conservativehome--2019-12-20--Tania Mathias: The Government must put NHS workers at the heart of its policy

Tania Mathias is an NHS doctor and former MP for Twickenham.  Boris Johnson’s success is already remarkable: while the message Get Brexit Done was powerful, the top line message on the NHS was for many people equally remarkable.  Londoners who remember the Johnson mayoral years know that this Government will deliver, and that means for the first time this century there is a real opportunity to reassure an electorate who have said they lost trust in politics.  Ironically, if the Government achieves this, all political parties will benefit from the restoration of trust between Parliament and the electorate.  Already there are many predictions about how Johnson will be described in history. There is an extraordinary opportunity, not seen for 71 years whereby, he could do for NHS and social care workers what Margaret Thatcher did for people living in council homes. In 2024 the Conservative Party will have looked after the NHS for 49 of its 76 years, and on the 75th birthday it can be possible for people working in the NHS to say they have never had it so good.  For that to happen, to seal the Conservative deal for people working in the NHS and care sector, Johnson’s policies need to address employee satisfaction, employee retention (including career progression), and employee health. Building 40 new hospitals is very worthwhile, but the invisible benefit of making a workforce that is proud, healthy, and wants to come to work every day will be a bigger monument to the Johnson administration.  Every new hospital needs to have employee and expert input in the design so that the people working there have the gyms and rest areas that are commonplace in organisation and institutions like Google and the Turing Institute. Putting employees at the centre of all NHS and care sector policies could give the Prime Minister his equivalent to the original Right to Buy – i.e. a policy with an effect that lasts for generations.  I, for one, am looking forward to Baroness Harding’s report on the NHS workforce. Baroness Cavendish made excellent proposals for people working in care. Now the Health Secretary – and if it is Matt Hancock we know the NHS and social care are in good hands – can speed on with policies for staff so that the NHS is the employer of choice for all job seekers.  The Government is committed to bursaries: already under Jeremy Hunt we have more medical schools in Sunderland and Lancashire, and that investment can be built on to continue to strengthen regions beyond the existing NHS centres of excellence.  Other policies for people choosing to work in the NHS could include: an ‘NHS passport’ for people coming from outside the UK to work in Health Service and social care; starting a real top class management training centre for the NHS; recruiting actively for the 300 careers in the NHS; and budgeting for sabbaticals for employees every seven years if they return to the NHS or care sector so that the NHS becomes the employer of choice for people in fields of management, cleaning, catering, technology, robotics, IT and many, many more allied health roles.  Yes, the NHS and the care sector is all about patients and people using the service- but to be the best for patients and users the employees need to be the healthiest and happiest of workforces.  The Health Foundation has said only ten per cent of our health is down to the NHS so lifestyle, mental well-being, diet, and other factors should be continued to be audited by the government. Preventative medicine can improve and if there is an NHS point of contact on the high street – a pharmacy or health practice – there can be screening hubs for all. An ambitious Government could also introduce two days of annual leave for everyone to ensure people make time to attend screening appointments, whether it’s at the GP hub or the high street NHS ‘shop’. Mental well being that starts in schools, universally available and on high street drop-in centres would also be a revolution worthy of a grand Johnson legacy.  The Prime Minister is already stepping into the high heels of Thatcher, and by 2024 there is a real chance that trust in politics will be restored – especially if the NHS and care sector has been prioritised and the Government puts the people working in them at the forefront of all health policies.


crikey--2019-08-14--Government racks up another win in its wage stagnation policy

Australian workers were stuck for another quarter with stagnant wages, the latest figures show. And this Groundhog Day is going to be repeating for a long time.  The government is at least having one success with its economic policies: its policy of deliberate wage stagnation is a raging success.  According to Wednesday's June quarter wage price index (WPI) numbers, wages growth is mired for yet another quarter at an annual growth rate of 2.3% in seasonally adjusted terms. Wages grew just 0.6% in the quarter, seasonally adjusted, with private sector wages performing even worse, at just 0.5%, while public sector wages grew 0.8%.


fortruss--2019-11-05--Greeks March Against Migrant Policy as Government Takes in 40,000 Refugees

ATHENS – Residents of a Greek city slated to host a fresh wave of asylum seekers took to the streets to protest the move, amid growing anger over the influx of refugees that have poured into the country. Anti-migration protesters in the northern city of Thessaloniki called on Athens to return all illegal immigrants to their previous host countries and close the border to migrants, RT reported.  Footage from the march showed demonstrators carrying banners and Greek flags, while an activist at the front of the procession held an icon of the Virgin Mary. Thessaloniki and surrounding towns have been selected to host thousands of migrants that Athens wants to transfer from overcrowded facilities on the Greek islands to the mainland.  According to reports, over the weekend about 900 people were transferred from Greek islands to sites on the mainland. The government is planning to relocate 20,000 refugees in total by the end of the year. Greece has taken in 40,000 migrants and refugees in the past four months alone, Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos told local media. He added that the mainland must “show solidarity” with border regions that have “borne the brunt” of the migrant influx.  Athens has repeatedly been at odds with Brussels over the European Union’s migrant policy. The country, already hampered by economic woes, has been one of the main entry points for refugees coming to Europe – and has been shouldering the burden of housing tens of thousands of asylum seekers.  This has angered the Greek people, and rightfully so, given that Greece has had economic problems for quite some time now and the last thing it needs is tens, if not hundreds of thousands of foreign people living off their welfare, which has been denied to many Greeks themselves on account of austerity measures.


foxnews--2019-08-29--Trump administrations update of policy on citizenship for certain children of government employees

Trump administration's update of policy on citizenship for certain children of government employees born overseas sparks confusion

The Trump administration on Wednesday briefly sparked confusion when it issued updated policy guidance saying some children of U.S. government employees and service members who live abroad may not be considered to be residing in the U.S. for the purposes of automatically acquiring citizenship.  The guidance by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) replaced previous input saying any child born of a U.S. government official or service member abroad would automatically acquire citizenship.  The new guidance applies only to a small group of children born abroad and does not affect children who are citizens at birth or who have already acquired citizenship.  USCIS identified three sets of children living outside the U.S. whom the policy could affect: children of non-U.S. citizens adopted by U.S. citizen employees or service members; children of non-U.S. citizen parents who become citizens after the child’s birth; and children of U.S. citizens who do not meet residency requirements to transmit citizenship to their children at birth.  “For them to obtain a Certificate of Citizenship, their U.S. citizen parent must apply for citizenship on their behalf under [Immigration and Nationality Act] 322, by filing Form N-600K, and show they meet the qualifications under that provision,” a spokesman said.  “Certain children of U.S. service members may complete the process outside of the United States without having to travel to the United States. However, children of U.S. government employees must enter the U.S. lawfully with an immigrant or nonimmigrant visa and be in lawful status when they take the oath of allegiance, which completes the process.”  The agency said the reason for the policy update was because it conflicted with the definition of “residence” under a part of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) enacted in 2008 after existing guidance was issued. It also had conflicted with State Department guidance, which it said could lead to “inconsistent” decisions on citizenship claims, according to the agency.  The Trump administration has been eyeing the thorny question of automatic birthright citizenship for some time -- particularly the policy under which the children of illegal immigrants are granted birthright citizenship. The USCIS guidance did not affect that question, but it initially sparked confusion among journalists -- some of whom deleted tweets after accidentally misconstruing the policy -- and anger among some military groups.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted the change, calling it an "attack" on military families and diplomats abroad and saying "shameful policy must be reversed immediately."  "America’s servicemembers & diplomats abroad are among our nation’s best, yet @realDonaldTrump is launching an attack on their families, putting in doubt the citizenship of their children born overseas. This shameful policy must be reversed immediately, she tweeted.  “Military members already have enough to deal with, and the last thing that they should have to do when stationed overseas is go through hoops to ensure their children are U.S. citizens,” Andy Blevins, the executive director of Modern Military Association of America -- a nonprofit for LGBTQ military and veteran families -- said in a statement.  However, Acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli tweeted that members of the media were going “crazy” and that “the highly technical policy manual used by career employees here as a reference was updated today to conform USCIS practices with the Department of State -- that's it. But some people are freaking out over nothing."  He later said in a statement that the policy “does not affect who is born a U.S. citizen, period.”  CUCCINELLI PUTS HARDLINE STAMP ON IMMIGRATION AGENDA, JUST 2 MONTHS INTO USCIS JOB  “This only affects children who were born outside the United States and were not U.S. citizens,” he said in the statement. “This does NOT impact birthright citizenship. This policy update does not deny citizenship to the children of U.S. government employees or members of the military born abroad.”  “This policy aligns USCIS’ process with the Department of State’s procedure, that’s it,” he said.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP  A Pentagon spokeswoman said the Defense Department “understands the estimated impact of this particular impact is small.  “However, we are committed to ensuring affected families are provided the appropriate information, resources and support during this transition,” Lt. Col. Carla Gleason said.  Fox News’ Rich Edson, Kellianne Jones, John Roberts and Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.


