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No, Robert Peston, Osborne was WRONG to impose austerity. Stop distorting the facts!
The BBC's Tory economics editor Robert Peston is clutching at straws again.
He's trying to persuade us all that everything we thought we knew about the UK's economy during the Coalition Parliament was wrong, and that growth was much stronger than we thought. He is being economical with the truth, it seems.
He writes: "The ONS … says that the economy grew 1.5% in the general election year of 2010, then 2% after austerity bit in 2011 – revised up by the ONS from 1.6% – and then 1.2% in 2012, when the eurozone's economic crisis imposed maximum pain on us.
"The previous picture, of austerity reducing growth from 1.9% in 2010, to 1.6% in 2011, to 0.7% in 2012, has been magicked away by the official statisticians.
"And they have also revised up their estimate of growth for 2013 from 1.7% to 2.2%.
"If these statistics are more reliable than the last lot, a particular school of Keynesian economists may choose to re-examine their contention that only a fool or a liar would say there is a legitimate debate about whether George Osborne's policies were good or bad for the recovery."
One of that school of Keynesian economists has hit back – hard. According to Professor Simon Wren-Lewis, Mr Peston's argument is "just nonsense: complete and utter nonsense."
He responds: "This 'particular school' has never based their assessment on observing what is still the weakest UK recovery since anyone can remember and looking for something to blame. They based it on what macro theory and the great majority of empirical studies tell us would be the impact of the fiscal austerity that happened. At the conservative end of such assessments is the OBR, who calculate austerity reduced GDP growth by 1% in each of the financial years 2011 and 2012. Estimates of this kind are completely independent of data revisions for one period in one country. We might doubt such estimates if they implied that without austerity we would have had implausibly rapid growth, but for this recovery they do not."
This means that it doesn't matter how well the ONS or Mr Peston says the economy performed – the simple fact that George Osborne had imposed austerity on the UK (unnecessarily) means growth was restricted by at least one per cent in the years he mentions.
Prof Wren-Lewis goes on to point out that the UK's growth performance – even with these revisions – is still terrible because Peston has not taken population growth due to inward migration into account: "You really have to look at GDP per head to make comparative statements about this recovery.
"As the ONS point out, this new data still shows that only in this year has GDP per head exceeded its pre-recession peak. Assuming recent data revisions have not changed this, average growth in GDP per head between 1955 and 2008 was about 2.25%. Any recovery from such a deep recession should have seen growth rates well in excess of this.
"Instead the revised data give us 1.1% growth in 2011, 0.5% in 2012, 1.5% in 2013. Only by 2014 had we got near the long term average growth rate. This is still an absolutely terrible performance for a recovery."
Prof Wren-Lewis goes on to suggest that Peston might be saying as much himself if the Tory Government were not "breathing down the BBC's neck". The point that BBC political coverage is being distorted by Tory influence is a very good one, as anybody who has seen Question Time recently will know.
In fairness to Peston, he does point out that any extra economic growth did not translate into higher tax revenues for the government. Where did that money go (if it doesn't exist only in the minds of ONS statisticians and Mr Peston)?
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This entry was posted in Austerity, Economy, Media, People, Politics, UK and tagged austerity, Coalition, Conservative, economy, figure, George Osborne, Mainly Macro, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, office, ONS, Parliament, people, politics, Professor, revise, revision, Robert Peston, Simon, statistic, statistics, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, Wren-Lewis on October 2, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
On Employment and Support Allowance, Ms Patel isn't sitting pretty
Ignorant: Priti Patel will need to work a lot harder if she thinks she's going to convince anybody about the Conservative Government's appalling record of deaths among people on incapacity benefits.
The new Parliamentary session is going to be very hard on Iain Duncan Smith and his team (if you can call it that) at the Department for Work and Pensions. His skiving employment minister Priti Patel discovered this on her very first day back.
Ms Patel, who had the hypocrisy to criticise the UK's workforce as lazy at a time when her own Parliamentary attendance record was among the lowest in the House of Commons, faced an inevitable series of questions on the government's botched release of figures relating to the deaths of people claiming incapacity benefits, including Employment and Support Allowance – and of course messed up her answers ridiculously.
"It is wrong to state that people have died while claiming an out-of-work benefit," she stated. Oh, really?
Didn't the DWP do just that in its statistical releases of August 27? Among the incapacity benefits population alone, the number of deaths recorded – by the DWP – between 2003 and 2013 was 444,620… or 448,300, depending on whether you've accepted the DWP's accumulated death figure or checked them by adding together the separate totals for IB/SDA and ESA. As you can tell, they don't add up – casting doubt on the reliability of any of the figures the DWP has released.
"It is impossible and completely wrong to draw any causality from the statistics," continued Ms Patel, tragically. "Any attempt to extrapolate anything beyond those figures is wrong." My word, she was keen to make sure we knew what the Conservative Party thinks is wrong, wasn't she!
What a shame for Ms Patel that she was in the wrong. While the figures themselves do not – necessarily – damn the DWP's activities since the Tories took over, they do provide enough information to support some serious questions about Conservative Government policy and its effects on people with long-term illnesses.
If all is well in the assessment of Employment and Support Allowance claimants, then why did the DWP deliberately mislead This Writer, by falsely claiming it could not answer my Freedom of Information request on the incapacity benefit deaths because those facts were to be published in the future? In fact, the DWP was planning to publish a set of 'Age-Standardised Mortality Rates' – about which we'll learn more in a moment. By using this tactic, the DWP successfully evaded answering my question for more than two years. Is this acceptable behaviour for a government department?
According to Ms Patel, when the ASMRs were finally published, they were "in line with Office for National Statistics requirements and to national statistics standard". That's all very well, but the ONS provides information on how to create ASMRs that means the figures published on August 27 are, at most, a single day's work for one person at the DWP. I submitted an FoI request on May 28, 2014, meaning they were published almost one year and three months later, with no reason provided for the delay. Is this acceptable behaviour for a government department?
Ms Patel said: "Specifically with regard to the statistics, the trend is that the number of people dying, as a proportion of the population, is going down." What clever phrasing (she no doubt thought)! That is, indeed, what the ASMR statistics show. But the population of the UK is increasing rapidly, and this affects per-head-of-population figures like ASMRs – perhaps Ms Patel should have liaised with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister before passing her comment.
The numbers paint a different story. For the sake of transparency, This Writer has been using the Work-Related Activity Group of ESA and the number of people who have died after being declared fit for work in order to demonstrate this. Between 2012 and 2013, the number of people in the WRAG increased by nine per cent. The number of deaths increased by 24 per cent – from 2,990 people to 3,720. Increased. This does not indicate a downward trend. This is in a group where the Conservative Government expects – no, demands – that people will be ready to return to work within a year. This means members of the group should have no worse life expectancy than anyone in the general population, but if you apply the death rate among the general population to the WRAG, then the number of deaths in 2012 should have been 1,037, and in 2013 the total should have been 1,132 – in both cases, that's around one-third of the actual figure. Priti Patel wants us to think that is no reason to question whether the work capability assessment – the procedure used to decide if a person should receive ESA and whether they deserve to go into the support group for people with severe illnesses or the WRAG – is fit for purpose. What do you think?
Let's look at the number of people who have died after being assessed as fit for work. The media – and the Conservative Government – have been using this figure of 2,380 deaths from December 2011 to February 2014 (inclusive). But those are only people who died within two weeks of having their claim stopped (on the grounds that they were fit for work)! What about people like Mark Wood, who died of starvation, several months after the DWP decided he was fit for work? What about people who were moved onto Jobseeker's Allowance because they were told they were fit for work? Did they all find jobs and live happily ever after? This seems unlikely. How many of them were sanctioned because they could not fulfil the requirements of their Jobseekers' Agreement'? How often? How many of them died? How many people were pushed off benefits altogether, and what happened to them? We may accept the claim that it is wrong to extrapolate anything from the figures, but isn't that because the figures have been deliberately phrased in order to make it so?
If you disagree, take a look at This Writer's Freedom of Information request. The part requiring the DWP to state the number of people who died after being found fit for work calls for information covering the period between December 2011 and May 2014 (inclusive), covering everybody who had been claiming ESA but died within that period. The DWP has complied with neither of those parts of the request, despite having withdrawn its appeal against answering the FoI request, and is in danger of being in contempt of court. Do you think that is acceptable behaviour for a government department?
In a later exchange, Louise Haigh MP said: "Contrary to the Minister's earlier remarks, figures finally released by the Department over the summer showed that 2,380 people died after being declared fit for work—more than four times the death rate of the general population. In a harrowing case, a constituent of mine reported to me that she frequently considered committing suicide, both before and after being found fit for work. Does the Minister not feel that it is therefore high time to review the work capability assessment and that thousands of people are being wrongly defined as fit for work?"
In response, Ms Patel said: "Organisations have commented on this and Full Fact, which is widely known, has said that similar comments to those made by the hon. Lady, which have been widely reported, are simply wrong."
So Ms Haigh was wrong to say that her constituent had considered suicide due to the DWP's treatment of her? Ms Patel had no right to make such a claim; she did not have any experience of the case.
