Al Capone's back

Having just watched the ITV program exposure I actually feel like in the words of the famous song suicide is painless and that death is something that may bring relief.

I sit and look at my 10 year old son and I think of all the nasty horrible things that await him on his journey through life. I wonder how we as a so called civilised society can allow people like Mr Boast from Rossendales to have jobs? And I look at the well practiced Bambi eyes of the owner of the company and think to myself are we really taken in by such fawning?

Milgram was right without a doubt, people are compliant with perceived authority to the point of being sheep. In fact so much so that when a war memorial is desecrated, because the thieves want the plaques for metal, the strongest response is a Gaelic shrug of the shoulders.


If we genuinely believe that we are a civilised society then it is about time we grew up and acted like one in helping others before we help ourselves.

All it takes for evil to succeed is for one good man not to stand up!

And by not standing up Al Capone has surely risen.

Dicken's to them all

Bleak House could have been no more bleaker, Scrooge no more meaner and David Copperfield no more naive.

Why talk of these things? Well I am concerned that we are heading back to the Victorian era, The workhouse is likely to be reinvented if the current government is looking at New York's grand welfare plan. And kid yourself not for if the safeguards surrounding employment law are removed allowing employers to sack employees for no reason then we will find ourselves there very quickly.

I know lets just shoot people instead, No I'm not being serious but I am seriously starting to feel like I am in Germany in 1933, not Britain in 2012

A Father's Fear

The last thing any father wants to think of is that one of their children has been injured or even worse.

This week has been very difficult on that front. Firstly I have been suffering from a chest infection that has gone from bad to worse to debilitating. Secondly my youngest son from my marriage whilst with his College in Bulgaria on a cultural visit was attacked by some local on the bus. His tutor was also attacked as were several others.

Tonight I received a telephone call from my daughter who is living in London on her placement year from University and working for the BBC in PR. She and her flatmate were being besieged, yes you read correctly by a drug and alcohol fuelled next door neighbour intent on breaking down the door to their flat and doing God knows what. All I have had is visions of the Vincent Tabac story coming to haunt my own doorstep except this time it wasn't a Portuguese person but an Hungarian named Adam.

They called the Police who took an age to respond, I could hear the smashing on the door by this lunatic hell bent on entry. I called the police. They took me seriously the first time but it still didn't speed things up. They told him off, they went, he started again as soon as they left. They called the police again, they even did 999 and still it was a good 25 minutes before the boys from the Met turned up. Did they arrest this man, no why? Because there is an external door which he was inside of as it was a block of flats.

Well the TV licence people treat each flat as a separate residence and everyone pays separate Council Tax Bills so why didn't they arrest him?

And when I rang the Metropolitan Police Control room I was met by the corporate speak of Communications Officer Dunn who really didn't seem to appreciate that being over a hundred miles away from my daughter I was more than concerned. I wasn't allowed to speak to her superior in the control room because she has no superior in the control room. And she wouldn't put me through to a desk officer at the nearest Police Station so that I could find out exactly what was going on. When I said to her this was now an official complaint she said someone would be back to me in due course. I asked her would that be after my daughter was dead!

This is an utter joke how the corporate system of supposedly the world's oldest and finest Police Force is now run. Plastic Policing? Not even third rate nylon Policing.

My daughter has the right to enjoy her safety. That right was clearly violated. I have a right to talk to a police officer if I am in distress that right was clearly violated. Have I filled out the complaint form of the Met? Yes. Do I expect anything other than chaff? Well I would like to think I'd get solid answers but my heart feels heavy as I say probably not.

I have to ask seriously are the Metropolitan Police so understaffed or badly equipped or trained that they have to wait for my daughter to end up in hospital, or worse before they will actually do something other than tell someone he's a naughty boy? I demand answers, I deserve answers but more importantly every citizen of the United Kingdom deserves answers as to why the Police are more bothered about corporate communications than real people? 

Inspire Me!

I was watching the Tonight programme about lack of discipline in schools and I found it incredible that the way that Micheal Gove and Co. want to go about schooling children is akin to going back to Victorian standards. Now I know the Education Secretary was keen to point out that there should be no use of force in a method of punishment but some people will just not understand the fine line between restraint in terms of prevention and/or punishment.

I went to a tough school. High in ethnicity it would have been a ghetto school if it had been in Queens or The Bronx. But it was a great school. It was great because of the inspirational teachers that I had. And because of the inspirational teachers we had we learned to work through our differences. Sure there was conflict but at the end of the day the teachers that inspired us needed no discipline because we wanted to learn, the teachers that were just drawing their pay check ended up with nervous breakdowns.

And to be honest that's kind of how it should be. If you go into teaching you do so because you have a desire to influence the next generations and therefor the way in which the world evolves. If you cannot inspire people or hold their attention then you are in the wrong job and to be quite frank and brutal there are a lot of teachers out there that are in the wrong job.

