There’s a map here pinpointing where the protests took place.

Unusually for political leaders, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff even praised the protests yesterday, calling them “legitimate” and saying that peaceful demonstrations are “part of democracy”. She also said it was “befitting of youth to protest,” having been a leftist guerrilla when younger.

But politicians were the key target for protesters, who complained about the absurd salaries lawmakers awarded themselves, while passing laws to enrich themselves.

The marches, organised mostly through social media, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia. In the capital city demonstrators climbed onto the roof of Brazil’s Congress building and then stormed it.

Protesters waved Brazilian flags, dancing and chanting slogans such as “The people have awakened” and “Pardon the inconvenience, Brazil is changing.”

This video explains some of the anger.

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Protester kicks back a gas canister! Brilliant video

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“For many years the government has been feeding corruption. People are demonstrating against the system,” a 28-year-old saleswoman protesting in Sao Paulo told Reuters. “They spent billions of dollars building stadiums and nothing on education and health.”

O Rio de Janeiro continua lindo! #Brazil Social Protests. Photo Joao Pedro Sa. pic.twitter.com/w1aspthiO8

— Patricia G. Ferreira (@Pat_Galvao) June 17, 2013

More protests are being organised for coming days.

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LOOK at the size of this protest in Rio De Janeiro from tonight… wow! https://t.co/g4vZjd8HsY (via @Pat_Galvao)

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) June 18, 2013

The growing protests were the largest since Brazil’s military dictatorship ended in 1985.

“I’m not going to the world cup”

“Today’s protests are the result of years and years of depending on chaotic and expensive transportation,” said Érica de Oliveira, 22, a student told the New York Times.

I'M NOT BRAZILIAN, BUT I CAN CLEARLY SAY THAT YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! KEEP BELIEVING EVERYONE! #CHANGEBRAZIL pic.twitter.com/aQoElS8Cnz

— Buse (@JoeJonasArmy) June 17, 2013

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"#TURKEY IS WITH YOU BRAZIL! #ChangeBrazil pic.twitter.com/6uf3gUw8rw "

— Anonymous Operations (@AnonOpsSE) June 17, 2013

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OH MY GOOOD, LOOK AT THAT CROWD! I'M SO PROUD OF ALL BRAZILIAN PEOPLE! YOU GUYS ARE WARRIORS! #CHANGEBRAZIL pic.twitter.com/U8TJXo3CEm

— Buse (@JoeJonasArmy) June 17, 2013

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There are 100,000 people in the streets in Rio. Photo by Juliana Kozlowski #changebrazil pic.twitter.com/hZ63qAcTof

— T Portilho-Shrimpton (@Selkie) June 17, 2013

(Some of the images are from The Guardian and New York Times)

Warning: this piece contains rude words and triggers.

There’s a lot of stuff in the news about online porn: is it ok to like it? How can we stop child porn being spread around? Is it ok to like regular porn, where people who appear to consent appear to have consensual sex – or is that turning teens into wild-eyed sexual ferals who reach the age of 37 without ever having seen a pubic hair? Is it all really consensual? What about torture porn, and rape porn?

There are some problems with the stuff being said in the mainstream media. And if we’re all honest, there are some problems with porn. Big ones. Ones that get glossed over, and these days since porn is ok and is cool and everyone watches it, they’re getting glossed over by an awful lot more people.

Firstly, an issue of terminology: there is no such thing as “child porn”. If it’s pornographic and it involves a child, what you have is an “image of child abuse”. The people watching that stuff are knowingly watching a child be sexually abused. They are getting off on not just the youth of the person or people involved, but very precisely on the fact that they’re powerless, and very precisely on the fact that they’re forbidden territory, and very precisely on the fact that they’re unwilling. Let us agree to never, ever call that stuff “child porn” again. None of those people “made a porn film”. They were filmed being abused.

But the minute a third party watches that film or passes it on to someone, that IS child abuse.

I think we ARE all clear on this.

The second, and to me equally obvious problem with porn is with violent and rape porn: porn in which a woman/women or man/men you don’t know appear to be violently assaulted, raped, tortured and or terrorised, and where people specifically seek out this sort of film because watching that gets them off.

I have nothing against BDSM, role play, or making home movies with consenting and playful parties. But at the point where a piece of porn comes into the public domain and the people watching it cannot tell – and do not care enough to concern themselves – whether the person in the film is really being raped or not, Houston, we have a massive problem. It goes beyond your bedroom.

It goes to the whole of society, to rape culture, to power structures in our society, and to the people left crushed by them, of which, when we’re talking about how social power structures feed into sexuality, a disproportionate number are women. And yet somehow this has become labelled “kink”. It is viewed by some as the essential freedom of their sexuality, by many as playful and harmless, and by the fairly hep (sic) general modern online population as not necessarily something they want to watch, but definitely something they feel disempowered to complain about.

I’m going to be uncool and say it: WTF is wrong with the people seeking this stuff out? People getting off on abuse is people getting off on abuse, and we need to start calling it.

We live in a society where the rate of sexual assault and rape and domestic violence – the vast majority of which is perpetrated against women – is shameful. Look at this. 404,000 women are victims of sexual assault in the UK per year. An average of 85,000 victims of rape, per year. These are Ministry of Justice figures.

The link between sex and torture/rape/distress/assault is now so generally accepted, so normal, that we call images of weeping or tortured captives in war zones “war porn“. This link between sex and a power dynamic, pain, fear and torture, is fed into by horror films, which generally feature mostly-naked women running and sobbing, and some element of sexual assault or threat thereof. It is so prevalent, so acceptable now, that it often even appears on TV, in genres as previously plodding as police procedural dramas. The BBC’s recent “The Fall” intercut a scene of a murdered woman’s body being molested by her killer with a consensual sex scene, seamlessly linking the two, as if handling a dead girl’s naked body were a logical extension of sexual behaviour. Was that pornographic? Yes. It was. Whenever you see a woman dragged out of a river in a police drama, she is always young, attractive … sexy. Dead sexy. We’ve got a song at No1 in the charts right now that contains the words “do it like it hurts” and “big enough to tear your ass in two” (clue, Thicke: this MAY be why she said she isn’t interested, and why you’re now trying to get her “blasted” so you can rape her).

