Monday, March 28, 2011


British racism still thriving

Middle-class youngsters barred from applying for internships at Whitehall and in the police... because they are white

White middle-class students have been banned from applying for internships with Britain’s biggest police force and in Whitehall. The temporary jobs, which offer thousands of pounds for work in the summer, are billed as the internships ‘that could change your life’. They provide students with invaluable work experience at a time of soaring graduate unemployment.

But critics yesterday told of their anger at the decision by the Civil Service and the Metropolitan Police to exclude all but certain ethnic minorities from applying. They say the schemes cause resentment among staff and are discriminating against white people ‘via the back door’.

The Metropolitan Police, which employs more than 50,000 people, publicly offers only one work experience programme. The 12-week Diversity Internship will pay six interns more than £3,000 to work in a range of departments. While there is no guarantee of a post at the end, it gives students a head start in the battle for police jobs.

But the application form says only students from specific ethnic groups – including black African, black Asian or Chinese – can apply. Applicants are also quizzed about religious beliefs and sexuality. The force offers a few other work experience places to students from specific colleges.

The Civil Service also has only one central internship programme – marketed as ‘two months that could change your life’ – and also specifically for students from ethnic minorities. The only white candidates eligible to apply for the Fast Stream Summer Diversity Internship are those whose families are from ‘under-represented socio-economic backgrounds’. Others can get occasional work experience through individual departments.

The scheme, paying about £3,000, is a clear route to the prestigious Civil Service Fast Stream graduate programme.

MPs, campaigners and police are furious that prominent public bodies are discriminating against white, middle-class students by denying them the chance to apply.

Tory MP Dominic Raab last night said: ‘We won’t end discrimination by introducing it via the back door. That is precisely what positive discrimination like this does.’

Nadhim Zahawi, a Tory MP who identifies himself as Kurdish, said: ‘These schemes are degrading. Margaret Thatcher didn’t need positive discrimination to become prime minister.’

One Met inspector said: ‘At a time when people in the Met are being offered voluntary redundancy, the Met funds such schemes. Such incentives can only fan the flames of racial division.’

SOURCE






The British disability benefit that's handed out to addicts and alcoholics

A disability benefit for those who cannot walk or get around properly is being given to tens of thousands of claimants with drug and alcohol problems.

Ministers say official figures revealing a startling range of conditions for which people claim the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance demonstrate the need for urgent reform.

Department for Work and Pensions figures show more than £435million is currently paid to 19,400 people with drug or alcohol problems, 30,900 with asthma and 128,300 with ‘unspecified’ back pain.
GOLFER'S SHAME
Playing around: Valerie Lewis was given a suspended prison sentence

Valerie Lewis received more than £40,000 in Disability Living Allowance, claiming she suffered back pain that meant she could barely walk.

But the mother-of-two played four nine or 18-hole rounds of golf a week and was lady captain of her local club.

The 55-year-old first claimed the disability benefit in 2001, insisting she had difficulty walking more than 7ft, getting dressed and even cutting up food or tying her shoelaces.

Fraud investigators filmed her teeing off at Sutton Hall Golf Club near Runcorn, Cheshire, loading her golf buggy, lifting clubs in and out of her car and walking ‘five or six miles’.

She was filmed at the 6,000-yard course in November 2008 after investigators received a tip-off that she was ‘fitter than stated’.

Lewis was further implicated by her own diary, which revealed she had played in a golf competition on the day of her very first disability assessment and rode a horse the day after.

In January she escaped jail after admitting failing to inform the Department for Work and Pensions about changes to her circumstances.

At Warrington Crown Court, Lewis, from Runcorn, was given a sentence of 24 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and 200 hours of community service.

And the number on DLA has risen from 2.5million in 2003 to nearly 3.2million.

There is increasing political controversy over Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s pledge to slash £2.17billion from the vast annual bill for DLA by 2015. Ministers say half of those being paid the benefit have never been asked for any evidence to support their claim beyond what they filled in on a form.

A Government analysis of DLA claims – which now cost the taxpayer £12billion a year – also shows nearly a million have been on the benefit for 14 years or more.

But cuts to DLA, which was designed to help those who have specific mobility or care needs, and cannot do things like walk or wash and dress themselves, are increasingly being criticised by charities and opposition MPs. The benefit is paid at different rates, with those with the most severe difficulty walking getting the higher rate of £49.85 a week.

Ministers say reforms will introduce face-to-face assessments to make sure the benefit is going to those with the greatest need. DLA will be replaced by a Personal Independence Payment and remain a non-means tested, non-taxable cash benefit claimed by the disabled whether they are in or out of work.

The Government also wants all claimants to undergo medical tests to justify payments. One source close to the reforms said: ‘At the moment someone with back pain could get £50 a week DLA mobility by simply filling out a paper-based assessment. ‘The new assessment will help to make sure the support goes where it is needed the most and that the benefit remains accurate.’

Labour councillor Neil Coyle, of the Disability Alliance, which represents 250 disability charities, said face-to-face tests would cost £675million. ‘If people are retested regularly it would be a significant waste of public money,’ he added. ‘The Conservatives pledged in their 2010 manifesto that they would protect DLA and now we are seeing a £2billion cut.’