hitandrun--2019-01-02--Government Policy Created Housing Segregation So Should Government Be Required To Fix It Debate

Government Policy Created Housing Segregation. So Should Government Be Required To Fix It?: Debate

That's the proposition under debate at the next Reason/Soho Forum debate, which takes place at New York City's Subculture Theater on Monday, January 14. Tickets cost between $12 and $24 and must be purchased online. Admission includes a buffet of light fare and a cash bar. Details below.  Reason is proud to sponsor The Soho Forum, a monthly debate series covering topics of particular interest to libertarians. Moderated by Gene Epstein, long-time economics editor at Barron's, the debates are conducted "Oxford style," meaning the audience is polled before and after the proceedings and the winner is the debater who moves more people to his or her point of view. Each debate is subsequently turned in to a Reason video and podcast for later listening. For a full archive of past Soho Forum debates, go here.  Here are specifics about the debate on Monday, January 14:  "Since the federal government fostered housing segregation in the 20th century, the government should foster housing integration in the 21st." Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a fellow of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and of the Haas Institute at the University of California (Berkeley). He is the author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America. His other recent work has documented the history of state-sponsored residential segregation, as in his report, The Making of Ferguson. He is the author of Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (2008) and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap(2004). Other recent books include The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (co-authored in 2005); and All Else Equal: Are Public and Private Schools Different? (co-authored in 2003). Howard Husock is vice president for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute, where he is also director of the Institute's social entrepreneurship initiative. City Journal contributing editor, he is the author of Philanthropy Under Fire (2013) and The Trillion-Dollar Housing Mistake: The Failure of American Housing Policy (2003). From 1987 through 2006, Husock was director of case studies in public policy and management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he was also a fellow at the Hauser Center on Nonprofit Organizations and an adjunct lecturer in public management. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Society, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Philanthropy, The Wilson Quarterly, and Public Interest. Husock has written widely on U.S. housing policy, including Repairing the Ladder: Toward a New Housing Policy Paradigm (1996).  As always, the comedian Dave Smith (follow him on Twitter and listen to his podcast Part of the Problem) will open the eveing with a fresh set of material based on the evening's topic.  Here are details of the event:  Bonus: I interviewed Rothstein about his path-breaking book, The Color of Law, which reveals all the ways in which federal housing policy, especially as it got kicked into high gear under Franklin Roosevelt, segregated housing patterns in the United States. Rothstein is a liberal—a former New York Times education reporter, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, and a fellow at the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund Thurgood Marshall Institute—but pulls no punches when it comes to the effects of what transpired.  "In many cases," says Richard Rothstein, "the federal government did create...segregation in metropolitan areas and in cities that had never known segregation before. In other cases...it did reinforce segregation that was already in existence. But the country was much, much more segregated as a result of these federal policies than it was before, or would be today without them."  What he and the Manhattan Institute's Howard Husock will be debating is less about the past and more about what to do next. It should be a fascinating conversation with direct relevance to housing policy in every city in the country. Here's the podcast I did with Rothstein:


ipolitics--2019-12-17--New study says intergovernmental cooperation on labour market policy has improved

A new study suggests the provinces and Ottawa are enjoying a much improved relationship when it comes to developing labour market policy, as evidenced by new workplace development agreements and the establishment of Labour Market Information Council and Future Skills Centre.  The study, authored by Andrew McDougall and published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, details how the once-acrimonious relationship, marked by jurisdictional squabbles and regional politics, has improved as it has shifted more toward developing pragmatic solutions.  “In the last couple of years, you’ve really seen both Ottawa and the provinces put some of that politics aside a little bit,” McDougall, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough, told iPolitics in an interview Tuesday.  “And now you see a much more collaborative relationship than you had previously, and one that’s really started to be more focused on solutions to the problems that those orders of government have identified rather than focusing on jurisdictional disputes,” he said.  The long-standing jurisdictional issues over labour market policy essentially boils down to Ottawa’s push for a national public employment service that helps match supply and demand clashing with the province’s exclusive constitutional responsibility for education, according to the study. The provincial governments have long maintained that their own training and skills development are more effective because they respond to regional and local conditions.  In particular, Quebec has argued for decades that the federal government should not be providing training programs.  Finally, in response to the nail-biter 1995 Quebec referendum and pressure from some other provinces, Ottawa began devolving leadership for training and skills programs, leading to a series of intergovernmental agreements governing the transfer of responsibility and funds to the provincial governments.  Ottawa, though, remained involved in programs for Indigenous people, youth and people with disabilities.  READ MORE: Liberals focus on skills, housing, students and seniors in pre-election budget  During this devolution period, the study points to the forum for federal, provincial and territorial labour market ministers for playing an important role in intergovernmental relations in this sector.  McDougall credited pressure from constituents favouring more amicable relationships between the various orders of government and a cooling of some of the regional political tensions for helping to improve intergovernmental relations on the file.  But he also said a big factor was the development of certain norms and expectations around co-operation that have crystallized during the devolution period.  For example, he said Quebec has long had an interest in the devolution of federal programs and, now that it has achieved that, the other provinces and Ottawa have accepted this arrangement, thus cooling the politics behind the push.  “Now there are certain norms that have developed in this field around collaboration, which hadn’t existed previously. And it becomes much more difficult for an order of government to try to pull something unexpected,” McDougall explained.  “So it kind of evolved together into this more collaborative relationship. And then some of the politics that was behind (it) sort of faded a little bit.”  The development of new institutions and communications channels have also led to the creation of their “own norms,” which have a “constraining factor on what the expectations are and what’s possible,” according to McDougall.  Intergovernmental relations, he said, have been “notoriously flexible” when it comes to what governments want to do, but there is a “constraining force that comes in from these past practices that developed when you see the same people over and over again.”  While McDougall’s study credits developments in the labour market arena by the current federal Liberal government, such as reaching workplace development agreements with all the provinces and territories and collaborating to create the Labour Market Information Council and Future Skills Centre, he said this work towards improved intergovernmental relations has been a “long standing process.”  However, he said it has been helped by the Liberal government’s greater emphasis on skills training and working with the provinces, in contrast to the “open federalism” practised by the former Harper government that was more focused on the different orders of governments staying in their own jurisdictional avenues.  For example, the Liberals in the 2019 budget introduced a new personalized training benefit program, dubbed the Canada Training Benefit. The benefit includes a $250 non-taxable credit to help pay for training fees and four weeks of income support through the Employment Insurance program that will help workers cover living expenses while on training (and not receiving income).


labourlist--2019-07-03--Does the Referendum and Remain policy work for a government in waiting

Does the ‘Referendum and Remain’ policy work for a government in waiting?

One of the keys to petrochemical giant Shell’s sustained success has been its Scenarios department. According to [its website](https://www.shell.com/energy- and-innovation/the-energy-future/scenarios/meet-the-shell-scenarios- team.html), these scenarios explore “possible versions of the future by identifying drivers, uncertainties, enablers and constraints, and unearthing potential issues and their implications”. Party members and strategists alike will be familiar with this type of exercise, as we all try to play the electoral tape through to the end. Surprising, then, how little has been made of the long-term incoherence of the ‘Referendum and Remain’ position.  Supporters of this policy believe that the best deal available to the UK is EU membership. Calling on Labour to commit not just to a referendum on any Brexit deal – as is current policy – but also to campaigning for Remain in that referendum is thus an understandable next step. As has been [hinted at](https://labourlist.org/2019/06/labour-backs-a-public-vote-on-any-deal-but- remain-is-still-a-step-too-far/) on _LabourList_ before, however, the unspoken logic of Referendum and Remain is that Labour would no longer seek to negotiate a different Brexit deal at all, since it would then be obliged to campaign against it – a point Wes Streeting, an advocate of the policy, has also [acknowledged](https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1141863393583947776?s=20).  This is just the tip of the iceberg. The more you game out Referendum and Remain, the less useful this policy seems in the long term. It is not the function of the opposition merely to oppose – it needs to be a government in waiting. This means adopting the policies it intends to pursue in power. Working backwards from a Labour general election victory, it is unclear how a policy of Referendum and Remain meets this test. Given the very real prospect of a successful no-confidence vote in the next Prime Minister, electoral coherence is a legitimate consideration for the Labour leadership.  Were Labour to win a pre-Brexit early election on a Referendum and Remain platform, the logic of a second referendum is immediately diminished. Would it not be more logical for the new government simply to proceed to Article 50 revocation? Why would the party, having so recently gained a mandate from the people for its Remain stance, put itself on the hook to deliver Brexit (should the subsequent referendum go against them)? It would send the country back to square one – only then it would be up to Labour to implement a policy against which it had explicitly campaigned not once but twice. It appears that revocation, not a referendum, is the logical conclusion of the policy being proposed.  This is a problem because Referendum and Remain is premised and sold on the idea of any deal being put to the people, versus the option to Remain. While in opposition, this works fine. But in government, with responsibility for securing a deal – if only for it to be put to a referendum – the logic is much less clear: it seems doubtful that a Labour government would either commit to campaign against its own new deal, or seek to pass Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement – having so routinely disparaged it – purely for the purposes of having a leave option on a referendum ballot paper.  It is unclear whether Labour would ever go into an election committed to Referendum and Remain for these reasons. The only alternative would thus be for Labour to campaign for revocation of Article 50. My instinct, though, is that many second referendum supporters are less enthusiastic about the optics of pivoting to revocation, however logical a progression it may be.  Referendum and Remain only seems tenable so long as Labour are in opposition. Jeremy Corbyn and his allies have often been [accused](https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/corbyns-cranks-arent- interested-in-power/) of being more interested in fighting the good fight in opposition than making tough decisions in government. But surely Labour cannot claim to be a credible government-in-waiting while advocating in opposition a policy that it does not intend to pursue in government.  I do not doubt that the leader’s office has already thought through these ramifications. Its reluctance to move to a Referendum and Remain position may well stem both from a (legitimate) desire to avoid the perception of abandoning Leave voters and from concern over the practical evolution of such a policy. While proponents of the shift are right that, given the October Brexit deadline, Labour needs to position itself for the present, it is also fair to highlight the longer-term complications of their preferred solution.  ###  Stephen Gilmore  Stephen Gilmore is a master's student and former parliamentary staffer.  [ @stevegilmore17 ](https://twitter.com/@stevegilmore17) [View all articles by Stephen Gilmore](https://labourlist.org/author/stephen-gilmore/)  ### Value our free and unique service?  LabourList has more readers than ever before - but we need your support. Our dedicated coverage of Labour's policies and personalities, internal debates, selections and elections relies on donations from our readers.  [Support LabourList](/donate)


