Unsung heroes

                                    Unsung heroes

Anybody travelling in London early in the morning will see a sight that has a lot to do with London life. The buses are full of people on their way to work. The armies of Office cleaners are now off to work where they will spend the early hours of the morning cleaning the offices and getting them ready for the  workers to come in later

This army will definitely be hard at work soon doing their allotted slot. Mostly thee jobs are fairly low paid and low status with many migrants filling that oriole. The trouble is that as a group they are taken for granted. Who knows but nobody wants to work in a dirty office or sit in a dirty establishment.

And yet we really owe our cleaners something in terms of the work they do. So clearly the message is out of sight, out of mind yet if it was not for this army of early morning workers we would not have the clean work places that we take for granted.

Yet many of them are on the minimum wage with the prospects for advancement in the industry rather limited. For many people it is a way round their limited knowledge of English. The sector remains quite busy though competitive as cleaning is a necessity and subject to less cutbacks.

However one thing is certain. Cleaners do not get the recognition they deserve.

Urban Foxes

Urban foxes

Of the various wild creatures which share our space the fox is a common species which has successfully invaded our towns. In one of the developments that has changed the face of a lot of the cities the fox has moved into London becoming a fairly commonly recognized animal. Other cities in England have also of course been colonized by the fox as well. Foxes are seen almost everywhere, in streets and in parks walking about going about their normal business.

They have certainly had an easier time of entering the city than other wild animals such as the badger and the hedgehog. Though hedgehogs are found in central London their poor eyesight tends to make them disproportionately victims of the motor car. The badger is not found in the centre for similar reasons. The fox however has freely exploited the opportunities available and has come to live in a large measure as a natural inhabitant. I have personally seen foxes cross the roads at pedestrian crossings. The fox has adapted well to the urban environment and can even climb in buildings. One was recently discovered at the top of a skyscraper under construction!

The opportunities provided by our throwaway society have provided multiple opportunities to the fox to penetrate  inner city areas,

They tend to see rubbish bins as an opportunity to forage and live off take away food and diverse scraps. One aspect of course where they could provide a control of the rat population is not happening as food is so easily available in the takeaway restaurants so scavenging is much safer option for them. Sometimes they can be quite bold walking among shoppers in broad daylight is not unknown

The reaction of Londoners is a mixed one. Most people particularly in the inner city love them and even feed them. They are seen as a particularly wonderful wild creature and a wonderful addition to the tapestry of life. In general they cause little damage although in gardens they occasionally pull up plants particularly with the activities of the young ones.

The breeding season for them is in spring and then many people are woken up with their mating cries which can be quite ear splitting.

Further out into the suburbs there is a bit less tolerance of them. Occasionally lurid stories surface in the tabloid papers about foxes entering homes and attacking babies. This is however hard to credit as the average fox is scared of people and it is difficult to approach close enough to get a good picture, let alone conceive of them entering a house. In general they are timid creatures that tend to try and stay away from people. As congeners of our cities they have a natural reserve for human beings.

Sometimes they get fed by various well wishers and can become reasonably tame although they are not particularly dog like. They are better at climbing than most dogs so high fencing panels do not create much of an obstacle for them.

For most people however they form a really special addition to our urban wildlife and the sight of a truly wild creature walking among buildings in central London is not one that anybody can forget in a hurry!

Daylight Saving

                                                            Daylight Saving

In a week’s time the time will change and we will be in British winter time. Of course the steadily reducing days will seem worse now as all around the sun will set earlier and rise a bit earlier. The game of cat and mouse will continue as an innovation of the time of the First World War will again take its toll. The idea would really come down to what an innovation this is because those who argue for the system always say that it prevents accidents in the early mornings.

However there is another fact that as night comes down earlier people are leaving work in the dark. That is quite difficult as for most this can be a problem as people are leaving work in the dark. Many firms for instance allow woman employees to leave earlier due to a fear of crime. This has been a problem in the UK as the government always trumpets figures that say that crime is falling. However this is only part of the story as of course cyber crime is on the rise.  Still the problem remains of muggings and sex crimes. Generally one piece of evidence would be that if it was lighter in the evenings there would be a further fall in crime.  In some ways people who commit these types of crimes do not tend to be early birds!

The debate of course rages and the greatest benefit of the current regime is in Scotland. Yet in Scotland’s autonomy statute that power has been reserved to Westminster. So of course the idea of Scotland and England being on a different time zone is anathema but somehow the South of England particularly London would probably benefit.

In the past attempts were made to abandon daylight saving but they always seemed to founder on the fact that people in the far north did not like the dark winter mornings. A similar attempt was made in Russia fairly recently and also swiftly became unpopular primarily because of the dark mornings. However the idea is now for the country to permanently go on to Summer time.

