“When there is high unemployment and a greater degree of poverty then you generally see an increase in burglary and shoplifting . . . the tide may now be turning. There are warning signs”.

The council website confirms that at 20.4%, youth unemployment in Birmingham is in a far worse position than the country as a whole, where the youth unemployment rate is around 12%.

So a fifth of our young people – and many elders as well – are in effect being told that they are surplus to requirements.

Meanwhile controversy rages over many comparatively trivial issues

Why not build on the track record of the Aston Reinvestment Trust, which should be given wider publicity and practical support? It nurtures the small and medium businesses to which it lends funds – enterprises which have been unable to get a bank loan. Mentors with long experience volunteer to advise and encourage less experienced clients.

Nearly 5000 families have benefitted

Over the years ART has lent over £11m to more than 500 borrowers. This has enabled these enterprises to create or protect more than 4900 jobs. That  – assuming an average of 3 to a family – is roughly 15,000 people . A few of its many success stories may be seen here. Young people, as they start secondary education, could be given some hope for the future and inspired to gain skills by news of these local successes and the role played by ART.

Is its record equalled by any other agency in the city?

In 1981 he became the director of the United Nations Association – UK (UNA- UK), working tirelessly for twenty-two years. He was regularly called on to give his informed and acute observations on the international news of the moment and can be heard in this Radio 4 Today dialogue about the development of the UN’s future intervention strategy.

He visited Birmingham many times and others will be able to add to these memories:

On the centenary of John Bright’s death in 1988, he attended a civic reception at the Council House, held to launch a fund to set up the United Nations Association John Bright Peace & Security Programme.

In 2001, Birmingham’s Philip Shiner of Peacerights, a law service dealing with issues of international human rights and weapons/arms – perhaps a sub-section of Public Interest Lawyers - wrote: “ I am meeting today with Malcolm Harper. There was a proposal that Peacerights work for various groups in attempting to bring to trial Jonas Savimbi for his atrocities in Angola. In fact Malcolm has been instrumental in getting Peacerights going”.

Malcolm visited the city to encourage sponsors for a walk from Lands End to John O’ Groats which he and two friends were planning, to raise funds for ‘Friends of Northern Uganda’ (FONU). FONU’s work includes helping escaped or rescued abductees with school / training bursaries, giving them a chance of a better life. FONU works in cooperation with the UN, and local organisations to provide clean water, sanitation and other facilities in the IDP camps.

At a UNA meeting held in the Council House in 2011, as an ‘independent international consultant’, Malcolm looked back over improvements made since the ‘60s and focussed on the factors inhibiting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals:

• the rich-poor divide – some multinational companies are far wealthier than some developing countries;
• poor rural infrastructure – for example, many needy people have to walk many miles to reach medical facilities;
• aid which is not focussed on quality – for example, increasing the number of children attending school, regardless of equipment provided and staffing levels;
• corruption – both corruptors and corruptees must be tackled.

Malcolm’s personal reflections on this time with the UNA may be read here.

The Times obituary is restricted but a full and personal tribute may be read in his local Oxford Mail

A reader who attended the event writes to say that Sir John defined terrorism not as a movement but as a violent tactic adopted by weak and desperate people. She wished that the US could have seen the twin towers attack as a crime and reacted to it as such – avoiding the ongoing world-wide ‘war on terror’.

This brought to mind the reflection of Richard Kidd in the Financial Times:

“As the Boston and Woolwich outrages make clear, and . . . the real danger to western homelands is more akin to the 19th-century anarchist threat than to any traditional war . . . As such, I urge that it is more successfully contained by police and intelligence services than by military means”.

The searching question:

Sir John Holmes fielded a searching question from a Palestinian journalist, who asked why, since democracy is what western powers say they want to spread around the world, they did not accept the victory of Hamas after the last election in Palestine.

No clear answer was given . . .

MP John Hemming chairs Justice for Families – a Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign. It campaigns for a just system of Public Family Law where the right decisions are taken through due process and with proper evidence.

