I vote. I've always voted, ever since I was old enough. My first election was 2005, when I was 20 (so long ago!). I was so excited - I don't know why, it just felt momentous! I voted Labour, because my mum told me to. I know, that's not how politics is supposed to work, but I knew fuck all about politics. My school - a very highly rated grammar school - didn't bother to teach us about the electoral system. It was vaguely alluded to in history, mainly in terms of National Socialism and the birth of Parliament back in the middle ages (the Glorious Revolution was also left out). We had one lesson, in general studies aged 17, where they told us about political parties in the UK, and a Conservative MEP came in to tell us about being an MEP once. I tried to boycott this on account of burgeoning Communist sympathy, but to no avail. DISSENT IS NOT TOLERATED IN HIGHLY RATED GRAMMAR SCHOOLS. There were no politics-linked courses available to us either at GCSE or A level. So, it's not really surprising that I was clueless.
And it's not surprising my mum told me to vote Labour either. I grew up poor. Not so poor that I was starved to death and freezing, but poor enough to rarely have new clothes, that food was spread thin, that my mum would get in a terrible state every August at the idea of fitting us all out for school again. Too poor for university. Too poor to learn to drive. That sort of poor. My parents squarely blamed our poverty on the financial crash of 1988, and Thatcher, but were culturally Labour voters anyway. My grandparents were agricultural workers on one side, and industrial workers on the other. There was, and is, no money in my family.
In the 2010 election, things had changed. I was now married, with a little boy, not poor and more independent of mind. The area I lived in was staunchly Conservative - landowners and landlords usually are - and I knew I definitely wasn't one of them. I believed in fairness, and equality. I believed that people who needed help should get help. I believed in a better future for my children, however they ended up. I voted for the Lib Dems, based on disillusionment with the lies of Tony Blair and Labour, and the faint promise of Nick Clegg to actually change things. Alas, I was wrong.
This time, everything's changed again. I'm back to being poor. The coalition has made life many times harder for anyone without privilege. I'd rather gnaw off my arm than vote for the unholy alliance of Cameron and Osborne. UKIP offer a right-wing alternative, with no immigrants and loads of money...from somewhere. The Lib Dems have some good politicians, but are no longer credible. The Greens can wave and shriek "we're here" as much as they like, but they're not credible either. I don't know if Ed Miliband can change anything, but I like the cut of his jib. I don't care if he can't eat a bacon sandwich in a refined manner. He could stick a spoon in his ear and sing the Hokey Cokey before every meal for all I care. It's not about him, it's about the ideology. It's about fairness, equity and justice. And unseating the Nemesis.
Elections are not about certainties. They are not about fear, no matter how many times David Cameron points at the SNP, shaking and gibbering. They are full of lies and deceit and broken promises. But they are also our only hope at having a say. They are our only hope of changing anything. It is a leap of faith to make an X next to someone you've never met, and say "I hope you can represent us and that you change things for the better."
But it's all we have.
The newspapers tell us it's a waste of time to vote, that we cannot make a difference, that a landslide is impossible and a coalition is almost certain (NB: they also said this in 1997, days before a major Labour landslide), that we will all DIE if legitimately elected ministers are allowed to legally rule the country, that the NHS is definitely safe, that it's not safe, that it is safe HONEST GUV, that we cannot trust a man with a face full of sandwich to run the country, or a man who was once in the Bullingdon club, or a man who drinks more than he speaks sense, or ANY WOMEN AT ALL. The newspapers lie. The newspapers are full of more shit than the politicians. Shun the media at this difficult time.
I don't care personally who you vote for, but I hope that you vote, if you can. There is a huge swathe of people, mostly younger people, who have no idea about politics and think their lack of knowledge deprives them of the moral right to vote. There is a most excellent quiz here that tells you who you should vote for based on policies rather than a bunch of faces. You don't have to be Jeremy Paxman to have a say in how our country is run. Politics is for everyone. And the idea of everyone voting scares the living daylights out of the government, and the media. So do it.
7 May 2015
30 Apr 2015
Benefits - A True Story
This is a true story.
In 2007, two young people got married. They'd been together for six years precisely, and owned their home. He was an electrician, she worked in administration. Their joint income was around £40k, so plenty of money for the mortgage, bills and frivolity. Eighteen months later, their first child was born, and she cut her hours at work to take care of him. Childcare was provided, for free, by his mother, so the overall change in income wasn't too bad. Sixteen months after that, she was pregnant again, but things weren't so good. He left her in her 15th week of pregnancy. There was no hope of reconciliation.
Overnight, her income went from around £40k+ per annum to £6k per annum. The mortgage and bills still needed to be paid, but he was reluctant to help since he didn't live there anymore. A solicitor's letter was sent, some money was acquired from him, but it in no way made up for the massive shortfall in income. She couldn't take on more hours, and even working full time, her annual income would have only been £13k. There was no safety net, no rich family to fall back on, not even to lend her money.
So the benefits system, quite literally, came to the rescue. She could only claim additional tax credits to begin with, as housing benefit only applies to rented accommodation and she worked too many hours to claim income support. The tax credits bumped her up to a survivable income, but it was not what most people would consider liveable. After going on maternity leave, she moved away from her free childcare source, and gave her house up to relocate to an area with better transport links as she couldn't drive. He continued to live in relative affluence, even after the chunk of income handed over in child support.
She went on income support after her maternity pay expired. This entitled her to more housing benefit, and she managed well (although lost £200 total a month from moving from working to income support) but was still poor. Meals and shopping had to be planned with military precision. New clothes for her were a luxury (the children's were often supplemented by their father). The house she chose to live in turned out to be in rather poor repair, with a somewhat dismissive landlord. When things broke, they were replaced with the cheapest possible option.
Things got better. She met someone else, they're married now, they still get some benefits but nowhere near as much as of old.
Obviously, she is me. But I'll never forget the stigma of going to the jobcentre, of being publicly told I should spend my time volunteering instead of being 'lazy', of having my educational achievements disdained because we live in a culture where employment is the only value, of being ashamed of my clothes full of holes, my feet getting wet because of holes in my shoes, of turning to empty cupboards and trying to conjure meals out of nothing much. Even tiny things like not being able to get to the doctors because it's a bus ride away and I had no spare money for the bus. You don't forget. You don't stop feeling poor even when you're less poor.
I was totally reliant on benefits for one year and nine months. Not long. Not my fault. Not my choice.
Nothing makes me angrier than people who claim they would never stoop so low as to depend on benefits. I was in a situation where we would have been homeless in a very short space of time if the benefits system had not been there for us. I chose to survive. I chose to swallow any remnant of pride I had and look after my children. I paid tax and national insurance for eight years, and was still paying tax for eighteen months after my first husband left, but this is ignored by the government. The electioneering is all about putting the tax payer first, as though people on benefits pay nothing. What of the thousands of families working, paying tax, and being topped up by tax credits? Does that not count?
What many people don't realise is how close to needing benefits most people are. One redundancy. One bad injury. One bereavement. One marital breakdown.You don't think it will ever happen to you, but when it does, you are fucked. Not only do you have the trauma of whatever event triggers it, you also have the trauma of suddenly not knowing who to phone, in what order, what to say. The sheer quantity of admin you have to do makes many people quail in fear - the half hour income support phone interview before they'll even send you an application form is one such horror.You fall to the bottom of a very big heap of similarly fucked souls, and you have to find your way back up. You have to wait for your money to come, if they decide you qualify for it - I had to wait five months for a change in housing benefit to go through when my husband first moved in. Thankfully I had planned for this, and didn't desperately need the money, but if I had, no "Sorry, you're in a queue" would have saved me from the debts.