This sort of image might get you off, it may be your kink. But your orgasm is no way, under no circumstance, more important than someone else’s safety and humanity. Calling this “kink” is straightforward rape-apology (and women can be part of the patriarchy too). This is abuse.

And for anyone getting their gimp suit in a knot over what I’ve just said, think on this: if there was porn which LOOKED as if it was children getting raped, but wasn’t, who’d call that “kink”?

But if it’s an adult woman, that’s understandable?

Thirdly, there’s also the broad problem with not having any concrete way of telling whether the participants in “normal” porn are truly consenting. I know some are. I have absolutely no issue with consenting, non-abusive porn. It should be fun. But the fact is, most people watching most porn have no idea whether the participants are there because they love making porn (yay!) or whether they’re there because otherwise they can’t afford baby food / some dude’s going to beat them. There is no way to tell.

And this, in a nutshell, is my problem with porn. It really ought to be everyone’s problem with porn. It is about time we stopped being cool and had this conversation.

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If you want to get involved, there is a petition to ban rape porn here. Do sign it. The twitter hashtag is #banrapeporn.
A longer version of this post is at Rachel’s blog

Let's be clear, the #nspcc did not give Stuart Hall a character reference. @NSPCC deplores his crimes and the misery they caused.

— Peter Wanless (@PeterWanless) June 17, 2013

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Providing a character reference for a convicted sex offender is unacceptable by any #nspcc volunteer even in a personal capacity 1/2

— Peter Wanless (@PeterWanless) June 17, 2013

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The #nspcc volunteer has stood down. Our priority must be the victims of abuse and we will not allow anything to get in the way of that 2/2

— Peter Wanless (@PeterWanless) June 17, 2013

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@Evertondivvy a volunteer did so in a personal capacity without any authorisation from the @NSPCC

— Peter Wanless (@PeterWanless) June 17, 2013

Every major speech by Labour MPs these days is quickly parsed by prominent left and right-wing commentators to see whether it accepts their views or that of the opposition. This isn’t new but Twitter has speeded up the process so much that its difficult to accurately judge a speech when everyone’s views are already entrenched so quickly.

Stephen Twigg’s speech today on ‘One Nation Education policy‘ looks like it fits into this category. We have some idea of direction but not enough of the details to truly get pleased or alarmed. Although the fact the speech title No School Left Behind – is a variation of George Bush’s disastrous No Child Left Behind Act – wasn’t a good sign.

What are the key differences between Twigg and Gove on education policy?

This is the key question for me, over something like ‘has Labour now endorsed or rejected Free Schools?‘. In his speech Twigg said there are three major differences:

1) “where a school freedom promotes higher standards, we will extend those freedoms to all schools” – in other words it won’t just be academies and free schools that get flexibility in approaching education.

2) “It is not feasible, nor is it desirable, for thousands of schools to be accountable only to the Secretary of State. Local communities will have a greater say about education in their area.” — a good idea but its not clear exactly what this means in practice. Will local councils get control or will local campaigns be able to block new schools?

3) “Third, we will ensure that every school plays its part to raise standards across their area and meet the needs of their community. Schools working in collaboration. A proven recipe for success.” — again, too vague to know what this means in practice.

Isn’t this simply a way for Labour to go along with the philosophy behind Free Schools while rejecting them in name?

I asked this question to a top Labour spokesman today. I was told there are two key differences:
- schools would not be allowed to open in areas where there aren’t shortages of places
- teachers would have to be properly qualified to teach.

On the first point, Rafael Behr at the New Statesman says this is an important distinction:

For Gove, excess supply of school places in some areas is not some accidental by-product of the system, it is the logical extension of the market mechanism that is meant to improve standards. New schools are supposed to arrive on the doorstep of established ones and compete for the attention of parents. The process that Labour sees as chaotic and divisive is, in Conservative terms, the positive force of creative disruption that will unleash innovation and, through increased competition, drive up standards.

On the second point, Gove isn’t exaggerating when he says both of these policies are about appealing to the teaching unions. Labour are also sticking to commitment to protecting nationally negotiated pay & conditions for teachers. The left should be pleased about that at least.

Union bod Alison Charlton said on Twitter: “I thought it was rather a neat way of dealing with the disparate bits, whilst keeping the best of Gove” — the “best of Gove” bit referring to the felxibility.

Here’s my thinking: if you recognise the importance of Rafael’s point above – then Stephen Twigg has set up a pretty fundamental dividing line against Gove. This is no small point.

However, if you think that Academies were a terrible idea per se and that schools shouldn’t have flexibility with the curriculum (with mandatory basics like science, maths, english) – then there’s a good chance you won’t like Twigg’s speech today.

I have two questions though

1) How would Free Schools operating in 2015 be asked to change? Or would they be allowed to operate as they always have?

2) How would Labour deal with schools that want to teach crazy stuff (creationism, Homoeopathy) or religious segregation? If the national curriculum is splintered even more there is a danger that students become even more segregated in certain areas. How would Labour avoid this?

In time to come people will ask, “Did you really just turn on the printing press, and let it rip?”

They’ll say, “Oh, yes. Three hundred and seventy five billion worth. We know a good thing.”

“Wow! And what did you spend it on? Cathedrals? Bridges? Space exploration?”

“Nah, we just gave it away to the bankers.”

“Really”, they’ll ask. “Why was that?”

“Convention. When high street lending seized up, we needed to get money into the system, we printed tons of the stuff and bought gilts from the high street banks for massively over-the-top prices. That way they had money to start lending again.”

“So at least you got them lending again.”

“Well, no. Not quite. It turns out that the people asking for loans were unrealistic. Like the ones you see on Dragon’s Den who don’t know what day of the week it is. The £375 billion we gave to the bankers ended up in the stock market instead. But the good thing is that the bankers absolutely loved it. Money for free.”

“But why didn’t the realistic companies want loans?”

