hope not to be negatively affected by the Brexit agreement (United Nations, 2015).

A bad deal or no deal at all could be disastrous and cause severe delays at airports and long queues at Dover, as well as the suspension of the deliveries of nuclear material, not to mention the impact on the food industry. In fact, as many companies import ingredients from the EU and related costs are expected to rise even further in the short-term, companies need to decide whether to absorb that additional payment or change to a UK supply.

On top of the necessity to support fair competition, Mr. Barnier has highlighted the tremendous importance of Great Britain and the EU co-operating on security and defence. Not by chance the European Union has helped avoid war between its members since 1945.

Wheelchair vs buggy

2017-02-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

This January the Supreme Court of UK has ruled that bus companies must end first come first served policies and do more to accommodate wheelchair users.


Wheelchair user boarding a bus. Source: http://www.rica.org.uk/content/buses

Disabled activist Doug Paulley from West Yorkshire brought his case after he was denied access to a bus in 2012, when a mother with a pushchair refused to make space for him and the driver did nothing to force her to move.

It has not been a straightforward journey, though. Doug Paulley’s appeal, which has been funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was upheld after the successful county court case outcome against FirstGroup in 2013 had been overturned by the court of appeal the following year.

“It has been amazing the amount of support that I have had of so many people, disabled people, organisations, lawyers, families, LAs. This hopefully is going to make a major difference to disabled people’s travels”, said Mr. Paulley.

A ruling on the case is expected before the end of 2017 and the brave traveller hopes that the Supreme Court will finally make the right legal and moral decision that supports the major objective of social inclusion for physically impaired people who are too often left in distress while travelling:

“Not all the justices agreed (…). There was a significant disagreement on some details (…). What this judgment means is that the drivers have to make their own decision as to whether or not the person has been unreasonable in refusing to move. If they are, the driver has to tell them they are required to shift and if necessary refuse to continue the journey until they move over”.

Wheelchair and mobility scooter-users are highly dependent on buses to get around and while a buggy can be easily folded, the same solution does not apply to wheelchairs, especially when the disabled passengers are travelling alone.

Those who are physically impaired face challenges while travelling in London, too.
Insufficient wheelchair-friendly transport is a widespread problem in the capital, where only few tube stations have step-free access.

The Transport for London (TFL) website reads: “Around a quarter of Tube stations, half of Overground stations, most piers, all tram stops, the Emirates Air Line and all DLR stations have step-free access”.

However, some of these stations still have a gap and step between the platform and the train.

Season's Greetings

2016-12-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

Image: http://wondrouspics.com/seasons-greetings-2/

As we near the end of 2016 and look to the New Year, I want to say a massive thank you for visiting my blog and enjoying the monthly stories. I hope you will all continue reading “All around UK” in the months and years to come.

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Wonderful 2017.

Deny, Deny, Deny

2016-12-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

From right to left: Eve (J. Sharkah) and Joyce (S. Marks) are facing fierce
competition and challenges. Source: https://www.parktheatre.co.uk

Deny, Deny, Deny is Jonathan Maitland’s five-handed drama on professional athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs.

The story is set in the future and Eve (Juma Sharkah) is an ambitious sprinter who has come to Shepherd’s Bush in London from a deprived background in Sierra Leone, to win gold at the 2028 Boston Olympics.

She is already a rising star, ranked 58^th in the running, and to raise her game Eve switches to an unscrupulous and incredible results-achieving coach called Rona (Zoë Waites), who targets the athlete’s vulnerability and encourages her towards a radical gene therapy treatment: a form of DNA refashioning that leaves no detectable traces of toxins in the bloodstream.

Eve will become the world’s first genetically modified athlete.

Throughout the process, Rona pits Eve against rival runner Joyce (Shvorne Marks) and progressively gets her to dump Tom (Daniel Fraser), her sport journalist boyfriend.

The transformation does not only affect her personal life, though. Despite Rona’s promise that injecting RNA drugs is as innocuous as drinking orange juice, Eve can no longer see the colour green once the drugs take hold. In addition, her eyes start glazing with robotic intensity during the second act of the play.

Eventually the athlete will succeed. However, is it worth crossing ethical lines in order to cross winning lines?

The final scene between Tom and Eve may answer to the question by clearly showing the human cost of Eve’s overriding ambition. She is now a coach herself and has not seen Tom for several years.

Interesting in Maitland’s play is the set design of a rectangular sports arena with the audience on all four sides, while the lighting transforms the arena itself into a running track.