As for Full Fact, the fact that the Conservative Government was using that website's worthless article about the death statistics to justify its behaviour speaks volumes about the relationship between the two. We may not be able to draw conclusions about causality from the DWP's death figures, but we may certainly draw conclusions about the DWP and Full Fact, it seems. This Writer's advice is that any further comment on this subject from that website may be dismissed.
We should not have to wait too long for that fate to claim Ms Patel, also…
This entry was posted in Austerity, Benefits, Conservative Party, Death, Disability, Employment and Support Allowance, Freedom of Information, Health, Mental, People, Politics, UK and tagged Age Standardised Mortality Rate, agreement, allowance, ASMR, causality, Conservative, dead, death, Department, die, DWP, employment, ESA, fatality, fit for work, FOI, freedom, health, Iain Duncan Smith, IB, Incapacity Benefit, information, Jobseekers, JSA, Louise Haigh, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortality, national, office, ONS, Pensions, people, politics, Priti Patel, question, release, request, SDA, Severe Disablement Allowance, sick, social security, statistical, statistics, support, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, WCA, welfare, work, work capability assessment, work-related activity group, WRAG on September 7, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
Why the delay, DWP? The ONS has templates on calculating death rates
Not strictly true: Many of the deceased had already completed appeals at the time of their death. We don't know how many, though, because we don't know how many of them lost. Even after giving up and releasing some figures, the DWP has been extremely vague with them.
Did you know that the Department for Work and Pensions spent two years delaying the publication of death figures for incapacity benefit claimants when they could have been completed in a week?
The Office for National Statistics provides information on how to calculate Age-Standardised Mortality Rates, including information on the size of the general population and the death rates for particular age ranges within it. You can download the templates yourself from this site.
This means that the Department for Work and Pensions could have used its own figures to complete this work within a single day – and could have had it verified within a week at the most.
Yet ministers chose to dawdle for more than a year – more than two years if you don't believe the excuse that their 2013 claim to be publishing the figures in the future was a mistake.
Does it come down to the fact that 2,890 people died in December 2012, while claiming Employment and Support Allowance – a tripling of the average death rate for the previous 11 months?
Did ministers want to hide the fact that the policies of Iain Duncan Smith were causing more and more people to die while claiming the payments that should have helped them to live? And was this not happening when they should have been using the figures to prevent such deaths?
Does the law not state – explicitly – that anyone, in a corporate body such as the DWP, whose negligence causes the deaths of others, should face prosecution for corporate manslaughter?
When will we see justice done?
This entry was posted in Austerity, Benefits, Conservative Party, Death, Disability, Employment and Support Allowance, Justice, Law, People, Politics, UK and tagged Age Standardised Mortality Rate, allowance, ASMR, benefit, benefits, corporate manslaughter, dead, death, Department, die, DWP, employment, ESA, government, Iain Duncan Smith, IB, Incapacity Benefit, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortality, national, negligence, negligent, office, ONS, Pensions, people, politics, prosecute, Prosecution, SDA, Severe Disablement Allowance, social security, statistics, support, Vox Political, WCA, welfare, work, work capability assessment on September 2, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
What is the REAL reason more older people are working?
The Conservative Government slipped out an insidious little press release over the weekend, claiming the number of people aged 50-65 who have found paid work has hit a record high.
Apparently, more than 8.2 million people in that age group are now in work – almost as many as those aged 25-49. The Tories are keen to claim that this is a good thing, but is it?
How much of this figure is the result of fewer people taking early retirement because they have found they cannot afford it? How much is the result of more people staying on in self-employment because they cannot afford to stop, rather than starting new employment with government help?
The figures provided by the Office for National Statistics (covering the period between April and June this year) don't tell us much that is helpful.
They say the overall number of people in self-employment has risen by 8,000 in the last three months – but the number of employees has dropped by 54,000.
Looking at the different age groups, the difference between employees and the self-employed is not recorded, but the 50,000 more people working in the 50-64 age group is offset by a drop of 22,000 in the 34-49 age group.
Isn't it likely that these people have simply passed the age of 50 while keeping the jobs they already had?
No figures are provided for the number of people who retired during these three months.
From what we see, it is entirely possible that the 50,000 'extra' workers are entirely composed of people who have kept their current jobs, people who are self-employed and people who have decided not to retire – in the last two categories, probably because they can't afford it!
Now look at the Conservative Government's press release:
"The government is committed to changing perceptions of older workers amongst employers and promoting the business benefits of maintaining an age-diverse workforce."
That's changing perceptions of older workers – not actually putting them into work.
"These efforts are part of a wider determination to give working people across the UK the chance to get on at every stage of their life and ensure everyone has the opportunity to achieve the dignity of a job, the security of a pay cheque, and a comfortable retirement."
Oh, the Tories are determined to give older people a chance, are they? That doesn't mean they're actually doing anything.
"Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann said: 'Record numbers of older people are bringing their skills, talents and experience into the UK workplace, which is good news for people's incomes, their future pensions, and the overall economy.'"
There's nothing in this to suggest that the Conservative Government had a part in it.
"'But with 735,000 vacancies in the economy today, businesses are still not making the most of the opportunities that this huge pool of talent has to offer.'"
No indeed – it seems more likely that they are continuing to ignore those opportunities, and the increased in-work figure is due to entirely different reasons.
"'As part of our one nation approach, this government wants to see employers do even more to eradicate outdated misconceptions and age discrimination, so that employers realise the benefits when they retain, retrain and recruit staff who are over the age of 50.'"
"Wants to see." That translates as "isn't actually doing anything".
The whole story stinks worse than an abandoned fish market.
It reminds This Writer of an article published here in October 2014, based on the findings of our friends at Flip Chart Fairy Tales. The conclusion was: "What we're seeing, then, is a huge rise in the number of people who find themselves unable to retire because they won't have enough income to support themselves."
And the Tory press release?
Part of the philosophy of The Big Lie that the Conservative have taken back from the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1930s and 40s is the principle of staying with the lie so that, if it isn't believed at first, constant repetition will hammer down the resistance of the masses until they accept what they are fed:
"The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."
The man who said those words was Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
They could easily be applied to Baroness Altmann.
This entry was posted in Conservative Party, Employment, pensions, People, Politics, Poverty, UK, Wages and tagged 50-64, age, Altmann, Baroness, big lie, employment, Flip Chart Fairy Tales, High, income, Joseph Goebbels, low, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national Statistics, office, ONS, people, politics, record, retire, Ros, self-employment, Vox Political on August 17, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
The poor pay more tax than the rich – and Tories want to cut the highest rate
The UK's poorest families give more money to the government in tax than any other income group – and almost half of Tory MPs want to increase the inequality by cutting the top rate of tax yet again.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the poorest fifth of households paid 37.8 per cent of their income in taxes last year, while the richest fifth paid 34.8 per cent.
That's not the whole story, of course – if you're poor and you pay nearly two-fifths of your income in tax, that leaves very little for necessities like food, water, heat, light and rent/mortgage whereas, if you're rich and you pay nearly 7/20 of your income in tax, you're unlikely to be feeling any kind of pinch.
Say a poor family receives £12,000 per year. Tax would account for £2,400, leaving £9,600 for everything else. What's the earnings threshold for the top tax bracket – £150,000? A family receiving that amount would pay… actually they'd pay 40 per cent of it, according to the law, but that would still leave £90,000 – nearly 10 times as much as a poor family and no problems at all in making ends meet.
It should be stressed that these are only representative figures. To be honest, the statistics are up for question: How many of the top fifth of earners avoid paying tax via legal schemes, designed for this purpose? How much do we all pay in indirect, or hidden, taxation? How many variations have been included in the ONS figures?
George Osborne is said to be considering a cut in tax credits in his July budget, meaning the poorest would lose part of a vital support system propping up their earnings. David Cameron has said he expects employers to increase pay, but he is offering neither carrot nor stick to encourage this, therefore they won't. So the poor would pay more.
Meanwhile, 160 Tory MPs have demanded that the top rate of tax be cut from 45 per cent to 40, meaning the rich would pay less.
Not only would the poor be plunged further into poverty and debt if these measures were enacted next week, but public services would also take a hammering as income to the Treasury plummeted.
Perhaps the worst indictment of the situation, though, is the fact that – under the last Labour government – the inequality was worse. The poor paid more than 38 per cent of their income while the rich contributed less than 34 per cent.
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This entry was posted in Tax, UK and tagged "top rate", Conservative, cut, David Cameron, deprived, George Osborne, income, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, office, ONS, poor, rich, statistics, tax, tax credit, Tories, Tory, UK, Vox Political, wealthy on June 30, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
Vox Political vindicated on unemployment figures
How pleasant to see Vox Political's concerns about the massaging of UK unemployment figures being taken up by the kind of people the mass media actually respect.
A report on the BBC News website states that Conservative Party claims that unemployment has dropped by around 60 per cent in some areas is based on "wrong data" – in other words, the Tories are lying.
This blog has been saying that for a very long time!
The story says Tories have been using Jobseekers Allowance figures – the so-called Claimant Count – to justify their claims, but the independent Office for National Statistics showed only a 20 per cent drop in those seats. The ONS said online: "the number of unemployed people in the UK is substantially higher than the claimant count".