labourlist--2019-10-31--What would a Corbyn government mean for UK policy towards Israel?

A few days into a general election campaign, Labour will hold a ‘Clause V’ meeting. This confusingly composed group consists of: Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), the shadow cabinet, the parliamentary committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the leaders of the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties, and the chair and three vice-chairs of the national policy forum (NPF) and eight trade union members of the TULO contact group. It gets to decide which of the policies passed by party conferences by a two thirds majority – the ‘party programme’ – to include in Labour’s general election manifesto.  One area where party conference has given scope for a potentially dramatic policy shift from relatively anodyne text in the 2017 manifesto is Labour’s stance on Israel and the Palestinians. Much has been written about the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party, and the linkage between it and extreme anti-Israel discourse, but there has been less scrutiny of where Labour’s actual policy stance towards Israel has moved.  The new policy passed at the 2019 party conference was carefully calibrated not to appear extreme, e.g. by never mentioning the word boycott. But it subtly gave the green light to a number of very problematic concepts, and took Labour another step towards the overt anti-Israel stance of Jeremy Corbyn himself.  The motion claimed: “Recent actions by US and Israeli administrations are destroying prospects for peace in Palestine” – a dog whistle message that two states is no longer a viable proposition.  The conference committed to oppose any peace deal “not based on international law and UN resolutions recognising… [Palestinian] rights to… return to their homes”. By making the ‘right of return’ for all Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel a condition for support of a peace deal, as the resolution did, the party signalled it is no longer really interested in the ‘two states for two peoples’ solution as the ‘right of return’ implies both states would have an Arab majority. It is a demand that Israel could never sign up to without committing national suicide. Is Labour really suggesting that approximately five million Palestinian descendants of refugees could move to live in Israel?  The position on an arms embargo was actually more nuanced than one passed in 2018: “stopping any arms trade with Israel that is used in violation of the human rights of Palestinians”. But the new step was to include wording that would allow Labour to put a targeted boycott of settlement produce into its manifesto: “To adhere to an ethical policy on all UK’s trade with Israel, in particular by applying international law on settlements.”  Most alarmingly, it provided scope for a wider boycott policy if trade agreements with Israel do not attach unspecified conditions about Gaza and the West Bank: “rejecting trade agreements with Israel that fail to recognise the rights of the Palestinians”. This has teeth as post-Brexit, trade with Israel would be controlled by the UK bilaterally, not conducted under EU rules. It introduces an ill-defined ethical test that could be used to veto any or all trade deals with Israel.  What is missing from the resolution speaks volumes. No recognition of the Jewish right to self-determination. No mention of Israel being a Jewish state. No mention of Jewish suffering through antisemitism and genocide creating the need for statehood. No mention of Israeli victims of war, terrorism and missile attacks. No recognition of Israel’s legitimate right of self-defence to protect its citizens.  Even though the policy adopted isn’t as radical as it would be expected to be given Corbyn’s own history on the issue and those of his core activist supporters, it is still the most radical anti-Israel platform adopted by a major UK political party, and a significant break from the pre-2015 cross-party consensus.  If Labour wins with these policies in the manifesto, implementation of them would severely damage Britain-Israel relations. They would erode the booming bilateral trade relationship and weaken vital defence and security ties that keep British and Israeli people safe.  The Labour leadership could move back towards the centre of the party if Corbyn loses a Brexit-dominated general election. But with the unions locked into policy positions identical to (or more radical than) the party’s stance; and a multitude of fronts, not least internal antisemitism, on which Labour’s credibility would need to be restored, would a new leader expend any political capital on prioritising reversing the policy changes on Israel?  Luke Akehurst writes this piece in his capacity as director of We Believe in Israel. You can read the extended essay on which this piece is based here.


mercurynews--2019-12-05--Letter: Long-time, clear government policy on whistleblowers

I worked locally for 23 years for the federal government. Yesterday, I was cleaning out my office after my retirement. On some paperwork from the past, I found a notice on an official form that said: “Whistleblowers are protected and guaranteed anonymity.”  This was commonly known and clear government policy. • Letter: Too many ‘public servants’ seem to serve themselves • Letter: Deputies inspired to communicate with and respect everyone No laws since then have changed that. But, Trump and the Republicans seem to think they have the right to ignore it. Also changed with them has been any sense of honesty, integrity, compassion, decency and morality. However, I do see these last five characteristics in Adam Schiff and many of the outstanding witnesses in the impeachment hearing.  Submit your letter to the editor via this form   Read more Letters to the Editor


naturalnews--2019-06-02--Straight up treason Cadre of Obama officials have been counseling Iranian government how to count

Straight up treason: Cadre of Obama officials have been “counseling” Iranian government how to countermand Trump administration’s foreign policy

(Natural News) If you still believe that the Democrat Party is first and foremost concerned about protecting and defending America, put that idea completely out of your head.  If Democrats aren’t thwarting every single effort by the Trump administration and most Republicans to shore up security along the U.S.-Mexico border and shut down the importation of potentially dangerous migrants, they are activity undermining the president of the United States as he and his national security team attempt to deal decisively with an avowed adversary: Iran.  In May 2018, reports noted that John Kerry, who succeeded crooked Hillary Clinton as head of the State Department, had been in frequent contact with the leaders of the terrorism-supporting Iranian regime as POTUS Trump was considering pulling the United States out of the “nuclear deal.” (Related: Kerry whines after Trump pulls U.S. out of ‘horrible’ Iran nuke deal and POTUS back-hands him.)  At the time, Trump blasted Kerry’s actions as blatantly illegal, per the Logan Act, which “is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States,” an online description of the law states. “Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.”  Now, thanks to reporting from The Daily Beast, we learn that a cabal of former Obama administration officials has been in regular contact with the Iranian regime, undermining the Trump administration:  As the Trump administration sent warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, a small group of former Obama administration officials reached out to their contacts in the Iranian government, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Their message to Iran: Don’t take Trump’s bait. Stay calm.  In addition, the website noted that congressional Democrats were in on the meddling and ‘counseling’ as well:  Three Obama officials who worked closely on the Iran nuclear deal, one of whom is still in touch with Iranian government officials, traveled to Capitol Hill to brief congressional Democrats about the situation.  “It’s not just about what they were saying to the Iranians,” an aide told the Beast. “It’s about what they were saying to their political allies back here in the U.S. Their strategy was to divide and isolate the Trump administration just as the Trump administration was trying to re-establish deterrence with Iran. In the current highly partisan political environment, the only safe course is to signal national unity — and they contributed to eroding that at home and abroad.”  Keep in mind that the United States isn’t at war with Iran, of course, but in many ways we are ‘competing’ with Iran and, as the 2018 National Defense Strategy (pdf.) notes, Iran has been identified by the Trump administration as an adversary:  China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. At the same time, the dictatorships of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize their own people…  “Iran is a declared enemy of the United States. It doesn’t matter whether John Kerry, Barack Obama, Democrats, or other former Obama administration officials think so. POTUS Trump is president now and he gets to make those determinations,” The National Sentinel reports. “If what these people are doing — apparently in cooperation with Democrats on Capitol Hill — doesn’t amount to treasonous behavior or some other violation of U.S. law, there is no such thing.”  The Trump administration has to move against this cabal, legally, as it must also move against the Spygate conspirators who sought to depose our duly-elected president.  Read more about the illegal deep state activities to undermine the Trump White House at DeepState.news and WhiteHouse.news.


