Former Reading MP threatened with Facebook block from local Labour party

Jane Griffiths former MP for Reading East is threatened with being blocked from the Reading Labour Facebook page for uploading some pictures. They don't allow comments on the page, something I'm always suspicious of. Jane Griffiths also reminisces about the bullying within the local party.

 

Activists and members are in this game not for some personal gain but because we think the party we have chosen can do some good in the community and the country, after all it's not a paid role. We disagree on how we get there and fall on difference sides of the political prospective. But with the means to an end of achieving our goal of helping our fellow man/woman.

 

Still it is getting better, isn't it?

 

Oh 'Labour's Phil Woolas found guilty', may be not then!

 

Sometimes I wonder why we all bother to give up our time with all this going on. Damn politics.

Blog & Newsweek: 14 Bracknell & National politics

Here is a selection of issues making headlines during the past few weeks:


Local News

£1m leg up the housing ladder - First-time buyers will get a leg up on to the housing ladder with the help of a pioneering, multimillion-pound scheme that will benefit house buyers, the council and the taxpayer in a “virtuous circle”.

‘Mixed response’ to wind turbine plans - A public exhibition detailing plans for four wind turbines near Arborfield, Shinfield and Earley prompted a “mixed bag” of comments.


Local Links

Green Reading restarts Reading Lists Top of the Berkshire Blogs

Ask Alvin joins Race Online 2012 in bid to get everyone online by the London Olympics


Green Gabbles - Has Bracknell MP Philip Lee’s maiden speech

Mark Reckons wonders Do I have as much at stake as some other Lib Dems?


National Link (Links of the day)

Paul Waugh Examines more Lib Dem influence on Home Office policy in Yobs' iPods are safe

Dean Nelson asks 'Can Britain choose more business but less immigration from India? Of course not'

Scarlet Standard examines Burkas and Feminism

Tom Watson MP has Extract from the BBC Charter

And Spider Plant Land goes to the Farnborough Airshow and has some nice pics

David Nutt Visits Reading for a Talk on Drugs

Yesterday (Monday 25th January 2010) David Nutt visited Reading University for a talk organised by the Reading University Liberal Democrats.

For those that don't know is a psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs which affect the brain. He served on the Committee on Safety of Medicines and was sacked as Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) after he disagreed with the reclassification of cannabis from Class C to Class B. He also received a lot of stick in the press for saying that "Ecstasy was statistically no more dangerous than an addiction to horse-riding". A statement which is infact true. Jacki smith and Alan Johnson have often misplaced the word Ecstasy or Cannabis with the word Drugs thereby misrepresenting what David Nutt actually said.

There was a number of bloggers there (Duncan Stott from Split Horizons and Mark Reckons and myself). Mark was chairing the meeting. It appears that if you want to be covered on a blog then Reading is the place to come.

The lecture room was packed, after an introduction from Mark Thompson (Mark Reckons) David Nutt kicked off his interesting and for me surprisingly funny talk (David Nutt has a great sense of Humour).

David Nutt broke his talk down into a number of stages;

The Law on Drugs and its History
The ranking system
Media reporting and Bias
Drugs and Politics and Science
Then Questions and Answers


The Law on Drugs and Its History and the Ranking System

David stated that in the UK there is no evidence based drugs policy and no independent drugs committee (something that David Nutt has now addressed).

David said that the Misuse of drugs Act 1971 introduced the ranking system based on harm under 3 categories which he thought was a good idea. He does not agree with the penalties however (more later).

Some drugs are not covered by this grid as they have not been accessed

Drugs in each class are;

Class A

Heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine, LSD and psilocybin mushrooms

Class B

Cannabis, amphetamine, codeine and methylphenidate ('Ritalin')

Class C

GHB, ketamine, diazepam, flunitrazepam and most other tranquillisers, sleeping tablets and benzodiazepines as well as anabolic steroids.

Of which Cannabis is the only drug to of ever been down graded as this is politically very difficult.

