Peterson-Heimstead
This is a Wikipedia:Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense Special Feature!
Known internationally as a world traveler (the U.S. and Canada), Carol Ann Peterson-Heimstead is revered among the loggers of Ontario, Canada for her stunning rendition of an Ontario trout stream.
Among her many accomplishments are her ability to ride herd on her children and grandchildren, but especially her ability to keep a recalcitrant husband from hurting himself too badly. In this respect, her training methods are highly regarded in psychological circles, especially her reaction to her husband's story of going fishing all night when his fishing equipment never left the garage.
On her job, she is hailed as being adequate, and as a cook, her many culinary disciples regard her as "pretty good." Carol is Norwegian in ancestry, so that explains a lot.
Statuesque and svelte, even at the age of (whisper) 60, Carol Ann has become somewhat of a folk legend in the Midwest, where it is reported, though not confirmed, that she refused for weeks to use the corn-cobs in a northern Wisconsin outhouse. This episode ranks right up there with the absolutely true story of her adventures in attempting to seduce her husband by pretending that she was afraid to go to the bathroom alone in the middle of the vast Canadian wilderness.
The crowning rendition of her northern adventures, however, is reported in the "Chronicles of Nipagon", an ancient fishing saga. In this manuscript it is recorded that she played an integral role in the partial demolition of an abandoned Canadian dwelling, the total destruction of a perfectly good minnow bucket (complete with poor minnows), and the running down of an innocent sign post. It is also reported that the ground shook and the weather literally changed forever when she discovered that fishing lures do NOT cost twenty-five cents each (see recalcitrant husband). The culmination of the chronicles reveals her run-in with the Ontario loggers mentioned above.
Archeologists have recently discovered what may be an epilogue to the "Chronicles of Nipagon" which, if proven authentic, reveals that Carol's recalcitrant husband may, indeed, be the Wild Spearman of the North, a heretofore mythological character much feared by ancient Canadian park workers. The epilogue also mentions Carol in connection with an incident which involved sleeping in close quarters with other legendary figures. The tome reveals that Carol woke suddenly in the middle of a dark Canadian night and kept repeating "Moon. Moon." over and over. For a while it was thought that she was calling upon ancient night-time gods, but it was quickly revealed that she was gazing, enthralled, upon the bare backside of one of her camping companions. These, events, of course, require validation before they can officially be included in the "Chronicles of Nipagon."
In spite of her ancestry, and in spite of her penchant to inspire near-fatal occurrences, Carol is much-loved by her friends and family, most of whom are totally in awe of her accomplishments in raising relatively normal children and grandchildren, and of course in keeping her recalcitrant husband from hurting himself too much.
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Stephen Donofrio
Director, Forest Trends
Stephen has 15 years of experience working with corporate, public and non-profit and non-governmental organizations within the contexts of environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability and sustainable development.
He is currently Director of Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace and Supply Change Initiatives, where he is responsible for overall initiative development and strategy, management and relationship creation of partners, collaborators, and sponsors, stakeholder coordination, and public representation. Ecosystem Marketplace is a leading source of knowledge on pioneering finance for conservation, publishing original research reports on pioneering finance for conservation, such as carbon offsets, results-based forest finance, biodiversity offsets and compensation, watershed investments, and private investment in conservation. Supply Change enables users to track progress toward private sector commitments to remove deforestation from commodity supply chains.
In addition, Stephen is Principal & Founder of Greenpoint Innovations, a purpose-based company that integrates innovative technologies, the arts, and in-depth subject-matter expertise to contribute to a sustainable, resilient, and prosperous future. At Greenpoint, he leads the organizational strategy and vision, partnerships, and the sourcing and implementation projects.
Previously, Stephen was Vice President of CDP North America (Carbon Disclosure Project) – where he managed the region’s corporate disclosure program, partnerships and innovation, and CDP Canada, and earlier, Stephen worked as Economist at Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) – where he administered the Offsets Program, managed member and partner accounts, and provided research and analysis of environmental markets, regulations, policies, and programs.
When it comes to envirotech adoption, NGOs can lead us out of the woods
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Tag Archives: BBC
What would YOU ask David Cameron in Public Prime Minister’s Questions?
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Bedroom Tax, Benefits, Business, Cost of living, Democracy, Economy, Employment, European Union, Food Banks, Fracking, Health, Housing, Human rights, Justice, Law, Politics, Poverty, Privatisation, Trade Unions, UK, USA, Utility firms
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Mile-wide: Mr Miliband explained his idea to bridge the gulf between the public and the Prime Minister to Andrew Marr.
Ed Miliband engaged in a particularly compelling piece of kite-flying today (July 27) – he put out the idea that the public should have their own version of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Speaking to Andrew Marr, he said such an event would “bridge the ‘mile-wide’ gulf between what people want and what they get from Prime Minister’s Questions”, which has been vilified in recent years for uncivilised displays of tribal hostility between political parties and their leaders (David Cameron being the worst offender) and nicknamed ‘Wednesday Shouty Time’.
“I think what we need is a public question time where regularly the prime minister submits himself or herself to questioning from members of the public in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesdays,” said Mr Miliband.
“At the moment there are a few inches of glass that separates the public in the gallery from the House of Commons but there is a gulf a mile wide between the kind of politics people want and what Prime Minister’s Questions offers.”
What would you ask David Cameron?
Would you demand a straight answer to the question that has dogged the Department for Work and Pensions for almost three years, now – “How many people are your ‘welfare reform’ policies responsible for killing?”
Would you ask him why his government, which came into office claiming it would be the most “transparent” administration ever, has progressively denied more and more important information to the public?
Would you ask him whether he thinks it is right for a Prime Minister to knowingly attempt to mislead the public, as he himself has done repeatedly over the privatisation of the National Health Service, the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, food banks, fracking…? The list is as long as you want to make it.
What about his policies on austerity? Would you ask him why his government of millionaires insists on inflicting deprivation on the poor when the only economic policy that has worked involved investment in the system, rather than taking money away?
His government’s part-privatisation of the Royal Mail was a total cack-handed disaster that has cost the nation £1 billion and put our mail in the hands of hedge funds. Would you ask him why he is so doggedly determined to stick to privatisation policies that push up prices and diminish quality of service. Isn’t it time some of these private companies were re-nationalised – the energy firms being prime examples?
Would you want to know why his government has passed so many laws to restrict our freedoms – of speech, of association, of access to justice – and why it intends to pass more, ending the government’s acknowledgement that we have internationally-agreed human rights and restricting us to a ‘Bill of Rights’ dictated by his government, and tying us to restrictive lowest-common-denominator employment conditions laid down according to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a grubby little deal that the EU and USA were trying to sign in secret until the whistle was blown on it?
Would you ask him something else?
Or do you think this is a bad idea?
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Do YOU feel as prosperous as you were before the crisis?
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Benefits, Business, Cost of living, Economy, Employment, European Union, Food Banks, Housing, Neoliberalism, People, Politics, Poverty, Trade Unions, UK
austerity, BBC, benefit, borrowing, bubble, David Cameron, dead, death, deficit, die, economy, Ed Balls, EU, Europe, exchange rate, expensive, export, food bank, G7, GDP, government, groceries, grocery, Gross Domestic Product, grow, Guardian, help to buy, housing, Huffington Post, Iain Duncan Smith, IMF, inflation, International Monetary Fund, Investment Partnership, John Mills, Keith Joseph, Lynton Crosby, Mandatory Work Activity, manufacture, manufacturing, Margaret Thatcher, national Statistics, neoliberal, Nicholas Ridley, office, ONS, peak, pre-crisis, prosper, purge, re-balance, sanction, shopping, Transatlantic Trade, TTIP, unemployment, union, Universal Credit, Workfare
[Image: David Symonds for The Guardian, in February this year.]
Britain has returned to prosperity, with the economy finally nudging beyond its pre-crisis peak, according to official figures.
Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it? Next time you’re in the supermarket looking for bargains or mark-downs because you can’t afford the kind of groceries you had in 2008, you can at least console yourself that we’re all doing better than we were back then.
The hundreds of thousands of poor souls who have to scrape by on handouts from food banks will, no doubt, be bolstered by the knowledge that Britain is back on its feet.
And the relatives of those who did not survive Iain Duncan Smith’s brutal purge of benefit claimants can be comforted by the thought that they did not die in vain.
NO! Of course not! Gross domestic product might be up 3.1 per cent on last year but it’s got nothing to do with most of the population! In real terms, you’re £1,600 per year worse-off!
The Conservatives who have been running the economy since 2010 have re-balanced it, just as they said they would – but they lied about the way it would be re-balanced and as a result the money is going to the people who least deserve it; the super-rich and the bankers who caused the crash in the first place.
You can be sure that the mainstream media won’t be telling you that, though.
Even some of the figures they are prepare to use are enough to cast doubt on the whole process. The UK economy is forecast to be the fastest-growing among the G7 developed nations according to the IMF (as reported by the BBC) – but our export growth since 2010 puts us below all but one of the other G7 nations, according to Ed Balls in The Guardian.