newswars--2019-11-20--The Instability of Markets Is Not Nearly as Bad as the Instability of Government Policy

A seductive (if poorly considered) critique of markets is the notion that they are so wildly unpredictable and inherently unstable that we need government to watch over them and intervene to mitigate their excesses.  There is a great irony in this position which I will reveal.  Economist John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) made perhaps the most famous case for this view, coining the term “animal spirits” to describe the irrational, impulse-driven whims of market-actors based on arbitrary expectations that could only cause instability. The idea itself seems to make sense because it’s hard for intellectuals, who love chewing over ideas and coming up with bright plans, to see how a society could run coherently without a single plan. The truth is, market economies are actually planned — there is just no central plan. What happens on a market is that lots of individuals make little plans to roll out their bright ideas into businesses, charities, and other organizations, hoping to influence as many people as possible. The plans which prove successful on the small scale attract resources and grow steadily in their impact. Other planners emulate them and adapt their own plans in light of their success. Meanwhile, those plans which prove to be failures never get far off the ground.  This means that, left to their own devices, markets have their own self-correcting mechanisms which Keynes appeared to have overlooked. While in any situation there may be entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers who do indeed make poor or irrational decisions and make mistakes (driven by their animal spirits) there will always be others who succeed as well. The mechanism of profit and loss allocates the pool of available capital to those producers who make good predictions as to what consumers (you and I) want over the long term and reallocate them away from those who use them badly. This limits the scope of damage caused by bad or incompetent decision-makers. Where people fail, the results of those failures will be limited to some small number of people. This can not be said of failures of government which might extend to affecting the entire society.  Now, here’s the irony. Even allowing for Keynes his hypothesis that markets are inherently unstable, how can the prospect of intervention by government, at any time, into the economy do anything but make the market more unpredictable and make it more difficult for the “little planners” to make long-term decisions? Over the course of 20 years a government could change five or more times. With each change in administration the form of state intervention in the economy can change dramatically, as can the political philosophy driving it. Plans can be added or scrapped at any time. Government can increase or reduce taxes at whim, or increase or decrease spending. They can pass new tariffs, grant subsidies, institute licensing laws and regulations or scrap them. Government-mandated central banks (like the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve) can increase or decrease interest rates; expand the money supply or contract it. Plus what makes those calm and virtuous actors themselves immune to the influences of the animal spirits? Do they not too have emotional whims, not to mention voters and campaign contributors to please?  Yes, when the specter of government hangs looming over the economy conditions can rapidly and unpredictably change at any time, in countless ways, and this can only exacerbate the problem that the Keynesians plan to solve. Economist Robert Higgs called this the phenomenon of “Regime Uncertainty,” where investors fear it may be hard or even impossible to foresee the extent to which future government actions will alter the “rules to the game.” As a result, investors become averse to taking risk (much in the way that Keynes feared they might) not due to a lack of government intervention — but in anticipation of it!  Private investors have “skin in the game.” Their own self-interest should motivate them to only take certain risks of personal loss, and investigate all the available information to make robust decisions. But public servants are forever fated to spending other peoples money on other people. The best people at making decisions with money are most likely not in government. They’re probably out there in the free market making “Little Plans” to launch a new business or product that might one day spread out to the furthest reaches of the earth the way mobile phones are now reaching the world’s poorest populations in Africa.


pbs--2019-06-14--Court rules against Trumps abortion policy for immigrant teens in government shelters

Court rules against Trump's abortion policy for immigrant teens in government shelters

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court in Washington ruled Friday against a Trump administration policy it described as a “blanket ban” preventing immigrant teens in government custody from getting abortions, and it kept in place an order blocking the policy.  The policy, which dates to 2017, prohibited shelters from facilitating abortions for children held in government shelters after entering the country illegally. The policy has not been in force since March 2018, when [a judge blocked it](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/court-rules-that-government- cant-block-immigrant-teens-from-abortion), writing that the government couldn’t implement a policy that strips minors of the right to make their own reproductive choices. On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that judge’s ruling.  DHS allows pregnant women in immigration custody to obtain abortions, but the policy had been different for minors.  “We are unanimous in rejecting the government’s position that its denial of abortion access can be squared with Supreme Court precedent,” the opinion says. The Supreme Court first announced the right to an abortion in its 1973 Roe v. Wade case, and subsequent rulings have upheld it.  The opinion for the panel of judges — Sri Srinivasan, Robert Wilkins and Laurence Silberman — was unsigned. Beyond that agreement, however, Silberman wrote a dissent to explain why he wouldn’t have allowed the case to go forward as a class action. And he argued in support of giving officials a limited window to transfer a minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor, where the child could then obtain an abortion without the government’s assistance. Srinivasan and Wilkins were appointed by President Barack Obama and Silberman by President Ronald Reagan.  The Trump administration could now ask the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hear the case. It could also appeal to the Supreme Court. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh likely wouldn’t take part in the case. That’s because he ruled on the case at an earlier stage as a judge on the D.C. Circuit, where he made the argument Silberman repeated about transferring a minor to a sponsor’s care. That would leave eight justices, four liberals and four conservatives, to rule on the case.  The case against the administration’s policy was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented several pregnant minors who were seeking abortions. In those instances, teens who sought abortions were ultimately able to obtain them. And since the judge’s order in 2018 blocking the policy, other minors in government custody who have sought abortions have been able to get them.  [WATCH: Undocumented teen in legal limbo over her right to an abortion ](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/undocumented-teen-in-legal-limbo-over-her- right-to-an-abortion)  “The Trump administration’s cruel policy of blocking young immigrant women in federal custody from accessing abortion was a blatant abuse of power,” said Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, in a statement after the ruling. “We are relieved that today’s ruling continues to prevent the policy from taking effect while the case proceeds, and allows the case to proceed as a class action as we continue this fight.”  The Department of Justice declined to comment on the ruling. A spokesman for the office within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that is responsible for sheltering children who illegally enter the country unaccompanied by a parent, said the decision is being reviewed. DHS allows pregnant women in immigration custody to obtain abortions, but the policy had been different for minors.


rawstory--2019-09-06--BUSTED Trumps government shutdown policy ruled illegal by federal agency

BUSTED: Trump’s government shutdown policy ruled illegal by federal agency

On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration broke the law by ordering the national park system to remain open during the federal government shutdown in January.  GAO alleges that the Interior Department illegally moved money around between departments to keep the parks open. The agency will brief Congress on which individuals were behind these decisions.  Trump’s decision to keep open national parks stood in stark contrast to previous shutdowns, when the parks were closed. Administration officials may have been fearful of a repeat of what happened during the 2013 government shutdown, when furious veterans pushed past the barricade of the World War II memorial in D.C.  While the parks remained open, rangers and other federal employees were furloughed, leading to horrific piles of trash accumulating in some places.  The 35-day shutdown — the longest in government history — was kicked off by the president backing off a bipartisan compromise funding bill and refusing to sign any continuing resolution until Congress appropriated funding for his border wall. The standoff lasted until major U.S. airports started being paralyzed by unpaid air traffic controllers, at which point Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) caved and accepted the original compromise.  Trump subsequently declared a national emergency to divert military funding to construct his border wall anyway, although construction has not started yet.


redstate--2019-02-04--Bad Ideas Never Die Government Makes Them Policy Over and Over Again

