Save York Gardens Library

“What is more important than anything else in a library is the fact that it exists” – Archibald Macleish

Wandsworth Council, as part of the cuts falling  from the Comprehensive Spending Review, are considering closing York Gardens Library. York Gardens Library is in the most deprived ward in Wandsworth: Latchmere. I live less than a mile away, in the least deprived ward in Wandsworth: Northcote. With this in mind, I had a look at the council’s equality impact assessment.

Battersea, Battersea Park and Northcote libraries are included since they are the three nearest libraries and the council argue that if York Gardens closes, people will simply travel to their nearest library instead. Wandsworth council’s own equality impact assessment highlights that York Gardens has three times as many black users than the borough average, and 7.5 times as many as nearby Northcote library. This is the case all the more for children and young people. The equality impact assessment states:

“Usage of the Library reflects the character of the surrounding population, where people of non British white ethnicity, mixed ethnicity, Asian and Black African and Caribbean ethnicity accounted for 51% of the population in 2001. These groups make more use of the Library than white British people. The use of the Library by Black African and Caribbean people is particularly noticeable.”

I don’t even have to make an argument here. The council’s data speaks for itself. The same applies to women, and those with disabilities (especially learning disabilities):

More women use the library than the borough average, and four times as many users have a learning disability than the borough average – eight times as many as in my ward.

Aside from demographic statistics, the most convincing, and heartbreaking argument to save York Gardens comes from the survey of why people use the library. Apologies for the deluge of bulletpoints, but this is all vital:

“York Gardens library is particularly important to children compared to other libraries. Children and Young People using this library are also appreciably older than those using other libraries – 50% are in the 11 – 15 yr age group compared to the borough figure of 19%. The comparable figure for Northcote library is 11%.

• 45% of children visiting York Gardens library came with friends or on their own compared to a borough average of 18%, reflecting the neighbourhood character of the library that it is accessible from local housing without crossing any major roads and the older age profile using this library. Using the alternative libraries would involve journeys along and across busy main roads.

• 40% of children come to use a computer compared to a borough average of 19%. [Northcote Library10%] and of those 48% use them specifically for homework compared to 22% in the borough at large. [Northcote Library 7%].

• 49% of children and young people come to do homework compared to a borough average of 17% [Northcote Library 8%]

• 35% borrow books for homework (borough average 15%) and 41% because ‘I want to get better at reading’ (borough average 30%) [Northcote Library 6% and 20%]

• 49% of those who use the library to do their homework do so because it provides somewhere quiet to work [Northcote Library 10%]. Other answers to this question reinforce the importance of the library as a resource for studying.

• 59% of children and young people considered the library had helped them to do better at school [Northcote Library 15%] – the highest response of any library in the borough.”

So to summarise, York Gardens library is used heavily by teenagers, especially black teenagers, who use it for schoolwork, to feel better about themselves by reading, and to use computers. They often go with friends, highlighting the importance of the library to the community and the nearby Kambala estate. Closing York Gardens would mean the children and young people who use it would have to travel further, across busy main roads, to areas of the borough they are unfamiliar with, instead of doing homework with their friends in the evening. Were Northcote library to close, I honestly think the impact on the children nearby would be minimal. Were Northcote chosen, however, the very vocal, savvy affluent residents would secure maximum coverage for such a closure. Northcote residents needn’t worry, though. Wandsworth Council spent £13m on building them a free school only last month.  Closing York Gardens will save the council a mere £219,000. If they do so, they will have to provide an outreach service, taking the savings down to £127,000. This would cause council tax to rise by less than a pound a year. Even that is irrelevant, however: Eric Pickles slammed Wandsworth council recently for hoarding £105m in reserves. The council are victimising the poorest in the borough, to make ideological cuts, simply because they think Latchmere residents won’t put up a fight.

The best argument not to close York Gardens however, is the residents, in their own words.

If you can, join us tomorrow(Saturday 5th February), at 1pm for a Read-in to protest against the proposed closure.

UK Uncut – A Failure in Civil Policing.

