Owen Jones arrived in Liverpool yesterday with Zack Polanski and entered Labour Conference to do his usual filming. Labour has taken issue…
The party says it is a ‘safeguarding’ issue: “We have a responsibility to safeguard all our delegates, staff, volunteers, and visitors, and to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for everyone at conference. After careful consideration, we’ve concluded that we cannot continue your attendance while ensuring we meet our safeguarding obligations to all attendees.” It adds: “We hope you’ll understand that this decision was made with everyone’s wellbeing in mind”…
Chilling. Nicely timed ahead of Starmer’s speech…
Read their full email below:
Continue reading “Labour Cancels Owen Jones’ Party Conference Pass”
Wes Streeting used his conference speech to call for Angela Rayner to return to government. He said:
“And there’s someone else who’s made a real difference, too. She brought that experience to the cabinet table as a care worker, who became our country’s deputy prime minister. Angela Rayner, this achievement is yours. Thank you. And we want her back as well. We’ll definitely make sure she sees that. We need her back.”
Standing ovation…
A Labour DWP minister has complained that her department is too focussed on policing job centre claims. Good to know where the party is on the issue…
Employment minister Diana Johnson told a panel at Labour Conference this morning:
“I’ve been in the job three weeks and I can tell immediately there is a certain culture in the DWP, I was talking earlier on about being in a museum and not wanting to break out of that. I think the idea really in the DWP, particularly in the job centres, is that it’s often about policing and policing people’s claims and ensuring that they are going through the process of making the claims and doing what they’re being asked to do rather than a service to the public to support them through tough times but to very much be there at their side enabling and helping and supporting.”
Johnson claimed the system had to change to be “alongside citizens” rather than telling people to fill in forms and explaining “this is what we’ll do to you if you don’t do what we tell you.” Stop all that enforcement…
It is the policing of claims that prevents rampant expansion in benefit claims. Johnson suggested changing that “culture” was a priority for ministers:
“Changing culture is easier said than done… but it’s a journey and I think people are up for it in the DWP… It’s not providing the best and it’s not giving job satisfaction to those work coaches who are really important people doing the work to get others into employment.”
After being defeated on its proposed reforms to the benefits system Starmer has inserted former de facto Deputy PM Pat McFadden into DWP – that’s a demotion by the way – as a signal of his intention to go for reform again. Without strict policing and cuts Labour proposals are just wishful thinking about ‘culture’ and ‘service to the public’…
Health Secretary Wes Streeting is up. Expect some attacks on Farage…
After some Nigel bashing, Streeting calls for Angela Rayner to return to government: “We want her back. We need her back”.
Read his speech in full below:
Continue reading “LIVE: Streeting Delivers Conference Speech”
The economics editor of the newspaper of record said on Newsnight: “I’m actually quite sympathetic to Andy Burnham’s comments about being in hock to the bond markets… I think it needs to be told to the British public that this third rail does limit democratic choices”. A fair riposte from Victoria Derbyshire who pointed out that the bond market would, er, still exist whoever was in charge…
The Mail on Sunday uncovered a remarkable set of NHS guidance this weekend – from NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme website – that claimed first-cousin marriage is linked to “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages”. After the story broke, the NHS quickly junked the website and Health Secretary Wes Streeting has now called for an apology from the unit behind it…
But Guido can reveal there is more material written by the NHS that takes a questionable line. A research presentation published by the NHS’s National Institute for Health Research – still online – recommends that healthcare staff should: “Develop cultural competence in service delivery and cultural awareness training that focus on breaking down stereotypes and understanding consanguinity (and termination) from an Islamic perspective.” What?
Dr Patrick Nash, an expert on religious law and director of the Pharos Foundation, told Guido: “The NHS clearly has form in this area. Going back over a decade, official NHS material is prioritising ‘cultural awareness training’ over sound advice to the public. Weak educational programmes such as this have had no clear impact on consanguinity rates or the prevalence of harmful cultural beliefs – only an outright ban will suffice. The government needs to legislate without delay and pay no heed to low-grade sociology.”
Richard Holden MP, spearheading the campaign to ban the practice, told Guido: “Sir Keir Starmer should stop running scared of the misogynistic community controllers and their quislings who appear in the form of cultural relativist obsessed sociology professors, and ban a practice the overwhelming majority, from every community in Britain, want to see ended for good.” The campaign continues…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”