Bad Ideas Never Die – Government Makes Them Policy Over and Over Again

American colleges have for decades now been ongoing, rolling disaster areas.  They are Leftist claptrap outfits that take mind-numbed victims of calamitous government primary and secondary education – and radicalize them to join the fight to end Western Civilization.  Conservative vanguard William F. Buckley wrote about his atrocious experience at Yale – in the early 1950s.  And that was two decades before colleges and then the nation were afflicted with the Baby Boomer generation.  Things have been ever devolving – consistently and precipitously.  “As Oscar Wilde should have said, when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses.”  What’s even worse than when these graduates of academic malpractice enter society?  When they enter government.  It’s why Washington, D.C. spends so much of our money propping up colleges.  Government capitols and college campuses are the only places on Earth where ideas as stupid as these can so effortlessly exist.  It is the Year of Our Lord 2019.  DC is currently thoroughly consumed with discussing the supposed merits of Collectivism – Socialism, Communism, etc.:  “Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”  Our DC Geniuses act as if Collectivism – has never, ever before been tried anywhere on planet Earth.  Oh but it has.  Over and over and over again since the 1917 Collectivist revolution in Russia.  How’d Collectivism do?  Well, about 100 million people have thus far been murdered.  And orders of magnitude more have been subjected to authoritarian and economic horrors beyond our ability to accurately comprehend.  But in DC, our Geniuses ignore a century of incalculable, inconceivable Collectivist suffering – and press on.  Leading one of these idiotic collectivist charges are DC Geniuses like New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), California Democrat Senator Kamala Harris and Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders – and their titanic struggles with the basic math of Medicare.  As of 2012, Medicare as currently constituted faces a looming tab – for which there is absolutely no money – of $38.6 trillion.  And more and more medical professionals – are refusing to take Medicare patients:  “As doctors become more frustrated with Medicare’s reimbursement rates and rules, many are displaying their dissatisfaction by not treating Medicare patients.”  And because Medicare pays too little – private insurance companies and individuals pay way more.  To make up the institutional government shortfalls:  “Plans are increasingly concerned about the degree to which providers overcharge them to make up for losses from government programs.”  The DC Geniuses – want to subject us to Medicare for All.  Meaning we all jump into a pool – already drained to negative $40 trillion…just by senior citizens.  DC Genius Kamala Harris – openly wants the government to murder the private industry that has for decades been picking up the massive government slack.  When everyone has to use government medicine – and there’s nowhere else to go – what do you think starts happening?  Eternally long lines to see anyone remotely related to medicine.  And Sarah Palin was correct – death panels, where government lords over you Caesar-style and gives you the ultimate, eternal thumbs-down.  Obamacare was the last expansion of government’s involvement in the health care sector.  The results were uniformly disastrous.  Its namesake Barack Obama repeatedly promised us our insurance premiums would go down by $2,500 per year.  Since, premiums have, on average, doubled – and deductibles have tripled.  Obamacare author Jonathan Gruber very-stupidly-on-video admitted – as a Kamala Harris precursor – its ultimate objective was to murder the private industry.  The DC Geniuses have time and again thoroughly screwed up private health care.  With Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Department of Defense’s TRICARE and TRICARE for Life, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the Indian Health Service (IHS) program and Obamacare.  All of which pay care providers too little – too slowly.  All of which forces care providers to charge private industry and individuals ever more – to pick up all of the massive government slack.  And The DC Geniuses’ solution to all of these massive government messes?  Collectivize them all together – into one titanic government mess.  Government never, ever learns anything – from anything.  About anything.  Government Broadband’s Record Is Bad; Traverse City Going For It:  “Traverse City’s public utility wants to build out a fiber-optic network to every home and business in the municipality….  “(U)tility staffers began drafting a request for approval to apply for a long-term, low-interest loan from the federal government….  “Based upon construction cost estimates from a contractor, the utility plans to apply for a $16.3 million loan….Tim Arends, executive director of Traverse City Light & Power, said it would be more economical to secure a low-interest loan from the federal government than to issue a bond to cover construction costs.”  More economical for Travis City?  Sure.  For We the Federal Taxpayers?  Surely not.  Is the idea of Collectivist government Internet novel?  Is it a brand new notion – for “governmental ownership and administration of the means of production” of broadband?  Of course not.  Government Geniuses have tried government broadband – since the very beginnings of the private sector’s ongoing, massive ever-expansions of broadband.  Shocker: The private sector’s results – have been mind-bogglingly incredible.  Governments’ results – have been uniformly, excruciatingly atrocious.  The Internet ‘Stimulus’-Just as Destructive as the Rest of the ‘Stimulus’  Despite Glossy Reports, Muni Broadband is Still a Net Money Loser  Lake County Another Example of Failed Municipal Broadband  What Other Cities Should Learn from Philly’s Failed Municipal Broadband Effort  There’s even at least one website – dedicated to cataloguing the very many government fails:  “For decades, local governments have made promises of faster and cheaper broadband networks. Unfortunately, these municipal networks often don’t deliver or fail, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Explore the map to learn about the massive debt, waste and broken promises left behind by these failed government networks.”  Travis City’s latest foray into folly – won’t be paid for by Travis City.  It’s a “loan” from the DC Geniuses – from which We the Federal Taxpayers will never, ever again see a penny.  Because Travis City’s government broadband – will fail.  Just as nigh all governments’ attempts everywhere at government broadband – have failed.  But that’s ok.  The DC Geniuses have managed us into $22 trillion in already-on-the-books debt.  And at least $127 trillion in unfunded future debt – thanks to government health care and government retirement accounts (Social Security).  So we have plenty of coin to waste on a brand new government broadband fail.  Following up on a quarter century-plus of government broadband fails.  Oh: And guess who – besides our Government Geniuses – think this nigh-endless line of terrible ideas…is just great?  “Harvard manages to conduct an entire ‘study’ – totally surrounded by these mountain ranges of evidence that government broadband stinks on ice – and somehow writes the bizarre following:  “‘Our examination of advertised prices shows that community-owned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks in the United States generally charge less for entry-level broadband service than do competing private providers.’”  Perhaps.  For maybe two highly-government-subsidized weeks.  After which government’s attempts at broadband – go bankrupt and away.  But Government and College Geniuses – are too stupid to notice all these pesky facts and this annoying evidence.  Unfortunately, so too is their ever-increasing victim pool.  We the Reasonable eminently get the horrible joke of government doing anything – and everything.  And We get to pay the incalculably heinous tab for it.  What it lacks in hilarity – it more than makes up for with total American economic destruction.


sottnet--2019-05-06--Ex-pms agrees Australias security agencies are run by NUTTERS who are writing government policy

Ex-pm's agrees Australia's security agencies are run by 'NUTTERS who are writing government policy' after article critical of foreign policy towards China published

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has slammed Australia's security bosses as 'nutters' in a bizarre interview less than two weeks from the Federal Election. Speaking to ABC , Mr Keating discussed the economic impact Labor's policies would have on the nation, before slamming ASIO and ASIS, accusing them of being anti- China and 'running Australia's foreign policy'.'When the security agencies are running foreign policy, the nutters are in charge,' he said."They've lost their strategic bearings, these organisations."Mr Keating, who was Labor prime minister between 1991 and 1996, has called for spy chiefs to be sacked in a bid to improve relations with China, saying he would 'clean them out'.The politician said problems began to mount in the security council after former journalist John Garnaut helped to write a classified report for ASIO on Chinese influence in Australia.Mr. Keatings remarks come at 15:32'Once that Garnaut guy came back from China and [Malcolm] Turnbull gave him the ticket to go and hop into the security agencies, they've all gone berko ever since,' he said.Paul Keating said Australia's security agencies went 'berko' after former journalist John Garnaut helped write a classified ASIO report on ChinaMr Keating said any incumbent government needed to rethink Australia's relationship with China.'You know, China, whatever you think, China is a great state,' he said.Following the inflammatory comments, Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on Bill Shorten to denounce Mr Keating's remarks, noting the agencies had prevented 15 terror attacks in Australia.'For what the Labor Party calls a Labor legend to go out there and attack the credibility of our security agencies that have been saving lives in this country, I think is very disappointing,' the PM told reporters in Nowra on Monday.'I think that should be disowned and I think the leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, should be having something to say about that in denouncing what Paul Keating had to say.'Prime Minister Scott Morrison called on Labor to denounce Mr Keating's remarks, with Labor Leader Bill Shorten telling reporters there would be no 'clean out' of Australia's security agencies under a government he led. Labor's deputy leader Tanya Plibersek said there would 'absolutely not' be a full-scale clean-out of Australia's security agencies under a Shorten government.'People love Paul Keating for his colourful language,' she told ABC Radio National on Monday.'We have a very good relationship with Australia's security agencies.'She said Mr Keating did not run Labor policy, noting the opposition valued regular briefings it receives from agencies.'Paul Keating is right to say that China is an absolutely vital economic partner for Australia and we have to have a good relationship with China,' Ms Plibersek said.Labor's Deputy Leader said the party enjoyed a 'very good' relationship with security agencies, but said Mr Keating was right to highlight China's importance


sottnet--2019-09-11--Worlds governments welcome Bolton exit but still wary of future Trump foreign policy

World's governments welcome Bolton exit but still wary of future Trump foreign policy

The ultimate tyranny in a society is not control by martial law. It is control by the psychological manipulation of consciousness, through which reality is defined so that those who exist within it do not even realize that they are in prison. They do not even realize that there is something outside of where they exist.


