Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Monday, 22 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Plague on both their houses.
Correspondence from Hope Not Hate.
Dear John,
Last week I wrote a blog that criticised the English Defence League and Muslims Against Crusades. I watched these two groups of extremists oppose each other on a west London street at 11am last Thursday. Their rival protests were timed to coincide with the moment the country remembered those who had died in past wars.
I was struck by the hatred shown by both groups. I felt that both thrived on the presence of each other. Although they came from opposing traditions and viewpoints there was a certain symbiotic relationship between the two. I felt they both needed the other to justify their own existence. I criticised both groups equally.
Was I right to criticise both groups? Read my blog and let me know what you think.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/ signup/plague-on-both-your-houses
Extremism only creates fear and hatred. Worse, extremism breeds extremism. As I wrote in my blog: "For the MAC the presence and activities of the EDL prove how white British society is the enemy. For the EDL the Islamist extremists are proof of the violent nature of Islam. They are two sides of the same coin of hate."
The Islamist extremists no more represent the Muslim community than do the violent racists of the EDL speak for every white person in Britain, but that didn't deter the tabloid press from its sensationalist reporting. Their lurid headlines vilified an entire religion and only whipped up more misunderstanding and hatred and, as a consequence, extremism.
Does extremism breed extremism? Let me know your views.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/signup/plague-on-both-your-houses
I wrote the blog because I felt it was time to take a stand. It is time to speak out against those who preach hate, from whichever quarter it comes. I believe it is also time to stop the lurid headlines that demonise communities, deepen divisions and only increase extremism.
I concluded by saying it was "important to criticise both groups publicly. Criticising one group but remaining silent about another leads, correctly, to charges of hypocrisy and double standards. Only by criticising the actions of tiny extremist groups can we say with any validity that neither speaks for the wider communities and religions they claim to represent."
I'm interested in your views and I would like your opinion about what we should do next.
Thanks
Nick
Dear John,
Last week I wrote a blog that criticised the English Defence League and Muslims Against Crusades. I watched these two groups of extremists oppose each other on a west London street at 11am last Thursday. Their rival protests were timed to coincide with the moment the country remembered those who had died in past wars.
I was struck by the hatred shown by both groups. I felt that both thrived on the presence of each other. Although they came from opposing traditions and viewpoints there was a certain symbiotic relationship between the two. I felt they both needed the other to justify their own existence. I criticised both groups equally.
Was I right to criticise both groups? Read my blog and let me know what you think.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/ signup/plague-on-both-your-houses
Extremism only creates fear and hatred. Worse, extremism breeds extremism. As I wrote in my blog: "For the MAC the presence and activities of the EDL prove how white British society is the enemy. For the EDL the Islamist extremists are proof of the violent nature of Islam. They are two sides of the same coin of hate."
The Islamist extremists no more represent the Muslim community than do the violent racists of the EDL speak for every white person in Britain, but that didn't deter the tabloid press from its sensationalist reporting. Their lurid headlines vilified an entire religion and only whipped up more misunderstanding and hatred and, as a consequence, extremism.
Does extremism breed extremism? Let me know your views.
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/signup/plague-on-both-your-houses
I wrote the blog because I felt it was time to take a stand. It is time to speak out against those who preach hate, from whichever quarter it comes. I believe it is also time to stop the lurid headlines that demonise communities, deepen divisions and only increase extremism.
I concluded by saying it was "important to criticise both groups publicly. Criticising one group but remaining silent about another leads, correctly, to charges of hypocrisy and double standards. Only by criticising the actions of tiny extremist groups can we say with any validity that neither speaks for the wider communities and religions they claim to represent."
I'm interested in your views and I would like your opinion about what we should do next.
Thanks
Nick
Friday, 12 November 2010
KEEP HOPE MATERNITY OPEN MEETING
The Keep Hope Maternity Open Group invites you to a public meeting where we will
discuss the case for retaining full maternity services at Salford Royal NHS
Foundation Trust and debate the issues concerning the reconfiguration of maternity
services.