“Because they were all cutting back. Austerity scared them shitless, so they didn’t want to invest, which caused more austerity and so on.”

“But surely, you could have built 200 St Paul’s Cathedrals with that kind of money. At £30m a mile, we could have had 12,500 miles of motorways. Eleven new HS2 train lines could have been built. The economy would have taken off with that kind of money.”

“True, but it would have looked like a Plan B. So we knocked that one the head straight away.”

“So you gave £375 billion to the bankers rather than be seen to do a plan B?”

“You bet we did. The bankers loved us for it. The stock market went ape.”

“So did that solve the problems?”

“It made sure there was enough money in the economy. The problem was that it didn’t cause the money to move about. There was no circulation. The money went to one part of the economy and kind of sat there. The money was sticky.”

“Wow. Well I think that was a major cock up. The electorate must have been furious?”

“Nah. They didn’t understand it. The politics worked out fantastic for us Tories.”

For too long people have viewed the financial system in the same way they view their computer – as an obscure black box that we interact with without understanding how it works.

You can throw things at the black box, and you can lament its consequences, and you can shout at it, but this doesn’t fundamentally alter anything.

Ad-hoc regulatory measures – such as the financial transactions tax – may be useful in the interim, but even if a government found methods to tame the financial sector’s excesses, we’re still left with a population that feels fundamentally alienated by the system, struggling to conceptualise any deep alternative.

For a deeper shift we need a reorientation of approach. In my new book, The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance, I’ve attempted to sketch out pillars for such an approach.

Firstly, people need to break down the notion that the financial system is something ‘out there’, controlled by technocratic elites that know more than they do, and somehow only contained via state action. If anything, the state has displayed massive levels of collusion with the financial status quo.

Secondly, people need to start actively exploring the system, in the same way a computer hacker might actively explore a computer. There is a curiosity deficit when it comes to finance, and that entirely suits the interests of the current financial regime. The more people believe that financial knowledge is complicated, or boring, the more power that regime has.

Thirdly, people need to recognise the creative potential that exists in financial instruments and institutions. There is nothing inevitable in the way, for example, shares are used, and that latent potential can be co-opted. Think about creating hedge funds of dissent, shareholder activism and divestment campaigns, and financial transparency initiatives.

Fourthly, people need to embrace their own ability to experiment in the field of financial innovation. On the Left, this requires breaking down any ideological opposition to the concept of entrepreneurialism.

Entrepreneurialism needn’t mean the Economics 101 style of rational economic profit maximisation. It can be driven by a rebellious impulse, an artistic impulse and an anarchic impulse.

Lastly, people need to start testing alternatives. Far too many activist groups talk about alternatives without ever trying them out. How about starting an inter-group mutual credit system? The campaign organisations of the future are not going to be NGOs funded by rich people. They’re going to be live experiments in alternative economics, getting messages across by demonstrating them.

This ‘beta-testing’ is the first step to inducing the network effects required to scale alternatives up. If you’d like to see a video of how this works, check this Youtube clip. The guy doesn’t try to convince people to dance, he just starts dancing himself, so get dancing!

—
Brett Scott is a campaigner and writer who works in alternative finance and financial activism. His new book – The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money – is published by Pluto Press and is available now. Non-traditional currencies accepted! Brett tweets as @suitpossum.

by Steve Rose

Clive Hunt explained to both the Daily Mail and Manchester Evening News that he lost out on a job because he told a recruitment consultant he would buy her a bacon sandwich. This was to celebrate his successful interview and sign the paperwork to begin work.

Mr Hunt maintains he was unaware about the nature of his remark until he received a phone call from Sharika Sacranie’s manager to explain this racist remark.

Later, as I was driving home, Ms Sacranie’s manager called me and wanted to know about the racist remark I had made. I said I had not made one and he said I had said that I would get her a bacon sandwich. But I only made the remark because she referred to breakfast.

The woman was of Asian appearance. I am not a racist, never have been. I wasn’t brought up that way.

A simple misunderstanding that might have been resolved with an apology. However, with these stories, the narrative is overwhelmingly one-sided.
Reed’s statement is certainly far more revealing:

Due to inappropriate comments made to members of our staff during the recruitment process before Mr Hunt started his new role we have unfortunately decided that we do not feel we can represent this client further.

A senior manager from the Reed team spoke to Mr Hunt via telephone following an inappropriate comment made to a member of staff before he was due to start in the role. During that conversation, Mr Hunt made further inappropriate comments.

At this point it became clear to the senior manager that Reed could no longer represent Mr Hunt. Reed is committed to supporting its staff, clients and candidates and this is not a decision we have taken lightly.

In Mr Hunt’s defence, he does mention:

When the manager called me, I was driving and I got increasingly exasperated as he kept telling me I should admit to my wrongdoing for referring to bacon sandwiches. In the end I told him to ‘sod off’ and put the phone down. They have blown this out of all proportion.

[Bolded for my emphasis]

There are some key points to draw from both statements:

1) Mr Hunt may have been offered the job but had not signed the paperwork [this was to happen the following morning]. The recruitment process was still technically ongoing.

2) Reed’s statement indicates he made inappropriate comments to members of staff. As evidenced by his phone conversation with management.

3) After the additional comments to a senior manager, it was decided Reed could not represent Mr Hunt (not before).

4) Angrily telling a senior manager to ‘sod off’ over the phone is highly unprofessional.

Stories like this do not require absolute accuracy because it serves to reinforce the false idea that political correctness has ‘gone mad’. It will spread over social media channels in furious clicks of indignation and confirmation bias.

There is a reason why Reed’s statement is buried at the bottom of the story.

—
Steve Rose tweets from here and blogs here.

It’s worth exploring this question now given the recent killing in Woolwich and the rise in prominence of the English Defence League. The idea that ‘home-grown’ men who have functional lives in the UK and, like the 7/7 bombers, reject the dominant ideology so vociferously that they turn to violent extremism worries many commentators.

Maajid Nawaz was born and raised in Essex. To an outside observer he may have seemed relatively integrated: he enjoyed popular culture, had girlfriends, went to college and had friends. But this only tells part of the story. Growing up he was subjected to systematic racial abuse and learnt to fend for himself and others. The sense of being an outsider and the subsequent feelings of displacement had begun early.

