Nearly four months later, a beaming Dominque Strauss-Kahn finally got to take that JFK-to-Paris flight today, returning home with wife Anne Sinclair to the couple’s Paris mansion. Scattered applauding supporters and a phalanx of reporters greeted the couple, reports the New York Daily News . “Finally, they are freed from this…
Continue reading …As Katia regained hurricane status, the center of Tropical Storm Lee stretched across the central Gulf Coast early today, dumping torrential rains that threatened flooding in low-lying communities in a foreshadowing of what cities further inland could face in coming days. Lee’s center crawled ashore in Louisiana before dawn after…
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The PM talks about putting more pressure on the unemployed to look for work and stricter penalties for those that refuse jobs The Department for Work and Pensions has been forced by the prime minister into reconsidering an idea it had days previously described as “not workable” as Whitehall scrambles for policies to toughen up welfare. David Cameron wrote in a Sunday newspaper that he wanted to look at going further in welfare reforms, calling for the child benefit payments of parents who play truant from school to be withdrawn. He suggested a more ambitious welfare reform programme when he posed the question of whether the government should be “asking much more of people on benefits who should be looking for work – or imposing even stricter penalties on those who refuse job offers?” Research has been published by the thinktank Policy Exchange showing that some jobseeker’s allowance claimants spend as little as eight minutes a day searching for work. Ideas pushed by No 10 included measures that would force the unemployed and those claiming jobseeker’s allowance to spend an entire working week in the pursuit of finding a job. But on Friday lunchtime the Department for Work and Pensions said that particular idea had been ruled out as “not workable”. By Friday evening the department was instructed that the idea could be a possible candidate for tightening the welfare regime. A Downing Street source suggested the search for stricter welfare conditionality levers was at an embryonic stage: “We’re in the early stages of considering ideas and we aren’t saying these ideas will definitely happen but we are trying to think how people could be helped into work.” The about-turn reflects the urgency being attached to the government going further and faster on its welfare reform agenda. Treasury officials had also been keen on a suggestion that would see those people without a history of national insurance contributions unable to turn down suggested employment opportunities. At the moment there is a 13-week grace period in which people can claim jobseeker’s allowance while they attempt to find work suitable to them and can decline Jobcentre offers. Treasury officials had wanted to close this window but a Department for Work and Pensions official said it had beendismissed as “not workable”. In his speech in his Oxfordshire constituency of Witney in the aftermath of the riots Cameron said he would like to go further on injecting greater conditionality into the benefits system – making more demanding what people have to do in order to receive benefits. On Sunday the prime minister went further, writing in the Mail on Sunday: “What about welfare? The old something-for-nothing system we had under Labour had a poisonous effect on responsibility in our society. Again, we’ve already taken bold action – we’re in the process of moving hundreds of thousands of people who are fit to work off incapacity benefit and are imposing sensible limits on the amount of benefit people can take. But again, given the scale of the problem, can’t we go further? Say by asking much more of people on benefits who should be looking for work – or imposing even stricter penalties on those who refuse job offers?” Welfare David Cameron Child benefit Communities Children Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
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Leader aims to position Labour as welcoming to all in document that puts community organising at the heart of the party Ed Miliband is to propose rewriting the Labour party’s 93-year-old founding principles, amending clause I of its constitution to explicitly put the principles of community organising at its heart. In the first redrafting of the party’s clauses in 17 years since Tony Blair famously scrapped clause IV, which until then had committed Labour to a programme of mass nationalisation, Miliband hopes to get party support for his wider ambitions for the party, which have so far been controversial with union leaders. The constitution was adopted by the party in 1918. The Guardian has seen a draft of the proposed changes Miliband will put to the Labour party conference in Liverpool in three weeks. Aides say he believes the current statement as set out in the party’s constitution – “to organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour party” – suggests the party’s objective is simply to maintain elected office. Now, in a document that has been sent to Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), the leadership is proposing a new clause I to reflect a party as welcoming to “members and supporters alike” – making formal its desire to be attractive to a far greater range of people. The proposal, contained in the Refounding Labour document, which has been drawn up by Peter Hain, chair of the national policy forum, would also insert into the new clause I the statement that Labour is “a force for social justice”. The new clause would say the party exists to “bring together members and supporters who share its values to develop policies, make communities stronger through collective action and support, and promote the election of Labour representatives at all levels of the democratic process”. The effort to redefine the concept of the party is a symbolic step but it reflects a welter of technical proposals. They include: • The training of 2,000 community organisers before the next general election. • Movement for Change, the