The benefits system is not a bad thing. It's flawed - and even as a grateful recipient, I can see countless flaws in the system - but it is necessary. And, unless you're extremely rich (in which case good on you, vote Conservative) you're not immune to needing it.
In 2007, two young people got married. They'd been together for six years precisely, and owned their home. He was an electrician, she worked in administration. Their joint income was around £40k, so plenty of money for the mortgage, bills and frivolity. Eighteen months later, their first child was born, and she cut her hours at work to take care of him. Childcare was provided, for free, by his mother, so the overall change in income wasn't too bad. Sixteen months after that, she was pregnant again, but things weren't so good. He left her in her 15th week of pregnancy. There was no hope of reconciliation.
Overnight, her income went from around £40k+ per annum to £6k per annum. The mortgage and bills still needed to be paid, but he was reluctant to help since he didn't live there anymore. A solicitor's letter was sent, some money was acquired from him, but it in no way made up for the massive shortfall in income. She couldn't take on more hours, and even working full time, her annual income would have only been £13k. There was no safety net, no rich family to fall back on, not even to lend her money.
So the benefits system, quite literally, came to the rescue. She could only claim additional tax credits to begin with, as housing benefit only applies to rented accommodation and she worked too many hours to claim income support. The tax credits bumped her up to a survivable income, but it was not what most people would consider liveable. After going on maternity leave, she moved away from her free childcare source, and gave her house up to relocate to an area with better transport links as she couldn't drive. He continued to live in relative affluence, even after the chunk of income handed over in child support.
She went on income support after her maternity pay expired. This entitled her to more housing benefit, and she managed well (although lost £200 total a month from moving from working to income support) but was still poor. Meals and shopping had to be planned with military precision. New clothes for her were a luxury (the children's were often supplemented by their father). The house she chose to live in turned out to be in rather poor repair, with a somewhat dismissive landlord. When things broke, they were replaced with the cheapest possible option.
Things got better. She met someone else, they're married now, they still get some benefits but nowhere near as much as of old.
Obviously, she is me. But I'll never forget the stigma of going to the jobcentre, of being publicly told I should spend my time volunteering instead of being 'lazy', of having my educational achievements disdained because we live in a culture where employment is the only value, of being ashamed of my clothes full of holes, my feet getting wet because of holes in my shoes, of turning to empty cupboards and trying to conjure meals out of nothing much. Even tiny things like not being able to get to the doctors because it's a bus ride away and I had no spare money for the bus. You don't forget. You don't stop feeling poor even when you're less poor.
I was totally reliant on benefits for one year and nine months. Not long. Not my fault. Not my choice.
Nothing makes me angrier than people who claim they would never stoop so low as to depend on benefits. I was in a situation where we would have been homeless in a very short space of time if the benefits system had not been there for us. I chose to survive. I chose to swallow any remnant of pride I had and look after my children. I paid tax and national insurance for eight years, and was still paying tax for eighteen months after my first husband left, but this is ignored by the government. The electioneering is all about putting the tax payer first, as though people on benefits pay nothing. What of the thousands of families working, paying tax, and being topped up by tax credits? Does that not count?
What many people don't realise is how close to needing benefits most people are. One redundancy. One bad injury. One bereavement. One marital breakdown.You don't think it will ever happen to you, but when it does, you are fucked. Not only do you have the trauma of whatever event triggers it, you also have the trauma of suddenly not knowing who to phone, in what order, what to say. The sheer quantity of admin you have to do makes many people quail in fear - the half hour income support phone interview before they'll even send you an application form is one such horror.You fall to the bottom of a very big heap of similarly fucked souls, and you have to find your way back up. You have to wait for your money to come, if they decide you qualify for it - I had to wait five months for a change in housing benefit to go through when my husband first moved in. Thankfully I had planned for this, and didn't desperately need the money, but if I had, no "Sorry, you're in a queue" would have saved me from the debts.
The benefits system is not a bad thing. It's flawed - and even as a grateful recipient, I can see countless flaws in the system - but it is necessary. And, unless you're extremely rich (in which case good on you, vote Conservative) you're not immune to needing it.
23 Apr 2015
Party Political Bollocks Of Peterborough
I dislike the government. I dislike the way it is run, I dislike the whole culture of our 'elected officials' being unrepresentative of the people. I dislike the near-myth of democracy, even more so since watching the excellent Inside The Commons which demonstrated the difficulty MPs have in actually challenging the status quo. There is literally no room for the mildest of radical ideas in Westminster.
I dislike the election bollocks even more. Since parliament dissolved, the media has been awash with claims each party is making. Most of these claims are financially impossible, and therefore probably lies to win votes. I mean, WE KNOW politicians lie. Last election, it was all "no privatisation of the NHS" this and "cut tuition fees" that, and look what's happened in the interim. However, unlike the last election which was very much a two horse race, thrown out by Cleggmania at the last moment, this election is unlikely to have a single party winner, so as well as promising us the impossible, the politicians are also hurling muck at each other.
Take, for example, Scotland. Now, I didn't watch any of the debates. If I want people to lie to me, I will ask my children who ate the last frube. Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, came out strong. A lot of people resented the appearance of the SNP and Plaid Cymru at the debates, because England can't vote for them. But if enough people in Scotland vote SNP, we could end up with a Labour/SNP coalition. The operative word is COULD, but considering the SNP are generally left wing, and certainly more left than Labour, this has shit the Conservatives right up.
But you see, this is ALL THE LAST GOVERNMENT'S FAULT. Cast your mind back to August/September 2014. Scotland had a referendum on their independence. This was totally ignored by Westminster until the Scottish polls suddenly indicated that a majority of Scots wanted independence. Westminster mobilised. Half of parliament went to Scotland to persuade the Scots that independence would be a BAD THING. Promises were made. Scotland (narrowly) voted to remain in the United Kingdom. And since then, promises have been broken and Scotland are deeply disillusioned with Westminster and Scottish Labour. So, if they DO all vote for the SNP, you know why.
David Cameron refuses to rule out a UKIP coalition (Grant Shapps does, but he's not exactly known for his honesty, particularly at the moment). It seems likely that the election will result in a coalition government of some type, and I would personally prefer it to be Labour/SNP than Conservative/UKIP, because dear lord God, we're all doomed if Farage gets in. Oh, I know he has a lot of support because of his totally untenable ideas about immigration (seriously, you can't just stop immigration by saying No, it's all tied up with international trading laws, look it up) but his party's attitude to women is disgustingly regressive, and combined with the planned Conservative welfare cuts for families, mothers would be fucked. Fucked, I tell ye.