The alienation that Nawaz experiences are a driving force for him becoming radicalised, not dissimilar to the reasons people join far rights groups. In both instances, they feel the only viable option available to them is to join organisations that give them a sense of identity and purpose. The demonisation of the ‘other’ provides an outlet for their anger and frustration.

Maajid Nawaz was politicised at university, being recruited into Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Liberation Party). Using his charisma and rhetoric to recruit other students, he was seen as an early leader. There is a particularly brutal scene when an African student is stabbed to death by another young man who has become radicalised. The fact that Nawaaz and others are able to stay affiliated to such groups illustrates the level and intensity of the indoctrination.

While studying for his Arabic and law degree, he travelled around the UK and to Denmark and Pakistan. He used this as a ploy to set up new cells to recruit other men to the cause and spread an ideology of Islamic extremism. He is later arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and then put in solitary confinement in a Cairo jail reserved for political prisoners.

By the end of this journey he publicly renounces fundamentalist Islamist ideology. He later went on to establish the Quilliam Foundation with Ed Hussain.

Tony Blair has called this a “book for our times”, which “should be read by anyone who wants to understand how the extremism that stalks our world is created and how it can be overcome”. The Labour government was to strongly back the Quilliam Foundation. This explains much of why Nawaz is demonised by some sections of the Muslim community. To be praised by a Prime Minister whose foreign policy has stoked much of the animosity British Muslims may feel, does not lend the author with much credibility within some sections of the Muslim community (and beyond).

However, if Radical provides us with one useful message, it is that it gives us a narrative to understand how important it is to address the alienation that young men (in particular) are experiencing. Without actions to address this, they are more susceptible to join groups which give them a sense of purpose and identity.

But to treat this distinct from other forms of extremism takes away a valuable opportunity for an accurate analysis of the causes of these criminal acts. It also fetishizes Muslim extremists unhelpfully and lends itself to further stigmatising Muslims within the media. This is often followed by a rise of Islamaphobic hate crime which feeds into greater levels of alienation by those being victimised. And so the cycle goes on.

—
Amazon.co.uk: Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening

This is the biggest five-year drop in real wages since 1921-26, and the second-largest fall since records began in 1855.

This cannot be blamed simply on the recession. As the IFS has pointed out (pdf), real wages rose during the recessions of the early 80s and 90s. Something, then, has changed since then. But what?

Here's a theory. Back in the 70s and 80s, bosses could often not efficiently monitor their workers. To keep pilfering and skiving within tolerable limits they therefore had to pay better than market-clearing wages, to buy goodwill. The upshot was that wages rose even during downturns, because bosses feared that real wage cuts would create discontent and thus increase thieving, insubordination and malingering.

This led to a huge literature in economics on efficiency wages, gift exchange (pdf) and insider-outsiders (pdf), which tried to explain high and sticky real wages.

However, as Frederick Guy and Peter Skott have shown, socio-technical change since the 80s such as CCTV, containerization and computerized stock control has made it easier for bosses to monitor workers. Direct oversight means they don't need to worry about buying workers' goodwill. They are instead using the Charles Colson strategy: "When you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."

Years ago, firms wanted smaller but motivated workforces. Now they can control workers directly, they don't need to worry so much about motivation* and so are content with larger but grumpy workers.

All this has three implications:

1. Talk of "wage rage" misses an important point. At the point of production – to use a quaint Marxian phrase – there is little meaningful rage, because workers can do little to fight falling real wages. (This poses the danger that such rage will find perhaps misdirected political expression, such as in antipathy towards immigrants).

2. Issues of industrial organization – how firms are organized – have important macroeconomic effects. Macroeconomics cannot be easily studied separately from ind. org. Economists need to look inside the "black box" of industrial structure.

3. You cannot understand economics without understanding power. The fact is that bosses' power has risen and (many) workers' power has declined. In this sense, the rising incomes of the 1% and the fall in real wages for the average worker are two manifestations of the same process.

* except, of course for top-level managers who cannot be directly monitored – hence their rising incomes.

Imagine a situation where your neighbour is a drunk man who comes home and beats his wife every day. You can hear her screams and unsuccessful attempts to fight him off and feel powerless. The police are unable to intervene and she carries on getting beaten and raped. Do you sit by and do nothing because it’s not happening in your house? I wouldn’t.

Foreign policy isn’t exactly the same, but I’ve always believed we should intervene in other countries if a humanitarian crisis is taking place. I’m not an isolationanist though I recognise that governments don’t always have humanitarian concerns at heart when they interfere in other countries.

Syria is not Afghanistan, or Iraq or…
Would you support an arms embargo on the Palestinians and deny them the right to defend themselves against Israel? I wouldn’t. I bet most of you wouldn’t either.

Ahhh, but Syria is different – you say. You’re right, it is. It is also different to Afghanistan, Iraq and other recent conflicts. Which is why I don’t buy the argument that this is like Iraq (which I was vehemently against) or other conflicts.

This is a minor intervention
The US is not invading Syria (I would not support that) – at most it is offering small arms and ammunition, and perhaps establish a No Fly Zone.

The aim isn’t to flood Syria but increase pressure on Assad and Russia. It is a warning shot with the aim of pushing them to negotiate. At the very least it would make it harder for Russians to feed Assad bigger missiles. This is a VERY limited intervention with support from neighbouring Arab countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. I repeat: it is not Iraq.

Chemical weapons
There’s a reason why the ‘red line’ was chemical weapons, not the 90,000 dead. The UN (and US) aim is to demand action when chemical, biological or nuclear weapons are used, in the hope that it sets a precedent and dissuades countries from using them despite availability. If no action is taken at all and Assad sees this as a bluff, it could open the way for more chemical weapons being used.

How many is too many?
There is a real danger that unless Assad willingly abdicates or transitions Syria to a democracy, the civil war could go on for years. Another 100,000 could be dead. Instead, in an effort to end the stalemate, we have a limited intervention by Nato forces, working in conjunction with other Middle Eastern countries, to put pressure on Assad to step down. To compare this with the bombing of Iraq or Afghanistan isn’t just absurd but actually ignorant.