We are very close to decision time and we feel it is important that all the stakeholders involved come together to raise their concerns.
The meeting is to be held on Saturday 27th November, 2- 4pm at the St James Church Hall, Hope.
The Health Minister, Andrew Lansley, requested a review of the “Making it Better” decision made in 2006/7 in July of this year, setting out the 4 criteria, which needed to be met. He also met with us on the 17th September 2010, when he visited the Pendleton Gateway. Following that meeting he clearly stated on air that:
“We need to respect the choices that patients, or in this case for maternity services, mothers to be themselves, would make about where they want services to be provided to them. It needs to be clinically safe.”
Privately, he also told us that he did not understand why it had to be 13 maternity units reduced to 8 units and why it couldn’t be 9 units, especially as SRFT was one of the best performing Trusts in the country.
If you are not able to attend personally, a nominee would be welcome, as this is possibly the last opportunity to debate the issues which are very important to the families in Salford.
Kind regards
www.keephopematernityopen.com
Please view the facebook page and the online petition to get a flavour of the views of Salford Families.
discuss the case for retaining full maternity services at Salford Royal NHS
Foundation Trust and debate the issues concerning the reconfiguration of maternity
services.
We are very close to decision time and we feel it is important that all the stakeholders involved come together to raise their concerns.
The meeting is to be held on Saturday 27th November, 2- 4pm at the St James Church Hall, Hope.
The Health Minister, Andrew Lansley, requested a review of the “Making it Better” decision made in 2006/7 in July of this year, setting out the 4 criteria, which needed to be met. He also met with us on the 17th September 2010, when he visited the Pendleton Gateway. Following that meeting he clearly stated on air that:
“We need to respect the choices that patients, or in this case for maternity services, mothers to be themselves, would make about where they want services to be provided to them. It needs to be clinically safe.”
Privately, he also told us that he did not understand why it had to be 13 maternity units reduced to 8 units and why it couldn’t be 9 units, especially as SRFT was one of the best performing Trusts in the country.
If you are not able to attend personally, a nominee would be welcome, as this is possibly the last opportunity to debate the issues which are very important to the families in Salford.
Kind regards
www.keephopematernityopen.com
Please view the facebook page and the online petition to get a flavour of the views of Salford Families.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
John Healey MP speech to Adult Services Conference.
John Healey National Children and Adult Services Conference 2010 Thursday 4th November 2010, 9.00am Manchester Central
Thank you for inviting to me to this important conference so early in my new job as Shadow Secretary of State for Health
If you think it’s been an early start from Rotherham and I haven’t shaved properly, you’re right. I’m growing a sponsored moustache during November – raising funds and awareness for the Prostate Cancer Charity. They tell me that 50,000 other men in the country doing it, but I haven’t met one yet.
Andy Burnham, having done this job before me, could have delivered my speech and then his own. I’m very pleased I follow Andy, who did a great deal while Labour were in Government.
I am less than a month into my new job, and I am here to listen as much to as to speak. I am looking forward to talking and working with you closely in the months to come.
And listening is no bad thing for a shadow minister to do for now. It’s what I – and my great Shadow team including shadow minister for social care Emily Thornberry – will do.
Labour lost the election. And for the moment there is a general good will towards the Government, towards two parties coming together in the national interest and attempt to put their differences behind them. But the public have not yet seen or felt the affect of the cuts and the changes to come.
If they have not felt or have not seen what is to come, you do. You are the professional experts and leading local politicians with unparalleled expertise in providing social services. I am very interested in your views.
It’s fair to see that we’re adjusting to opposition. As Minister of State for Housing and Planning I had nearly two and a half thousand people working for me. Since May I’ve been doing my own diary, and last week I had to order the replacement ink cartridge for the printer. Although, I have now been able to appoint one full time person to help me.
But Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are still adjusting to Government. They have to realise that they are making the decisions now, not us. They are the ones with responsibility for current and future care of elderly and disabled people. They are the ones entrusted with the future of our National Health Service.
Now it matters so much less what Labour planned, and so much more what the Tories and Lib Dems plan.
The debate is now no longer between what the Government is doing and what we would have done if we were in Government.
And the serious question is the difference between what they plan and what they do; and in particular the gap between what they say and what they do, what they propose and what they deliver.
It’s early days but the initial signs suggest serious grounds for concern for the future of social care and the National Health Service.
Let me quote a vision and a commitment:
“People should receive health and social care support, which promotes their recovery, independence, inclusion, health and wellbeing. People needing care deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We understand the urgency of reforming the system of social care to provide much more control to individuals and their carers, and to ease the cost burden that they and their families face.”
1
Andy Burnham could have said that as Secretary of State, but it comes from the Coalition Agreement.
They are setting the right aims, but are they taking the right actions?
I see major flaws that risk serious errors in three main areas:
•
Funding
•
Powers
•
Philosophy
And my underlying concern for the essential services that you provide and commission – to which we are all committed – is that the national Government is setting up local government to fail on social care and health.
Funding
We’re all familiar with the figures on public spending in adult social care:
•
£14.4bn a year spent on adult social services, with a 4% pressure built into the system by increasing demographic pressures
•
Local authorities facing a grant reduction of over 25% - and many councils in the poorest areas face much more. Savings on the scale needed, even with 3% efficiency gains, an increase in charges, and some changes in the eligibility criteria “will be impossible to achieve within the current legal framework.”
That was your analysis; your warning to the Government in the submission made by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to the spending review.
There is some extra money being out into personal social services, though I suspect that’s more a tribute to David Behan than Andrew Lansley. This is welcome, as it is for adult social care, but there is no guarantee that the money will be spent on social care because there is no longer any ringfence.
And we’ve seen already this year important funding streams consolidated in the local government grant, but non-ringfenced, being eroded in budget decisions across councils.
The Government claims that social care funding streams are being “protected” but the £1.1b billion in year council cuts show that promise to be not worth the paper the press release was printed on.
And it simply isn’t sufficient to meet the pressure of need.
Figures from Age UK this week claim:
•
Over 250,000 over 65s set to lose home care
•
There will be a 7% real terms cut to council social care spending
I will be more measured, and offer two objections on funding, both of which give us a glimpse of the emerging character of this new Government.
First, it’s fair enough for Andrew Lansley and Paul Burstow to make a lot of the extra £2 billion for social care – both did in the House of Commons this week at Health Questions.
But both must know that it won’t be enough to avoid severe funding shortages.
And both must realise that reading out word for word the Departmental lines to take – as both did in the House of Commons : “
“On this basis there is no need for local authorities to have to reduce eligibility to social care.”
We know from Government that if you adopt a policy, set a position, and become too rigid in repetition, you seem:
•
Out of touch
2
•
Not listening
•
Unwilling to take advice
Second, by all means point, as ministers do, to the extra money for social care. But don’t double count the credit and don’t double count the funding for both NHS spending and social care at the same time. Because when £1 billion switched from the NHS to social care is taken into account, the Government has not protected the NHS as it promised. It’s not the real terms increase of 0.4 percent they claimed, it’s a real terms cut of 0.5 percent.
Powers
The Government set out an important role for Local authorities in the Coalition Agreement in “joining up the commissioning of local NHS services, social care and health improvement,” by promoting integration and partnerships, and by leading joint strategic needs assessments.
We’ve some experience of how easy it is to say and how hard it is to do in practice: planning, housing, the local economy and of course in health and social care.
My fear is that local authorities will get responsibility without the resources or powers to do the jobs the Government says it wants councils and councillors to do. This will be a recipe for frustration and failure in local government.