The penalties for these drugs are;

There is also an number of international obligations but this generally mean that drugs must be illegal but this could involve any kind of penalties such as fines rather than prison for example.

Media Reporting and Bias

See the graph below.

As you may of expected the media reporting does not reflect the fact as with so many things.

He also explained the cycle of media reporting fuelling the political reaction and legalisation on drugs and how criminalisation leads to worse and worse outcomes in a feedback loop. I.E. harder and harder drugs and more and more crime.

He also explained that the effect of reducing cannabis imports had lead to the cannabis home grown industry and in turn has led to stronger forms of cannabis such as skunk. This is because the precautionary principle is not always the right one as this can lead to other side effects. An example of this was the MMR vaccine and how this has led to an increase in measles cases see here.

He also suggested that the name of Ecstasy has an effect on its class A classification as it was once called Empathy.

Cannabis is a drug and does have side effects for example mental health problems effect 1 in 5000 for men and 1 in 8000 women, but this is not as bad as the effects of other drugs such as Alcohol.

He said that the ACMD had commissioned a Mori poll in the 2008 report on cannabis showed that 2/3rd of people surveyed wanted to keep the penalties as they are or have no penalty at all (this is when cannabis was class C)


Drugs and Politics and Science

The government asked for advice on Mushrooms categorisation for which the ACMD was only given a few days to decide. After the ACMD advice was taken they place it in class A even thought this was not the advice.

David now believes that politicians act on what they believe the public think rather than evidence.

The audience was shown how companies that sell alcohol have an investment in other safe drugs not being legally controlled as this would reduce the use of alcohol. I think this billboard below explains the link.

There are not many examples around the world of drugs legalisation but where the law has been relaxed such as Portugal, results have been favourable when it comes to crime and harm to others see here in Scientic American. In 2001 it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other street drugs. Focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users to decrease the number of deaths and HIV infections.

He also said that Margaret Thatcher did make some sensible moves on drugs such as providing needles to combat the spread of HIV. David Nutt thanked Evan Harris Lib Dem MP for defending his position on evidence based drug policy and said that the Lib Dems were much more progressive on drug reform then the other two parties.

During the questions I asked if he thought this new Independent Drugs Advisory Committee could influence drug legalisation. He believed that there studies will be taken on board given time. He said they will have to be considered as they will be fully independent of Government and business and based on evidence based science.

I myself do not know a lot about illegal drugs myself as I don't take them but I do know a fair bit about the local problems of drug use within my community, as there is a fair amount of drugs raids and users where I live and I also talk to users.

I also know that the illegal drug industry is the 2nd biggest after the oil industry (The UN report said the global drug trade generated an estimated $321.6 billion in 2003). It is controlled by many very bad criminals and drugs are cut using a number of substances (which normally causes the actual self harm) as they are not controlled. Many people are dying around the world from armed battles with crime organisations, gangs or armed forces and police. Fighting drugs cost the world a lot of money see the New Scientist here.

All this means that the current policy is not working, We need to control it and take it out of the hands of criminals, we need to stop teenager being criminalised for the rest of their lives for experimenting and control this too. Plus we can use the tax money from this control (say if used and brought in controlled environments) to pay for rehabilitation and to reduce future crime to feed a habit. We need to try something new.

Currently there are no record of recorded deaths of cannabis use.

Links....

More details are on estimated drug harms are reported at Crime and Justice here

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime here

I have also blogged about David Nutts Sacking here Looking Behind The Professor David Nutt Headlines.

Im expecting a few other bloggers to write there blogs on this event and when they do I will list them here.

Update: Mark Reckons has his blog on Professor Nutt event in Reading here

He also has an interesting interview with him here

David Cameron Direct in Reading

Last night I attended Cameron Direct with Mark Reckons who has done a blog on the event here.

I agree with Mark that it was good to see the possible future Prime Minister up close. David Cameron is an excellent performer live, this is his 157th Cameron Direct. Although there is a Blair feeling about him when you see him live. I can also see him doing very well in the leader debate.

