HullRePublic

Guest Blog: Merge Arts Festival - On Aspiration.

For too long, Hull has been an under-achieving city with low aspirations. But that’s hardly surprising considering the poor jobs market and decline of the city’s economy: what have young people in Hull got to aspire towards? Try hard at school and you’ll get a good job? If you’re lucky. It can easily seem as though there’s nothing to aim for, and nothing to be proud of.

But go back about a century, and Hull was a thriving port city, benefiting from the trade of the world’s leading superpower. Have a wander round the Guildhall and look at the busts of the mayors and aldermen commemorated there – it’s no coincidence that many of them were active in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Alongside them, we have a statue of King Edward I, who granted Kings Town upon Hull city status in 1299, and Wilberforce, the MP largely responsible for the legal abolition of slavery. The city’s creator and its own most famous creation – that’s the kind of level the bunch of Victorian mayors are being pitched at.

The civic pride the city had back then can be seen in the architecture; it takes a wealthy city with some real self-worth to commission and build the Guildhall and Hull City Hall, both completed at the end of the Victorian/Edwardian era. Since then, what has the city produced architecturally? The tower blocks in Orchard Park are classic examples of the 1960s’ one-size-fits-all uniform housing; cheap, uninteresting and uninspiring. Newer buildings like The Deep and the Hull History Centre indicate a rebirth of confidence, but the current global economy is hardly encouraging that. The History Centre, I believe, holds a part of the solution to these problems; a repository of knowledge with which we can understand the past that has shaped the city and made it what it is today – and with that understanding of our past and present, we can work toward improving the future.

But how do we make those archives available and accessible to people? The History Centre already does some sterling work on this; check out their website for details about the courses they run, and for all the help they can give people who want to research local or family history. As an artist I wanted to be able to reflect the archives’ content creatively and to open them up to people that way. For me, it makes the documents and the history more alive and perhaps more immediately accessible, especially for people who don’t feel that poring over dusty papers is going to be interesting. The archives in the History Centre are a perfect window into the city’s past and so the event I’m organising in June is a creative reflection of them. It’s called the Merge Arts Festival, and the strapline is ‘Our City, Our Story’ – because it’s not just my creative response to those archives; there are a few different voices to be heard, and it’s the audience’s city and story too.

We’re working with local publishers Valley Press on workshops to help aspiring writers to research and write poems or stories based around the archives (and publish them as part of our book about local history and the festival itself). Fresh Ink, the regular open mic night at Hartley’s on Newland Ave, will have a local history theme on June 6th, and on June 8th our jazz and folk night is a nod toward Philip Larkin’s time as a jazz critic. On June 9th we’ve got a photography feature on the Larkin25 toads, and performances of dance reflecting WWII’s impact on the city along with a play about the life of Winifred Holtby – author of the novel South Riding, recently adapted by the BBC. These will be accompanied by an exhibition by the Brooklands Photographic Society, whose photos will demonstrate changes in Hull over the last hundred years or so.

The biggest and final event is in Hull City Hall. We’ve created an orchestra and choir of performers from across the region, to play our Humberside Folk Song Suite and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The folk songs have been handed down over decades (they come from Grimsby as well as Hull, so we’ve gone with the controversial ‘Humberside’). Beethoven’s Ninth is all about universal harmony and overcoming adversity – that’s exactly what the Merge Arts Festival has always been about too; the name is Merge for a reason.

It’s ambitious, perhaps, and can never be more than a small part of changing attitudes toward and within Hull. But it’s our contribution to celebrating Hull’s heritage, and goes hand-in-hand with other efforts across the region. It may be ambitious, but how else are we going to stretch the expectations of this city, inspire future generations, and make young people believe they can do more and have more?

If Hull is to be an aspiring city, a city worthy of pride, its youth has to be stimulated, involved and engaged in the arts, in culture, in sport and in education. With the way things are going, they’re going to need all the inspiration they can get.

Thanks for reading. Richard Watson - Merge Arts Festival 

We’d like to thank Richard for his contribution and wish the whole Merge Arts Festival crew good luck. 

If you would like to contribute to HullRePublic please do not hesitate to contact us: HullRePublic@gmail.com

Local elections, #Cleggmageddon and #SaveDave.