Last week David Cameron dismissed protests from Labour leader Ed Miliband that 80,000 care home residents would be stripped of the mobility component of DLA. The Prime Minister said it would be included within the new Personal Independence Payment.

Business Secretary Vince Cable confirmed yesterday that some of his fellow LibDems are fighting separate plans to cap benefits at £500 a week per family, though he said he supported the policy.

Critics say a cap will hit families in areas where the cost of housing is highest.

SOURCE






Unease as British Labour leader ranks protest marchers alongside suffragettes

Ed Miliband was under fire last night for addressing Saturday’s march and comparing the protesters’ cause to that of the suffragettes, and the anti-apartheid and U.S. civil rights movements.

Some in Labour’s high command warned privately in advance that Mr Miliband should not associate himself in any way with the event, since it was bound to end in violence.

Yesterday Peter Hain, one of the Labour leader’s closest shadow Cabinet allies, remained defiant, insisting the march had been ‘joyous’. But there is deep unease among other senior Labour figures about Mr Miliband’s decision to ally himself so closely with the march.

Blairite MPs were alarmed at his claim to be ‘standing on the shoulders’ of some of history’s greatest movements in attacking spending cuts that, in truth, are only slightly deeper than those planned by Labour.

Mr Miliband told the crowd in Hyde Park: ‘We come in the tradition of those who have marched before us: The suffragettes, who fought for votes for women and won, the civil rights movement in America, who fought for equality and won, and the anti-apartheid movement, who fought the horror of that system and won.

‘Our cause may be different, but we come together today to realise our voice, and we stand on their shoulders. We stand on the shoulders of those who have marched and struggled in the past. Our struggle is to fight to preserve, protect and defend the things that we value.’

David Davis, the former Conservative leadership candidate, described Mr Miliband’s comparison as an ‘extraordinary error of judgment’. ‘I suspect the brave people of the civil rights movement will be shocked to hear the Labour leader undertake such hyperbole as to compare a march like this to the sort of heroic acts they had to undertake to win fundamental rights,’ he said.

Harriett Baldwin, Tory MP for West Worcestershire, said: ‘Instead of apologising for maxing out the country’s credit card or spelling out where Labour’s cuts would fall, Ed Miliband compared himself to some of the giants of history. ‘His self-important comments are an insult to those who risked and gave their lives in the fight for equality.’

More HERE






Far Leftist black accuses Breitbart of racism -- and Adrianna Huffington colludes with that

Breitbart incensed -- particularly as he has helped the huffer in the past. You don't have to be a racist to hold Van Jones in contempt

Amid pressure from left-wing advocacy organization Color of Change, the Huffington Post removed conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart’s blog from its front page last week. But Breitbart is furious that the liberal site’s top brass refused to defend him against the racism allegations made by Color of Change.

Color of Change and its founder Van Jones, the former White House green jobs czar who also previously advised Arianna Huffington during her 2003 California gubernatorial campaign, alleged that Breitbart was a racist during its pressure campaign.

In its statement last week explaining its decision to remove Breitbart’s blog from being featured on its front page because of what HuffPo called “ad hominem” attacks against Jones Breitbart made to The Daily Caller, HuffPo made no statement to defend Breitbart from allegations that he is racist, even though Breitbart told TheDC that site founder Huffington and her top deputy, editor Roy Sekoff, know he isn’t one. Breitbart even said Sekoff told him he recommended to Huffington that she publicly state that Breitbart is no racist – and allegedly had language ready in a statement for her to use.

“Roy said he put a statement for Arianna in that language [that Breitbart was not a racist] and she chose not to use it,” Breitbart told TheDC. Breitbart said he tried to reach Sekoff and Huffington several times after they removed him from HuffPo’s front page. After he finally got Sekoff on the line, Breitbart said Sekoff told him he was, “arguing with her [Huffington] that she should defend me on the race accusation that they’re making.”

“I consider it the height of ingratitude that Arianna sides with Van Jones whose hapless management of Arianna’s California gubernatorial campaign made her finish with less than 1 percent of the vote, yet I’m the one who resurrected her Van Jones-created demise to help create for her the very institution she’s now using to shut me up,” Breitbart, who helped Huffington set up her hugely successful left-wing website, told TheDC.

“The ingratitude is monumental and for her to be silent on the race question for cynical partisan reasons shows everything you need to know about this woman’s character. There’s a thread of hope in my heart that she will do the ethical thing and tell her audience what she really feels about my not being a racist.”

Sekoff and HuffPo spokesman Mario Ruiz would neither confirm nor deny to TheDC that Huffington removed language from last week’s statement defending Breitbart against charges of racism. But, through Ruiz, Sekoff told TheDC he does not think Breitbart is a racist.

“Roy absolutely does not think Andrew Breitbart is a racist, as he made clear to me during discussions this week about whether to continue front paging Breitbart,” Ruiz said in an email to TheDC. “He was taken down from the front not for being racist, but for the nature of his attack on Van Jones, as we’ve made clear.”

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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