MPs are due to receive a 10% pay rise.
Public sector works have had, and will continue to receive for the next 5 years, a 1% pay rise, because their wage comes from the public purse.
Who pays MPs?
We do. Their pay comes from the public purse.
So, aren’t MPs public sector workers?
Perhaps a new low for BBC News.
On BBC Breakfast a few minutes ago, a plea to viewers to send them pictures of their overgrown paths.
Seriously.
If the probe flying by Pluto today arrives on time this will mean that a space craft flying to the edge of the solar system is more reliable than British trains….
Just think about that
Today, I am reminded once again how much of a smug prick David Cameron and his Tory cronies are.
Only the Tories would think that a policy of equal pay in a “generation” would be a headline grabbing policy.
It’s not that I’m against it. It’s the fact that apparently working women TODAY do not have equal pay and, apparently, they won’t have it tomorrow, or next year, or in five years. We have to wait a “generation” which, of course, is a weasel word that doesn’t mean anything. Exactly how long is a “generation”?
Unequal pay is illegal and immoral, today, tomorrow and in a generation. So why isn’t Cameron doing anything about it TODAY? How about forcing employers to do it today and backdating lost pay to the date every woman was employed by their current immoral employer? How about fining employers who don’t pay men and women equally? How about also ensuring the minority groups (based on ethnicity, sexuality, disability, etc.) are also getting equal pay?
Why is it that most people seem not to think about things like this because it doesn’t affect them, or only think of it once they or someone they know is being affected by something?
There is a story in the papers this weekend about university students feeling that they are not fully supported by their universities, particularly in terms of mental health support. As per usual, given the 9k fees, students and their parents feel like high quality mental health support should be available to students.
However, I would ask students and their families to consider this from the other side.
Yes, students who are struggling, who may have a diagnosable mental health problem or who have a diagnosed mental health problem, should be supported to ensure that they have the equaivalent learning and student experience as their peers without a mental health problem.
But, what exactly do they expect the university to provide? Psychiatrists? Clinical psychologists? Unlimited access to psychotherapy? Academic staff to provide psychotherapy?
What? What do they want? The first three are the purvue of the NHS and universities will never supply services that are duplicated by the NHS.
The last one, academics providing psychotherapy, is ILLEGAL. “Clinical psychologist” is a protected professional title and ONLY clinical psychologists and other accredited individuals can provide formal psychotherapy. Any staff member providing psychotherapy to a distressed student is not qualified and risk formal disciplinary procedures. More seriously for the students, psychotherapy can have serious negative impacts on clients even with trained psychotherapists, and this is something many people forget. Not only can meds have deleterious side effects but so can psychotherapy, and psychotherapy provided by untrained staff is much more likely to have deleterious consequences.
Academics always fear students with serious mental health problems as our hands are tied and there is little that we can do for them other than to tell them to contact their GP or CMHT. We are here to provide advice about academic issues and provide an ear for students who just want to vent or talk about problems, but in reality, there is very little we can do beyond re-arranging coursework submission, etc.
We can, however, provide better Counselling services for students. But Counselling departments are not for diagnosing mental health problems. Student unions need to be more vocal in demanding that Counselling departments receive more adequate funding, although how likely this is with the Tory’s slashing the disabled student allowance we don’t know.
What I will say, though, is that if you think the support for students with mental health problems is poor, the support for staff with mental health problems is MUCH worse, and near on non-existent. Counselling services for staff have been outsourced to private providers, and realistically, counselling isn’t necessary going to be sufficient for staff with serious or complex mental health problems.
Also, while universities DO bend over backwards to put in adjustments for students with disabilities, including mental health problems, and the students have their own Disability Office, the adjustments and support put in place for staff with mental health problems is pretty much non-existent. Staff don’t have a Disability Office. While students may have deadlines altered due to mental health difficulties, staff requesting such adjustments are seen as being a burden. The best such staff have is their union and Occupational Health. And, OH are there to protect the university not the staff member. Getting adjustments out of OH is like pulling teeth, and this is largely due to the very unhelpful doctors who work on the service who overrule adjustments that practice nurses’ suggest. If you want adjustments you really need to push for them. And, if you are unhappy with your treatment, you have to speak to your line manager, HR, OH, or your union. There is no one-stop-shop place for staff, such as a staff disability office, unlike students, so having adjustments put in place and making your university abide by them is really up to you.
So, yes, we need to do more to support students, but in many case our hands are tied, and even the best service is not going to be on par with what the NHS can provide. All we can realistically do is modify academic work load. On the other hand, staff with mental health difficulties continuously get screwed over and have next to zero support in comparison to what is in place for students. Policies to support students are plentiful in university governance documentation; there is next to none for staff. Count yourself lucky.