And it is exports that should be fuelling the economy, according to JML chairman John Mills in the Huffington Post. He reckons the government needs to invest in manufacturing and achieve competitive exchange rates in order to improve our export ability.
“Since most international trade is in goods and not in services, once the proportion of the economy devoted to producing internationally tradable goods drops below about 15 per cent, it becomes more and more difficult to combine a reasonable rate of growth and full employment with a sustainable balance of payments position,” he writes.
“In the UK, the proportion of GDP coming from manufacturing is now barely above 10 per cent. Hardly surprising then that we have not had a foreign trade surplus balance since 1982 – over thirty years ago – while our share of world trade which was 10.7 per cent in 1950 had fallen by 2012 to no more than 2.6 per cent.”
All of this seems to be good business sense. It also runs contrary to successive governments’ economic policies for the past 35 years, ever since the neoliberal government of Margaret Thatcher took over in 1979.
As this blog has explained, Thatcher and her buddies Nicholas Ridley and Keith Joseph were determined to undermine the confidence then enjoyed by the people who actually worked for a living, because it was harming the ability of the idle rich – shareholders, bosses… bankers – to increase their own undeserved profits; improvements in working-class living standards were holding back their greed.
In order to hammer the workers back into the Stone Age, they deliberately destroyed the UK’s manufacturing and exporting capability and blamed it on the unions.
That is why we have had a foreign trade deficit since 1982. That is why our share of world trade is less than one-third of what it was in 1950 (under a Labour government, notice). That is why unemployment has rocketed, even though the true level goes unrecognised as governments have rigged the figures to suit themselves.
(The current wheeze has the government failing to count as unemployed anyone on Universal Credit, anyone on Workfare/Mandatory Work Activity and anyone who whose benefit has been sanctioned – among many other groups – for example.)
You may wish to argue that the economy is fine – after all, that’s what everybody is saying, including the Office for National Statistics.
Not according to Mr Mills: “The current improvement in our economic performance, based on buttressing consumer confidence by boosting asset values fuelled by yet more borrowing, is all to unlikely to last.”
(He means the housing bubble created by George Osborne’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme will burst soon, and then the economy will be right up the creek because the whole edifice is based on more borrowing at a time when Osborne has been claiming he is paying down the deficit.)
Ed Balls has got the right idea – at least, on the face of it. In his Guardian article he states: “We are not going to deliver a balanced, investment-led recovery that benefits all working people with the same old Tory economics,” and he’s right.
“Hoping tax cuts at the very top will trickle down, a race to the bottom on wages, Treasury opposition to a proper industrial strategy, and flirting with exit from the European Union cannot be the right prescription for Britain.” Right again – although our contract with Europe must be renegotiated and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement would be a disaster for the UK if we signed it.
But none of that affects you, does it? It’s all too far away, controlled by people we’ve never met. That’s why Balls focuses on what a Labour government would do for ordinary people: “expanding free childcare, introducing a lower 10p starting rate of tax, raising the minimum wage and ending the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts. We need to create more good jobs and ensure young people have the skills they need to succeed.”
And how do the people respond to these workmanlike proposals?
“You intend to continue the Tories’ destructive ‘austerity’ policies.”
“The economy isn’t fixed but you broke it.”
There was one comment suggesting that all the main parties are the same now, which – it has been suggested – was what Lynton Crosby told David Cameron to spread if he wanted to win the next election.
Very few of the comments under the Guardian piece have anything to do with what Balls actually wrote; they harp on about New Labour’s record (erroneously), they conflate Labour’s vow not to increase borrowing with an imaginary plan to continue Tory austerity policies… in fact they do all they can to discredit him.
Not because his information is wrong but because they have heard rumours about him that have put them off.
It’s as if people don’t want their situation to improve.
Until we can address that problem – which is one of perception – we’ll keep going around in circles while the exploiters laugh.
Osborne’s tax avoidance failure reveals the facts about Coalition policies
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Crime, Politics, Tax
Andy Hamilton, Atos, avoid, BBC, Customs, Department, DWP, G4S, George Osborne, haven, high net worth, hmrc, Huffington Post, London Olympics, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, News Quiz, Pensions, public sector, Radio 4, Revenue, Serco, tax, Vox Political, work
Embarrassed: And so George Osborne should be!
What bad luck for George Osborne to get two sums wrong in the same week!
The first sum was a simple times-table question; a school pupil asked him to multiply seven by eight and he couldn’t do it.
The second sum was more serious because it was a sum of money. Rather a lot of money. £1.9 billion, in fact.
The Boy had claimed that around £3 billion in extra tax had been recovered from “high net worth individuals” – tax avoiders – after investigations by HM Revenue and Customs.
Unfortunately, errors in the way HMRC’s performance targets were set meant that these improvements were… well, “overstated” is how the Huffington Post described them.
This meant that, when HMRC said it exceeded its target for tax compliance in 2010-11 by £1.9 billion, in fact it had only just hit its target. The following year, its claim to have exceeded targets by £2 billion was out by the same amount; in fact it had made gains of just £100 million.
There is around £21 trillion in unclaimed, avoided tax sitting in ‘haven’ bank accounts around the world – many of them British territories – and Osborne has managed to collect just £100 million.
Meanwhile unemployed and low-paid working citizens – who have no income apart from state benefits, due to the systematic destruction of the UK’s industrial base by neoliberal politicians who were intent on increasing insecurity among the lower classes – are being starved to death.
Osborne has only himself to blame. When the Coalition government came into office, the Tories insisted that they didn’t need anything like as many public-sector workers as were then on the books – and started laying people off wholesale.
Now the DWP has a claimant assessment backlog of 700,000 for ESA alone (compared with less than 30,000 in May 2010) and the government’s flagship Universal Credit project is hopelessly bogged down, to quote just two examples of the remaining public servants being unable to do their jobs.
Meanwhile, outsourcing of government jobs to private companies has created a disaster: The National Health Service in England is slowly falling over the cliff, with privateers taking so much in profit that the service will go £2 billion into debt next year while waiting times at Accident and Emergency departments continue to increase out-of-control (no matter what lies David Cameron dribbles in Prime Minister’s Questions); a £116 million IT programme arranged with French firm Steria to run staffing, procurement and payroll services for civil servants was scrapped at a cost of £56 million – and then Steria was re-hired to outsource British jobs to India, Poland and Morocco, again at UK taxpayers’ expense.
Does anyone remember the fiasco when G4S was hired to run security at the London Olympics, failed to meet requirements, and the Army had to be called in at the last minute?
Atos and the DWP, anybody?
Andy Hamilton commented on this phenomenon during this week’s News Quiz on BBC Radio 4: “For decades, we have watched governments hand over the utilities and services to companies like G4S and Serco and we have watched as they basically ruined them.
“And then once they’ve ruined them, they get given some more to ruin until they’re running all sorts of services; they’re now huge!
“I still hanker after the good old days when G4S was just Group 4, and its core business was letting prisoners escape from vans.”
Some of us still hanker after the good old days when George Osborne was just a department store employee, and his core business was folding towels.
BBC responds to complaints about anti-austerity demo – with a form letter
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Media, People, Politics
anti, austerity, BBC, complain, cover, demonstration, ignore, June 21, London, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, news, Vox Political
Vox Political readers forcemajeure007 and Sarah Ledsom have been in touch to forward the responses they have received from the BBC to their complaints about the non-coverage of the People’s Assembly anti-austerity demonstration on Saturday.
Like the (lack of) coverage itself, it is extremely disappointing.
Both commenters received exactly the same response, with the only change in wording at the top – their own names. The remainder reads as follows:
“Thanks for contacting us about coverage of the People’s Assembly anti-austerity demonstration on 21 June.
“We understand you feel there was insufficient coverage of this demonstration by BBC News.
“We have received a wide range of feedback about our coverage of this story. In order to use our TV licence fee resources efficiently, this general response aims to answer the key concerns raised, but we apologise in advance if it doesn’t address your specific points in the manner you would prefer.
“Your concerns were raised with senior editorial staff at BBC News who responded as follows:
“’We covered this demonstration on the BBC News Channel* with five reports throughout Saturday evening, on the BBC News website on Sunday, as well as on social media. We choose which stories we cover based on how newsworthy they are and what else is happening and we didn’t provide extensive coverage because of a number of bigger national and international news stories that day, including the escalating crisis in Iraq, British citizens fighting in Syria and the death of Gerry Conlon.**
“‘We frequently report on the UK economy and what it means for the British public. We also reflect the concerns of people such as those demonstrating, and others who hold opposing views, across our daily news output on TV, radio as well as online, and we also explore them in more depth including in our political programming and current affairs investigations, debates on ‘Question Time’ and during interviews and analysis on programmes such as ‘PM’ and ‘Newsnight’. Inevitably, there may be disagreements over the level of prominence we give to stories, but we believe our coverage of this subject has been fair and impartial.’”
It seems the BBC’s bosses have caught the Tory disease and cannot be bothered to apologise when they make a mistake. If they received a “wide range” of feedback about their coverage, and are now responding with a form letter, rather than individually, you can be sure that many, many people complained. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the response was wholly negative, given that coverage was restricted to a few spots on the rolling news channel and the utterly pathetic excuse for a story on the website.