The forth coming local elections (if you read the polls) are going to be extremely challenging for both Coalition parties as the electorate express their anger at much of the governments policy.

With a initially highly sophisticated communications strategy, the coalition have successfully managed to blame the global recession on the previous Government, the poor, students, the public sector, the north, disabled, benefit claimants, caravan workers and anyone who likes a pasty. It is quite an achievement. Meanwhile, Rome burns and the welfare state is, to quote David Cameron,  ‘dismantled brick by brick’. Clearly, this had nothing to do with capitalism and the right-wing financiers who orchestrated the banking crisis.  Still, let us not lose sight that austerity measures are working and we are all in this together. Right?

The website Conservative Home have recently identified the ‘Tory Problem’ in Northern cities and are actively looking for policies to address this – based on the idea that they must target the ‘new centre ground’ by tackling tough sentencing, immigration and poverty.  There is nothing new here but it was illuminating to see ConHome discuss these issues from a statistical point of view rather than any real knowledge or understanding of the North as they assert that the problem in the North is not with Coalition policies but with the presentation of them.  This line is well used in Westminster and however comforting it may be it is founded on a misunderstanding of the anger felt in many communities – the ‘Coalition Problem’ is not the presentation it is the policy direction itself – with many of the imposed austerity measures having a disproportionate impact in the North. 

The idea that the ‘problem’ is in communication highlights a deeply worrying trend – that the political elite feel the electorate incapable of understanding the arguments, that if only we could comprehend their vision in its entirety we would be converts – this is manifestly not the case, many people clearly understand the policies and oppose them because of their content, not through a lack of comprehension.

The LibDems situation is critical as they are viewed by many as supporting an ideologically driven Tory government with many traditional voters stating they will never vote for the party again due to tuition fees, welfare reform (including the benefits cap, tax credits and removing support from disabled children), the privatisation of the NHS and cutting legal aid for victims of domestic violence.  Many people who previously voted Liberal may see these things as diametrically opposed to anything the party should be standing to support. In many ways they were the party that many people turned to as the one with the ‘right values’ or moral purpose that offered an alternative the main two parties. This of course, is not and was never true and the stark reality of a Liberal government has come home to roost in spectacular fashion. It must be unpalatable for many to be associated with the destruction of tuition fees, welfare, disability support, EMA et al.

The Liberals risk annihilation locally, this will surely put pressure on the party nationally – will there come a time when the party demand that Clegg re-evaluates his position in the Coalition?  At this stage it appears not, yet politically, this is an unsustainable strategy; with grass roots support dwindling the party elite must heed the warnings if it is to survive. This toxic combination will (almost inevitably) result in huge losses in the forthcoming elections; the writing has been on the wall and however the Coalition attempt to attribute the poll slump to ‘mid-term blues’ or a communication error the electorate is not so easily fooled.

However, with Labour currently riding high in the national polls and with increasingly strong support locally, this may mask more pressing issues if the current polling is a sign of protest rather than a real indication of the polling for a general elections.  Nationally, Labour had initially struggled somewhat to define the alternative they offer and are working to develop a narrative that will resonate with voters. The natural redefining and reshape of the party under a new leadership, coupled with taking time to adjust to the new reality of a Conservative led coalition was a natural and inevitable process. However, for many, the corner may well have been turned with the regrettable news that the country has returned to recession as Ed Balls had correctly predicted back in 2010.  The real challenge for the party now is to sit this within a set of social policies that mirror the aspirations of people in the country.  Longer term, Labour also need to answer some of the structural questions about the neo-liberal hegemony and lead towards the much-needed alternative.  The much needed trust with the electorate on the economy may be returning due to this as they are the only party to have articulated that Plan A (Plan A+ or Plan A++) were based on flawed economics and who have argued that this has been a thinly veiled attempt to impose Tory ideology on the welfare state and local government.

There is also some evidence that the tide is turning across Europe against the neo-liberal consensus of growth killing austerity, as voters and economists call into question the adherence to policies that have failed economically and are clearly damaging communities – these policies rather than rectifying the financial crisis have deepened it with spiralling unemployment and subsequently government debt. Cameron talks of the Euro zone crisis having many years to run and this is undoubtedly the case if governments do not reassess their direction; for the Coalition the resulting catastrophe in local elections will be earned.