[I’ll skip detail on the beginning of the protest, assuming most readers will be conversant on UK Uncut and its aims, but can add more here if necessary]

UK Uncut protested today at Boots, who avoided a £87m tax bill last year by relocating their head offices to Switzerland. Protesters were today handing out leaflets, and occupying the store since the news of Boots’ tax-dodging comes at the same time as we hear of massive cuts (sorry, restructuring) to the NHS.

The protest was peaceful, and good-natured. Several shoppers joined the demonstration, and once we left the store to hand out leaflets on the street, passers-by were wishing us well and cheering us on. One woman marched up to the manager of Boots and asked “Is this true?” waving a leaflet in his face. He shrugged and told her, unfortunately, it was, but it wasn’t a decision he was involved in. I chatted to a Community Support Officer about his bike (it’s far superior to mine), and we spoke to the manager of Boots as well: there wasn’t any ill-will about.

Then, as I was stood next to the locked automatic doors, I noticed that a police officer was asking a woman to remove a number of leaflets she’d placed in the gap between the door. The woman asked why she was being asked to do so. The policewoman initially said “Littering” then claimed it was criminal damage. At this point the woman objected to being touched on the arm by the policewoman.  A number of people started taking photos of the exchange, then she was arrested by two officers who led her towards a thoroughfare next to Boots.

A number of protesters followed to keep an eye on the situation, chanting “Shame On You”. At this point, one of the officers, CW2440, used CS spray gas on a number of protesters nearby. I decided to film from a distance, rather than follow, as can be seen in the footage below:

I saw at least 7 people who had been sprayed in the eyes including a journalist, with three men particularly badly affected. One protesters had contact lenses in, which reacted with the spray. If you’ve never been tear-gassed before, it’s horrific. You can’t see, you’re in extreme amounts of pain, and massively panicked by the fact that you have no clue where you are, or who is around you. I called an ambulance, who confirmed they’d be there as soon as possible. At this point, three police officers with slightly different uniforms arrived at the scene: Legal Observers later told me they were Diplomatic Police, and definitely had tasers, though may also have been armed. Boots staff were shocked by the scenes, and an optician and first aid team inside offered to help those injured. The ambulance arrived soon afterwards, and took the three worst affected inside, initially thinking they could treat them in the ambulance. After 15 minutes, they confirmed they’d be taking them to hospital. A police officer then started speaking to us, informing us of how to make a complaint, asked us if we had the contact details of those injured then told us the number of the officer who’d used CS spray gas. Another officer later came over to a legal observer I was talking to and confirmed that Officer CW2440 had been the one to use spray gas on the protesters. I’ve never seen police officers offer up this type of information before, though am happy to be corrected.

It was a hugely jarring thing to witness, and I wasn’t affected. The policing was initially calm, and hands-off then suddenly became massively over zealous. That CS spray gas was used on one of the busiest streets in London in response to people simply chanting is terrifying. I’ve often thought criticism of the police can be a little unproductive, but today has made me think otherwise.

How the Coalition Have Let Down My Sister

This is my sister, Fern. She’s just turned 16, and is dressed for her first day of work experience at a local Primary School in this picture.

We never had much money at all growing up, relying on free school meals, libraries, school uniform grants and bursaries from the local council for the bus to school. When I went to university in 2005, the LEA paid all of my fees, and I was given a full student loan, as well as an income-assessed scholarship from my university of £2000. In Sixth Form, I got EMA, which meant I could afford the bus to do my A Levels. In Newport, the city we grew up in, the nearest Sixth Form college is a fair distance from the biggest estates and the city centre.

Unfortunately for Fern, when she finishes her GCSEs this year, if she wants to do A Levels, she’ll have to find the money for her textbooks, travel and lunches herself because the government consider EMA to be wasteful, and pointless, despite not having visited any FE colleges whatsoever to see the impact EMA has on access to education. She wont’ be able to borrow books from the local library, because it’s closing. Due to high unemployment in our area, Saturday jobs are few, and those that do exist are usually cash in hand, avoiding the minimum wage. If she does manage to pay her way through Sixth Form college, she’ll have to fight for a place at University, which are currently becoming increasingly competitive, thanks to rising unemployment rates, and freezes on funding for student places by, you guessed it, the government. Should she get a place at University, she’ll be paying at least £9000 a year in fees. I paid £0 per annum, a mere six years ago. She’ll graduate with at least £40,000 in student debt, almost double my debt.

