Everybody I know is shocked by the pictures filling our TV screens and on the front pages of our newspapers this morning. The airwaves are filled with harrowing stories of people losing everything as the mob burned their home, shopkeepers barricading themselves in their shops to try and protect their livelihoods, and kids and young people looting thousands of pounds worth of merchandise from the trashed stores.
There is also a lot of labelling going on, people calling them a variety of terms, but does the labelling allow us to hide the sad and much more difficult reality? This isn’t some foreign invader destroying our community, these are our own people. These are people brought up in the same country, educated in the same school system, they haven’t just arrived, they’ve been here for many years.
So what has changed now? The big thing seems to be organisation. Talk to anybody who lives in any sort of large, particularly deprived estate across the country and there are numerous reports week after week of kids hanging around causing trouble, bins set on fire, minor vandalism. There are the occasional big stories, for example kids in Finchampstead burning the community centre, cases where people have been pushed too far by so called anti-social behaviour, but it largely goes unreported and local. Now, with the realisation that the Police in this country keep control by consensus – as a retired Policeman on the radio this morning said with 30,000 officers the Met can’t stop 7,000,000 people from doing anything if they decide they want to loot their local trainer or mobile phone store – the trouble has spread beyond the estates, to places where it’s impossible to ignore and put down to a troubled area. Rather than torching bins they’re torching landmark stores that have served their communities for decades, buildings that survived the blitz, but were torched by people who are free because of the sacrifices the blitz generation made.
We can wail and howl about these criminals, but these criminals are people we as a country have created. However we deal with the immediate problem, Britain needs to take a long hard look at what we’ve been doing for decades to breed hundreds and hundreds of young people across the country who see it as acceptable to do this to their own community.
Above all we need to remember that it’s not “them”, much as we do not like it, this is “us”, these are British people burning and looting British communities.
Over the past few days there has been rather a furore over some comments by the Bishop of Willesden, Rt Rev’d Pete Broadbent (@pete173).
He’s most definitely a republican, as many people in the Diocese of London already know. He made a throwaway comment on Twitter when the impending Royal Wedding was announced about booking a trip to France on the day, which was then duplicated onto his Facebook page and kicked off a discussion where he made a number of other comments. All of this is on a Facebook page that is viewable by anybody. Comments included describing Prince Charles and Princess Diana as “Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll”, and the impending wedding as a bit of “national flimflam” and added in various other comments about the monarchy in general, and in particular their previous track record with marriages, and gave this marriage seven years.
There has been much outrage online over the response of the Bishop of London, many feeling that he has overreacted, but is that justified?
The situation is not new, indeed the Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) and Shel Israel (@shelisrael) book Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers talks about exactly these kinds of situations in a corporate context. If you look at the Church as a corporate structure, Bishop Pete as a senior manager described the son of the Chairman of the Board (the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England) as “Big Ears”, poured scorn on a number of their marriages and was just downright rude. In any corporate situation he would be sacked, no question about it. As a senior representative of any organisation there is an expectation that even if you have some latitude to publicly express personal opinions, you publicly represent the organisation and are expected to act as such.
The real problem is that again like many corporations the Church doesn’t have a formal Social Media and Blogging policy – many organisations don’t get one until something like this happens.
My current employer now has such a policy, under which I can’t say who it is I work for. The policy was introduced amongst other things as a result of a newsworthy event that I blogged about here, but was subsequently asked to remove the post. Employees were also discussing working for the company on Facebook and elsewhere. As a result the most recent revision of the internet guidelines introduced a blogging and social media policy that banned employees from blogging about or talking about the company on social media. Hence I cannot say who I work for or give any details as to what I had posted about and was asked to remove.
The church has no such policy but plenty of members, clergy and several bishops blogging and actively using Social Media, Bishop Pete being only one such example.
So does the Church need a social media and blogging policy? I don’t think so. Whilst Bishop Pete is a high profile case, up to now there hasn’t seemed to be much need, the Church of England is so broad that there is always a breadth of opinion on many topics, and a good deal of debate goes on online. Whilst a policy would maybe give clearer lines for those of us blogging within the Church and on Church matters, up to now common sense has seemed to prevail. As a Bishop there is that same expectation of common sense, as someone who is supposed to be a uniting figure it is obvious that there will be a diversity of opinion amongst the people he represents. Whilst there are many who agree with his opinion of the Royal Family, equally there are those for whom the Royal Family are an important part of both our country and the Church of England, a Bishop sometimes has to put aside or restrain his personal opinions for the good of the whole. Probably the most high profile example of this is Archbishop Rowan who much to the frustration of many on the more liberal wing of the Church is steering a path for unity rather than following the agenda one would expect given some of his previous writings.
