Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Labours direction is already under the spotlight after the partys worst result in a general election in the post-war era. Conceding defeat in the early hours of Friday morning, Jeremy Corbyn made clear he would not lead the party in any future general election campaign.

After it became apparentLabour would have its lowest number of MPs since 1935, Corbyn said a period of reflection is now needed for the party and he would remain in post during this difficult stage.

But devoid of any political authority, the Labour leaders future is no longer in his own hands. MPs in the party are already demanding his immediate resignation, and pressure will be immense for him to step down in the coming hours.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Here The Independent looks at some of the potential candidates in a leadership contest.

A key ally of the current left-wing leadership of the party, the Salford & Eccles MP is viewed in some quarters as the natural successor to Corbyn and describes herself as a proud socialist. Highly regarded by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, she also won plaudits for her performance filling in for Corbyn both at Prime Ministers Questions and during the general election debates.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey (Getty)

The shadow business secretary grew up by Old Trafford football ground and began her working life serving at the counter of a pawn shop.

As the polls unfolded, she would not be drawn on whether she wanted to be the partys leader. Its not something that Im thinking about, I think we need to get through tonight, see where the chips fall and then we will regroup as a party, asses whats happened and what the next steps need to be, she said.

The shadow education secretary is likely to be in the mix for the partys leadership after Corbyns resignation. Rayner was brought up on a council estate, left her local comprehensive school with no qualifications, and gave birth to her first son, Ryan, at the age of 16.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner (Getty)

She rose through the ranks of the trade union movement to become the most senior elected official of Unison before being elected to her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency in 2015. In her current role she spearheaded Labours national education service and has championed the abolition of tuition fees.

After the devastating election result unfolded, Rayner said: Thank you to all our volunteers, staff and activists who have worked their socks off. I know the exit poll is incredible devastating but we will continue to keep faith in our great movement and the UK.

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Corbyns constituency neighbour and friend, Emily Thornberry, has been critical of the partys Brexit stancebut has remained loyal to the leadership and has represented the Labour Party on various overseas visits.

The 59-year-old was brought up on a council estate near Guildford in Surrey by her mother when her father, a human rights lawyer and academic, walked out on his family. I was born into the Labour Party, she once said. I was delivering leaflets by the age I could reach the letterbox.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry (Getty)

First elected as MP for Islington South in 2005, the shadow foreign secretary is likely to be considering a bid for the leadership, but the party may be looking for a leadership candidate outside its London stronghold.

After winning back her seat in the same venue as Corbyn, she said: We may be hurting tonight but we are not beaten. We will tell Boris Johnson,No our fight is not over, our fight is just starting.

The former director of public prosecutions undoubtedly has ambitions to lead the party, and is highly regarded by both left-wingers and centrists in the party. As Labours shadow Brexit secretary, he played a key role in the partys eventual backing of a second referendum.

Before becoming an MP, he was a human rights lawyer conducting cases in international courts including the European Court of Human Rights.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer (Reuters)

In Julythis year, a YouGov poll of party members found he was the favouritein terms of being a good leader if Jeremy Corbyn stood down before the next election way ahead of other possible contenders.

Speaking after his re-election in Holborn and St Pancras, he said: There is no hiding from the overall result. It is devastating. It will hurt the millions of people who so desperately need a Labour government. They have suffered so much under 10 years of Tory austerity and will suffer more because of this result. We must now reflect; we must also rebuild.

The MP for Birmingham Yardley has been a prominent critic of the Labour leadership, and said at her victory speech in the early hours of Friday morning that it was clear her party needed structural change.

The reality is that the Labour Party has got to do a huge amount more than just think getting rid of one manwill just simply make it OK, she added.

Jess Phillips at the Birmingham Yardley count (PA)

Before being elected to parliament, Phillips worked for Womens Aid, supporting female victims of domestic abuse. She has previously suggested she would run for the leadership should the position become vacant, but given the left-wing membership of the Labour Party, Phillips would likely find it difficult to gain traction in any leadership contest.

Cooper came third in the Labour leadership election in 2015, with just 19 per cent of the vote share dwarfed by Corbyns 59 per cent. But Cooper, who has maintained a high profile in recent years as chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee in which she has grilledministers, could attempt a second shot at the leadership.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper (Reuters)

Unlike the other possible contenders, Cooper, who has been an MP since 1997, has experience in government having served as chief secretary to the Treasury and secretary of state for work and pensions under Gordon Brown.

Continued here:

Who will be the next Labour leader after Jeremy Corbyn resigns? - The Independent

She surprised a lot of political hands, both for how decisive her win was last fall over better connected Democratic competitors, and for how explicit she was with voters about her plans to radically reshape criminal justice in Greater Boston. Another first-time district attorney might be inclined to protect the political capital that comes from winning 185,000 votes. (Thats approaching three times the tally Mayor Marty Walsh garnered in his last election.) Rollins sees things differently: Why leave a better paying, less punishing job if you arent going to spend your political capital on something meaningful, like a bold plan to make the county safer and the system fairer?

In March, she issued a 65-page memo ushering in a new progressive approach to law, order, and justice. Among its more controversial components, it lists 15 nonviolent offenses, from shoplifting to drug possession, where her offices default position would be to not prosecute. Her memo drew soft on crime fire from a number of influential quarters, notably Governor Charlie Bakers office, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the business community.

On this November morning, she knows that shoplifting is what the merchants will want to talk about, so she sees no point in delay.

A tall, gray-haired man, who sells sheepskin-lined slippers from his pushcart, stands up. If somebody comes in and takes your product and leaves without any fear of being prosecuted, what happens is gangs of shoplifters descend on you. And thats already happening, he tells Rollins. How can we best be protected so that were not being victimized?

Theres an unmistakable edge to the questionwithout any fear of being prosecutedbut Rollins doesnt flinch. You can almost detect a hint of delight in her eyes, as if she relishes the chance to try to change a roomful of minds.

Its the same look Ill see later that night when a Bloomberg Radio host pointedly asks her, Who made you the king? and Rollins smiles, waits a beat, and replies, First of all, its queen.

And its the same look Ill see a few days later when I sit with her and her white Irish father and black Barbadian mother as her parents lament the hypocrisy of the liberals. Despite being an interracial couple, longtime residents of the Peoples Republic of Cambridge, and her parents, they are political conservatives and faithful Howie Carr listeners.

Rollins, a three-sport high school standout who attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a lacrosse scholarship, thrives in competitive situations, never more so than when its a competition of the mind.

When a radio host pointedly asks her, Who made you the king? Rollins smiles, waits a beat, and replies, First of all, its queen."

Like a practiced trial lawyer guiding a jury, she walks the Faneuil Hall merchants through her thought process. How prosecutors traditional answer to everything is jail, so the court system is gummed up with cases for low-level offenses that usually end in dismissal, while too many homicides and other violent crimes go unsolved. How, in at least half of those nonviolent cases, the driving issue for the crime is mental health, substance abuse, food insecurity, or homelessnessproblems far more effectively addressed, she says, with treatment and services than with the government footing the annual $55,000-per-inmate bill for a stay in county jail. And how, in a tradition that long predated her election, anyone convicted of petty shoplifting in Massachusetts would never see jail time until at least the third offense. Im just saying things out loud now, she tells the crowd.

Rollins shows a willingness to educateand be educated. Taking the merchants feedback seriously, she urges them to keep a written record of any shoplifters, since that paper trail will help her office distinguish the first-time offender trying to feed a drug addiction from the kind of repeat, reprobate professional thief described by the man selling sheepskin slippers. In the latter case, she says, Were going right to arraignment.

MEANWHILE, IN A FEDERAL COURTHOUSE less than a mile away, another prosecutorAndrew Lelling, US attorney for the district of Massachusettskeeps tabs on the sentencing of the latest well-heeled defendant in the sprawling Varsity Blues college admissions scandal. On this same Wednesday in November, a real estate highflier gets six months in prison for having paid nearly half a million dollars to get his two kids into the University of Southern California as fake recruited athletes.

An international story involving vanity, fraud, greed, higher education, and Hollywood, Varsity Blues has kept Lelling in the headlines since news of the scandal broke in March. And thats just one of the issues hes been at the center of in 2019, a list that also includes immigration, public corruption, opioids, and marijuana. Everywhere you look, Lelling is there.

That Zelig-like quality is something he has in common with Rollins. Its hard to think of a big local story in the last year where at least one of them didnt figure prominently. On immigration, they have lined up on opposite sides. In other cases, such as in the kidnapping and death investigation of 23-year-old Jassy Correia, they have worked together.