The public health white paper will be a big test for the Government, and our two principal tests of the Government’s plan when it’s published will be whether local government is given the necessary resources and powers to take on responsibility for public health.
This is the right aim but it requires the right action to achieve it.
Philosophy
Anyone believing the new Government’s commitment to localism meant a commitment to local government will already be deeply disappointed.
On schools, on housing, on police, central Government is reducing and restraining, not reinforcing, local government’s role.
And councils were first in line for more than £1 billion cuts in May and frontline cuts in the spending review.
I don’t see the Government having a consistent belief, as I have, in:
•
Councils as first among equals of local agencies
•
Public accountability through elected representatives
•
The public service ethos as an essential part of the services many of us and our families rely on
I don’t see a consistent government commitment to the public service reforms I want:
•
Greater personalisation of services
•
Greater area not agency funding streams and pooled budgets
•
Greater integration of social care with health – planning, funding, commissioning and delivering
•
Greater investment in umbrella services like those for mental health and learning disabilities.
And I don’t see a consistent government will to make the hard decisions about long term reform.
I welcome Andrew Dilnot’s work on heading the Government’s commission – as Andy Burnham did when it was set up in the summer.
But so much of the ground has been so well covered before, not least by Labour in our Green Paper and White Paper.
3
And Andy Burnham got close to a consensus but we got too close to the General Election. Short term political gain was too tempting for the Conservatives.
I’m glad they’ve allowed the Commission to look at all the funding options and I had hoped we could see the work Andrew Dilnot is doing speeded up.
But when there is no provision in the spending review to implement any recommendation the Commission might make, I think it’s reasonable to doubt the Government’s determination to effect the long term reforms that are needed.
NHS
Now is not the time or the place for a detailed discussion of the Government’s NHS reforms and White Paper, but these are so intermeshed with social care, and in my view ought to be more integrated.
My overriding concern is that the NHS will go backwards under the Government’s plans:
•
GPs and the National Commissioning Board will take health services further away from, not closer to local authorities
•
More GP consortia than PCTs with weaker statutory duties will lead to greater fragmentation not integration
•
Light legal reporting and accountability requirements for GP consortia will mean a more secretive not a more transparent NHS.
•
Any willing provider, and maximum, not set tariffs, will result in the economies of the private market driving the NHS, not the ethics of public service
•
Providers command by local GPs will lead to less patient choice and personalisation, not more
I fear we will lose the ‘N’ in the NHS and see “commercial in confidence” stamped over many of the most important decisions taken.
And let us not forget that this has been described as the biggest reorganisation since the NHS was set up over 60 years ago.
It’s not what NHS patients, staff or the public expected when David Cameron promised before the election and the Coalition Agreement pledged after the election, “no more top down reorganisations in the NHS”.
But like on funding, on the moratorium on service closures, on improving waiting times for patients – in six short months the new Government is falling short of the promises it made on the NHS.
This reorganisation is untested and unnecessary. It is high cost and high risk.
At a time when finances are tight, all efforts should be made to find efficiencies and improve patient care.
But Andrew Lansley is not listening.
NHS experts, professional bodies and patient groups say “slow down”, because this big reorganisation is a big risk for the NHS.
We know from experience in Britain that if people see a Government
•
locked into decisions they’ve taken come-what-may
•
breaking the promises they made to the public
•
and failing to listen to advice
…concern will rise and confidence will fall that these are the right actions to fulfil the aims of civil service reform.
Thank you
Thank you for inviting to me to this important conference so early in my new job as Shadow Secretary of State for Health
If you think it’s been an early start from Rotherham and I haven’t shaved properly, you’re right. I’m growing a sponsored moustache during November – raising funds and awareness for the Prostate Cancer Charity. They tell me that 50,000 other men in the country doing it, but I haven’t met one yet.
Andy Burnham, having done this job before me, could have delivered my speech and then his own. I’m very pleased I follow Andy, who did a great deal while Labour were in Government.