So was Bishop Pete fairly treated? It may not be a popular choice, but I think he was. He’s kept his job which is more than someone in business would have, indeed some were calling on him to resign anyway. Cranmer explains in much more detail the vows that Bishop Broadbent took, and as a senior representative of the Church of England whether or not you think it is right that church and state are so closely intertwined, having taken those vows it is quite right to expect that he should uphold them. Swearing allegiance to the Queen and her heirs and successors, doesn’t really sit well with referring to one of them as “Big Ears”. When you accept the post of a Bishop you give up some of your freedom to express your own opinions, you become a Bishop of the Church of England, and there is an expectation that you’ll toe the line. You have a lot of latitude to express your own opinons, but it’s not unlimited.
Finally, if anyone in the Church, particularly someone senior is considering becoming active in the blogsphere or social media, should this put them off? I’d say not, but it is a salutary warning. You need be aware of what is public and what is private. Certainly in any public forum you need to be watch what you say, it’s very easy to relax into thinking that you’re having a private conversation when in fact anybody in the world can see it – that is precisely the trap Bishop Pete fell into. You can bleat about how unfair it is, but ultimately people know what the British press is like. Certainly there is an argument to be had over controlling them but it’s very difficult to argue that from a position where you are under attack by them. I’d also recommend having a read of Naked Conversations, the book has plenty of examples of bloggers, Scoble included publicly disagreed with their organisations and survived, but also plenty who didn’t. Ultimately it all comes down to common sense, know your role, and know what your superiors will accept, and stick to it. By all means try and push the envelope, but referring to the next Supreme Governor of the Church of England as “Big Ears”? Not a good idea.
The collective principle asserts that… no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.
Sicko highlights the problems with the US Healthcare system. Whilst certain groups such as the elderly, military and others are covered by public health schemes, the vast majority of US citizens rely on private health insurance, or in the case of an estimated forty million people, no insurance at all. What this leads to is situations where people with inadequate or no insurance do not receive treatment, so the movie included examples of patients who were left choosing which finger to reattach after an accident purely because they couldn’t afford the cost of everything, and people who ended up going bankrupt struggling to pay bills.
So how come it has become such a big story in the UK?
Over the earlier part of the debate, our news programmes have been keeping an eye on things, but mostly with a healthy dose of incredulity that there seems to be such disagreement over what seems to us to be a common sense reform to ensure that everybody has the ability to access affordable healthcare. To be honest it hasn’t figured that much because nobody in the US is advocating introducing a system such as our NHS where the state owns and runs the healthcare services, something that is now pretty well unique in the world. Instead they appear to be moving towards a single-payer health care scheme similar to those that operate in Canada, and ironically similar to the US Medicare system that already covers senior citizens in the US.
However, this hasn’t stopped the opponents of the plan, rolling out “examples” of the failings of “socialized” medicine, using our NHS as a major source. They duped two British campaigners, who support the principles of the NHS, but are campaigning against parts of the system into participating in adverts against the healthcare reforms. They have also rolled out a series of claims about the NHS, a number of which are just plain lies – the Guardian addressed many of the better known accusations. Another trump card was that they also managed to get a British politician, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan to come onto the TV to criticise the NHS:
Watching the stories go by on #welovetheNHS reinforced how many people were grateful to the service. Whilst complaining about the NHS is almost as much of a national pastime as moaning about the weather, the vast majority of the general public in the UK are full square behind the original idea set out by Nye Bevan, that no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means, even if we could all see ways it could be improved. Faced with this, we’ve had politicians of all persuasions queuing up on British TV to defend the NHS, indeed Hannan caused his party leader to break his holiday and distance the party from the statements in the US as detailed in this BBC News article. Incidentally, the BBC also has an interesting page comparing statistics on four basic healthcare models in use around the world and their costs and effects.
From my position, I have never experienced US healthcare. All I can do is explain some of my experiences of our system in light of some of the untruths that have been presented in the US describing the UK system. It is also worth mentioning that these are my experiences, and others experiences may be different depending on their doctor, a particular illness, hospital or whatever.
First off, some of the Americans interviewed on TV have expressed concern that they would not have choice under a single-payer health care scheme.
That is not my experience. Thanks to the generosity of my employer alongside my NHS I have a subsidised private medical insurance scheme. The way they get used in the UK is primarily to gain quick access to minor treatment, but a number of NHS hospitals have private wings which the private medical insurance can access. Many surgeons work in both public and private systems, indeed for many minor operations you’ll find the private patients being included in the same list as the NHS patients. There is also nothing to stop you paying for your own treatment, as several people I know have done for minor procedures.
