No Safe Seat for ‘Turnaround’ Ballot MP

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So the plot thickens in regard to ‘ballot bill’ MP James Wharton.

The Independent has revealed that Wharton had previously accused the Conservative party of concentrating too much of their efforts on the in/out Europe debate.

His turnaround is being blamed on the fact that his Stockton South seat is by no means a safe one. Ian Burrell and Andrew Grice, in their profile of Wharton, yesterday revealed

‘With a majority of just 332 votes in the normally solid Labour seat, he is smart enough to know that he might not get the chance to represent his constituents for a second term.’

Europe being the vote-catcher it is at the moment, this situation has highlighted, once again, a politician who is willing to sacrifice his personal integrity for votes.

To see the whole profile visit:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/james-wharton-profile-a-young-man-in-a-hurry-8619874.html

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Orchid and Asda Team Up to Fight Male Cancer.

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Throughout 2013 Orchid will be working with over 15,000 colleagues at Asda distribution depots to raise much needed funds, drive awareness of male cancer and promote the work of the charity within local communities.

Asda colleagues will be fundraising for Orchid in a variety of ways throughout the year – running marathons, skydiving and even head shaves. As well as raising funds, Orchid will be working with Asda Distribution to spread vital health messages via Orchid’s community programmes – including regional roadshows and the charity’s Community Golf Programme.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for Orchid. It will make a real difference to the thousands of men and their families who are affected by male cancer and whom we support. With the generous help of Asda colleagues, we can provide much needed support via the Orchid Male Cancer Information Nurse Programme, distribute specialist information, raise awareness of male cancer with the support of Asda distribution colleagues and put funds towards vital, life-saving research.  The partnership will provide a huge boost for our vital work across the UK and we are very grateful to everyone at Asda Distribution for making this possible” says Rebecca Porta, Chief Executive of Orchid.

Lisa Burnett, National Charity Partnership Manager at Asda says “We are very excited to be working with Orchid during 2013 and hope to raise lots of money to support men and their families who are affected by male cancer. With over 43,000 men diagnosed every year we recognise the importance of this new partnership and are committed to making a real difference.”

Founded in the 1960s, Asda today is one of Britain’s leading retailers. It has over 180,000 dedicated Asda colleagues serving customers from 545 stores, including 27 Asda Living stores, 23 depots and eight recycling centres across the UK (Great Britain and Northern Ireland). It has its main home office in Leeds, Yorkshire and its George clothing division based in Lutterworth Leicestershire. Asda serves over 18 million shoppers a week in store and its growing home shopping business serves over 98 per cent of homes.

Tragic Teen’s Family Urge ‘Go To Someone’ If You Discover a Lump

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Picture from North News & Pictures Ltd

Picture from North News & Pictures Ltd

The Daily Mail reported today that 16 year old Mikey Rushby died two weeks after reporting a lump that he’d discovered in his testicle eight months earlier.

His death was so utterly unnecessary.

Guys, you don’t need me to tell you it’s of paramount importance that you check yourselves regularly.

For more information on what to look (and feel) out for visit

http://www.orchid-cancer.org.uk/

To read Mikey’s story, visit the original article at the Daily Mail here 

LabourList’s Alex Shattock – ’10 Reasons Why the EU is Good for Britain’

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If Labour wants to fend off attacks from UKIP and the Conservatives at the next election, it has to make the case for Europe: both in the media, and on the doorsteps. In order to win the argument, Labour needs more than one answer to the question: “why should Britain stay in the EU?” Here are ten reasons why we’re better off in:

1. Free trade

As part of the single market, the EU has free trade between all its member states. This is great for UK businesses, who don’t have to worry about quotas or import taxes. As such, almost 50% of our exports go to the EU.  (The EU also has an iron tariff wall against non-members, which we don’t want to be on the wrong side of.)

2. The EU encourages investment in Britain

The EU has attracted millions of pounds in foreign investment. Large manufacturers and commercial service providers invest in the UK because it is a bridge to the single market. If the UK walked away, it would become a bridge to nowhere. If you’re a multinational company, with a choice between building a factory in cast-adrift Britain or single-market France, the right business decision is obvious.

3. Police coordination

How did we get the Spanish police to capture Andrew Moran, the escaped armed robber? Through the European Arrest Warrant. Thanks to the EU, the Costa del Crime is no longer a hiding place for UK criminals, and nor is anywhere else in the EU.

4. EU Structural Funds

Structural Funds are the large pot of money that gets distributed among the most deprived areas in the EU. For many years they have contributed to investment and infrastructure across the UK: especially in Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and Cornwall. Over the next five years, England alone will receive over £6 billion in Structural Funds, Wales £2 billion, Scotland £795 million, and Northern Ireland £457 million.