I am less than a month into my new job, and I am here to listen as much to as to speak. I am looking forward to talking and working with you closely in the months to come.
And listening is no bad thing for a shadow minister to do for now. It’s what I – and my great Shadow team including shadow minister for social care Emily Thornberry – will do.
Labour lost the election. And for the moment there is a general good will towards the Government, towards two parties coming together in the national interest and attempt to put their differences behind them. But the public have not yet seen or felt the affect of the cuts and the changes to come.
If they have not felt or have not seen what is to come, you do. You are the professional experts and leading local politicians with unparalleled expertise in providing social services. I am very interested in your views.
It’s fair to see that we’re adjusting to opposition. As Minister of State for Housing and Planning I had nearly two and a half thousand people working for me. Since May I’ve been doing my own diary, and last week I had to order the replacement ink cartridge for the printer. Although, I have now been able to appoint one full time person to help me.
But Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are still adjusting to Government. They have to realise that they are making the decisions now, not us. They are the ones with responsibility for current and future care of elderly and disabled people. They are the ones entrusted with the future of our National Health Service.
Now it matters so much less what Labour planned, and so much more what the Tories and Lib Dems plan.
The debate is now no longer between what the Government is doing and what we would have done if we were in Government.
And the serious question is the difference between what they plan and what they do; and in particular the gap between what they say and what they do, what they propose and what they deliver.
It’s early days but the initial signs suggest serious grounds for concern for the future of social care and the National Health Service.
Let me quote a vision and a commitment:
“People should receive health and social care support, which promotes their recovery, independence, inclusion, health and wellbeing. People needing care deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We understand the urgency of reforming the system of social care to provide much more control to individuals and their carers, and to ease the cost burden that they and their families face.”
1
Andy Burnham could have said that as Secretary of State, but it comes from the Coalition Agreement.
They are setting the right aims, but are they taking the right actions?
I see major flaws that risk serious errors in three main areas:
•
Funding
•
Powers
•
Philosophy
And my underlying concern for the essential services that you provide and commission – to which we are all committed – is that the national Government is setting up local government to fail on social care and health.
Funding
We’re all familiar with the figures on public spending in adult social care:
•
£14.4bn a year spent on adult social services, with a 4% pressure built into the system by increasing demographic pressures
•
Local authorities facing a grant reduction of over 25% - and many councils in the poorest areas face much more. Savings on the scale needed, even with 3% efficiency gains, an increase in charges, and some changes in the eligibility criteria “will be impossible to achieve within the current legal framework.”
That was your analysis; your warning to the Government in the submission made by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to the spending review.
There is some extra money being out into personal social services, though I suspect that’s more a tribute to David Behan than Andrew Lansley. This is welcome, as it is for adult social care, but there is no guarantee that the money will be spent on social care because there is no longer any ringfence.
And we’ve seen already this year important funding streams consolidated in the local government grant, but non-ringfenced, being eroded in budget decisions across councils.
The Government claims that social care funding streams are being “protected” but the £1.1b billion in year council cuts show that promise to be not worth the paper the press release was printed on.
And it simply isn’t sufficient to meet the pressure of need.
Figures from Age UK this week claim:
•
Over 250,000 over 65s set to lose home care
•
There will be a 7% real terms cut to council social care spending
I will be more measured, and offer two objections on funding, both of which give us a glimpse of the emerging character of this new Government.
First, it’s fair enough for Andrew Lansley and Paul Burstow to make a lot of the extra £2 billion for social care – both did in the House of Commons this week at Health Questions.
But both must know that it won’t be enough to avoid severe funding shortages.
And both must realise that reading out word for word the Departmental lines to take – as both did in the House of Commons : “
“On this basis there is no need for local authorities to have to reduce eligibility to social care.”