Does anybody else believe that was fair and impartial?
If so, consider this. In 2011 the BBC covered a PRO-austerity demonstration by the Taxpayers’ Alliance (of all organisations). Total attendance: 350 people.
They’ll cover a 350-strong pro-austerity demo but not a 50,000-strong anti-austerity event.
Fair and impartial?
Don’t make me choke.
*If it was on the BBC News Channel, why not the main news?
** And the Solstice, which happens every year.
Coulson convicted – now Cameron has serious questions to answer
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Corruption, Crime, Politics, UK
Andy Coulson, BBC, BSkyB, David Cameron, George Osborne, Harriet Harman, Leveson Inquiry, Media, murdoch, Nick Clegg, phone hacking, press, Rebekah Brooks, Roger Cohen, Rupert Murdoch
Beleaguered: A weary-looking David Cameron tried to defend his choice to employ convicted phone hacker Andy Coulson in a BBC interview.
The conviction of former Downing Street press supremo Andy Coulson on charges of conspiracy to hack telephones should have serious consequences for David Cameron, the Prime Minister who brought him into the heart of the UK government after he committed these crimes.
Cameron has said he takes “full responsibility” for employing Coulson. He may regret those words in the future.
Interviewed by the BBC, he said: “I did so on the basis of undertakings I was given by him about phone hacking and those turn out not to be the case.” What undertakings? That he hadn’t taken part in any hacking or that he was very good at it and wouldn’t get caught?
For a Prime Minister in charge of a barely-legitimate Coalition government with an agenda to destroy Britain’s best loved institutions, such as the National Health Service and the Welfare State, the presence of a person who could infiltrate the telephone communications of others, providing information that could be used to stop them, would be a huge asset.
Pressed on what he asked Coulson and what assurances he was given, Cameron said: “We covered all this in the Leveson Inquiry.” This is not a rock-solid alibi as Cameron was found to have, let’s say, selective amnesia about certain issues. His relationship with the Murdoch press – of which Coulson is a former employee – was one of them, and it is appropriate that more questions should be asked – and answers demanded – about the level of influence exerted on the British government by the man Private Eye describes as the ‘Dirty Digger’.
At the Leveson Inquiry, Cameron could not say:
Whether or not George Osborne obtained assurances from Andy Coulson about phone hacking before hiring him for the Conservative Party.
Whether he spoke to Rebekah Brooks about Andy Coulson before his Downing Street appointment.
How many conversations he had with Mrs Brooks about Coulson.
Whether he raised the issue of phone hacking with Coulson in Westminster or over the phone while on holiday.
Where and how Coulson repeated his assurances about phone hacking.
What Nick Clegg said to him about Coulson.
Who else raised concerns about Coulson with him.
Whether or not any Tory MPs expressed concerns about Coulson.
Whether he discussed Coulson and phone hacking with Rupert Murdoch.
Whether he sought direct assurances on hacking from Andy Coulson when revelations appeared in the New York Times (isn’t that now a Murdoch paper?) on December 1, 2010.
“I gave someone a second chance and it turned out to be a bad decision,” Cameron said yesterday – but this won’t wash, according to the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman.
“He [Coulson] was not somebody who’d admitted what he’d done and was turning over a new leaf,” she said.
Labour leader Ed Miliband, interviewed (again) by the BBC, got straight to the point: “David Cameron brought a criminal into the heart of Downing Street… David Cameron must have had his suspicions about Andy Coulson, and yet he refused to act.
“This taints David Cameron’s government because we now know that he put his relationship with Rupert Murdoch ahead of doing the right thing… He owes this country an explanation.”
Coulson’s connection with the Murdoch press was also hugely useful to Cameron at the time. Did he hope that the appointment would buy him favour with the 37 per cent of the British media owned by Murdoch? Was there a reciprocal arrangement, with the UK government showing extra favour to the Murdoch media – such as its plan to grant permission for Murdoch to buy the 61 per cent of BSkyB that he did not own (since aborted, partly due to bad publicity)?
As Roger Cohen wrote in the New York Times in July 2011, “It is hard to resist the impression that Cameron was completely in the thrall of Brooks, Murdoch and his son James Murdoch.”
What about the huge volume of emails – around 150 – between Cameron and Brooks that were withheld from the Leveson Inquiry and kept from the public domain, even after a Cabinet Office ruling in October 2012 that the public should see them?
Cameron was expected to face hard questions about his relationship with Coulson during Prime Minister’s Questions today (June 25). At the time of writing (11am), and based on his comments in the BBC interview, it seems likely that all we will hear is more evasion.
Is this really the behaviour of a man who should be the British Prime Minister?
Latest DWP lie: Millions ‘unspent’ in support for ‘welfare reform’ victims
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Bedroom Tax, Conservative Party, Cost of living, Housing, People, Politics, Poverty, Powys, UK
austerity, BBC, benefit, benefits, British values, Britishness, council, David Cameron, David Freud, demonstration, Department, DHP, discretionary housing payment, DWP, exaggerate, falsehood, figure, government, lie, Lord Fraud, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, million, number, overspend, overspent, pay, Pensions, people, politics, Reform, scare story, social security, statistic, true, unclaimed, unspent, victim, Vox Political, welfare, work
Fraud: This man wants you to believe DWP austerity measures are succeeding, in order to win votes at next year’s general election. They aren’t. He is a liar.
The Department for Work and Pensions is merrily claiming that more than £13 million allocated to help people who have been hit be the government’s unfair ‘welfare reforms’ via Discretionary Housing Payments has gone unclaimed. Lord Freud wants you to think “recent scare stories about councils running out of money were grossly exaggerated”.
He was – of course – lying through his teeth.
A quick look at the facts reveals that Discretionary Housing Payment was overspent by £3,505,582 during the 2013-14 financial year. That’s two per cent more than the government allocated.
The £13,285,430 underspend quoted in the press release refers to just 240 out of the 380 councils that distribute DHPs. It completely ignores the £16,791,012 overspent by 127 other councils, in order to provide a false figure. The remaining 13 councils spent all of their allocated amounts.
Focus on the regions and the picture gets worse: In Scotland, DHP was overspent by 76 per cent of the amount allocated – £28,700,215 against an allocation of £16,269,675 from the DWP. Scottish councils had to foot the bill for the extra amounts.
Wales spent an extra six per cent – £7,724,176 against an allocation of £7,274,829. Here in Powys, 1,200 of the county’s 8,300 social dwellings were affected by the bedroom tax, with a total annual loss of housing benefit of £800,000. The total DHP funding available was £154,975.
Looking at those figures, it’s amazing the overspend was so small.
It is only in England that a net underspend is recorded – of around £9 million.
So let’s have a look at Lord Fraud’s – sorry, Freud’s – statement that “today’s figures also show that recent scare stories about councils running out of money were grossly exaggerated.”
Grossly exaggerated? The fact is that 127 councils did run out of money – that’s more than one-third of the total.
It would be fairer to say that the scare stories came true.
The press release also states that “around three-quarters of councils also did not apply for a £20 million government top-up fund to help claimants adjust to welfare changes, leaving a further £7.1 million unspent”.
No figures are provided to support this statement.
People will be angry about this – and rightly so.
The BBC has just brought massed complaints down on itself after it chose to ignore a 50,000-strong demonstration against the government’s austerity measures that started outside the Corporation’s front door. Many incensed callers and emailers said they feared the BBC was participating in a conspiracy of silence about the harm being caused to ordinary people.
Now we see the DWP is lying to us about the harm its bedroom tax is doing to ordinary people – including hardworking employees, who make up more than 90 per cent of new housing benefit claimants.
Tory leader David Cameron has been banging the drum for Britishness recently – good for him. It gives us an opportunity to point out that, if there’s one British value that stands out above all the rest, it’s this:
We hate people in authority who try to mislead us.
Cumulative effect of welfare reform revealed – deprived areas hit much harder than the rich
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Bedroom Tax, Benefits, Conservative Party, Cost of living, council tax, Disability, Employment and Support Allowance, Liberal Democrats, Media, Neoliberalism, People, Politics, Poverty, Tax, tax credits, UK, unemployment, Universal Credit
allowance, austerity, BBC, business, Centre, close, commission, communities, community, cost, cumulative impact assessment, David Cameron, demonstration, deprivation, deprived, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disability news service, disabled, DLA, DNS, economic, EHRC, employment, equalities, ESA, esther mcvey, financial loss, human rights, IB, Incapacity, Landman Economics, mark hoban, Mike Penning, National Institute, NIESR, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, Reform, Regional Economic, report, Revenue, rich, Sheffield Hallam University, shop, Social Research, social security, spending, support, tax, transparent, travel, viability, welfare
Deprived parts of Glasgow were worst-affected by ‘welfare reform’ according to The Courier [Image: thecourier.co.uk].
The headline should not come as a surprise – of course changes that cut benefits for the poor are going to harm them more than rich people.
But do you remember David Cameron’s claim that his government would be the most transparent ever?
Isn’t it interesting, then, that the independent Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has found a way to compile information on the effects of tax, social security and other spending changes on disabled people, after the government repeatedly claimed it could not be done?