How many dead people is too many? A quarter of a million people dead? Half a million? A million? Would you oppose any intervention at any cost to human life? I wouldn’t. I think 90,000 is far too much. I also think it should be a limited intervention, and evidence of chemical weapon usage fully explained. I don’t think our govts should get a blank cheque, but neither should we sit by and watch tens of thousands get slaughtered.

Canada’s controversial leader Stephen Harper was yesterday met by three separate protests as he attempted to deliver a speech to both Houses of the UK Parliament.

He arrived in the UK on Tuesday, and has been using the trip to lobby against the ‘Fuel Quality Directive‘.

This key piece of EU climate legislation would – rightly – label tar sands oil as more polluting than conventional oil. 50 campaigners representing various groups gathered outside Parliament to greet Harper’s car with anti-tar sands banners, placards and chants.

Meanwhile, in a separate protest two activists from a group calling themselves “Love Canada, Hate Tar Sands” attempted to block the Sovereign’s Entrance Gate to the room where Harper was speaking. They poured “oil” on themselves and the ground, and their anti-tar sands shouts were heard inside the room as Harper stood up to begin his address. They were then arrested by police.

Yesterday, 6 MPs from four different political parties tabled an Early Day Motion calling on the UK government to resist Canada’s lobbying campaign, support the Fuel Quality Directive and discourage future tar sands imports.

Other MPs will now be encouraged to sign, in the run-up to an EU Member States’ vote later this year.

The protest outside Parliament had transatlantic support from 30 organisations, including Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth – England, Wales and Northern Ireland and World Development Movement in the UK, the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign in Canada, and 350.org and the Gulf Coast Fund in the US.

In Russia cancer patients are left to suffer and ultimately die in pain with inadequate access to basic pain control drugs such as morphine. When one doctor defied the state’s overly restrictive laws, she was arrested. It is time for the healthcare community to speak out.

Dr. Khorinyak allegedly wrote out two prescriptions for the pain relief medication tramadol. The prescriptions were for Victor Sechin, a terminally-ill cancer patient. In the eyes of the Russian state, the medical practitioner of more than 50 years broke the law.

In 2011, it is thought that the Russian Federal Drug Control Service discovered the prescriptions at the local pharmacy, and referred the case to the prosecutor and the court. Dr. Khorinyak was then charged under:

• Article 234 of the Criminal Code: Trafficking potent substances in large quantities by prior agreement with the intent to sell, an organized group
• Article 327 of the Criminal Code, Forgery of documents in order to facilitate the commission of another crime.

The editor of the international edition of ehospice, Kate Jackson, wrote in her defence, saying:

Dr Khorinyak performed her professional duty and acted with compassion towards a patient in pain. If it is outside of the laws of a country for a doctor to treat a patient to the best of their ability, then there is a need for a serious and urgent re-examination of those laws.

Indeed, Russia’s overly restrictive laws regulating access to morphine have been the focus of on-going criticism for a number of years.

In its 2012 annual report, Human Rights Watch commented on Russia’s health policy saying:

Although over 300,000 Russians die of cancer each year, with many facing severe pain, available palliative care services remained limited. As a result, hundreds of thousands of patients die in avoidable agony each year. In much of the country, the government does not make oral morphine available through the public healthcare system, or adequately train healthcare workers on modern pain treatment methods. Existing drug regulations are excessively restrictive and limit appropriate morphine use for pain relief.

In Russia though, 450,000 people are diagnosed with cancer every year resulting in more than 2.5 million people suffering from the disease. Russia not only has a clear moral obligation to support these patients but also a legal human rights responsibility as well – one that it is currently neglecting.

With the noble exception of ehospice and a handful of other professionals, few have spoken out. The Russian government is standing by while thousands needlessly suffer. When one person does speak out, she is prosecuted as a criminal.

It is time for health care professionals from around the world to stand up for Dr. Khorinyak and speak out, not only against her prosecution but also against Russia’s wider neglect of patients in need of pain relief.

This Friday, Green Party members across the country will face an immense dilemma – the choice between supporting our own minority Green council or hundreds of workers going on strike for a week against proposed pay reductions.

Some of the workrs could lose up to £4000 a year. That’s a choice most Greens would a few years ago have never thought they’d face. In the midst of massive local authority cuts, the Greens are in office but seemingly not in power.

Many local parties and individuals – including the local Brighton & Hove Green Party, Caroline Lucas (who has pledged to join the picket lines), and university branches such as my own – have spoken out against the bin worker pay cuts.

It has thus-far been a shambolic dispute where a noble attempt to equalise pay between male and female staff has turned into idiotic comparisons to the winter of discontent, accusations of potential strike breaking, and outsourcing the pay proposal decision altogether in order for Greens to claim ‘it wasn’t our decision’. Yet the council leader, Jason Kitcat, seems determined not to budge.

Serious internal discussion about this sorry state of affairs has sadly been minimal at best, stifled at worst. The party is coming under attack over this from all other sections of the left, and Labour will exploit this to its fullest unless the Green group in Brighton change tack and handle the situation properly. If Greens don’t tackle the issue head on, other parties will do so.

Neither is it good enough to say, as some have, that since the Greens are a federal party ‘it’s up to Brighton’. Brighton Greens – both the local branch and our only MP – have spoken clearly on this issue. It’s now up to the rest of the party nationally to back them up in this. Brighton is, bar a sizeable number of honourable exceptions in the likes of Alex Phillips and others, a rogue council, refusing to cede to the wishes of its local party, its constituents, and (from what I gather) the rest of the party nationally.

Disappointingly, the Green Party Executive (GPEX) and leader Natalie Bennett have appeared quiet on the issue.

Worthy though bringing in a Living Wage, leading the ‘no evictions’ fight over the bedroom tax, and attempting to equalise pay between male and female workers is, a Green council should never cut the pay of some of the least well off. That should be a given, particularly after enshrining social justice into the party’s Core Values last conference. As a party which has the strongest record on workers’ rights in terms of policy, strike busting should never have even been rumoured, let alone a potential possibility.

