Home » Money
Category Archives: Money
Cash Strapped, Vote-Buying, Petroleum Scarcity, and the Challenge of a 21st Century Election
Democratic elections are considered an important mechanism and a powerful tool used to choose political leaders. However, the level of transparency and the safety of votes, the electorates, and the aspirants as recent elections in supposed strong democracies indicate is not a given. Even more, in weak and fragile states, voters grapple with uncertainties including the herculean task of deciding on whom or perhaps what to pledge allegiance to?
Nigerians face such uncertainties as over 93 million voters are set to decide the new leadership of the most populous country in Africa in less than 24 hours. Three contestants: Ahmed Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC); Peter Obi of the Labour Party(LP); and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PSP) are considered the major contestants of the coveted seat of the presidency. All 3 contestants are neither strangers to political power nor free of controversies. Nevertheless, a plethora of problems awaits the successful candidate, including a spiking impatience with government policies from the populace.
Since assuming office in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has consciously implemented numerous policies aimed at changing the tide of the crippling economy of Nigeria. One of this was tightening control of foreign exchange and forex restrictions to minimise pressure on the weak exchange rate of the naira against other currencies, and to encourage local manufacturing. Furtherance to this, the government implemented more restrictions including closing all its land borders in August 2019 to curtail smuggling contrabands and to boost agricultural outputs. These policies have been criticised for increasing the hardship of the mostly poor masses and failing to yield desired goals, despite its resulting in an increase in local production of some agricultural products.
The aviation sector and multinational companies were also heavily impacted by the forex restrictions. International airliners were unable to access and repatriate their business funds and profits. As a result, some suspended operations while some multinationals closed down completely. Flawed policy articulation and implementation and a slow or total failure to respond to public disenchantment has been the bane of the 8 years of Buhari regime which ends in a few months. While the masses grappled with surviving movement restrictions during the Covid-19 lockdown, palliative meant for to ease their suffering were hoarded for longer than necessary, thereby provoking series of mass looting and destruction of the storage warehouses.
Demands for action and accountability over police reform also assumed a painful dimension. On 20 October 2020, peaceful protesters demanding the abolishment of a notoriously corrupt, brutal, rogue, and stubborn police unit called SARS were attacked by government forces who killed at least 12 protesters. Incidents as this supports Nigeria’s ranking as an authoritarian regime on the democratic index. Unsurprisingly, the regime appears numb to the spate of violence, insecurity, and recurring killings perpetrated by a complex mix of militias, criminal groups, terrorists, and state institutions as the #EndSARS massacre demonstrates. Thus, a wave of migration among mainly skilled and talented young Nigerians now manifests as a #Japa phenomenon. The two most impacted sectors, health and education ironically supply significant professionals in nations where the political class seek medical treatment or educate their children while neglecting own sectors.
Certainly, the legacy of the Buhari regime would be marred by these challenges which his party presidential candidate and prominent party stalwarts have distanced from. Indeed, they fear electorates would vote against the party as a protest over their suffering. Suffice it that Nigerians lived through the previous year in acute scarcity and non-availability of petroleum products, which further deepened inflation. Currently, cash scarcity is causing untold hardship due to the implementation of a currency redesign and withdrawal limits policy. The timing of the implementation of the policy coincides with the election and is thought to aim at curtailing vote-buying as witnessed in party primary elections. However, there is no guarantee that bank officials would effectively implement the policy.
Thus, as Nigeria decides, the 3 contestants present different realities for the country. For some, voting in the ruling APC candidate who has a questionable history could mean a continuation of the woes endured during the Buhari regime. The PDP candidate who was instrumental in the 2015 election of Buhari has severally been fingered for numerous controversies and corruption, despite having not been prosecuted for any. Similarly, allegations levelled against the LP candidate who has found wide popularity and acceptance amongst the young population has not resulted in any prosecution. However, while the candidate is popular for his anti-establishment stance and desire to change the current system, it is unclear if his party which has no strong political structure, serving governors, or representatives can pull the miracle his campaign has become associated with to win the coveted seat.