It seems Mr Cameron has something to hide, after all.
We already have a taste of what we can expect, courtesy of our friends in Scotland, who commissioned the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University to study the relationship between deprivation and financial loss caused by “welfare reform”.
The study shows that more than £1.6 billion a year will be removed from the Scottish economy, with the biggest losses based in changes to incapacity benefits. The Scottish average loss, per adult of working age, is £460 per year (compared with a British average of £470) but the hardest hit area was impoverished Glasgow Carlton, where adults lost an average of £880 per year.
In affluent St Andrews, the average hit was just £180 per year.
Of course, the cumulative effect will hit the poorest communities much harder – with an average of £460 being taken out of these communities it is not only households that will struggle to make ends meet; as families make cutbacks, local shops and businesses will lose revenue and viability. If they close, then residents will have to travel further for groceries and to find work, meaning extra travel costs will remove even more much-needed cash from their budget.
For a nationwide picture, the EHRC commissioned the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and the consultancy Landman Economics to develop a way of assessing the cumulative impact of “welfare reform”.
The report will be published in the summer, but Landman Economics has already told Disability News Service that the work was “not actually that difficult”.
Why, then have Mark Hoban, Esther McVey and Mike Penning, the current minister for the disabled, all claimed that a cumulative assessment is impossible?
Some might say they have a vested interest in keeping the public ignorant of the true devastation being wreaked on Britain’s most vulnerable people by Coalition austerity policies that will ultimately harm everybody except the very rich.
Some might say this is why the BBC – under the influence of a Conservative chairman – failed to report a mass demonstration against austerity by at least 50,000 people that started on its very doorstep.
Misguided conspiracy theorists, all!
Ask the BBC why it didn’t cover the anti-austerity demo – here’s what you can expect!
anti, austerity, BBC, complain, cover, demonstration, ignore, June 21, London, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, news, Sick Britain, Vox Political
This is what happened when a friend of Vox Political, going by the monicker Sick Britain, contacted the BBC to ask why there has been no coverage of today’s (June 21) anti-austerity demonstration in London, which was attended by more than 50,000 people.
The BBC has mentioned the demonstration – as a pretext for a discussion of government austerity policies on Any Questions and Any Answers (both on Radio 4) but the national public service broadcaster’s news bulletins were mysteriously silent about it throughout the day of the event itself.
This seems particularly odd when one considers the fact that the demo began outside Broadcasting House, and that I’m told extra security guards were on duty today, while the entrances were protected with metal fencing.
Some of you may wish to complain to the BBC about its lack of coverage. Here’s how you can do it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/
Phone: 03700 100 222 *
03700 100 212 * (textphone)
*24 hours, charged as 01/02 geographic numbers
Post:BBC Complaints
DL3 0UR
For more coverage (and photos) see: Austerity Protest in London (June 21st 2014)
ADDITIONAL – 11.17am, June 22: It seems the BBC has finally given in to pressure and published a report. Don’t get your hopes up too high! It arrived on the website at around 10.37am and may be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27962963
My opinion is that this is an insult.
For more information on the impact of austerity that is being hidden from the public, take a look at Cumulative effect of welfare reform revealed – deprived areas hit much harder than the rich
Panellists hijack Question Time to attack Iain Duncan Smith
Posted by Mike Sivier in Austerity, Benefits, Conservative Party, Cost of living, Employment, Food Banks, Media, People, Politics, Poverty, Public services, UK
BBC, benefit, benefits, chris bryant, Coalition, Conservative, Department, DWP, employment, food bank, genocide, government, homicide, Iain Duncan Smith, Ian Hislop, IDS, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pensions, people, politics, poverty, public service, Question Time, returned to unit, RTU, Salma Yaqoob, scrounger, secretary, social security, stress, suicide, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, work
Finger-jabbing protest: Iain Duncan Smith talked over Owen Jones in his last Question Time appearance; this time the other panellists didn’t give him the chance.
Around three-quarters of the way through tonight’s Question Time, I was ready to believe the BBC had pulled a fast one on us and we weren’t going to see Iain Duncan Smith get the well-deserved comeuppance that he has managed to avoid for so long in Parliament and media interviews.
There was plausible deniability for the BBC – the Isis crisis that has blown up in Iraq is extremely topical and feeds into nationwide feeling about the possibility of Britain going to war again in the Middle East. The debate on extremism in Birmingham schools is similarly of public interest – to a great degree because it caused an argument between Tory cabinet ministers. Those are big issues at the moment and the BBC can justifiably claim that it was making best use of the time and the panellists (for example Salma Yaqoob is a Muslim, from Birmingham, who is a member of ‘Hands Off Our Schools’).
But Auntie shouldn’t think for a moment that we didn’t notice the glaring omission on tonight’s agenda. With the Work and Pensions Secretary as the major politician on the panel, we should have had a question about his job but were fobbed off instead with non-items about ‘British values’ and whether parents should be arrested for allowing their children to become obese. That’s enough for some of us to read a right-wing agenda between the lines – an aim to avoid embarrassing Iain Duncan Smith.
It seems that, even if Auntie’s twin-set is pink, her bloomers are blue. Blue-mers, if you like.
By the time the fourth question came up, it seemed there would be no opportunity to analyse RTU (we call him Returned To Unit after his failed Army career) and his disastrous ministerial career.
This question was: “After the Newark by-election, are we looking at the destruction of the Liberal Democrats?” Thank goodness some of the panellists realised this was their chance.
Chris Bryant leapt at the opportunity to bypass the Lib Dems altogether. “The real enemy is over there,” he said, indicating the Secretary-in-a-State. “The Conservatives have made this country a place where two million people need food bank handouts.”
He was trying to hit a nerve; Duncan Smith’s department has been accused of trying to mislead the public on the reason food banks have been springing up all around the country – and it was very recently alleged that senior figures in the government had warned food bank charity the Trussell Trust to stop criticising government policy or be shut down.
Salma Yaqoob pointed out that, thanks to the Conservative-led coalition (and, because he’s the Work and Pensions secretary, Duncan Smith’s policies), “13 million people are now below the poverty line and one million are suffering the indignity of having to use food banks.
“People are suicidal,” she pointed out – a very pertinent claim to make, as the most common cause of death for people going through Iain Duncan Smith’s benefit system appears to be suicide (due to the stress created by Department for Work and Pensions officers who work very hard to push them off-benefit). “They don’t want to be a burden to their families because their support has been taken away.”
She said: “People have been called scroungers… Iain Duncan Smith quite happily labels poor people as scroungers, when he claimed £39 on expenses for his own breakfast.”
Duncan Smith was interrupting from the background to claim that he had never called benefit claimants scroungers. Feel free to go to your favourite search engine right now, type in “Iain Duncan Smith scroungers”, and see for yourself whether his name has ever been associated with the word.
And, thank goodness, a member of the public spoke up to say: “Iain Duncan Smith is systematically taking down public services in this country and destroying people’s lives.”
He went on to invite anybody who cares about this issue to the demonstration in London by the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, on June 21.
(I have since discovered that he was David Peel, press officer for the People’s Assembly Against Austerity. In my opinion, the fact that he was a political representative, planted in the audience to make a point, diminishes what he had to say – but I am still glad that somebody said what he did.)
It was sad that the great satirist Ian Hislop did not take an opportunity to make a few sharp observations – especially as commenters to this site have made it clear that they contacted him to request this action. He addressed himself to the question he had been asked and I make no comment about that; you can draw your own conclusions.
It didn’t happen the way this writer would have wanted, but the job got done anyway.
Expect multiple attempts by the right-wing press to salvage the situation – all doomed to failure.
Last week, Vox Political stated that there was an opportunity here to show the public the homicidal – if not genocidal – nature of the changes to the benefit system this man mockingly describes as “welfare reforms”.
Job done.
Food bank charity told to stop criticising benefit system or face shut-down – by the government
Posted by Mike Sivier in Conservative Party, Corruption, Food Banks, Politics
BBC, benefit, benefits, blackmail, change, charity, Chris Mould, Citizens Advice Bureau, Conservative, critic, Daily Mail, Department, DWP, food bank, government, Iain Duncan Smith, IDS, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pensions, people, policies, policy, politics, Reform, report, returned to unit, RTU, shut down, smear, social security, system, Tories, Tory, Trussell Trust, Vox Political, welfare, work
What would you do in that situation?
It seems that food bank charity The Trussell Trust has been making too many waves around the Conservative-led Coalition government’s policies regarding benefits, social security and welfare.
Readers may recall how the charity warned that Coalition policies had created a need for a huge expansion in the number of food banks across the UK. The Tories countered this by accusing the trust of “misleading and emotionally manipulative publicity-seeking”, and also of “aggressively marketing [its] services”.
After this failed to make a dent in public opinion, the Daily Mail tried to discredit the trust by claiming it was handing out food parcels without checking whether the people claiming them were bona fide.
But it turned out that the paper’s claim of “inadequate checks on who claims the vouchers, after a reporter obtained three days’ worth of food simply by telling staff at a Citizens Advice Bureau – without any proof – that he was unemployed” was not true. The reporter in fact committed fraud by telling a string of lies in order to falsely claim his food parcel in a flagrant abuse of the system.