The two hold very different profiles and philosophies for crime fighting. Rollins is an emerging leader in the national progressive prosecutor movement. Lelling is a law-and-order conservative and the only appointee of President Trump serving in Massachusettsa self-described red dot in a blue state.

Like Rollins, Lelling has ample experience being around people with vastly different politics. He cracks that he grew up in maybe the only [politically] conservative Jewish household in New York. His wife, a juvenile court judge appointed by then-governor Deval Patrick, comes from a liberal family and her brother served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration.

Lelling and Rollins previously worked together as assistant US attorneys and have kind, if slightly guarded, words for each other. Despite their ideological differences, they share a determination to make the judicial system fairer, insisting that those with wealth and status shouldnt be treated differently from those with neither.

I admire Rachaels courage in innovating, Lelling says. Even though philosophically I disagree with the approach, given a year or two, one of two things is going to happen: Shes going to look like a genius, because crime drops, and her recalibrated approach worked out. Or its going to be a disaster.

Rollins praises Lellings smarts and energy, but stresses that he cant hope to make the kind of systemic change she is attempting. Thats because he is an employee serving at the pleasure of the president, not an elected official like she is. If Andy published a 65-page memo spelling out his own dramatic policy changes, she says, he would be packing up his things the next day.

Lelling says that in most of the areas where their work intersectsgangs, guns, opioid traffickinghe has found Rollins to be a strong partner committed to reducing violent crime. In the vast majority of street crime cases that her office handles, he says, there is no overlap at all.

Through Lelling and Rollins, residents of this region are getting to witness two deeply ambitious and largely parallel approaches to criminal justice. They are both aggressive, locked in, and uncommonly fearless. And as closely identified as Rollins is with the Democratic left and Lelling is with the Trumpian right, they have both demonstrated independence in challenging the excesses of their own ideological camps.

For being serious, thoughtful change agents more focused on improving results than scoring partisan points, they are our Bostonians of the Year.

Im thinking, that is the dumbest name Ive ever heard.

Andrew Lelling, on the Varsity Blues nickname for the college admissions investigation

ON A BEAUTIFUL AUTUMN DAY in 2018, Andy Lelling strolled Amherst College, a picturesque campus of handsome brick buildings garlanded by oaks and maples in their golden-to-scarlet glory. He thought to himself: This looks about as perfect as an elite New England liberal arts college can be.

He was visiting Amherst with his daughter, then a high school senior in Sharon. Like everyone else who had crowded with their kids into the information session, he knew the intense pressure so many kids feel to gain admission to highly selective colleges. Unlike everyone else in the room, though, he had firsthand knowledge of the outrageous lengths some parents would go to make sure that happened.

At the time, Lelling was about six months into the investigation that, in another six months, would spark a nationwide conversation about the madness of college admissions and sportsand make actor Lori Loughlin famous for something besides Full House.

I live in a town where parents are obsessively focused on their childrens college prospects, Lelling says now. Millions of parents deal with this every year. The difference with the parents his office charged is they took the extra step of acting on those anxieties by knowingly participating in a fraud and bribery scheme.

The experience prompted Lelling to double down on a message he had been giving his daughter: Please dont freak out about this. Whether or not you get into an elite college, youll be fine.

He speaks from experience. He earned his bachelors degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and from there he went to an Ivy League law school, the University of Pennsylvania. As a first-year law student, he met his future wife, Dana Gershengorn, when they joined the same Friday night poker group. Andy is not a good bluffer, she says. What you see is what you get.

As their daughter was waiting to hear back from colleges this year, at the same time that the Varsity Blues investigation was intensifying, Gershengorn fretted, Please God, let her settle on a college before all of this breaks. She did, choosing Gershengorns alma mater, the University of Michigan. Not long after, Lelling and the FBI announced the sweeping Varsity Blues charges against 50 people around the country.

As for why they named this investigation after a forgettable 20-year-old movie starring James Van Der Beek, Lelling insists it wasnt his decision. When the FBI announced the handle during their joint news conference, Lelling recalls, Im thinking, that is the dumbest name Ive ever heard. For weeks, he refused to use it, preferring the college admissions case, but eventually gave in.

During a recent talk at Lasell University, someone asks Lelling why the US attorney in Boston is overseeing a case where so much of the action took place in California. Luck, he quips. His office had been tipped off while investigating an unrelated case. You wouldnt believe how many US attorneys complained that I got to do the Varsity Blues case, he says, adding with a mischievous smile, Were all super-ambitious publicity hounds!

The law has to apply equally to everyone, regardless of status.

Andrew Lelling

The 49-year-old with the bald dome and closely cropped beard admits he has a healthy ego. But his wife and their teenage daughter and son keep it in check, as do his very smart and very liberal in-laws. The least impressed person in the world that I am the US attorney? My wife, he says. Second least impressed? My mother-in-lawa retired Massachusetts Superior Court judge. After 22 years of marriage, his wife says, Andy has yet to convince my parents of anything.

Lelling grew up in New Yorks Rockland County, the youngest of three sons born to a homemaker and a dentist who practiced in the Bronx. It wasnt until high school when it dawned on him how much more politically conservative his family was than most others around him. He retains much of that conservative outlook, but says what he prizes mostand what he has tried to impart in his kidsis independent, rigorous thinking.

Hes a law-and-order guy with some Libertarian tendencies. He says hes been a supporter of gay marriage forever, arguing its not the governments business who loves who, or who gets to get married.

Its a position shaped at least in part by family experience. When he was 10, he swiped the diary belonging to his middle brother, Marc, who had revealed in its pages that he was gay. It was nearly a decade before Marc came out to him and his parents.

He says the news was tough for their father to hear, but he ultimately accepted it out of pragmatism: He loved his son and this is who he was. Unfortunately, Lelling says, his brothers life was filled with sadness. Marc was clinically depressed and HIV positive and took his own life in 2017.

In his first two years as US attorney, Lelling has shown that he shares his late fathers pragmatism. He knows that if he fails to swim in the same direction as Trump and US Attorney General William Barr, they will show him the door. He also knows, however, that he is not the US attorney in Alabama. You constantly have to think about how what you are doing interacts with a very left-leaning populace, he says.

He knows he has to push hard on immigration cases, but he holds considerable discretion on which ones to pursue, given limited resources. You can prosecute the grandmother who returned illegally to see her grandkids or you can prosecute the guy whos a drug dealer who was deported, came back into the United States, and continued drug dealing, he says. We do the second one.

Lelling has earned a surprising level of bipartisan praise. A notable exception was the heavy criticism he drew last spring from some progressives for his prosecution of the Newton judge who allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant evade a federal agent. Lelling insists the case is not about immigration but about how no one is above the law, not even judges. The law, he says, has to apply equally to everyone, regardless of status.

Spending so much of his adult life around people with different views has sharpened his thinking. Occasionally, it prompts him to change his mind. Take affirmative action: Although he continues to oppose it in college admissions and the private sector, hes come to appreciate its importance in positions of public authority, especially the prosecutors, judges, and police who have enormous power to send people away. As he puts it, There are certain walks of life where the public needs to see that its not all white guys.

In 2001, when he went to Washington to work for the George W. Bush administration in the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division, he was surrounded by fellow conservatives for the first time in his life. It was disorienting, he says. He prefers being around a diversity of viewpoints, to guard against groupthink.

So much of his job boils down to judgment calls, looking for the moral oomph when deciding whether to prosecute a case. In this day of heightened polarization, Lelling says, Theres so much more intense moral indignation on both sides. Im in the middle. I decide where the line is.

ON A SUNNY, BRISK FALL Saturday, Rachael Rollins, a red hoodie covering her head, weaves her way through the stands of the soccer field at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge. She spots her ex-husband, and gives him a hug. Theyre here to cheer on their 15-year-old daughter, Peyton. Also on hand are Rollins parents, two sisters, and several nieces and nephews.

Peytons first love is track and fieldshe is considered one of the very best hurdlers for her age in the country. Lets go, Pey!, Rollins, a BB&N alum, yells when her daughter takes the field for this playoff soccer game. But she cheers even louder for a teammate whose aggressive play has earned her multiple yellow cards and a reputation for staying on the field through bloody noses. That, Rollins whispers to me, is how I played.

Its something else being in the bleachers at a rarefied private school like BB&N. Several teenagers bump into me while trying to get by, and not a single one fails to apologize. After one referees controversial call, a parent shows his fury with a huff of Absurd!

Rollins, whose framed All-Scholastic plaque remains on display in the athletic center, is grateful for the first-rate education she received at BB&N. She also appreciates how her time there opened her eyes to the incredible amount of privilege some people in the world enjoyand how invisible it can often be to them.