Sabine McNeill of Victims Unite (seen above with John Hemming in a Commons committee event) includes some of these concerns. She has submitted this text online to the EU Petitions Committee. It refers to the number of ‘forced adoptions’ – ie adoptions made without parental consent.

Birmingham: the latest parental nightmare: medical misdiagnosis followed by wrongful arrest

Almost two years ago, dental nurse Abby Podmore was arrested on suspicion of murder following the death of her three-year-old son, who was later found to have died of septicaemia caused by pneumonia. She has accepted an undisclosed settlement from the police.

This grieving young mother was held in a cell overnight at Bournville Police Station on the day of his death in February. She did not see his body for 10 days,and was not allowed to make a phone call home.

The next day, a doctor confirmed the death was due to natural causes.

His grandmother had taken him to Birmingham Children’s hospital the next day after he coughed up blood, had a temperature of 39.5 Celsius, shoulder pain and a rash, and was told that he had a tummy upset for which he was prescribed an antacid . . . but he had pneumonia and a lung had collapsed.

This police action was an appalling over-reaction and is one of many – some parents suffering for months and years. Time for change – long overdue, as John Hemming insists.

Years ago BBC News reported that analysis of the timber frames of the Lad in the Lane pub in Erdington proved it was built in the spring at the end of the 14th Century. Dendrochronology – analysing ring patterns – on timbers in the oldest part of the house found a match to known patterns from 1400.

This  makes the house 25 years older than the previous oldest, the New Shipton Barn in Sutton Coldfield, 50 years older than the BBC Restoration prize-winning Old Grammar School in Kings Norton. The building is almost 100 years older than the Old Crown in Deritend, the oldest building in the city continuously used as a pub.

Earlier it was known as The (or Ye Old) Green Man:

 Details from English Heritage’s listed buildings database:

“One of the oldest inns in the country. The existing building of C14/C15 origin but much altered and enlarged in the 1930s. Timber framed, open hall of 3 bays divided by a cruck truss*, considerably cut about and with modern rafters and studding. Two more pairs of crucks in the south wall. At the north end is a 2 storey crosswing, probably of early C16 build, close studded with jowled corner posts. Cambered tie beam and collar with raking struts to central truss, exposed storey posts. Externally the west gable of wing has close studding with curved braces. Modern brick infill and fenestration.”

There are many entries on the internet about psychic research carried out on the premises.

*A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which supports the roof of a building, used particularly in England. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruck

By chance the writer came across an update of a video, The End of Britain, which opened: “We are broke! . . . Escape is impossible . . . the social order will break down . . . As the crisis deepens . . . capital controls will be imposed . . . governments will raid the wealth of its own citizens.“ A shorter text version may be read here.

Historical instances of this were given and Greece was used as an example of what would lie ahead – presumably at the time of writing Cyprus’ uninsured bank deposit-holders had not been ‘raided’.

The problem is, allegedly, the size of the National Debt

• not the banking system,
• not allowing capital to fly put of the country
• not promoting outsourcing and certainly not the huge loss of revenue due to of tax avoidance by rich individuals and corporations.

It was said to have risen remarkably – see graph – due to the Welfare State, which was designed for a population with 48 years as the average age of death.

This is said to be misleading – ‘rife with severely biased statistical techniques’ – or, as Francis Coppola explains: 

“They show the NOMINAL amount of debt – which means they take no account of inflation. It’s amazing what happens to your debt figures when you remove the effects of inflation” and this far less disturbing graph is shown on her blog.

It ends by taking us through the process of collapse which will follow a rise in interest rates which would mean that government borrowing would become far more expensive – and the raids would start:

What next?

The only concern shown was for the preservation of the reader’s ‘wealth’ . . . communities suffering cuts were not on their horizon. What was the point of this presentation?

Why did the normally restrained Money Week, which is backed by private investors including the late industrialist Lord Hanson, Baron Rothschild and Saudi Arabia’s Wafic Said, write this? It didn’t – it is the achievement of its marketing department, designed to motivate people to buy a subscription to their magazine, which will then protect them and tell them how to avoid the ‘looting’ of their wealth by government:

The last word from Frances Coppola:

“I have to admit that it is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility that UK savers could indeed suffer savings confiscation in a variety of ways. Indeed they already are, through negative real interest rates.