Whilst we appreciate the point of view of others and have sympathies with a variety of political ideologies, for HullRePublic both locally and nationally there can only be one credible and correct choice at the polling station and that is a vote for Labour.

Thanks for reading.  HullRePublic.

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Money’s Too Tight To Mention.

There has been much talk recently of introducing regional pay in the public sector with Andrew Lansley and others stating their support of the ‘policy’.  There are, of course, a number of issues with this policy and we aim here to examine them.

The case is made that by establishing a regional pay framework, it makes the public sector more flexible and responsive to local markets.  In contrast, Unison argue the assumption that all private sector pay varies by location is false, in reality most large, multi-site private sector companies have national pay and grading structures (plus additions in London and the South East).  Zonal pay has become widespread in certain sectors, most notably retail and retail banking, although these tend to follow the understandable hierarchy of higher rates for London, the South East and the rest of the country. Complex renumeration systems are then, by contrast, comparatively rare.

As regional pay has been dispensed with as unworkable and divisive by much of the private sector and with the Government endlessly citing the private sector as the blueprint for effective and efficient service provision, why would they choose to disregard this inconvenient truth?  The answer is in a fetishisation of cutting working conditions in the public services and an adherence to narrow economic policy and neo-liberal dogma that is as pernicious as it is mis-guided (as evidenced by the double-dip recession).

Such a policy would embed inequality across the regions with a clear differential between pay in the North and the South. The idea that living costs (outside of housing) are significantly cheaper in the North being a myth as utility, fuel, food, VAT prices are universal (public sector workers living in ‘poorer areas’ are struggling to make ends meet in a time of imposed austerity, spiralling living costs are not confined to the south). There have been a number of excellent studies into the cost implications of inequality including ‘The Spirit Level’ and the Government sanctioned ‘Marmot Review’; both cite (from a very strong evidence base) that inequality is counter-productive and significantly more costly than more equitable societies.

There are also many examples of particular jobs in the public sector struggling to recruit staff, this policy will exacerbate this situation and dis-incentivise what (until recently) had been seen by Government as admirable professions – nursing, teaching et al; coupled to this many in the public sector are already suffering pay freezes, reducing pension benefits and longer working lives with predictable impacts on morale.  Regional pay will do nothing to ensure professions are capable of presenting a type of employment many will view as attractive, therefore compounding shortages.  It is also politically naïve to imagine that the combination of these factors will not negatively impact the lives of those relying on publicly provided services.

Having different pay structures across the regions will inevitably create a situation where workers are encouraged to move to areas where the pay available for their skills is higher, creating a ‘brain-drain’ to the South - as Andy Burnham (Shadow Health Secretary) said via Twitter today ‘Areas where health is worst need to attract the best NHS staff. Regional pay will achieve exact opposite: poorest services in poorest areas’.  This migration will leave areas in the North a smaller pool of qualified and experienced staff to choose from and create increased pressures on services in the South due to having significantly increased local populations.

As we know there is currently a housing crisis, the transference of populations in this manner is not currently matched by housing availability or policy.  Perhaps most disturbing (on this point) is the realisation that if skilled workers are migrating South and local authorities in the South are forcibly rehousing benefit claimants in the North there will be an ossification of the North/South divide - the South becoming ever richer, the North becoming ever poorer.

It is also quite clear that such pay differentials actually harm productivity and efficiency, is this the Governments intention?  Perhaps if we entertain the idea that the long game is to promote the idea that the only way to rescue unproductive and inefficient public services is to justify further privatisation. A recently published TUC paper questions the economics of this pursuit:

‘Reducing public sector wages in struggling areas would be certain to lead to fewer jobs, as a further fall in consumer spending would drive more private sector enterprises out of business. The failure of these enterprises would then cause further ripple effects. Economists estimate that this doubles the impact of any public sector wage cut’.

