JK Rowling rips into the Daily Mail – and a staggering question – what radicalised the murdering white racist? – alongside the Daily Mail’s hateful sub-headline.
Category Archives: No unjustifiable inequalities
Workers Memorial Day service 2016
Went to the service at St.Peter’s having forgotten who’d made me promise to go.
“Empty Shoes” – a lovely poem by Wendy Lawrence, of Colwick.
And glorious stain glass windows.
Pride
The new movie “Pride” evokes the 80’s and tells big political stories. History. Tales from our own time.
The miner’s strike.
Victimisation of gays.
Public health responses to HIV and AIDS.
Big tales of the time to tell, and the film does it well. Of personal suffering. Of victimisation. Of struggle. Of defeat, and of victory.
Perhaps too much at the expense of one family portrayed.
Perhaps too much of the other worldliness of South Wales – despite them dancing to the same disco music as the rest of the world – well, the women anyway.
But some great humour. A favourite scene – a Welsh gay, returning home after many years, and pretending to be from Rhyl. No – we won’t have that – not someone from North Wales. A wind-up, masterfully executed.
And an excellent, triumphant end, with some sadness.
Authentic. Makes you think about the value of making bigger demands in politics.
Reminds you of some of the events of the time at work and in Nottingham.
One tiny moan. Celebrating the NUM driving the Labour Party conference to adopt gay rights. But no mention of the New Labour government passing the legislation that was sought.
#PrideMovie
Deprivation lowers age before first disability
A reminder of how poverty affects, or even determines, average life expectancy, and life expectancy before the first disability, in these plots of the averages for local authority areas against wealth.
Notice how the gap between death and first disability also grows with deprivation.
(An example of how statistics can and should be used, to illuminate and inform.)
Nottingham Pride parade 2014
Taking advantage of the Creative Quarter, this year’s Nottingham Pride paraded through the city centre.
IPPR
Faint memory of Ted Heath in the seventies saying class was no longer an issue cos young people all wore jeans.
If getting on is what mattered, then we need to stop people watching BBC tv’s Eastenders.
Whatever, there are real practical and significant problems for our local economies because of material inequality.
Such bland assertions will not do.
Nottingham’s big health issues
A public body meeting in public at strategic levels has to show a grasp of the big issues.
So from the Board of the NHS Nottingham Clinical Commission Group, the admitted summary view is –
– East Midlands Ambulance Service are having big problems (see front page of the Nottingham Post today );
– Nottingham University Hospitals Trust –
— the shortage of nurses is being met by recruiting 30 nurses from Portugal;
— infection rates are a concern (significant given plans to contract out cleaning);
— planning for 90% occupancy in the winter to meet seasonal extra demand (when they normally run at 95%) is not fully set out;
– there is poor access to psychological services in the city.
I hear the nearby Sherwood Forest Trust is recruiting 30 nurses from Spain (want to check that), but it does seem sad that NUH are planning to muck around with estates and facilities management staff, when a focus on meeting the need for nurses could have avoided expensive agency arrangements.
