Red Pepper's Election Blues

The gypsy vote: challenging Michael Howard?

Sylvia Dunn is a Romani gypsy standing against Michael Howard in Folkestone. She told Red Pepper:

"We all know what Michael Howard did when he was Home Secretary, when the Tories passed the Criminal Justice Act which made criminals of gypsies and one parent families. 

"Their approach to gypsies then and now is an incitement to racial hatred. Its made people think they can do anything, its dehumanising us. That’s a slippery road.

"Labour, by contrast, is at least listening and trying to come to some conclusions. We're getting somewhere - for example, through the House of Lords Advisory Committee which I'm a member of. When we actually get to talk to them, they realise that most of our community is hardworking and are taxpayers.

"There's still a long way to go. When we apply for planning permission 80% of our applications are turned down, but the figures are only 20% for the settled community. When it comes to retrospective planning permission, that's done out of need - and the need is desparate.

"When our children are born with no legal place to stay they are born criminals. We keen to get our kids an education so that they can realise their full potential. But there's still a lot of prejudice - even when our girls go for a checkout job they can't even get an interview. We can't let that go on.

"I doubt we'll get much of a vote here in Folkstone, and we've learnt that we could do with better publicity and more canvassers in future. But as long as people don't vote for the Conservatives, that doesn't matter as much. We didn't expect much from this election. But I just wanted to stand on the same platform as Michael Howard and prove to him that he can't shift me.

"In future, we'll encourage youg gypsies to come forward and will try to help them to get elected. Gypsies are becoming more politicised so we'll have quite some support in a few years."

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Liar, liar?

So its finally come to this: the Conservatives taking campaign lessons from Respect. In the war of the posters, the Tories' If he's prepared to lie to take us to war... comes in about a year after Respect's Bliar. There is something to be said for this tactic: it recognises that the symbolic power of the Prime Minister is considerable, and that our perceptions of the government often pass through a vague sense of trust, embodied in how we view him. But it takes us little further in the debate on the Iraq war - which I suspect is just fine for the Tories, who supported it, but should give Respect pause for thought. Would Gordon Brown as leader, or Michael Howard, have acted any differently? Without developing a significantly different conception of 'Britain's interests', and turning their back on the 'special relationship' - which displaces post-colonial anxiety onto a continued myth of our influence on Washington - surely the answer would be no.  OR

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Cleaner hospitals require hospital cleaners

The Conservatives’ focus on hospital ‘super bugs’ betrays the lack of political space between the two major parties on the future of the health service (see this earlier post). But this doesn’t mean that dirty wards are not a genuine issue. For a good analysis of the flaws in the current ‘contract culture’ and how it has affected cleanliness, look no further than Unison’s recent report on Hospital Contract Cleaning and Infection Control.  OR

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Conservative Manifesto should come with health warning

How hard can it be to keep hospitals clean? Well, if you’re thinking what we’re thinking, the answer is… it’s fairly difficult if you outsource responsibility for cleaning, erode working conditions and labour standards and provide inadequate cleaning materials – all in the name of market-based efficiency. Unsurprisingly, Conservative health policy is silent on the impact of commodification on the reduction of healthcare standards. But the party’s Manifesto, launched today, does hint at how the system of market ‘choice’ will be extended if the Party gains office.

The Tory pledge to give all hospitals 'the freedom to hire staff, specialise and borrow to invest' can be read as a commitment to continuing the (neo)liberalisation of the NHS. Although it is presented as a rebuff to Labour centralisation and bureaucracy, this measure is little more than an extension of the present government’s Foundation hospitals scheme, which already undermines pay bargaining and allows for increased subcontracting to private firms. Conservative pledges to reduce ‘radically reduce the number of Primary Care Trusts, abolish the Strategic Health Authorities and cut the number of quangos, inspectorates and commissions’ also follow the logic of Foundation hospitals to their logical conclusion, since that measure has already damaged the ability to achieve the efficient, non-market planning of services and undermined these bodies.

What is striking here is that a measure introduced by Labour to protect an NHS ‘free at the point of use’ (a ritual commitment which is also repeated in the Conservative manifesto) is being used as a means to further undermine it. The ideologically shared vision of ‘patient choice’ serves as a metaphor for the opting-out of the system by the middle-classes, undermining the universalist aspiration for equitable treatment on the basis of healthcare needs.

(For more on this issue, see the articles on ‘Spoiling for Choice’ here and here in the Red Pepper archive).   OR

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High Flyer

The future of air transport has yet to register on the electoral radar, but support for the aviation lobby is already paying dividends for at least one parliamentary candidate. Esther McVey, Conservative candidate for Wirral West, recently worked with the local Daily Post on its campaign to get a flight path between London and Liverpool. Now, we are told by a correspondent, Wirral News Group newspapers (owned by Trinity Mirror) are giving disproportionate attention to local Conservatives. Sue McCann, editor of Wirral News, is reported to have rebuffed requests for her paper to shed its electoral bias by saying: “Not until the general election is called.”

McVay’s own website, which makes no secret of her connections with the Daily Post, also proudly boasts of her TV career anchoring shows such as Ann Widdecombe’s Nothing But the Truth and BBC1’s The Heaven and Earth Show. But it is curiously silent about her past in tacky daytime TV chat show 5’s Company, where she shared a couch with ‘celebrity’ Fame Academy reject Nick Knowles and tap-dancing panto star Lionel Blair.  OR

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Tories making news

A new newspaper for New Cross? That's what I thought when I got onto the Tube in South East London today, picking up a copy of the "Lewisham & Southwark Independent" from a news stand usually reserved for The Metro, the free London daily distributed by the Daily Mail's Associated Newspaper group. But a closer look revealed a publication distinctly less independent than its title announced: "Lewisham's Conservative Candidates: Local People Highlighting Local Crime." "Solving Britain's pension crisis is a top priority for the Conservatives." "Consevatives are pledging 40,00 extra bobbies on the beat". And so on. Looks like they've learnt from the old activist trick of producing spoof newspapers like The Spun, Ignite or the Evading Standard - only without the sense of humour.

What are your local newspapers saying? We want to know.  OR

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