There are some hopeful signs however. Leading figures in Brighton & Hove Greens have at last made public statements about the strike action, though still seemingly refusing to back down over the pay proposals. The GMB has agreed to re-enter negotiations. And the candidate for the Hanover & Elm Grove by-election, David Gibson, is a solid trade unionist who opposes the measures to equalise pay down instead of up.

There needs to be a serious discussion about the possibility of setting ‘needs budgets’, and if not, discussing whether we should be in office at all if we are forced to act as a mere smoke-screen for Tory-Lib Dem cuts.

At what point does the party start to consider that to stay in office and continue to implement cuts would be to breach fundamental principles? As the Green Party conference in Brighton approaches, it’s time to get backtracking on the proposed pay cuts, and time to start talking.

—
Josiah Mortimer is a Green Party activist and student based in York.

Only 33% agree MPs have the leadership to tell the public about the tough decision necessary for the economy.

80% agree they are too focused on short term headlines.

72% agree politics is dominated by self-seeking politicians protecting the interests of the powerful.

But only 26% think that politics itself is a waste of time.

People also want stronger action on tax avoidance though

62% of people think it is unacceptable for people and companies to LEGALLY avoid paying tax, 29% think it is acceptable.

Labour are currently seen as the party that would do most to cut down on tax avoidance, but even they are only on 21%. 31% think none of the main parties would tackle tax avoidance.

This includes:

• 92 per cent of Labour voters
• 80 per cent of those planning to vote for UKIP
• 80 per cent of Liberal Democrats
• 77 per cent of Conservatives

In other words, at a time when the government is unpopular, the people who still plan to vote for them think that tackling child poverty is a priority by a majority of more than three-to-one.

And 64 per cent of people think the government should be doing more.

These are important results (full disclosure: the TUC is an active member of End Child Poverty) because voters who take child poverty seriously are going to be very disillusioned by the government’s performance.

Last month, the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecast that:

In the UK, relative child poverty is projected to increase by 6.0ppts between 2010–11 and 2020–21, reversing all of the reductions between 2000–01 and 2010–11.

On the headline measure, the IFS forecasts that the number of children in relative poverty will increase by 1.1 million between 2010-11 and 2020–21. Without the government’s tax and benefit reforms child poverty “would actually have fallen.”

Remember this forecast when the Department for Work and Pensions publishes the 2011/12 Households Below Average Income statistics.

This is the government’s annual poverty publication, the source of the figures for the numbers of children and others in poverty.

It’s very likely that the number of children in relative poverty will be much the same or even a bit lower than in 2010-11.

This does not mean that austerity isn’t hurting children in poverty. These figures are for 2011-12, a period when the vast majority of benefit cuts had not yet been implemented.

Some truly awful reforms, like the benefit cap, the bedroom tax and the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill didn’t come into effect till this April. The HBAI for 2013 – 14 won’t be published till May or June 2015.

(Of course, the fact that this will be just after the next general election doesn’t have the slightest whiff of conspiracy.)

He says it should be on the basis that Greenwald is “threatening” to reveal names of CIA agents, but offers no proof for this assertion.

Watch

A woman start ranting about immigrants coming into the UK to a mime artist. No, seriously.

Then she boots over the man’s collection box, at which point the crowd turned on her

2.4 million customers left the UK’s five biggest banks in 2012, according to new figures announced by Laura Willoughby MBE, at the City and Common Good debate in St Paul’s Cathedral this evening.

The figures show strong movement away from the big banking groups: Lloyds, RBS, Barclays, HSBC and Santander. It illustrates a move by people to vote with their feet by switching who they bank with.

The news comes as a boost to local, ethical and mutual financial service providers who increased their customer base significantly.

Launching the findings, Laura Willoughby MBE, Chief Executive of campaigning website MoveYourMoney.org.uk, said:

The constant slew of scandals last year has opened the floodgates, and people are beginning to realise that they don’t have to put up with the arrogance of the big banks.

People are switching because they are angry about the lack of reform in Britain’s broken banking system, and have decided to take matters into their own hands.

This shows that real change won’t come from Westminster or the boardroom, but from ordinary people putting their foot down and saying ‘enough is enough’

The data is drawn from industry studies and based on quarterly publicly available polling.

From September the rules governing switching bank accounts will change, limiting the time it will take to change banks to only 7 working days.

Separate research from YouGov predicts that the number could be as high as 14 million.

Activists from the group They Owe Us who plan to converge on Canary Wharf on Friday have condemned the heavy handed policing of the Stop G8 protests on Tuesday.

Rachel Thomas, an activist involved in They Owe Us said:

We condemn the heavy handed policing at the Stop G8 action on Tuesday and maintain our intention to gather at Canary Wharf on Friday.

This Friday we will assemble in Canary Wharf for three hours of workshops, speakers and entertainment as well as a creative art area. The action will end with an assembly facilitated by Occupy London and then a game around the financial centre. We aim for this action to be accessible to all, and we expect a wide range of people including children and elderly activists to participate.

We stand in solidarity with those who were arrested on Tuesday. We continue to assert our right to assemble on our streets in public and show that other worlds are possible.

The protest organised by They Owe Us will bring together a range of anti-cuts and climate groups including UK Uncut, Fuel Poverty Action, the Greater London Pensioners Association, Disabled People Against Cuts and No Dash for Gas.

Activists will gather outside Canary Wharf tube station at 12.30pm on Friday.

There is no doubt that the last few years have been tough for most people. Real wages have been falling since early 2010 and nominal pay growth is now at its weakest level since at least 2001. Although the pain is not being equally shared, with data out yesterday showing that the pay packet of the FTSE Chief Executives rose by an average of 10% in 2012 (£).

The response of some commentators when faced with these facts is to assume that it is nothing new. On twitter the Economist’s Daniel Knowles asked if this was not just evidence that the economy was not growing? Obviously this a fair point – the economy has been doing badly and this has impacted on the earnings of most people. Two weeks ago the IoS’s John Rentoul expressed a similar point of view.