Share this:
From Criminal to the ‘Rule of Law’? Johnson’s border policy on refugees
Britain has a very proud history of taking refugees and migrants from war-torn and destabilised areas of the world – this is a fact which has been made clear from all sides of the political spectrum. What is concerning, however, is that this statement has since Brexit been continuously added as a precursor to every new border policy blunder made by the UK Conservative government in an attempt to ‘soften the blow’ of public perception. It is the paradox of Boris Johnson trying to appeal to those sympathetic to migration, but to also appease hard-line anti-immigration Brexiteers. This paradox was inevitable, given (a) the close split between Leave and Remain votes in the 2016 EU Referendum, and (b) the amount of lies told to both sides of this debate by Johnson and his ‘mates’ in a desperate attempt to gain political power in 2019…leaving the British public in permanent limbo as whether or not ‘Brexit’ (in the way it was described) had even taken place at all; a state of ‘technically we’re out, but we’re not really out’.
Given the ease of shaping and reproducing ‘empty signifiers’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Torfing, 1999) within this discursive limbo, Boris Johnson’s latest border policy disaster relating to refugee border crossings was announced yesterday. The new “genius” idea will be to deport those who are single men crossing the Channel in boats or lorries from France to Rwanda for ‘processing’. Of course, as per usual, this was seemingly quite a surprise to the Minister of State for Refugees who claimed on LBC just over a week prior to the announcement that he had no knowledge of any new plans to send anyone to Rwanda.
Before going into the details of the hypocrisy associated with this policy in the light of the war in Ukraine, what I fail to understand is the entire point of this process. Boris Johnson’s announcement seemed to focus most of his rhetoric on the ‘illegality’ of the status of people entering UK borders, as well as the need to curb ‘people smuggling’. He merged this part of his speech with Ukrainian refugees in an attempt to, once again, appear to seem more sympathetic to the struggle of fleeing populations than he is in reality…’whether you are fleeing Putin or Assad, our aim is that you should not need to turn to people smugglers or any other kind of illegal option’. It is important to note that we shouldn’t be confusing (as often happens) the term ‘people smugglers’ with ‘sex traffickers’, whose motives are wholly different than merely receiving money to aid someone’s journey across nation state borders. People smugglers tend to take advantage of those who are in sheer desperation. This desperation is normally grounded in a combination of multiple factors: (1) destabilisation in their home country, (2) fear for their life, safety, or future (or that of their family), (3) strong desire for liberation or freedom and, most importantly, (4) a practical inability to actually escape their current borders.
With this in mind, it is astonishing to hear Johnson trying to justify this policy on the grounds that he is somewhat of a rule-of-law fan, wishing to drive out illegal behaviour from UK borders, given that he has recently become the first ever serving UK Prime Minister to have been sanctioned for breaking the criminal law. As with many similar approaches to these types of policies in the past (the obvious being the so-called ‘war on drugs’), the core motivation has very little to do with the actual human safety, and more rooted in neoliberal frustrations of the (and I deliberately use this term in its loosest possible sense) ’tax-paying’ Eton schoolboys at others, within UK borders or otherwise, earning any kind of money from which they are not directly benefitting. This ties in closely to, what I mentioned in a previous post, as the UK Conservative Party’s lazy response to sanctioning oligarchs linked to the Putin regime…for obvious personal reasons.
Most striking here is the level of hypocrisy between who is considered part of the in-group of migrants and refugees, and who is the ‘other’; the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ (Cottle, 2000; Van Dijck, 2000; Quinsaat, 2011; Reed, 2017). Without deflecting from Putin’s responsibility in reproducing anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Russia and surrounding former Soviet nations, and framing the ethnic group as some kind of leeching parasite on the Russian people, we have seen both overt and covert racism at play in Ukraine and other parts of the world in relation to this idea of ‘ideal’ refugees. The UK is no exception to this. Not since the aftermath of the Second World War have we seen the type of outpouring of sympathy by the British public towards a persecuted ethnic group, with hundreds-of-thousands opening up their homes to house refugees expected imminently. Of course we should be proud of every hand extended to any human in need of help, but where was this reaction when Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans were fleeing their countries due to botched UK military operations in their sovereign territory? Where is this reaction when innocent Yemeni people are calling on the world to help while we are funding Saudi Arabia’s genocidal campaign in their sovereign territory?
It is too simple to claim that this issue is purely related to skin-colour-based racism or another type of xeno-racism, because we know this not to be the case. Perhaps due to the personal nature of the conflict in the Republic of Artsakh in late 2020 which killed thousands of Armenians and displaced around 90,000, and the rhetoric of neutrality from the UK Conservative government (due to their close monetary ties with the aggressor and his oligarch friends), the mainstream media and near-total silence from prominent celebrities…all of whom seem to now scream for action in response to Ukraine (rightly so), but I can’t help but echo a question asked by another Armenian, Tatev Hovhannisyan: Where was the outpouring of empathy when my country was at war?