Teaching is tough and therefor you need tough people. I know I have worked with so many people that society has given up on that I have lost count. But I didn't give up on them because I genuinely believe that everybody brings something to the party.

We all have our unique sets of skills and talents that without those this world would be a far duller place!

The trick is to get those people out of their shells. I have successfully taught neurophysiology and advanced psychology to people who can barely read or write but because I have used that psychology I have taught them in a way that they can understand, relate to and reproduce when on their own.

Teaching is an advanced skill which sadly many teachers do not possess. Outrage I hear you say. Nonsense say I. Ask this question:

How many teachers joined the profession because their academic skills were not good enough to get another job elsewhere? And how many really joined because they were drawn to the profession?

And how many will tell the truth!

Teaching is a key skill and not enough teachers have it. Let us train our teachers better and let us seek to educate not seek to brainwash

Feed Me!

So the Care Quality Commission published findings today that showed that care for the elderly in UK hospitals is bordering on the dangerous and is illegal in some places.

Is this surprising?

Are we really going to do anything about it?

No on  both counts. It is not surprising in any shape or form except maybe how long it has taken for people to wake up to this. No we are not really going to do much about it due to an apathy and ambivalence to the needs of the people.

Growing up as a child I was wowed by stories of how my relations had fought for this country against the tyranny and evil that was Adolf Hitler. I was then wowed by how the world changed post war in a radical new plan called the welfare state. I really believed that we in the United Kingdom really were leading the world.

The problem was the politicians forgot to plan for the future and then started playing ping pong with it. We allowed big business to ransack the NHS and Politicians to castrate the desire to succeed. And now there are more chiefs than Indians.

But it's not just hospitals. Care in the home is equally as despicable with care companies putting intolerable pressure on their staff who in turn cut corners for little reward. I know a carer who will travel 20 miles to work for 30 minutes to be paid £3 for doing so at 9pm. The companies make massive profits but the quality of care is questionable.

According to a survey recently we are a polite society. I think that this is nonsense and I wonder if we are even a first world society anymore. I really wonder if we care about anyone if they get in our way or become a problem with our lives.

What will we do when it is our turn to sit in the chair, bed or wheelchair. Will we wish we had done more now!

We give thanks

Right now my ten year old son and I are lucky to be alive.

This morning taking him to school the school bus for another school decided that it would be really bright to stop diagonally across the road just after a blind bend and cutting off the traffic flow both ways. Not that my next door neighbour but one would think as they came screaming round the blind bend narrowly missing our car and two others waiting to move.

Having been in a serious car accident all sorts of things have started flooding through my mind. My flashbacks are firing off like there is no tomorrow and I am finding it difficult to operate today on any kind of rational level. I am lucky though  because I know how to cope with traumatic stress and secondly the car did not hit us.

I really wonder what the universe is trying to tell me right now.

Take care out there today. 

For Harry

My life was short but my love was great
My life was blessed by the love you gave
I sleep now with angels in a peaceful state
And look down from heaven so you had better behave

The fight must go on for those I leave
Don't give up on what was started
Even though some may no longer believe
My soul is here though my body departed

You took me in to all your hearts
You made me smile when times were dark
You all played so many parts
You're never forgotten, my angels Hark

So look out for me on a star filled night
Go think good things of hope and joy
Because I am now in heaven's light
And remember the love from this little boy.

A Father's Love

The time tunnel today on Heart was 1989 a very strange, wonderful yet horrible year for me in this journey in life. It gave me the very best of times it gave me the very worst of times.

Firstly let me deal with the bad, a friend once told me that you eat the bits of the sandwich that you hate first so as to enjoy the best bits last therefor leaving you with a wonderful memory. Very philosophical and very true.

OK the worst of 1989. I got married. It was the wrong thing to do. I don't intend to dwell too much on this but I knew the day that I took my vows that I was lying. How could I not be lying for I was still in love with someone else. Yet still I put duty first. Why duty? Well half of my family are Irish Catholic and I would never have been able to look either my mother or grandmother in the face had I pulled out at the last minute. Not because pulling out at the last minute was considered a bad thing in this culture but because my wife to be was pregnant. And you don't walk away from your responsibilities in my family.

So I didn't and I got married in pomp and circumstance at St Peter's Church in Cirencester. Full penguin suits, the works.

And then to the best of 1989. November 30th to be precise and the best birthday present a father could have ever received, a son, Gareth. I delivered him as the midwife was running between three births, a major flu bug was sweeping around at the time and they were short staffed. She knew that I knew how to deliver a child but even though  protested I had never actually done it she gave me the gown and calmly said "It's about time you had a practice then". What a way to learn, the responsibility of delivering someone else's child is enormous I cannot describe the emotions that I felt whilst delivering my own.