The public response was immediate – donations to the Trussell Trust’s fundraising appeal shot through the roof.
Now the government has tried a different tack: blackmail. Instead of trying to justify the government’s position or undermine that taken by the trust in public, it has been revealed that, recently, “someone in power” told trust bosses that the government “might try to shut you down” if the trust continued to cause it embarrassment.
This detail was revealed while Trussell Trust chairman Chris Mould was giving evidence to the Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector this week.
The Trussell Trust is in a fairly robust position with regard to government interference; a 2005 decision by the charity’s trustees to avoid seeking government funding means it is in a better position to resist pressure.
But the trust has to consider the worst-case scenario. If the government did manage to shut it down, hundreds of thousands of people would starve.
That is the real threat posed by the Conservative-led government. Shutting down the Trussell Trust won’t hurt anybody who runs the charity or volunteers for it.
But it could kill food bank users across the country.
It is exactly the kind of covert, backstabbing move we have come to expect from the likes of Iain Duncan Smith.
Oh, come on! You knew RTU (it means Returned To Unit and is our tribute to his Army career) would figure in this article somewhere.
According to Mr Mould, he received a phone call from “someone” in the office of the Secretary-in-a-State about Work and Pensions, back in 2011. He said it was “basically to tell me that the boss was very angry with us because we were publicising the concerns we have over the rising number of people who were struggling as a consequence of delays and inefficiences in the benefits system”.
Unfortunately – for sly abusers like Duncan Smith – the kind of threats recorded above are really only useful when they are kept secret. The idea is always to present the victim with a double-bind – in this case, not only would food bank users suffer, but the Trussell Trust would get the blame for having withdrawn the service (whether voluntarily or not).
Now that we all know the government itself is putting the screws on – and is doing so in retaliation against the Trussell Trust’s entirely legitimate attempts to raise awareness of government policies’ disastrous effects – it would be electoral suicide.
That being said, watch Iain Duncan Smith on Question Time today.
He’s probably stupid enough to go through with it anyway.


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Willie Mullins & Family: Ireland’s Famous Horse Racing Trainers
Elsewhere on the site there’s an overview piece looking at the various horse racing families, so here we’re going to look a closer look at one of them: the Mullins family. Willie Mullins is one of the most successful trainers in the business, but he comes from a horse racing family and isn’t the only person with the surname that is worthy of our attention. Here’s a look at the family tree:
Paddy Mullins had five children who were all involved in racing in some form or another: Willie Mullins, Sandra McCarthy (nee Mullins), George Mullins, Tony Mullins and Tom Mullins.
Willie’s son, Patrick, also became a jockey, as did George’s son, Emmet. Tony Mullins married Mags, who was a champion jockey in her own right. They had a son called Danny who himself became a jockey.
A Look at Their Horse Racing Lives
Now that we’ve looked at how the Mullins family works, it’s time to take a closer look at the achievements of the various members of it.
Willie Mullins
Willie Mullins’s official website, wpmullins.com
There’s nowhere else to start but with Willie Mullins, one of the most successful trainers that the world of horse racing has ever seen. Born as William Peter Mullins on the 15th of September in 1956, he grew up in Goresbridge, County Kilkenny. He began life not in the stables but in the saddle, becoming the Amateur Champion Jockey in Ireland six times. His wins as a jockey include the 1983 Fox Hunters’ Chase at Aintree with Atha Cliath and the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham on Whither Or Which in 1996.
Of course it’s as a trainer that Mullins is best known, which is a fact perhaps best reflected in the fact that his win on the back of Whither Or Which was the first of four wins out of five in that race for horses that he’d trained. His career as a trainer began much earlier, though. He worked as an assistant to Jim Bolger and the Australian, Neville Begg, before becoming an assistant to his dad, Paddy Mullins.
Willie eventually decided to get his own trainer licence in 1988, though he didn’t hang up his saddle quite yet. He honed his skills in the years that followed as he multitasked as both a trainer and jockey. As the 1990s came to a close he felt as though he’d genuinely cracked it, which was reflected in the success of Florida Pearl. The horse won the Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown four times between 1999 and 2004, becoming Mullins’ first truly successful offering.
By the time of Florida Pearl’s fourth win Mullins was already making a name for himself in a remarkably competitive industry, yet even better was the follow the year after. Hedgehunter surprised no one when he won the Grand National, becoming one of the few favourites to actually win the race when he did so by fourteen lengths with Ruby Walsh on his back. But for a fall at the last the year before and a six length defeat to Numbersixvalverde the year after, he would have given Mullins a Grand National hat-trick.
The Cheltenham Festival
Part of the reason that Mullins is so well respected in the world of horse racing is his relationship with the Cheltenham Festival. There’s barely a race at the meeting that Wille Mullins hasn’t trained the winner in, including being the leading trainer in the Champion Bumper, the Golden Miller Novices’ Chase, the Dawn Run Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle and the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
Perhaps no race is most closely associated with Mullins as much as the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, however. Donald McCain, Jr. won the first race with Whiteoak, but then Willie Mullins won the eight that followed, seeing his dominance only broken briefly by Gordon Elliot before he won it for the ninth time in 2018. A huge part of the success he enjoyed in the race came courtesy of the remarkable Quevega, who set a record for wins in the same race at the Festival when she won it for the sixth time in 2014.
For a long time it looked as if the only race at the Cheltenham Festival that Willie Mullins didn’t know how to win was the most important of the lot: the Gold Cup. He’d come so close so many times during his career, including seeing Hedgehunter miss out by just two and a half lengths to War Of Attrition in 2006. He missed out again in 2013 when the much-fancied Sir Des Champs, ridden by Tony McCoy, finished seven lengths behind Bobs Worth.
When On His Own missed out to Lord Windermere by a short head the year after, Mullins must have felt as though he was never going to see one of his horses win the biggest prize in jump racing. He kept going, though, and saw another of his horses, Djakadam, finish second again in 2015. A hat-trick of second-place Gold Cup finishes might be enough to make many trainers feel as though they’re cursed, but Mullins had the faith to believe that he’d win it if he just kept on going.
Not even seeing his horses finish second and third behind Gordon Elliot’s Don Cossack in 2016 was enough to make him throw in the towel, eventually seeing his faith and persistence rewarded with the Gold Cup victory of Al Boum Photo in 2019. It demonstrates, perhaps better than anything, the desire of Mullins to prove he can do whatever he sets his mind at, even if it takes him longer than expected sometimes!
For many years Willie Mullins was the trainer of choice for the Gigginstown House Stud, which is owned by Ryanair owner Michael O’Leary. They enjoyed a successful time together, winning the Owner’s Championship in Ireland for the fourth time at the end of the 2015-2016 season, but when Mullins put his training rates up for the first time in ten years in 2016 Michael O’Leary and his brother Eddie chose not to pay the fees. The split rocked horse racing at the time, such was the success enjoyed by the partnership.
Paddy Mullins
The Dawn Run statue at Cheltenham Carine06 / Flickr.com
The patriarch of the family is, in many ways, the man who started it all – Paddy Mullins. His career as a trainer started at the Punchestown Festival, which is appropriate for the Irishman given that it’s considered by many to be crown jewell of Irish racing. He won a race there with Flash Parade in 1953, kick-starting a career filled with winners.
In the years that followed, Paddy Mullins racked up four winners of the Irish Grand National, as well as six winners during the Cheltenham Festival, perhaps giving his son Willie a taste for the same meeting. By the time he retired he had been named the Irish Champion Jumps Trainer ten times.
Though he was known for his work with jump horses, Paddy also trained flat racers and won two big races in that discipline. In 1973, he won the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket with Hurry Harriet. Thirty years later and another filly of his won the Group 1 Irish Oaks at the Curragh courtesy of Vintage Tipple. It was the former horse that he was most impressed with, though, spending the rest of his life telling people that Hurry Harriet was the best horse he ever trained.
There’s an argument that Paddy had a way with female horses that not many trainers since have been able to repeat. As well as the wins he pulled off on the flat with Hurry Harriet and Vintage Tipple, he also made a name for himself courtesy of Dawn Run. Go to Cheltenham Racecourse and you’ll see a statue of the mare standing over the paddock there, such is the esteem in which she’s held by the great and good of jump racing.
Dawn Run won the Champion Hurdle in 1984 and then went one step further when she won the Gold Cup during the Festival in 1986. At the time of writing, no other horse has both of those races on their CV. The year she won the Champion Hurdle she followed up with a win in the Aintree Hurdle and victories in both the French and Irish equivalent races.
Paddy retired from training in 2005, handing the keys to his stables to Tom Mullins. That didn’t stop him from remaining in the world of horse racing thanks to his love of breeding horses, though. Even when he died, he had a couple of broodmares that he was breeding with – a horse love to the end.
Tony Mullins
Unfairly known more as Willie’s brother than anything else, Tony was a professional rider and was regularly in the saddle of Dawn Run prior to Jonjo O’Neill taking over the honour. Not that Tony could complain, of course, given that it was O’Neill who was riding her for both of her Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup wins.