5. Influence within Europe

If we want the EU to work in Britain’s interests, then we need to be involved in EU decision-making. France and Germany will have no incentive to listen to Britain if we’re not playing on the same team. If Britain leaves the EU, there will be no one to stand up for British interests when decisions are made that affect us, such as changes to trade or investment laws.

6. Influence outside Europe

Strength in numbers is more than just a saying. At the global negotiating table, the UK could be an insignificant little country with an insignificant loner economy.  Or, it could be the leading partner in the biggest combined economy in the world (with a GDP of just under €13 trillion). Which is the more influential position to be in? If the UK is competing in the ‘global race’, as David Cameron claims, then we’re better off on the relay team.

7. Immigration- good for Britain

Immigration, when unchecked, can obviously have a lot of downsides. But immigration generally has been very good for Britain, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say it. The EU’s immigration policy makes it easier for tourists to come and spend money, and it makes it easier to attract highly skilled workers like doctors or engineers when we suffer from skill shortages.

8. Emigration- good for the British

The other side of the immigration coin is emigration: British people are free to live, work and go on holiday wherever they want in the EU, without having to get an expensive visa or go through time-consuming bureaucracy. The Conservatives should love this, really: instead of getting on your bike, now you can get on a ferry!

9. Market fairness.

This one is a bit more technical: through its extensive competition law, the EU ensures that capitalism actually works. For example, when a government department contracts out a service, it has to ‘put it to tender’ i.e. ensure that several companies bid competitively for the contract. The contract can’t simply be handed over to the company that took the Minister out for a nice dinner; and that’s because of EU competition law.

10. The EU safeguards workers’ rights.

This might just be the most important reason to stay in the EU. Four weeks paid holiday a year, the 48 hour working week, anti-discrimination law, guaranteed rights for agency workers, guaranteed worker consultation- all of these protections exist because of the EU. If we took away the steel shield of EU employment law, workers’ rights would be at the mercy of a Tory government. Anyone who thinks they would in safe hands is, quite frankly, having a laugh.

Article originally posted at LabourList 16/5/13

Award-Winning Male Suicide Charity To Hold Suicide Reduction Summit May 17th

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C.A.L.M (the Campaign Against Living Miserably), the award-winning male suicide awareness charity, is organising and hosting their first North West England Suicide Reduction Summit.

Building on the success of 3 year’s of ground-breaking events covering the Cheshire & Merseyside area, their aim is to inspire delegates and enable them to gain practical knowledge about reducing suicide in that area.

C.A.L.M exists to prevent male suicide in the UK. This is an honourable cause – suicide accounted for the deaths of more young men in England & Wales in 2011 than road death, murder and HIV/AIDs combined.

C.A.L.M are a national charity with a helpline that takes calls from across the UK.  They also work locally where they can, with local health commissioners in London and Merseyside to ensure that men are informed about the local agencies available to them, and provide a dedicated and focused campaign message.

They launched their ‘Merseyside CALMzone’ in 2000, and since then suicide in that region has dropped year on year among young men and sits below the average for both the North West and England and Wales.

London CALMzone was launched November 2011.

The Summit programme is now available to download here! NW RSS Programme 2013 FINAL

Please note this event is almost full – please contact jan@autumnmarketingevents.co.uk if you wish to enquire about any last minute places.

 

C.A.L.M NORTH WEST SUICIDE REDUCTION SUMMIT

EVENT VENUE: The Studio, The Hive 51 Lever Street, Manchester M1 1FN

EVENT DATE: Friday 17 May 2013

EVENT TIME: 09:00-17:00

Who will be attending?
Delegates will be drawn from decision-makers and key influencers with an interest in suicide prevention including:

Public Health / Statutory Services – Health & Wellbeing Board members, Directors of Public Health, Councillors with Health & Social Care interest, Vulnerable Adults teams, Intelligence analysts, Social services, Drug and Alcohol services, Prison services, Probation services, Veterans Services

Emergency Services – Police, Fire, Coastguard, Highways Agencies, Negotiators, Mountain Rescue

Primary Care– GPs,  Ambulance, A&E, District Nurses, HV, IAPT Teams

Secondary Care – Mental Health trusts, Crisis teams, Acute care, Liaison psychiatry, Patient Safety officers

Voluntary & Third Sector Organisations

Specialist Training Providers

 

Read more about C.A.L.M at http://www.thecalmzone.net/

Diane Abbott: ‘Viagra & Jack Daniels Culture Creating A Crisis of Masculinity’

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My first instinct, on reading this article in the Daily Mail today, was to praise Diane Abbott for having the courage to raise the issue of problems men face in contemporary Britain.