He sums up by saying: “the cost of living crisis” is just a way of saying “the recession.”

I’m afraid that is not true. I wish it were so, for if it were simply a case that the recession had hit people’s incomes then the solution would be relatively straight forward – boost demand, restore growth and enjoy the fruits of that growth.

By using a mean measure of expenditure per head somewhat misses the point. First the debate is really around incomes not expenditure – expenditure running ahead of incomes and the resulting build up of personal debt was a major factor contributing to the crash. (The key IMF paper on this is well worth a read, and one of its authors is speaking at the TUC next month). But more crucially Rentoul has used a mean when we should be using a median. Imagine if we had an economy with only ten people who all earned £25,000 a year and one year one of them saw their income increase to £250,000. Mean income per head would increase to £47,500 – a fairly staggering increase – but 9 out of 10 people would see no rise in their income level. Using a mean in this example would give a highly misleading picture.

The Resolution Foundation’s Commission on Living Standards looked at the data in detail. It found that from 2003 to 2008 median wages flat-lined, average disposable incomes fell in every English region outside London and spikes in the prices of essential goods squeezed family budgets.

It also warned that:

Millions of households are heading for a long period of stagnant living standards unless bold steps are taken to ensure that growth over the next decade is broadly shared. Even with a return to steady growth, it’s now entirely possible living standards for a large swath of low and middle households will be no higher by 2020 than they were in 2000.

In other words, something was going wrong before the crash. The striking falls in real wages over the past three years, follow on from a period in which for many people their pay packet had simply stopped growing.

This was driven by two major factors – an increasing proportion of the wage growth that there was being taken by those at the top and a fall in the overall share of the economy being paid out in wages over a three decade period. On this second point I’d highly recommend a recent TUC Touchstone publication.

By coincidence, Gavyn Davies has been writing about the same issues over at the FT’s own blog today.

He presents the following chart:

If we accept that what is happening to wages right now is not simply the result of the recent recession (and the evidence certainly suggests this) then the current debate about around macroeconomic policy has to move beyond how we simply return to growth and into questions about how we ensure that any growth we do get actually benefits most people.

Some of the answers are the subject of a forthcoming Touchstone pamphlet but they involve not just action to push up wages but also policies aimed at making sure our economy generates better paying jobs in the first place.

This policy debate takes us away from the traditional levers of macro policy and into a broader discussion about reforming our national business model.

—
A longer version of this blogpost is here.

The interview was criticised for too being soft on the leader of the far-right group.

British Future’s Sunder Katwala went further and suggested Today’s Sarah Montague could have done more work learning about his background, such as his convictions!

But in the interview yesterday, Tommy Robinson contradicted what he has said in the past. If journalists aren’t going to do their homework, Liberal Conspiracy is here to help them.

Here was the key exchange yesterday:

Montague: So if any EDL member was found to be involved in any attack on any Muslim in this country, you would utterly condemn it …

Robinson: Utterly condemn it. Disgraceful. Every single speech I’ve give[n] since Woolwich – in fact, in the last four years – condemn any acts of violence, so the only way to solve to this is through democratic process, through peacefully protesting.

But this is at odds with what Robinson has said in the past – where he explicitly warns and holds ALL British Muslims responsible for terrorist attacks.

In the video below, he says:

EVERY SINGLE MUSLIM watching this on Youtube, on 7/7 you got away with killing and maiming British citizens, you got away with it. You had better understand that we have built a network from one end of this country to the other end, and we will not tolerate it, and the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our citizens killed, maimed or hurt on British soil ever again.

You can see why an EDL member might hear that and attack Muslims after Woolwich.

And yet Robinson claims he condemns such attacks. I hope the next journalist interviewing Tommy Robinson asks him about what he said.

The full speech from the Tower Hamlets march in 2011.

UPDATE
Here’s a video of EDL member singing “You burn a poppy, we burn your mosques”

London Labour has called for an investigation after revelations that London Mayor Boris Johnson failed to declare that his flights to attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral were paid for by Emirates Airline and Lynton Crosby’s company CT Partners.

The declaration was only made after London Assembly Member Len Duvall made enquiries about why it was not on the Mayor’s register.

It was declared on Wednesday 5th June, 48 days after the trip, despite the GLA Code of Conduct clearly stating that all such gifts must be declared within 28 days.

Mr Duvall has today written to the GLA’s Monitoring Officer calling for an official investigation into why the flights were not declared on time, whether the Mayor has received any other gifts and hospitality that he has failed to declare, and what steps will be taken to ensure that the Mayor upholds the highest standards in public office.

Leader of the Labour Group on the London Assembly, Len Duvall AM, said: “Taking Lynton Crosby on this trip made no sense at all, it looks like blatant cronyism.”

Lynton Crosby is not meant to be working for the London Mayor, instead master-minding David Cameron’s election campaign.

Labour say it’s not clear why Crosby went, what he gained and how this could possibly benefit Londoners.

Duvall AM added: “Why didn’t the Mayor take representatives from London based PR companies with him if he wanted to promote this sector?”

So how can people inform themselves and learn what action to take?

Brett Scott is a campaigner and former derivatives broker who knows of life inside and outside the financial sector because he’s been there.

In his first book, published by Pluto Press, he builds a framework for approaching ‘financial hacking’, offering a practical guide for those who wish to deepen their understanding of, and access to, the inner workings of financial institutions.

The book covers aspects frequently overlooked, such as the cultural dimensions of the financial system, and considers major issues such as agricultural speculation, carbon markets and tar-sands financing.

This book provides a unique inside-out look at our financial system, based on the a uthor’s unusual personal adventure. It is not only a user-friendly guide to the complex maze of modern finance but also a manual for utilising and subverting it for social purposes in innovative ways. Smart and street-smart.
– Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge, author of ‘23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism’

It also showcases the growing alternative finance movement, showing how everyday people can get involved in building a new, democratic, financial system.

The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance aims to bridge the gap between protest slogans and practical proposals for reform.