We know from Government that if you adopt a policy, set a position, and become too rigid in repetition, you seem:
•
Out of touch
2
•
Not listening
•
Unwilling to take advice
Second, by all means point, as ministers do, to the extra money for social care. But don’t double count the credit and don’t double count the funding for both NHS spending and social care at the same time. Because when £1 billion switched from the NHS to social care is taken into account, the Government has not protected the NHS as it promised. It’s not the real terms increase of 0.4 percent they claimed, it’s a real terms cut of 0.5 percent.
Powers
The Government set out an important role for Local authorities in the Coalition Agreement in “joining up the commissioning of local NHS services, social care and health improvement,” by promoting integration and partnerships, and by leading joint strategic needs assessments.
We’ve some experience of how easy it is to say and how hard it is to do in practice: planning, housing, the local economy and of course in health and social care.
My fear is that local authorities will get responsibility without the resources or powers to do the jobs the Government says it wants councils and councillors to do. This will be a recipe for frustration and failure in local government.
The public health white paper will be a big test for the Government, and our two principal tests of the Government’s plan when it’s published will be whether local government is given the necessary resources and powers to take on responsibility for public health.
This is the right aim but it requires the right action to achieve it.
Philosophy
Anyone believing the new Government’s commitment to localism meant a commitment to local government will already be deeply disappointed.
On schools, on housing, on police, central Government is reducing and restraining, not reinforcing, local government’s role.
And councils were first in line for more than £1 billion cuts in May and frontline cuts in the spending review.
I don’t see the Government having a consistent belief, as I have, in:
•
Councils as first among equals of local agencies
•
Public accountability through elected representatives
•
The public service ethos as an essential part of the services many of us and our families rely on
I don’t see a consistent government commitment to the public service reforms I want:
•
Greater personalisation of services
•
Greater area not agency funding streams and pooled budgets
•
Greater integration of social care with health – planning, funding, commissioning and delivering
•
Greater investment in umbrella services like those for mental health and learning disabilities.
And I don’t see a consistent government will to make the hard decisions about long term reform.
I welcome Andrew Dilnot’s work on heading the Government’s commission – as Andy Burnham did when it was set up in the summer.
But so much of the ground has been so well covered before, not least by Labour in our Green Paper and White Paper.
3
And Andy Burnham got close to a consensus but we got too close to the General Election. Short term political gain was too tempting for the Conservatives.
I’m glad they’ve allowed the Commission to look at all the funding options and I had hoped we could see the work Andrew Dilnot is doing speeded up.
But when there is no provision in the spending review to implement any recommendation the Commission might make, I think it’s reasonable to doubt the Government’s determination to effect the long term reforms that are needed.
NHS
Now is not the time or the place for a detailed discussion of the Government’s NHS reforms and White Paper, but these are so intermeshed with social care, and in my view ought to be more integrated.
My overriding concern is that the NHS will go backwards under the Government’s plans:
•
GPs and the National Commissioning Board will take health services further away from, not closer to local authorities
•
More GP consortia than PCTs with weaker statutory duties will lead to greater fragmentation not integration
•
Light legal reporting and accountability requirements for GP consortia will mean a more secretive not a more transparent NHS.
•
Any willing provider, and maximum, not set tariffs, will result in the economies of the private market driving the NHS, not the ethics of public service
•
Providers command by local GPs will lead to less patient choice and personalisation, not more
I fear we will lose the ‘N’ in the NHS and see “commercial in confidence” stamped over many of the most important decisions taken.
And let us not forget that this has been described as the biggest reorganisation since the NHS was set up over 60 years ago.
It’s not what NHS patients, staff or the public expected when David Cameron promised before the election and the Coalition Agreement pledged after the election, “no more top down reorganisations in the NHS”.
But like on funding, on the moratorium on service closures, on improving waiting times for patients – in six short months the new Government is falling short of the promises it made on the NHS.
This reorganisation is untested and unnecessary. It is high cost and high risk.
At a time when finances are tight, all efforts should be made to find efficiencies and improve patient care.
But Andrew Lansley is not listening.