Jonathan Portes, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (and well-known to readers of this blog), said: "Many people who are unemployed don't claim JSA… JSA figures at the local level are accurate, but it is not correct to confuse JSA rates and unemployment."
In the BBC story, a Tory spokesman said the concern over the data was "nonsense". He said: "This unemployment measure is provided by the independent House of Commons Library – and for constituencies they are the most up to date and most reliable numbers to use."
Yes, the House of Commons Library does provide figures – with a caveat that they do not include the number of unemployed people claiming Universal Credit, and there is no date set for when those figures will be included in the Claimant Count (as reported by David Hencke in November last year). The current way of calculating these figures is misleading from the start.
In an article from the same month, This Writer made some other pertinent points:
"If employment has increased – and there's no reason to say it hasn't – we can also conclude that the reason employers are more willing to take people on is that they can pay peanuts for them and rely on the government to top them up with in-work benefits. It seems likely that the work was always there but employers weren't going to take anybody on if it meant increasing the wages bill and reducing the amount of profit available to them. Now that zero-hours contracts are available, along with part-time schemes that deny people pensions and holiday pay, it's a different matter.
"The number of people who were self-employed increased by a staggering 186,000, to reach 3.25 million, while people working as self-employed part-time increased by 93,000 to reach 1.27 million. That's 4.52 million – almost one-sixth of the total number of people in work. If you think that's great, you haven't been paying attention. Remember this article, warning that the increase was due to older people staying in work? And what about the catastrophic collapse in self-employed earnings we discovered at the same time?
"How many of these are people who have been persuaded to claim tax credits as self-employed people, rather than jump through the increasingly-difficult hoops set out for them if they claimed Jobseekers' Allowance – and do they know they'll have to pay all the money back when their deception is discovered?
"The number of people in part-time employment has also increased, by 28,000 to reach 6.82 million. Are we to take it that this means under-employment has increased again?
"Public sector employment has fallen again. If you want to know why the government keeps messing you around, there's your answer. There aren't enough people to do the job. This month's statistics show 11,000 fewer public sector employees than in March, and 282,000 fewer than this time last year.
"Unemployment is said to have dropped – but remember, this is not counting people who have been sanctioned. A recent study by Professor David Stuckler of Oxford University suggests as many as half a million people could have been sanctioned off-benefit in order to massage the figures, meaning that the total listed – 931,700 – is probably wrong. Remember also that Universal Credit claimants aren't counted, nor are those on government work schemes – another 123,000 people.
"This means the actual unemployment rate is likely to be double the number provided by the official statistics.
"And what about people on ESA/DLA/PIP?"
In January this year, This Writer added: "New research by Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has shown that only around one-fifth (20 per cent) of people who have been sanctioned off of Jobseekers' Allowance have actually found work, leaving 1.6 million in limbo; they're off the benefits system but researchers can only surmise that they are relying on food banks."
And in February, Vox Political had this point to make: "We also know that many thousands have died – through suicide or complications of their physical conditions (if claiming incapacity benefits) after receiving decisions that were not only wrong, but may have been fraudulent."
Whichever way you slice it, the Tories aren't being straight with you.
You can trust Vox Political to give you the facts, though.
providing the accurate information that you need to know.
This entry was posted in Austerity, Benefits, Conservative Party, Cost of living, Democracy, Disability, Election campaign, Employment, Employment and Support Allowance, People, Politics, sanctions, UK, unemployment, Universal Credit and tagged BBC, claimant count, Conservative, contract, David Hencke, David Stuckler, economic, fall, figures, holiday, House of Commons Library, Institute, Jobseeker's Allowance, Jonathan Portes, JSA, lie, lying, national, NIESR, office, ONS, part-time, pay, pension, Professor, public sector, Research, sanction, self-employed, sick, social, statistics, tax credits, Tories, Tory, unemployment, Universal Credit, Vox Political, wage, zero hours on April 25, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
Huge increase in zero-hour contracts – in a 'booming' economy?
This graph is now out of date but shows the rapid rise of the zero-hours contract. By the end of 2014, the number of people on zero contracts was 697,000, according to the ONS. [Image: Eoin Clarke.]
Here are a few figures from the Office of National Statistics:
Number of people employed on a "zero-hours contract" in their main job was 697,000 for October to December 2014, representing 2.3% of all people in employment. In the same period in 2013, this was 1.9% of all people in employment (586,000).
The number of people saying they are employed on "zero-hours contracts" depends on whether or not they recognise this term. It is not possible to say how much of the increase between 2013 and 2014 is due to greater recognition rather than new contracts.
Number of contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours where work was carried out was 1.8 million for the fortnight beginning 11 August 2014. The previously published estimate was 1.4 million for the fortnight beginning 20 January 2014.
The two estimates of contracts should not be directly compared. They cover different times of year so changes in the numbers may reflect seasonal factors.
On average, someone on a "zero-hours contract" usually works 25 hours a week.
Around a third of people on "zero-hours contracts" want more hours, with most wanting them in their current job, compared with 10% of other people in employment.
People on "zero-hours contracts" are more likely to be women, in full-time education or working part-time. They are also more likely to be aged under 25 or 65 and over.
Over half of businesses in Accommodation and Food Services and a quarter of businesses in Education made some use of no guaranteed hours contracts in August 2014.
This is at a time when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said the UK has bounced back strongly from the recession and has one of the strongest economies in the G7 nations.
Admittedly, the OECD has said productivity – stagnant for many years now – must improve in order for living standards to rise, but this is not part of the zero-hours plan. The Conservative-led Coalition wanted to put as many people as possible into jobs of any description, in order to claim a drop in unemployment – but zero-hours contracts, while helping businesses by eliminating in-work benefits like sick pay and holiday pay, do not help productivity at all; they use more people to achieve the same result.
In the case of the UK, it seems, they have been achieving worsening results, as dipping tax receipts have made all-too-clear. George Osborne claimed a surplus in January, but this is clearly a manufactured result, formed from panic after the last few tax revenue figures became public.
So what does Labour say about all this?
Scottish Nationalists will be surprised to learn that the party Pete Wishart believes is "cuddling up to the Tories" was unequivocally critical.
"The Tories' plan is failing working families," said Chuka Umunna, shadow business secretary.
"While they prioritise a few at the top, for others there's a rising tide of insecurity. Ministers have watered down every person's rights at work and zero-hours contracts have gone from being a niche concept to becoming the norm in parts of our economy.
"The ONS' findings today that there are now 1.8 million zero-hours contracts and that the number of people reporting they are on a zero-hours contract for their main job has risen by almost 20 per cent is yet another stark illustration of a recovery which is not working for working people."
He said: "Labour's Better Plan for Britain's Prosperity would ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, prohibit employers from requiring workers to be available on the off-chance they are needed, ensure zero-hours contract workers who have shifts cancelled at short notice receive compensation and give employees who consistently work regular hours the right to a fixed-hours contract.
"Ministers have sat on their hands and opposed our plans, in the face of rising insecurity for people."
analysing the latest statistics before the spin doctors get the chance.
This entry was posted in Employment, Zero hours contracts and tagged Chuka Umunna, co-operation, development, economic, economy, employment, G7, holiday, living standards, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, OECD, office, ONS, organisation, pay, people, politics, productivity, receipt, Revenue, sick, stagnant, statistics, tax, Vox Political, zero hours contract on February 25, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
The UK's main growth area continues to be SUICIDE
The Office for National Statistics has released the latest figures on suicide, which show that the proportion of people taking their own lives has grown faster than the UK economy.
The statistics cover the calendar year 2013, when the economy grew by 1.7 per cent – but suicides increased by more than double that amount – four per cent. This writer has seen unconfirmed estimates that suggest a rise of 12-13 per cent since the Coalition Government took office in 2010 – that's up by one-eighth.
The male suicide rate in 2013 was the highest since 2001, at 19 per 100,000 members of the population. This was almost four times higher than the female rate (5.1 per 100,000), which has stayed constant.
As Vox Political reported back in 2012, suicide continues to be the most reliable indicator of the UK's true economic activity: The highest suicide rate among the English regions was in North East England, at 13.8 deaths per 100,000 population, while London had the lowest at 7.9 per 100,000. The Northeast has been one of the areas hardest-hit by the banker-engineered recession and Tory-engineered cuts (if not the hardest-hit altogether); London has benefited the most from government investment.
And the highest suicide rate by broad age group was among men aged 45-59 (25.1 deaths per 100,000). This is the group least likely to return to work after losing a job. It is also the group containing the most self-employed people, after the dire state of the economy made it impractical for them to retire.
Some naysayers may try to point out that the number of suicides is very small – 6,233 during 2013. They should be asking themselves: In a country where the government and its mass media are continually telling us that everything is going swimmingly, why are any suicides taking place at all?
Is it perhaps because of the attitude shown to the less-fortunate – by, for example, people on David Cameron's own Facebook page. When a commenter wrote that they were considering suicide after being wrongly sanctioned, the response – and remember, this is on the prime minister's own Facebook page – was "Well get on with it, then."