tass--2019-01-29--Lavrov US policy aimed at toppling Venezuelas government

Lavrov: US policy aimed at toppling Venezuela’s government

MOSCOW, January 29. /TASS/. Washington and its closest allies are openly pursuing a policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate authorities in Caracas, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.  "We are concerned about what the US and its closest allies are doing with respect to Venezuela, brazenly violating all imaginable norms of international law and actually openly pursuing the policy aimed at overthrowing the legitimate government in that Latin American country," the minister said.  The decision to exempt American businesses from the sanctions against Venezuela is evidence of Washington’s intention for regime change in that country while at the same time maximizing profit from it, he added. "This merely underscores the cynicism of the current developments. US companies operating in Venezuela are exempt from these sanctions. In other words, they wish to topple the government and derive material gains from this," Lavrov said.  The anti-Maduro forces are getting their orders from Washington, who instruct them not to make any compromises with the authorities in Caracas, Lavrov stressed.  "According to our sources, the leaders of the opposition movement who have declared ‘dual power’ are in fact receiving instructions from Washington not to make any concessions until the authorities agree to abdicate in some way," Lavrov said.  "Together with other responsible members of the international community, we will do everything to support President Maduro’s legitimate government in upholding the Venezuelan constitution and employing methods to resolve the crisis that are within the constitutional framework," the Russian top diplomat stressed.  ## Bolton’s notepad  Lavrov pointed out that during a recent press briefing, US National Security Adviser John Bolton nonchalantly displayed a notepad about sending troops to Colombia that cameras quickly picked up. This raised eyebrows, particularly given Washington’s statements about a potential military intervention in Venezuela.  "I have read reports saying that apparently yesterday, John Bolton held a press briefing and, according to the media, was careless enough to expose some notes to journalists with TV and photo cameras. The note read ‘5,000 troops to Colombia.’ This raised some eyebrows, especially given the overt calls for using Venezuela’s neighboring countries to launch a direct intervention due to the difficult humanitarian situation in Venezuela, which can be heard from the United States and a number of other countries," the Russian top diplomat elaborated.  The note in question took center stage at Bolton’s press briefing. Many media outlets posted a photo of him holding the notepad with handwritten notes that read "Afghanistan - welcome the talks" and "5,000 troops to Colombia." When asked about a potential US military intervention, a White House spokesperson noted, "As the president has said, all options are on the table."  Colombia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries later rejected the reports about a potential deployment of 5,000 US troops to the country. Colombian Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo said that Bogota was unaware of any such plans.  ## EU initiative  Moscow has asked the European Union to explain its initiative to resolve the situation in Venezuela, Lavrov said.  "We have taken note that although several EU countries presented an ultimatum to [Venezuelan] President Nicolas Maduro, [High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy] Federica Mogherini issued a more moderate statement on behalf of the entire European Union, promoting an idea to set up some contact group," he said. "We have asked our European colleagues what exactly it is all about and how they plan - if they have any plans at all - to translate it into practical action," the Russian top diplomat added.  Lavrov noted that members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) were particularly concerned about "the plans that some aggressive foreign players have in relation to Venezuela." "They have also shown interest in trying to pave the way for international mediation," he noted, adding that Venezuelan authorities had expressed readiness to hold such talks with the opposition.  "Given signals coming from the EU and the interests of the Caribbean countries, as well as the fact that China and India seek to prevent catastrophic developments, we would like to figure out what the international community could do to prevent another blatant violation of international law and violent regime change, and bring the situation back to the constitutional track. This is what I discussed yesterday with the Iranian foreign minister, who - just like us - wants to find an opportunity for external players to prove themselves useful to the Venezuelan people," the Russian foreign minister said.  ## Political upheaval rocks Venezuela  Juan Guaido, Venezuelan opposition leader and parliament speaker, whose appointment to that position had been cancelled by the country’s Supreme Court, declared himself interim president at a rally in the country’s capital of Caracas on January 23. Several countries, including the United States, Lima Group members (excluding Mexico), Australia, Albania, Georgia and Israel, as well as the Organization of American States, recognized him. Maduro, in turn, blasted the move as a coup staged by Washington and said he was severing diplomatic ties with the US.  Meanwhile, Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands said on January 26 that they would recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president unless Maduro called elections by February 3.  In contrast, Russia, Belarus, Bolivia, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Turkey voiced support for Maduro, while China called for resolving all differences peacefully and warned against foreign interference. The United Nations secretary general, in turn, called for dialogue to resolve the crisis.


thegatewaypundit--2019-06-01--Enemies of the State Obama Shadow Government Caught Advising Iran on How to Defeat Trump Foreign Po

Enemies of the State: Obama Shadow Government Caught Advising Iran on How to Defeat Trump Foreign Policy

Remember: Obama deep state operatives led by Sally Yates accused General Michael Flynn of violating the Logan Act for making calls to foreign dignitaries including the Russian ambassador after Donald Trump won the election in 2016.  The Logan Act, enacted in January 30, 1799, is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.  General Michael Flynn’s job as National Security Advisor was to contact foreign dignitaries including the Russian ambassador after the 2016 election.  John Kerry was even caught meeting with top Iranian officials in Paris.


theguardianuk--2019-02-04--Governments fracking policy will cause energy crisis says UKs richest man

Government's fracking policy will cause energy crisis, says UK's richest man

The UK’s richest person has launched an attack on the government’s fracking rules, accusing ministers of policies that will cause an “energy crisis” and “irreparable damage” to the economy.  Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of petrochemicals firm Ineos, pledged four years ago to start a UK fracking revolution but the company has been bogged down in planning battles and is yet to drill or frack a single well.  The businessman, who is worth £21bn, accused the government of taking an unworkable and unhelpful position on seismicity and planning rules.  “They are playing politics with the future of the country. We have a non-existent energy strategy and are heading towards an energy crisis that will do long term and irreparable damage to the economy and the government needs to decide whether they are finally going to put the country first and develop a workable UK onshore gas industry,” he said.  Ineos, which owns significant exploration rights in the UK, said it wants the limit at which fracking operations must be paused to be raised, from its current level of 0.5 magnitude. It said the ceiling should be a “sensible” level but did not specify what that would be.  Cuadrilla, the only shale gas company to have fracked in the UK, had to repeatedly halt fracking at its site near Blackpool last year, as its operations triggered minor earthquakes above the regulatory threshold.  Geologists have said the limit could safely be raised to 1.5 magnitude, above most of the mild tremors Cuadrilla caused.  But the energy minister, Claire Perry, told the Guardian last month that she had no plans to review the rules.  In a statement issued on Monday, Ineos attacked the government for setting the limit at 0.5, which it called “a level that has no sound basis in science and betrays a total lack of understanding of the shale extraction process”.  The firm pointed to other countries that have much more relaxed rules on seismicity and fracking. But the UK government has repeatedly said that one of the virtues of a UK shale gas industry is that it would be tightly and robustly regulated.  Ineos claimed the government was “shutting down shale by the back door” and branded the planning regime “archaic, glacially slow, inordinately expensive and virtually unworkable”.  Ministers have already rewritten planning rules to speed up shale gas applications and have proposed a second batch of reforms to make it easier for shale companies to drill exploratory wells.  However, all three Ineos shale gas sites were rejected by local authorities. Two of those – one in South Yorkshire and one in Derbyshire – have since been approved after the firm appealed. The company is appealing over a third, at Woodsetts in South Yorkshire.  Ineos argued the UK had chosen to bet “the future of our manufacturing industry on windmills and imported gas from countries which are potentially unstable”.  A government risk assessment last week concluded that UK gas supplies were “resilient to all but the most unlikely combination of high demand and supply disruption”.


theguardianuk--2019-05-29--Government policy makes people ill and the NHS pays the price

Government policy makes people ill – and the NHS pays the price

NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has been remarkably successful in prising more money for the health service out of the government, but short- term ministerial thinking about the service and its resources has resulted in an unedifying, dysfunctional scramble for cash in austerity Britain. Finally, though, ideas are emerging that could change all that.  Trying to meet rising expectations without the money to do it has driven the NHS to run every part of the system hot. As [fissures open up in budgets and services](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/04/nhs-qa-why-is-nhs- under-most-intense-pressure-in-decades), the army of healthcare special interest groups such as the BMA trade union, NHS Confederation and the medical royal colleges – which collectively far outgun the rest of the public sector for political influence – powerful, persuasive healthcare special interest groupportray every difficulty as [a lethal crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/20/nhs-at-breaking-point- according-to-british-medical-association). When Treasury resistance is finally overcome, [unrealistic promises](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/06/ministers-and-nhs- england-chief-at-loggerheads-over-targets) have to be made to provide political cover for the capitulation. Then the dance begins again as the NHS pursues another set of unrealistic goals with [too little money and too few staff](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/11/nhs-suffering-worst- ever-staff-cash-crisis-figures-show).  Crucially, this political battle is largely disconnected from any debate around wider social policy goals, save for the fact that everyone is scrapping over taxpayers’ money.  Now Stevens is beginning to stimulate discussion around a different approach. In recent speeches to the Health Foundation and [Royal Society of Medicine](https://www.hsj.co.uk/news/stevens-nhs-must-act-to-prevent- hollowing-out-of-dghs/7025130.article), he has argued that wider social policy decisions should be used to predict future demand for healthcare.  This is a powerful lens. For example, as demonstrated in London, we can easily determine how many thousands of children are being exposed to[ illegal levels of pollution](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/27/check-if- your-london-nursery-school-or-college-is-exposed-to-toxic-air) each day as they go to school, and there are numerous studies demonstrating [the link between pollution and illness](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/14/diesel-pollution- stunts-childrens-lung-growth-london-study-shows). Pollution is not some unfortunate accident but a consequence of a range of policies – from the provision of bus services to the price of petrol – that influence how we behave.  Similarly, as United Nations rapporteur Philip Alston has forcibly pointed out, [poverty is a policy decision](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/16/uk-austerity-has- inflicted-great-misery-on-citizens-un-says), and we know poverty drives [mental illness ](https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health- statistics-poverty)and [obesity](https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/children- poorer-backgrounds-more-affected-rise-childhood-obesity/). If the policy is to have children living in poverty, we can estimate how that will drive demand for health services.  If this way of thinking started to get traction it could be transformative. It would certainly focus ministerial minds if they had to explain to parliament and the public how they were going to address the consequences of failures, such as planning for a large increase in respiratory specialists over the next two decades, or predicting how many children below the poverty line would need mental health services before they were 25.  This might sound ambitious, but support for just such an approach may well emerge from the [five-year study just announced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies ](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/may/14/britain-risks- heading-to-us-levels-of-inequality-warns-top-economist)into [the forces that shape inequality ](https://www.ifs.org.uk/research/deaton-inequality- review)and what we can do about it.  The £2.5m programme, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is being led by [Professor Sir Angus Deaton](https://scholar.princeton.edu/deaton/home), who was awarded the Nobel prize for his analysis of poverty, welfare and consumption. This is a big, politically high-risk undertaking for the IFS, and with so much money and intellectual firepower behind it there is every reason to hope it will have a significant impact.  There are other ways in which thinking about the wider role of the NHS is becoming more sophisticated. There is growing interest in how hospitals can use their muscle as major local employers and contractors – so-called [anchor institutions](https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2101.full) to benefit their local economy. Many hospitals, notably in deprived areas, are among the biggest local employers. To take just one example, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has 17,000 staff. And healthcare organisations spend roughly [£20bn a year on goods and services](https://www.health.org.uk /newsletter-feature/the-nhs-as-an-anchor). There are also [signs that the relationship between health service and climate change](https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2019/04/nhs-climate-change) is finally getting some attention after years of talk but little action.  Taken together, these are significant developments. They present a rare opportunity to join the dots between the [NHS](https://www.theguardian.com/society/nhs) and the other parts of public policy which determine how we live and when we die. In the long run they could encourage far greater debate and understanding around the connections between political decisions, inequalities and the scale, shape and role of our care system.