Now, I live in Peterborough, a town of middling deprivation with a high immigrant population. Let me tell you of our city's political candidates:
Mary Herdman. UKIP. Farage himself has claimed that children don't play outside in Peterborough because IMMIGRANTS (never mind the lack of green space for them to safely play, or that it's a fucking car/lorry filled city: we don't want our children mown down). He's also claimed the M4 is busy because of immigrants. His own wife is an immigrant. Maybe she secretly hunts down the children of Peterborough, and then blocks up the M4 to annoy him. Maybe this is how he knows so much about the perils of immigrants. Or maybe he's just pulling shit out of his hat to entertain the natives. Naturally, being a multicultural city, there's a UKIP candidate standing. I haven't had her (yes, a woman, I nearly fainted) leaflet through the door yet, but I read it online and it's the usual health tourism lies, bigging up the military, protecting the rich, reallocating social housing according to parentage rather than need, and some other fascist ideas masquerading as socialism.
Darren Fower. Liberal Democrats. Darren seems a nice guy - he's the councilor of a neighbouring area - but he's got no chance. The Liberal Democrats as a party have effectively no chance. Poor Nick Clegg: his good intentions at the last election coupled with his total submission crippled his whole party and he must be absolutely dying to escape.
Chris Ash. Liberal. The actual Liberals, of Victorian political fame. His leaflet was the usual lot of crap about difficult decisions, trying to renationalise the railway, and some generalised waffle that leads me to believe he has no real policies or doesn't know how to express them and still come across as a viable candidate. Their website is also very 1998.
Darren Bisby-Boyd. Green. The Green party have been vaunted as a potential coalition force, but I don't see it. Similar to UKIP, they hold very few seats at the moment (one, to be precise) and don't have a great record. Their policies are very appealing, but not exactly workable. This Darren promises us more recycling (this would be welcome, since the Conservative council stopped doing free garden rubbish collection), lower speed limits and more allotments. But nothing much about what else could be done with the city. In fact, ALL the political candidates seem aware that their ability to influence local politics will be shut down by the divided council. Such is life. They could at least pretend.
John Fox. Independent. Not only has failed to send us a leaflet, but has no online presence to tell us what he stands for. So, not a likely winner.
Lisa Forbes. Labour. Labour are obviously the main challengers to the Conservative government. Lisa Forbes is a lovely lady, who gave my autistic son her last rosette, so yay for her. She is the only one of the candidates I have actually met - nobody else seems particularly interested in doorstepping our area. From a political standpoint, Labour are probably not going to be much better than the Conservatives in practice, but their ethics tend to the more socially conscientious. And the fact is that Lisa Forbes is the only realistic challenger to the nemesis...
And that nemesis is Stewart Jackson. Conservative. Now, even if I was a Tory (which isn't likely to happen, unless I become rich - I understand that's usually the way) I wouldn't vote for the horrible man. He doesn't agree with gay marriage. He voted against it. He really, emphatically, does not believe in it or the "mischievous, disingenuous, mealy-mouthed, patronising leftie drivel – typical middle-class, tofu-munching Labour nonsense" people who put it through. Surely the imperative as an MP is to vote for your constituents, not yourself? Well, as Stewart Jackson made abundantly clear, he really doesn't like homosexuals and doesn't give a shit if they are his constituents. He later justified his views by saying he wasn't an MP anymore and therefore didn't have to defend his constituents. Parliament had been dissolved THAT DAY, so I'm not wholly buying his backtrack.
So, Stewart Jackson, odious homophobe, sent me (actually my husband: apparently I don't need a leaflet) his manifesto and I read it chuckling with joy. You see, on the one hand he promises more jobs, more nurses, more homes, tax cuts and living wage. And on the very next page, he announces that the COALITION OF CHAOS (I'm not making this up) cannot afford to do the er...very same things he promises because Britain's got no money. Well, that's wonderful. I'm sold.
In addition to this, the Conservative party is presented as a homogenous group (no, not homosexual Mr Jackson, sit down) while the SNP (represented by Alex Salmond because reprinting is expensive), UKIP, Lib Dem and Labour are presented as...you've guessed it...THE COALITION OF CHAOS. Now, I'm not sure the Conservatives realise they have been in a coalition government for the past five years, because they've generally steamrollered the Lib Dems into submission, but they're really not SELLING the strength of the last government (headed by them) in this leaflet.
Also, they have used a variety of press headlines to illustrate how magnificent the Conservatives are compared to the Coalition of Chaos. It is telling that the 'yay Tories!' headlines are from the Express, Daily Mail and Telegraph, whereas the 'DOOMED' headlines are from almost all from Murdoch publications. I didn't need an AS level in English Language to tell me their sources are biased.
Back to Mr Jackson and his particularly special form of caring about Peterborough. Well, he wants English Votes for English Laws, so I'm sorry Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland, your votes no longer count. He's also very disparaging because Lisa Forbes was put in Peterborough by the Labour party, ignoring that he was put in Peterborough as a representative in 2001, by the Conservatives. And then we get to my favourite bit of the whole document. All About Stewart Jackson. And, with due copyright accorded to Peterborough Conservatives, I quote:
"As your MP, Stewart Jackson has helped thousands of constituents each year."
Just not the gay ones.
"Before election, he gained two degrees and was an HR manager, working with small businesses."
He's got a BA, an MA and a CIPD. He was the president of his university's union, but lost his seat due to a vote of no-confidence. In addition to being a small business helper, he seems to have forgotten that he worked as a bank manager for nine years. He's worked for the government in some form since 1997. I mean, does he not know we can look this up on wikipedia and check how much of a man of the people he actually is?
"He uses local public services and shops as well as commuting to work in Parliament."
Well, why does he need a house in Ealing then? His Peterborough house is designated his second home (more on that later). In addition, for those who don't know, Peterborough is a main stop on the East Coast Mainline - commuting to London is not just easy, it's something many Peterborough residents do every day.
"Not a career politician. He resigned from Government to fight for an EU referendum"
He's been working in politics since 1997. He didn't resign from government - he resigned as a goverment aide because he wanted an EU referendum and the party whips did not. He still hasn't got his EU referendum. He remained an MP for the rest of his tenure.
"Principled, not afraid to stand up for what's right - making a citizen's arrest in 2012"
Actually, that should read that he TRIED to make a citizen's arrest, FAILED, and then the police actually turned up and did their job. But he tried, so that's something.
"Stewart is a local candidate with a track record of putting Peterborough first."
Well, first, if you're interested have a read of his voting record. Look at him, your voice in Westminster, tirelessly voting for the needs of Peterborough! Oh no wait...no equal pay...raise in tuition fees...bedroom tax... no disability benefit...against the educational maintenance allowance...no gay marriage (duh)...no to human rights. The man doesn't seem to really like voting for anything that might make people happy or their lives easier. And then there's his financial history in making Peterborough better. You see, he has managed to make ONE HOUSE in Peterborough substantially better using government funds. His own.
He's just not my cup of tea.
I dislike the election bollocks even more. Since parliament dissolved, the media has been awash with claims each party is making. Most of these claims are financially impossible, and therefore probably lies to win votes. I mean, WE KNOW politicians lie. Last election, it was all "no privatisation of the NHS" this and "cut tuition fees" that, and look what's happened in the interim. However, unlike the last election which was very much a two horse race, thrown out by Cleggmania at the last moment, this election is unlikely to have a single party winner, so as well as promising us the impossible, the politicians are also hurling muck at each other.
Take, for example, Scotland. Now, I didn't watch any of the debates. If I want people to lie to me, I will ask my children who ate the last frube. Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, came out strong. A lot of people resented the appearance of the SNP and Plaid Cymru at the debates, because England can't vote for them. But if enough people in Scotland vote SNP, we could end up with a Labour/SNP coalition. The operative word is COULD, but considering the SNP are generally left wing, and certainly more left than Labour, this has shit the Conservatives right up.