When Rollins talks about fairness, she is informed by the very different worlds she has floated between in her life. Shes seen how a wealthy, well-connected person who makes a stupid decision can bat it away like a mosquito. And how a poor or desperate person who makes a stupid decision can be thrust into a downward spiral. Also, the people without connections or resources who get caught up in our current system are disproportionately brown or black.

After BB&Ns win over Thayer Academy, I sit with Rollins and her parents, Esther and John Splaine. Its a complicated but intensely close clan. Her sister Bekah Salwasser, a graduate of Brown University and former professional soccer player, is now the executive director of the Red Sox Foundation. Her two brothers have both battled addiction and gone through the criminal justice system. Rollins is the legal guardian for the daughter of one of her brothers, as well as for the daughter of her youngest sister, who struggled with addiction but is now clean and working to regain full custody.

In 2016, when Rollins had to undergo a double mastectomy, she initially refused to take the painkillers that her doctor prescribed. Three of my four siblings danced with the devil and lost, she says.

Watching her brothers go through the justice system made her intimately aware of how often it can be counterproductive and dehumanizing. Her parents dont disagree, but offer a personal accountability argument: If you dont do anything wrong, you usually dont end up anywhere near the system. Rollins stresses that true accountability means a system that holds everyone to the same standard. They all agree were a long way from that.

Her parents try to serve as a tuning fork for their oldest daughter as she works out her policy positions. When she came up with the 15 offenses her office would typically not prosecute, they encouraged her to stress that there would still be consequences, just alternative ones. The point is to make changes that help a chronically inefficient system work better.

Rollins likes to rib her father about his skills as a political prognosticator. On her phone, she retrieves the e-mail he sent her in February 2018, when she told him she planned to run for Suffolk County DA. She had an impressive pedigreelaw degrees from Northeastern and Georgetown, and good jobs in the private and public sectors, including as chief legal counsel at the Massachusetts Port Authority. However, she lived in Medford, which is in Middlesex County, and her residency issue was one of several detailed reasons her father cited in strongly advising her not to run. She wrote back: Thanks for your honesty, Dad. I plan on printing and framing this email. It will be the first thing I hang up in my office as the Suffolk County DA. Love you, Rachael. (Lets do this, her dad replied, and quickly became a tireless campaign volunteer.)

Rollins now rents out her Medford house and lives with her daughter and nieces in a rented town house in Roxbury. She continues to open up her home to children in need of emergency placement in the foster system, having hosted nearly 50 kids over the years.

Because of her upbringing, she jokes, she is fluent in white Irish male. It remains the lingua franca of Boston law enforcement, so her fluency comes in handy. During one of her staff meetings that I sit in on, there are so many references to Sully, Danny, Bobby, Billy, and Murph that it feels as if Ive stumbled into a reunion for BC Highs class of 1979.

If we fail them in juvie, we see them in gangs. If we fail them in gangs, we see them in homicide.

Rachael Rollins, Suffolk County district attorney

Rollins also sent a powerful message with her most important hire: choosing Dan Mulhern to be her first assistant and chief deputy (naturally, she calls him Danny). A Boston native, he seems to know just about every Irish cop and court officer in the city, having previously served as the head of the DAs gang unit and as Mayor Walshs top public safety adviser. But, like Rollins, Mulhern is a thoughtful reformer who has important lived experiencehe lost a brother who was struggling in recovery and lost another relative to homicide.

Because of the circles he travels in, Mulhern hears lots of complaints from cops who see Rollins as some kind of soft-on-crime ideologue. He tries to set them straight, but he says he wishes more of them could see how hard she works, how much she cares, and how committed she is to getting this right in the end.

Theres a practical side to her that few of her critics appreciate. Many progressive politicians say ICE should be abolished, and theres a whole national movement calling for the abolition of prisons. Rollins supports neither. She wants reform, not abolitiona fairer system that doesnt criminalize being poor, or black or brown, or having addiction or mental health issues. Still, she says, there are murderers, rapists, and kidnappers who need to be removed from the community. It wont work to send those dangerous criminals to a restorative justice circle.

Rollins is intense and real. Almost everywhere she goes, she carries a spreadsheet that lists the homicides that have happened on her watchthe number is now up to 42. During weekly meetings with her unit chiefs, she presses for updates on each unsolved murder. In addition, she has begun the process of having her office review nearly 1,400 unsolved homicides going back to the 1960s.

The thing about crime is everything is connected. If the system fails victims, they are more likely to end up as perpetrators. If we fail them in juvie, we see them in gangs, she says. If we fail them in gangs, we see them in homicide.

As Rollins approaches her first anniversary in the job, she remains restless as a reformer in ways big and small. Earlier in the fall, she was summoned to jury duty. She showed up, waiting with all the other citizens. Her mind was racing. Instead of having people sitting around, frustrated by the inefficiency of the court system, she wondered: How could we put all this talent to good use? If this was Denmark, she says, wed have everybody out cleaning a park.

FOR ALL THEIR DIFFERENCES, Rollins and Lelling have much in common. They are both funny and blunt, about the same age, and oversee similar size staffs and $21 million budgets. They both welcome being challenged by people who see the world differently. And they are both passionate about increasing fairness in the justice system, albeit with very different approaches.

Depending on your politics, you probably view one of them as being far more deserving of praise than the other. But consider this thought experiment: If you lean left, imagine a US attorney in Boston who would treat Massachusetts as if it were Alabama, rounding up people buying weed from a licensed dispensary and undocumented immigrants who have illegally crossed the border once to reunite with family. If you lean right, imagine a Suffolk County DA who would call for the abolishment of ICE and prisons.

If youre inclined to fault Lelling or Rollins for being too extreme, look closer. You might actually like the restraint you see.

Neil Swidey is the Globe Magazine's staff writer. E-mail him at neil.swidey@globe.com or follow him on Twitter @neilswidey.

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Meet the 2019 Bostonians of the Year: Andrew Lelling and Rachael Rollins - The Boston Globe

Elections should be carnivals of democracy, yet the campaign we have just been through has felt more like amateur dramatics at times the standard of debate has not risen to the importance of the issues at stake. Yet this election will go down as one of the most consequential in British history. It has brought a profound change to our politics: not just that Brexit is now certain to happen, but also in the way that both main parties have transmogrified before our eyes in terms of what they stand for, and who they appeal to.

The list of Tory gains shows the extent of the change that has just taken place: Leigh, Workington, Clwyd South, Darlington, Wrexham, Burnley, Redcar, Scunthorpe and a slew of other working-class seats north of the Watford Gap. Several of them have not returned a Tory MP for several decades, others had never voted Tory before. But even on a night when the country swung to them, the Tories lost Putney, seven of their 13 Scottish seats and failed to regain Canterbury. This state of flux will continue. Strategists in all parties believe that there will be even fewer safe seats come the next election.

What we are seeing is a process of realignment. Class no longer determines peoples party allegiances in the way it once did; instead, politics is becoming a battle over values. The Conservatives have adjusted better to changing priorities than the Labour Party, which is why Boris Johnson has just achieved one of the most spectacular election victories in recent British political history breaking the deadlock that has gripped parliament since the 2017 election.

Brexit has become the prime battleground. It has catalysed this change in voting patterns and given the Tories a hearing in parts of the country that used to be solidly Labour. As the man who helped lead the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson is the only major party leader who was able to say he simply wanted to deliver on the referendum result. He implored those who had voted Leave to back him so he could get Brexit done and they did. Quite often, this was the only slogan he used: it occupied the space where, in previous campaigns, the word Conservative used to appear.

The flip side of this appeal to Leavers is that it cost the Tories the support of many Remainers, those who see Brexit as an assault on their values werent wild about the prospect of voting for its champion. This has cost the Tories support they would have once regarded as essential: Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, saw the majority in his Surrey constituency shrink from 23,000 to just 2,300.

Politics has moved faster than Westminsters ability to keep up with it. For some time now, Leave and Remain have been more powerful identities than traditional party allegiances. The Tory problem in 2017 was that they tried to appeal in Leave areas with a classic Tory economic prospectus and found that Brexit was not a magic word that made concerns about a Tory agenda vanish. This was the mistake that Boris Johnson remedied, with striking results.

The prospectus on which the Tories have just won so much of the north is one of spending and borrowing: some 100 billon over five years. It worked: Leigh, which was supposedly one of the hardest hit during austerity, has now returned a Tory with a 1,900 majority. This is a seat where just four years ago, Labours Andy Burnham was returned with a majority of 14,100.