The counter argument is never far behind; a case in point being Melanie Philips, right wing journalist, (who is always keen to offer her views on the public sector states), ‘although some public sector jobs are indeed essential — such as front-line teachers, nurses or police officers — the public sector cannot provide the motor for prosperity because it does not produce wealth. On the contrary, it uses up the country’s wealth’.  Philips misses the point here by reducing ‘value’ to merely ‘wealth creation’; the public sector (whilst not creating wealth) has immeasurable value - creating healthier communities, protecting our children, managing our waste.

This is not about an argument of left and right; it is an argument about right and wrong. Let’s be clear, if this policy is implemented, it will be a hammer blow to the public sector, a policy designed not for equality or fairness but as a divisive tool to deconstruct the welfare state and further demonise (often highly qualified, capable but much maligned) public sector workers who offer their careers to serving communities.

This is another example of ill thought out policy direction that fails to take into account the repercussions for the whole system, for people’s lives and for the effective and equitable provision of services.  This policy will do nothing to secure improvements in public services, it will undermine committed, hard working professionals and entrench inequality – it must be opposed.

Thanks for reading - HullRePublic.

If you would like to contribute to HullRepublic please do not hesitate to contact us:

HullRePublic@gmail.com

Guest Blog - Elected Mayors.

Our latest Guest Blog tackles local democracy and makes a strong case for locally elected Mayors.  The are certainly counter-arguments and the fact that Doncaster are holding a referendum on whether to keep their elected mayor suggests the system hasn’t been a total success; some worry about paying for more politics and anticipate conflict between elected Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners.  The future then is somewhat uncertain, please read Karl’s post and join the debate in the comments section below.

Hull Elected Mayors.

Where once mighty ocean going vessels jostled for position alongside St Andrews dock, there’s now only rubble, rusting trolleys and the buried remnants of another world, where fishing was king, and where Hull truly did leave others in its wake.

Over time, more of our industries have choked and expired, with the city now struggling under the weight of generations who have been without work for far too long, children born into benefit dependency, with all the healthcare issues and legacy of poor education that goes hand in hand with an end to aspiration.  We live in the regenerative shadows of Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. We are continually disregarded, with the exception of St Stephens, as our infrastructure crumbles.

Our city has two overriding problems; firstly, we have for years lacked any form of visionary political leadership. People are disenchanted with politics. They do not see how it can bring the change they want, because they see how their views are ignored by the political class.

Secondly, the legacy of Thatcher and New Labour has resulted in our industries fading away and dying, leaving generations of working people with no job, and legions of youngsters with no hope.

Both problems are interconnected, and both need to be tackled simultaneously, if we are to provide our young with the chance to experience achievement, political engagement, and self-worth.

What we need to do is to reinvigorate our local government by increasing democratic accountability. Whilst the majority of Councillors are good people working for the community, there are inevitably some who rely on antipathy to remain in office. The city electorate as a whole has no control over who is leader of the council. This demotivating factor goes a long way to making people feel powerless to bring about change via the ballot box.

One way to counter this is through a Directly Elected Mayor. I believe that this would increase participation in elections and provide a unified and cohesive, accountable vision and strategy for the city. It would give voters the power to bring real change. If the mayor isn’t up to the job, he or she can be voted out.

It gives people a reason to take ownership of local governance, as well as challenging the parties and candidates to formulate radical and robust strategies for the city’s future, bringing to and end the stagnation from which we have all suffered.  Hull desperately needs to attract fresh opportunity through new technologies. The ‘green’ sector is flourishing, and our city is the perfect new home for such industry. We need strong, vocal political leadership in order to raise our voice above the clamour of hopeful locations vying for the revenues and jobs these industries create.

The best way to do this is to market Hull as a ‘blank canvass’. We have legions of people, desperate to learn, desperate to earn, desperate to escape benefit dependency and to respect themselves once more.  We have large swathes of disused land, ripe for modernisation, the foundations of great infrastructure, with maritime links, and what could be an excellent rail link to the nation and road network leading to the Humber Bridge and beyond if we could harness the political will to implement a strong, united claim for investment.