But you see, this is ALL THE LAST GOVERNMENT'S FAULT. Cast your mind back to August/September 2014. Scotland had a referendum on their independence. This was totally ignored by Westminster until the Scottish polls suddenly indicated that a majority of Scots wanted independence. Westminster mobilised. Half of parliament went to Scotland to persuade the Scots that independence would be a BAD THING. Promises were made. Scotland (narrowly) voted to remain in the United Kingdom. And since then, promises have been broken and Scotland are deeply disillusioned with Westminster and Scottish Labour. So, if they DO all vote for the SNP, you know why.
David Cameron refuses to rule out a UKIP coalition (Grant Shapps does, but he's not exactly known for his honesty, particularly at the moment). It seems likely that the election will result in a coalition government of some type, and I would personally prefer it to be Labour/SNP than Conservative/UKIP, because dear lord God, we're all doomed if Farage gets in. Oh, I know he has a lot of support because of his totally untenable ideas about immigration (seriously, you can't just stop immigration by saying No, it's all tied up with international trading laws, look it up) but his party's attitude to women is disgustingly regressive, and combined with the planned Conservative welfare cuts for families, mothers would be fucked. Fucked, I tell ye.
Now, I live in Peterborough, a town of middling deprivation with a high immigrant population. Let me tell you of our city's political candidates:
Mary Herdman. UKIP. Farage himself has claimed that children don't play outside in Peterborough because IMMIGRANTS (never mind the lack of green space for them to safely play, or that it's a fucking car/lorry filled city: we don't want our children mown down). He's also claimed the M4 is busy because of immigrants. His own wife is an immigrant. Maybe she secretly hunts down the children of Peterborough, and then blocks up the M4 to annoy him. Maybe this is how he knows so much about the perils of immigrants. Or maybe he's just pulling shit out of his hat to entertain the natives. Naturally, being a multicultural city, there's a UKIP candidate standing. I haven't had her (yes, a woman, I nearly fainted) leaflet through the door yet, but I read it online and it's the usual health tourism lies, bigging up the military, protecting the rich, reallocating social housing according to parentage rather than need, and some other fascist ideas masquerading as socialism.
Darren Fower. Liberal Democrats. Darren seems a nice guy - he's the councilor of a neighbouring area - but he's got no chance. The Liberal Democrats as a party have effectively no chance. Poor Nick Clegg: his good intentions at the last election coupled with his total submission crippled his whole party and he must be absolutely dying to escape.
Chris Ash. Liberal. The actual Liberals, of Victorian political fame. His leaflet was the usual lot of crap about difficult decisions, trying to renationalise the railway, and some generalised waffle that leads me to believe he has no real policies or doesn't know how to express them and still come across as a viable candidate. Their website is also very 1998.
Darren Bisby-Boyd. Green. The Green party have been vaunted as a potential coalition force, but I don't see it. Similar to UKIP, they hold very few seats at the moment (one, to be precise) and don't have a great record. Their policies are very appealing, but not exactly workable. This Darren promises us more recycling (this would be welcome, since the Conservative council stopped doing free garden rubbish collection), lower speed limits and more allotments. But nothing much about what else could be done with the city. In fact, ALL the political candidates seem aware that their ability to influence local politics will be shut down by the divided council. Such is life. They could at least pretend.
John Fox. Independent. Not only has failed to send us a leaflet, but has no online presence to tell us what he stands for. So, not a likely winner.
Lisa Forbes. Labour. Labour are obviously the main challengers to the Conservative government. Lisa Forbes is a lovely lady, who gave my autistic son her last rosette, so yay for her. She is the only one of the candidates I have actually met - nobody else seems particularly interested in doorstepping our area. From a political standpoint, Labour are probably not going to be much better than the Conservatives in practice, but their ethics tend to the more socially conscientious. And the fact is that Lisa Forbes is the only realistic challenger to the nemesis...
And that nemesis is Stewart Jackson. Conservative. Now, even if I was a Tory (which isn't likely to happen, unless I become rich - I understand that's usually the way) I wouldn't vote for the horrible man. He doesn't agree with gay marriage. He voted against it. He really, emphatically, does not believe in it or the "mischievous, disingenuous, mealy-mouthed, patronising leftie drivel – typical middle-class, tofu-munching Labour nonsense" people who put it through. Surely the imperative as an MP is to vote for your constituents, not yourself? Well, as Stewart Jackson made abundantly clear, he really doesn't like homosexuals and doesn't give a shit if they are his constituents. He later justified his views by saying he wasn't an MP anymore and therefore didn't have to defend his constituents. Parliament had been dissolved THAT DAY, so I'm not wholly buying his backtrack.
So, Stewart Jackson, odious homophobe, sent me (actually my husband: apparently I don't need a leaflet) his manifesto and I read it chuckling with joy. You see, on the one hand he promises more jobs, more nurses, more homes, tax cuts and living wage. And on the very next page, he announces that the COALITION OF CHAOS (I'm not making this up) cannot afford to do the er...very same things he promises because Britain's got no money. Well, that's wonderful. I'm sold.
In addition to this, the Conservative party is presented as a homogenous group (no, not homosexual Mr Jackson, sit down) while the SNP (represented by Alex Salmond because reprinting is expensive), UKIP, Lib Dem and Labour are presented as...you've guessed it...THE COALITION OF CHAOS. Now, I'm not sure the Conservatives realise they have been in a coalition government for the past five years, because they've generally steamrollered the Lib Dems into submission, but they're really not SELLING the strength of the last government (headed by them) in this leaflet.
Also, they have used a variety of press headlines to illustrate how magnificent the Conservatives are compared to the Coalition of Chaos. It is telling that the 'yay Tories!' headlines are from the Express, Daily Mail and Telegraph, whereas the 'DOOMED' headlines are from almost all from Murdoch publications. I didn't need an AS level in English Language to tell me their sources are biased.
Back to Mr Jackson and his particularly special form of caring about Peterborough. Well, he wants English Votes for English Laws, so I'm sorry Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland, your votes no longer count. He's also very disparaging because Lisa Forbes was put in Peterborough by the Labour party, ignoring that he was put in Peterborough as a representative in 2001, by the Conservatives. And then we get to my favourite bit of the whole document. All About Stewart Jackson. And, with due copyright accorded to Peterborough Conservatives, I quote:
"As your MP, Stewart Jackson has helped thousands of constituents each year."
Just not the gay ones.
"Before election, he gained two degrees and was an HR manager, working with small businesses."
He's got a BA, an MA and a CIPD. He was the president of his university's union, but lost his seat due to a vote of no-confidence. In addition to being a small business helper, he seems to have forgotten that he worked as a bank manager for nine years. He's worked for the government in some form since 1997. I mean, does he not know we can look this up on wikipedia and check how much of a man of the people he actually is?
"He uses local public services and shops as well as commuting to work in Parliament."
Well, why does he need a house in Ealing then? His Peterborough house is designated his second home (more on that later). In addition, for those who don't know, Peterborough is a main stop on the East Coast Mainline - commuting to London is not just easy, it's something many Peterborough residents do every day.
"Not a career politician. He resigned from Government to fight for an EU referendum"
He's been working in politics since 1997. He didn't resign from government - he resigned as a goverment aide because he wanted an EU referendum and the party whips did not. He still hasn't got his EU referendum. He remained an MP for the rest of his tenure.