Another result of the change is that people now have to reset everything. The usual spectacles is of people turning up late for Sunday engagements when the clocks go forward and early when they go back. Despite all the publicity some still manage to forget. The idea of a permanent switch in time definitely has some attractions and will be around for some time to come.

After the election

                                       After the election

Now that the election has come and gone the result nobody expected came. Now here will be a new enquiry as to how the pollsters got it so wrong, With polls showing the main parties neck and neck up to the final days all predictions have gone awry and nobody expected the conservative party to get an overall majority. For most opposition parties the results were stark and disappointing apart from the Scottish national party that is. Calls are starting again for there to be a proportional representation system as the results particularly for smaller parties were considered unfair.

For the Scottish national party the phenomenon was great. They managed to raise their total by a massive amount from six seats at dissolution to Fifty six. This meant their winning all but three constituencies in Scotland. This result will probably ensure that another referendum on independence will happen before too long and probably could lead eventually to the break up of the Union.

For the main opposition Labour party the result was disappointing. In London they benefitted from a swing to them but this was not replicated in the rest of the country. In Scotland they saw their tally of MPs reduced from forty one to one. Scotland traditionally has been a Labour stronghold and this loss was particularly keenly felt although nobody could have predicted the SNP phenomenon when it arose.

The junior coalition partners of the outgoing coalition government were decimated. Their tally of seats slumped to single figures and several high profile members lost their seats. Generally the Lib Dem brand was considered toxic. Traditionally they have been made up of disaffected conservative voters who cannot bring themselves to vote Labour or in some cases disaffected Labour voters. However they were left reeling as the results came in and it became obvious how toxic their brand was.

A feature of this election has been the rose of five party politics and this of course leads people to forget that in Wales and Scotland they already have a four party system with the Nationalist parties there. It is only new in England.

Two minor parties have now entered the scene, the Green party and the United Kingdom Independence Party(UKIP). For the Green Party they held on to the seat they currently hold but did not increase. Nationally they won over 1 million votes so the cry of foul was still ringing out.

For UKIP the votes were starker they also managed only one seat despite winning 3.8 Million votes. One of the mistakes made was to assume that Britain would always return a three party system. However it does look as if the five party system is here to stay despite the squeeze on the votes of the minority parties from the major parties

Saint George's Day

                                    Saint George’s day

Saint George’s day is one day which has not tended to be celebrated much in England which leads to comparisons with the saint days of others in the United Kingdom. Of course every saint’s day when it comes to patron saints has two aspects, the religious and the national. In most of these cases the national is the most important.

For instance the great comparison in celebrations is that of Saint Patrick’s Day. Even in London it is celebrated more than Saint George’s day. Many Irish pubs are undertaking special promotions. Before that there are several evenings with Irish dancers in many of the pubs. The Guinness flows, many of them offer free food usually Irish stew or Boiled Bacon, Cabbage and Potatoes. Irish bands play and there is a procession in London. For many it is an excuse for good old knees up! Many of the people attending are not Irish and it can be seen as a part of the cultural diversity of the country. Celebrations are also held in cities like Manchester and Birmingham. There is a large commercial presence as well and many firms are looking on it as a way to make vast profits. Of course the celebration does not necessarily have a lot to do with religion although many catholic churches will give out free shamrocks and have services on that day. Saint Patrick as the person who brought Christianity to Ireland is not mentioned much. Incidentally Saint Patrick is also the patron Saint of Nigeria and a large Nigerian community exists in London as well.

Saint George’s day is however far less celebrated and has often in the past been associated with politics of the extreme right-wing variety. This has however begun to change and for a good reason. While it is a source of grievance for many English people that in this Kingdom of four nations England is the one where it is least acceptable to show pride in the country is due to this fact. Of course England by sheer force of numbers tends to dominate the country and this has led to celebrations of Englishness being seen as less acceptable.  In the last ten years however, the celebration of Saint George’s day has become more and more acceptable. Increasingly it is being seen as an inclusive day for all. That is something to be welcomed and festivals are now officially held on the day celebrating the best of England.

Of course on a religious level Saint George became identified with England later mainly because his legendary fight with the dragon was thought to epitomize the medieval virtues of chivalry. He was a martyr from what is now Turkey and never set foot in England. He became the patron saint of England in the fourteenth century replacing Saint Edward the confessor and the previous Saint Edmund the martyr. He is also the patron saint of Georgia, Portugal and Malta among others and his patronage is quite common..

