On the rare occasions when chief executive Sheila Foley has been bothered to defend her organisation she’s insisted, ‘…this is about investment not cuts.’ But given the trust’s hamfisted attempt to silence its critic, it’s no surprise that the Karen Reissmann campaign is winning the battle to label Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust’s ‘Change in Mind’ programme an attack on the NHS.
There may, of course, be downsides to GM rice that have yet to be discovered so the world is right to be cautious. Greenpeace is heavily promoting a contamination incident it reckons cost $1.2 billion in the hope of dissuading India from trialing GM rice. That incident shouldn’t have happened, but there’s no evidence of any harm to the environment. Reading between the lines, that $1.2 billion is the price the industry pays for Greenpeace, and others, successful branding of GM as ‘Frankenstein Food’ to ensure consumers in developed nations can be expected to reject it.
If nobody trials the rice, we’ll never know if it’s safe. But protestors won’t let trials go ahead in developed countries where nobody goes hungry and almost everyone has access to a 24 hour supermarket selling rice for a tiny proportion of their income.
Any day now the East European market will take over Manchester’s Albert Square, but for now Father Christmas has the place to himself. He’s an inspiration. Crowds are flocking to take his photo.
In these days when to want something is to buy something, preparing a Christmas wish list is no easy task. But it will have to be done and soon.
And then there’s the tree. I’ve had it in mind to buy a real one from this market. Hailing from a sustainable forest and responsibly disposed of, it’s best for the environment. But Katharine’s fallen for a gorgeous reusable copper tree we saw in Next. What to do? Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s Diary of Sorts.
Well and truly stuffed by Gillette, Wilkinson Sword seems to have lost the plot with this bizarre ad featuring a guy made up like a rent boy.
Click the pic and check out those captions. I can’t see his meeting with the head honcho leading to a customer facing position and he may be about to learn that promises are made to be broken.
Perhaps they should find a way to squeeze a couple more blades on the razor. Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s Diary of Sorts links to follow.
Today saw Manchester’s mental health nurses begin an all out indefinite strike following the dismissal of Karen Reissmann, a senior nurse and union organiser. Karen was found guilty of gross misconduct, having brought the third worst performing NHS Trust of its kind into disrepute by speaking to the media against planned reforms. Karen was sacked on 5 November, which was Stand Up For Journalism day, and that made her a star turn at the rally: speech here (MP3).
The Trust itself has pretty much gone to ground. Their own lawyers will be demanding they stay silent for fear of prejudicing the inevitable appeal and industrial tribunal. Consequently, only Karen Reissmann’s side of the story will be heard. But they’ve only themselves to blame.
An SWP/Respect activist, Reissmann almost certainly does have a wider agenda, but this does not matter. Her critique of planned mental …continues here.
Making a female gangmaster the protagonist certainly provides It’s a Free World with a complex and challenging perspective, but ultimately lets the film down as we feel no bond with the immigrants she exploits. It’s a Free World delivers factually, in the way a documentary might, but fails to deliver emotion in the way a drama should. An opportunity missing 5 out of 10. Director:Ken Loach……Starring:Kierston Wareing Control……American Gangster
Christmas is well and truly upon us and the top twelve toys for 2007 have already been decided upon by the Toy Retailers Association. They know how to make Christmas fun, fun, fun!
And way up there is Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name. That’s right: a puppy that grows, like a real puppy but, better than a real puppy knows your name. And it gets all that growing stuff – from puppy to dog – out of the way in just four days. If you like, and this may be a better idea, puppy can know your child’s name instead.
Over those four days you, or your child, will be expected to give puppy lots of attention. But if that four day spurt isn’t enough, you still don’t have to put up with a real puppy. Just reset Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name back to puppy. Or, even better, buy a different breed of Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name
Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name: the must have Christmas gift that does exactly what it says on the box. Get yours now, as they’re bound to sell out. And ordering in plenty of time for Christmas means you can take advantage of Amazon’s great FREE DELIVERY on goods over £15 as well as their great value-for-money prices and hassle free shopping.
Both claim to report the fears of a racist, but representative, constituent to peddle an ‘I’m not racist, but my people are’ line. Enoch Powell’s man believed that by the mid-1980s ‘the black man will have the whip hand over the white man’ and Enoch was ‘filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see “the River Tiber foaming with much blood.”’
Both are careful to avoid attributing racist views to themselves and make plays for reasonableness. Powell praises the work of ‘Commonwealth doctors who, to the advantage of their own countries, have enabled our hospital service to be expanded faster…’ while Hastilow claims ‘it’s right that we share the international burden of caring for genuine refugees’. In the language of the BNP, who also deny racism, they are ‘racial realists’ not bigots.
Yet the ploy fails, because in both cases their ultimate argument relies on the anonymous racist constituent being a speaker of truths. If Enoch Powell had believed his ‘middle-aged, quite ordinary working man employed in one of our nationalised industries’ was wrong, he would not have felt such foreboding. If Hastilow didn’t accept granny’s claim that all the council houses had gone to immigrants, he wouldn’t conclude that we ‘roll out the red carpet for foreigners while leaving the locals to fend for themselves’. If Hastilow didn’t believe the anonymous others, he wouldn’t agree that Enoch Powell was right.
Sadly immigration is something we should talk about, but racist interventions like this and silly attempts by this Labour government to make immigrants more British only make that more difficult.
With Halloween and Bonfire Night safely behind us it’s time to plan for Christmas and I’ve already got around 25 per cent of my shopping done.
But it just won’t be the same without that big inflatable Santa sitting on top of the town hall. He’s already contributing to Manchester’s plastics recycling targets.
Here’s his replacement, a new Santa of low energy LEDs. He does look suspiciously like Rainbow’s Zippy, but still I can’t wait to see him in all his glory. Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s Diary of Sorts.
Despite wind and rain (bright sunny morning and afternoon, so clearly a conspiracy) this lunchtime rally in favour of quality journalism outside the Society of Editors conference in Manchester attracted more than expected (given the shortage of sandwiches and seats).
As National Union of Journalists general secretary, Jeremy Dear points out above, newspapers remain highly profitable, despite their much touted demise. It is investment that is in decline and that is leading to a fall in standards and failure to seek out real hard news stories. People need a reason to buy a newspaper and the reason should be professional journalism that, unlike gossip and opinion, can’t be found for free elsewhere. Uploaded by mobile phone to Stephen Newton’s Diary of Sorts.
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