The Prime Minister fought the campaign promising the biggest ever cash boost to the NHS and massive investment. There was no talk of reform, just an emphasis on how he would pump more money into the system in a bid to reassure the new target voters. This is why Johnsons uncertain reaction to the photo of a four-year-old boy lying on coats on the floor of an overcrowded hospital caused such panic in Tory ranks.

It was another former Spectator editor turned Tory politician, Nigel Lawson, who described the NHS as the nearest thing we have to a national religion. Rather than attempting a reformation, Johnson is trying to become its high priest. He started this campaign by announcing he was abandoning a proposed cut in corporation tax so that he could spend more money on the health service. The message this was designed to send was clear: the Tories prioritise the NHS over tax cuts for big business. Dont think that with a big majority, Johnson will change tack. Instead hell continue with his path of ploughing more money into the NHS. He and his team are convinced that the common ground of British politics involves putting more money into the NHS and taking a harder line on law and order. He has a lot of new voters to keep happy.

What about tax cuts for the well-paid? In the Tory leadership contest, the Prime Minister floated the idea of raising the higher-rate threshold to 80,000, exactly the kind of policy that would appeal in the affluent seats of the south-east. But this idea has been sent to the back of the queue. Instead, the Tories February Budget will raise the National Insurance threshold, to ensure those on low wages benefit the most. This must be seen alongside the plan announced at Tory conference to increase the minimum wage to 10.50 an hour, one of the highest rates in the world. This would mean that the salary of one in six workers was being set by the state. In this new Toryism, such level of intervention in the market is seen as acceptable if that is what it takes to boost low pay.

In his interview with this magazine a fortnight ago, the Prime Minister identified regional inequality as one of the major factors behind the Leave vote. His Toryism attempts to deal with this issue. Unsurprisingly, the solution is based around infrastructure. He argues, with justification, that a large part of Londons economic success is down to its transport network. His government would spend huge sums on capital projects. He has already indicated that he would rip up the Treasury rules on which projects get the go-ahead to ensure that more building takes place outside London and the south-east. The party of austerity has become the party of boosterism.

This was not election posturing: during the campaign, plans were hatched to start on this without delay. Infrastructure spending and pump priming are going to be the order of the day, says one of those close to Johnson. Why the haste? Because infrastructure tends to take years to build: in the next election, voters are unlikely to back the Tories in gratitude for a proliferation of cranes and hi-vis jackets. From the get-go, the Conservatives knew their campaign for former Labour seats was a double risk: they might not win them, and without being able to deliver on their promises they might not be able to keep them. They have taken them, now they must improve their lot.

Labours challenge in this election was to try to maintain its old Hull and Hampstead coalition while transitioning to its new electoral base. It failed, and Labour has ended up with fewer seats than any general election since 1935. Jeremy Corbyns pledge to stay neutral in any second referendum couldnt disguise the fact that Labour wouldnt accept the result of the first one.

Corbynomics did represent a huge lurch to the economic left but it was, at the same time, a massive giveaway to Labours target middle-class voters. Wealthier families would benefit most from the abolition of tuition fees and a third off rail fares. John McDonnell claimed Labour would make each family 6,700 a year better off, but to get anywhere near those savings, you would have to be a very middle-class household. Both parents would have to work and commute by train, and their children would be ineligible for free school meals under the previous system.

Labours broadband policy was a boon to the well-off too. It is one thing for the state to nationalise an industry; quite another for it then to give its product away for free. The Corbynite defence of the universalism of this policy was that services for the poor become poor services. In reality, though, Labours policy would have resulted in millions of people who can afford to pay for broadband and currently do so getting it for free. It is further evidence that Labours policy offering had been crafted to appeal to what is fast becoming the key part of its new electoral base: young graduates who arent in the top 5 per cent of earners.

After this defeat, Labour has a decision to make. Does it go back to the centre on economics? Or does it persist on this course of a huge expansion in the role of the state?

Theresa May called an election in 2017 hoping to realign British politics only to lose her partys majority and throw politics into deadlock. Boris Johnson has succeeded where she failed. He has lined up the Leave vote behind him and created a new, extraordinary electoral coalition. Now, his job is to keep it.

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Changing the script: the shifting character of our political parties - Spectator.co.uk

"If Quebec Wants to attract and retain teachers, the government needs to make a major investment and that includes salaries for teachers"- Heidi Yetman, President, QPAT

MONTREAL, Dec. 12, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ -It was with a great deal of frustration but very little surprise that the Fdration des syndicats de l'enseignement (FSE-CSQ) and the Qubec Provincial Association of Teachers (APEQ-QPAT) learned about the Statistics Canada publication on teachers' salaries in Canada in 2017-2018, which once again ranks Qubec's teachers in last place, far below the Canadian average.

The publication (available here: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-604-x/2019001/tbl/tblc3.1-fra.htm) shows a 13% gap between teachers' salaries in Qubec and the average for Canada in 2017-2018. Even worse, compared to their colleagues in other provinces, Qubec's teachers will need at least five additional years of service to reach the top of their salary scale.

"Qubec's teachers are rightly demanding, at the very least, that their salaries should be brought up to the level of the Canadian average, to show that their work is valued," said Luc Gravel, the FSECSQ's Labour Relations Vice-President, who is responsible for the provincial negotiations. "We are one day away from submission of the employer's inter-sector offers and less than a week away from submission of the sector-based offers, and the Government needs to understand the message that the question of salaries, like the question of better working conditions, is unavoidable."

The salary demands for teachers are as follows:

"Clearly, the abolition of the first six steps on the scale, as promised by the Legault Government, will be insufficient to correct this unfair situation, which has persisted for many years," said Heidi Yetman, the QPAT President. "Things need to change now!"

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The Fdration des syndicats de l'enseignement (FSE-CSQ) is a grouping of 34 unions representing more than 65,000 teachers from school boards throughout Qubec. Its membership includes teachers from the preschool, elementary, secondary, vocational training and adult general education sectors. It is affiliated with the Centrale des syndicats du Qubec (CSQ) and negotiates jointly with the Qubec Provincial Association of Teachers (APEQQPAT), which represents the 8,000 teachers in Qubec's English school boards. Together, they represent a total of 73,000 teachers.

SOURCE Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers

For further information: Julie Montpetit, Media Officer, APEQ-QPAT, 514-249-9653, julie_montpetit@qpat-apeq.qc.ca; Sylvie Lemieux, Media Officer, FSE-CSQ, 418-563-7193, lemieux.sylvie@fse.lacsq.org

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Upgrading the salaries of Qubec's teachers - Canada NewsWire

"It's Bigger Than Hip Hop!" -Dead Prez (Revolutionary Hip Hop Group)

It was reported recently in the digital rap magazine called Hip Hop Dx that Offset, of the rap group Migos, said that Hip Hop is Black culture. I think a deeper analysis must be understood about Black culture and White domination. The system of racism and White supremacy are still in existence family. And they are still justifying Black oppression. Hell, racism and White supremacy still don't want to ante up to Black reparations!!!! But folks, we need to be clear on this fact that with the rise of White supremacy and the system of racism, our culture, Black culture, has been under attack for centuries. In the past, White domination of Black culture was depicted as being criminal, pathological, subhuman, underclass, and illegitimate. To this day, anything the White power structure refuses to respect as Black culture is made to be non-creditable, or even non-Black. But factually, Black people's culture has contributed greatly to the progress of human civilization as well as to music genres of all kinds. Despite White supremacy and the system of racism, Black culture still exists in America and in the world.

Turning 51 has help me to be crystal clear on the ongoing attacks on Black culture. But before I begin this commentary, let me give everyone some background on brother Bashir Muhammad Akinyele. Just so folks will not think I am some Johnny come-lately negro conservative Republican hatting on Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture.

I am a proud Blackman, husband, father, community activist, and school teacher. Going on 51 years of age is moving me into elder-hood.

All my life, I have lived in the hoods of Newark and East Orange, NJ until I went to college. I did my undergraduate studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ and my graduate studies at Columbia University in NYC. But before I matriculated at these major universities, I spent a couple of years attending Essex County College (ECC) in Newark, NJ. It was at junior college, my Afrikan-centric Black consciousness, community activism, and passion for education were awakened in me by two Black men named Ed Riley and Dr. Lenworth Gunther.