thehuffingtonpostuk--2019-09-16--Government Policy Is Putting Foster Children At Risk Of Exploitation Why

Government Policy Is Putting Foster Children At Risk Of Exploitation. Why?

Alarm bells about the dangers faced by vulnerable children being sent to live many miles away from home were first raised in a parliamentary inquiry in 2012. A report by the All Party Group for Runaway and Missing Children and Adults warned then that placing looked after children a long way from home was causing them to go missing. We raised the same concerns in 2016. Now, in 2019, we have reached crisis point. Today, our group has published a new inquiry – ‘No Place at Home’ – into the increasing dangers faced by this sent away generation, who are magnets for paedophiles and County Lines drugs gangs. Despite a government pledge to clampdown on the numbers of ‘out of area’ placements, the figures have hit record levels along with record numbers of children going missing. Two thirds of all children in children’s homes now live out of area and the numbers going missing from those placements has more than doubled since 2015. So, after years of enduring warm words and broken promises from government, we have not pulled our punches about the dangers of distant placements in today’s report. Urgent action is now needed.  The government must take responsibility and draw up an Emergency Action Plan to slash the numbers of out of area placements, recognising that they do not keep children safe.  That plan must ensure that there are enough places for children to live locally. Evidence submitted to us by 41 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales about the dangers faced by these children is compelling. The government and councils cannot argue with it or hide from it. 70% of police forces are adamant that placing children out of area increases their risks of exploitation and often results in them being coerced into going missing. Many also stressed that county lines gangs particularly target ‘out of area’ children because they are easier to exploit. We have reached the ludicrous situation where local authorities are unwittingly becoming ‘recruiting’ sergeants for County Lines gangs by placing so many children far away from home and leaving them exposed to high risk. Local authorities may also be inadvertently opening up new ‘County Lines,’ because relocating children groomed to sell drugs, can create opportunities for criminals to expand their reach into more rural parts of the country. Children are being systematically failed and placed in danger by the very professionals charged to help them. We took heart breaking evidence from children of the searing sadness they felt at being isolated so far away from home. One boy tried to hang himself on Christmas and Day and another girl walked 15 miles back to her home town. Many repeatedly run home, often hitch hiking from remote areas. Others are enticed to go missing by those who seek to exploit them. One girl told us she had run away and gone missing 100 times.  Our report also shines a light on a new area of deep concern – the frightening twilight world of unregulated semi-independent accommodation for children aged 16 years and over. We call for these homes to be regulated and inspected because, unlike children’s homes, they are currently ‘off radar’. Shockingly, numbers of children living in this sort of accommodation has risen by 70% in the last decade. 80% of police forces expressed concerns about the increasing numbers living in this shady world and the dangers they face of falling prey to adults who want to exploit them for sex or to sell drugs. Children are often housed alongside adults who may be criminals or have addiction issues. Overall, we concluded that out of area placements are not made with the best interests of the child in mind but to suit the needs of the market. Children’s wishes are very seldom central to how decisions are made. They are being placed in children’s homes and semi-independent accommodation due to a lack of suitable provision and the uneven distribution of children’s homes across the country. A massive 75% of children’s homes are private and are concentrated in three main areas – North West, West Midlands and South East. The children’s homes market is not fit for purpose and the Government must take action. Without a sea change in approach, councils and government will continue to be complicit in exacerbating the trauma of neglected and abused children and of unwittingly providing new recruits for County Lines. This national scandal must stop. Ann Coffey is the independent MP for Stockport


theindependent--2019-01-10--Government makes dramatic U-turn on plans to expand aposcruelapos two child policy

Government makes dramatic U-turn on plans to expand 'cruel' two child policy

Government plans to expand rules that stop families claiming benefits for more than two children were scrapped on Friday, Amber Rudd announced in her first major speech as work and pensions secretary.  Just hours after the release of a damning report into the planned expansion, which would have cut benefits among families whose children were born before the policy was even devised, Ms Rudd said that the move would not be “right”.  The policy, brought in in 2017 and which affects the child element of the already highly controversial universal credit, is designed to influence family planning decisions. But since its introduction critics have warned that the two-child limit is so damaging that it could breach fundamental human rights commitments.  Until this month the two-child cap had only included those children born since the policy’s introduction in April 2017. Until today, that cap had been due to be extended in just three weeks’ time to include all children regardless of when they were born.  The change of heart means that all children born before April 2017 will continue to be supported by universal credit – significantly altering the financial fate of around 15,000 families a year.  The U-turn anticipated the release this morning of findings from an investigation into the two child policy by the Work and Pensions Select Committee – the group that examines the policies and actions of the Department for Work and Pensions.  The committee’s report had called for the government to abandon the expansion as a matter of urgency because of the harm it could do to the nation’s poorest families.  Commenting before the U-turn was announced, the committee said that applying the rules retrospectively would entirely undermine the government’s assertion that the two-child limit is designed to influence family planning decisions because the children had already been conceived and born.  Speaking before Friday’s announcement, Frank Field, chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, said: “What on earth were they thinking? There are serious concerns about this policy as a whole, but the retrospective element is simply inexplicable.  “The government claims this policy is about fairness, but it’s hard to think of anything more unfair than taking money from families whose children were born before the policy was even thought of.”  Policy in Practice, which designs public policy development and implementation, predicted that, had it remained in place, the plan to expand the two-child limit would have led to 266,000 additional children living in poverty by the end of this parliament.  The move alone would have increased the levels of child poverty in the UK by more than 10 per cent and another 256,000 children already living in poverty would have fallen further into deprivation as a direct result of the expansion.  In evidence in parliament the Child Poverty Action Group stated that “you could not design a policy better to increase child poverty than this one”.  Upon taking office as the secretary of state for work and pensions in November last year, Ms Rudd wrote an open letter describing her vision for a welfare system that “represents the best of British values and has women and children at its heart”.  But the committee’s report heavily criticises fundamental elements of the existing two-child policy as it will remain.  When the policy was announced in 2015 a broad coalition of religious leaders described it as “fundamentally anti-family” owing to its likely impact on abortion rates and family stability. A couple might choose to split up to avoid the limit, the report warns, or two people may decide against coming together if they have more than two children between them.  The policy has a particular impact on couples who have conscientious or religious objections to birth control or abortion or for whom larger families are a tenet of faith, with particularly severe implications for certain faith communities. The committee also heard that it may breach a litany of human rights commitments including the fundamental human right to a private family life.  Meanwhile, the so-called “rape clause” – an exception that allows a third or subsequent child to receive benefits if their mother can “prove” that they were conceived non-consensually or under coercive control by their father – has been widely criticised.  Apart from the process of “proving” the case for the exception, the rarity of exceptions to the policy means it is easy for anyone, including the child themselves, to work out the circumstances of their conception.  At the same time, the “coercion” exception does not apply unless mother and children have managed to escape the abusive relationship: an extremely difficult and dangerous process.  Two women still die every week in England and Wales at the hands of their current or former partner.


theindependent--2019-03-22--China birth rate plummets again despite government relaxing one-child policy