Through short and dynamic scenes the author paints a saddening portrait of a world in which you are only cheating if you are found to do so.

The anti-doping enquiry towards the end of the play, which is conducted quite informally, sees Rona shouting abuse and proclaiming that cheating is a nationalised industry.

The coach also emphasises:

“Where there is no doubt, there is no progress.

“Some of the greatest things in life happen when we cross the line”.

It is in the court scene that Sarah Finigan, who plays various characters throughout the play, brings new energy and the way she challenges ruthless Rona is cause for reflection.

Deny, Deny, Deny is a tale of ambition, love and jealousy which runs at the Park Theatre until December 3.

Full stop to sexual harassment at school

2016-11-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sexual harassment at school
Source: www.demandthechange.wordpress.com

Compulsory anti-grooming lessons could soon be held in schools all over the UK.

Labour’s shadow Women and Equalities minister Sarah Champion put forward proposals to ensure sex and relationship education sessions take place in academies, free schools and new grammar schools for pupils aged 5 and above.

Under the current UK curriculum, in fact, only sexual health education is mandatory and from Year 7 onwards, while teaching young people about relationships and sexual consent is not.

The move follows publication of a worrying 64-page report from the Women and Equalities Committee.
The document, which was made public in September, contains striking statistics: almost a third of female students aged 16-18 has experienced unwanted sexual touching in schools across England (2010 data), while 59 per cent of girls and women aged 13-21 has faced some form of sexual harassment at school or college in 2014.

Sexual violence, which can also be visual or verbal, undermines the self-esteem and confidence of its victims and therefore cannot be taken lightly.

The House of Commons document has been an opportunity for MPs to highlight an alarming inconsistency in how schools deal with sexual harassment and violence, reason why educational institutions are urged to collect and publish data on reports of such crimes, while the police should record the incidents they investigate.

More specifically, MPs heard evidence that many institutes are either under-reporting incidents or failing to take them seriously and stressed that the Government should give schools national guidance on how to tackle the issue, while Ofsted should follow by assessing how well they are recording, monitoring, preventing and responding to incidents of harassment and violence.

Parents interviewed during the investigations seemed to agree on what the House of Commons declared and reported lack of proper and quick action by schools.

Teachers have however answered by stressing that children and teenagers spend most of their time outside school and even though parents sometimes struggle to spot how they can best support their progeny, tackling sexual harassment is not a straightforward task for teachers either. Tutors are often overwhelmed by long lists of targets to meet and paperwork to complete and need better support and guidance to make change happen.

Moreover, a culture of internet and pornography can play a role in the problem and being boys and young men an important part of the solution, Government should tackle the ‘lad culture’ since primary school.

Ms Champion's proposals could be the beginning of a new approach to fight sexual harassment and violence at school, according to the priciple that educational institutions should always be safe and empowering places to stay.

A warning from the sky

2016-09-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

Air pollution. Source: Arysports.tv

Those who believe cycling across London is safe as long as they wear a bike helmet and use cycle routes, may think twice.

Each year in the UK around 40,000 deaths are attributable to exposure to outdoor air pollution which pays a role in many of the major health challenges of our day, according to a report published last April by the Royal College of Physicians.

And it equally affects cyclists and pedestrians.

Air pollution can cause both short term and long term illnesses and has been linked to cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and changes linked to dementia. In the UK, these costs add up to more than £20 billion every year (Royal College of Physicians).

No wonder that many people are concerned about pollution in the air that they breathe, then.

Protesters gathered in central London last Spring, stating that ‘Britain has the highest level of Nitrogen Dioxide in Europe and levels in London are even worse’, which did not come as a surprise, though.

They marched in an attempt to induce the government to produce a new plan to clean up Britain’s air.

Nitrogen Dioxide, however, is not the only threat to our lungs. There is a whole bunch of silent killers in the air which are a menace to each and every citizen, with particular regard to those already affected by heart or lung conditions.

Air pollution is made up of a mixture of gases and particles that have been released into the atmosphere by man-made processes and such emissions are typically from the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, petrol or diesel.

Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbons are probably the most well-known pollutants, but the list goes on. Moreover, each of them has a different chemical behaviour and therefore various consequences on health, reason why a throughout understanding and control of air pollution as a whole is quite complex.

Renewable energy certainly is an appropriate answer to the problem.

However, is the Government actually implementing measures to generate energy from the sunlight, wind, rain tides, wave and geochemical heat?