Ed was a former Muslim member of the Nation of Islam under the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He had spent his youth as a Boxer and businessman, but wanted to go back to school to now pursue his dream of a law degree. Ed taught me the knowledge of my Black self. Something I had never received before in my life. We quickly became the best of friends. Because of Ed, I started following the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad for a time in my life. In the Nation of Islam, you are required to drop your slave surname. As young Muslim, my name became Carlos X. After leaving the Nation of Islam in 1996, I legally change my name to the Islamic and Afrikan name of Bashir Muhammad Akinyele. The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the co-founder of the Nation of Islam. This religious movement was founded on July 4, 1930. The Nation of Islam combined Islamic teachings with Black liberation theology. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan rebuilt the Nation of Islam to continue the fight for Black liberation. He believed that Al- Islam, as interpreted by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, was, and, is, absolutely needed to give some push back to America's racist system to organize Black people for Black power. In 1978, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan made the decision to leave the Muslims under the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed to rebuild the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. (Imam Warith Deen was once named Wallace Muhammad. In 1975, after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad departed from the Nation of Islam, the Muhammad family elected Imam Warith Deen Mohammed as the next leader of the Nation of Islam. In three years, Imam Mohammed directed the Nation of Islam into Sunni Al-Islam. His leadership led to one of the main foundations for Al-Islam in America).

On the other end of my conscious path was Dr. Gunther. He was an Afrikan-centric Black History Professor within ECC's Afrikana Studies Institute. In the past, Dr. Gunther was famous for being a Black power student activist in his day. He helped to organize and lead social justice protests as an undergraduate student at Columbia University in the 1960's. Honestly, I took a class with Dr. Gunther trying to date a girl I met at the school. She was in his class. I registered for that class based solely on this girl. But while taking this class with Dr Gunther, and Ed constantly feeding me my consciousness with the pro-Black teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. Gunther pricked my curiosity about Afrikan History and Afrikan culture. Dr. Gunther started me off reading Fredrick Douglass' autobiographical book called-the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. This book blew my young mind and my developing Afrikan-centric Black consciousness. Douglass' chapter IV on the power of the Whiteman moved me to tears. This part of his autobiography taught me about how the perpetuation of White oppression and White domination of Black people came through controlling and limiting Black people's access to education. After reading Douglass' book, I decided to become a History teacher. Frederick Douglass was a Blackman born in American slavery. He eventually escaped from slavery. During his life, he became the leading voice for the abolition of slavery in America in the 1800's. Frederick Douglass's book, the Life of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, is one of the most read slave narrative in the world.

Both Ed Riley and Dr. Gunther inspired me to be a fighter for Black people, and oppressed people, on college campuses and in the community. But they also inspired me to read books written by our master teachers of Black liberation struggle, such as Dr. John Henrick Clarke, Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan, Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. Molefe Kete Asante, Asa Hilliard, Dr.Ishakamusa Barashango, Dr. John G. Jackson, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, Professor George G.M. James, Dr. W. E. B Du Bois, Dr. E Franklin Frazier, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, J. A Rogers, Charles Hamilton Houston, Dr. Naim Akbar, Dr. Maulana Karenga, Imamu Amiri Baraka, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Maya Angelou, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seal, Assata Shakur, Franz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, and the Last Poets, to name a few.

After graduating from ECC and Seton Hall, I met my future wife Natasha. I fell in love with her. We dated for three years until we married in 1997. Presently, I have been married to this beautiful and intelligent Black woman for 23 years. Together, we have three Black boys. But our oldest is hard to consider a boy now. He is 19 years old. He is a freshman at Rutgers University's Newark Campus.

My wife and I still live and work in the Black community. However, in the past I have worked in the Hip Hop industry in the 1990s. Ed, a brilliant business minded entrepreneur, believed that Black people should create their own media to control our narrative. Something we often talked about as undergraduate students. Eventually, because of the mutual love for Black culture, politics, entertainment, Hip Hop music, and Hip Hop culture; Ed and I created a national Hip Hop magazine for Black college students called the College Entertainment Revue Magazine (C.E.R). Some of our writers and editors were people like Allan S. Gordon and Marcus Reeves. After serving tenure with the C.E.R, both Gordon and Reeves went on to become respected editors with Hip Hop magazines like the Source, Vibe, and Rap Page magazines. We struggled to establish our magazine. But we were successful at attracting talented young Hip Hop journalists from around the country. This was era that Hip Hop became the dominant force in America and in the world. At this time, Hip Hop was rooted in Black people's cultural traditions. A variety of acts, such as Rakim, KRS-1, Public Enemy, N.W.A, The DOC, EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest, Pete Rock and C L Smooth, Gangstarr, BlackMoon, Smif-N-Wessun, Leaders of the New School, Busta Rhymes, Mainsource, Nas, Naughty By Nature, the Artifacts, Chanel Live, Lords of the Underground, Arrested Development, Redman, Salt-and-Peppa, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Brand Nubians, X-Clan, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Wu Tang Clan, Biggie Smalls, and Tupac Shahur, came on the scene reflecting the creative soul of Hip Hop music and true Hip Hop culture.

My introduction into Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture came at an early age. I got involved in Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture after hearing Sugar Hill Gang's Rappers Delight and Kurtis Blow's The Breaks in the late 1970's and early 1980's. I became hooked to Hip Hop before the commercialization of Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture. Back then, Black people controlled and defined Hip Hop. The OG's, or the founders, of Hip Hop defined it as the following: peace, love, unity, and having fun in the late 1970s in the Bronx borough of New York City. This all would change by the late 1990's and early 2000's. White folks, with the help of some Black folks, will eventually take Hip Hop out of the hands of Black people's cultural traditions and into the hands of opportunists and culture vultures. I will get to this later in my commentary, but first some more history on myself.

I have been a student and community activist for over 30 years fighting for social justice and Black liberation. I have been a history and Black studies teacher for 25 years, and currently I am at Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ. I have been teaching at Weequahic for 17 years.

At Weequahic, I have helped my students understand how to decipher the facts from falsehood in my history classes. Also, I have help build a foundation for Afrikan-centric Black consciousness in the school. Before I got to Weequahic, our school did not offer any classes in Black studies. However, our former Principal, Mr. Ron Stone, and our former Vice Principal, Mr. Ras J. Baraka (who is now the current Mayor of Newark, NJ), established Black History courses for our students in the early 2000s. They both held the belief that it was absolutely necessary for our students to know Afrikan history and Afrikan culture right alongside World and American History. Without any hesitation, they asked me to teach the Black History classes at Weequahic, which I did, and still do, effectively. But outside the Black History classes, I started adding some Afrikan-centric Black consciousness to the burgeoning Black cultural awareness taking place with the students. These pro-Black learning strategies and programs were promoted each day by the administrators and teachers. While we as a school were practicing cultural relevance with our students, I would meet and greet all our Weequahic students by saying Hotep. At first it was a struggle. Because of the lack of Afrikan-centric Black consciousness in our schools, communities, religious centers, and neighborhoods; many of our students were not rooted in their own cultural traditions. Many of the students at Weequahic would use the n-word liberally, and many other negative and derogatory words to say to one another, all the time. But every day, I would consistently challenge our students with the word Hotep all around the school. Using Hotep, tapped into our student's curiosity about their own understanding of Black culture. They wanted to know more about their history and their culture. They began to understand that their memories of Afrikan-centric Black culture were buried in their psyche due to the destruction of Black pride and Black liberation movements by the racist White power structure. They began to see that being Black was more than using the n-word, sagging pants, throwing up gang signs, calling women the b-word, and Hip Hop. Embracing our own Afrikan-centric Black culture ignited in our students a respect for themselves, inspired them to want to receive an education, and to achieve high academic standards. After 17 years of consistently using Afrikan-centric Black cultural consciousness, now the entire school uses Hotep to greet one another each day without me saying it to the students. This word Hotep is an ancient Afrikan word for peace!!! It comes out of the Medu Neter in Kemet (Egypt), Afrika. White people call it the hieroglyphics. Hotep is the oldest word for peace in human history!!! The Afrikan word Hotep predates the Hebrew word shalom and the Arabic word Salaam for peace. I am currently gearing up for an educational tour to Kemet (Egypt) in Afrika to deepened my effectiveness of teaching world history, American history, Afrikan history, Afrikan religions, and culture in my classroom to my students.

(https://www.gofundme.com/f/education-tour-of-ancient-kemet-egypt?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet) (www.kemetnu.com/egypt_tour.htm)

I often help my best friends Ed Riley and Jonathan Alston produce and co-host a political Hip Hop radio show called All Politics Are Local on Rutgers University's Newark campus radio called WRNU. (You can tune in every Friday from 6:00pm to 9:00 pm eastern standard time on www. wrnu.org) (allpoliticsrlocal.com) They are carrying on the spirit of the C.E.R on radio now.