Poverty is rising, suicide is rising, and they tell you all is well in Cameron's corrupt country.
He is to blame for this.
The sooner he and his cronies are gone, the better.
telling you what's really happening here in the UK.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged age, David Cameron, economy, Facebook, location, London, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, northeast, office, ONS, poverty, self-employed, statistics, suicide, Vox Political on February 20, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
Risible PMQs performance is no win for Cameron
The face is red but the heart is black: Cameron's strategy is now one of false arguments and ignoring the questions put to him.
Was anybody else dismayed to see media commentator after media commentator blithely commenting that this week's Prime Minister's Questions was, for example, an "easy win" for David Cameron (George Eaton, New Statesman), with Guardian political correspondent Andrew Sparrow tweeting, "Verdict from the Twitter commentariat – Unanimous for Cameron"?
It offends this writer's sense of Britishness and fair play. If Cameron won, he did so by evasion, false argument, and perverting the facts.
Let's go through the leaders' exchange together, using the BBC live blog and Hansard for reference.
The first thing mentioned by Ed Miliband was the Iraq Inquiry – he called for its findings to be published as soon as possible. Then he changed subject, pointing out that the Coalition government will be the first to leave office with living standards lower than when they came into power.
David Cameron did not answer the question but went back to Mr Miliband's comment about the inquiry instead. He said he too wants to see the Iraq Inquiry published as soon as possible – but it would have been ready years ago if the previous Labour government had set the inquiry up sooner, as the Conservatives and others had wanted.
This not true. Labour's position on it is that the inquiry was set up at the appropriate time – after hostilities in Iraq had ended. In any case, we are now in the sixth year since the inquiry was established (in November 2009); most of the delays have taken place under the Coalition Government led by David Cameron. The reason currently being given for the delay, by inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot, is that witnesses need an opportunity to respond to any criticisms of them that have been made.
This blog wishes to point out that Mr Cameron himself is also partly responsible for delays in this matter. The Guardian reported in November 2013: "The Cabinet Office is resisting requests from the Iraq inquiry… for 'more than 130 records of conversations' between Tony Blair, his successor, Gordon Brown, and then-US President George W Bush to be made public. In a letter to David Cameron, published on the inquiry's website, the committee's chairman, Sir John Chilcot, disclosed that '25 notes from Mr Blair to President Bush' and 'some 200 cabinet-level discussions' were also being withheld.
"The standoff between the inquiry and Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, has been going on for five months and has meant that the [process] in which politicians and officials are warned that they will be criticised in the report, is on hold. As a result, a date for the final publication of the report has yet to be agreed, more than four years after the inquiry started. "
That's a delay directly attributable to David Cameron and his government. It would have been more accurate if he had said the inquiry's report would have been ready years ago if Mr Cameron himself had not done everything he could to hinder it.
Back to today: Ed Miliband noted that Mr Cameron made no mention of the economy in his reply, and pointed out that people are £1,600 a year worse off since 2010. According to the BBC blog: "David Cameron says Labour has no apology for not launching the Iraq Inquiry earlier – before launching into a defence of the coalition's economic record. He says Mr Miliband is wrong about everything."
In fact he raised the alleged drop in unemployment and rise in wages recorded by the ONS (and debunked on this blog earlier today). His mention of tax reductions as a defence against the "£1,600 a year worse off" claim is ridiculous as it shows how lightly his government has taken its self-described reason for being – reducing the deficit. This is not going to happen under a government that doesn't want to take taxes.
Cameron's claim that there is no cost of living crisis because inflation is at 0.5 per cent is a silly 'excluded middle' false argument; just because the headline level of inflation is low, that does not mean people are not struggling to make ends meet – especially when they have to deal with measures brought in by Cameron's government like the Bedroom Tax, that have nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with Tory neoliberal ideology.
Mr Miliband stood his ground: Cameron has raised taxes on ordinary families, raised VAT, cut tax credits. Wages are down; taxes are up – and a report by the Joseph Rowntree foundation has shown that half of all families where one person is in full-time work cannot make ends meet at the end of the month.
"You can work hard and play by the rules, but in Cameron's Britain you still cannot pay the bills—that is the reality," he said – and it's strong stuff.
Cameron's response was feeble. He claimed that more than 30 million people are now in work – but we know that this is partly due to the rise in the population, and most of the jobs are zero-hours, part-time or temporary, meaning that Mr Miliband is right; families are struggling to pay the bills. His repeated reference to the ONS statistics – which were discredited within minutes of having been published, is risible. Cameron was making an 'argument by selective observation' – what he was saying was factually accurate, but he was deliberately failing to put all the facts before us.
The claim that people in work are seeing their pay rise by four per cent seems to be an outright lie. Even the ONS could only support a rise of 1.8 per cent.
"If we had listened to [Mr Miliband], none of these things would have happened," blustered Cameron. "If we had listened to Labour, it would be more borrowing, more spending, more debt: all the things that got us into a mess in the first place." How does he know that? He doesn't. It's another false argument – an ad hominem (attacking Mr Miliband, rather than his argument), also an 'appeal to widespread belief', as many people still seem to believe that Labour will borrow more and create more debt (despite repeated evidence that Labour will do nothing of the sort) and that the economy is safer with the Conservatives (even though their own rampant borrowing has nearly doubled the National Debt), and a non sequitur – it doesn't follow that, if the Tories had listened to Labour, none of the favourable outcomes he listed would have happened.
Mention of borrowing prompted Mr Miliband to point out that the Coalition Government has failed on the deficit – accurately. According to his original preductions, Chancellor George Osborne should have reduced the deficit to around £37 billion per year by now – instead it stands between £90 billion and £100 billion.
Mr Miliband's claim that executive pay has increased by 21 per cent in the last year alone, meaning the recovery is only for a few at the top, is also accurate. Spread among the workforce as a whole and coupled with the small pay rises they have received, the average may be 1.8 per cent – but most people aren't enjoying any sudden increase in prosperity. Are you?
Cameron's response: "The right honourable Gentleman criticises me on the deficit—he is the man who could not even remember the deficit." Another ad hominem, and another non sequitur. What does Mr Miliband's lapse of memory in a speech from last year have to do with today's statistics?
Mr Miliband's last question was about David Cameron's decision not to take part in televised election debates if the Green Party is excluded. If he is so confident about the economy, why is he "chickening out"?
Again, Cameron did not even answer the question. Instead he quoted Christine LaGarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, in support of his claim that the UK economy is improving. That discussion was over. Why did he have nothing to say about the TV debates? It's a simple change of subject but, again, it's no argument against what Mr Milband was saying.
So let's tot up the Prime Minister's score – did he win or lose? Let's see: Iraq inquiry – lose; economy – lose; employment – lose; wages – lose; deficit – lose; TV debates – lose.
The moral of the story: You don't have to win any argument if enough people are willing to say you did.
explaining the strategies of our evasive comedy Prime Minister.
This entry was posted in Cost of living, Economy, Employment, Media, People, Politics, Poverty, Tax, UK, Wages, War, Zero hours contracts and tagged Chilcot, cost of living, David Cameron, debt, deficit, economy, Ed Miliband, election, evasion, executive pay, fact, false argument, figures, inquiry, Iraq, ONS, part-time, pervert, Prime Minister's Questions, statistics, tax, temporary, TV debates, twist, unemployment, wages, work, zero hours on January 21, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
Unemployment figures are a sanction-based stitch-up, research shows
Iain Duncan Smith: He's proud of the sanctions regime he introduced, in which Job Centre staff are expected to use possibly-fraudulent means to push people off benefits – and he doesn't care how many people they harm.
The Coalition government will be crowing about the latest drop in unemployment today – according to official statistics. What a shame it's all a load of bunk.
New research by Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has shown that only around one-fifth (20 per cent) of people who have been sanctioned off of Jobseekers' Allowance have actually found work, leaving 1.6 million in limbo; they're off the benefits system but researchers can only surmise that they are relying on food banks.
(Isn't the Coalition government desperate to discredit food banks? Are ministers determined to drive the out-of-work population to starvation?)
This suggests that official Office for National Statistics figures are inaccurate. The latest batch – out today (January 21, 2015) – claim that unemployment dropped by 58,000 in the three months to November last year, when it totalled 1.91 million.
How can we trust these figures when it has been claimed there's a sanction-based stitch-up going on?
The new figures are from the same ONS that is claiming wages are rising above inflation. Oh really? The figures show average earnings (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.8 per cent, which is more than the CPI rate of inflation – but not more than RPI, which is a more accurate measure of the costs affecting households.
What happens to those figures when executive pay is taken out of them? What's the average for employees?
The revelation that sanctions have created a huge underclass of people – who have been refused benefits by Iain Duncan Smith's homicidal system – casts all the ONS statistics into doubt.
If 1.6 million people are being denied benefits, that doesn't stop them being unemployed.
Therefore the true unemployment figure should be almost twice as high as stated, at a massive 3.51 million.
That's before other elements, such as the Work Programme, have been taken into account!
And what about the hidden cost of sanctions – to other taxpayer-funded services?