Perhaps to understand the nature of this hypocrisy we need to focus more on the complex interplay between the nation state, power and discourse. I would add another element into this equation: money. In a neoliberal, populist political model, dictators seemingly pay vast sums of money to other nation states in exchange for the unyielding, unchallenged and unregulated power to produce and reproduce dominant discourses which ground their version of hegemony within those states.
References
Cottle, S. (Ed.). (2000). Ethnic Minorities and the Media. Open University Press.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Verso.
Quinsaat, S. M. (2011). ‘Everybody Around Here is from Somewhere Else’: News frames and hegemonic discourses in the immigration debates in the United States, 2006 and 2010 [MA Thesis]. University of Pittsburgh: Kenneth P Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
Reed, H. (2017). Framing of Immigrants and Refugees: A content analysis of mainstream and partisan news coverage of immigration [MA Thesis]. University of Missouri: Faculty of the Graduate School.
Torfing, J. (1999). New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Žižek. Blackwell.
Van Dijk, T. A. (2000). New(s) Racism: A Discourse Analytical Approach. European Journal of Political Economy, 33–49.
Share this:
Visiting the Zoo: a staple of privilege
Whilst the current weather may not imply it, we are into the summer months! At this time of year staff and students begin to take a much needed and well-deserved rest after the challenging academic year we have all faced. With this time, holidays, day trips, meals out, picnics, walks and many more joyful pastimes begin to fill up the calendar, although many of us find ourselves quite restricted due to the ongoing pandemic. Nevertheless, we should all make the most of the time off to re-charge and spend time with our loved ones. For myself and my partner, this meant a day trip to Whipsnade Zoo!
Whilst the weather app assured us it would not rain, we spent a fairly windy and wet day walking around Whipsnade Zoo viewing the animals and all in all having a fabulous day. The schools are not out yet, therefore most visitors were adults on annual leave, individuals who I assume are retired, or parents with small children. We had plenty of space and time throughout the day to see the animals, read the information plaques and enjoy a wet but scrummy picnic. I dread to think what it would have been like in the height of the summer holidays!
But where am I going with this other than to brag about my fabulous day at the Zoo and what has this got to do with checking our privilege? Well, it begins with the cost to entire said Zoo. I have not been to a Zoo since I was in my school years. We used to visit Colchester Zoo most summer holidays with the Tesco Clubcard vouchers, which in a nutshell meant you could exchange Clubcard points for vouchers/tickets which included the Zoo. Therefore a trip to the Zoo when we were younger cost petrol money and a picnic (which was always done on the cheap). This is an affordable day out, but we were only a family of 3 (1 adult and 2 children), so not that many Clubcard points required, and quite a minimal picnic. Also we were fortunate enough to have a car which is not the case for all families. So even with the vouchers and picnic I cannot help but reflect and think how privileged we were to be able to visit the Zoo.
The Zoo trip this week cost just short of £50 for a student admission and an adult admission. I did think this was quite a lot. I think about what the cost would be for 2 adults and a child (or multiple children). Already this is gearing up to be an expensive day out. The Zoo has lots of interactive parts for children to engage with and learn from, and of course they have animals. But is the Zoo really aimed at educating all children or is it only those children whose families can afford it (E.I children belonging of a certain socio-economic status)? Once we arrived at the Zoo and looked around the carpark we couldn’t see a Bustop. What about the families who cannot afford a car? The food outlets were extortionate: £4 for a coffee!! Its cheaper in the West End! The same statement although different prices applies to ice-cream. I feel good that we have taken our makeshift picnic and flasks with us: but what about those who cannot?
The long-winded and verbose point I am trying to make is that even everyday things require us to check our privilege. I spoke to my partner on the drive home about the beauty and wonder of the Zoo and how we are fortunate to be able to go and how I was fortunate to go most summers as a child. But once the Clubcard vouchers stopped, so did the trips to the Zoo. There are many who are unable to enjoy the Zoo, to gain from the educational experience of learning about the animals, what they eat, where they live etc. And I can’t help but reflect and wonder is this establishment really inclusive to all? Is there something society can do to break down the class barriers which appear to be present when planning a trip to the Zoo?
Share this:
Fifty Pounds Per Child Per Year
Usually I consume my news through the BBC app, although occasionally I enjoy getting the run down of political affairs from the horses mouth, so to speak. Often I watch the Prime Ministers Questions, getting riled up at the majority of topics raised. However, yesterday (9/06/21), I found myself getting particularly outraged and passionate at a certain issue that has also been highly reported in the news.