With all that being said, can't no one tell me any more about Hip Hop music, Hip Hop culture, rap, Black culture, the system of racism, White supremacy, unity without uniformity, transectionalism, capitalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, Pan-Afrikanism, politics, Black electoral politics, reparations, oppression, Black nationalism, revolutionary Black nationalism, Afrikan-centricity, and Black liberation. I have lived, analyzed, and debated all these things in all of my adult life!!!!!!!!

I believe we must know that there is a distinction between Hip Hop Culture and Black culture. Hip Hop has its own culture, which sometimes borrows aspects of Black culture. But unfortunately, now that Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture have been co-opted by White supremacy and racism; White, and Black capitalist opportunists, continuously market western civilization's pathology disguised as Black culture out to the world. What the world will fail to realize is the bigger and broader side of Hip Hop culture; which is real Black culture. It is that Black culture, whose struggles against natural earth in Afrika, gave rise to the world's first civilizations and religions in the world. Black culture is forcing humanity to recognize Afrika as the birthplace of humanity. It is that Black culture, whose struggles against the slave dungeons, the middle passage, the auction blocks, slavery, police brutality, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, and racial oppression; is forcing America, and the world, to be more accountable to democracy, civil rights, human rights, fairness, and justice for all. It is that same Black culture, whose struggles against White supremacy, the system of racism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, Black to Black violence, and Black self- hatred; is forcing Black people to unite and fight for Black power. But it is that same Black culture, whose struggles for, and against, successful, and unsuccessful Black homes, Black marriages, Black families, Black neighborhoods, Black men, Black women, Black youth, Black drug use, Black alcoholism, and Black joblessness; is creating beautiful music and beautiful art and beautiful culture that speaks, raps, plays, writes poems, dances, cries, and sings about Black life to America and Black life to the world. The entire world is drumming to the beat of Black culture. Unfortunately, some of our people, and the power structure, constantly disses Black culture to point that Black culture is white washed or intentionally made non-existent.

Black culture is the drumbeat of the planet earth. Our Black culture has influenced mother Afrika, America, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, slaves songs, gospel, blues, ragtime, Jazz, R&B, rock music, country music, House Music, Hip Hop, Hip Hop culture, athletics, philosophy, science, language, mathematics, hair styles, clothing styles, medicine, nation-building, civilizations, architecture, democracy, communism, theology, religion, Judaism, Christianity, Al-Islam, socialism, civil-rights, human rights, liberation movements of all groups, and the world. But if look into Black culture, it has its own traditions separated from America and world. Many people don't want to understand this, because they don't want to understand these things about Black people and Black culture. Some of these people would rather write Black culture off as someone's else culture, or give credit to a music genre altogether in this contemporary world. But Black culture is the dominant culture of the world. This is why some of these people, who are hell bent on discrediting Black people and their culture, want to be Black, but don't want to live Black. This is why we need to stop limiting Black culture down to Hip Hop, Hip Hop culture, or music in general. Black culture is bigger than music and dance and wearing a hat backwards and sagging pants and cursing and drugs use and calling women the b-word and using the n-word.

Black culture is the life blood of humanity. Black culture is the basis for revolutionary change in society. Black culture is the foundation for Black liberation. We need to be clear on that family.

Hotep!!!!!

Bashir Muhammad Akinyele

-History Teacher

-Black Studies Teacher

-Chair of Weequahic High School's Black History Month Committee

-Community Activist

-Co-Host and Co-Producer of the All Politics Are Local radio show, the number #1 political Hip Hop radio show in America

-Commentary writer

Note: Spelling Afrika with a k is not a typo. Using the k in Afrika is the Kiswahili way of writing Africa. Kiswahili is a Pan -Afrikan language. It is spoken in many countries in Afrika.

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Lets Be Clear: Black Culture is Bigger Than Hip Hop - Patch.com

The Queen must remain strictly neutral when it comes to politics and is expected not to favour any politician or party either in her speeches or by casting a vote. But this doesnt mean the monarch doesnt have a precise opinion on Britains politics in general.

According to the former Clerk of the Privy Council, Sir Godfrey Agnew, the Queen sees very little difference between parties and politicians.

As reported in Karen Dolbys book, Queen Elizabeth IIs Guide to Life, Sir Godfrey once said: The Queen doesnt make distinctions between politicians of different parties.

They all roughly belong to the same social category in her view.

The Privy Council is the formal body of advisers to the Sovereign.

British voters will cast their ballots tomorrow.

Members of the Royal Family are allowed to vote by law - but those in the line of succession, by convention are expected to refrain from doing so in order to maintain The Crown politically neutral.

The Queen has a key ceremonial and formal roles in relation to the Government of the UK and its Parliament.

READ MORE:Queen shock: Stalker targets Queen and Elizabeth Hurley-palace alert

Among her duties, the Queen open each session of Parliament, grant royal assent to legislation and approves orders and proclamations through the Privy Council.

Her Majesty also gives weekly audiences to the Prime Minister and meets ministers of the Cabinet in order to consult, warn or encourage them.

The royals neutrality in politics hasnt spared the monarch from criticism in the past months.

In August, the Queen prorogued Parliament under the advice of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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However, this decision was unanimously considered unlawful by the 11 judges on the Supreme Court.

This sparked the furore of Republic, an organisation calling for the abolition of the monarchy in the UK and the election of a head of state.

In a stark statement, the CEO of the organisation, Graham Smith, lashed out at the Queen, saying the Courts decision exposes the monarchy as a pointless and ineffective institution.

Mr Smith then argued an elected head of state would be more keen on stopping Parliament or the Government from making certain mistakes as the position would not be granted for life.

He said: If Parliament had been prorogued by an elected head of state, on the advice of the Prime Minister, that head of state would now have to resign.

The Queen was given instruction to do an unlawful thing, and she did it.

Were always told she has the benefit of decades of experience and yet she couldnt see what was obvious to everyone else, that the Prime Ministers motives were not honest.

It cannot be the case that a head of state is constitutionally bound to do an unconstitutional thing.

And I was doing what I was told is no defence.

Politics also impact the Queens working schedule.

The beginning of the monarchs Christmas holidays is tightly linked to the outcome of the General Election.

A Downing Street spokesperson announced last month the Queen will be asked to deliver her speech in the House of Lords on December 19 if Mr Johnson remains the Prime Minister.

This means the Queen will have to wait until that date to travel to Sandringham, where she will join Prince Philip and officially start her winter break.

A change of Government may, on the other hand, mean the Queen will have to interrupt her break in early January, when a new Government would be expected to start its parliamentary work.

The Queen usually leaves for Sandringham between December 16 and 20 and remains in Norfolk until February.

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Queen surprise: Queens REAL views on British politics revealed by former advisor - Express

Dr Heather Cateau, senior lecturer and dean, Faculty of Humanities and Education, The UWI St Augustine, delivers greetings. -

Seventy-five years ago, a brilliant, young academic at Oxford University, Eric Williams, published Capitalism and Slavery, connecting the economic aspects between the abolition of the slave trade and West Indian slavery.

Recently, the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), in collaboration with The UWI Centre for Reparation Research and the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the St Augustine Campus hosted an international symposium December 13-14 to examine the impact of Dr Eric Williams and his work on the contemporary Caribbean and wider world. This Caribbean perspective joined similar commemorative activities taking place all over the world, including Africa, Britain, and the United States, said a media release.

UWI St Augustine Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Brian Copeland noted that Williams has been an integral part of the history of the campus from inception, He served as the first and only Pro-Chancellor of the UWI and was instrumental, as were other prime ministers at the time, in setting the current framework for The UWI while being a strong advocate for the State playing a significant role in supporting the UWI.

Programme manager, culture and community development at the Caricom Secretariat, Dr Hilary Brown, speaking at the opening of the symposium. -

He expressed his appreciation for the symposium which brought together scholars, intellectuals, corporate interest groups, artists, and activists. It provides us with an opportunity to discuss his legacy with the next generation of Caribbean leaders and intellectuals. This body of work is certainly culturally important not just to Caribbean students, but is part of the knowledge base of civilisation as we know it, said Copeland.

When Capitalism and Slavery was first published, its groundbreaking work ignited scholarly debate and became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development, the release said.

Keynote speaker Professor Verene Shepherd, director of The UWI Centre for Reparation Research, explained that using the evidence from Capitalism and Slavery as the foundational text and adding other books on similar themes published since, along with Archival Records to which Dr Williams may have access or perhaps never thought of using, the governments of Caricom, through the CRC, have articulated the justification for the reparation demand.