I’ve also got a choice of my GP. Where we live falls in the area of several GP practice areas – in the NHS GP’s can define limits on the areas their practice covers, generally to allow them to easily visit patients in an emergency if required. When we moved here we chose to stay with the local practice for where we lived previously as this was still within area. The surgery is a little over two miles away, and there is another just over half a mile away, and several more within three or four miles of home. In more rural areas GP coverage may be more sparse, but with multiple doctors in most practices there is still some element of choice.
When Beth was pregnant, we also had a choice over hospitals – there were three within ten miles and having looked at statistics and feedback on the units, and also considering where they were located in relation to our workplaces we opted for the unit at Frimley Park rather than the hospital that most mothers from our GP practice went to at the Royal Berkshire.
That actually brings us on to another topic, the costs of treatment. As you may be aware, Beth had complications in her pregnancy which resulted in significantly extra appointments at the hospital, and several additional scans. All of this was delivered for the same cost to ourselves, absolutely nothing. Indeed as a pregnant woman all of Beth’s regular prescription costs were covered, as they still are now, and as are any prescription costs for Lucy. I have to pay for my prescriptions, but that is a £7 administrative cost. Whilst it is true that I may be able to buy some drugs cheaper, I know others who are getting drugs that cost thousands of pounds, all either for the £7 administrative charge, or nothing if they are in an exempt category. Exempt categories include pregnant women, children and those with a number long term illnesses that need regular medication. All in all something like 85% of prescriptions are dispensed for free. Also free were the several “nervous new parent” visits we paid to the doctor with Lucy after she was born with what turned out to be minor ailments, and the regular visits from the midwife and health visitor teams. As there is no concern about paying for consultations, we are much more likely to visit the doctor just-in-case, which in turn increases the possibility that maybe serious conditions are caught early.
Moving onto another subject, the idea that senior citizens are denied treatment through their age, cost or whatever, or that they are left on waiting lists despite having serious conditions. Again, in my experience not true. A couple of years ago Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. On diagnosis she was quickly seen and treated, and indeed when she had a scare more recently, this again was addressed quickly. She received new experimental treatments for her cancer, and at the end of it, no bill, it was all covered. Unlike stories heard from the US, she wasn’t left with the choice of getting treatment or going bankrupt. We have also had a lady at Church, much older than my Mum who was also diagnosed with breast cancer. Again, there was no question of her being too old. Now I have known older people who have been advised for medical reasons not to undergo a treatment, but the decision is medical.
Like any health system, the money available is not unlimited. In the US decisions on what treatment will be paid for are made by insurance companies, in the UK we have the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence or NICE. This was established to try and stop what was called the postcode lottery, where different areas would offer different treatments. This is possibly where the US accusations of “death panels” has come from, as the organisation uses statistical methods to work out whether a particular treatment is financially viable. The difference with NICE is that these decisions are made by a public body, and whilst there have been well publicised cases where they have denied a particular treatment, people have also successfully argued to have them change policy. In terms of how this affects me, in simple terms unless I get something really serious, or rare, it doesn’t. Whilst there are certain pre-existing conditions that the company medical insurance will not cover me for – and this list grows whenever I change jobs, the NHS will treat me for almost anything, at no cost, whether or not I’ve had it before. Indeed I had one medical problem that spanned more than one employer that was partially treated on company medical insurance, but also under the NHS – I could quite happily change jobs without worrying that I wouldn’t be able to get treatment.
The system is not perfect, probably the most frustrating part is NHS dentistry. The story of a patient who took to repairing his crown with superglue has been mentioned as an argument against a government run healthcare system – the irony being that dentistry is the one significant part of the NHS with a large private involvement, and that is where the problem came from. If you actually read the story rather than listening to the rhetoric, you’ll find that the reason he fixed it himself was because even supposedly NHS dentists were trying to get him to pay to have the crown fixed privately. More recently, after the NHS introduced a new contract for dentists a significant number of them decided to opt out of the NHS and only offer private services – at which point they charge per treatment, rather than the new NHS contract which was an attempt to move away from that model. It is worth noting that Beth who during our time with the practice had needed several bits of dental work was invited to transfer to become a private patient – me who was only needing the six monthly check-ups was ignored. That left us without a dentist for a while as we looked around for another NHS practice, but we’ve now managed to sign up with another local NHS dentist. Dentistry treatment is not free, but is subsidised for NHS patients. Even if you aren’t registered with an NHS practice, you can still access emergency NHS dentistry cover through a network of emergency dentists.