Tony was a successful rider, winning a race at the Listowel Harvest Festival thanks to Doran’s Town Lad, as well as picking up a Cheltenham Festival win with Pedrobob. He was also the man on the back of horses like Kharasar, Fontaine Lodge, Padre Mio and Barrow Drive. Even so, he declared the win that his son, Danny, achieved in the Galway Mile in 2009 as the ‘best moment’ of his life, so it’s clear that he was always happy to let others take the limelight.
Sandra McCarthy (nee Mullins)
The eldest of the Mullins children, Sandra was a well-respected flat racing jockey. She won the Rose of Tralee Ladies’ Race in 1982 and was unlucky to only finish third in the Ceville Lodge Stakes at Gowran Park.
Nowadays, Sandra is mostly known for owning horse with her husband. The most notable names on her roster are Eye Candy, Jimmy Hoffa and Reve Du Roi. She may no longer boast the Mullins name, but McCarthy still knows how to deal with horses just like the rest of her family.
Danny Mullins
When both of your parents are Champion jockeys, you have to go some way to living up to their expectations. Tony and Mags Mullins both earned their stripes, even if Tony thinks that Danny’s achievements are more pride-inducing than his own.
Danny began his career as a pony racer and won 126 races in that discipline before making the switch to horses. He did so as an apprentice to Jim Bolger, winning four of his first six races. He won the Kerry National in 2012 and then the Ulster National in 2013 before going on to win a new novice hurdles on horses trained by his mum.
The Rest of the Family
Goresbridge, Co. Kilkenny where Willie Mullins grew up
It’s not spoken about all that much, but Paddy’s wife, Maureen, was also a jockey in her early years. She was a successful point-to-point rider under her maiden name of Miss Maureen Doran. Indeed, when Sandra finished second in the Ceville Lodge Stakes it was her mother that finished in front of her.
George Mullins was pretty much the only member of the family who decided not to become a jockey. Yet the fact that he avoided getting involved on the track doesn’t mean that doesn’t merit a mention here. George set up a horse transportation business that most of the top trainers used.
George’s son, Emmet, didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and instead became a professional jockey in 2006. In his first full series as a jockey, he missed out on the Rockview Series because his cousin, Patrick, beat him to the punch. He’s still enjoyed some big wins in his life though, including on the back of Faugheen, the Irish Horse of the Year in 2015.
When you’re Willie Mullins’ son there’s not much choice but for you to be involved in the world of horse racing, is there? Patrick Mullins rode his first winner when he was just sixteen-year-old, then in 2008 he won the Champion Bumper races during both the Cheltenham Festival and the Punchestown Festival on Cousin Vinny. He has been an exceptional amateur, beating Billy Parkinson’s 1915 record of most wins for an amateur in a single season.
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RCEP countries must pay heed to India’s concerns
The Hindu Business Line - 06 December 2019
By TV Narendran
India’s doubts on issues like exports and its economic relations with China are genuine and crucial for growth. Only when these are resolved, should India consider joining the agreement again.
India’s withdrawal from the the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement (RCEP) was not entirely unexpected, given that key stakeholders had not been in favour of it. India put forward genuine reasons for its decision to withdraw, for the time being, from the negotiations undertaken by 16 countries of the RCEP grouping, which make eminent sense from the economic perspective. The decision brings relief to industry as well as farmers, who were rightly apprehensive about the wide-ranging impact it was likely to have on their livelihood.
Following the adverse experience with the Japan and Korea FTAs, the goods segment was concerned with possible impact of the RCEP, since it would effectively mean a FTA with China. For most of the merchandise trade, China accounts for a significant share of the global capacity — in sectors like steel its nearly 50 per cent. Even the slightest variation in demand and supply in China has severe repercussions on global markets and prices. For example, when the Chinese economy slowed down in 2016, steel imports to India from China increased by more than 200 per cent, while prices crashed. The Indian steel industry’s concerns with the RCEP related to trade diversion and regional accumulation for value addition.
Services sector
Work on the RCEP, which was proposed to further lower tariffs and non-tariff barriers on goods as well as expand trade in services and investment arrangements, commenced in 2012. However, it was obvious from the beginning that services and investments were taking a back seat in the negotiation process, with goods trade accorded primacy. Given that the other 15 countries already have very low or zero tariffs for goods traded amongst themselves under the alphabet soup of FTAs in place, India is the only country which would have been bound to cut its tariffs for the other members under the RCEP.
However, with its service interests not adequately factored into the discussions over the years, the benefits to India from the RCEP were questionable. India’s services trade has continued to grow robustly, even while the goods trade has been impacted by the global trade slowdown. Exports of services expanded from $16 billion in 2001-02 to $106 billion in 2008-09 and $208 billion in 2018-19. India’s share in global services exports increased from 1.1 per cent in 2000 to 3.5 per cent in 2018, as compared to its share in global merchandise exports, which has remained at 1.7 per cent. Clearly, the importance of the services sector for growth and employment generation in India cannot be overstated, and the short shrift given to it in the RCEP was a disappointment.
Economic stance
One of the key points put forward initially as a rationale to enter and continue in the RCEP initially was that open trade with competitive countries would force India’s hand in undertaking economic reforms. The pace of reforms has indeed been rapid, with introduction of the GST, opening up of FDI, facilitative ease of doing business and numerous sectoral reforms. However, India needs to take up reforms at its own pace and in a manner that is suitably calibrated to meet the interests of diverse sections of the economy, such as farmers and small businesses.
While announcing its exit from the arrangement, India highlighted that the rising trade deficit from China was unsustainable and would be further exacerbated as a result of the RCEP. This position has been taken up continuously by India during the discussions as well as in bilateral platforms. It is, for example, difficult to understand why Indian drug exports to China are worth only $46 million. India’s exports of pharmaceuticals to the world stands at over $14 billion in 2018 — including $5 billion to the US — after meeting stringent approval processes, and China itself imports drugs worth $28 billion from the rest of the world.
Reciprocity is also crucial. For example, in the steel sector, imports from Japan and Korea after signing the FTAs doubled while exports to these countries continued to remain negligible.
Ties with China
It is unlikely that the unrelenting attitude of China regarding India’s market access interests over a long period of time would have been altered once the RCEP was in force. The possibility of industry sectors in India suffering from import surge would thus have been very real. In addition, Chinese products are already being routed through ASEAN countries, with which India has an FTA. With lax rules of origin proposed in the RCEP, even the longer time period given to reducing tariffs with respect to goods made in China would have been ineffective.
It is indeed unfortunate that China could not provide India with a way out of its apprehensions relating to Chinese goods swamping Indian markets, either bilaterally or through the RCEP. This situation extends to the services sector as well. China has seen huge appetite for Indian movies, yet only 3-4 Indian films are allowed entry into its market each year. Our IT sector is similarly disadvantaged in China.
India’s competitiveness vis-à-vis China is unlikely to benefit from economic reforms that India may undertake in the future. To assuage India’s concerns, China must bilaterally work with us and resolve our market access issues in areas across pharmaceuticals, agriculture and manufactured goods. Only when we see a real improvement in our exports to China will the Indian industry become confident about lower tariffs for Chinese products and can accede to regional arrangements like the RCEP.
source: The Hindu Business Line
China India RCEP


MOONEY, MICHAEL PATRICK
MOONEY, MICHAEL PATRICK (22 Oct. 1866-6 Sept. 1936), an attorney known as "M. P.", served the city of Cleveland in various legal capacities and participated in the statewide charter movement. He advocated greater representation in CLEVELAND CITY GOVERNMENT for immigrant residents (see IMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION). Mooney was born and educated in Ireland, the son of Thomas and Anne McHugh Mooney. Admitted to the U.S. bar in 1891, for the next 2 years he served as assistant corporation counsel to the city of Cleveland. From 1910-1911 Mooney was president of the Civil Service Commission of Cleveland. He was a member of both the city Charter Commission and the State Board of Charters in 1913. Four years later he was chosen for the MAYOR'S ADVISORY WAR COMMITTEE. Mooney was director and general counsel to the Cleveland Life Insurance Company (est. 1907) and the Mutual Building & Investment Company, director and president of the Realty & Rental Company, and director of the GUND BREWING COMPANY and the D. C. Griese & Walker Co. He belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, among other groups.
Mooney married Mary Slowey (d. 1935) in Cleveland on 19 Sept. 1891; they lived in SHAKER HEIGHTS with children Francis G., Robert E., Mary C., Agnes M., Charles A., and Eleanor E. He is buried in CALVARY CEMETERY.


Frost in May by Antonia White
Posted by Delia under Books, Catholicism, childhood | Tags: Antonia White, Catholic boarding school, childhood, Frost in May, girls Catholic boading school |
I heard recently from someone who’d gone to my boarding school in 1963. Her parents withdrew her after six months because the place was so bad. She didn’t say much more, but I assume that her experience was like mine and others. This woman was one of the lucky ones. She left before she endured much more emotional trauma. I hope she has not been scarred by her brief stay there.
Today, I came across a blog post that mentions a book I finished reading earlier this month and discusses the blogger’s convent school experiences. Of course, I was curious as always to hear what someone’s experience–one in a supportive atmosphere–was like.
