“Inadequate” is such an insipid inadequate term to describe an abject failure to manage critical mental health services and to continue over 5-years to fail to improve.
Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is the seventh largest mental health trust in the UK, running over 100 community
services across 50 sites and GP practices for 1.6 million people in an area of 3,500 square miles for £227m a year. In any one month they may have 25,000 patients being seen or served. No small feat.
I’ve had great NHS care and compassion, supported by superb individuals via NSFT, Wellbeing, CMHT, Therapy services within Norfolk Mental Health – indeed CQC scored it “Good” for caring. However, the waiting lists for many are criminally irresponsible. This isn’t even my usual rant about transgender waiting lists, although they form a part of mental health. The Government austerity cuts and CCG and NSFT financial and provision managers are presumably to blame as every other trust must be facing similar challenges. Mental Health services remain grossly underfunded and in crisis. Parity for mental health services with physical health and its 18-week guarantees are years away. NSFT tops the table in the worst possible way, making national news today. Norwich topping the football – great; NSFT topping the worst mental health care trust for 5 years – fail!
“NSFT doctors first raised concerns over cuts in January 2013, as more than 500 mental health jobs faced the axe in what was known as a radical redesign of services. Senior psychiatrists warned at the time that patient safety would be put at risk and said the trust was being “downright dishonest’’ for failing to state that the cuts would have detrimental effects on patient care.” – EDP
I had to fight for well over a year to get seen, assessed (I was “lost” in the system three times but with zero response to internal complaints raised), and keep my care – which I am losing in 3 months – apparently, long-term mental health symptoms can be in “recovery” (mine can be episodically), and bipolar and anxiety disorder be signed-off.
“36 people had waited five years to be seen and 2,732 were waiting for their first contact with services… 2,400 adult patients across the trust had not been allocated a care coordinator in community mental health services.” – EDP
This is the problem when capitalist market budgeting is applied to health, and recovery models applied to long-term ailments. I prefer a “discovery” model that supports but doesn’t focus on discharge until you yourself know you are ready. Instead, a benefits and unemployment model of punishing mental health as if it was an aspect of an alleged “work-shy” culture leads to shaming those in need of its services and a seemingly deliberate or incompetent policy of actually signposting ease of access to services resulting in many people never even finding the door, let alone making it through it. Whilst I am currently being “shown the door“, having had an exit strategy meeting, others are shown the door but not let in. As many friends of mine know all to well, just as with PIP applications and appeals, if you weren’t ill when you asked for help by the time you eventually get it the very wait will have made you ill, and certainly resulted in a deterioration of any conditions you have.
“The Care Quality Commission found patients desperately needing care were waiting so long for help they harmed themselves or took overdoses during delays – or were being turned away completely…Staff were covering up the length of waiting lists by allocating patients to staff or running several lists whilst agreeing that nothing would be offered until space was available. And some patients had been waiting five years for help.” – EDP
During a suicidal day, several years ago, I rang the 24hr acute line at Hellesdon on a Friday night and got a locum of some form who said: “I can’t help you, I can’t access your notes at a weekend” and was generally unintelligible and useless in several other ways. I never rang them again.
With a history of suicide, I’ve learned to stay alive by building my own care package and it includes my partner, friends, Wellbeing, CMHT – the “severe and enduring mental health needs” service (keeps getting renamed!), cats, honesty, whisky, and avoiding pills as an accessible suicide kit.
I have nothing but praise for 95% of the frontline staff who’ve helped me. I would not have survived continuing mental health challenges and rebuilt some of my life had it not been for my care team who have gone above and beyond their job descriptions to support my whole wellbeing and not just my mental health. That has included helping me with referrals to physio and general health, and applying for Housing Benefit, PIP and ESA for me, when I was in no state to do so. They are my heroes. The system of cuts and carelessness elsewhere that meant I needed them has probably meant that others have had less support or are still waiting.
“We want services which are provided for those who most need care. That may mean those who don’t have as much need wait a little longer.” – Antek Lejk, Chief Exec NSFT, EADT
Clearly, they are people that carry on caring despite the system and resources they are forced to work with. It is a wonder why so many keep working and don’t leave. Indeed, NSFT has 1-in-4 unfilled nursing posts.
