http://bethhurrellramblings.tumblr.com/

Woolly Mammoth :-) Wish they had more music up, they are lovely live

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:29:45 -0500

Woolly Mammoth :-) Wish they had more music up, they are lovely live

Beautiful! Black Swan last night, the Black Swan is becoming a regular feature of my life.

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:47:20 -0500

Beautiful! Black Swan last night, the Black Swan is becoming a regular feature of my life.

Forgot how good Al Baker was, good job he was at the Black Swan...

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 05:40:29 -0500

Forgot how good Al Baker was, good job he was at the Black Swan last week to remind me.

Photo

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:23:33 -0400

Eric Ayotte - A waste of power

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:49:47 -0400

Eric Ayotte - A waste of power

Video

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:32:55 -0400

Today I shall mostly be listening to Bad Ideas.

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:31:23 -0400

Today I shall mostly be listening to Bad Ideas.

Oxjam - Its a Hole Lotta Folk! Saturday 6 October. It will definitely maybe be slightly preferable to staying in so you should probably come on down. Eric Ayotte and The Casual Terrorist will make your heart happy.

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:18:45 -0400

Oxjam - Its a Hole Lotta Folk! Saturday 6 October. It will definitely maybe be slightly preferable to staying in so you should probably come on down. Eric Ayotte and The Casual Terrorist will make your heart happy.

York Socialist party York against the war - public stall every...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:14:00 -0400

York Socialist party

York against the war - public stall every Saturday since 2003

Henry Hunt and other Peterloo delegates for political reforms tried at Quarter sessions 1820

Today - celebrating living in York. Our campaign groups and...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:05:00 -0400

Today - celebrating living in York. Our campaign groups and action for a better future!

Palestine stall most weekends

Friends’ meeting house - meetings on NHS changes and housing in York. These give inform to fuel our campaigns!

What were the experiences of the workers in the Minster? A part...

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 05:59:00 -0400

What were the experiences of the workers in the Minster? A part of the story that’s never mentioned..

Public sector strike and anti-cuts rally November 30th 2011

York windmills - alternative energy?

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 05:34:00 -0400

York windmills - alternative energy?

Video

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 17:54:43 -0400

York mystery soul festival quick review

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:37:57 -0400

Snake Davis - a strange and quite self-absorbed first half meant I had to check the flyer to see that we’d booked for the right show (for example, Irish dancers and soprano sax solo tunes). The second half put me right with some Northern Soul stompers, good vocals and energetic band. New York Brass Band brought the night right up to scratch too, I do love a sousaphone.

Al Morrison Blues Experience - Laid back blues and jazz, the show had a really positive feel to it with some great vocals. The faster ones especially good! Never any need to introduce the whole band twice though, particularly when there are 11 members.

Pee Wee Ellis - a bit of a greatness right here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRi2TXD0EeQ&feature=fvwrel would’ve loved to hear a few faster ones especially Funky good time, (though he is 70 now..) but doing the Chicken and a slowed down version of I feel good will do for me! Chicken was especially great to hear as having a solo sprung on me during a York college gig at City Screen, I looked terrified and preceded to play something awful and out-of-key. Mr Ellis did it much better. He also did a couple of real nice slower ones with some funky riffs whilst being a bit jazzier. All round great show and my oh my what a sax player!

Atos games starts 27 August

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:25:45 -0400

I am pretty excited about the Paralympics, just as I was pretty excited about the Olympics, so much so I even went for a run. Twice.

There is however a strange cloud of hypocrisy overshadowing the Paralympics: it being sponsored by Atos, an IT company who have the contract for assessing people on Employment Support Allowance; they decide who is and is not able to work. The appeals rate was 40% costing £26 million in 2010/11. (source Mencap.org.uk). Over 1,000 people have died of their illnesses after being found ‘fit for work.’

They have also recently been awarded the contract to assess people on Personal Independence Payments (the new Disability Living Allowance).

The Government’s policies are completely off target and impact negatively on disabled people and those around them. I imagine that being assessed again and furthermore being wrongly assessed is traumatic and hugely stressful. The rhetoric that accompanies these policies and practices is shameful, ‘benefit cheats and scroungers’ have become common language in the media and in public. Hate crimes against disabled people have risen. These games take places in a country that criminalises disabled people, whilst those who feature in the Paralympic games are likely to receive huge praise (and rightly so) those who are unable to work because of their condition or illness continue to face demonisation.