I think this is why I have such a bond with my son. I have a different type of bond with my other children, equally as special but different to the one with Gareth. And that is only right for each of my children are different.

Now Gareth follows in my footsteps at Liverpool, although he is studying engineering as his first degree, and he is building a life of his own. He is strong and thoughtful and emotive. He has grown into fine young man. I am so very proud of what he has become, just as I am proud of all my children.

So why tell you about this today, well I guess it's because I am feeling emotional myself after reading the tweets from Harry Moseley and his family. I have buried 4 children, all still birth's and the pain of losing them was beyond belief but I cannot imagine what is happening in the Moseley household right now and I hope that it never happens to my family. All I know is a father's love is something that is without a doubt, like a mother's love, a binding passion of two souls that can never be taken away. Once a parents love come 's into existence it is the strongest force in the Universe and something that will never die.

I send my blessings and love to the Moseley family, even though they neither know me nor probably never will. I wish them all peace and love with everything that is in my soul and everything that I am. I hope, and although I am not religious pray, that a miracle will happen and that the medics are wrong.

If love is the overriding power of the universe then let us hope that today love will find a way to heal.  

Silence

I look to the sky to seek eternity
The moon, the stars and the silence in between
I lie here in my bed and sigh
For I know that we all must die

But in the time that our candle burns so bright
That flick'r in the constant sea of time
I know that we can touch a heart
Before silence comes and we must part

Fear not for me I hear you say
For the pain has upped and run away
Leaving me in God's safe hands
For we go on beyond these lands

And when the time comes you too will follow
On the journey we all must make
So do not fear the silence for it is only in your mind
For we are one together, for all time.

If there's a spinner in town, you are going to be bowled over

Firstly with reference to the recent announcement I send my warmest wishes to that greatest of bowlers, most massive of characters and most lovable Australian on the block Mr Shane Warne on sliding into the heart of Liz Hurley and flipping her head over heels with a marriage proposal. Good luck to yer mate may you both be very happy.

Secondly on a far darker note redactors are back in town. Well that's what apparently has happened to the Prime Minister's speech at the Conservative Party Conference. Never have the spin doctors had to work harder giving god knows how many PR executives a third if not fourth ulcer.

Pay off your credit cards!!!!! Who are you kidding David. PPI spring to mind, that little googly has got a lot of people in a spin. Interest rates some 25 percent higher than the Bank of England's base rate and 18 percent plus on the LIBOR rate or LIAR rate as I prefer to call it. How about sorting that one then. A lot of people's minimum payments don't even cover the interest at the moment when base rates have been at their lowest in ....well forever.

Let's face it Prime Minister the whole system is broke, just as Communism failed so too now is Capitalism. We need to start shifting the paradigms (good marketing speak there I hope you noticed). We are not in this together at all and never will be as long as those institutions that have sought to control us are in fact controlled themselves. Yes we need to have a money management system but do we really need to live with the devil for this to be true.

Wake up and realise that the most powerful people in the world, the money machine, have already got you on the back foot scared of wondering if it will be a flipper, a stripper, a dipper, a zipper or a plain old kipper they're going to serve you up.

Spin that to me one more time!

The quality of mercy is not strained

I saw something very disturbing yesterday. Apparently there is now going to be a cost to bringing a case in an employment tribunal of £250 to bring the case and £1000 if the case goes to hearing only to be refunded if you win the case.

I know why don't we just start sending children down the mines again?

A little drastic you may think, well isn't this the logical extension of what this outrageous manipulation of the system brings? Employment tribunals are there to allow individuals to seek some kind of recourse for unfair practices by employers. Without access to this form of justice we are ultimately making the employer/employee relationship untenable.

A charge for this service would preclude so many people who would have previously been able take their cases to tribunal particularly those claiming for constructive dismissal which at the moment is virtually impossible to win. It is adding to the bullying nature of the system.

Magna Carta enshrined the right to a trial in the English legal system. the Human Rights Act confirmed this, Are we about to tear them both up for a measly £1000?

Now there are some of you who would say if the case is strong enough sue and be damned because you'll get the money back but how many of you have been through the process which although supposed to be fair is actually heavily stacked in favour of the employer already. Employment Judges are not minded to follow the rules of fairness at times particularly when it comes to disclosure of evidence.

Take for example a bullying case where the employee claims that they have been forced out of work by constant harassment by the employer including inappropriate telephone calls and unfair working practices. It is unlikely that the Employment Judge will order disclosure of company records that will confirm or deny this.

That would never happen I hear you say. Wrong it happened in one case where I was representing a client, a carer, against a large care company, her ex employer. My client sued for constructive dismissal because they were expected to be in 2 places at once, travel great distances in no time, work 20 hour days without breaks, change schedules at two minutes notice, work on their own when there should have been two people present and a whole raft of other things including being de facto on call 24/7. All this for no doubt wonderful remuneration, not at all, minimum wage and what is called a zero hour contract which they were forced to sign to replace their initial 16 hours per week contract. The employer would telephone the employee in the middle of the night, shout and swear at family members and even threatened a child.