Keynote speaker at Capitalism and Slavery symposium, Professor Verene Shepherd, director of The Centre for Reparations Research. -

The CRC stresses that the regions indigenous and African descendant communities who are the victims of crimes against humanity in the forms of genocide, enslavement, human trafficking, deceptive Asian indentureship and racial apartheid have a legal right to reparatory justice, and that those who committed these crimes, and who have been enriched by the proceeds of these crimes, have a reparatory case to answer, Shepherd said.

Also attending the symposium was Erica Williams-Connell, daughter of Eric Williams, who spearheaded the establishment of the Eric Williams Memorial Collection at the St Augustine Campus. Students from secondary schools also attended the event,

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UWI examines legacy of Williams' Capitalism and Slavery - Trinidad News

In the spring of 1990, when Barbara Hernndez was 16, her boyfriend, then 20, came up with a plan, according to court documents: She would bring a man to an abandoned house on the pretense of prostitution, and her boyfriend would rob him.

Hernndez had met her boyfriend, James Hyde, when she was in junior high school. Over the course of their relationship, she said Hyde coerced her into sex work, routinely beat her, and repeatedly raped her, according to court documents.

When she brought 28-year-old James Cotaling to the house in Pontiac, Michigan, where she and Hyde had been staying, Hyde stabbed him about two dozen times. Hyde and Hernndez were both convicted of murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

In 2012, in Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court decided that mandatory life without the possibility of parole sentences for juveniles, like the one Hernndez received, were unconstitutional. In 2016, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, it ruled that the decision applied retroactively. Hernndez was one of about 2,000 people nationally who would be eligible for a new sentence.

But some prosecutors appear to be resisting the Courts decision. So far, Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper has requested that the courts reimpose life without the possibility of parole in 43 out of 48 of the countys juvenile lifer cases, according to an investigation by the Detroit Free Press. By asking for life without the possibility of parole in the majority of cases, youth advocates say Cooper has repeatedly ignored her obligations under Miller and Montgomery.

At the request of Coopers office, a circuit court judge sentenced Hernndez, now 45, to life without the possibility of parole on Aug. 8.

Not only are these policies and practices that shes pursuing inhumane and cruel, but they also dont follow what is in our view clear Supreme Court guidance, said Udi Ofer, director of the Campaign for Smart Justice at the ACLU, which opposes juvenile life without the possibility of parole in all circumstances. And that is, a sentence of life without parole for a crime committed by a child should be reserved for only the rarest of the rare circumstances.

Cooper did not respond to The Appeals requests for comment, although she has previously spoken publicly about juvenile life without the possibility of parole. We are talking about victims who were stabbed, drowned, bludgeoned and decapitated, Cooper told Bridge, a local news outlet, in 2016. Many of these crimes were totally random. They walked up to a car and decided to shoot in it. On and on and on and on. We are really talking about awful cases.

The United States remains the only country that sentences children to life without the possibility of parole, say advocates. The Supreme Court has not yet found juvenile life without the possibility of parole unconstitutional, although 22 states and Washington, D.C. have banned the practice. Rather, the justices ruled that courts must attempt to distinguish between, the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.

In August, prosecutor Tricia Dare invoked this language when she asked Judge Nanci Grant to sentence Hernndez to life without the possibility of parole. The crime, Dare said, was not an act involving transient immaturity, according to a transcript of the proceeding.

Hernndezs supporters contest the prosecutors view and the judges ruling, pointing to her traumatic childhood, as well as Hydes alleged abuse. According to court filings, a 1991 psychological report said Hernndez stayed with Hyde because she was afraid of him and had no place to go. In a psychiatric report detailed in the filings, Hernndez was described as essentially a slave to Hyde.

I didnt want him to kill me and now I wish that he did, said Hernndez, according to the 1991 psychiatric report. Id be dead somewhere and I would be free from him. He wouldnt hurt me no more. I didnt want that man to die (crying).

Hyde did not respond to a request for comment.

Hyde and Hernndez were tried together, but with separate juries. Detective Ralph Monday testified that Hernndez may have held down the victim, a statement he has since disavowed. According to his investigation, only Hyde attacked the victim, Monday wrote in an affidavit.

Barbara Hernndez, right, in an undated photo. Courtesy of Deborah LaBelle's office

My memory right now is that she had no role in even touching the guy, Monday told the Associated Press in 2013. Why I testified to that, who knows? he said.

Even before she met Hyde, Hernndez had been sexually and physically abused, according to court documents. Starting when she was 4 years old, her biological father molested her. The abuse stopped in 1982 when she was 8 and he was arrested for raping her mentally disabled aunt. Shortly thereafter, her mothers boyfriend moved in, and he raped Hernndez from the ages of about 9 to 12 years old, according to a mitigation report.

Hernndez and her siblings were often beaten, neglected, and without food, according to court documents. When she met Hyde, she and her family were living in a trailer without electricity, water, heat, or a toilet, according to the mitigation report. After school, Hyde took her to his home where she would shower, according to the report.

This was a travesty, her attorney Deborah LaBelle told The Appeal of Hernndezs sentence. She is like a Miller poster child. Last month, her attorneys filed an appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals.

During her incarceration, her supporters note, Hernndez earned her GED and took college courses. Since 2011, she has worked as a tutor and mentor at the Womens Huron Valley Correctional Facility, according to the Department of Corrections.

I would be more than happy to have her as a neighbor myself, Pamela Odum, who retired from the Department of Corrections, told Judge Grants court. Rehabilitation comes from within. You have to want it and Ive watched her grab it with both hands.

On the whole, Michigans prosecutors have taken a slower and more punitive approach than most other states, advocates say. In Michigan, as of July 1, 55 percent of the states juvenile lifersjust under 200were awaiting resentencing, according to the Detroit Free Press. In Pennsylvania, however, 221 juvenile lifers have already been released, according to the Department of Corrections. Sixty-seven remain to be resentenced.

Peoples lives, their fate is determined more based on where they live than their crime, said Jody Lavy, executive director of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, which advocates for the abolition of juvenile life without the possibility of parole. Michigan has steadily been an outlier.

In Michigan, even in cases where a prosecutor has sought life without the possibility of parole, judges have chosen to impose a term of years. As of July 1, 86 juvenile lifers had been released, according to the Detroit Free Press. One of those was Sheldry Topp, who left prison this year at the age of 74. Coopers office had asked the court to sentence him to life without the possibility of parole.

In 1962, Topp was convicted of a murder he committed when he was 17. As a child, his father frequently beat him with an extension cord, according to his attorneys sentencing memorandum. On one occasion, a sibling recalled, his father hit Topp with a baseball bat after he swung and missed the ball, according to the memo. Beginning at the age of 12, he was placed in three mental institutions. As a teenager, he was subjected to electric shock therapy 20 times, according to the memo.

There is variability from state to state, as well as from county to county, said Lavy. The top prosecutor in Ingham County, Michigan, Carol Siemon, told The Appeal in an email, We have not and will never seek JLWOP [juvenile life without the possibility of parole] under my administration.

The countys two juvenile lifers were resentenced to a term of years, with Siemons support; one was released and the other is up for parole in 2021, according to the prosecutors office.

I believe that each defendant should be afforded an opportunity to change and be rehabilitated, Siemon wrote to The Appeal. It may never happen, but I believe everyone should be provided that possibility and incentive.

In next years Democratic primary, Cooper, who has been in office since 2009, will face a challenger, former family court judge and prosecutor Karen McDonald. McDonald told The Appeal that she was not sure if she supported a ban on life without the possibility of parole for juveniles. When asked if her office would ever seek the sentence for youth, she said, I wouldnt say never. I agree with the Supreme Courts decision that it should be an extremely rare case.

However, McDonald said, she disagrees with Coopers approach to these cases, in particular her handling of Hernndezs case. If elected, she told The Appeal, she plans to advocate for Hernndez to be resentenced.

She should be released, McDonald said of Hernndez. Its not keeping the community safe to keep Barbara Hernndez in prison.

The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth is a sponsor of Elizabeth Weill-Greenbergs documentary play on young people sentenced to life in prison.

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The Supreme Court Ruled That Sentences Like Hers Are Unconstitutional. Prosecutors Are Fighting To Keep Her Incarcerated. - The Appeal

Australias screen industry craft guilds have decried the Federal Governments abrupt decision to fold the Department of Communications and the Arts into a new super ministry, omitting the Arts, as an insult to the industry.

They say the removal of Arts from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications signals a fundamental disregard for the arts and arts education in Australia and a lack of respect for the vital role a federal Arts department plays in maintaining a national arts policy and supporting creative industries.

Stressing the sectors economic value, they point out the screen industry generates more than $3 billion a year and employs more than 40,000 people.