The battle to bring vital new business in the form of environmentally friendly technology will be all the harder when led by an outdated and increasingly irrelevant council system which survives on the antipathy of disillusioned and bereft voters.  We need a strong, passionate and visionary voice for Hull. We need someone to lead us in our struggle for a new legacy for our young, and our disenfranchised working classes. We need someone upon whom we can all exercise the ultimate sanction if they fail to live up to our expectations.  The city’s electorate needs to be taken on an exciting journey of opportunity, of new industry, of tangible investment in roads and facilities, to a place where there is a chance of a job, and a reason to lift their gaze from the floor.

Whitehall has shown time and again that it neither cares for Hull, nor is it willing to part with the cash for investment we need.  The city must therefore, be its own cheerleader, architect, and navigator on a journey to the future we all want and deserve. That can only be achieved through direct accountability, and the scrutiny of a motivated electorate.

The first step on that exciting journey must start with embracing a new age. To cherish our past is essential, but we must throw open our doors to these exciting new technologies, as well as our minds to the possibility that an elected mayor just might give us a say on where our great city is heading after all.

Thanks for reading.

Karl Davis for HullRePublic.

HullRePublic would like to thank Karl for his thought-provoking post and look forward to working with him again in the future.  So what do you think?  Should Hull have elected Mayors?  Leave us a comment.  Get in touch.  Share.  Make the Change.

Karl Davis is a train driver and trade union activist, having held a number of elected positions within the train driver’s union, ASLEF and the TUC. Karl lives in Hull, East Yorkshire, and is married with a young son.

A Labour party member and community campaigner, Karl is a member of Labour’s Future Candidate’s Programme, and has played pivotal roles in numerous local campaigns on the issues of housing, corporate manslaughter, Health & Safety for agency workers, Trawlermen’s issues, and also acted as Secretary to the families of the crew of MV Gaul, a Hull based fishing vessel lost in mysterious circumstances in the Barents Sea in 1974. Karl assisted in organising and co-ordinating the campaign to successfully pressure the government into re-opening the Formal Inquiry into the vessel’s loss.

Karl is a keen writer, regularly contributing articles to publications, including Guardian (Comment is Free), The Progressive Journal of London and The ASLEF Journal, amongst others. He has appeared on numerous local BBC News outlets connected with a multitude of issues, and engages in public speaking in support various causes.  He is currently collaborating with the Universities of Brighton & Bournemouth respectively, on a new book aimed at mental health professionals treating those affected by suicide.

Karl is also busily writing his first novel, and posts on twitter as @karldavis1979. His blog can be found at; www.karl-davis.blogspot.com

Guest Blog: A note on competition.

As regular readers will know we are keen to facilitate the views and voices of others. We were contacted by a long time supporter of our project - @migdurbeville, her blog follows:

I should start this blog with a major caveat. I don’t know a huge amount about anything. This is just a series of joined up observations which raise questions I don’t know the answer to. Before you stop reading however just think – you might know the answer to some of my questions. I might know some things which answer some of yours. So if I show you mine, and you show me yours we might get somewhere.

I have been pondering the question of competition as it seems to be a concept so favoured by this govt. The recent white paper on public services seems to want to throw all areas open to competition. The areas of education, health, social care and the police are all up for grabs. The idea seems to be that the rigours of the free market will encourage competition and therefore drive up standards (for those that survive). But at what cost? Where the private sector comes in, profit must be made. So money will be taken out of systems which we all rely on to benefit a small number of individuals. Doesn’t it make more sense to keep that money in public hands to be used for the benefit of all? Do we want to pay taxes to provide services and then find some of our money is going into the pockets of chief executives and shareholders? I think the argument is that the private sector is more efficient so we can pay the same, get a better run service and still have some money to pay the chief executive. But how are these efficiencies achieved? By trimming unprofitable areas (that one day you might need)? By paying staff less? By employing fewer staff and making them work with inadequate resources? Are the hospitals cleaner now? Are the railways safer?

Is it a fallacy to assume that competition always drives up standards? It seems that sometimes it can hold things back as people jealously guard their own corner, withhold information and try to put others working to the same ends at a disadvantage in order to claim maximum credit. Surely, more often than not, creativity and problem solving are driven by collaboration. When Christopher Reeve suffered his terrible injuries after falling from a horse he became frustrated at the way scientists and researchers in the field of neuroscience did not share their findings with each other, but kept them to themselves in the hope of being the first with the next big breakthrough – on which their funding might depend. Once he managed to persuade them to pool their knowledge and work together they began to make strides forward towards effective treatments. It was too late for Christopher Reeve but many others will benefit from what he started.

