Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Vital services or financial ruin?

In Israel In England

“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”  Fatma Aliye

“ We remain a profession with amongst the highest number of unpaid working hours, and we are still well above the international average for hours worked by teachers. This is simply unsustainable and can only lead to burnout.” Unmanageable workloads, stress and level of trust in teachers are key factors

Avoidable Covid-19 deaths were significantly higher in the most deprived areas in England Age-standardised avoidable mortality rates (per 100,000 people) with an underlying cause of Covid-19 in England, 2020 Most deprived Males 95.1 Females  53.3 Least deprived Males  21.9 Females  9.4 Figures are for deaths registered in each calendar year and exclude deaths of non-residents.  Source:   ONS – Deaths registered in England Death rates expose health inequalities

Students to pay off loans into their 60s

Italy, France, England – and even Japan – are below OECD average

“ We must ask ourselves … equality with what? Do men have such idyllic lives that we want the same for ourselves? In a world where people are valued as economic units rather than as people, to be an equal economic unit must not be the height of our ambition.” – Sheila Rowbotham

“Because of the polarity between the left and the right, I don’t feel I have an identity with politicians on either side. The left wing have abandoned the working classes, and with a lot of the left – I don’t want to sound like Piers Morgan when I say this – I feel like there is too much nitpicking and stupid fights, especially online. But I hate the Tories with a passion. I was raised to hate them, I still hate them, and I always will. They clearly know who they stand for and they don’t represent people like us. A quarter of the kids in working families in my region are in poverty. Nobody sticks their neck out for the north-east. The line in Aye – “I don’t have time for the very few” – that’s the one thing that always going to be my main gripe on this planet, the sheer disparity between the 1% and the rest of the world. These culture wars are valid wars that need to be fought – there’s a lot of bigotry, a lot of racism and homophobia. But in order to get the Tories out, you’ve got to ...

The right is creating its own new stories. Because culture war is not about winning a debate about what constitutes England through factual disputes about its character, its statues, its football team or its history of empire. It is not a peripheral indulgence, or a mere confection. Culture war is an aggressive political act with the purpose of creating new dividing lines and therefore new and bigger electoral majorities. It aims to create its own truth, and its own England, through what Nietzsche called a “mobile army of metaphors” The right is winning

This is not news; it’s been going going for years. “Rather than selling off the NHS  outright – a decision politicians know would be unpopular – they are instead doing this through the backdoor, by stealth.” The NHS is being privatised by stealth under cover of the pandemic

Keep clapping. A corrupt incompetent regime insults health workers with a 1% pay rise Related A nurse fined £10,000 for protesting

  University College London apologises for role in promoting eugenics

 Another page of the unfinished book of corruption in the UK, and especially in England. What will the “public” do? “I don’t care much. That’s how things are. Now I am looking forward to the vaccine to go back to my normal life.” Then comes the ritual again: we will cross a piece of paper “to make a change.” It is more likely that the Conservatives will be re-elected. Indifference is not only towards migrants ‘dying’ in the seas and the vulnerable in society, but also to cronyism and clientelism at home. Corruption of the City of London, the Panama Files, HSBC money laundering ... have not made the “public” even protest on the street. Faith combined with fear and conservatism are still working in favour of the ruling class.  Despite of what has happened since 2008/09, there is a general sense that the state has managed the crisis and the pandemic. The state intervened and has been paying those made unemployed. Thus the resignation. Cronyism and clientelism How Covid revealed t...

 Three quarters of England’s care workers earn below ‘real’ living wage The article fails to include a fundamental facto: care as a source of profit in an extremist market. “The pandemic has also exposed the privatised care system as catastrophically unfit and ill-prepared. In 1993, 95% of care at home was  provided publicly by local authorities . Now, almost all of it – and almost all residential care – is provided by private companies. Even before the pandemic, the system was falling apart, as many care companies, unable to balance the needs of their patients with the demands of their shareholders, collapsed, often with disastrous consequences.” Both Tory and New Labour governments were responsible.

  In the briefing, Dr Ali said: "The problem with focusing on ethnicity as a risk factor is that it misses the very large number of non-ethnic minority groups, so whites basically, who also live in deprived areas and overcrowded housing and with high risk occupations." He added the whole population should have a "personalised risk assessment" rather than just targeting ethnic groups. "It doesn't make sense to put all ethnic minorities in the same basket as it doesn't make sense to put all whites in the same basket," he said.  On structural racism, he said he was not convinced by the narrative that racism played a part in coronavirus deaths. My comment: What about class then, Dr Ali? What about the overlap of class and racism?  If the whites also suffer from risk because of their class and social conditions they live, the non-whites, the working class, the poor, suffer from both racism and class oppression. Ethnic minority Covid risk ‘not explained ...

He doesn’t care about Black Lives Matter ... Just follow what he said carefully. You would be surprised how much ignorant white British are. And this is only one subject of discussion. An example from Bristol, England

Thousands of migrants denied help during pandemic Related BAME over 50s likely to be among poorest in England

This country sees itself as overcrowded and overgenerous – it is neither of those things

The slavers and abolitionists on Liverpool's streets