China’s birth rate in several regions, including the capital Beijing, fell again in 2018, the official China Daily said on Friday, despite government efforts to encourage couples to have more children.  Alarmed by the rapid ageing of its population, China relaxed its controversial “one-child policy” in 2016, allowing all couples to have two children instead of just one.  The change has failed to reverse what demographers say is a long-term trend of falling birth rates fuelled by growing prosperity and concerns about the high cost of raising children.  Beijing’s birth rate fell to 8.24 per 1,000 people in 2018 compared to 9.06 in the previous year, China Daily said, citing figures from local authorities.  In the financial capital Shanghai, the birth rate dropped to 7.2 per 1,000, from 8.1 in 2017.  Beijing’s total population fell for a second straight year in 2018, dropping 170,000 to 21.54 million people, though the decline could also be due to new policies aimed at shifting “non-capital functions” out of the city, China Daily said.  The birth rate in Liaoning, a rustbelt province where the population has dropped in recent years due to an exodus of young people, fell to 6.39 per 1,000, from 6.49 in 2017.  China recorded 15.23 million births last year, down two million from 2017 and the second consecutive annual decline, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).  Marriage rates are also falling throughout China, with the ratio of newly-registered marriages in the total population down to 0.72 per cent last year from 0.99 per cent in 2013, NBS data showed.  China’s ageing problem was on the minds of delegates to the annual session of parliament this month, where some called for radical new measures to encourage new births.  Think tanks expect China’s population to peak at 1.4 billion in 2029 and then begin an “unstoppable” decline that could reduce the workforce by as many as 200 million people by the middle of the century.  By 2050, China’s dwindling number of workers will be under pressure to support more than 400 million people aged 60 or over, putting the country’s pension, health and social service provisions under immense strain, experts say.  We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.  At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.


theindependent--2019-05-20--Secret policy aposallowing government to sidestep its own rules on tortureapos to be reviewed ur

Secret policy 'allowing government to sidestep its own rules on torture' to be reviewed urgently

A secret policy allowing ministers to share intelligence with allies even if there is a risk of torture will be reviewed urgently, the defence secretary has promised.  Under pressure in the Commons, Penny Mordaunt pledged to call in the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office watchdog to examine the Ministry of Defence document.  “I have undertaken to review this policy,” Ms Mordaunt told MPs – some of whom urged her to go further by scrapping it immediately.  The defence secretary insisted the armed forces were “upholding international humanitarian law”, but added: “I can understand the concerns that have been expressed about the policy.”  She was dragged to the chamber after a Freedom of Information request revealed the document, dated November 2018, that allows ministers to bypass torture fears if the potential benefits from passing on information justified it.  A leading QC and former chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee said it paved the way for ministers to break domestic and international legislation on the prohibition of torture.  David Davis, the former cabinet minister and civil liberties campaigner, demanded the policy be scrapped because it “betrayed” British values.  Urging Ms Mordaunt to publish a document “which appears to give ministers the right to overrule the law”, to aid torture, he warned: “There can never be a reason or justification for it”.  Labour also condemned the revelations. Defence spokesperson Nia Griffith said: “This policy appears to contradict the position taken by successive governments that the UK opposes torture in all circumstances.”  Ms Mordaunt also came under fire over a long-standing demand for a judicial inquiry into past British complicity in torture, following the Abdel Hakim Belhaj scandal.  Andrew Mitchell, the former chief whip, pointed out the government had promised to respond within 60 days when the call was made last July – which was 323 days ago.  The cabinet office‘s “consolidated guidance” on passing intelligence relating to detainees states the UK does “not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose”.  But the internal MoD document, seen by The Times, states this can be overridden if “ministers agree that the potential benefits justify accepting the risk and the legal consequences that may follow”.  The document also includes powers for ministers to “pre-approve” intelligence-sharing about named individuals whose whereabouts are unknown – even though that may be crucial in determining the risk of torture.  Ms Mordaunt said: “The prime minister has asked the commissioner to review the government’s consolidated guidance and submit proposals for how it could be improved.  “Once it has done so, and the government has had a chance to consider them – and I anticipate this will be a matter of weeks – the MoD will review its internal guidance and, as necessary in the light, of any updated guidance that is published.”


theindependent--2019-05-21--Governmentaposs probation policy aposdriving up prison population and trapping offenders in cycl

Government's probation policy 'driving up prison population and trapping offenders in cycle of crime'

The government’s flagship probation policy is driving up the prison population and trapping people in an endless cycle of low-level offending, a report has suggested.  As justice secretary, Chris Grayling said radical changes introduced in 2014 would “bring down stubbornly high reoffending rates”.  Five years on, HM Inspectorate of Probation found there had been “no tangible reduction in reoffending” as freed prisoners commit further crimes costing the economy up to £10bn a year.  The government is renationalising the supervision of offenders after private companies failed to properly monitor them.  But the probation watchdog said the long called-for change would not be a “silver bullet” to stop prisoners committing more crime on release.  It found that almost two-thirds of people freed from prison sentences of under one year reoffend, and the problem is being worsened by homelessness and difficulties accessing benefits.  A report warned that the introduction of a year’s post-release supervision for all offenders, even those jailed for just weeks, was driving an “expensive merry-go-round” in and out of jail.  Dame Glenys Stacey, the chief inspector of probation, said the changes had increased the prison population amid a crisis with record levels of violence, self-harm and rife drug abuse.  “A good number of people are being recalled to prison because they miss appointments – we saw one individual recalled after three days,” she told The Independent.  “Prisons are spending time and public resource receiving people and releasing them a short time later.”  The government said it would keep one key aspect of Mr Grayling’s Transforming Rehabilitation policy, which extended post-release supervision to around 40,000 extra offenders a year.  Officials hailed the change a “success” when announcing reforms last week, but Dame Glenys said the “one size fits all approach” was causing more people to be needlessly jailed for violating conditions.  She called for a “more tailored approach” that takes into account people’s circumstances, addictions, family circumstances and mental health needs.  “There needs to be a more holistic and system-wide approach for people with chaotic lifestyles and complex needs,” Dame Glenys said.  “The standard supervision for some of these people is just not enough.”  Analysis by the Prison Reform Trust found that since the reforms were introduced, the rate of people being recalled to prison had risen by 29 per cent for men and 166 per cent for women.  Head of policy Mark Day said: “While the reforms appear to have had no discernible impact on reoffending, recall rates have rocketed, disrupting lives and placing unnecessary pressure on an already overcrowded and overstretched prison system.  “The justice secretary has signalled his willingness to follow the evidence by bringing offender management back into the public sector. He should now follow the advice of his chief inspector by ending the unfair and disproportionate mandatory supervision of short-sentenced prisoners.”  The Howard League for Penal Reform said the changes had “not made the public any safer”.  Chief executive Frances Crook added: “It has trapped tens of thousands of people in the criminal justice system for even longer than necessary. This has blighted lives and put an intolerable strain on prisons, and it should be abandoned immediately.”  Almost one in three people being released from prison are homeless, and 83 per cent of homeless ex-offenders monitored by inspectors committed more crime. Officials believe some are being jailed for stealing food.  The inspectorate said that universal credit can only be claimed after people are released from prison, and with great difficulty if they do not have a permanent address, documentation and internet access.  “The lack of accommodation and money make the first days following release particularly difficult,” Dame Glenys added. “Those leaving custody after a short sentence are very likely to need early help and are likely to return to prison promptly without it.”  She called for the government to mount a strategy to tackle the lack of accommodation, barriers to claiming universal credit, and better access to mental health and substance misuse services, adding: “Those things can be looked at regardless of what the government does with the future model of probation.”  The Ministry of Justice has announced a consultation on changes that will see offender supervision handed to the public National Probation Service in spring 2021.  Under the new model, 11 probation regions across England and Wales will commission private companies to provide unpaid work, substance misuse programmes, training courses, community service and housing support.  David Gauke has called for prison sentences of under six months to be scrapped in favour of community punishments, but Dame Glenys said the measure would be pointless if supervision and rehabilitation is not improved.  Inspectors found prisoners were being poorly prepared for release in some areas, and the National Probation Service was failing to provide court reports on offenders’ health and circumstances.  “It is plainly unacceptable for magistrates and judges to sentence a person to custody without the benefit of essential information and advice on why they offended, their current circumstances and any alternative sentence options,” Dame Glenys said.  “A system-wide approach as well as much more purposeful probation supervision is needed. Without it, individuals are locked in an expensive merry-go-round of criminal justice processes and the public are left at undue risk.”  Mr Gauke said: “I am determined to have a more effective probation system that commands the confidence of the courts, rehabilitates offenders and ultimately better protects the public.  “That is why just last week we set out our future vision for probation – bringing all offender management under the National Probation Service and harnessing the skills of voluntary and private providers to boost rehabilitation.  “I want to move away from often ineffective short prison sentences and towards robust community alternatives which turn offenders away from crime and ultimately reduce reoffending. We will now carefully consider the recommendations in this report as we develop our future plans.”