Fellow blogger Daphne writes that she likes reading novels set in convent/boarding schools because she herself was enrolled in two. In her latest post, “The End of an Odd Year,” she writes about “Summer’s Ending,” which she read over the Christmas holidays. The book, she says, is a much happier portrayal of convent schools than Frost in May by Antonia White–a book that I finished reading two weeks ago. Daphne, who had a better experience, writes:
“Although Frost in May, by Antonia White, is one of my favourite books set in a convent school, I dislike how grim the school (the Convent of the Five Wounds) in that book is and how strict the nuns are. The students seem almost to be bullied by the sisters in that book. The nuns at my two schools were mostly lovely so it was nice to read about kind nuns in Summer’s Ending.
The book led me to do some research on the two convent schools I attended. I don’t know why I never until now took the trouble to find out more about the orders that founded the schools. The first school, which I attended from age five til 11 was the Canossian Convent (motto: “Via, Veritas, Vita”, which means “the way, the truth, the life”, badge on the left), founded by the order of the Sisters of Conossa, an Italian order. The second school was a French convent, The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (motto: “Simple dans ma virtue, forte dans moi devoir”, which means “simple in virtue, steadfast in duty”, badge right, read more about the history of the convent here). I was there from age 11 and a half til 17.”
For me, I found the grim portrayal of a convent boarding school in Frost in May more like my own. I reacted viscerally while reading the parts about breaking a child’s will, the punishments on the children, the restrictions, the oppressive atmosphere, etc. My gut tightened in a knot. The feel of place and the girls’ experiences felt emotionally familiar to me, though my boarding schools were not as severe as that. The novel took place in the first half of the 20th century and was semi-autobiographical; I went to boarding school in the 1960s. Things had changed by then, but not enough.
Despite the book’s grimness, I too enjoyed reading it. The author writes beautifully, capturing the experience of childhood and the loss of self well.
At the Movies: Boarding School
Posted by Delia under childhood, films | Tags: boarding school, Catholic boarding school, day school, girls boarding school. girls Catholic boarding school, Maggie Smith, movies, Muriel Sparks, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie |
Starring Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie takes place in an all-girls school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Only the superficial aspects of it remind me of my boarding school days–namely, the uniforms. But something else occurs to me about my experiences. My boarding school also had a day school. Daily, we were reminded of our status as boarders. Many of our classmates went home on yellow school buses they boarded behind our dorm. I watched my classmates climb into idling buses coughing up the diesel fumes.
At boarding schools that did not have day students, dorm life seemed to intersect more with the boarders’ education. We had no headmistresses, just a Mother Superior, nuns who oversaw the boarders and the nuns and lay faculty who taught/ran the school. We didn’t get to know our teachers except in class. They didn’t know about our lives as boarders. Because of this divide, we boarders never quite felt like we were living in a community. It was the place we stayed because we couldn’t go home. And boarding school never did feel like home.
I wonder so often what life was like for those who attended elite boarding schools. I’d see the ads for prep boarding schools in the New York Times. Did money make a difference in the way the boarders lived? Would it have been better to go to a place where everyone was a boarder? I’ve been reading studies about the effect of being a boarder during the early grades of elementary school. (I will blog about in the near future.) So far, I gather that putting a child in boarding school at a very young age is detrimental. I’m sure several factors come into play.
Meantime, for those of you who were ever boarders, perhaps this movie trailer for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie may trigger some memories. Of course, life doesn’t imitate art, nor do I expect that drama would replicate life.
Why I’m writing about this experience
Posted by Delia under memoir writing | Tags: Catholic boarding school, memoir, memoir writing, Nicholas Dawidoff, The Fly Swatter |
My three years in a girls’ Catholic boarding school (first grade at St. Mary’s Academy; second and third at SJVA) have never left me. I cannot forget those days and the emotions involved. I need to explore how that time shaped me. What was the effect of that place on who I am today?
I know the details of why I was sent there. My mother, single and divorced, had to work. My grandmother had sent my mother to the same school when she was a single parent, working in New York’s Garment District where she sewed silk and cotton nightgowns for the Eve Stillman line. The gowns sold in Bloomingdale’s and other high-end stores. Neither my grandmother or my mother had other family who could watch over a young child after school nor did they have the means to pay someone to do so. And then there are the details of that life sent away.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Nicholas Dawidoff has a thoughtful piece, “The Trouble With Memoirs,” in which he goes over the usual problems with memoir–facts vs. imagined–and those who violated the readers’ trust–Frey, “Jones” Seltzer, and so on. But he also examines what makes memoirs wonderful:
“. . .Memoirs are typically episodic, likely to describe only a fragment of a life or an aspect of it — aspects that tend to emphasize emotional subject matter. The things we stay up late thinking about are the stuff of memoir. They are our interior lives, our complicated feelings, what we write about when we write about love — and the complexities of failure and sympathy and ambivalence and money and mortality.”
I have thought so much about my life as a boarder. That world has lived on in my head: the memories of saying goodbye to my mother on Sundays, the fear and anxiety of doing something wrong and the punishments I’d endure, the sense of being watched all the time, the struggle to shine my shoes perfectly, the older girl assigned to me to “supervise” me, the nagging feelings of abandonment and loneliness, the two girls whose friendship became my refuge. Every time I make the bed as a grownup, I remember where I learned to make hospital corners, and then it all comes back. Why?
The journalist in me wants to ensure that I get the story factually correct. To that end, I have been doing a lot of research. I need to keep in mind what Dawidoff says about this genre. Yes, he writes, be rigorous in your factchecking, but also remember:
“Memoirs imply that they are giving you the whole story, but in conception they are idiosyncratic, less comprehensive and formally constrained than autobiographies, often set within a brief time frame, and that seems appropriate in a genre where often the writer is attempting to give shape to ambiguity. The memoir looks inward to offer a personal outlook, and what is seen is as varied as life itself. The memoirist can write at length about the American Dream, or wrinkles, or optimism, toughness, shoplifting, a stamp collection, shorthaired dachshunds, a bus stop, a will with surprising contents, something that mortified you in the moment but later became funny, the smell of witch hazel, a life shadowed by an obsession with the Internal Revenue Service, encountering a Whites Only sign in an antiques store, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, an effective boss, what happens to a parent who comes unwillingly to know that she has a favorite among her children, what led a person to switch political parties or to grow more religious as he or she got older.
“Lousy memoirs come bound in the dull skin of self-involvement, but the memoirs destined to endure are those that open outward and use the author’s life as a point of departure for exploring the broader emotional themes and common faiths that apply to lives everywhere. Spending so much time with your own past, examining it over and over, the story must expand and accrue, become something bigger than you.”
I also want to avoid sounding like I’m indulging in navel gazing. I believe that my story speaks to , something larger, something universal. Every day that I write about it means that I can get closer to that truth.
Dawidoff himself is a memoirist: “The Fly Swatter,” which was a 2003 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and “The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness and Baseball.”
An Eloquent Homage to the Staten Island Ferry
Posted by Delia under Uncategorized | Tags: boarding school, Catholic boarding school, day camp, Edgies, Educational Alliance, German measles, girls Catholic boading school, Manhattan, rubella, SJVA, St. John Villa Academy, St. John's Villa Academy, Staten Island, Staten Island Ferry |
The blog “Going Coastal” has a wonderful post about the Staten Island ferry. Going Coastal is a nonprofit dedicated to connecting people and coastal resources by raising awareness of the immense value of the coastal environment. For those who have ridden the ferry without thinking much about its beautiful journey or for those considering taking the ferry to Staten Island and back to lower Manhattan, read this piece, which covers history:
“People have been traveling to Staten Island by some sort of boat for centuries. In 1609 Henry Hudson, the explorer, named it Staaten Eyelandt, in honor of the Dutch Parliament. The American Indian population on the island resisted settlement attempts in three battles: the Pig War, over accusations that Raritan Indians had stolen settlers’ pigs; the Whiskey War, over a distillery; and the Peach War that erupted when a woman from the Aquehongan tribe allegedly stole a settler’s peach. Though the indigenous peoples didn’t believe in owning land, they would soon enough be edged out by the Dutch and then the English.
Launch of a landmark
The first regular ferry service was a sailing ship set up by 16-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1810. He eventually built a transportation empire worth $100-million. By 1816, steam ferry service was available, but because the fare was 12½ cents each way, it was mainly used by wealthy Staten Islanders. Staten Island became a borough of New York City in 1898, and then, in 1905, the city took control of the ferry.
Though the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, completed in 1964, connects Staten Island to Brooklyn, the ferry remains the only link to Manhattan. It used to carry cars, too, but that service was discontinued after 9/11.”
Literary ties:
“The poetry of memory
Edna St. Vincent Millay immortalized the Staten Island Ferry in her poem Recuerdo, which means “memory,” written in 1919. The first two lines of her poem are printed in large letters on the wall of the Whitehall Terminal, which opened in 2005:
We were very tired, we were very merry —
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.”