Data recently published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, reveal that renewable electricity capacity has recorded a 11.8 per cent increase during the first 4 months of 2016 compared to the same period last year.

Solar photovoltaic showed a whopping 41 per cent increase, followed by the generation from bioenergy, which reached 8.3 TWh (an increase of 18 per cent compared to the first four months of 2015).

The total wind generation decreased by 2.5 per cent, instead (Energy Trends section 6: renewables).

The UK is however still far from the 2020 target to meet 15 per cent of energy needs from renewable sources. Despite these targets having been set under the EU’s renewable energy plan and the recent Brexit vote, ministers are still required to meet them.

Meanwhile, we will continue reading about air pollution being at record levels in the city of London and asthmatic children wearing monitors to track levels of smog on way to school, aware that the list of problems caused by air pollution does not end here.

An ocean of plastic

2016-07-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

An ocean of plastic. Source: www.takepart.com

According to the UK Recycling Guide, 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK. It is about 15 million bottles per day.

One recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours. However, most families throw away about 40 kg of plastic every year.

Consumption of this material, which can take up to 500 years to decompose, is increasingly growing in Western Europe and the impact on the environment is massive.

While the plastic packaging that fill up our cupboards and shelves do not seem to grow out of fashion, supermarkets all over the country recently confirmed the 5p levy introduced last October has reduced single-use plastic bag consumption by up to 80 per cent (data from Retail Week, February 2016).

This is great news if we look at the recently updated 2010 Government’s policy paper on waste and recycling which reads ‘In 2013 supermarkets gave out over 8 billion single-use carrier bags across the UK. That is nearly 130 bags per person and equates to about 57,000 tonnes of single-use carrier bags in total over the year’.

The effect of discarded plastic bags on the environment goes beyond littering and potential injury to marine wildlife and it comes as no surprise that they consume resources, including oil, in their creation.

The Government expects that this new targeted, proportionate charge will continue reducing the number of plastic bags used in England, increase their re-use and diminish littering. It also encourages businesses to donate the proceeds from the charge to good causes.

A positive attitude towards the protection of the environment comes from the world of fashion as well. Some adventurous designers have decided to add recycled material to their pieces of art, like London-based womenswear Jaeeun Shin, who conveyed a sustainable message introducing a collection of gowns made from supermarket carrier bags during a week of shows from UK fashion colleges held in June.

This is also good news for Greenpeace, an organisation actively involved in saving the environment, which published the New Year's plastic resolution at the beginning of 2016, suggesting five ways to effectively help the ocean: saying no to single use plastics, recycling and convincing other people to do so are all on the list.

These important initiatives may seem a lot. However, it is a drop in the ocean as the problem still remains: even when disposed of responsibly, plastic bags can last for long periods of time in landfill sites.

Simply there is no ‘away’ to throw plastic to.

Chaos in the UK after the EU referendum has split up the country

2016-06-27T04:04:00.004-07:00


UK vores for Brexit. Picture: multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com

Today marks the start of a week like no other in Europe, as the UK is no longer an EU country.

However, the formal and legal process of leaving the European Union only begins after the article 50 trigger is pulled and Britain’s divorce from the EU will certainly not be finalised overnight.

On Thursday UK voted for Brexit after a very bitter campaign which has seen families split down in the middle, politicians vehemently attacking each other during debates and the tragic murder of Labour MP Joe Cox. She was shot outside a local constituency meeting near Leeds a week before people head to the polls, because of her strong pro-EU stance.

Referendum day saw a 72.2 per cent turnout and a whopping 51.9 per cent of the nation voted to leave.
Results show a leave side dominance in England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU.

The northern country of the island of Great Britain will now have to reapply to the bloc for membership, if it wants to stay in the EU.

According to the Commission, the whole procedure would likely take years and come with specific conditions; the adoption of the Euro currency is one of them.

The English capital voted strongly to stay as well, and now many companies in the city are worried for their future.

Emotions have been running quite high anywhere and particularly on social media, since the final results were announced at the central Town Hall in Manchester in the early hours of June 24.

Within less than two days, more than three million people had signed an online petition calling for a second EU referendum, while a petition to newly elected mayor of London asking to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the EU, has registered over 150 thousand signatures. The list goes on and over the weekend tens of thousands of people in central London protested against Brexit.

Unforgettable is the almost immediate Prime Minister’s speech of resignation, during which he explained how the country requires a fresh leadership to take it in the new direction, having British people made a very clear decision to go a different way.