"Principled, not afraid to stand up for what's right - making a citizen's arrest in 2012"
Actually, that should read that he TRIED to make a citizen's arrest, FAILED, and then the police actually turned up and did their job. But he tried, so that's something.
"Stewart is a local candidate with a track record of putting Peterborough first."
Well, first, if you're interested have a read of his voting record. Look at him, your voice in Westminster, tirelessly voting for the needs of Peterborough! Oh no wait...no equal pay...raise in tuition fees...bedroom tax... no disability benefit...against the educational maintenance allowance...no gay marriage (duh)...no to human rights. The man doesn't seem to really like voting for anything that might make people happy or their lives easier. And then there's his financial history in making Peterborough better. You see, he has managed to make ONE HOUSE in Peterborough substantially better using government funds. His own.
He's just not my cup of tea.
5 Apr 2015
When Right-Wing Politicians Use Religion As A Selling Point
So, Nigel Farage has justified his views that HIV immigrants should be denied treatment as a 'sensible, Christian thing to do'.
Meanwhile, in Conservative land, David Cameron is 'standing up' for the Christian faith.
It is Easter Sunday. For many of you, it means little beyond chocolate eggs, a long weekend and a chance to catch up with friends and family. Good! As with Christmas, it is something we can all enjoy, regardless of faith. However, from a Christian point of view, it's something a little deeper. Everyone knows Jesus was crucified, and then rose again.
Here's a very rare R.E lesson from me, on Easter:
Jesus was a man. Oh he was the son of God, and supposed to be perfect, but he was also in a human body, and subject to the same cultural prejudice and conditioning as everyone else in his society. And his society was a right-wing patriarchy, where the Roman Empire was in charge, despite having little in common with normal people, and the church monopolised ethical behaviour, often hypocritically. Sound familiar?
So, Jesus was a man, but he was not like others, while also being the same as everyone else. He worked. He went to the church. He welcomed women amongst his followers, as friends. He was totally unafraid of the sick. 'Leprosy' at the time was considered similar to HIV in the 80s - you had to go and live outside civilisation if you had it. And the church decided if you had leprosy, so often you might just have particularly vicious eczema or acne. He accepted the poor, the sick, and the shunned as better and more deserving than those with money or power.
Jesus was killed, on trumped up charges because he was giving the church such a hard time and causing a lot of trouble. According to the Bible, this was a perfect sacrifice, because he had done nothing wrong. The importance of sacrifice in the most ancient religions has been lost, but you gave up something you really needed (usually food, clothing and wealth, in the form of animals) in exchange for forgiveness. Deuteronomy is full of the different sacrifices that had to be given either to thank God, or in exchange for forgiveness.
The world needed Jesus. The world killed Jesus. The world was forgiven.
Jesus rose again, proving the world was forgiven, that God was real, that God was his father.
So, on Easter Sunday, the Christians are happy because we were saved by one man's selflessness. I know, it's full of theological plotholes, but that's the message.
Now, the Christian message has been so warped and demented over time, that it's sometimes quite difficult to understand that Jesus was an example of total radical thinking and cultural overhaul. The Christian message has been co-opted by those in power to win them more power over the years, losing the inclusive, social justice imperatives that were quite simply revolutionary in the first few centuries CE. The powerful stories in Christianity have been adapted to suit different cultural beliefs (Easter probably didn't actually happen in Spring, but a lot of fertility rites did, so it superseded them, See also: Christmas and the birth of the new year) and the laws of the old testament have been used to develop law systems across the world.
In other words, the rigid, right-wing, superior exclusivity that is now viewed representative of Christianity is A TOTAL BASTARDISATION.
Nothing shows this more than the British right wing political parties (and similar across the world) using Christianity to justify their shattering policies of giving more to the privileged and taking from those in need.
Christianity is about love, acceptance, fairness, equality. It's about helping those most in need. It's about sharing. If Jesus were alive today, he would be screaming from the rooftops about how hideously unfair welfare reforms, taxation loopholes and criminalising poverty is. That's what he did in his own time, according to the Bible. That's why the powers that were killed him.
He wouldn't be sitting in judgement on people with HIV. He wouldn't be taking from the disabled, and workless. He wouldn't be exploiting workers. He wouldn't be encouraging the government to take from the poor to increase the rich.
If you consider yourself a Christian, and you support UKIP (and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives) you really need to reconsider your faith, or your politics.
Faith and politics should be kept as far apart as possible, because nothing shows up the rampant hypocrisy of government like pretending to have God on their side.
Meanwhile, in Conservative land, David Cameron is 'standing up' for the Christian faith.
It is Easter Sunday. For many of you, it means little beyond chocolate eggs, a long weekend and a chance to catch up with friends and family. Good! As with Christmas, it is something we can all enjoy, regardless of faith. However, from a Christian point of view, it's something a little deeper. Everyone knows Jesus was crucified, and then rose again.
Here's a very rare R.E lesson from me, on Easter:
Jesus was a man. Oh he was the son of God, and supposed to be perfect, but he was also in a human body, and subject to the same cultural prejudice and conditioning as everyone else in his society. And his society was a right-wing patriarchy, where the Roman Empire was in charge, despite having little in common with normal people, and the church monopolised ethical behaviour, often hypocritically. Sound familiar?
So, Jesus was a man, but he was not like others, while also being the same as everyone else. He worked. He went to the church. He welcomed women amongst his followers, as friends. He was totally unafraid of the sick. 'Leprosy' at the time was considered similar to HIV in the 80s - you had to go and live outside civilisation if you had it. And the church decided if you had leprosy, so often you might just have particularly vicious eczema or acne. He accepted the poor, the sick, and the shunned as better and more deserving than those with money or power.
Jesus was killed, on trumped up charges because he was giving the church such a hard time and causing a lot of trouble. According to the Bible, this was a perfect sacrifice, because he had done nothing wrong. The importance of sacrifice in the most ancient religions has been lost, but you gave up something you really needed (usually food, clothing and wealth, in the form of animals) in exchange for forgiveness. Deuteronomy is full of the different sacrifices that had to be given either to thank God, or in exchange for forgiveness.
The world needed Jesus. The world killed Jesus. The world was forgiven.
Jesus rose again, proving the world was forgiven, that God was real, that God was his father.
So, on Easter Sunday, the Christians are happy because we were saved by one man's selflessness. I know, it's full of theological plotholes, but that's the message.
Now, the Christian message has been so warped and demented over time, that it's sometimes quite difficult to understand that Jesus was an example of total radical thinking and cultural overhaul. The Christian message has been co-opted by those in power to win them more power over the years, losing the inclusive, social justice imperatives that were quite simply revolutionary in the first few centuries CE. The powerful stories in Christianity have been adapted to suit different cultural beliefs (Easter probably didn't actually happen in Spring, but a lot of fertility rites did, so it superseded them, See also: Christmas and the birth of the new year) and the laws of the old testament have been used to develop law systems across the world.
In other words, the rigid, right-wing, superior exclusivity that is now viewed representative of Christianity is A TOTAL BASTARDISATION.
Nothing shows this more than the British right wing political parties (and similar across the world) using Christianity to justify their shattering policies of giving more to the privileged and taking from those in need.