community organisation set up by David Miliband during the leadership contest, seeking approval from the NEC to be affiliated to Labour as a socialist society. • A registered supporters scheme, which would encourage crossover between Labour and single issue organisations whose supporters may agree with Labour aims but not care to be full-blown paying members. • Union levy payers to be encouraged into local parties with joint meetings. • Candidates’ contracts requiring standards of public engagement. MPs would have to show their engagement with their constituencies to underline that representing the party is as much about engaging with the public as party members. Miliband aides say that with the onus on local parties to engage with the public will bring a greater say for them in the running of their party. A source said: “We want to give more influence to party members if they open up.” Miliband has angered unions with possible proposals for the public to be allowed to register as individual party supporters, a new category, and to be given a vote in the election of party leader. Another source of controversy is a suggestion that unions hand over a list of their 3m political levy payers so that the party, constituencies and future leadership candidates can contact them directly, and the idea that stronger links be built between local parties and union members. The unions believe the party should not communicate with their members directly, but through their representatives, partly for fear of breaching data protection rules. Some of the ideas have been seen as an attempt by Miliband to dilute the power of the trade unions. One idea mooted would see their voting power at party conference reduced to below 50% and a reduction in their sway over leadership elections. On Sunday a source close to Miliband said no decisions had yet been taken and that unions would realise Miliband was the first Labour leader in a long time to believe passionately in maintaining the union link. “What this document [Refounding Labour] is not is about some sterile 1980s debate with the unions,” a party source said. A leaked version of the speech David Miliband planned to make if he had become Labour leader shows the former foreign secretary would also have pushed for a new clause I. Ed Miliband’s aides said his endorsement of his brother’s idea was designed to underline the transformation of Labour as a grassroots campaigning movement. An attempt by Labour to try to make itself a movement with broader appeal is particularly acute as the parties all await a report into funding due to be published in October by the committee on standards in public life. That report, commissioned by the government, could propose caps as low as £50,000 on individual donations to political parties, which would see Labour lose much of its funding. David Miliband’s speech suggests he would have said: “We don’t need a clause IV moment. We do need a clause I moment. When we address the organisation of our party. When we turn ourselves into a successful electoral machine by becoming a movement again. Our founders did not start by forming a party to seek votes. They started by building a movement to make change. A Labour movement. Trade unions, faith groups, community organisations. Standing for the dignity of man against a state that didn’t listen and a market that didn’t care.” Trade union groups will be invited to regular joint meetings with constituency parties and may be given a bigger role that allows them to submit petitions to change policy. Ed Miliband Labour Labour party leadership Trade unions Allegra Stratton guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …An Australian bodyboarder met a gruesome end today when a shark attacked, biting off his legs and killing him as some 30 other surfers lingered in the water in western Australia. Authorities closed the beach near Dunsborough immediately, and are still searching for the shark, reports the AP. “We had…
Continue reading …Talks between Libyan rebels and Gadhafi loyalists in Bani Walid ended without a deal today, and the rebels are preparing to take the town by force. “Their time is over,” a spokesman tells al-Jazeera . “The push is going to happen in the next 24 hours.” The National Transitional Council expects…
Continue reading …As the music industry navigates a path for the digital era, a tiny Swedish label has proven itself an excellent guide. Though it has just 43 employees, X5 Music Group topped the classical charts last year, its sales on par with Universal, the biggest label there is. Its strategy is…
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Helios involved in discussions about ‘potential opportunities in London’ with officials from the health department A German company has been in talks to take over NHS hospitals, the first tangible evidence that foreign multinationals will be able to run state-owned acute services, a market worth £8bn, the Guardian can reveal. On the eve of the last Commons vote on the government’s bill before it heads to the Lords this week, freedom of information requests reveal a series of meetings focused on “potential opportunities in London” between officials from the Department of Health, the NHS, the management consultant McKinsey and one of the largest German private hospital chains, Helios. Once EU competition law applies to the health service there would be no barrier to handing over the running of NHS hospitals to non-British firms. Helios has a record of turning around failing hospitals, largely by cutting staff or wage levels. Local politicians have accused it of being motivated more by revenues than by patient care. The news came as key Lib Dems broke cover with a series of amendments designed to defang the government’s radical pro-market health bill. The vote has the potential to cause a major rift between the coalition partners and comes before a crunch meeting between Nick Clegg and his parliamentary party. The Lib Dem leader will seek to persuade potential rebels that there cannot be any more changes to the bill. Sources close to Clegg said the leadership had already “used up a lot of political capital” by halting