Earlier last week, the Prime Minister outlined his Covid recovery package for schools, he pledged £1.4bn to enable students to catch up on the work, education and socialisation that has been missed. The controversy appears when comparing this figure to £13.5bn, originally suggested by Education Policy Institute (Education Policy Institute, 2021). To put it into perspective, £1.4bn equates to about £50 per child, per year- apparently you certainly can put a price on children’s education. Even with Johnson’s additional £1bn funding that will stretch across the next three years, the ‘recovery’ package is frankly laughable, it was a move that saw the education recovery commissioner, Kevan Collins, resign in protest.
Putting funding and economics aside, I think that this was a prime example of how the importance of education is once again, being forgotten. The potential power of the education system is not being utilised by any means. Politicians are still not realising that education reform doesn’t have to mean tougher discipline and it doesn’t have to mean more Ofsted checks and it certainly doesn’t have to mean more stressful, ‘rigorous testing’ of students, something which former education secretary Michael Gove pushed for in 2013 (Adams, 2013).
“Simply making exams harder does not guarantee higher standards nor mean that students will be prepared for a job.”
~ Brian Lightman (Adams, 2013)
Forcing misbehaved children out of school through punitive disciplinary actions, suspensions and exclusions simply puts them on the road to loosing faith in the education system and increases their likely hood of antisocial behaviour, which can lead to criminal careers later in life. The importance of creating an educational environment that students actually want to be a part of cannot be understated.
Furthermore, the importance of altering the current curriculum is completely overlooked. School has the potential to give children and teenagers the ability to have more autonomy over so many aspects of their later life; adequate lessons about political ideology, history and the voting system, done in an accessible way, has the potential to raise more politically aware, inclined individuals that feel equipped to engage and participate in the democratic process on a local and national scale.
Appropriate finance and law classes could eventually go on to raise a higher number of adults who feel able to handle their money situations in a better, healthier way; they could also begin to understand their rights and the court processes better. Finally, focusing on the decolonisation of the curriculum could allow ethnic minorities and other marginalised demographics to learn about their ancestors, history and culture in a more mainstream, impartial way. The impacts of restructuring the standard and the content of the schooling curriculum could have an abundance of benefits, not only to individuals but to society itself.
However, with no clear moves for the education secretary to explore theses benefits further and implement any changes, along with the promised £50 per pupil, per year, it is evident that the potential power of the education system has once again been understated and that, education is, indeed, not a priority for the current government.
Adams, R., 2013. GCSEs to become more demanding and rigorous, says Michael Gove. [online] The Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jun/11/gcse-demanding-rigorous-michael-gove>
Education Policy Institute. 2021. EPI responds to the government’s new education recovery package – Education Policy Institute. [online] Available at: <https://epi.org.uk/comments/epi-responds-to-the-governments-new-education-recovery-package/>
A link for the Prime Minister’s Questions episode: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zQkiEAZ2oh0&feature=youtu.be
A link for the Prime Minister’s Question with BSL: https://youtu.be/ZgcnQqbChZs
Share this:
The ‘Dangers’ of Travelling
This month, during the brief lull between the teaching and marking season, I had allocated myself a bit more free-time than usual. I have not been able to indulge in my hobby of travelling for a while, so instead of this, I have been watching travel related-television programmes with the hope that these will provide me with some kind of joy.
This attempt has been a partial success; an influx of comedy travel shows have worked wonders to uplift my spirits whilst simultaneously reminding me about the beauty of nature; animals, plants, sea, land…(and even humans).
Covid has taken over travel related news at the moment, but in ‘usual’ times it does not require much effort to come across travel documentaries or news reports that seem to encourage prejudice by depicting other countries and travelling as being strange or dangerous. I do worry that this type of coverage might discourage people from wanting to explore the world.
It is difficult to assess the extent to which the television influences our opinions, but when I was a bit younger and discussing my travel plans with others, sometimes I would be met with the following comments:
Response: I would love to travel but I can’t
Me: Why can’t you?
Response: It is dangerous!
Me: How do you know this?
Response: …It said so on the television
There are many genuine reasons that prevent people from travelling, such as, money, responsibilities, health, conflict, misogyny and racism etc. But I find the above reason to be such a shame.
I have encountered many myths over the years which seem to have been gained from watching the television. Here are some of my favorites:
Myth 1: If you see a [insert wild animal here], it will eat you alive
My experience: Take crocodiles for example, these are not as bad as they seem. Yes, arguably crocodiles are death machines but I have seen many in the wild and I am still alive.