Still it is at least now permissible to show the symbols of England in  way it was not twenty years ago and Saint George fills one of those roles, along with the English flag. This can only be a welcome change.

Third Party Jitters

                                                Third Party Jitters

With the state of the coming general election very difficult to predict as neither of the two major parties being able to build up a convincing lead in the opinion polls the attention of the media has switched to the third parties that are waiting in the wings

Certainly it does seem that! Their problems are only just beginning with the media chipping away at them

At stake is the prize of who becomes the third political force in the country.

While the proportion of people who vote for one of the two major parties has consistently declined since the fifties there has always been one third party the Liberal Democrats who mopped up the protest vote. They were able to be the nice guys of British politics and though they ended up running several local authorities they managed to avoid in general mud attached to the major parties. Their members were either disaffected Tories who could not bring themselves to vote Labour and disaffected Labour voters who could not bring themselves to vote Tory..

With the present coalition that as all ended. Since going into coalition with the Tories in 2010 they have been held responsible for all the failures of the coalition and there is little doubt that their support is in steep decline. Their vote is likely to fall by more than half.

Where then will that leave the new protest parties. Two new parties have sprung up to take votes, one is the United Kingdom Independence party or UKIP and the other is the Greens. Issues her are of course who will take votes away from the main parties.

The Tory Party led by David Cameron is likely to suffer disproportionately as a result of UKIP. Here is a party which espouses as its main objective withdrawal from the European Union and measures against immigration. There has been a  surge of immigrants from Eastern Europe particularly Poland since they joined the European Union.

The problem for UKIP is that the evidence is showing that people are wanting more detail on what else they would do. While polls point to the fact that the majority of the British public with to remain in the EU suddenly it becomes glaringly obvious that they do not have policies geared to peoples main concerns as to what happens to the economy and also what happens to the National Health Service, Our socialized system of medicine. The National Health Service is indeed a sacred cow to most British people and how a new government would deal with it  will be an important issue in people deciding who to vote or.

The problem now is that the media are focusing relentlessly on the defects of UKIP’s policies.

Some of their politicians have been pillories extensively in the media. Seen as a threat by both major parties they are finding no shortage of material. The BBC conducted a straw poll about Nigel Farage in London. One of their constituency representatives described the place as a well known local mosque. The place in question is Westminster cathedral, the main cathedral of the catholic church in the country. This spawned a hashtag on twitter #Things that are not mosques. Other scandals have involved UKIP members who hold racist views. Mostly to be fair they have been promptly expelled by the party. Obviously they have to take action but the mud tends to stick and the papers gleefully report the scandals.

However the other third party the Greens are also picking up flak now. Their leader made a mess of an interview about the costings for their policies. They wanted to build more social housing but were unable to provide costings. Now they are trying to justify their position.

The trouble for both these parties is that as the current polls seem to predict a parliament in which no party will have an overall majority the policies of possible coalition partners become more important. Hence their policies are under a lot more scrutiny now and that looks set to continue to the election and possibly beyond.

Protest Vote

                                                            Protest Vote

The coming general election in the UK has two aspects to it. Obviously the most important one is who will form the government and the result is such that it will be one of the two main parties.

The other sub text is what will happen to the parties of protest or the third party. Historically this role was filled by the Liberal Democratic Party. However the Libdems as they are usually referred to here are for the most part thoroughly discredited by being part of the governing coalition so their role in this election is likely to be a large amount of contraction with large numbers of their MPs being defeated.

This has opened up a vacuum in the electoral process and the most likely result will b e the opening up of spaces for new parties. Two parties are likely to be the beneficiaries though with the first past the post electoral system they will struggle to win a greatly increased number of seats.

The two parties most set to benefit will be UKIP and the Greens.

UKIP have performed impressively in some of the recent by-elections. This is not likely to happen too the same extent in  general election as by-elections are very commonly used for protest votes with many of these “protesters” going back to their normal allegiance at election time. Many papers are suggesting that UKIP’s bubble has finally burst. This is unlikely. It does retain a significant groundswell of support which is not likely to dissipate at a general election though they are likely to perform less well at the general election.

However they are likely to become a significant force. One factor in their rise was the main parties trying to talk tough on immigration which was a bad strategy for them as it enhanced UKIP’s importance by reminding people of the problem. The Conservatives particularly fell for this line and now they focus on other policies. At the next election UKIP is likely to remain a significant force though it is difficult to see them winning a large number of seats

The Green Party has also made inroads and has been particularly successful at picking up disillusioned Liberal Democrat voters. They already have one MP but for similar reasons to UKIP will find it difficult to increase their tally of seats.