I grew up in Manhattan, but have two distinct memories of the Staten Island ferry. One was going to and from Catholic boarding school, which was on Staten Island. More often, my mother’s husband drove us over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I remember riding the ferry home in the middle of the week from school. The school called my mom to have her pick me up. Fortunately, she worked in lower Manhattan, so the ferry was a quick walk from her office. I’d come down with what was then called German measles, now better known as rubella. On the trip back to Manhattan, an elderly woman leaned her face into mine, which was covered with red spots. “Your kid has something wrong with her,” she said. My mother replied, “She’s contagious.” The woman pulled back quickly and said nothing more as she walked away. I missed about another week or two of school. When I returned to SJVA, several kids in my class were absent. They too had rubella. I had been the first.
I’m sad to find out that the ferry no longer allows cars and other motor vehicles. My other memory is of a happier time, two years later when I was enrolled in the Educational Alliance (Edgies) day camp. Every summer weekday, we’d board school buses, which were driven onto the ferry, on the Lower East Side. After our ferry ride, the buses drove–more like raced each other–through the island to Henry Kaufman Campground, where we spent the day. For lunch, I brought cream cheese and grape jelly sandwiches, which tasted so good after a morning of arts & crafts, games and other activities.
Were you a boarder at a girls’ Catholic boarding school?
Posted by Delia under Uncategorized | Tags: boarding school, Catholic boarding school, girls' catholic boarding school, SJVA, St. John Villa Academy, St. John's Villa Academy, Staten Island |
I hope to start a conversation with women who were sent away to a Catholic boarding school, especially if you attended St. John Villa Academy in Staten Island, NY. Ours was a unique experience. I can still summon myriad feelings of isolation, abandonment, loneliness, fear, etc., even though I was a boarder back in the Sixties. My time there for two years (1967-1969) and at St. Mary’s Academy (1966-67) in Lakewood, NJ, have stayed with me always. I loved attending grammar school, but hated being a boarder. I long dreamed of the day I would become a day student, someone who could go return to a real home every day after school and be greeted with love, not a stern nun, strict regulations and more regimentation.


Independent reviews of television, movies, books, music, theatre, dance, culture, and the arts.
David Churchill (1959-2013)
Jimi Hendrix Drifting
When Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, over forty years ago this month, I was in high school. It was a time when a number of key pop figures – all in their twenties – never got to see thirty. A year earlier, it was Brian Jones of The Stones, and Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison would soon follow Hendrix to the grave. Besides sobering you with a taste of death's final victory (right at that moment when you saw nothing but life straight ahead), you also realized that a person's genius, their gifts, even their youth, could do nothing to protect them.
Hendrix's death hit me harder than the others because I came to truly love the paradoxical nature of his music. (In a song that fundamentally came out of the blues like "Burning of the Midnight Lamp," he combined a harpsichord with a wah-wah electric guitar and a chorale section to create a powerfully intense emotional soundscape.) Although Jimi Hendrix was always fully recognized as a virtuoso and theatrical guitar stylist, he was rarely discussed in any great depth in terms of his gifts as a poet, singer and music innovator. (For those insights, it's best to read David Henderson's 1978 biography 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky which still hasn't been equalled.) But John Morthland, writing in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, captured key aspects of those many gifts that Henderson elaborates on. "As a guitarist, Hendrix quite simply redefined the instrument, in the same way that Cecil Taylor redefined the piano or John Coltrane the tenor sax," he wrote. "As a songwriter, Hendrix was capable of startling, mystical imagery as well as the down-to-earth sexual allusions of the bluesman." Those sexual allusions though also led to a particular kind of theatricality that the artist himself was growing tired of indulging. Joni Mitchell, who met Hendrix in Ottawa towards the end of his life, recognized immediately his frustration about the public and critical perception of him based on those sexual allusions. "He made his reputation by setting his guitar on fire, but that eventually became repugnant to him," Mitchell told The Guardian in 1970. "'I can't stand to do that anymore,' he said, 'but they've come to expect it. I'd like to just stand still'."
The last album he was preparing when he died, which first came out posthumously in 1971 as The Cry of Love, features plenty of songs where he is indeed 'standing still.' The material on it draws essentially from tracks he had been recording between March 1968 and August 1970. While he was then preparing a visionary double-album work to be titled First Rays of the New Rising Sun (which would eventually come out on CD in 1997 with additional tracks not included on The Cry of Love), his death and various contractual issues prevented the release at that time. John McDermott in his liner notes for the First Rays CD, acknowledging the unfinished state of the album, clearly outlines Hendrix's intent. "With full faith in his music, Hendrix was primed to introduce his audience to a new frontier, where the triumphs of his past would merge freely with his unique blending of rock with rhythm and blues." As McDermott states, the work from these sessions were split up among three albums: The Cry of Love, Rainbow Bridge (1971) and War Heroes (1972). Of the three albums, The Cry of Love is the more sustained and satisfying work.
Although The Cry of Love remains a somewhat uneven record, the working out of his own personal isolation resonates in many of its best tracks like the ripping "Ezy Ryder," the lilting "Angel," the gospel fury of "In From the Storm," his Dylanesque "My Friend," and his tip of the hat to Skip James in the country blues demo of "Belly Button Window." "Ezy Ryder," which was recorded in December 1969, was obviously inspired by the hit counter-culture film (Easy Rider) from earlier that summer. But the song, the only one on the record recorded by Hendrix's funk trio known as the Band of Gypsys (including Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums), strips away the underlying masochism and paranoia that inspired the picture's theme (and made it such a hit) to arrive at something far more poignant. "There goes ezy ryder," Hendrix cries out as Buddy Miles attacks his drum kit as if firing heavy nails into it with a machine gun as he rides wave after wave of Billy Cox's pulsing bass line runs. "Riding down the highway of desire/He says the free wind takes him higher/Searchin' for his Heaven above/But he's dyin' to be loved." While "Ezy Ryder" has all the full-out propulsion of earlier songs like "Manic Depression," "Spanish Castle Magic," or "Crosstown Traffic," the recognition of death isn't brought on by resignation, or the failure of values (as in Peter Fonda's fatalistic proclamation of "We blew it" in the movie), but the desire instead to transcend earthly chains. Martin Luther King would also proclaim recognition of the Promised Land in his final speech a year earlier, a vision that allowed him to face the death he saw coming, so Jimi Hendrix also reaches for the sky in "Ezy Ryder." "He's gonna be livin' so magic," Hendrix sings. "Today is forever so he claims/He's talkin' about dyin' it's so tragic baby/But don't worry about it today/We've got freedom comin' our way."
"Angel" with its more blatant recognition of death's final victory ("Angel came down from Heaven yesterday/She stayed with me just long enough to rescue me") became the biggest hit from the album, especially when Rod Stewart covered it in 1972. But the track, as lovely as it is, is too obvious in its meaning, the metaphors too easy to read: the pop song as obit. The tune that left me wondering if he indeed saw it all coming was the exquisite "Drifting." He'd written beautiful ballads before like "May This Be Love" and "Little Wing," but "Drifting" was essentially a spiritual, a contemporary interpretation of one that offered a poignant reckoning of the fact that he knew he was moving on. "Drifting on a sea of forgotten tear-drops," he sings with a delicate lilt, a soft crooning that anchors the watery texture of the various guitar melodies keeping him afloat, "On a lifeboat sailing for your love." No doubt the wistful qualities within this spiritual were borne out of its tonal resemblance to Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready." In the song's last moments, where his guitar loops sound like seagulls taking flight over the water, they echo the cries of liberation those same loops once called out for in the conclusion of "If Six Was Nine." But to a different effect. In "Drifting," you can practically see him waving goodbye as he flies away. Liberated.
John Morthland concludes his piece on Jimi Hendrix contemplating not only his continuing influence, but also the endless albums and repackages of both finished and unfinished tunes. "[A]s the years go by, it also becomes increasingly apparent that Hendrix created a branch on the pop tree that nobody else has ventured too far out on. None has actually extended the directions he pursued, but perhaps that is because he took them, in his painfully short time on earth, as far as they could go." It also may be true that he took those innovations with him to the Promised Land.
– Kevin Courrier is a writer/broadcaster, film critic, teacher and author (Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa). His forthcoming book is Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism. With John Corcelli, Courrier is currently working on another radio documentary for CBC Radio's Inside the Music called The Other Me: The Avant-Garde Music of Paul McCartney.
Posted by Critics at Large at 3:16 PM
Labels: Kevin Courrier, Music
Rob Lingelbach December 24, 2015 at 11:39 AM
"Drifting," from "Cry of Love," I've thought extraordinary (your "exquisite" is perfect) for all the 45 years since I first heard it in Paris, my first year of college. Beyond the lyrics you mention, its harmony and changes seem to take him to high musical level. What could have been, it's beyond poignant.
"CoL" was the only album I had on reel-to-reel to play on my Wollensak tape deck (which went up in smoke one day when I forgot to use the step-down transformer).
If there is discussion anywhere available on "Drifting"'s structure I'd love to hear of it. roblingelbach iCloud.com.
Thanks. Drifting a favorite song of many. Nice to see insight from someone close to heart and intent of the music
Nice to read from others who have similar understanding of JMH music. Thanks
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