What bothered me about this event was that it did have enough swing voters there. Infact most of the audience were those in politics (there were two Lib Dems sitting behind me and many members of the Reading Conservatives) or those from the volunteer sector who wanted to know that their sector would still be funded under the Conservatives. This was not a big room and the event was much smaller than I expected. I would guess that there was just over 100 people.

This was reflected in the questions, which were quite frankly too easy and not questions ordinary members of the public would of asked. Many questions were on the third sector and one was even on his video shoot with Carol Vorderman about improving numeracy. There was no questions on expenses, immigration, benefits, the EU, Gay Marriage. Some very hot topics just not covered. If the public don't ask then the politicians are not going to concern themselves as much with these subjects.

I didn't get to ask my question as we ran out of time and most people did have a question for David Cameron. I wanted to ask if Andrew Mackay will ever have to pay any funds back for the second home scandle and refer to the fact that I'm in a safe seat in Bracknell (unlike Reading East or West). Therefore what is the point in voting for the Tories or any other party if it's the Tories who will get in anyway. How can I express my vote for my dissatisfaction with the Andrew Mackay second home scandal. I wanted to know what he would of suggested.

Anyway in sum up I think he does mean well and is standing for the right reasons and I hope he does do a good job with or without a Hung Parliament.

Reading East MP, Rob Wilson Criticised for Claiming Credit

As a keen real ale drinker I have been following the story to save the Reading canal side pub ‘The Jolly Angler’ closely. A deal has been struck with the new owners and West Berkshire brewery.

However it appears Reading East Conservative MP, Rob Wilson is facing criticism after he issued a press release prematurely to claim credit for saving the pub.

Please see the Reading List report here

CONTEST PVE Wrong for Muslim Community

I recently attended a Liberal Democrat fridge event at the southern Regional conference on PVE (Prevent Violent Extremism) and its impact on the Muslim community.

I learnt that local governments are being forced to take on the PVE agenda. I thought it would be a good idea to highlight this because I’m not sure that many people are aware of PVE outside of the Muslim community and government and its implications for all of us.

PVE was developed by the government as a local government system to counter terrorism. This strategy is known as CONTEST.

The aim is to

Pursue
Prepare
Protect
Prevent

Prevent is split down into

Challenge violent extremist ideology and support mainstream view.
Disrupt those promoting violent extremist.
Support individuals who are targeted for recruitment to violent extremist.
Increase the resilience of communities to violent extremist.
Address the grievances that ideologies exploit.

This is managed by the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism at the Home Office. The government have spent a fair amount of money on this about £86million.

After the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks the perception of the 1.5 million British Muslim communities changed. The government response became a broad-brush approach to dealing with British communities and PVE became the main vehicle for this.

The Government relies on representative Muslim advisors who may not actually have a presence or an influence in the Muslim community. Relying on these people can’t really be helping, as they are too remote and not holistic enough, consequently it maybe damaging to community cohesion.

To give you some understanding of the problem I would like to add some quotes from Question time in Stoke on Trent in October 2008.

Julisa Goldsworth Liberal Democrat MP said

“What worries me about the way government handles this. The government talks about it in terms of community cohesion and the assumption is that it is, in brackets, about dealing with Muslim extremism. Can you imagine any Muslim organisation wanting to take that on and that badge that goes with it? What a lot of it boils down to is just basic good community development without labelling it to any one religion. Actually it’s about looking at the organisations that are serving their community and giving them the support they need, rather than trying to intervene.”

Julia then turned to Geoff Hoon

"Do you think funds like preventing violent terrorism and forcing some council to take them on board with that title actually achieves moderation and understanding?"

During the same question time program Dr Ajmal Hussain Said

"One of the biggest mistakes that we made locally (In Stoke) was to accept this (Pathfinder) Fund because for a long time the BNP had a problem really convincing people that part of the community (Muslims) was a problem. But when central government is saying that here is a fund because there is violent extremism throughout them. The climate (of Islamophobia) is being built in Stoke (and) Islamophodia is at fever pitch."