He added he will stay until the start of the Conservative party conference in October and will do everything he can as Prime Minister but it would not be right for him to be the captain that steers the country into its next destination. His aim is to guarantee a period of stability before his successor is installed to begin negotiations with the European Union.

It is however hard to foresee any stability in such a chaotic scenario.

First of all, there is lot of anger and uncertainty all over the country: the impact on the pound and inflation has been immediate, as GBP went down double digits and FTSE down 7-8% within minutes from the polls closure. The financial market situation is not that dramatic right now; however, chancellor George Osborne hint at recession this morning, during his first post-Brexit speech.

On the one hand, the country cannot ignore that there are 1.3 million Brits facing questions about their future living abroad within the EU. As a consequence of the new setting, British expats may lose certain rights, and start being charged for healthcare and higher taxes.

On the other hand, there are over 2 million EU migrants working in Britain who according to HMRC data, made a net contribution to the economy of more than £2.5bn (tax year 2013-14). In the near future many of them may lose their right to stay or face significant restrictions. However, Brexit will probably lead an increase in migration in the short-term and hundreds of thousands of EU migrants are now likely to apply for British passports.

Uncertainty is ruling the country and it comes as no surprise.

While surfing on the internet, it is possible to find many comments of Brexiters who regretted their vote soon after UK was announced to be out of the EU. One leave voter even expressed his/her shock to the BBC by saying: “I'm shocked that we actually have voted to leave, I didn't think that was going to happen. My vote I didn't think was going to matter too much (…)".

Are such worrying comments the consequence of a Leave campaign all focused on immigration and the subsequently withdrawn statement that UK sends £350 million a week to the EU, instead of funding the NHS?

Is the outcome of what ultimately became a referendum on immigration, actually marking ‘independence day’ of the UK as UKIP leader Nigel Farage triumphantly said on Friday?

How is this going to affect those fundamental human rights protected in the EU legal order now that Great Britain has decided to go its own way after 43 years?

All we know right now is that Brexit will still be on the pages and front pages of many papers abroad for some time and the 24^th June 2016 will be the day that changed the course of British history.

The path is still very unclear.

Auntie BBC cannot relax yet

2016-05-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

The British Broadcasting Corporation. Picture: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has unveiled the White Paper, a document that sets out a new regime for the BBC in his plans for the next 11 years, while highlighting the importance of the broadcaster as a national asset that informs, educates and entertains the British public.

The authoritative report has arrived just a week ago, after a difficult time due to attacks from media groups and politicians opposed to the BBC’s size and structure.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has also faced a threat at the hands of the Government that wanted to cut the BBC down to size and challenging its scope, while forcing it to take on responsibility for a welfare benefit.

According to the NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, despite the fantastic public response to the consultation on the future of the broadcaster, the game was lost before it had even begun by the BBC agreeing to a deal with George Osborne to fund the licence fees of the over-75s, which could diminish the scale of the BBC by 20 per cent.

In the light of these events, in 2015 the broadcaster declared its intention of making cuts of £150 million with the news budget facing a reduction of 5 million, not to mention a fall of £12 million on online services.

Being the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in strong disagreement with the announcement, it decided to support the BBC by launching the NUJ’s Love it or Lose it campaign and protesting against the broadcaster’s charter renewal.

The Union has been stressing since the beginning its plan to defend the British Broadcasting Corporation, which is both the largest single investor in TV news and the biggest commissioner of new music worldwide, as excellent value. In fact, it offers four TV channels, ten national radio stations and a network of local radio stations, not to mention BBC monitoring, BBC Parliament and its well-known website. The list goes on and the whole package only costs 40p a day.

Slimming Auntie BBC. Image: www.economist.com

Will the recently published White Paper actually allow the BBC to be more open and creative than ever, while bearing the British values?

Reports confirm that the BBC bosses are still concerned about the make-up of the proposed board, as the Government may interfere with the corporation’s running, therefore undermining its independence.

Lord Hall, the director-general of the oldest national broadcasting system in the world, is now expected to work hard to make sure Auntie BBC will not be turned into a state broadcaster.

Why should we BrExit?

2016-04-17T04:45:00.000-07:00

The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973
Picture: openeurope.org.uk

A 14-page pro-European Union booklet is about to be sent to every house in Britain.

The heading reads Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK.

The move has not been welcomed by anti-EU Conservative and Leave supporters who believe it is crazy to spend more than £ 9m of taxpayers’ money on campaign to stay in the EU. They also argued the leaflet should at least allow people to read about the other side of the case.