On graduation, like me, she won’t be able to return home to live rent-free whilst job-hunting. She’ll have to take the first job that will pay the rent, all the while looking for something better. With the news today that unemployment rates are still increasing, the likelihood that she’ll be able to get a graduate job, without interning for months, is slim. If she’s unemployed for any period of time, she’ll have to jump through hoops to ensure she can get the measly £5o-odd pounds a week the government deem sufficient for someone in their early twenties to live on.

Fern can’t vote, and has no say in what the government are doing to her future, how they’re affecting her life chances. I appear to have slipped through the net, and escaped a single-parent-teenage-mother- family-on-a-council-estate Daily Mail wet dream to have achieved a good degree from a top university, through grants and bursaries. Fern, and my other young brothers and sisters have seen their chances at social mobility dropkicked back by about twenty years. If Fern has learnt anything about the political system in the past few years, it’s this: politicians, from whatever party will fuck you over. Even if you don’t vote for them, and no one wins an outright majority, they will find a way to fuck you over. They will do it with glee, and they won’t listen to your voice. Voting and letters to your MP won’t change a thing.What we’re teaching young people about their current place in the political system is worrying and dangerous.

My siblings and their peers are young, furious, and they’ve had their life chances sold off for ideological reasons by a bunch of over-privileged careerists, and they won’t forget in a hurry.

 

TfL – Poor as Ever: Passengers – Poorer than Ever.

Happy New Year! TfL have have celebrated by introducing new, far higher fares. This is in spite of a public sector pay freeze, mass redundancies and a massive hike in petrol prices. It’s pretty standard knowledge that people are more willing to pay more for a service if it’s notably improved. I set off on my commute from Clapham South to Stratford (now 7.5% more expensive) to test this. This should take me 38 minutes.

Arrive at Clapham South at 8.10. Ten minute queue to top up my Oyster card. Great.

8.22 Get onto massively crowded platform. 15-20 people leaving as I walk onto the platform as they’ve given up and are getting the bus. TfL will charge them £1.40 each for the pleasure of a futile wait and make a tidy sum on top of their bus fares.

8.28 Two trains have departed with no passengers. Announcer stares there are delays on the Northern Line due to a trespass at Collier’s Wood in the early hours of the morning.

8.43 Finally get on train. Announcement informs us Jubilee Line’s suspended between North Greenwich and Stratford. Go to Bank to get Central Line instead.

9.07 arrive at Bank. On getting off the train an announcement states that Central Line trains won’t be stopping, and neither will Northern Line trains. Had they mentioned this on the train, I could have stayed on until Liverpool Street. Manage to fight through huge crowd of irate customers to ask how to get to Stratford. TfL agent looks at me like I’m stupid and tells me Eastbound Central Line is stopping.

09.11 Get to platform. Quelle surprise. Central Line Eastbound not stopping. I pause to consider the meaning of life, and how TfL will defy physics by reducing overcrowding, whilst keeping customers kettled due to the two busiest lines not stopping.

09.16 Furious passengers swearing on platform, oddly mostly pensioners. The young appear to have dissolved into an impenetrable state of ennui. The emergency button is being used constantly by angry customers, namely because the Central Line’s not stopping due to overcrowding, but the carriages are near empty. A voice on the end of the Emergency intercom snaps “I haven’t got time to deal with you, goodbye!” The platform’s now massively crowded, and getting more so by the minute.

09.26. I’m on a train! Elderly man shouts “FUCKING USELESS BASTARDS” as I help him get his shopping trolley onboard, though hastens to add he doesn’t mean me. By this point my jiurney’s already taken 26 minutes longer than it should have done, and this next journey should take 11 minutes.