Professor David Stuckler of Oxford University explained this to The Guardian: "If, as we're finding, people are out of work but without support – disappeared from view – there's a real danger that other services will absorb the costs, like the NHS, possibly jails and food support systems, to name a few. Sanctions could be costing taxpayers more."
Debbie Abrahams is a member of the House of Commons Work and Pensions committee, which was due to take evidence on benefit sanctions today. She told the paper: "This government has developed a culture in which Jobcentre Plus advisers are expected to sanction claimants using unjust, and potentially fraudulent, reasons in order get people 'off-flow'. This creates the illusion the government is bringing down unemployment."
[Image: The Void.]
Finally, there is the revelation that "physical punishment is now built into the benefit system, with sanctions both known and intended to cause a deterioration in health, says the DWP rule book". Visit the Void blog for further details.
The evidence is stacking up, and shows that the Coalition government has falsified the figures to a shocking extent.
Any new government entering office after the general election will face an uphill struggle simply to uncover the depth of the depravity currently taking place.
demonstrating the lies that undermine official figures.
This entry was posted in Benefits, Cost of living, Food Banks, Politics, Poverty, sanctions, unemployment and tagged bunk, CPI, Department, deteriorate, deterioration, DWP, false, figures, food bank, food support system, fraud, government, health, homicidal, Iain Duncan Smith, illusion, inaccurate, inflation, jail, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, lies, London School of Hygiene, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, national, off-flow, office, ONS, oxford, Pensions, people, physical punishment, politics, RPI, sanction, social security, starvation, starve, statistics, stitch-up, The Void, Tropical Medicine, unemployment, university, unjust, Vox Political, wage, welfare, work on January 21, 2015 by Mike Sivier.
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text:
Save Liverpool Women's Hospital
For all our sisters,mothers, daughters and babies.
Speak up even if your voice breaks
Speak out for the NHS. Speak out for proper funding, proper staffing, decent buildings and for democratic control. Democracy means the government of the people, for the people by the people, with the right to speak out and speak up. The NHS, it is said, will last as long as there are people prepared to fight for it. Good care is still provided in may aspects of the NHS but the system is suffering significant damage. If enough of us speak out and mobilise in our workplaces and communities, we can save and improve the NHS. This is no time for despair or helplessness.
Join a camapign to save the NHS, raise it in your union, talk to family and friends.
The NHS needs more doctors, midwives, nurses and other medical professionals and we need to treat those we have much better. The health of the nation and the health of our health workers both matter. Good health care is good for our health, happiness, and well being. Good health care pays back expenditure three times over. We challenge anyone who still believes we as a county can't afford good health care system to debate with us in public.
In Maternity care, we need much more work to be done to reduce stillbirths and miscarriages, to reduce maternal deaths and reduce unpleasant and painful labour and birth, to reduce birth injury, to provide much better postnatal care to mother and baby, improved support in breastfeeding and maternal mental health provision. We also need more democracy in the NHS, with the right to speak out and make a difference. So its much more than staff, funding, bricks and mortar but these are essential building blocks. It is from public support, good staffing, buildings and good admin that a great health service is born.
We need good well-maintained buildings and building projects that don't cost a fortune
We need staffing planned over decades and we need urgent immediate action to retain the staff we have.
Speak out for the NHS because the people who gave us PFI and Carillion are running our NHS and can make just as big a mess of our health care as they have of the building of hospitals
We need a good capital programme to allow for refurbishments, improvements and rebuilds, planned over time and not involving the utterly scandalous waste on PFI as typified by the Royal Liverpool Scandal.
Public investment pays back into the economy in jobs and in its final product. Its not a waste and it can well be afforded.
Women's health in this country must be improved. Women live longer than men but with many years of ill health, and this is getting worse and it is worst of all in poorer areas like Liverpool. "When compared with the earliest period 2009 to 2011, HLE ( Healthy Life Expectancy) at birth has increased by 0.4 years for males and reduced by 0.2 years for females in the UK."
For all our babies. More babies are dying under one in Liverpool. Poverty is significant in this but quite well off babies die too. This is not neo natal deaths, but babies under one Neo natal deaths are rising too. Babies born to Black or Black British parents had a 50 per cent increased risk of neonatal death compared to babies of white ethnicity. according to Bliss
Babies are so precious . Speak out for good health care for every baby.
Investment in the NHS should come from government. PFI costs 40% more than using government investment and is costing the taxpayer hugely " Taxpayers will be forced to hand over nearly £200bn to contractors under private finance deals for at least 25 years",
Schools in Scotland built on PFI had major problems, and of course in Liverpool, we have the ghost school in Speke. We covered PFI scandals this in detail in another post and there is more here There is a font of information here too
Where was the supervision of these contracts from the NHS?
There is more to the PFI scandal than just money. The construction of the hospitals was not adequately supervised and major construction faults resulted. Carillion was far too big and badly managed to carry too many roles previously run by government bodies. When it collapsed, who was held to account? Who went to prison? Where are they working or "investing" now? We know that workers lost their jobs, lost pensions and apprenticeships.
There should have been clerks of work from the customer, the NHS, checking every stage. Clearly, this did not happen. A hospital company was even set up in Liverpool, but even then the scandal was not averted. One new Scottish hospital has huge structural problems and might need to be demolished.
When will the Liverpool Royal New Building actually open? Is it 2022 as mentioned at a board meeting?
Meanwhile, how can the old building be kept safe? How can the electricity be kept working, the water kept working? the heating and cleanliness sustained?
Liverpool's Royal hospital is the epitome of this scandal, a PFI that campaigners warned about in detail, even to the extent of trying to stop it in court and then having labour councillors challenge their right to legal aid Veteran campaigner Sam Semoff was told to "Bog off Semoff" by Joe Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool on the front page of the Liverpool Echo
Sam camapigning with the junior doctors
Many hospitals are struggling with all of these problems, with revenue and capital funding and with staffing shortages and the poverty of their patients and many of their staff. The Health Service Journal reported that a Trust in Cambridge, whose capital bid to improve its maternity services have been repeatedly turned down by government has been told by the Care Quality Commission to make urgent improvements to the obstetrics department after an inspection prompted by three serious incidents.
life and death issues
The national maternity crisis rumbles on. Shortages of doctors and midwives are significant problems These problems are well known and have been studied in detail.
There are solutions to these shortages but they will take time. A pay rise would be a good start. The end to the internal market to reduce utterly unproductive admin and competition would be a help in improving the staff shortages. Let's try to retain the staff we have, and treat them well. This means Spanish staff being able to go home to see their mum without risking being stopped by paterls nonsense of the end of free movment. A democratic management structure in the NHS where people can speak out freely would also help.
Brexit, of course, is a major barrier to solving this by recruiting from the EU and Priti Patel' s nonsense about not allowing migrants to come into the country if they earn less than £36 000 per year will rule out a fair few nursing posts. The NHS is trying hard to recruit new nurses from abroad but much as we welcome overseas nurses we must train and retain staff in the UK too
Bring back bursaries for midwives and nurses. We need fully paid re-entry courses for those who might want to return to nursing. We need a major recruitment and support programme for the staff who teach these courses
The NHS should be much better funded. Our very lives depend on it. How can any government committed to the needs of the people deny that? Already poverty is stalking the land, and life expectancy is falling. Poverty is well known to make people ill, less able to recover from illnesses, and the poor have worse access to health care.
Sadly our NHS is being shaped up to be handed over to global health care corporations on the US model and Trump doesn't even mind us knowing that.
Simon Stevens head of the NHS worked for US health care before he came to the NHS and the model he is driving is based on that for-profit model No doubt he sincerely believes in the market model but it has resulted in an NHS in dire difficulties
Revenue and capital funding
There are two streams of money going into the NHS, one is revenue which is for day to day spending, and the other is for capital which is for longer-term building programmes like the multi-million-pound Neonatal Unit being built at Liverpool Women's Hospital.
Since the demise of PFI and its thunder of profits running into private business, capital spending has been restricted in the NHS. Some hospitals have diverted smaller capital spends to day-to-day maintenance, but very many hospitals are physically run down. Some hospitals, unlike Liverpool Women's, are a mish-mash of buildings some a century-old, some portakabins, some in very poor repair.
The poor physical buildings should not affect doctors numbers, but doubtless a nice environment helps staff as well as patients
Democracy and transparency in the NHS should be introduced. The current sytem is so complex and convoulted few lay people understand its structures. One thing most people know is that the Care Quality Commission inspects hospitals and other NHS bodies and care homes for safety. However one patient in Warrington was asked to leave her practice because she posted a public CQC report on facebook
NHS camapigns are already a social movment with its own newspaper but this social movment needs to grow. We need politicians to stand with us and to move legisaltion to reinstate the NHS, to refuse to cooperate with the formation of ACOs and othe privatisation structures at local level.
The Save Liverpool Women's Hospital Campaign opposed the creation of a PFI to "rebuild" the Women's hospital. We were absolutely correct to do this. We objected to the move to the Royal site. We were proven correct. That Royal building site will be a work in progress for years to come We want money spent on improving the buidling on site.
For fully funded NHS maternity care, publicly provided.