Most party leaders think Britain’s future belongs in the EU: not only PM David Cameron is pro-EU, also Labour leader Jeremy Corbin-who opposed UK membership in 1975- and Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, are underlying the benefits of staying in the European Union’s single market.

During a recent talk in London Mr Farron asked the public: “Is it in our interest for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the world’s biggest, most important market? (….) to remain in a union where currently 100 of the world’s top 250 companies have their base in this city?”.

In fact, around 3 million jobs in Britain depend on EU membership and even more jobs in the EU are up to exports to Britain.

It sounds overall detrimental for Britain not to do business with EU and vice versa. And for those who argue about the cost of staying in the EU, the answer is quite reassuring: just 1p for every £1 we spend goes to the European Union.

The highly criticised document each household in Britain is going to receive soon, also contains information on another key argument: immigration. Opting out the EU would not reduce the phenomenon, as the UK has to commit to some free movement anyway.

Staying in the EU or leaving the EU? Picture: leaderchat.org

On the other side, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson is strongly supporting the Leave campaign and during a talk that took place in Dartford a month ago, he energetically highlighted why Britain would be better off out the EU, whose economy is burdened with too much bureaucracy .

The whole speech could be summarised in one sentence:

“This country is big enough, great enough and strong enough to stand on our own”.

Will voters up and down the UK decide to remain in the EU or not?

Looking at the Polling movement since 2015 as reported by the Financial Times, following results from online and telephones polls, there is not significant gap between those who want to stay and voters who would like to leave the EU.

Not by chance, results from this week’s poll show that a 43 per cent of the population is on the Leave zone, while a 42 per cent of voters are Pro-EU.

With less than 10 weeks to go until the referendum, it is still hard to say whether or not Britain will stay in the European Union.

Thousands of protesters in London to Kill the Housing Bill

2016-03-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

Protesters gather at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Picture: Federica Tedeschi

Thousands of demonstrators gathered at Lincoln’s Inn Fields today and marched through central London against the Tory Housing Bill.

The magnitude of this protest indicates how severe the housing crisis in Britain is and this is particularly true in London.

According to the Government, the bill is meant to turn “generation rent into generation buy”, but both the protest organisers and the demonstrators believe the Housing Bill will make the current housing crisis worse for council, housing association and private tenants.

Decent homes at reasonable prices should not be considered a luxury, but a human right and council houses should be synonymous of security, rather than a temporary solution. In fact, forcing ordinary Londoners out of their council places sounds quite destabilising, especially for families with young children.

“The Housing Bill affects us directly because our rent is going to possibly increase, forcing some of us to move. This is also a way to destroy our communities; we live in a block of six and we all know each other, but there is a chance we will be leaving if the Bill comes into force”, said Richard Cowley, an Islington resident who joined the protest with his partner and kids.

Demonstrators today descended to Parliament Square holding placards and banners that read: ‘People before profits’, ‘Kill the Housing Bill’ and ’Resist evictions’, not only to stop the Bill, but to ask for more council houses and regulation of private tenants, as well.

Suzanne Muna, branch secretary of the Unite Housing workers and one of the organisers of today’s demonstration, said:

“What we need is a proper solution for working class people. We are getting poorer as our wages are dropping compared to the cost of living and particularly compared to the rising cost of housing. So, we want to make our protest visible.

“I know that it probably won’t stop the Bill going through on its own, but it is one way of expressing the anger and we need to follow that up with other things, like the Union branch taking industrial actions and adding the cost of housing to the pay claim that we make, for example”.

Ms Muna explained different strategies to deal with the current housing problem, but the scenario will not change until we have much more generalised strike actions: “Then we will have a real chance of winning our demands,” she added.

It will most likely take a year before the Housing Bill is implemented and this is probably a long enough time to build a strong movement capable of stopping the bill, even if it is passed into law.

The ‘Kill the Housing Bill’ campaign is an alliance of tenants of all tenures, housing workers, MPs, traveller groups, Councillors and trade unions concerned at the threat posed by the Housing and Planning Bill.

#hhconnect London: great ideas and great success stories

2016-02-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

Profiles of some of the delegates attending Hacks/Hackers Connect London. Picture: Federica Tedeschi

Does the name Hack\Hackers Connect ring any bells?

If this is the first time you hear about this launchpad event series for news-media entrepreneurs, it is worth to know that a whole weekend of workshops, keynotes and one-to-one mentoring sessions was held at the Rainmaking Loft in London on February 5-7.