Christianity is about love, acceptance, fairness, equality. It's about helping those most in need. It's about sharing. If Jesus were alive today, he would be screaming from the rooftops about how hideously unfair welfare reforms, taxation loopholes and criminalising poverty is. That's what he did in his own time, according to the Bible. That's why the powers that were killed him.
He wouldn't be sitting in judgement on people with HIV. He wouldn't be taking from the disabled, and workless. He wouldn't be exploiting workers. He wouldn't be encouraging the government to take from the poor to increase the rich.
If you consider yourself a Christian, and you support UKIP (and to a lesser extent, the Conservatives) you really need to reconsider your faith, or your politics.
Faith and politics should be kept as far apart as possible, because nothing shows up the rampant hypocrisy of government like pretending to have God on their side.
5 Mar 2015
Anxiety
My second child, Jack, is tiny for his age. He doesn't grow properly, and has poor gross motor skills. He doesn't care - he hurls himself round like a child twice his size. He's being measured again next month, and if his growth is still too far under what it should be, he will probably need a referral to check up on him. He's currently on the 9th centile for height, and 50th centile for weight. He is a BALL and he bounces accordingly. He's normal, otherwise, developmentally, so we don't worry too much.
Jack suffered from intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) when he was inside me. My bump stopped growing at 34 weeks. When I was in labour at 42 weeks, my bump measured 33cm. It should have been around 42cm. His smallness was noted, but no action was taken. It was assumed by my midwives that I was losing a lot of weight from my marital split, and therefore I had a smaller bump.
To demonstrate how small I was:
I put on 8lb total in that pregnancy. At 38 weeks, a different midwife worried he was breech and sent me for a scan. His foetal weight was estimated at 7lb. At 40 weeks, my usual midwife finally sent me for a growth scan, because I was on call for a homebirth with a clinically SFD baby. They estimated his foetal weight at 8lb, and sent me home to wait for birth.
He was born two weeks later, at 42 weeks precisely, on my sofa after a predictably short labour. I was due to be induced six hours later, but had a strong feeling that having my waters broken or labour augmented would be the wrong decision. I also woke up the day before he was born convinced he would die. I'd had a lot of negative thoughts like that in the buildup to having him, but that was an acute, passionate feeling of something going wrong.
He suffered decelerations during his second stage of labour, but since I was at home, there wasn't much to be done except push harder. He was born in fine fettle, quiet and alert with a head of long, gingery hair. But his cord had nearly killed him.
Jack's cord had two, true, figure-of-eight, tight knots in it, about 10cm apart. One true knot is fairly rare, and is one of more common causes of stillbirth. Two knots is so rare as to be reported in medical journals. They had been in place since around the 9th week of pregnancy. They could have tightened, and killed him, at any point from them. They'd reduced his placental flow. They'd given him a thick, horrible cord. They'd tightened as he was being born. The backflow from this caused me to have a fairly horrible haemorrhage as I lay cuddling him.
He survived. I'm still not sure how. He weighed 7lb 12oz, which was 25th centile using the universal centile system, 8th centile for my particular variables. His growth scans had overestimated his weight considerably. In comparison, his older brother was 9lb 1oz, and almost two weeks earlier.
His birth has left me with anxiety and fear about this baby like you wouldn't believe. I am under consultant care, more for the haemorrhage and IUGR than the knots themselves. There is no way to predict or diagnose true knots before delivery. I'm having growth scans to check this baby grows to my schedule (which predicts a term birthweight of around 9lb) and also to check umbilical flow. I want another homebirth, but nothing can be decided until they know the baby's growth is OK.
This would be fine and reassuring (and it is), except I've also got a lot of bad feelings that have resurfaced about Jack's pregnancy. I suffered from severe antenatal depression when I was expecting him, primarily because my ex left. I wasn't concerned about his lack of growth. I didn't care. I'm quite sure had I displayed any concern for my tiny bump, they would have perhaps picked something up sooner. Instead, I ignored it. I ignored him. It was easier.
I get flashbacks. All the time. They're usually related to significant pregnancy events, like midwife appointments, endless blood tests and scans, but also the general condition of pregnancy is a reminder. I never wanted to feel how I did when I was expecting Jack again. I never wanted to wake up hating the world, dreading the day ahead, fearing every phone call, not wanting to leave the house.
But I do.
Not all the time. But the flashbacks are vicious and they hurt. They are like normal pregnancy anxiety + the anxiety I should have had for Jack + guilt + anger that I was ever made to feel like that. I cry a lot, and I let myself do it. I'm trying to get this grief and anger and pain and terror out of the way, in the most natural way I can think of. I sat on it last time. I can't do that again.
In many ways, feeling like this is normal. Feeling like this a natural consequence of my last pregnancy. Pregnancy is never just about THIS baby, it's about all the babies that have been before.
It may also be related to the B12 deficiency anaemia I get in every pregnancy. B12 is one of those vitamins that you don't realise you need until you haven't got enough. Then your nerves stop working properly, you faint a lot, you become depressed, you feel so tired you might die, and you go a ghastly luminescent colour. I haven't had my blood tested since November, but I suspect it's contributing to the feelings of doom.
It's just hard. It's hard to talk to happy, first time pregnant ladies and compare notes, without sounding like a doom-laden horror crow. I've never wanted to be a woman who terrifies people with birth stories, but it seems to happen anyway. It's hard to be honest when people ask how it's going, to not just weep because I can't walk properly (possible side effect of birth injury, I've got physio next week, thank god) and I'm so tired, and I'm so scared.
But it's not all the time. And the crucial difference is that I want this baby. I'm terrified because I want him to be OK so much. I want a safe birth. I want a healthy child. I want to be well afterwards - I really wasn't well after Jack was born, because of birth injuries and haemorrhaging, and I'm afraid of that happening again. I want so much that most people take for granted with their pregnancies, and all I can concentrate on is how it might go wrong.
I've not written this for sympathy, or anything really except in the hope that giving it an audience might help somehow. If anyone wants to see the double knotted cord, shout and I'll send you the picture - it's way too grim to post on here though.
Only 18 weeks to go!
Jack suffered from intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) when he was inside me. My bump stopped growing at 34 weeks. When I was in labour at 42 weeks, my bump measured 33cm. It should have been around 42cm. His smallness was noted, but no action was taken. It was assumed by my midwives that I was losing a lot of weight from my marital split, and therefore I had a smaller bump.
To demonstrate how small I was:
 |
| 34+5 with Jack. 20w with current baby. |
I put on 8lb total in that pregnancy. At 38 weeks, a different midwife worried he was breech and sent me for a scan. His foetal weight was estimated at 7lb. At 40 weeks, my usual midwife finally sent me for a growth scan, because I was on call for a homebirth with a clinically SFD baby. They estimated his foetal weight at 8lb, and sent me home to wait for birth.
He was born two weeks later, at 42 weeks precisely, on my sofa after a predictably short labour. I was due to be induced six hours later, but had a strong feeling that having my waters broken or labour augmented would be the wrong decision. I also woke up the day before he was born convinced he would die. I'd had a lot of negative thoughts like that in the buildup to having him, but that was an acute, passionate feeling of something going wrong.
He suffered decelerations during his second stage of labour, but since I was at home, there wasn't much to be done except push harder. He was born in fine fettle, quiet and alert with a head of long, gingery hair. But his cord had nearly killed him.