But then I actually read the article and found myself astounded at how superficial, unfocused and watered-down her argument actually is.

For a start, why the emphasis on sexual performance anxiety? Oh yes…I remember…all men ever think about is sex. Silly me. I forgot that.  So you guys are feeling disenfranchised because there is too much pressure on you to perform sexually.

According to Abbott this is creating a generation of men who ‘find themselves locked into a transitional phase at home, or find themselves voluntarily creating an extended adolescence, sometimes resentful of family life’.

And, because we can’t resist bringing it back to what’s actually best for the ladies, this resentment at not being able to sexually perform, feeling useless because they are living with their parents (lets not say anything about the ladies that are living with their parents – it ruins the flow) creates a ‘hypermasculinity’ that

‘At its worst, it’s a celebration of heartlessness; a lack of respect for women’s autonomy; I fear it’s often crude individualism dressed up as modern manhood.’

Ok…newsflash Abbott – ‘modern British manhood’ is a product of a Labour government that shifted everything so far into the favour of ‘modern woman’ that it completely raped ‘modern man’ of his self-worth (yes, I mean you Harriet Harman).

He’s not important anymore. He doesn’t know his role anymore. Does he hold a door open or not? Does he look at you, or will he be accused of sexually assaulting you? Should he feel happy that he is able to provide for you, or is he a repressive patriarch?

Should he bother at all, or should he go and live up a mountain in the Himalayas until someone starts talking sense?

He’s still not important in your argument – you have to bring it back to ‘a lack of respect for women’s autonomy’.

She goes on ‘This generation no longer asks itself what it means to be a man.’

Yes, because we live in a society that will not let him be a man. Viagra, sexual performance……I’ll tell you something – I hear from many men every week, telling me their concerns, issues and experiences…and not one of them has ever mentioned his penis, or the fact that he thinks his iPhone makes him more of a man.

Which makes me wonder just how much research Abbott put into finding out what the real problems actually are before coming out with this half-formulated nonsense theory.

Still, I am at least heartened at the fact that the article goes onto say Labour is looking at a raft of ideas based around men’s concerns, and that Jon Cruddas seems to be talking sense.

But I am not holding my breath.

Here’s the original article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324750/Viagra-Jack-Daniels-culture-creating-crisis-masculinity-British-men-claims-Labours-Diane-Abbott.html#ixzz2TMdnnYeu

‘His Sickness is Not Physical, His Sickness is His Greed’

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The fable of The Fox and the Sick Lion is a story about an old lion who lives in a cave, and too tired to hunt he feigns sickness so other animals will visit him to pay their respects. Upon their visit the lion eats the animals up one by one. A fox also comes to visit but stays outside of the cave. The Lion asks why the Fox wont enter the cave to which the fox replies “because I can see plenty of footprints going in, but none coming out”.

There are a few interpretations as to what the moral of this fable is, one being that ‘the dangers of others are generally of advantage to the wary’ (Phaedrus), or that ‘the powerful are untrustworthy’ (La Fontaine).

However, during research of this fable I found out that some of the earliest perceptions had economic foundations.

A Latin poet named Horace had included this fable in his first Epistle as a way to convey and criticise the ‘get rich quick’ culture of the Roman Bankers, something which resonates significantly today.

Also going back to ancient Greece, Socrates had also referred to this particular fable in relation to the Spartan economy asking “and as to gold and silver, there is more of them in Lacedaemon than in all the rest of Hellas, for during many generations gold has been always flowing in to them from the whole Hellenic world… but who ever saw the trace of money going out of Lacedaemon?”.

There are further ideas to be found as to what the fable alludes to, but it was the representation of the lion as a figure of greed which fascinated me the most. The fact that the issues of greed that both Horace and Socrates were describing are still so pertinent to us in the here and now, once again reveals our struggles as human beings to learn and grow from our mistakes which have reoccurred throughout history.

And so it was the lion who I wanted to portray from this story, as he represents something that so many of us are fighting against today, both within ourselves and on a global scale. And the reason I say ‘within ourselves’ is that at the basis of greed is fear and a desire to receive for the self alone which both create these global and very human problems. And surely to overcome greed we need to be aware we all have the ability to suffer these traits (I’m not saying we all do, but none of us are perfect!), just on very different scales.

I painted my sick lion wearing a suit which is one of the most expensive ever made, designed by Richard Jewels of Manchester & Stuart Hughes of Liverpool. Consisting of 480 diamonds, the suit is worth £599,000. The lion in my painting was created to not appear sick. I didn’t want there to be anything wrong with him on the surface. His sickness is not physical, his sickness is his greed

http://www.twinkletroughton.co.uk/