I think this link here from the An-Nisa Society explains the problems very well.

It also contains this quote from Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, has called Prevent "the biggest domestic spying programme targeting the thoughts and beliefs of the innocent in Britain in modern times," she said. "It is information-gathering directed at the innocent and the spying is directed at people because of their religion, and not because of their behaviour."

An- Nisa calls for;

1. An-Nisa Society believes that the government's Preventing Violent Extremism agenda (PVE) agenda and the Prevent Strand of its CONTEST strategy is fundamentally flawed and discriminatory and call for it to be dismantled with immediate effect.

2. We call upon the government to dismantle the machinery it has put in place to gather intelligence about Muslims and to be transparent and accountable as to what is being done.

3. We call upon Muslims - members of the community including voluntary and public sector workers and councillors, to boycott Prevent. It is only with the co-operation of Muslims that the government can take the strategy forward.

And recommendations:

1. The government should cease linking community cohesion, capacity building, community development and addressing inequalities with PVE. This approach risks de-legitimising much needed community building of the Muslim community. Security measures should be separate and distinct so that there is no doubt as to their objectives.

2. Addressing inequalities, social and economic deprivation, social exclusion and fractured families as a common goal for all communities will be more productive to building 'resilience' to social ills, including extremism of any type.

3. We believe the way forward is to engage purposefully with underprivileged communities to ensure cutting-edge services within communities to prevent grievances based on perceived inequalities based on ethnic, religious or socio economic factors.

4. A public debate needs to be held on the crisis in our most vulnerable communities and how we address this with sensible and just policies. There is general concern nationally about young people in all communities, the breakdown of families and fractured communities. Root causes must be investigated and addressed.

I would add these points about PVE

1. PVE treats the whole Muslim community as potential terrorists. It is unique as no community has been treated in this manner before. This means that a specific based approach has been diverted to a community-based policy and lacks targeting of the few actual potential terrorists.

2. This smears the whole community and is being entrenched into core local council services. This is demeaning to a minority of the British community and places most of them under potential surveillance, which could alienate the very community that the government want to win over.

3. This is gold dust too the far right as they now have a confirmation from the government actions that all Muslims are terrorist which could place Muslims in danger as it provides more justification for attacks.

4. This didn’t even happen during the height of the IRA terror campaign and this could take the authorise eye off the ball from other forms of Terrorism such as Neil Lewington's from Reading (see here on Reading List) who was planning terrorise people with explosive devices and admired the London nail bomber and neo-Nazi David Copeland.

5. PVE also discharges the government from its responsibilty to assist the Muslim community in finding the actual terrorist plotters.

6. The government also plans to extend the PVE agenda to a multiagency approach which could affect primary care trusts, mental health trusts, schools, college and other agencies. Though information gained at funding events it appears that Muslims only could be asked to provide information on others to identify a potential terrorist. This is ethically suspect and could be misleading and lead to wrongful labelling of Muslims and even false arrests.

7. This is an erosion of Civil Liberties and Human Rights.

8. Muslim groups will lose credibity and trust though any funding given by the government. These groups will be seen as watch dogs for the government and any actual Terrorist will avoid them thereby making them harder to detect.

9. The government has already issued school tool kits titled ‘Learning together to be safe’, this provides details on PVE and teachers are expected to report any child they deem having extremist views.

10. Police can use the PVE info for police mapping but any anti-terror measures and arrest in hindsight often involve innocent parties. Is this not in itself building up a backlash of anger?

11. There is no forum in PVE for Transparency and Accountablity to workthough concerns within the PVE process.

I think we need to get back to working with communities and not targeting them. This would allow the comunnity to help us find the terrorists and not become angrier with the way the government treats the Muslim Community. I think An- Nisa plans here provide the best ideas for replacing PVE with some much better and workable proposals.

Reading Council PVE Report can be found here