Jack's cord had two, true, figure-of-eight, tight knots in it, about 10cm apart. One true knot is fairly rare, and is one of more common causes of stillbirth. Two knots is so rare as to be reported in medical journals. They had been in place since around the 9th week of pregnancy. They could have tightened, and killed him, at any point from them. They'd reduced his placental flow. They'd given him a thick, horrible cord. They'd tightened as he was being born. The backflow from this caused me to have a fairly horrible haemorrhage as I lay cuddling him.
He survived. I'm still not sure how. He weighed 7lb 12oz, which was 25th centile using the universal centile system, 8th centile for my particular variables. His growth scans had overestimated his weight considerably. In comparison, his older brother was 9lb 1oz, and almost two weeks earlier.
 |
| Isn't he gorgeous? |
His birth has left me with anxiety and fear about this baby like you wouldn't believe. I am under consultant care, more for the haemorrhage and IUGR than the knots themselves. There is no way to predict or diagnose true knots before delivery. I'm having growth scans to check this baby grows to my schedule (which predicts a term birthweight of around 9lb) and also to check umbilical flow. I want another homebirth, but nothing can be decided until they know the baby's growth is OK.
This would be fine and reassuring (and it is), except I've also got a lot of bad feelings that have resurfaced about Jack's pregnancy. I suffered from severe antenatal depression when I was expecting him, primarily because my ex left. I wasn't concerned about his lack of growth. I didn't care. I'm quite sure had I displayed any concern for my tiny bump, they would have perhaps picked something up sooner. Instead, I ignored it. I ignored him. It was easier.
I get flashbacks. All the time. They're usually related to significant pregnancy events, like midwife appointments, endless blood tests and scans, but also the general condition of pregnancy is a reminder. I never wanted to feel how I did when I was expecting Jack again. I never wanted to wake up hating the world, dreading the day ahead, fearing every phone call, not wanting to leave the house.
But I do.
Not all the time. But the flashbacks are vicious and they hurt. They are like normal pregnancy anxiety + the anxiety I should have had for Jack + guilt + anger that I was ever made to feel like that. I cry a lot, and I let myself do it. I'm trying to get this grief and anger and pain and terror out of the way, in the most natural way I can think of. I sat on it last time. I can't do that again.
In many ways, feeling like this is normal. Feeling like this a natural consequence of my last pregnancy. Pregnancy is never just about THIS baby, it's about all the babies that have been before.
It may also be related to the B12 deficiency anaemia I get in every pregnancy. B12 is one of those vitamins that you don't realise you need until you haven't got enough. Then your nerves stop working properly, you faint a lot, you become depressed, you feel so tired you might die, and you go a ghastly luminescent colour. I haven't had my blood tested since November, but I suspect it's contributing to the feelings of doom.
It's just hard. It's hard to talk to happy, first time pregnant ladies and compare notes, without sounding like a doom-laden horror crow. I've never wanted to be a woman who terrifies people with birth stories, but it seems to happen anyway. It's hard to be honest when people ask how it's going, to not just weep because I can't walk properly (possible side effect of birth injury, I've got physio next week, thank god) and I'm so tired, and I'm so scared.
But it's not all the time. And the crucial difference is that I want this baby. I'm terrified because I want him to be OK so much. I want a safe birth. I want a healthy child. I want to be well afterwards - I really wasn't well after Jack was born, because of birth injuries and haemorrhaging, and I'm afraid of that happening again. I want so much that most people take for granted with their pregnancies, and all I can concentrate on is how it might go wrong.
I've not written this for sympathy, or anything really except in the hope that giving it an audience might help somehow. If anyone wants to see the double knotted cord, shout and I'll send you the picture - it's way too grim to post on here though.
Only 18 weeks to go!
3 Mar 2015
Child Murder
Murder is the worst crime. It violently takes away life, often for little motive further than greed or perversion. It ruins countless other lives. When a child is murdered, these feelings are amplified by the loss of innocence, of potential, and the empathy for the fear the child would have felt. You would think, from reading the press, that all our children are at a constant risk of murder. You might be wrong.
Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world that doesn't worry about my children being murdered when other children are murdered. Maybe it's because of the sheer statistical unlikelihood. About 300 children die through murder, neglect or indirect abuse a year, out of a child population of around 11 million. That is too small a number to be given as a percentage.
Maybe it's because my kids are still very young and almost always in my care. And boys, who are less well represented in the media when murdered unless it's either salacious or A SIGN OF BROKEN BRITAIN. But my youngest sister is 13, and regularly goes out on her own. I can't say I worry she'll be horribly murdered too often either.
Maybe it's because I've never been murdered myself. I've been assaulted a few times. I've lived on the same street as a child who was brutally attacked by a stranger in her house. I lived in Wisbech, murder capital of the fens, for several years. I live close to female serial killer Joanna Dennehy's stamping ground, but she seemed to prefer killing men, as well as close to where poor Ross Parker was randomly murdered by racist animals.
To be honest, if I have any worries about being murdered myself, it's usually as an adjunct to a serious sexual assault rather than as a spontaneous, single crime.
Maybe it's because I'm an unfeeling monster who doesn't care about other people.
Or maybe it's because I'm cynical of the press.
Most children are murdered by their family - usually by their parents. I don't fear I'm going to murder my children. I don't fear my children's father will murder them either, or in fact, any of their family. However, parents murdering their children is so common (at least three quarters of the total, if not more, there is no definitive statistical information at present) that the national media rarely report it. Even the infamous case of 'Baby P' Peter Connolley wasn't reported in the national press until he'd been dead a year, and only then because of the social services failings around his death. Honour killings (as they're rather genteely named) are well represented in the press, but more because of underlying Islamophobia than because the press genuinely cares about children murdered by parents. It's boring. It happens every week. It's not news, unless there's some perverted sexual aspect the press can report in horrified, gleeful detail.
HOWEVER, when a child goes missing, that's a different case altogether. Think back just in the few months. Alice Gross, missing, murdered, dismembered by a man who then selfishly killed himself rather than face arrest. Zaani Bevan, killed in a murder-suicide by her mother. And now, also in Bristol, it seems poor Becky Watts' body parts have been found after being missing for a few weeks.
Going back a few years: April Jones was abducted and murdered by a neighbour. Her body has never been found. Sarah Payne, abducted and murdered by a paedophile outside her house. Madeline McCann went missing on holiday in suspicious circumstances and has never been found. Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, abducted and murdered by their school caretaker one weekend. Milly Dowler was abducted and murdered by a serial killer. Billie-Jo Jackson, going a bit further back, was murdered in her own garden and the killer has never been found. These are not the only ten girls to be murdered in the last eighteen years - far from it - but they are the poster children of violent crime. They are representative of the fears you have for your children when they step out of the front door to play. The monster lurking by the playground. The terror waiting by your back gate.
You'll note all of these victims are young. They're all female. They're all middle-class (with the possible exception of Zaani Bevan, who the press has now forgotten). They're all white. There is an actual name for this overreporting: Missing White Women Syndrome. It's in no way representative of the actual risks presented to your children.
The biggest killer of children in the UK is cancer. Not a lot you can do about that: you either get it or you don't. This is followed by accidental death, mainly through road accidents. 91 people are involved in traffic accidents every single day, resulting in death or injury. Sometimes, the press reports these, but only if they're really interesting. There are some interesting pie charts showing the change of cause of death by age of child in this report.