09.38. I have arrived! I’m genuinely shocked. TfL are often so bad I’m almost delirious when I actually get to my destination. However, this delirium is quickly dispersed by seeing £2.90 instead of £2.70 flash up on the exit barrier.

I know what would make commuting more tolerable. Boris Johnson’s head on a stick.
Maybe I’ll get a car.

Assange and “Rape-rape”

Understandably, Interpol’s Red Notice for Julian Assange, and today’s extradition hearing has garnered a huge flurry of press and online attention. That a warrant for his arrest on charges unrelated to the publishing of masses of highly confidential US Cables seems massively convenient for politicians that have been baying for his blood.

What I don’t understand is the need many journalists, bloggers and public figures have felt to examine the charges and exonerate Assange of any guilt. I’ve read countless blog posts, and tweets, predominantly by men, explaining that the Assange faces aren’t rape but “sex by surprise”, and snide remarks about those quirky Swedes and their bizarre laws. Predictably, the Mail are leading with the idea that Assange was set up, that the women acted as “honeytraps” (it’s Adam and Eve all over again). The fact that one of the women was mentored by a “militant feminist” has been brought up, despite the fact it seems a non sequitur.

Firstly, I’m uncomfortable with so many people feeling that they can expressly define rape, and say unequivocally that what occurred in a bedroom between two people does, or does not constitute rape. I have no idea what happened between Assange and the two women he is accused of raping. I’d argue only the three people involved do. Equally, I know very little about Swedish law, and I’m uncomfortable with people who aren’t conversant in it making statements that the charges he faces are charges that shouldn’t exist in any legal system.

This case has parallels to Roman Polanski’s: both initially avoided international arrest warrants, when both were detained people were quick to dismiss the cases against them. Whenever I see another person come forward to dismiss the claims Assange is being detained for, I’m reminded of Whoopi Goldberg proclaiming that what Polanski did, and admitted he did, wasn’t “Rape-rape”.

I enjoy Polanski’s work. Repulsion is one of my favourite films. In my head I’m capable of appreciating his art, and condemning what he subjected a 13-year-old girl to. The case against Assange is yet to be proven. However, I’d like to see the left accepting that as humans, we don’t neatly fit into “good” and “bad” pigeonholes. Just as I can concurrently enjoy Rosemary’s Baby and think that Polanski as a child rapist is a deplorable individual, I can believe that Wikileaks is necessary and a worthy endeavour, and accept that Assange may be a rapist.

By all means, argue that the timing of Interpol’s warrant may be suspect, or that the charges may not have received such attention had the Embassy Cables not been leaked. But don’t try and define rape, or examine the tabloid fragments of the case and claim that there is no case to answer. Assange was aware that the charges would be brought, and has come forward knowing the press attention would make scapegoating him difficult.

Further Reading:

Feministing – Some Thoughts on “Sex By Surprise”

Cath Elliot – Why it’s wrong to casually dismiss the allegations against Julian Assange

Stuff Woolas

A fighting fund has been set up by Labour MPs to pay the legal costs of Woolas’s appeal against the ruling of the election court. Labour MPs’ reaction has baffled me. They’ve bitten their tongues over war, fees, the erosion of civil liberties, and speak out to defend the indefensible? More than that, they’re being encouraged to raise money for him, as though he’s some kind of martyr. Give me a break.

If MPs are going to throw money to defend someone who is willing to whip up fears regarding immigration, and target anyone who looks a bit foreign, I say we combat that by donating to those he targeted in his election campaign. I’ve set up a page here to raise money for Refugee Action: http://www.justgiving.com/stuffwoolas/ Why waste money defending someone so deplorable? Instead, chuck a fiver to the refugees Woolas authorised the use of force against. Woolas can fight an unwinnable court case with £200,000. Refugee Action can do a lot with far, far less.

Unfortunately, most people I know aren’t on MPs salaries: if you can afford to give anything, please do, and if you can’t, please pass on this message to others.