Some of you may now be thinking that I am one of those leftie types that disapproves of all competition. You would be partly right. I am a leftie type. I do not disapprove of competition per se however. I just don’t see competition as a panacea or as appropriate in all areas. With competition there will always be winners and losers. This has been openly accepted by the govt and by some of the companies wanting to move in on the public sector. But what if one of the losers is your child’s school? What if one of them is the hospital caring for your dad? They said the banks were too big to fail – surely other things should be seen as too important to fail. Besides, my work takes me into schools and I already see a healthy level of competition between schools. I also see the benefits of collaboration as schools offer a joint 6th forms or a mainstream school works with a neighbouring special school to promote integration and offer work experience opportunities. These schools have much to gain by working together and – for now – nothing to lose.

There is however a flipside to my argument. I believe that the public sector should be perfectly positioned to deliver efficiently, and cost effectively, many services on which most of us rely at some point – health, education, public transport, social care. It should be able to deliver economies of scale, opportunities for joined up thinking and collaboration. But somehow this is not always working as effectively as it should be. Money is rigidly divided up into coveted little pots. This can result in money being spent at the end of the financial year on things that are not crucial – in order to prevent that budget being cut by the same amount as the “underspend” the following year. This has never seemed to make sense (though I understand why they do it) but at the moment it seems criminal.

Different areas within the public sector sometimes seem to want to guard their own area’s influence and budgets. A culture of collaboration seems to be lacking as people fall into different “tribes” – each mistrusting the others – possibly partly due to siege mentality brought about by chronic underfunding (and less kindly, by empire building). Procurement procedures seem laborious – often, I think, in the name of transparency. There have been questionable uses of public money with some in the higher rungs earning unjustifiable salaries and retiring on pensions most of us can only dream of. Those of us in the lower rungs see this and resent it as much as anyone else. So I do recognise that all is not rosy in the public sector as it stands. There is certainly progress to be made. However there is still a sound basis from which to improve. The idea of simply doing away with most of it and bringing in the private sector to replace is a worrying concept. The public sector has come in for criticism but the private sector has not exactly been covering itself in glory either. A4E, RBS, News International. Are such companies best placed to run our schools and hospitals?

Post by @Migdurbeville. Thanks for reading.

If you would like to contribute to HullRePublic please do not hesitate to contact us. HullRePublic@gmail.com

An Honest Days’ Work.

There’s no place like… Hull.

There’s been a lot of talk in our Twitter timeline lately highlighting negative perceptions of Northerners with a councillor in Cheltenham claiming that Northerners should be banned from moving south.  We’re not going to spend our time debating the various merits of the North/South divide, instead we are going to explore the debate triggered by the Government’s seeming desire to fragment working class communities in London and relocate them in ‘declining Northern towns’ like Hull.

There are moves by some London borough to secure privately rented properties in the city to re-house those claiming Housing Benefit,  a reaction to the governments insistence on imposing a ‘benefit cap’ set at £26,000 (the figure represents the median earnings in the UK).  There are a number of issues with this figure; firstly it is not representative of the median income in the country, a family earning £26k would also be able to access approximately £5k in Family Tax Credits resulting in an income of over £30k.  Secondly the cap does nothing to acknowledge unsustainable levels of rent in the private market that have increased by 65% since 2000.  The Thatcher Government abolished the private rent cap in the 1980s, these chickens are now coming home to roost with many finding it impossible to get on the housing ladder and therefore becoming stuck in rented properties for longer periods.  We suggest to tackle this we should, in fact, be looking to cap private rents rather than income for the poorest in our country.

During the last property boom there was a huge increase in the number of ‘buy to let’ mortgages that artificially inflated house prices and subsequently the private renters market.  Instead of private landlords looking simply to make a profit on their investment, this type of property ownership now demands revenue for both mortgage payments and profit meaning that many families with long-term roots in communities are being excluded from the housing market.