September 2019 Bulletin
This hospital is just one of many suffering under the NHS, being starved of funding, seeing the effects of national staffing issues, and being used as a milk cow for private companies.
One thought on "Speak up even if your voice breaks"
Green__Jenny says:
Reblogged this on Calderdale and Kirklees 999 Call for the NHS and commented:
Trenchant analysis from Save Liverpool Women's Hospital
Pop Up Maternity Unit, Maternity Review, the Women and Children Vanguard
What now for the Liverpool Women's Hospital? What now for local maternity services?
Make the UK the safest place to have a baby!
Please respond to this reorganisation of the NHS
Changes are being made to the NHS, without publicity.
Not sufficient at all
Issues from the maternity services front line. Protect maternity in the virus crisis
One chance at birth. Protect maternity services in the crisis.
Campaigning for Women's Rights.International Women's Day 2020
Twenty-Five years old.
A Woman's Right to Choose
Charging NHS patients in NHS hospitals for core treatments
marywhitby on Changes are being made to the…
Issues from the mate… on One chance at birth. Protect m…
teresaw12317 on One chance at birth. Protect m…
marywhitby on Campaigning for Women's Rights…
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Smith, William Forgan (Bill) (1887–1953)
by B. J. Costar
This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, (MUP), 1988
William Forgan (Bill) Smith (1887-1953), painter and decorator and premier, was born on 15 April 1887 at Mynefield House, near Invergowrie, Perthshire, Scotland, son of George Smith and his wife Mary, née Forgan. His father was chief gardener on the Brand family estate of Airlie Castle and there maintained his family of three sons and four daughters in moderate comfort. Bill was educated at Invergowrie and Queen's Park schools and later at Dunoon Grammar School. He successfully resisted his staunch Presbyterian father's wish for him to enter the ministry and declined an offer from relations to finance medical studies. Instead he took up an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator while attending Dunoon Grammar evening continuation classes.
An economic recession forced him to seek work in the Clydeside shipyards where he became acquainted with socialist politics. He joined the Scottish Labour Party, met Keir Hardie and was impressed by the oratory of the Scottish-Australian Labor prime minister Andrew Fisher who visited Scotland in 1911. Having been advised that a warm climate would aid his chronic bronchial condition, Bill decided to migrate to Queensland. He was sponsored by a cousin at Mackay, where he arrived on 30 November 1911, and worked as a painter and decorator. On 15 January 1913 he married a local farmer's daughter, Euphemia (Effie) Margaret Wilson, with Presbyterian forms.
Becoming involved in the political and social life of the town, Smith joined the Australian Workers' Union in 1913 and next year became president of the Mackay branch of the Workers' Political Organization and vice-president of the local Trades and Labor Council. He practised oratory in the School of Arts Debating Society, became chieftain of the Mackay Caledonian Society and called himself Forgan Smith.
Mackay was a non-Labor stronghold, represented by Walter Paget, secretary for railways, who decided not to contest the 1915 elections. Aided by the general swing to Labor, Forgan Smith won the seat he was to occupy continuously until his retirement in 1942. He arrived in Brisbane as a 'shy and diffident' 'baby of the house'. His maiden speech on 14 July was largely devoted to agricultural issues, particularly the sugar industry which was to remain a major concern throughout his public life. His rise from 'new chum' at 24 to parliamentary member in just over three years had been meteoric.
Forgan Smith was a regular delegate to the biennial Labor-in-Politics conventions and a member of the central political executive from 1916-18. In 1917 he served on the panel of temporary chairmen of committees and, with a group of Queensland politicians, was sent interstate to press the anti-conscription case because of his skill as a public speaker. Prime Minister Billy Hughes gained a lifelong enemy by telling a meeting at Bendigo, Victoria, that he believed 'a Mr Hogan Smith, an Irishman from Glasgow, has been down here talking Gaelic treason to you'. Elevated chairman of parliamentary committees in January 1920, on 16 December Forgan Smith joined the Theodore government as minister without portfolio assisting the premier, a post he held until promoted to the ministry of public works on 6 October 1922. His major contribution was the passage that year of the unemployed workers insurance bill, a variation of the bill savaged by the Legislative Council in 1919. Theodore was sceptical of his young minister's chances of guiding the legislation through caucus because it involved the imposition of a contributory tax on workers. Assisted by the moderate faction, Forgan Smith won the day and the insurance scheme came into operation on 1 March 1923.
He returned to the Queensland central executive in 1923 and belonged to its powerful inner executive committee in 1926-42, having been unanimously elected deputy leader of the parliamentary party in October 1925. Factionally he was closely aligned with the A.W.U.-led moderates. At this stage he played only a relatively minor role in federal party affairs, attending the 1927 conference.
Forgan Smith began one of the most important and formative stages of his career when he was made secretary for agriculture and stock in the Gillies government on 26 February 1925, a post he was to retain until Labor's defeat in 1929. His main objective as minister was to establish a system of orderly marketing for the State's all-important primary produce, carried out in the Primary Producers' Organisation and Marketing Act (1926). He followed the lead of earlier Labor ministers in his strong support for closer settlement and his suspicion of pastoral interests. Closer settlement was not without its detractors, and the British Economic Mission which visited Queensland in 1928 complained that it was harmful to the State's wool industry. The sugar industry, on the other hand, received most favourable treatment from him. Under the protective umbrella of the 1923 agreement between the Queensland and Federal governments, the industry expanded throughout the 1920s and helped to shield Queensland from the full blast of the Depression. His ruralist ideology may be neatly summarized in his oft-quoted comment of 1932: 'no matter how much secondary industries may be established in Queensland, this State will continue for all time to be a primary producing State … Primary production is the natural occupation of mankind'. As acting-premier Forgan Smith was required to handle the early stages of the divisive South Johnstone strike (1927), but Premier William McCormack's return from England saved him from taking tough action against the strikers.
By 1929 fourteen years of continuous government had sapped the Labor Party of its vigour and electoral appeal. As leaders, Gillies and McCormack had not proved themselves the equals of Tom Ryan and Theodore; the labour movement was beset with destructive factionalism; and the State's economy was stagnating. Non-Labor had staged a political revival under a united Country Progressive National Party and its new leader Arthur Moore. These factors produced an electoral landslide against Labor on 11 May 1929; the party conceded 16 seats (in a House of 72) and the government benches to the C.P.N.P. Two ministers and the Speaker were among those defeated, but while he lost 7 per cent of his 1926 vote (about the average State-wide swing), Forgan Smith easily retained Mackay with 58 per cent of the primary vote.
McCormack resigned the party leadership and in 1930 retired from parliament. At the caucus meeting of 27 May 1929 Forgan Smith defeated David Weir by 20 votes to 3 to become parliamentary leader and leader of the Opposition. The new leader's task was clear and formidable: to restore party unity and to reinstate Labor as the 'natural' government of Queensland. Queensland politics during the Depression were the obverse of those in most of the other States where Labor governments self-destructed with the economic collapse. In Queensland a non-Labor government disintegrated and Labor reaped the electoral benefits. The quality of party leadership was, however, one important factor in Labor's recovery and Forgan Smith showed that he was a better debater and parliamentary tactician than Premier Moore. By skilfully co-ordinating Labor's front-bench he successfully harassed the government.
Simultaneously he turned his attention to the internal affairs of the party and established an important, long-term political relationship with A.W.U. secretary and A.L.P. numbers' man Clarence Fallon. The Depression in Queensland was to extend the power of the A.W.U. within the party. This power was deftly and ruthlessly employed by Forgan Smith and Fallon to impose unity: radical elements were kept isolated and rendered impotent; a nascent Queensland Lang Labor faction was crushed; Labor's moderate, democratic socialism was confirmed. Out of government, Forgan Smith was not forced to make divisive economic decisions.
The inexperienced Moore government floundered in the worsening economic conditions. At the election on 11 June 1932, despite an unfavourable electoral redistribution, Labor won a four-seat majority in a reduced parliament of 62. Forgan Smith was elected party leader by acclamation and became premier, chief secretary and treasurer. The governor, Sir Leslie Wilson, who arrived in Queensland on polling day, became his astute and candid observer. He noted in a confidential letter to the secretary of the Dominions Office that 'Forgan Smith is a man of considerable ability—very clear minded and with a definite purpose. He will not accept dictation from his "caucus" and is master of them'.
A major cause of disunity in the labour movement during the Depression was the acceptance by Labor governments of the deflationary economic strategy known as the Premiers' Plan which was drawn up at a Premiers' Conference in 1931. The Moore government supported the plan and legislated for its provisions during a special sitting of parliament in June. Forgan Smith strongly criticized its deflationary elements, thereby avoiding, for the time being at least, conflict within the party.