I will really enjoy the games but I fully support the protests being held throughout by groups such as Disabled People Against Cuts. See here for details!

Young Attenborough - Nor lentil, nor bean :-)

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 03:19:50 -0400

Young Attenborough - Nor lentil, nor bean :-)

We grow beards - Emmeline :-)

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 03:16:54 -0400

We grow beards - Emmeline :-)

Forced labour? - The Community Action Programme (CAP)

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:53:55 -0400

When reading yesterday’s Guardian article, Million jobless may face 6 months’ unpaid work or have benefits stopped?, several phrases came into my head: ‘slave labour’, ‘forced labour’ and ‘breaching human rights’. These are the same words used by those who criticise the Work Programme and other mandatory programmes which threaten the removal of benefits or working ‘for free’. The Community Action Programme does exactly as the headline article suggests: those on unemployment benefit for 3 years and more will be forced to work unpaid for 6 months or lose their benefits. Does this constitute Forced Labour/modern-day slavery?

The International Labour Organisation defines Forced labour as

‘All work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily’.

It then goes on to give 6 indicators for forced labour: physical/psychological harm, retention of ID documents, restrictions on movement beyond the workplace, threat of denunciation to authorities, debt bondage or withholding of wages. Anti-Slavery International say that Forced labour exists when 2 or more of these indicators are present. You could argue about withholding of wages and psychological harm but personally I am unsure whether CAP would constitute Forced labour if it were implemented. Reading the cases mentioned in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report on Forced labour in the UK Food Industry I am doubtful whether this has too much in common with the experiences of individuals in ‘forced labour’.

But I also think that this is not the only question we should be asking, just because something does not fall in line with the definition of ‘forced labour’ or ‘slavery’, does not mean that exploitation is not present or that it is morally sound (or ‘fair’ if you want to use Coalition language). The differences in law between exploitation and forced labour need to be made clearer, as does whether CAP stands up to employment law, or whether because it is a government scheme, the same rules do not apply as they do to employers?

But really this isn’t a question of language, £71 a week is the maximum Job Seekers’ Allowance (for someone over 25), if someone is working unpaid full-time, this works out at £2.03 an hour, which is well below the National Minimum Wage. I’m assuming there are no employer/government pension contributions, no holiday accruement which is another dimension to consider. How could you justify one person earning £2.03 an hour on the CAP scheme and another earning £6.19 for what in effect could be the same job. Will this help increase the confidence of people who have been unemployed for a while?

Surely ‘a fair days pay for a fair days work’ has got to form the basis of this debate?

Will these jobs provide more skills and a valuable experience that could improve peoples’ chances of getting a job? Most likely not. There is evidence to say that the previous Mandatory Work Activity scheme had little positive impact on employment (see Jonathan Portes’ blog for more) and A4E have a success rate of just 3.5% of referrals entering long term jobs.

This is unjust, morally abhorrent and stigmatises jobseekers with little or no positive impact on the lives of those undertaking the CAP scheme or on employment figures but I do not think it constitutes ‘forced labour’ as definitions currently stand.

It’s essential that if this does go ahead, that it is measured both quantitatively to see success rate and qualitatively to hear the stories of those undertaking ‘unpaid’ work.

Sigur Ros - Samskeyti - beautiful

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:01:11 -0400

Sigur Ros - Samskeyti - beautiful

York Stop the Cuts still going on because the cuts are still going on! Out of the loop? See here for update!

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:36:48 -0400

York Stop the Cuts still going on because the cuts are still going on! Out of the loop? See here for update!:

We are York’s local anti-cuts group. We campaign on a range of issues, both local and national, where we feel the government is cutting public services, or privatising them.

We are a loose collection of local people, from a broad spectrum of society: young and old, party affiliated and non-party political, employed, unemployed and students. Together we organise and run campaigns. We also support other local groups who campaign on similar issues, such as Defend Our NHS York and York Welfare Campaign

For more information please see our Group Statement.