The idea that families will be moved from their communities in the south and relocated seemingly without choice is unsettling.  People identify strongly with their communities (one way this can be evidenced is by the profusion of football teams in the country, with people making clear distinctions across London boroughs and across cities), in our view it is an inappropriate policy to uproot those who simply cannot afford rents in an over-inflated market.  This is further compounded by successive governments failure to build enough affordable or social housing and spiralling fuel, energy and food prices.  The cumulative affects of this are having a disproportionate impact on the unemployed and working poor.

What has not been explored is the potential impact in cities like Hull, if there is a significant influx of people claiming benefits do we run the risk of creating geographical areas with concentrated social problems?  Are we in fact ghettoising those who are unemployed in cities without the capacity or infrastructure to effectively support them?  The current squeeze on jobs locally means Hull is hardly best placed to offer opportunities for this group to secure meaningful employment.  We are not saying that Hull is a local town for local people, far from it, but we are concerned that the Government’s inflexible view on benefits will simply replace one set of issues with another.  How will Hull schools, housing offices, children’s and health services effectively support these families when the settlement from Government has seen unprecedented cuts?  This feels very much like one local authority being encouraged to export issues to another; for those living in these new gentrified areas of London will the ‘problem’ simply be ‘out of sight, out of mind’?

Architect Richard Rogers has written convincingly on the notion of the ‘compact city’, a city that has people from a range of socio-economic backgrounds living cheek by jowl in mixed communities.  He argues that such cities are best placed to counteract the negative consequences of social isolation and inequality; Government policy is starkly at odds with this idea of diverse communities and we believe this ‘ethnic cleansing’ (as described by Boris Johnson) will create unhealthy communities at both ends of the spectrum.

The grumblings of a Cheltenham councillor should not concern us; the forcible relocation of unemployed and working poor people absolutely should.

Thanks for reading.

HullRePublic.

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Please get in touch: HullRePublic@gmail.com

Guest Blog: Soundbites, Spin and Spartacus.

The problem with the truth is that it’s complicated. Lies are simple, they can be altered to fit any audience, they can be sensational without any boring honest bits to dilute the story. Honesty doesn’t make headlines. That’s the problem with the Welfare Reform Bill; not the only problem, obviously, but the reason that there won’t be a huge public outcry until its too late.

For over a year now disability campaigners have been opposing the Welfare Reform Bill, countering the tabloids’ lies and the Government’s spin with detailed research and clear logic. Most of the proposals sound great in principle but if you take a closer look and work out the implications a completely different story unfolds.

Take Disability Living Allowance, the non means tested benefit paid to disabled and ill people to help with the additional cost of daily living and getting around. The proposal is to scrap DLA and replace it with Personal Independence Payment (PIP) cutting the caseload by around 20%. As the present fraud rate is 0.5% it’s clear that many genuine claimants will no longer qualify. DLA has been very successful in enabling disabled people to live independently and in many cases to stay in employment but the government believes it is ‘outdated’. The DWP says ‘most people receive DLA for life after just filling in a form’. That’s a great soundbite. The truth is that many people with permanent disabilities or degenerative conditions can receive a lifetime award after filling out a very detailed and intrusive 50 page document AND submitting evidence from their GP, hospital consultant etc. That’s not so good a soundbite.

The DWP states that everyone will undergo a face to face medical assessment on a regular basis. This sounds very reasonable at first glance and another great soundbite. The problem is that the medical assessment will be modeled on the Work Capability Assessment used for determining qualification for Employment Support Allowance. These assessments are universally accepted as flawed and have generated an unmanageable caseload for the Appeals Tribunal Service which overturns 40% of decisions at huge cost to the taxpayer. Continually reassessing claimants sounds good but as a large percentage of claimants have permanent disabilities, checking to see if amputated limbs have re-grown or if MS has gone away is a waste of everyone’s time and money.

Frustrated by being told by the DWP that disabled people were in favour of the planned changes to DLA, a group of disabled activists researched, funded and published a report called ‘Responsible Reform’. The document, known as the Spartacus Report because a huge number of individuals were involved, explains how the Government ran a flawed consultation process and then published misleading statements about the level of approval for the proposed changes. The Spartacus report is supported by almost all of the major charities representing ill and disabled people, healthcare professionals, carers and pretty much everyone else who reads it. Sadly, a factual document will never catch the eye like a dramatic soundbite.