“Am I bothered? Probably not. I lose much less sleep over the prospect of savers losing their savings than I do over the prospect of ordinary people losing their jobs and their homes”

But some ‘ordinary’ people have savings . . .

Yesterday, via the Brummie, Reyhana Patel was the third voicing a common theme.

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After sharing Andrew Alexander’s insight on another website a link was sent to an article by Joe Glenton who – as Reyhana wrote – refused to return to Afghanistan and fought a 12-month battle for simply airing his concerns on what he saw while serving in the country.

In the often appalling Daily Mail there is the occasional gem of exploration, investigation and today – welcome commonsense and humanity. Andrew Alexander – ranked 6th in Total Politics 2011 rankings and author of America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US Foreign Policy since 1945, writes:

“There are two ways to react to the brutal horror of the Woolwich murder.

“One is sheer anger and disgust plus a demand for tougher controls, even empowering the Government to eavesdrop on every citizen’s phone calls and email messages.

“The other is to use our brains and our imagination to understand why young Muslims can be easily ‘radicalised’, ie, turned into murderers.

“The spectacle at Woolwich may have been utterly disgusting. But was it any more appalling, Islamists can ask, than the spectacle of an Afghan child with its limbs blown off — and all because a CIA agent in Virginia had hit the ‘Go’ button for his drone to fire without being 100 per cent certain that the targeted gathering was a Taliban gang not a wedding party”.

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Joe Glenton agrees in the Guardian that “while nothing can justify the savage killing in Woolwich yesterday of a man since confirmed to have been a serving British soldier, it should not be hard to explain why the murder happened”. Like Rehana, Joe points out that “rejection of and opposition to the toxic wars that informed yesterday’s attacks is by no means a “Muslim” trait. Vast swathes of the British population also stand in opposition to these wars, including many veterans of the wars like myself and Ross, as well as serving soldiers I speak to who cannot be named here for fear of persecution”.

Reyhana, like Andrew Alexander, dares to raise the possibility that UK foreign policy may be the real issue that’s ignored when tackling extremism in the UK.  She believes thatwe need an open discussion on foreign policy where no one should be silenced for disagreeing or agreeing with mainstream political views and asks:

• Will Afghans be better off when the troops withdraw?

• Was going into Iraq a mistake?

• Why is there still large-scale suffering.

• Who is being held accountable for the killing of civilians?

Joe’s conclusions will reflect those of many readers:

“If there is collective responsibility for the killings, it belongs to the hawks whose policies have caused bloodbaths – directly, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, and indirectly in places as far apart as Woolwich and Boston, which in turn have created political space for the far right to peddle their hatred, as we saw in the immediate aftermath of the Woolwich attack.

“What we must do now is straightforward enough. Our own responsibilities are first of all to make sure innocents are not subject to blanket punishment for things that they did not do, and to force our government – safe in their houses – to put an end to Britain’s involvement in the vicious foreign occupations that have again created bloodshed in London”.

The Conversation, founded by Birmingham University and twelve others, offers independent expert commentary

Recently, Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, Essex Business School at University of Essex, contributed an article to the site, opening:

“The outgoing Bank of England governor Mervyn King has presided over a huge economic crisis. His parting gift is the claim“a recovery is in sight” that the UK might achieve economic growth of even 1% this year. Despite this, the GDP will still be less than the 2007 figure.

“Don’t be in a hurry to pop any champagne corks, because the assumed economic recovery is not what it seems and is unlikely to be sustained. It has been achieved through quantitative easing, printing money as old-fashioned economists used to call it, to the tune of £375 billion. That is equivalent to about £16,000 per household.

Quantitative easing has not been used to restructure the UK economy or start new industries

“This money has been added to national debt – the only thing that citizens seem to own these days – but has not been used to restructure the UK economy or start new industries. Instead, it has been mainly given to the banks and they have used it to bolster their balance sheets and pay high executive salaries. . . Wealth has been sucked upwards with the aid of state policies. Corporation tax rate has been reduced from 52% in 1982 to 21% for 2014. The top marginal rate of income tax has declined from 83%, in 1979, to 45%. Despite the recession, the rich are getting richer. In 2012, the richest 1000 people, representing just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth by £35 billion to £450 billion, enabling them to fund political parties and shape public choices”.