Around 100 selected journalists, technologists and business people gathered to exchange ideas and draw business plans, ready for the next step in their career.
They also attended inspirational talks held by media professionals who have created successful news and media start-ups, like Rebekah Monson, co-founder of The New Tropic, Mark Little, founder of Storyful and co-founder of Publish.org Matt McAlister.
The list of keynotes goes on and mentors include further entrepreneurs like the founder of Inkpact Charlotte Pearce and Verifeye Media co-founder John D McHugh.
It comes as no surprise that also Sarah Drinkwater, the head of Google’s Campus London, was at the Rainmaking Loft during the weekend, mentoring both journalists and technologists. In fact, the Hack\Hackers Connect event was entirely sponsored by Google News Lab.

London is just one of several cities hosting this kind of event organised by the vibrant team of Hacks/Hackers, who was in San Francisco in January and will soon be flying to New York, to eventually help like-minded media entrepreneurs to meet up in Berlin next June.

As their website reads: “Hacks/Hackers has brought more than 40,000 journalists and technologists around the world together over the past six-years, united in a belief that we need to work together to build the future of media. Now, we’re launching a series of global events to sees new media adventures, grow deeper connections within the community and attract new collaborators”.

Those who have an idea for a news-related business or simply want to share their career experience within a vibrant news media community, should apply to attend one of the forthcoming Hacks/Hackers events by visiting http://connect.hackshackers.com/event/london/

Generation Rent helps us choose the most renter-friendly Mayor of London

2016-01-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

Image from: http://www.landlordzone.co.uk

The ability to tackle the lack of affordable housing in London is one of the main challenges the new mayor of London will be facing.

Generation Rent has just launched the website votehomes2016.com to identify the most renter friendly mayoral candidate, while providing citizens with detailed information on the extent of the London’s housing crisis.

All candidates are graded on a traffic-light system, according to the content of their policies and the extent these plans will help tenants in London. A red light is designed for specific schemes that do not improve the present circumstances, while a yellow dot stands for “on the right track”. The green light indicates projects that are “excellent” and therefore will enhance renters’ life.

So far, the two most pro-renter candidates are the Greens’ Sian Berry and the Labour’s Sadiq Khan, while voters are waiting for more reforms to encourage affordable rents from Tory Zac Goldsmith, Lib Dems Caroline Pidgeon, UKIP’s Peter Whittle and George Galloway of Respect.

Lowering housing costs should be City Hall’s top priority, according to the website, that reads:

“The future of London is bleak if more than half of its young people can’t afford to do what their parents did and settle down to start a family.

“Even couples in the most affordable borough, Havering, will pay 35 per cent of their salary on rent. In Camden, where the rent is 70% of the median salary, forget it”.

With election day taking place on May 5, there is still time for more traffic lights to turn green on votehomes2016.com.

For further information please visit http://votehomes2016.com - The project is funded by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.

Happy New Year

2015-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

Image from: http://baristanet.com

This year I have been involved in a number of new writing projects and therefore have published less articles than usual on my blog.

Thank you for visiting anyway and enjoying my monthly story. I hope you will all continue visiting 'All Around UK' in the months and years to come.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year to all of you, precious readers...

Federica

Generation Rent

2015-12-31T10:19:00.000-08:00

Image from: http://talkofthetown.ie

The expression Generation Rent has been increasingly used by journalists since 2011, as more and more twenty and thirtysomethings are privately renting instead of stepping on the property ladder.

There is also a considerable number of forty-something adults who belong to the same Generation, unfortunately.

Data released in October by the Office for National Statistics revealed that private rental prices paid by tenants in Great Britain rose by 2.7 per cent in the twelve months to September 2015.

As the years pass by, those who cannot afford to buy a property now will not get any closer to having their own place. In fact, it is likely they will be renting for many years ahead and will also be sharing with more and more people as rents increase.

The worst-hit city is London, where rents went up 4.1 per cent over the year to last September.

On average, someone earning the London Living Wage of £ 9.40 per hour has to spend more than half their salary on rent and there is hardly one borough in the capital where somebody with a similar income can live affordably.

A single room in a not too glamorous area of London can cost £ 700 a month, not to mention about prices in the renowned areas of the capital.

Are politicians doing anything to help the Generation Rent?

When it comes to housing issues, the Government normally focuses on council houses and special right-to-buy schemes.