In short, you might be better off investing in cancer research, or teaching your children road safety from a very young age than worrying about the near-mythic creature, the killer lurking in the midst.
Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world that doesn't worry about my children being murdered when other children are murdered. Maybe it's because of the sheer statistical unlikelihood. About 300 children die through murder, neglect or indirect abuse a year, out of a child population of around 11 million. That is too small a number to be given as a percentage.
Maybe it's because my kids are still very young and almost always in my care. And boys, who are less well represented in the media when murdered unless it's either salacious or A SIGN OF BROKEN BRITAIN. But my youngest sister is 13, and regularly goes out on her own. I can't say I worry she'll be horribly murdered too often either.
Maybe it's because I've never been murdered myself. I've been assaulted a few times. I've lived on the same street as a child who was brutally attacked by a stranger in her house. I lived in Wisbech, murder capital of the fens, for several years. I live close to female serial killer Joanna Dennehy's stamping ground, but she seemed to prefer killing men, as well as close to where poor Ross Parker was randomly murdered by racist animals.
To be honest, if I have any worries about being murdered myself, it's usually as an adjunct to a serious sexual assault rather than as a spontaneous, single crime.
Maybe it's because I'm an unfeeling monster who doesn't care about other people.
Or maybe it's because I'm cynical of the press.
Most children are murdered by their family - usually by their parents. I don't fear I'm going to murder my children. I don't fear my children's father will murder them either, or in fact, any of their family. However, parents murdering their children is so common (at least three quarters of the total, if not more, there is no definitive statistical information at present) that the national media rarely report it. Even the infamous case of 'Baby P' Peter Connolley wasn't reported in the national press until he'd been dead a year, and only then because of the social services failings around his death. Honour killings (as they're rather genteely named) are well represented in the press, but more because of underlying Islamophobia than because the press genuinely cares about children murdered by parents. It's boring. It happens every week. It's not news, unless there's some perverted sexual aspect the press can report in horrified, gleeful detail.
HOWEVER, when a child goes missing, that's a different case altogether. Think back just in the few months. Alice Gross, missing, murdered, dismembered by a man who then selfishly killed himself rather than face arrest. Zaani Bevan, killed in a murder-suicide by her mother. And now, also in Bristol, it seems poor Becky Watts' body parts have been found after being missing for a few weeks.
Going back a few years: April Jones was abducted and murdered by a neighbour. Her body has never been found. Sarah Payne, abducted and murdered by a paedophile outside her house. Madeline McCann went missing on holiday in suspicious circumstances and has never been found. Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, abducted and murdered by their school caretaker one weekend. Milly Dowler was abducted and murdered by a serial killer. Billie-Jo Jackson, going a bit further back, was murdered in her own garden and the killer has never been found. These are not the only ten girls to be murdered in the last eighteen years - far from it - but they are the poster children of violent crime. They are representative of the fears you have for your children when they step out of the front door to play. The monster lurking by the playground. The terror waiting by your back gate.
You'll note all of these victims are young. They're all female. They're all middle-class (with the possible exception of Zaani Bevan, who the press has now forgotten). They're all white. There is an actual name for this overreporting: Missing White Women Syndrome. It's in no way representative of the actual risks presented to your children.
The biggest killer of children in the UK is cancer. Not a lot you can do about that: you either get it or you don't. This is followed by accidental death, mainly through road accidents. 91 people are involved in traffic accidents every single day, resulting in death or injury. Sometimes, the press reports these, but only if they're really interesting. There are some interesting pie charts showing the change of cause of death by age of child in this report.
In short, you might be better off investing in cancer research, or teaching your children road safety from a very young age than worrying about the near-mythic creature, the killer lurking in the midst.
2 Mar 2015
Studying with the OU when pregnant
I'm a little over halfway through my fifth and sixth uni modules. It's going quite well, and I'm astonished that this is my penultimate year. I started 37 months ago!
I'm also halfway through my third pregnancy.
Pregnancy has given uni work a new dimension of difficulty that I didn't expect:
- It is much, much harder to not procrastinate. I have lost all self-discipline. If I want to sit and watch two hours of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and wail, then I do. I'm not particularly behind, but I do struggle to juggle it all.
- It is harder to remember everything. Baby brain is, unhappily, not a total myth. Some days I'm fine. Some days, I'm wading through mental custard.
- Pregnancy is not an illness. Alas, it causes me to be rather ill. Several months of morning all-day sickness, a wonky hip, sciatica, SPD, anaemia, and sheer exhaustion has somewhat knocked me for six. All these things are either resolving or in line for treatment, so hopefully I should feel better soon, but I recommend you aim for your first trimester to be in the summer break!
- My working habits have altered. Before, I got all my work done in the morning when I was full of the joys of spring. Now, I'm fairly useless first thing in the morning, and completely useless mid-afternoon. I have to work round it.
Despite all this, I'm doing OK. I actually got a pass one in my first level 3 TMA - my first ever pass one in an essay-based subject. I've dropped off a bit since then, but I'm hoping for a pass two overall. TMA writing is hard, because I feel woolly a lot of the time - not to mention stressed! It's so hard to remember everything and write something incisive.
The real challenge will be that I don't finish this year until I'm 36 weeks pregnant. I've got an EMA, which should be OK because I can put that together over time. It's the exam that worries me. Not so much from a "WHAT IF I GO INTO LABOUR???!!?!?" perspective, because that's unlikely. It's more about the sitting-uncomfortably-for-three-hours. BUT I WILL COPE!
Then I get my results around when the baby's due, when they'll have become a distant memory in a haze of sleepless feeds. So, hurrah!
I'm also halfway through my third pregnancy.
Pregnancy has given uni work a new dimension of difficulty that I didn't expect:
- It is much, much harder to not procrastinate. I have lost all self-discipline. If I want to sit and watch two hours of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and wail, then I do. I'm not particularly behind, but I do struggle to juggle it all.
- It is harder to remember everything. Baby brain is, unhappily, not a total myth. Some days I'm fine. Some days, I'm wading through mental custard.
- Pregnancy is not an illness. Alas, it causes me to be rather ill. Several months of morning all-day sickness, a wonky hip, sciatica, SPD, anaemia, and sheer exhaustion has somewhat knocked me for six. All these things are either resolving or in line for treatment, so hopefully I should feel better soon, but I recommend you aim for your first trimester to be in the summer break!
- My working habits have altered. Before, I got all my work done in the morning when I was full of the joys of spring. Now, I'm fairly useless first thing in the morning, and completely useless mid-afternoon. I have to work round it.
Despite all this, I'm doing OK. I actually got a pass one in my first level 3 TMA - my first ever pass one in an essay-based subject. I've dropped off a bit since then, but I'm hoping for a pass two overall. TMA writing is hard, because I feel woolly a lot of the time - not to mention stressed! It's so hard to remember everything and write something incisive.
The real challenge will be that I don't finish this year until I'm 36 weeks pregnant. I've got an EMA, which should be OK because I can put that together over time. It's the exam that worries me. Not so much from a "WHAT IF I GO INTO LABOUR???!!?!?" perspective, because that's unlikely. It's more about the sitting-uncomfortably-for-three-hours. BUT I WILL COPE!
Then I get my results around when the baby's due, when they'll have become a distant memory in a haze of sleepless feeds. So, hurrah!
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