Myth 2: The local ‘criminals’ are dangerous
My experience: On very rare occasions I have witnessed crime being committed whilst abroad. I once sat on a coach full of people who were attempting to smuggle cocaine to Brazil. I have also stumbled upon situations which the media described as ‘riots’ and I have also witnessed a few thefts. In these situations, the locals were not a danger to myself, but crime seemed to be a way of being able to afford to live or the result of the occasional angry outburst amongst crowds of protesters, motivated by frustrations with the state.
Myth 3: If you accept the hospitality of strangers you will be murdered in your sleep
My experience: The chances of this happening are very slim. Travelling tends to restore my faith in humanity, the people that I meet whilst travelling can be incredibly kind and helpful.
I found that whilst I was a student, I was able to travel to many places on relatively limited over-draft funds. I hope that the students that I teach are able to do the same, as travel really can broaden the mind. Although, maybe I am wrong for encouraging others to travel, as travelling also makes you very aware of the damage that has been caused to the world, and my own part with in it.
Share this:
Deniable racism: ‘I’m alright Jack’
Photograph: Bill Orchard/Rex/Shutterstock
I heard on the news a week or so ago that an investigation by ITV news had found that the majority of NHS Trusts have not completed full risk assessments on BAME staff. Considering that BAME groups are impacted disproportionately by COVID-19 I have to ask why? And, probably more importantly, now that the issue has been raised, what are the government doing to make sure that the risk assessments are carried out? Since I heard about it I’ve seen no response, so I guess I can answer my own question ‘nothing’.
But then maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, I read an article on Racism and the Rule of Law and you can’t but be appalled by the number of recommendations from various inquiries and reviews that have failed to be acted upon. The problem is that the action requires more than just the eloquently spoken or written word; to put it very bluntly and maybe crudely, ‘put your money where your mouth is’. It is easy to state that this is wrong or that is wrong in our institutions, the term ‘institutional racism’ trots off the tongue, seized upon by the wronged and more worryingly banded about by the societal racists of the elite who are only too willing to blame someone else. In thinking about this I wonder whether when we use the term racism, we are all talking the same language. The ‘deniable’ racism is easy to identify, ‘we don’t use that sort of language anymore’, ‘we no longer put those signs in our windows’, we have laws that say you can’t act in that way. ‘Actually, I’m not a racist’. But the statistics don’t lie, they can be bent, manipulated to some extent to favour one argument or another but there are some very basic inescapable facts, BAME groups are over represented in the wrong areas of our society and under represented in the right areas. And most of this I dare say does not owe itself to ‘deniable’ racism, it’s more than that, it’s embedded in our society, it’s not institutional racism, it’s societal racism and it’s hidden. The problem with societal racism is that we only see the positive attributes of people that are like us and we promote those that excel in showing those attributes. Hence, we have the elite in business and government that are not ‘deniable’ racists but nonetheless are the epitome of, and lead a racist society.
I want to return to the idea of ‘putting your money where your mouth is’ mantra. They say money makes the world go around, I’m not sure that is entirely true, but it certainly goes a long way to getting things done and conversely the lack of it ensures that nothing happens or in some cases that good things come to an end. A prime example is the austerity measures put in place in 2010 that saw budgets to government agencies and funding to councils cut significantly. Those that suffered were the most deprived. Even worse, was the fact that funding for youth projects in inner cities suffered and those initiatives that were aimed at reducing violent crime amongst young people ground to a halt. Policing saw huge cuts and with it the withdrawal of neighbourhood policing. This link to communities was severed and any good work that was going on was quickly undone. That doesn’t explain all that is wrong with policing, but it certainly doesn’t help in building bridges. Who in their right mind would embark upon fiscal policies with no regard to such outcomes, our elected government did. If we think now about the so-called return to normality post the Covid-19 pandemic, which caring company or institution would suggest that the most impacted by the virus should continue or return to work, or study, or any other activity, without considering their specific risks and needs? Probably those that have more concern for the bottom line than peoples’ lives. ‘I’m alright Jack’ comes to mind or at least I want to make sure I am.
In thinking about policies, procedures, risk assessments or recommendations, managers have an eye to finance. In the NHS, the day to day business still has to happen, in policing, incidents still need to be attended to, so where is the money to do the extra? Everything comes at a cost and every recommendation in every review will cost something. The NHS risk assessments will cost money. The question is whether government and all of us in society really believe that ‘black lives matter’. If we do, then then it’s time to acknowledge the type of society we live in and who we really are and for government to ‘put the money where its mouth is’ so that the recommendations can be acted on. Or of course, we could just have another review and ‘Jack’ will do very nicely out of that as well thank you.