No much is on the agenda for those single tenants or lodgers in full time jobs who bear the brunt of skyrocketing rents. As a consequence of them being caught in a rent trap, most tenants of this Generation struggle to save enough money for a mortgage.

A report released earlier this year by economists at accountancy firm PwC suggests this trend will continue. By 2025, a quarter of all households will privately rent, they predict, with the biggest increase among those aged 20-39, where “a clear majority” will be private tenants within 10 years.

And it will not come as a surprise, considering that the average UK home would be worth around £360,000 by 2020.

Is this a teaching crisis?

2015-11-26T02:29:00.000-08:00

Image from: http://clip.c19.ir

School is that important place where teachers play a strategic role in determining the future of students and society altogether. Teaching is more than a job. In fact, it is a mission.

At least, this is the general understanding of what the relationship between teacher and student should be.

However, media have been telling us for a while now that a worrying teaching crisis is threatening education in our country.

Early in 2015 around 1,200 teachers signed an open letter from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) union, asking for more Government support, as the constant Ofsted monitoring and fear of being judged to be failing, is putting the profession at risk.

Moreover, figures based on the Department for Education data show that nearly four in ten tutors leave in their first year, while the number of wannabe teachers who complete their training but never actually enter the classroom has tripled over the last six years.

Further data made public by a Department for Education official highlight a record 50,000 teachers have left the profession in a year.

There is no wonder that many schools in the UK are conducting a mass recruitment initiative abroad in order to tackle teacher shortages in their classrooms. More specifically, the Government is encouraging foreign tutors to consider moving to England by building relationships with target countries.

According to Mary Bousted, the ATL general secretary, teachers work more unpaid overtime than any other profession and their work life is filled with constant pressure and stress.

Children clearly bear the burden of this bureaucratic system, as they constantly sit tests since a young age.

Besides this, young learners will face further challenges in the years ahead.

Education secretary Nicky Morgan has in fact announced plans to reintroduce externally marked exams to measure the progress of seven-year-old pupils and make sure their assessment is rigorous enough.

The proposal has not been welcomed by the teaching unions and according to them, a formal testing at KS1 could only increase the pressure on children and teaching staff.

Is there a risk that some schools will concentrate even more on results to boost their position in the league tables, rather than focusing on the curriculum and the specific requirements of the young students?

Chances are this is going to happen.

CRACK+CIDER: the project to keep homeless people warm

2015-11-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

Crack+Cider leaflet. Photograph by Federica Tedeschi

The world’s first shop for homeless people, CRACK+CIDER, has opened last week with the aim of keeping many rough sleepers warm during the winter.

Goodwill shoppers can buy a hat, socks and gloves set for £7 or a backpack for £15, while a winter jacket costs £25.

The project has been entirely conceived and funded by strategist Charlotte Cramer, 25 and advertising executive Scarlett Montanaro, 26 who met at the University of the Arts in London whilst studying Advertising:

“Living in London, we were walking past many homeless people every single day without doing anything and we felt really bad about it.

“But it wasn’t until we came up with this idea that we started researching and found out the scary statistics on homelessness”.

Charlotte Cramer explained her concern about facts being much worse than government statistics show. She and her business partner have contacted a couple of organisations and found out the actual figure of people sleeping rough in the capital is around 7,000 a year.

“Because the Government statistics are inaccurate, the problem is not receiving the amount of attention it should. We wanted to help homeless people during the winter and chose a provocative name to stimulate discussion among the public”, said Ms Montanaro.

CRACK+CIDER is a provocative name indeed and so far this nonprofit project has received media coverage almost on a daily basis. Even the Labour party and Hackney Council have taken an interest in the debate.

“The topic deserves this type of discussion, it deserves a provocative name because passers-by reluctance to give money to homeless people is based on the assumption that their donations will be spent on crack and cider. This concept has driven the entire project and to ignore it would feel like we have been unnecessarily apologetic”, stressed Charlotte Cramer.

“We have received a few negative comments about the name CRACK+CIDER, but none of them from a homeless person!

“So many rough sleepers have reached out to us to leave positive comments. During our launch night a homeless man came in asking about the distribution dates and he was very thankful for our idea”, added Scarlett Montanaro.

The initial sales proceeds of CRACK+CIDER are a clear indicator of success and any profits will be reinvested.

“We had initially set ourselves a target of £1,000 stock to be sold during the month of November, but we cleared that in online sales before the actual launch and made another £2,000 during the following 48 hours!

“We feel we have to keep it going with such a positive response and have decided to stay open until the 23^rd of December”, said Ms Montanaro.