One aspect that has not really been mentioned though is that the next parliament is likely to have a different flavour as previously the main competitor for votes with the main parties was the Liberal Democrats who define themselves as equidistant for both main parties. What will happen now is that both main parties are going to have to look over their shoulders at the competition. The Conservatives will be nervously look over their shoulders at UKIP as they have competition on the right and Labour will look over their shoulders at the Green Party on their left. This is likely to pull politics in a much more radical direction and will send a message to the main parties that they cannot take their core vote for granted.

Added to this will be the fact that Scotland is likely to vote differently from the rest of the UK and its third party the Scottish National Party is likely to do very well. Historically a Labour stronghold Scotland is likely to elect a large contingent of SNP MPs and it is Scotland which is likely to be the place where the third party does particularly well having built on and expanded its support during the 2014 referendum on Independence. One thing is certain politics will not be the same again!

The silent killer

                                                The Silent Killer

One of the truisms of the modern age is that everybody is responsible for their own destiny. However one field where things have to move on is the field of metal health. Mental health is one of the great problems of the age. It is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide

For a society that generally stigmatizes people with mental health problems they are surprisingly common. According to MIND the national mental health charity one in four people will experience a mental health problem each year. This is a fairly staggering statistic!

Yet in charity collections MIND and mental health charities lag further behind others.  Our culture sees mental illness often as a threat.

While the numbers of People with mental health problems who engage in unprovoked attacks on people is small the stigma remains. Mental health is associated with individuals being dangerous and unpredictable.

This makes it very difficult to successfully reintegrate mental health users into the society. Most programs of education do not cater for this and there is vey little maneuver room in most employment contracts to allow or people being ill for part of the ear. In this respect many mental health users have great problems with the system and successfully integrating themselves within society.

For a large part of the British population mental illness is a fact of life. One in four of the population will experience a mental health problem in the course of a year. Mental illness has a major effect on the quality of life of the individual concerned. Although only a killer if it leads to suicide or self harm and despite the Brits looking down on Scandinavian countries Britain has a much higher suicide rate than they do and its rates of self harming are among the highest in the world.

What can be done to sort out this problem? In most respects the question comes down to better support for sufferers in what is increasingly an overlooked epidemic. The consequences for society are quite great as a lot of talent is overlooked. For some people the experience of mental health problems can be positive spurring them to do things with their lives. In this respect excluding about a quarter of our population from meaningful activity is not an option.

How does a society deal with this epidemic? In Britain mental health services do exist but one of the problems thrown up was the fact that in the eighties all the institutions closed to be replaced by care in the community. This however  meant that a lot of people who had become institutionalized ended up on the streets. Mostly community based care does work with some significant exceptions. The perception of users is quite mixed with  many having significant complaints about the way they have been dealt with by the system.

The problem of mental health is an epidemic that will not go away and in this the United Kingdom is not significantly different from most Western countries. How we deal with it will be one of the significant challenges of this century!

Fitness in Middle Age

                                                Fitness in Middle age

 

One of the problems of generational thinking is that twenty years ago for instance sport was considered something that young people did. In your twenties you played sport such as cricket or football. In your thirties you still played a little but the interest was fading and by our forties you gave it up.

The problem with this approach was that exercise as a way of fighting many of the problems associated with aging was never considered. People in their forties lived entirely sedentary lives, developed their beer bellies and forgot about sport completely. However nothing could be further from the truth as modern research is indicating that fitness is a goal that has to be pursued to middle age and beyond.

For one thing Exercise is now recommended by doctors to fight some of the modern conditions such as high blood pressure and obesity. These already take a toll on the society and make or a very different outlook as health services are stretched to breaking point dealing with the consequences of our unhealthy lifestyles.

The problem now is about spreading the message and there is an increasing amount of evidence that it is taking time to get through.  For instance two thirds of the adult male population over 20 is considered to be overweight or obese. The incidence in the female population is a bit lower but not much. The fact that exercise also has an effect on other problems as well such as the control of depression in many cases makes it imperative that these ideas are changed.

One of the problems is actually going to be to make it easier for people to access gyms and swimming pools and to promote the idea of regular exercise.  In this the educators still have a long way to go in terms of changing attitudes for the general population of the country.

The incidence of obesity in children is also rising which is also going to make a ticking time bomb of the society with the risk that these children will go on two develop obesity related conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

In avoiding these conditions diet plays a part but exercise has to some extent been the Cinderella and attitudes will have to change. A lot of preventative health will have to focus on changing entrenched attitudes and making physical exercise more acceptable.

Among certain groups of people usually on the higher end of the socioeconomic scale there is evidence that this is happening. However there is still a long way to go!