and then recasting the bill earlier this year. “We expect MPs to vote with the government. Otherwise we won’t last very long [in power].” Evan Harris, a former Lib Dem MP and grassroots activist, warned the leadership it risked a revolt over the issue. He said the amendments showed “the bill in its current form does not have Lib Dem support and unless the necessary concessions are made it will fare extremely badly at the party conference and in the Lords”. Key rebels – such as the Lib Dem MP Andrew George and John Pugh, co-chairman of the Lib Dem backbench health committee – have tabled a dozen changes to the bill, almost all seeking to roll back the “competition and choice” agenda of the health secretary, Andrew Lansley. George calls for the restoration of the health secretary’s “duty to provide or secure” services, to elevate GPs’ duties to tackle health inequalities above those that promote choice, remove “all references to promoting competition directly or indirectly” from the remit of the regulator Monitor and to keep the cap limiting the proportion of total income hospitals can earn from the paying sick. George said: “We are on the slippery slope in the direction of a US-style insurance system and have to stop patient choice being used a crowbar to lever in the marketisation of the NHS.” Pugh’s amendments would also close a loophole that would allow private companies to “wholly or mainly” run the new GP commissioning groups set up to buy treatments for patients. However, there is evidence that market reforms are taking root. Documents obtained by campaigners at Spinwatch show the Department of Health secretly plans to hand over the running of up to 20 NHS hospitals to foreign firms, despite the prime minister’s pledge that there will be “no privatisation of the NHS”. In the papers McKinsey warned the department not to bundle off all the hospitals to the private sector at once – and instead start “from a mindset [of] one at a time”. The consultants told officials to be mindful of the “various political constraints” associated with privatisation. The documents lay bare what “international hospital provider groups” consider as a minimum for running NHS hospitals. “International players can do an initiative if [£]500 million revenue [is] on the table.” They also need to have “a free hand on staff management”. The NHS would be allowed to “keep real estate and pensions”. So far the department has only given approval for one NHS hospital, Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, to be handed over to a private company, Circle Health, which is backed by two Tory donors – financiers Paul Ruddock and Crispin Odey. Another three hospital trusts, Trafford Healthcare NHS trust, the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital and the Whiston hospital in St Helens have publicly said they would consider a private takeover. The Department of Health identified 32 NHS trusts that were “underperforming”, raising the prospect of private firms being put in charge of £8bn of NHS money. Helios’s plans were revealed in a meeting last December where McKinsey organised a workshop at NHS London’s offices. Attending were Ian Dalton, head of provider development at the department of health, Ruth Carnall, chief executive of NHS London, and Helios’ representatives.The workshop was to discuss “how international hospital provider groups may help to tackle the performance improvement of UK hospitals”. The agenda details a discussion with Helios over “potential opportunities in London”. The company gave a presentation on “what an international player would suggest”. Helios was given an update on the “situation for NHS hospitals” and the “specific situation in London”. The meeting also included discussions on “requirements for policy”. The workshop was held a month before Lansley published his NHS bill. Just after the bill was published a representative from McKinsey was invited to the department to talk about the Helios bid. John Healey, Labour’s health spokesman, called on Lib Dems to “join with Labour this week to put a stop to David Cameron’s damaging plans for the NHS”. He said it looked like there was “a well-worked secret plan for privatising hospitals”. “Cameron promises one thing on NHS privatisation in public, while at the same time his government attends secret meetings with those ready to take advantage of the prime minister’s market-driven plans for our health service.” NHS Health Health policy Liberal Democrats House of Commons Healthcare industry Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
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Extra police will be posted outside schools and tube stations until half term to counter pupil crime, especially mobile phone theft Around 1,000 police and community support officers will protect children travelling to and from London schools against robbery, Scotland Yard said. Pupils starting secondary school will be given special attention, with officers outside schools, around tube stations and on buses until half-term on 21 October. There were 15,766 muggings in the capital between April and last month, with more than a third of victims aged between 10 and 19, and 8,200 mobile phones reported stolen. Police said that robberies in which mobile phones are taken from young people leaving school increase at this time of year. Ian McPherson, the Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said: “We take street crime very seriously – being robbed can be a traumatic experience, and so tackling it is a key priority for us.” He added: “I’d like to remind Londoners that street robbery is still relatively lower than in previous years, including 2006 when robbery was at peak levels.” Crime Police London Schools guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A 17-year-old boy has been arrested on charges of impersonating a physician’s assistant and working in a Florida hospital’s emergency room for a week, reports the Orlando Sentinel . Police say Matthew Scheidt dressed in a lab coats and surgical scrubs, conducted physical exams, and reportedly even gave CPR to a…
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