Share this:
Stop Protecting the #PervertPrince
In the past six months, I have been reflecting on recent stories that have hit media headlines. Although these topics are extremely important, in my opinion not enough “meaningful” discussion has been had. I’m referring to the sexual exploitation of children – the power imbalance, that powerful men within society have abused and have seeming got away with. I start with Jeffrey Epstein.
Although he was convicted of sexual crimes against children, his conviction is one of deceit. The American justice system let down his victims, disguising the severity of his crimes, allowing him to continue his abuse of power on vulnerable children. He was not charged with paedophilia or rape, the US legal system thought it would be fitting to charge him with solicitation of minors for prostitution.
There are various things that are problematic with this, but one of the biggest problems for me is using minors and prostitution in the same sentence. It annoys me that we tend to view our society as progressive and yet we still label children as prostitutes, forgetting that there is a legal age of consent and no child can be a prostitute as they cannot give consent, as much as the law would suggest. This is reminiscent of the Rotherham sex ring, where police labelled minors as prostitutes, forgetting that they are victims of coercion, exploitation and rape. This ideology quickly moves the emphasis away from the perpetrators of crime while negatively impacting the victim. It is time that we have compassion for the victims of such awful crimes and move away from labelling and blaming.
It makes my blood boil that people have the audacity to argue that the US legal systems failings can be used as an outlet of blame for the relationship that Epstein, Prince Andrew and President Clinton had. Lady Colin Campbell stated that if the US legal system had been more transparent Clinton and the shamed Prince would have made better judgements on their friendship with him. She and others have come to this defence of the ‘upper crust,’ using the American justice system failings as a crutch for their wrongdoings.
Although some may agree with her, I must highlight some glaring points that should be raised, before she states such ludicrous statements – such as: Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton’s advisors would have done thorough background checks on Epstein. This would have identified his crimes and his monstrous ways. They would have disclosed the information that was flagged to them and then warned them against forming relationships with the known predator. If these men had any shred of decency, then they would have kept a distance.
My conclusion as to why they did not, is because they feel they are above the law and do not have to conform to the norms that the rest of society subscribes too. It is all about money and status to them, if you are not one of them, you are not human. This notion was visible when Prince Andrew had his very uncomfortable interview with Emily Maitlis. During the interview he never displayed any kind of remorse for the victims. He didn’t even mention them or their harm. He used phrases like Epstein engaged in activity that is unbecoming rather than condemning his actions and showing any kind of emotion. This reaction, or lack of, has only stretched his credibility. He blazingly lied throughout the interview and his actions have made him look like a bumbling pervert.
Even though Prince Andrew has demonstrated a lack of morality, the biggest discussion that surrounds this entity is whether he should step down from his royal duties. It seems everyone forgets that he has shown a lack of compassion, he has been pictured with young girls who have accused him and Epstein of violating them. But being a prince trumps all these facts, as he is let off lightly.
He is rich and powerful, and like Epstein, their status has sheltered them from real-world consequences. Epstein is now deceased, but it was all on his terms and once again the victimisation of children has been overshadowed by the circumstances of how he died. The salacious topic of how he managed to commit suicide and whether he was murdered is now big news. As for Prince Andrew, I cannot imagine he will be found guilty and he will not speak publicly about this topic again. Some may demand answers, but he will be protected from any real justice.
It is time that we start opening our eyes and acknowledging the victims of these crime. It is time to make it known that just because you are royalty, a billionaire or a socialite you are not above the law. We need to fight for the voiceless in our society, against the people who abuse their power and stop making excuses for them.
Share this:
Ho ho homeless: Boris and reasons to be cheerful.
“Homeless Rough Sleeper” by Deadly Sirius is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A week has passed since the election and our political parties have had time to reflect on their victory or demise. With such a huge majority in parliament, we can be certain, whether we agree with it or not, that Brexit will be done in one form or another. The prime minister at the first meeting of his cabinet, and as if on cue ready for my blog, in front of the cameras repeated the pre-election promise of 40 extra hospitals and 50,000 extra nurses.
Putting aside my cynicism and concern about how we, as a country, are going to grow enough money trees without our foreign agricultural workers after Brexit, I welcome this much needed investment. I should add here that in the true sense of fairness, pre-election, other parties were likewise offering wonderful trips to fairyland, with riches beyond our wildest dreams. Trying to out trump each other, they managed to even out trump Trump in their hyperbole.