 

Remeber. Stuff Woolas: http://www.justgiving.com/stuffwoolas/

Where Are The Headlines For Those Who Don’t Come Forward?

The Telegraph reports today that a woman was sentenced to 8 months in prison for falsely retracting a rape accusation. Not falsely accusing, falsely retracting a claim. The full story can be read here, and Rape Crisis’s statement here. Briefly, the woman went to the police, and reported that her husband had raped her 6 times on 3 occasions. Several months into the trial, she contacted the police to drop the charges. When the court proceeded, and she was arrested for perverting the course of justice, she admitted that the allegations had been true but she had been emotionally blackmailed by her husband’s family to drop the charges so he would receive a lesser penalty.

This story is chilling on a number of levels: it continues a trend of women being prosecuted when rape cases they have brought fail, and on a wider scale makes women far less likely to come forward. Unless you’re raped by a complete stranger in a dark alley, you can expect clouds of doubt, questions about your behaviour, and whether you brought it upon yourself. If you know, or even worse, you’ve dated or previously consented to sleep with your rapist, you can expect the sympathy to dwindle. If you had a drink beforehand, or were wearing, well practically anything, ditto. Stranger rape accounts for a small fraction of rapes reported, and yet it’s still viewed as a yardstick by which to judge how much someone has suffered. Never mind the emotional torment bound up in being raped by someone you’ve trusted, or even loved. Whoopi Goldberg was able to claim that Roman Polanski drugging and raping a minor wasn’t “rape rape” without much backlash.

And the way society views rape by someone who is known to you, and assumes that you could have prevented it, is massively damaging. I can count, from the top of my head, 11 women I know, myself included, who’ve been raped. They all knew their rapist, two-thirds were raped by an ex-boyfriend. None of them went to the police. It all came down to one reason: they knew they wouldn’t be believed, or if it did go to court would go nowhere due to lack of evidence. What evidence can you provide? Several of them had been drinking before being raped. Some had shared a room with the perpetrator. None of us felt able to go to the police. Perhaps most worrying is that two of them were law students.

I can’t see this getting any better under the current government with their grandstanding over anonymity for defendants in rape cases, and the fact that forces are now being pulled up for handling rape cases abysmally shows how rotten the system is. But I know that everytime the tabloids report and vilify a woman who’s been prosecuted, women read the story, and a large number decide there’s no point reporting rape.

As a friend asked recently: where are the headlines for women who don’t come forward, for fear of not being believed?

Boycott These Cu*ts

As you’ve probably read, 35 “business leaders” wrote to the Telegraph supporting the ideological cuts to services that Osborne and co are inflicting on the country. Osborne used this letter as evidence that he was right to push on with his socially crippling, regressive agenda, as if the thoughts of a bunch of rich CEOs matter more than the fact that most Nobel laureate economists disagree with him.

I don’t think it’s right that these people put profit before people, and whilst they may see consumers as little more than profit-generators, I see them as having far more agency. So if I disagree with them, what can I do? Spend money elsewhere. And not just that, be very vocal about it. Stand up and say that I will not buy from companies with CEOs who think money buys them political influence, and that their voice is worth more than mine because they own a shop that sells bras and posh food.

What Can You Do?

• Shop Elsewhere
• Shop Local
• Publicise the boycott – write to your local paper, tell your friends, family and coworkers why you’re doing this, and distribute the flyer to interested parties.

The flyer can be printed 4 to an A4 page, and fits in a wallet. Handy. Please share this, ask questions and get involved.

See also, Kate’s post: Fair Trade Starts at Home

Tck Tck Boom

I noticed a few tweets earlier regarding a new video campaign from 10:10 had launched: what piqued my interest was that they seemed to be coming not from the usual green, environmental tweeters, but from political and scientific people, and that their responses were quite angry. I took a look, as you can, though not on the 10:10 site, as it’s since been removed:

The comments surrounding the video on Twitter and Youtube are telling: green campaigners are asking “what’s the point?” Who is the video targeted at? If it’s at those who are undecided on the need to cut their individual carbon emissions by 10%, they’ve effectively been told “agree with us, or we’ll kill you”. We’ve depicted ourselves as extremists which plays perfectly into the hands of those who wish to debase our arguments if that’s the case. If, on the other hand, the argument is that we can’t afford not to cut our emissions, the point is played so poorly, and so crassly that the visceral reactions of those who previously wavered show that many people who previously wavered, are now calling the 10:10 campaign “eco-fascists” and “enviro-nazis” or any other clumsy portmanteau evocation of Godwin’s Law.