My client was so undermined by their employer that they had no option to leave and claim constructive dismissal even though they knew that this would potentially finish their career as a trainee social worker and leave their family potentially penniless.

In the tribunal the employer basically lied and then disappeared all their witnesses but the Judge refused to order disclosure of records that would confirm these patterns and when an application was made under the Data Protection Act records that were supposed to be kept for 6 years under Inland Revenue regulations suddenly had been destroyed, Why? Well the records not only proved the case against the employer but also showed that the company was defrauding clients including Local Authorities of possibly millions of pounds.

In the end I won the case because of the arguments I put forward over the disappearing witnesses but I have to say it was still luck because the system was so belligerent.

That client already in a traumatised state would never have been able to bring the case if the fee structure was in place and that would have left them potentially psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives and prevented them from being a useful economic resource to this country as well as their family.

So come on stop this stupidity now and stop these proposed fees.

Bring forth fair Portia, and show us the quality of mercy is not strained!

In an Irish barley field

Well what a storm has been served up this week by Rhianna, or should I say the farmer who prevented her form continuing her video shoot.

Alan Graham has been somewhat castigated for his approach to the raunchy musician's way of doing things but is that fair?

Listening to Radio5 this morning whilst on my travels the debate hotted up around the point of morals and sexualisation of children. And it is right that we speak of these things as over the years I have seen this occurring time and time again. It is not Rhianna's fault that the sexualisation of children takes place but she doesn't help things in one way.

Now I'm no prude, I am a psychologist for goodness sake I can't afford to be a prude. And let's face it I like making love like the next hot blooded adult. For those of you who know me well will know that I have been married, divorced and had numerous affairs with both married and single women both when I was married and when I was single. And here's the point at all times was it consenting adults allowing mutual attraction and sexual chemistry to have it's way over my socially developed values. It was at times basic primeval sexuality. Interestingly enough I have been celibate for two years now because I discovered that love is more important than sex. That doesn't mean that I will be permanently celibate I have just changed my thoughts on basic sexuality and I wish to make love now not have sex.

But sex sells, love making doesn't. And although the argument went that socially aware late teenagers can tell the differences between art and pornography my 10 year old son can't and looking at some of the so called television programmes that are being shown for that age group I have serious concerns. These were clearly ratified by something that happened a few weeks ago.

My eldest biological son had come down from university to see me and we went for a walk me, my eldest and my 10 year old on the White Horse at Westbury. Having been chased by mental sheep in the twilight we were returning to my son's car which by now sat lonely in the car park except for another car that had parked right next to it. As we approached the car the internal light came on illuminating quite a scene. My eldest looked at me and we ushered my 10 year old around to the other side of the car and quickly departed sighing with relief until quite matter of factly my 10 year old came out with, " It's okay dad I know what a blow job is ".

Well as you can imagine I was somewhat shocked and after some very gentle and careful questioning I discovered that the sexual education that children are receiving at school is finding a whole new meaning in the playground as children talk about films and videos they have seen without realising the nature or the complexity of the subject.

So I have to say as a concerned parent maybe Alan Graham was justified. 

To Err is to be Human

Today marks the birthday of Ghandi born in 1869.

Without a doubt he is one of the most inspirational people the human race has ever produced.

It is ironic that today the Home Secretary has given an interview, with which the Sunday Telegraph leads, denouncing the Human Rights Act.

The HRA is not perfect, what piece of legislation is, however to just abandon it is ridiculous unless there is proposed better legislation that enshrines the principles of the rights of every human being within the United Kingdom.

Now I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I hate the fact that prisoners can litigate against the state because of some petty squabble and how the HRA protects the rights of predatory peadophiles and dangerous terrorists who would do harm to the most vulnerable in our soceity. Yet I cannot bring myself to abandon legislation, withut proper and adequate replacement, that was designed to protect ordinary people like me.

What it seems to me is the problem is that ultimately we are a Constitutional Monarchy and much as I like the Queen I have great concerns that this is what prevents us from having a true Bill of Rights as you would find in a Republican system.

But here is the crux. Britain prides itself upon the democratic heritage that it has developed over centuries since the signing of Magna Carta in 1215. After all in which country could a German spout insurrection from the workers without being hung drawn and quartered. (For those who don't understand that the reference is to Karl Marx, who lived and preached in London and is buried in Highgate Cemetary) And if we remove the HRA from existance then we run the danger of heading toward a 1984 scenario (Orwellian, for those who still need the reference)

I wonder if Ghandi would be shocked on his 142nd Birthday? I wonder if he would take up the cause of democracy and freedom once again?