Brett Scott has worked on climate change, food security and ethical banking campaigns. He is a Fellow at the Finance Innovation Lab and has written for the Guardian, Ecologist, openDemocracy and New Internationalist.

He blogs at www.suitpossum.blogspot.com.

Bill’s a defence lawyer in Glasgow, deals with shoplifters, sticky-fingered junkies and pavement boxers, that kind of thing.  He’s telling me about Mr S, who he’s just finished defending against a charge of fraudulent benefits claims.

“Mr S is in his fifties”, Bill says.  ”He’s an engineer, worked in the same factory since he was nineteen.  Two years ago, boom, firm goes into administration and lays off the entire workforce.  Suddenly, it’s unemployment.  Mr S gets Jobseeker’s Allowance, but it’s a shitty way to live. He’s still trying to pay off his mortgage, two kids to look after, and nobody anywhere wants to hire a fifty-four year old engineer…”

“Sucks to be him” I say.

“Sure does.  So one day, Mr S shows up at the Job Centre.  The guy behind the desk says, we’ve been looking at your case, and you’ve claimed six hundred and fifty quid that you aren’t entitled to”.

“Over two years?” I ask, doing a quick calculation.  ”My God, he’s been ripping us all off for more than six quid a week”.

Bill nods.  ”Yeah, the guy’s a regular Ronnie Biggs.  So Mr S says it was an accident, that he ticked the wrong box, says the form was long and confusing”.

“Did you believe him?” I ask, thinking back to my own fortnight on the dole.  I had to fill in a form the size of a novella and I got the princely sum of eight quid, and no job offers…  And that was in 1999, the salad days by comparison.

“Hell,” Bill says, “The sheriff believed him, not that it did him any good.  I’ve seen those forms.  You need a degree in fucking advanced mathematics to work those things out.  Mr S is all like I’ve worked for every penny I’ve ever earned and I’ve never stolen nothing from anyone and all that shit”.

“Is it true?”.

“Who knows?  Who cares?  Not me, not the clerks, especially not the sheriff.  Intentional, unintentional, it’s all the same.  So anyway, the DWP are having this big crackdown on benefit cheats, and they’re not interested in Mr S’s offer to pay them back.  Pay them with what, the money they’re giving him?”

“We couldn’t have that”.

“No, heaven forfend.  Doesn’t matter whether he meant it, doesn’t matter whether he ripped off five hundred quid or fifty thousand.   Here he is sitting in a room with a sheriff, some lawyers and a pack of twitchy junkies and wham, conviction, there you go.  Guy never had a chance of getting off with it, really”.

“Bad luck for Mr S”, I say.  ”I hope he gets a job soon. Imagine having to go back to the Jobcentre to grovel for change to the same guys that poled you up the backside like that”.

“Well, if he was struggling to get a job before, he sure isn’t going to find it any easier now that he’s got a criminal conviction for dishonesty.  You have to declare that to potential employers, you know”.

I whistled.  ”Man, that’s harsh.  Does the government know this kind of thing is going on?”

Bill gave me a funny look, like I’d asked where babies come from.  ”Mate, I told you – the government is pushing this crackdown so hard it’s a wonder their arms don’t burst out of their sockets”.

I gave that some thought.  ”I wonder what Iain Duncan Smith thinks about folk like Mr S”, I said.

“Hell, I bet he stays up all night long worrying about those motherfuckers”, Bill said, draining his pint.  ”I bet their plight just breaks his heart”.

“Iain Duncan Smith has a heart?”

“I fucking hope so, or there’ll be nothing for the vampire hunters to drive a wooden stake through…   Same again?”

I finished my pint.  ”Of course,” I said.

What annoys me is the lazy (and ideologically driven) assumption that this is because Labour is not spelling out cuts it would make in 2015.

If you believe Labour should be ahead on economic credibility, you must also think voters have a very short-term memory. In fact Labour should be languishing way behind in the polls and it’s more remarkable they’ve caught up so quickly.

Two sets of views reported by YouGov yesterday highlight Labour’s dilemma:

Over half of people now think David Cameron (51%) and George Osborne (53%) should take either a lot or a fair amount of blame for the current state of the economy, but this is still less than the 69% who think Gordon Brown is to blame.
…
Only 23% think Miliband is genuine in his wish to cap the cost of benefits, 60% think he does not believe in it and is doing it only for political reasons.

Ed Miliband and Balls should worry that people don’t trust their economic judgement. The problem is they don’t know why this is the case, so in their panic they’re in danger of* making promises the public simply don’t think are genuine. The Conservatives have been doing this with immigration: announcing a large raft of policies, that don’t convince the public. Acting tough doesn’t work other than excite an out-of-touch Westminster bubble.

There’s a simple reason Labour aren’t widely trusted: they were in power during the biggest economic crash of the past 80 years.

Voters always blame the party in power for not preventing such big crashes, and take years to forget. They also blame the party for the resulting problems.

The Conservatives were in power when Britain crashed out of the ERM in 1992, and it took the calamity of 2007 for them to be seen as better at managing the economy – a full 15 years later.

Labour are also unpopular because they’ve made unpopular arguments.

1) Voters blame Labour for the cuts. And even if they don’t like the cuts, a majority have always accepted their need. In fact more voters have consistently blamed Labour for the cuts than the coalition government. Voters have also mostly preferred more austerity over extra spending on growth.

And all this time, Labour argued against the cuts (remember when Ed Miliband was at the TUC rally in Hyde Park?) – an unpopular move.

2) Most voters blame Labour, the Eurozone, banks or even higher oil prices for the stagnating economy. They don’t blame George Osborne as much as they blame Gordon Brown for it.

Keep this chart in mind

After the UK was ejected from the ERM it took years (over a decade) before the Tories regained economic credibility. Labour didn’t get mid-term blues, in fact their reputation improved even as they introduced policies such as the Minimum Wage.

As I keep saying, its more remarkable that Labour have caught up so quickly, and aren’t languishing miles behind the Tories on economic credibility.

—
* I say “in danger of” because I mostly approve what they’ve announced so far. I just don’t want them to go further.