As with Peta’s campaigns, I imagine one of the key aims of the campaign was to get people to talk. Peta regularly use semi-naked women, or porn stars as in a recent campaign to spay animals, to grab attention.

Unfortunately, sexualising women alienates a lot of people who would otherwise be brought onside with Peta’s messages. And that’s what I fear 10:10 have done today. I imagine they’ll come out and say they wanted people to talk about carbon emissions, and look! That’s what we’ve all been doing, but I think that’s poor form, and an argument that doesn’t hold. There is such a thing a a bad publicity, and the fallout from this has the potential to be far-reaching if people feel it gives them licence to abdicate personal responsibility in green matters. In essentially saying “Agree or we’ll kill you” and portraying those who won’t agree to do something about climate change as victimised, they’ve given those who aren’t willing to make an individual contribution to tackling the problem a moral get-out clause to do so.

Dear Name and Address Supplied: Screw You

I worry often that I surround myself with those that think and act in a way similar to myself, and for that reason I try and read my local papers regularly and get involved in local politics. I was pleased to see a number of meetings scheduled in Wandsworth to debate the White Paper on NHS reform and duly noted them in my diary. What I was less pleased to note was a letter akin to that which Darryl encountered recently in his local rag:

I barely knew where to direct my ire first. The fact that the reader can barely conceal their Victorian rage that people can contract an STI and be treated for it without being subject to moral opprobrium? I find it hard to believe that up until now the author, who conceals their name, location and gender, has felt they can let the condom-averse do as they please under the NHS, but as belts are tightening, it makes sense to ask them to do their bit. This is thinly-veiled Mail standard stereotyping, based on assumptions that it is the young and irresponsible that get STIs (in truth, STIs occur across all age groups and are increasing rapidly in those over 40), and plays into the rhetoric that the NHS and NICE spend money on binge-drinkers and teenagers with herpes, whilst denying “miracle drugs” to cancer sufferers. The letter is patently ridiculous and I’m alarmed it’s been printed at all. For a start, it claims women with cancer are “pilloried” which makes me think the author either lives in a fantasy world, or doesn’t own a dictionary. Secondly, to complain that those who contract STIs are treated with respect is just pathetic, as is calling them “sexually guilty”. Having worked in sexual health, I’ve treated everyone I’ve met with dignity because I’m a human being, and so are they, something this person can’t seem to grasp. If you have sex, the outcome of that is that two people have had sex. Not that you have had “innocent sex” or have become “sexually guilty”. STIs are a fact of life and a public health issue, and if we treat them like a public health issue instead of acting like proto-Mary Whitehouses people will feel less ashamed about getting tested, treated, and bringing up the issue of condoms in the bedroom.

But this letter is about more than that: it’s what I worry about with the coalition’s approach to cuts. The worry that by saying that cuts are inevitable means we’ll believe them and they’ll turn us against each other, rather than against them. That instead of forming a united front against a government that hate investment in public services, we’ll fight for what we hold dear to the detriment of other things. And in doing so, we’ll be forming the coalition’s argument and destroying links with the very people we should be getting on board. I went to an event earlier in the week to publicise and raise funds for The Cuts Won’t Work, which aims to tie together the various anti-cuts campaigns. I think it’s an excellent campaign that aims to gain publicity for a website that publicises all of the anti-cuts campaigns that are happening. It’s an excellent idea, and I’m happy to recommend it.

Further reading:

Adam Ramsay on why The Cuts Won’t Work

Red Pepper: Countering the Cuts Myths