NHS experts, professional bodies and patient groups say “slow down”, because this big reorganisation is a big risk for the NHS.
We know from experience in Britain that if people see a Government
•
locked into decisions they’ve taken come-what-may
•
breaking the promises they made to the public
•
and failing to listen to advice
…concern will rise and confidence will fall that these are the right actions to fulfil the aims of civil service reform.
Thank you
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Let's pay our respects
Dear John,
Ethel Lote was a nurse at the outbreak of World War Two. At a hospital in Birmingham she treated soldiers injured in the war. "The men were all in a terrible state," she remembers. "As well as being absolutely exhausted there were bullet and shrapnel wounds, along with breathing problems after being in the sea for hours. They were the first casualties to arrive after the defeat at Dunkirk.
"The women also suffered through this war. They had to endure being parted from their children, as well as from their men. I remember seeing a group of children who had been evacuated from a city and were waiting for someone to offer to take them home with them. They stood crying with their gas masks over their shoulders, some holding a toy, but all were terribly bewildered and wanting their mothers."
Ethel was part of a generation who helped keep Britain free from Nazism. Next week the HOPE not hate campaign is organising events across the country to pay our respects to them.
Will you join us?
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/eventsnearme
In remembering those who sacrificed so much we also remind people how the British National Party has repeatedly sided with the Nazis and believed it was wrong that Britain went to war with Germany.
Only this August Adam Walker, a leading BNP officer, attended an international far-right gathering in Japan hosted by Issuikai, a right-wing association that denies Japanese war crimes. While there he visited the Yasukuni Shrine to commemorate the Japanese war dead and excused their actions by claiming they "were doing what they thought was right at the time".
We have come to expect nothing less from the BNP, whose leaders have repeatedly praised the Waffen SS while accusing RAF crews of being the real war criminals.
Will you help us tell people how the BNP have insulted the war generation?
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/eventsnearme
Unlike the BNP we think we should remember those who sacrificed so much to rid Europe of Nazism. That is why we will be campaigning across the country next week to show our respect to Ethel and her generation. Please join us.
Thanks
Nick
PS if there is no event near you and you are keen to organise one then drop me an email at nick@hopenothate.org.uk.
Ethel Lote was a nurse at the outbreak of World War Two. At a hospital in Birmingham she treated soldiers injured in the war. "The men were all in a terrible state," she remembers. "As well as being absolutely exhausted there were bullet and shrapnel wounds, along with breathing problems after being in the sea for hours. They were the first casualties to arrive after the defeat at Dunkirk.
"The women also suffered through this war. They had to endure being parted from their children, as well as from their men. I remember seeing a group of children who had been evacuated from a city and were waiting for someone to offer to take them home with them. They stood crying with their gas masks over their shoulders, some holding a toy, but all were terribly bewildered and wanting their mothers."
Ethel was part of a generation who helped keep Britain free from Nazism. Next week the HOPE not hate campaign is organising events across the country to pay our respects to them.
Will you join us?
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/eventsnearme
In remembering those who sacrificed so much we also remind people how the British National Party has repeatedly sided with the Nazis and believed it was wrong that Britain went to war with Germany.
Only this August Adam Walker, a leading BNP officer, attended an international far-right gathering in Japan hosted by Issuikai, a right-wing association that denies Japanese war crimes. While there he visited the Yasukuni Shrine to commemorate the Japanese war dead and excused their actions by claiming they "were doing what they thought was right at the time".
We have come to expect nothing less from the BNP, whose leaders have repeatedly praised the Waffen SS while accusing RAF crews of being the real war criminals.
Will you help us tell people how the BNP have insulted the war generation?
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/eventsnearme
Unlike the BNP we think we should remember those who sacrificed so much to rid Europe of Nazism. That is why we will be campaigning across the country next week to show our respect to Ethel and her generation. Please join us.
Thanks
Nick
PS if there is no event near you and you are keen to organise one then drop me an email at nick@hopenothate.org.uk.
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