Noting the industry is struggling with ongoing funding cuts, threats to Australian childrens content across broadcast platforms and no requirement on streaming platforms to provide significant Australian content, the guilds fear the move signals further funding cuts, despite assurances from Paul Fletcher, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts.

The effects of cuts will not just be felt by those employed to make Australian content; Australians audiences will also be disadvantaged. With fewer Australian dramas and documentaries on our screens our unique stories, cultural perspective and identities are greatly diminished, according to a statement issued on behalf of the writers, directors, screen editors, screen composers, production designers, casting agents, screen sound and cinematographers guilds, WIFT Australia and Australia Independent Documentary.

Screen Producers Australia is a significant omission from signatories to the statement. The guilds declaration coincides with a #SaveTheArts petition run by Change.org.

In turn, the government insists there are no changes to its strong commitment to the arts, funding committed to the arts portfolio $749 million in 2019-2020 or to the role and funding of the Australia Council, Screen Australia or other key arts and cultural institutions.

A spokesperson for the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts said: The dedicated and committed officials working on arts policy will move across from the former department to the new department and they continue to have the same responsibilities and the same resources.

They will continue to be accountable to the Commonwealth Minister for the Arts Paul Fletcher there has been no change to his ministerial title or responsibilities and arts policy continues to be the responsibility of a Cabinet Minister.

On a related matter, the government is expected to deliver its response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions report following the digital platforms inquiry before the end of the year, contrary to media speculation this will be delayed until next year.

The above assurances may not satisfy the guilds, who are asking the government to:

Reinstate the name Arts Department. Make a binding public commitment that there will be no reduction in funding to any of the Arts, Culture and Communications budgets now or in the future. That all commitments already made to arts bodies are fulfilled and carried forward into the future. That there will be no re-direction of funds to other areas in the new portfolio, or other departments. That if any changes are mooted to the Arts/Communications portfolio, that extensive, broad industry consultation is carried out prior with stakeholders and arts practitioners.

Total Control.

WIFT Australia chair Katrina Irawati Graham warns that any minimisation to the arts portfolio will disproportionately affect all types of women and non-binary screen practitioners.

Women are less represented in key creative roles across the industry. We are more likely to struggle with maintaining a career while caring for family. When we are working we frequently do so on smaller budgeted work for less pay. This is an issue of gender economic equality, she says.

Diana Burnett, executive director of the Australian Directors Guild, says: Momentum will be lost with the abolition of the Arts portfolio along with ongoing dilution of funding for the screen agencies, ABC and SBS.

What message are we sending to Australians and the world? No more brilliant TV like Total Control or iconic shows like Home and Away? No more world-renowned movies like Lion? Just when quality screen content is being consumed at a record rate. High-quality, Australian stories must continue to be in the mix for local and international audiences.

Australian Screen Editors president Fiona Strain observes that editors are accustomed to their work being undervalued and there is not a lot of understanding or recognition of the vital role they play in bringing distinct, memorable and emotive stories to the screen.

It is often a struggle to earn a living wage and the hours are long but editors are passionate about their work, she says. Now the whole industry is being cast in the shadows.

This is a collaborative industry and editors stand together with other film practitioners in asking that the Federal Government do not devalue the Australian screen industry and arts in general by removing acknowledgement of the Arts from its department portfolio.

On behalf of the Casting Guild of Australia, Kirsty McGregor and David Newman said: To imperil the future of the arts sector by reducing its voice in government is shortsighted and ill advised. It sends an unfortunate and negative message to young Australians in particular, about the place of the arts and artistic expressions in the lives of Australians.

Australian Writers Guild president Shane Brennan says the loss of the Arts Department title is a further sign that the government does not understand or value the industry, observing: Australia has the talent and opportunity to become a genuine content provider to the world but this will be lost if the government doesnt recognise and adequately support our creative practitioners.

Ron Johanson, national president of the Australian Cinematographers Society, said his members are astounded the government could even consider taking these steps and downgrading the importance of the arts ministry.

Where do these decisions, that obviously directly affect the erosion of the cultural foundation of our country come from? he asked.

Echoing the wider industrys concerns is this blunt message from Natalie Miller Fellowship president Sue Maslin: No Department of the Arts. No cultural policy. No respect. This government has failed to understand what millions of ordinary Australians understand that music, films, art, performance, interactive games and storytelling are the very things that give us joy and make life worth living.

How is it possible to extol the virtues of innovation while systematically debasing the importance of creativity?

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Industry guilds decry government snub to arts and fear further funding cuts - Inside Film

The livelihoods of ordinary people should be our primary focus

I am writing this column while standing in front of the national press club, a place where I spend much of my free time, which has become the main, if not only, hub for protests in the capital since the imposition of restrictions on other public venues.

Small activism groups and protesters of different scales gather together here, especially when they cannot secure permissions at other venues or are denied.

Today is International Human Rights day; almost all of the protests are centring on that concept, and there is barely a place for our small group -- which came together today to defend the rights of a dissident who has been receiving threats from various quarters since he exposed corruption and extortion in his small business community -- to stand.

Standing in the corner and getting continuously shoved around by human rights defenders, I realized that most of the protest speeches are less about human rights related to the realm of ideas like freedom of speech, religion, and expression, but are instead centring around a different issue: The price of onions.

Interestingly, our friend in question, Arman, staged a lone hunger strike at this very venue over the price of onions, which also became a reason for the threats he received. This shows an interesting trend. The dialogue about human rights has now come down to the price of daily commodities. This means that the idea of justice now has a new meaning, and in this meaning, the interests of salt and soil become primary.

The politics of today has come down to two simple elements: Economy and environment. Even though many of us are working from the top to solve the political crisis focusing far too much on democracy and justice, the people seem to care more about the issues that are closely related to their personal wellbeing, and they are not afraid to come down to the streets to prove it.

In terms of massive mobilization, these issues have not been able to get people to act. Due to the gross social stratification that the society has undergone over the past decades, people only seem to mobilize when their tightly-knit in-group is directly affected. Very often, this boils down to the individual or the family. And therefore, concern for salt and soil rise above all else.

Of course, questions and condemnations flow in when gross violation of human rights takes place. But it still does not create massive mobilization at the scale that it should. Even the murder of Abrar Fahad could not exactly solidify a nationwide movement, but was boiled down to an internal issue of a specific institution, when the structural problem is prevalent at most public universities.

There have been rapes, murders, kidnappings, attacks, and intimidations, but no movement solidified. Somehow, maybe, these events are seen as the problem of the individual and not the society. If it did, we would see a strong movement against these events of structural injustice, as this is no secret to anyone.

When do we see massive movements? When the issues hit directly on economic and environmental interests. The latest successful peasant movement, lead by Sahebganj-Bagdafarm Bhumi Uddhar Sangram Committee and other organizations, organized around the economic interest of protecting their land from government acquisition and ensuring the protection of the nature that the Santals hold so dear. Other movements from the working class were mostly lead by labour organizations on demands like higher wages and safer work environments, all strictly economic demands.

In terms of youth movements, we have seen three large ones in the post-2014 era: The No VAT on education movement, the quota reformation movement, and the road safety movement. The appeals of the No VAT and quota reformation movements were strictly related to economic justice. The No VAT movement asked for their education to remain affordable and the quota reformation movement asked for a greater access to public jobs, ie employment.

While the VAT issue has been somewhat resolved by the abolition of the tax by the government promptly after the movement (even though discontent is still brewing in the universities on the issue and the lack of justice for those who were attacked), the unemployment crisis that was the origin of the quota reform movement has not been resolved, even after the government partially repealed the quota system.

Due to that, and other reasons, including the organization that spun out of the movement, the Parishad, being able to secure the top seat at DUCSU, whatever the method, the movement is still ongoing and the organization still enjoys a sizable popularity.

On the other hand, the road safety movement raised the perennial question of justice, and they did not mean justice for the victims of the road accidents that inspired the original mobilization, but justice overall. Incredible placards included, The repair of the state is underway. However, this justice movement did not continue, even after a number of deaths on the streets since the movement.

This proves that, even though we need justice on all fronts, we must refocus our struggle for justice to the specific focus of economic and environmental justice if we want to gain traction among the people. Truly, the most palpable sense of discontent among the common people is the unjust market and environmental pollution.

Power-sponsored syndicates that manipulate market prices, bands of extortionists who snatch away the profit of the small businessman, middlemen who hurt both the consumer and producer, the price of electricity, and other issues that directly affect the livelihood of the common people should now be our primary focus.

Now is the time for the politics of salt and soil.

Anupam Debashis Roy is an editor at Muktiforum. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

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The politics of salt and soil - Dhaka Tribune