Professor Sikka lists the ways in which the plight of ‘ordinary’ people has been getting worse:

• UK unemployment is rising and the official count now stands at 2.52 million.
• Nearly a million young people aged 16-24 are unemployed, taking the rate to a depressing 21.2%.
• The number of young people on zero hour contracts has doubled from 35,000 in 2008 to 76,000 in 2012. They provide no guarantee of regular work or pay and have become the preferred mode of employment for some 23% of UK employers. Many miss out on rights such as sick pay, pension and paid holidays. Many firms and even charities and public sector organisations are adopting zero hour contracts.
• Thousands have become victims of the payday loans industry which does not shy away from charging interest at the rate of 4000%.
• Some 13.5 million people, including 1.8 million pensioners and 2.5 million children were estimated to be living below the poverty line and with a deep austerity programme these numbers will increase.
• In 1976, wages and salaries paid to employees, expressed as percentage of GDP, stood at 65.1% of GDP. Now it stands at barely 53%.
• The number of people relying on emergency food handouts, simply to survive, has trebled to 350,000.
• People are facing massive hikes in the price of electricity, gas, water, transport and other essentials and simply do not have the financial capacity to take any further hits.
• One survey has suggested that an increase in monthly bills of just £99 will prove to be disastrous for a large number of families.

“Large sections of the UK population are wracked with insecurity. Since the 1980s, the governments have sought to weaken and destroy trade unions and in the absence of countervailing power structures, workers’ pay has been ruthlessly assaulted . . . The plight of ordinary people is made even worse because the above statistics include the rewards lapped up by executives. The rates of corporate profitability are at historically high.

“The above sketch of the social landscape is a million miles away from the rosy picture painted by the Bank of England. Equitable distribution of income and wealth is a key requirement for any sustained economic recovery, but it is not on the agenda of any major political party. Some may be happy to gather the crumbs of economic recovery; but most of us will simply be asking, “what recovery?”

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Disclosure Statement

Prem Sikka does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

The Conversation is founded by the following universities: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, City, Glasgow Caledonian, Liverpool, Open, Salford, Sheffield, Surrey, UCL and Warwick.

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So many city school leavers will spend years out of work – a breeding ground for medicated despair and anti-social or even criminal activity. Teens clearsighted enough to observe this pre-empt the process and drop out of school early, seeing no point in preparing for a ‘career’ which will never be offered to them.

Councillor John Clancy’s school breakfast proposal begins to address one aspect of neglect, not confined to inner city areas – a Harborne teacher has spoken feelingly of the various forms of deprivations suffered by children of ‘high-flying’ parents there who are not always well cared for by employees.

Another of our few thoughtful media presences, Professor David Bailey, makes the development of skills one of his four goals.

However there is a problem of motivation, due in part to the creation of an ambience where much of the media is geared to selling junk food and the latest fashion in goods and clothing, focussing on the lives of pop stars and sports personalities.

This will not be changed overnight, if at all, so people from our small and medium enterprises are needed to offer more by visiting schools and telling their stories to pupils when still receptive – no older than nine years – then offering follow up visits to their workplaces.

Why SMEs? Because, as shown on the sites of WM Producers and (covering the whole region) Made in the Midlands, most of these are long established companies, not here for a few years then moving on or being taken over like many of our larger firms.

Typical of such schools’ ambassadors would be Aston resident Kirsty Davies-Chinnock and perhaps an apprentice from the family owned Smethwick company of which she is CEO. This firm resisted the option of increasing profits by outsourcing to a cheaper workforce abroad because they cared for their employees and their families.

Such people would inspire children at an early age, changing the whole pattern of their lives – and that of the local economy.

Source: a former city teacher, currently visiting family in Japan, where the unemployment rate for many years has been just over 4% and all children have some hope for the future.

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