The Spartacus report did help to influence the House of Lords. After receiving unprecedented numbers of letters and emails from disabled people, concerned individuals and organisations, many Lords considered our views and debated the Welfare Reform Bill thoroughly, making several amendments. Although the amendments don’t make the bill perfect, or even good, they do mitigate some of the most damaging aspects.

Last Wednesday the House of Commons debated the amendments proposed by the House of Lords. I followed the debate on Twitter as I usually do, holding ‘virtual’ hands with the other Spartacus supporters; we watched in horror and despair as one by one each hard won amendment was overturned after cursory and mostly ill informed debate (one MP even claimed that disability benefits had become a lifestyle choice). The Commons then invoked parliamentary ‘Financial Privilege’ to shut down further debate.

As I watched the distraught reactions of my friends, I noticed several people celebrating the result of the votes, I normally ignore such people but I was angry and upset so I challenged some of them. It was a chilling reminder of the power of spin and the soundbite over truth and reason.

Every one of them was celebrating the benefit cap, for them it was all the Welfare Reform Bill consisted of, they were pleased that ‘work-shy scroungers’ would no longer be allowed to get more in benefits than they earned by working. I can understand this, it’s what the government and most of the media have concentrated on to whip up public support and distract attention for the other elements of the bill.

When I explained what the Commons had actually voted on they were surprised, when I told them about the disabled children getting less money, the cancer patients being forced to look for work, the people who have paid NI all their lives only being able to claim benefit for one year whether they’re well enough to work or not, the disabled children who will never enjoy financial independence as adults and the people being forced to leave their homes because they have a spare room, they were shocked.

The people I spoke to believed that everyone who could work should work, that working was better than idleness and should be encouraged. They were appalled when I told them about Universal Credit and ‘in work conditionality’. They didn’t realise that people who didn’t earn enough not to need Tax Credits or Housing Benefit would be expected to earn more or face financial sanctions; suddenly the Welfare Reform Bill didn’t seem so worthy of celebration. This is typical of the response of most ordinary people when I explain what welfare reform will actually mean to them.

This bill is an eye-wateringly huge piece of legislation, its scope is vast. Everyone of working age who claims any type of ‘in work’ or ‘out of work’ benefit will be affected, many of the people affected don’t even know yet. It’s not just a benefit cap and its not just about disabled kids and cancer patients, it’s about nearly all of us, either now or in the future. No amount of soundbite or spin will change the fact that many of us will be affected badly.

Disabled people are not fighting this bill because we are ‘work-shy scroungers’, we’re fighting it because it is an ill conceived and damaging piece of legislation and the rhetoric which surrounds it is dangerous. ‘Disabled person’ is now synonymous with scrounger and disability hate crime is increasing. If welfare reform did what it promised to do we would support it wholeheartedly; we would love a system that was simple to understand, supported us into work (where appropriate) and deterred benefit cheats. This bill will not do that, it will leave all but the most severely disabled with less support, it will break up families and force many disabled people and carers to give up work and claim more benefits, nor will not deter benefit cheats, where there is money there will be cheats - just look at the tax system.

I’m proud that we fought an honest campaign, we looked at the facts and we told the truth. We wrote articles and gave interviews, we protested on the streets, we wrote to MPs and Peers of the Realm, we signed petitions and we published a ground breaking report. We gave our time and our health. People who were already struggling with illness and disability gave all they could, the effort of campaigning put some of our friends in hospital. The government had all the resources and all of the power, they fought a campaign Machiavelli would have been proud of. All we had was our fear, our anger and each other. This was not a battle we wanted to fight, but we had no choice because these decisions affect our lives.

The Welfare Reform Bill has been described as a ‘slow motion car crash’. Those of us who have been watching the process closely for months can relate to this idea. Just like a car crash, when you feel the impact it’s too late to shout STOP.

by @nessthehat for HullRePublic

We’d like to thank Ness for her take on the Welfare Reform Bill debate; we appreciate your hard work and your excellent contribution.

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