In the early 00’s I remember hearing a song by Therapy? Called “Be Happy” or something like that. Apart from being a great song it was about someone that the band knew as a kid who had been the class clown but as an adult committed suicide. I began thinking about people who put forward a personae of “the clown” as while being a clown in primary school can be useful to direct the attentions of bullies away from you, as an adult, it tends not to go down very well, being perceived of as a sign of immaturity and irresponsibility.
I do continue to wonder though whether being an adult clown is a defense mechanism that allows the person to hide what they really are: very unhappy. Clowns seem happy on the surface even if they also seem immature, and we may think that clowns don’t feel emotions deeply. I think, however, that they feel emotions particularly acutely and are overwhelming. To avoid appearing distressed to those they know they put on the clown mask to avoid uncomfortable questions about whether they are alright.
If you think this is all bullshit, think of Robin Williams. When I heard last year that he had committed suicide I was shocked but not surprised. He was probably the most well known clown and, quite frankly, it must have been exhausting keeping that up.
So, if you know someone who is a bit clownish, ask they how they are and don’t necessarily take “I’m fine” as true.
The decision by the Greek people to vote “No” to the current austerity package was a brave but right one.
Past austerity has not worked and it seems rather ridiculous to assume that doing a more severe version will work. Doing the same thing again and again expecting a different outcome is the sign of madness.
What it comes down to is this: a country will never recover economically while there is mass unemployment: mass long-term unemployment and mass youth unemployment. The tax revenue to benefits ratio is the wrong way round. A country can’t pay pensions, for example, while large amounts of tax payers are unemployed.
The longer you are unemployed the less likely you are to find work. In the UK long-term unemployed receive re-training and education because of this.
Greece doesn’t need more cuts it needs a recovery package to get its work force back into employment and paying tax. More austerity will mean more unemployment.
My gawd, will Edwina Currie shut her flippin’ cake hole!
She was reading the papers on BBC Breakfast this morning – right now, in fact – and she really is the embodiment of everything that people hate about politicians….and Tories.
When talking about her opponents or the misfortunes of her opponents she is SMUG. She revels in their misfortune and gloats about her own party’s fortunes.
This is the reason that I don’t like Cameron: he is smug.
We don’t want to see politicians acting like 5 year olds. One of the characteristics we hate in others is smugness and revelling in other’s misfortunes. And, it is 100 times worse when it is a politician – or your Prime Minister – who is doing it.
So, Edwina, your conduct today, as always, is putting people off voting Tory, and putting people of voting at all.
So, shut your mouth until you learn some manners and how to conduct yourself in public.
You are everything that a spokesperson should not be.
So, I’m in my second pissing contest with BBC complaints in a year.
The context: On the 5th January, BBC Breakfast did a piece on how we are all eating too many calories. To start the piece, they sent a journalist into a shopping mall to interview people about how many calories they think they should be eating a day. They then whipped out their online BMR calculator to show them all how silly they were and what a bunch of porkers they are for eating too many calories a day. You could clearly see the BMR calculator on the journalist’s tablet: it even said BMR and the number in bold capitals.
The problem? BMR is your base metabolic rate, not calorie intake. To calculate calorie intake you have to put that number into the Harris Benedict Equation. Even if you are a lard ass that sits in front of your computer all day like me and gets no exercise you still have to multiple the BMR by at least 1.2 to get calorie intake.
So, BMR IS NOT calorie intake.
The piece was, therefore, misleading to say that they are the same thing.
Why is this important?
For the people being interviewed they have left that mall thinking that they are eating far too many calories and may cut right back to what was suggested by the BMR calculator. For the viewers, they may go and try to calculate it themselves. While some website state that you need to then use the HB equation, many do not.
The ramifications? Malnutrition. Organ damage. Osteoporosis. Extreme dieting. Eating disorders. Death.
So, I complained.
What did I get in response?
“We understand you feel this programme gave misleading information on the number of calories people require as it didn’t take into account the Harris Benedict Equation.”
FEEL? Wha? It WAS! You said that BMR IS calorie intake!
The whole BBC complaints system is based on trying to brush you off at the first point by making out that the problem is that you are overly sensitive and they’ve done nothing wrong. If that doesn’t work, then they try to pound you into submission by giving you the run around until you give up. At the most, you get a final “sorry” but they will not admit that they have ever done anything wrong and they never do anything about it.
I would boycott paying my TV license if I could but the BBC cannily have the law on their side so that no-one can protest the disgrace that the BBC have become.
….but I have gnawed my left arm off and beaten myself, and the computer, with it.
I am now having to type in the feedback like my father would….one…..finger….at….a….time…..
It was, however, preferable to carving pentagrams into my stomach with the marking criteria……
FlippinNora 