Other times we have experienced the NHS have been via accident and emergency units. Again we’ve sometimes had a wait, but that is mainly because they prioritise admissions – if someone is rushed in in a critical condition they will be seen ahead of more minor cuts and scratches. Again you can pick and choose where you go, so for example now we have a new unit close by with a minor injury we’d go to a local minor injury unit rather than the city centre accident and emergency unit that is slightly closer, we also have a 24/7 medical telephone help-line that we have used on a number of occasions – they have been able to advise home treatment in some cases, and can also advise whether a doctor, or even an ambulance should be called. The ambulances and paramedics of course are also all part of the system too.
So would I want to make wholesale changes the NHS? Absolutely not. It may have it’s problems, but those are problems that need to be solved without chucking the baby out with the bath-water. Like any sixty year old institution it needs to change and evolve, but not at the expense of the level of care offered to the population of the UK. As to the US, like many on this side of the Atlantic, I can’t fathom why so many people have a problem with it. Check out this video:
Here is an American who is apparently vehemently opposed to “socialized” medicine (without realising that her parents are about to be part of such a scheme), despite the fact that the current private system is hitting her family business with healthcare costs for employees, and she herself admits that she is having to find money to pay for upcoming medical treatment for her child. Over here, she’d only be concerned about the medical treatment, not for how it will hit the family financially – all of the medical treatment she is having to find money for would be covered by the NHS over here.
The collective principle asserts that… no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.
Now maybe I could understand not being able to pull the printed version of the summer arts guide that was published yesterday. But I do think the Independent could have shown a little tact and diplomacy in rewriting the online version, which currently is highlighted on their front page right alongside a report about the ongoing aftermath of the death.
Since I assume that at some time they will sort it out, below is a capture of the page.
Check out this page of pictures from this yearsEarth Hour, where households and businesses are encouraged to turn off non-essential lights and electrical appliances. Of course as in previous years, my biggest issue with the whole thing is it gets turned into one giant publicity stunt by numerous cities and businesses around the world, quite simply because at the end of the hour, they turn all those non-essential lights back on again.
Take a look through the pictures and consider how much energy is being wasted floodlighting buildings like the Houses of Parliament, the Sydney Opera House, or the CN Tower in Toronto for the 364 days, 23 hours a year that Earth Hour isn’t taking place.
Professor Ian James, our Diocesan Environment Advisor makes the point well with regards to churches, and it can equally apply to other buildings – indeed I used this article to back my argument that we shouldn’t floodlight St James’ as part of the upcoming conservation work:
Floodlighting a large empty building consumes as much electricity as lighting several houses. That electricity is a scarce resource and generating it puts carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere. Rising levels of carbon dioxide are causing climate change. The message could be that the church is more concerned to glorify itself than to worry about its effect on its neighbours, that Christians don’t care very much about the unnecessary pollution of our world and the frivolous consumption of scarce resources.
Apart from the carbon dioxide pollution, ‘light pollution’ has now reached such levels that few people living in Southern Britain have ever the seen the night sky properly and certainly have never seen the Milky Way. I wonder which is the greater witness to God: a neo-Gothic Victorian pile lit up like a Disneyland extravaganza, or the awesome majesty of the night sky on a truly dark night, with its millions of stars blazing bravely in the blackness of space?
Are any of those buildings any the less usable with the floodlighting turned off? You can see the inside lights on the Opera House are still on, in Westminster the street lights are still on, and with the floodlighting gone it’s pretty obvious nobody is in the Houses of Parliament. In the various cityscapes warning lights for aircraft remain on, and indeed in many of them the ambient light from the essential lights continues to provide some visibility of the buildings anyway.
Also, with the reduction in consumption, which power stations do you think are being shut off? I can tell you it isn’t the big, polluting coal stations as they are slow to react, so are generally used as baseload for the grid – instead they dial down the fast response stations that they can easily control, things like the hyrdo-electric and pumped storage stations that in the UK get used to cope with peaks and troughs in demand.
So was I cheering Earth Hour? Not particularly. True it reduces electricity consumption, but it doesn’t reduce emissions as it’s often the flexible, clean generating plant that gets shut down first. I’m also not going to be cheering when it is so obviously a publicity stunt on the part of big organisations. It’s all very well shutting off your floodlights for an hour, but if you’re really serious about not wasting energy they should be turned off, and stay off. The same is true at home, did you sit in darkness for an hour and then just turn everything back on again – or did it make you think, and only use the lights and appliances you need rather than leaving them plugged in, turned on and wasting energy?
Thoughts from, and the lives of a Canadian and a Brit living in the UK.