The plan had been endorsed by all Australian governments and was eagerly prosecuted by the Lyons United Australia Party administration which replaced the Scullin Labor government in January 1932. Two weeks after his election as premier, Forgan Smith attended, as the sole Labor representative, a Premiers' Conference and Australian Loan Council meeting in Canberra, dominated by supporters of the plan. If he maintained his position of totally rejecting the plan, he risked putting Queensland in financial jeopardy as regards loans and Commonwealth government payments; yet if he was seen to support it he risked provoking severe dissension within his party. Shrewd pragmatism resolved the dilemma. When Lyons put forward a motion specifically endorsing the Premiers' Plan, Forgan Smith spoke against it and, with the support of the New South Wales premier, (Sir) Bertram Stevens, moved a carefully worded amendment which, while avoiding any reference to the plan, committed the governments to progressive budget reductions and to the revival of industry. By the time the conference adjourned to Sydney, Forgan Smith's amendment had gained sufficient official and press support to have its fundamentals adopted in place of Lyons's original motion.
Returning to Queensland in triumph, Forgan Smith was hailed by Labor as the man who had redirected Australia's economic policy singlehandedly. His victory launched his premiership on a high note. The primary task facing the new government was to revive industry and reduce unemployment. Forgan Smith continued, in an amended form, Moore's intermittent unemployment relief schemes but also embarked on an ambitious public works programme. While he helped to convince the Commonwealth to float an £18 million national recovery loan in 1933 for public works in the States, the influence of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia meant that Queensland could expect little financial assistance from Federal sources.
Undeterred, the premier financed his public works schemes from consolidated revenue, relief funds and loans from institutions such as the Australian Mutual Provident Society. Major public works initiated during Forgan Smith's premiership were the Story Bridge over the Brisbane River, the Somerset Dam, the Mackay Outer Harbour, the Hornibrook Highway and the re-siting of the university at St Lucia. The trade unions generally supported the government's public works programmes but were less impressed with the second element of the premier's recovery policy which involved the control of money wages. During the 1932 election campaign Labor had promised to restore the basic wage after the deep cuts that were introduced during Moore's government; yet it remained at its depressed level until the 1937-38 financial year.
Forgan Smith's recovery policy was influenced by Professor James Brigden who had been brought to Queensland by Moore in 1929 to establish a Bureau of Economics and Statistics. Brigden had made enemies in the labour movement because of his deflationist ideas and, before becoming premier, Forgan Smith intimated that he would sack him and dissolve the bureau, which he called 'this imposition on industry'. After the election Forgan Smith displayed characteristic flexibility by retaining Brigden (who had qualified his earlier endorsement of the Premiers' Plan) and restructuring the bureau as the Bureau of Industry. It was given co-ordinating authority over the public works programme and later empowered as a constructing authority. Brigden and Forgan Smith developed a productive if sometimes strained working relationship and the premier was peeved when the Commonwealth Government lured Brigden from Queensland in 1938 to chair the National Insurance Commission. Brigden was replaced by the ruralist economist, Colin Clark.
Despite Brigden's contribution, the motivating force behind the Labor government's recovery policy was the premier's belief that well-planned public expenditure would solve the problem of unemployment. His almost single-minded dedication to a vigorous public works programme was, however, not without its costs. High-level taxation, slow recovery in wages and diversion of funds from other public services were unfortunate by-products of the public works programme. Nevertheless the policy achieved its objective. In marked contrast to most of the intermittent relief work, which tended to be non-productive, the projects undertaken were of lasting value to the State.
One long-term effect of Forgan Smith's premiership was to confirm the primary sector as the key component of the Queensland economy. Blinded by its ruralist ideology when it pursued some wasteful agricultural policies and neglected the development of secondary industry, the government ignored statistics which showed that secondary industry had a greater capacity to absorb labour than did the primary sector. When his attention was drawn in 1938 to the contrasting manufacturing policies of the South Australian government, Forgan Smith angrily brushed them aside with the comment that Queensland had 'the highest wage system, the best conditions of labour and the lowest unemployment' in Australia. In contrast to his at times extreme ruralism, his socialism was forever mild. He asserted that 'Socialism does not aim at the destruction of private property, on the contrary demands that all shall have an equal right to property'.
The Premier displayed himself as a wide, if somewhat indiscriminate, reader who regularly quoted authors such as Aristotle, Dryden and Maynard Keynes in his public addresses. His 1939 description of Nazi ideology as 'Nietzschean in character' was atypical of contemporary Queensland political rhetoric. He was a vehement anti-communist who constantly warned Labor of the disruptive potential of radical, left-wing elements and kept the more militant unemployed groups under close police supervision. As a young back-bencher he had supported the establishment of state enterprises. As premier he did not seek to revive those that had collapsed or had been wound up by the Moore government, but preferred to utilize regulatory bodies such as the Bureau of Industry, the Fish Board and the Central Coal Board. One of Forgan Smith's few forays into practical state socialism was the 1937 establishment of the State Electricity Commission which monopolized the Queensland electricity-supply industry.
Forgan Smith was fortunate in becoming premier in 1932. The next three years saw a marked improvement in the economic situation for which his government could claim some of the credit. Queensland's electors were obviously impressed for Labor inflicted a crushing defeat on the C.P.N.P. at the May 1935 elections. With the premier's enhanced political standing and the disintegration of the C.P.N.P. in 1936, the Forgan Smith-Fallon alliance developed into a highly efficient machine; A.W.U. influence was substantial within all sections of the party, which remained divided into a dominant moderate and a radical faction. Forgan Smith's method of preserving unity was to insist on loyalty to himself and to employ the procedures of the party to neutralize or remove dissident elements. No one was surprised when Labor won the 1938 election with only a slightly reduced majority.
Although authoritarian, Forgan Smith was shrewd enough not to become an isolated autocrat. He appreciated and used the power of the A.W.U.-led elite, while consulting with key figures in the party. His 1939 comment that in the cabinet and 'in the councils of the party room we have no Hallelujah chorus and no mutual admiration society' did not, however, accord with reality. His cabinets, which were dominated by country members, Catholics and A.W.U. graduates, were loyal and even sycophantic. Ministers dutifully formed guards of honour at South Brisbane railway station to farewell and welcome home their premier from his regular interstate trips. Cabinet stability was another hallmark of his premiership: only six changes of personnel occurred in 1932-42. His leadership was never challenged; he used his authority to exclude from cabinet the ambitious Vince Gair and unnecessarily humiliated the septuagenarian Randolph Bedford.
Radical dissidents such as Frank Waters, George Taylor, George Marriott and Tom Aikens paid for their temerity with expulsion from the party. A more serious challenge to Labor unity came from the Protestant Labor Party, which was formed in 1937 and accused the Forgan Smith government of being under the influence of the Catholic Church. The premier had been raised a Presbyterian but became disillusioned with formal religion in his youth. Yet he became a close associate of Archbishop (Sir) James Duhig and his cabinet contained a disproportionate number of Catholics. Protestant Labor fielded twenty-three candidates at the 1938 State election and polled particularly well in Brisbane, where its leader G. A. Morris won a seat. Forgan Smith's reputation for political invincibility was somewhat dented by his incapacity to defuse the sectarian challenge. The Protestant Labor Party split in 1939 and had collapsed by the 1941 election.
Throughout his premiership Forgan Smith displayed a personal concern with the development of the University of Queensland. He encouraged its relocation and sponsored new faculties such as medicine, veterinary science, agriculture and physical education. However, despite his honorary doctorate of laws in 1935, relations between him and the university senate were often acrimonious, especially over funding. At the opening of the medical school in 1939 he expressed a typically utilitarian view: 'a university is not established for the purpose of creating a privileged class in the community … a university can only play its part properly in the life of a nation if the period spent there is regarded as a period of training for greater and specialized service'.
Relations between the university and the premier slumped to a low ebb in 1941 with the passage of legislation which placed government nominees in a majority of the Senate. Forgan Smith was curtly dismissive of the flood of protest. Not surprisingly his appointment to the senate in 1943 was not received at the university with unalloyed enthusiasm. Yet he was made chancellor in 1944 (and remained so until his death). In a reversal of attitude that amazed many, he then became one of the university's most dedicated supporters. The main arts building at St Lucia is named in his honour.
The premier denied rumours after 1935 that he would enter Federal politics, assume a leadership position or, in 1936, become Queensland's next governor. Although tempted by Federal politics he did not wish to exchange his position as head of the State government for a place in the divided and dispirited Federal Opposition.
But the rumours continued and intensified after his fourth consecutive election victory in 1941. As the war situation worsened there was regular media speculation that he would accept a senior national position related to the war effort. Arthur Calwell fanned such speculation by publicly complaining in May 1942 that Forgan Smith and not Sir Owen Dixon should have been sent as Australian minister to the United States of America. By then Forgan Smith was becoming decidedly equivocal in his attitude to remaining premier. In January, in an obvious kite-flying exercise, he announced that he was prepared to serve the Curtin government in any capacity without either portfolio or salary. Yet by mid-year he was again declaring his determination to remain premier. It came as a bombshell when on 9 September he announced to a caucus meeting that he had informed cabinet the previous day of his intention to resign as premier forthwith, and then resisted strong entreaties to reconsider. Rumours again flared that he would take a Federal position, perhaps as high commissioner in London. In fact he remained in the succeeding Cooper cabinet as minister without portfolio until 9 December, when he resigned his seat to take up the posts of deputy chairman of the Sugar Board (chairman from July 1944) and chairman of the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board (till 1952). The latter position was more highly paid than the premier's.