However, rather appropriately as it turns out, whilst sitting in the waiting room at a general hospital on election day, I read a couple of disturbing articles in the i newspaper. Pointing to the fact that makeshift shelters are becoming increasingly common in British cities one article quoted statistics from Homeless Link showing that rough sleeping had increased by 165% since 2010 (Spratt, 2019). Alongside, another article stated that A&E admissions of homeless patients had tripled in the last eight years with 36,000 homeless people attending in the last year (Crew 2019). Whilst I am always cautious regarding statistics, the juxtaposition makes for some interesting observations.
The first being that the promised investment in the NHS is simply a sticking plaster that attempts to deal with the symptoms of an increasingly unequal society.
The second being that the investment will never be enough because groups in society are becoming increasingly marginalised and impoverished and will therefore become an increasing burden on the NHS.
Logic, let alone the medical profession and others, leads me to conclude that if a person does not have enough to eat and does not have enough warmth then they are likely to become ill both physically and probably mentally. So, alongside the homeless, we can add a huge swathe of the population that are on the poverty line or below it that need the services of the NHS. Add to this those that do not have job security, zero-hour contracts being just one example, have massive financial burdens, students another example, and it is little wonder that we have an increasing need for mental health services and another drain on NHS resources. And then of course there are the ‘bed blockers’, a horrible term as it suggests that somehow, it’s their fault, these are of course the elderly, in need of care but with nowhere to go because the social care system is in crises (As much of the right-wing pre-Brexit rhetoric has espoused, “It’ll be better when all the foreigners that work in the system leave after Brexit”). It seems to me that if the government are to deal with the crises in the NHS, they would be better to start with investment in tackling the causes, rather than the symptoms*.
Let me turn back to the pre-election promises, the newspaper articles, and another post-election promise by Boris Johnson.
My recollection of the pre-election promises was around Brexit, the NHS, and law and order. We heard one side saying they were for the people no matter who you were and the other promising one nation politics. I don’t recall any of them specifically saying they recognised a crisis in this country that needed dealing with urgently, i.e. the homeless and the causes of homelessness or the demise of the social care system. Some may argue it was implicit in the rhetoric, but I seem to have missed it.
In her article, Spratt (2019:29) quotes a Conservative candidate as saying that ‘nuisance council tenants should be forced to live in tents in a middle of a field’. Boris Johnson’s one nation politics doesn’t sound very promising, with friends like that, who needs enemies?**
* I have even thought of a slogan: “tough on poverty, tough on the causes of poverty”. Or maybe not, because we all know how that worked out under New Labour in respect of crime.
** The cynical side of me thinks this was simply a ploy to reduce the number of eligible voters that wouldn’t be voting Conservative but, I guess that depends on whether they were Brexiteers or not.
Crew, J. (2019) Homeless A&E admissions triple. i Newspaper, 12 Dec 2019, issue 2824, pg. 29.
Spratt, V. (2019) ‘You Just didn’t see tents in London or in urban areas on this scale. It’s shocking’: Makeshift shelters are becoming increasingly common in British cities. i Newspaper, 12 Dec 2019, issue 2824, pg. 29.
Share this:
Empathy Amid the “Fake Tales of San Francisco”*
This time last week, @manosdaskalou and I were in San Francisco at the American Society of Criminology’s conference. This four-day meeting takes place once a year and encompasses a huge range of talkers and subjects, demonstrating the diversity of the discipline. Each day there are multiple sessions scheduled, making it incredibly difficult to choose which ones you want to attend.
Fortunately, this year both of our two papers were presented on the first day of the conference, which took some of the pressure off. We were then able to concentrate on other presenters’ work. Throughout discussions around teaching in prison, gun violence and many other matters of criminological importance, there was a sense of camaraderie, a shared passion to understand and in turn, change the world for the better. All of these discussions took place in a grand hotel, with cafes, bars and restaurants, to enable the conversation to continue long after the scheduled sessions had finished.
Outside of the hotel, there is plenty to see. San Francisco is an interesting city, famous for its Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars which run up and down extraordinarily steep roads and of course, criminologically speaking, Alcatraz prison. In addition, it is renowned for its expensive designer shops, restaurants, bars and hotels. But as @haleysread has noted before, this is a city where you do not have to look far to find real deprivation.