CRACK+CIDER relies on five independent distribution partners that work across the capital and their support is really important in order to ensure that all the purchased items are allocated among those who actually need them.
“Considering the response so far, we may have to get more distribution partners!”, emphasised Ms Montanaro.

What is the incredible success of CRACK+CIDER really about?

“The project is providing an answer to something that people question every single day, as homelessness is never too far away from us in London. Most CRACK+ CIDER customers are young Londoners between the age of 18 -28 who share the unpleasant feeling of not being able to help those rough sleepers they regularly see on the streets.

“The way our project works is so straightforward that people can understand where the money goes and the impact each donation is going to have. By giving them a tangible benefit of their goodwill, we enable people to donate even more. Not by chance, the average contribution through our website has been £26, while the average donation to a charity is about £9”, highlighted Ms Cramer.

Talking about the future, the two young entrepreneurs really seem determined to expand their project:

“With CRACK+CIDER we would love to set up in another city in the short term, while we think this is a big opportunity to develop a new approach to charitable giving in the long term”.

The project is also a big opportunity for clothing brands to work closely with CRACK+CIDER and contribute to the community.

Goodwill shoppers can visit pop-up shop CRACK+CIDER in 73 Kingsland Road, Hackney, until December 23. The website, which offers the same items, will remain open after the shop closes: http://crackandcider.com/

Are supermarkets' promotions misleading?

2015-10-20T15:17:00.000-07:00

Image from: ettardi.blogspot.com

Last July the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) published a document that highlighted how supermarkets in the UK are confusing customers with their aggressive sales tactics and widely varying prices and offers.

Among the various misleading deals, the Authority denounced the well-known ‘was/now’ promotion, where the discount sales price is advertised as a promotion for longer that the higher price applied.

It was the consumer campaign group Which? to raise the alarm in April and according to CMA senior Director Consumer, Nisha Arora, the complaint has been a chance to collect and examine a great deal of further evidence on the strategies supermarkets put into place to attract shoppers.

Refocus consumer protection is without doubt one of CMA’s main goals, along with extending competition frontiers and delivering effective enforcement. The creation of the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) itself was first suggested by the Confederation of British Industry who called on the Government to combine the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission into a Single Competition Agency. They hoped it would streamline the previous two-stage process in which the merger review and the market investigation were carried out by two different authorities.

According to the CMA’s report, while shoppers enjoy a wide range of choices and 40 per cent of their grocery spending goes on items on promotion, there are still hundreds of misleading offers on the shelves every day and a lack of easily comparable prices, considering the limitations of unit pricing.

Despite the fact that retailers want to comply with the law to avoid such problems occurring and that dubious offers are not happening in large numbers across the whole sector, there are still areas of poor practice that could be in breach of consumer law and confuse shoppers.

Following its most recent investigation, the CMA has announced a new set of measures to bring businesses into line and work closely with them to stop promotional misleading practices and improve compliance, while bringing greater clarity to shoppers and simplifying the regulations.

Hopefully the next report from the Competitions and Market Authority will contain more reassuring data and clear information for the consumer. If not, Which? will surely be there, standing up for the consumer rights once again.

Healthy food for NHS patients

2015-09-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

Image from: dreamstime.com

The NHS chief executive Simon Stevens has announced plans to stop the healthcare system offering junk food to patients, staff and visitors.

During his speech, which took place at the NHS Innovation Expo Conference in Manchester last week, Mr. Stevens highlighted how NHS organisations will be supported to help their staff to stay well, including plans to serve healthier food.

Outlets and retailers which offer ‎food that does not meet nutritional standards will either be banned from NHS hospitals or have to change their menus up and down the UK.

Vending machines will be affected as well, and therefore banned from selling certain sugar and/or salt-based snacks currently on display.

I am not terribly surprised by the fact that food and meals available in hospitals can be unhealthy. No longer than three years ago, in fact, I visited the A&E department of a North London hospital, where a service worker brought sandwiches fully loaded with not very light ingredients to patients. It was supposed to be our lunch and I was puzzled.

So, the recent announcement from Mr. Stevens, which follows an investigation on the scale of the fast-food by national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, is preparing the ground for healthier menus in hospital wards, and a new regulation will hopefully come into force soon.

Meanwhile health campaigners have criticised the fact that chains like Burger King and Greggs, as well as 92 branches of Costa Coffee selling muffins and high-sugar drinks, are all located inside many hospitals in the UK.