"Don't do the ConDems dirty work" Demonstrate Monday at Brent Town Hall

Budget Setting Council Meeting February 27th - doing the Coalition's dirty work

The Agenda and documentation for the full Brent Council Meeting on February 27th has now been published. It is available HERE

Brent Fightback will be lobbying the meeting from 6.30pm at Brent Town Hall under the slogan "Don't do the Coalition's dirty work"

Poverty pay in supermarkets

Brent Fightback discussed reports that younng people on Workfare were being used on the late shift at Tesco Brent Park. This report exposes the low pay which feeds supermarket profits.

NW London NHS - Constrained Cost Envelope !Hospital Closures confirmed

150 people attended the NW London NHS consultation titled 'Shaping a Healthier Future' at Lord's Cricket Ground on Wednesday 15 February .Unfortunately only a handful of attendees were patients as the inefficient and management friendly LINK groups had been charged with inviting them - so GPs and NHS bureaucrats dominated the meeting.Brent NHS Patients Campaign Group did attend however and discovered that :

- the £1 billion cut in NW London NHS to 2015 is not,according to Anne Rainsberry ,Chief Executive of NW NHS London a cut at all but merely a 'constrained cost envelope'.As London Health Emergency has issued a 'Learn to Speak Lansley' guide this bon mot is a worthy addition.

- fronting the new strategy is a Coalition friendly Acton GP called Mark Spencer,Medical

Director for NW London, who claimed that the fact that demand for NHS services requires another £1billion in NW London by 2015 which is not available (why not ?) does not represent a cut but merely 'unfunded growth'

Either way - £1billion is to be cut from our local NHS.

The initial consultation made clear that this cut will be made from the closure of NW London hospitals and the reduction of other local hospital services .The new proposed strategy suggests that GPs will have extended hours and will be available to see patients within four hours.

It was pointed out by patients that in many NW London GP practices the waiting time to see a GP is 12 working days.We ask - where will the money come from for the new services ?

No budget figures were provided - but it was made clear,in response to patient questions,that Ealing Hospital is already earmarked for closure.

The next 'consultation' is event is on Friday 23 March also at Lord's Cricket Ground.Register your interest in attending at www.nhsnwl.eventbrite.co.uk;

Brent Executive approves cuts budget

Nobody on the Brent Council Executive wanted to ask questions about the budget at last night's meeting. All 28 recommendations, along with the cuts tucked away in Appendix D, were approved unanimously after a brief introduction from Cllr Muhammed Butt.

The budget now goes to the full Council Meeting on February 27th where Labour councillors are expected to follow the party line and vote it through.

Cllr Ann John remarked last night, regarding Coalition cuts,  that soon the poor people of Brent will be a whole lot poorer. After Council cuts to adult social care and children's services and increased charges and rents, they will be also be poorer and less supported.

Brent Fightback is organising a demonstration outside the Town Hall on February 27th from 6.30pm. Bring placards, banners and whistles.

Why black people must fight the cuts

This is from an article by Zita Holbourne published on Voice-on-line

BARAC (Black Activists Rising Against The Cuts) is a national campaign group, created in July 2010 to challenge the disproportionate impact that the Con Dem government’s cuts in public spending will have on black and minority ethnic (bme) communities and individuals.

The campaign is an important  one for a number of reasons. Among them is the fact that one of the biggest employers of bme workers in the UK is the public sector, the very place where the brunt of cuts are happening.

Despite the fact that many were attracted to work there because of the sector’s proclaimed emphasis on equality and diversity,  bme workers are highly concentrated in the lowest  pay grades in  jobs that are most vulnerable to cuts.

Public sector pay freezes have a worse impact on bme workers. They are already poorly paid, leading to a widening gap between them and their white counterparts (one that the previous government pledged to close). This especially affects women, many of whom are in fields such as nursing and social care.

Another worrying development is that the Government’s proposed plans to reform public sector pensions, which will see public sector employees work longer and receive less money in retirement, is very likely to result in deepening pensioner poverty for a whole generation of black people.

This because black workers are more likely to work in temporary and part time jobs because of the discrimination they face in the labour market. This in turn has a knock on effect on how much they can pay into their pensions in the first place.

The fact that more of us will have to work longer before retiring will also have an effect on young black people because they are likely to find themselves crowded out of the labour market and will find it harder to get entry level jobs.

All of these cuts come at a time when race relations has fallen off the political agenda – there has been a weakening of equality laws, huge cuts to the Equality and Human Rights Commission with little or no focus in their work on eliminating racism, the rise of the far right who are blaming migrant and black workers for the cuts made by the government and discrimination in policing and the criminal justice system.

We want people to join BARAC and work with us to fight the cuts. Unity and solidarity is essential and where there is strength in numbers, we can make a difference.

We have a political arm and a legal arm to the campaign and provide workshops and advice on how to organise a local campaign against public sector  cuts.  We have a national steering group with open meetings and we organise workshops and events across the UK in towns and cities such as Manchester, ,Birmingham, Bristol and Huddersfield. There is also a BARAC team in Scotland.

CAMPAIGN
If anyone wants to organise a meeting in their area we can work with them and  build a campaign around the cuts in that area. Several trade unions are affiliated to BARAC and we work with community organisations, anti racist organisations and other groups also opposed to the cuts.

BARAC is collecting evidence of how the cuts have impacted on black communities. We are calling on people to provide us with reports about the effect  of the cuts on them, their families, their communities and the services they use.

We will then examine this evidence in the context of United Nations and domestic (UK) policy commitments on race discrimination. We are also organising a national conference on economic and social injustice.

 For further details, please call  07711 861660 or 07984 181797; e- mail barac.info@gmail.com or visit www.blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com

NHS - EMERGENCY IN NW LONDON -YOUR CHANCE TO OBJECT 15 FEBRUARY

Whilst Lansley/Cameron try to privatise the NHS through Parliament ,here in NW London the plans to slash hospital services across 8 London boroughs were outlined on the BBC by Mark Spencer ,Medical Director of the NWL NHS Trust.

Spencer told the BBC that with £1billion cuts to make by 2015 hospital closures were'almost a certainty'.

Spencer and other leading NHS bureaucrats are speaking at Lord's Cricket Ground on Wednesday 15 February from 9am at a consultation event.Very few patients have been invited but it is still possible to attend this event .

Just E mail your intention to attend to communications@nw.london.nhs.uk or telephone Emma on 0203 350 4186 to confirm your attendance

I hope to see you there

Graham Durham - Acting Secretary ,Brent NHS Patients Campaign