I was last in San Francisco in 2014. At that point cannabis had been declassified from a misdemeanour to an infraction, making the use of the drug similar to a traffic offence. In 2016, cannabis was completely decriminalised for recreational use. For many criminologists, such decriminalisation is a positive step, marking a change from viewing drug use as a criminal justice problem, to one of public health. Certainly, it’s a position that I would generally subscribe to, not least as part of a process necessary to prison abolition. However, what do we really know about the effects of cannabis? I am sure my colleague @michellejolleynorthamptonacuk could offer some insight into the latest research around cannabis use.
When a substance is illegal, it is exceedingly challenging to research either its harms or its benefits. What we know, in the main, is based upon problematic drug use, those individuals who come to the attention of either the CJS or the NHS. Those with the means to sustain a drug habit need not buy their supplies openly on the street, where the risk of being caught is far higher. Thus our research population are selected by bad luck, either they are caught or they suffer ill-effects either with their physical or mental health.
The smell of cannabis in San Francisco is a constant, but there is also another aroma, which wasn’t present five years ago. That smell is urine. Furthermore, it has been well documented, that not only are the streets and highways of San Francisco becoming public urinals, there are also many reports that public defecation is an increasing issue for the city. Now I don’t want to be so bold as to say that the decriminalisation of cannabis is the cause of this public effluence, however, San Francisco does raise some questions.
- Does cannabis cause or exacerbate mental health problems?
- Does cannabis lead to a loss of inhibition, so much so that the social conventions around urination and defecation are abandoned?
- Does cannabis lead to an increase in homelessness?
- Does cannabis increase the likelihood of social problems?
- Does the decriminalisation of cannabis, lead to less tolerance of social problems?
I don’t have any of the answers, but it is extremely difficult to ignore these problems. The juxtaposition of expensive shops such as Rolex and Tiffany just round the corner from large groups of confused, homeless people, make it impossible to avoid seeing the social problems confronted by this city. Of course, poor mental health and homelessness are not unique to San Francisco or even the USA, we have similar issues in our own town, regardless of the legal status of cannabis. Certainly the issue of access to bathroom facilities is pressing; should access to public toilets be a right or a privilege? This, also appears to be a public health, rather than CJS problem, although those observing or policing such behaviour, may argue differently.
Ultimately, as @haleysread found, San Francisco remains a City of Contrast, where the very rich and the very poor rub shoulders. Unless, society begins to think a little more about people and a little less about business, it seems inevitable that individuals will continue to live, eat, urinate and defection and ultimately, die upon the streets. It is not enough to discuss empathy in a conference, no matter how important that might be, if we don’t also empathise with people whose lives are in tatters.
*Turner, Alex, (2006), Fake Tales of San Francisco, [CD]. Recorded by Arctic Monkeys in Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, The Chapel: Domino Records
Share this:
The Voice Behind the Music
Marginalised voices were the focal point of my dissertation.
My dissertation explored social issues through the musical genres of Rap and Hip-Hop. During the time period of writing my dissertation there was the rising debate surrounding the association of a new genre, Drill music, being linked to the rise in violent crimes by young people in England (London specifically). The following link to an article from the Guardian newspaper will provide a greater insight to the subject matter:
The idea of music having a direct correlation with criminality sweeps issues such as poverty, social deprivation, class and race all under the rug; when in reality these are just a few of the definitive issues that these marginalised groups face. We see prior examples of this in the late 80s, with rap group N.W.A with their song “F*** the police”. The song surrounded the topic of police brutality and brought light to the disgust and outrage of the wider community to this issue. Simultaneously to this, the N.W.A were refused from running concerts as they were accused of starting revolts. The song was made as a response to their environment, but why is freedom of speech limited to certain sectors of society?
In the present day, we see young people having lower prospects of being homeowners, high rates of unemployment, and the cost of living increasing. In essence the rich are getting richer and the poor continue to struggle; the violence of austerity at its finest. Grenfell Tower is the perfect example of this, for the sake of a cheaper cost lives were lost. Simply because these individuals were not in a position to greatly impact the design of their housing. Monetary status SHOULD NOT determine your right to life, but unfortunately in those circumstances it did.
The alienation of young people was also a topic that was highlighted within my research into my dissertation. In London specifically, youth clubs are being closed down and money is being directed heavily towards pensions. An idea would be to invest in young people as this would potentially provide an incentive and subsequently decrease the prospect of getting involved in negative activities.
In no means, was the aim to condone the violence but instead to simply shed light on the issues that young people face. There is a cry for help but the issue is only looked at from the surface as a musical problem. If only it were that simple, maybe considering the voice behind the music would lead to the solution of the problem.
Thoughts from the criminology team 