Although he suffered from duodenal ulcers and his 'bronchitis' was, by the early 1940s, diagnosed as cancer of the larynx, Forgan Smith's relatively early retirement from government was more directly influenced by the High Court of Australia's upholding of the uniform tax Acts of 1942, which he believed would reduce the States to a condition of penurious dependence on the Federal government. He had become concerned at the drift of relations with the Commonwealth as early as 1932 when the Garnishee cases highlighted the centralist potential of the Loan Council, which he had welcomed as acting premier in 1927 but which he angrily denounced in 1933 as 'an extra-constitutional authority not responsible to any one parliament'. He reacted to the Curtin government's 1942 tax proposals with unrestrained hostility, describing them in a major parliamentary speech on 15 October as 'a superb basis for setting up fascism'. Queensland joined with Victoria and South Australia in an unsuccessful High Court challenge to the legislation. Forgan Smith left the premiership primarily because 'I would rather go out of public life than be someone else's vassal'.
By the date of his retirement he was Queensland's longest serving premier. His major contribution to the Labor party was in restoring the unity which had been fractured under McCormack and leading the party back to office in 1932. The voting statistics show that he regained and even surpassed the popularity of the Ryan and Theodore governments and that after his retirement the Labor vote declined so much that, as premier, Edward Hanlon was required to resort to creative electoral engineering to ensure victory at the 1950 election. It was in the policy areas of agriculture (particularly sugar) and public works that Forgan Smith made his mark. Left-wing critics charged him with leading a 'do nothing' government and were impatient with what they saw as his over-cautious economic policies. Ironically he partly agreed with them, confiding to family and friends that being in office during depressed economic circumstances prevented him from implementing a broader policy of social reform.
Forgan Smith's family recall him as being warm, humorous and unpretentious, whereas his public persona was one of dour sternness, dogmatism and arrogance. His intermittent heavy drinking became serious enough in 1935 for the governor to raise it with the Dominions Office. Forgan Smith cultivated a certain aloofness to impress his authority on his colleagues and to project an image of strength to the voters. His double-barrelled name, his exaggerated Scottish accent and his overall demeanour were image-building devices. In 1934 he privately lobbied the Dominions Office to secure a privy councillorship but had to be content with King George VI's permission to retain the title Honourable after his retirement as premier. After 1935 he vainly added LL.D. after his signature on newspaper articles and would have preferred to have been addressed as Dr Forgan Smith. While not a relaxed radio performer, he nevertheless disciplined himself to become a competent broadcaster.
Throughout most of his public life Forgan Smith lived in the Brisbane suburb of Yeronga. He was a keen golfer, lawn bowler and angler as well as an avid cricket fan. He died suddenly of a heart condition induced by his throat cancer on 25 September 1953 while in Sydney on Sugar Board business. A state funeral was conducted at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church and at Toowong cemetery. His wife (d.1958) and a son survived him; his elder son had died in 1951. A plaque of Forgan Smith by Daphne Mayo is held by the University of Queensland and there is a bust in Parliament House, Brisbane. He left estate valued for probate at £25,527.
L. R. MacGregor, British Imperialism (NY, 1968)
D. J. Murphy and R. B. Joyce (eds), Queensland Political Portraits, 1859-1952 (Brisb, 1978)
R. Fitzgerald, A History of Queensland from 1915 to the 1980s (Brisb, 1985)
M. I. Thomis, A Place of Light and Learning (Brisb, 1985)
Parliamentary Debates (Queensland), 29 Sept 1953, p 485
University of Queensland Gazette, Nov 1953, p 4
Courier Mail (Brisbane), 26, 29 Sept 1953
B. Carroll, The Premiership of William Forgan Smith (M.A. thesis, University of Melbourne, 1966)
B. J. Costar, Labor, Politics and Unemployment: Queensland During the Great Depression (Ph.D. thesis, University of Queensland, 1981)
Premier's Department, correspondence, 1929-40, PRE/A977-1255 (Queensland State Archives)
Forgan Smith, addresses and newsclippings, 1924-53 (University of Queensland Library)
Muir, David John (work colleague)
Mayo, Lilian Daphne (artist)
Duggan, John Edmund (related entry)
B. J. Costar, 'Smith, William Forgan (Bill) (1887–1953)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-william-forgan-bill-8489/text14933, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 18 July 2019.
This article has been amended since its original publication. View Original
This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, (MUP), 1988
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Forgan Smith, William
Invergowrie, Perthshire, Scotland
anti-conscriptionist
labour politician
Member of Lower House
trade union official
university chancellor


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The New Way of Mentoring: Defining the Practice of Mentorship
Mentor Spaces
To understand where the practice of mentorship began, we have to look back…way back. Fire up that imagination and think back to 3,000 years ago, in Ancient Greece — where many of our modern ideas on society, democracy and philosophy were born.
Many believe that the practice of mentorship traces back to the character Mentor in Homer's poem The Odyssey. As the story goes, the hero Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War, leaving his son Telemachus in the care of a good friend, Mentor. As the war rages on for decades, Mentor nurtures and educates Telemachus into adulthood.
Some theorize that the uplifting qualities of Mentor's character were developed later on, by French author Francois Fenelon. His 1699 novel Les Adventures de Telemaque assigns Mentor many of the qualities we associate with modern mentors.
Our definition of mentorship has come a long way from Ancient Greece and feudal France. We don't need a decades-long war to rage in order to meet mentors — whether in our personal or business lives — that can provide lessons from their experience to help us grow.
The practice of mentorship has grown from a static noun (think: older businessman or woman helps a younger associate climb the ladder) into an active, two-way concept that breaks down the typical hierarchical structure and focuses on mentoring as a function of experience.
Let's examine how we've arrived at this new definition of mentorship, and where the future might lie. No Trojan Horses here; just some tips and thoughts on how to get the most out of your mentoring relationships.
The Beginning of Modern Mentorship
The traditional definition of mentorship in the business world crystallized around the 1970s. At this point, the business world was a lot more static than it is today; many workers stayed in one field, with one company for their entire career.
It was this consistency that formed the rigid definition of mentorship — a junior worker forming a long-term, one-on-one relationship with a superior who was reaching down the corporate ladder and doing the youngster a favor. Many of these relationships focused on training future executives.
There's nothing wrong with a younger professional tapping into the expertise and experience of a more senior employee. But as we've seen over time, the definition of mentorship can be a lot more inclusive and nuanced than once imagined.
The New Definition of Mentorship
The biggest breakthrough in new-school mentorship is the breaking down of hierarchical barriers. Put simply, mentorship doesn't have to occur between a seasoned vet and a new hire. It's best to view mentorship through the lens of experience. Rather than focusing on finding a mentor with more years on their resume, try to find someone who's gathered lessons from experiences that might be beneficial to share.
Pairing a mentor and mentee based on relative exposure creates the best type of mentor relationships. Understanding each party's background — where they come from, how they grew up, where their career path began — can help ensure that both sides relate to each other and can achieve meaningful results.
Lastly, and possibly most importantly, is the realization that mentorship goes both ways. Top performers in every environment — whether you work in an office or on an athletic field — adopt a growth mindset and understand that learning never stops. Rip off the labels of "mentor" and "mentee" and you'll find that each side will learn valuable lessons from each other.
What many call "reverse mentoring" is really just a built-in aspect of the mentoring process. For example, a fast-rising millennial executive can teach an older new hire about the ins and outs of a particular company. What that older employee lacks in company knowledge can be made up for with old-school business acumen and people skills transferred to the young executive.
A Mentorship Community
Another new wave of mentorship involves opening up relationships to include more collective experience. Why gain exposure to just one individual's experiences when you can hear from several peers who each have unique perspectives and lessons learned?
Consider the following story from a Mentor Spaces community member, Jasmine, who is embracing the practice of mentorship.
Jasmine is a recent grad who finished her degree in a community with no connections outside of her university. As she considers her career opportunities, she had no good reference point for where to begin. As a member of NBMBAA, Jasmine received an invitation to join Mentor Spaces to have conversations with those in the know. Within a few minutes, she joined, profiled her areas of interest, joined several spaces (groups) that fit her interests. A community manager reached out and offered to introduce her to several mentors that could help answer her questions.
Jasmine hasn't decided what she's going to do for her career at this point but is confident that she now has access to people in the know. The mentors she's connected with are willing to guide her throughout her journey.
Embrace the Practice of Mentorship
Mentor Spaces is the perfect community to advance your career through the practice and power of mentorship, offering both asynchronous and synchronous opportunities for mentoring.
Asynchronous communication, like the Q&A sessions we have within our Spaces on the Mentor Spaces app, allows individuals to engage in an ongoing educational discussion without the need for immediate response. On the flip side, synchronous communication allows for live events, which we call Sessions, where face-to-face or screen-to-screen interaction leads to an active discussion. Both versions create a community to share experiences with ease.
Download the Mentor Spaces app to start having career conversations with people in the know to make decisions with confidence.
Got experiences to share? Consider becoming a mentor today.
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This item is in good condition with minor signs of use on the main fabric. There are slight snags at the waist area. There is visible discolouration on the belt buckle. The belt comes with the original dust bag.