“A perfect storm of cuts, incompetence and stigma has seen services unravel, with people struggling to access services, being discharged too soon, and staff under intolerable pressure with unmanageable caseloads. Following a savage real-terms budget cut, the number of doctors has been reduced by 51 (around 25pc) and the number of nurses by 163 (1 in 8) compared to when the trust was formed in 2012, while referrals have rocketed. The number of patients referred but still awaiting their first contact is 2,732 (as of October 12). That’s a lot of people in distress, without support.” Emma Corlett,EDP
When the CQC interviewed me for a previous report, I said that continuity (and accessibility) of care were critical as my care team kept getting changed or staff going off long-term sick themselves (probably stress at work based).
What happened? Three months later they shuffled the deck chairs (a “radical redesign” no doubt) and changed my care-co again, and I’ve had 3 more since. NSFT is that Titanic on which the deck-chairs get regularly rearranged rather than addressing the approaching iceberg of yet more service-users drowning in a cold heartless sea where the lifeboats are knocked-off the list of necessary equipment to save money.
“The key to keeping people safe is a trusting relationship. How can that be possible with repeated, persistent disruption. Worse of all, it’s deliberate disruption as like you describe, inept managers with a lack of a clue about what else to do opt to do another reorganisation, over the heads of staff and in some cases not even bothering to tell the service user.” – Emma Corlett, Nurse and Norfolk Councillor
This month saw World Mental Health Day. For the other 364 days of the year, we are forgotten. Austerity Britain has affected mental health services more than most. Despite promises to ringfence the NHS and bring parity between physical and mental health, this has not happened. Instead, beds have been cut, jobs have not kept pace with population growth, and my own trust, NSFT, has been placed back into special measures again, after being the first mental health trust in the country to be sanctioned in this way by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in February 2015.
Mental health awareness and NHS service provision improvements are sorely needed as referrals have risen 20% in Norfolk and Suffolk, but staffing and beds have been cut. Complaints, locally, have risen from 430 to 592, 2013-16. The latest CQC report criticised inadequate staff and bed levels but praised staff the caring attitudes of staff as ‘good’.
2010-20 will be the most austere decade in NHS history
2010-17 UK population rose 5%, mental health staff up 0.87%
2011-14 33% rise in Police cases with mental health component
2010-13 56% rise in self-harm and suicide
Mental health at work costs UK economy up to £99bn
Entitlement to be seen <18 weeks applies to mental health too
A week ago, BBC Radio Norfolk ran a mental health week focus with Stephen Bumfrey featuring it each afternoon, and coming together with Nick Conrad, Sue Tebble and myself, on Friday 20th, for an hour-long special. (iPlayer episode – 2hr 32m in)
“overall if you look across the country there is a good record of actually being able to move trusts out of special measures” – Theresa May
This makes the failure to resolve the local NSFT crisis all the poorer. Patients, or the politically correct – ‘service users’, have complimented the staff but criticised the system, waits, and other failures. Patient deaths and out of hospital suicides have increased whilst beds and budgets have been cut. Hundreds of patients were sent out of county owing to the lack of beds, up to 225 miles away!
In 2012/13 the trust reported 53 unexpected deaths, 105 in 2013/14 and 14/15, 139 deaths, rising again in 15/16 to 158, and 140 in just 9 months of 16/17. When standardised for age it is above the average for England. The figures have risen across all regions during NHS austerity under this government, from 47 per 1,000 to 59 in England – up 25%, but from 44 to 66, a rise of 50% in Norfolk & Suffolk.
Jeremy Hunt
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has boasted that provision for mental health has “got better” and that he has increased staffing by 30,000 posts. The reality of the lie, and statistics do indeed damn him, is that 4,100 mental health nurses, 4,596 mental health trust beds, have been cut, and just 692 extra staff employed – an increase of just 0.87% over seven years, despite population growth of 5% during that time – so, in other words, a cut!
“Although NHS funding is rising in real terms, current plans mean that 2009/10 to 2020/21 will be the most austere decade in NHS history. Total spending on the NHS in England increased by an average of 1.2% a year under the 2010-15 coalition government (0.9% for the UK), and is set to increase at the same rate under the current Conservative government. Between 2009/10 and 2015/16, spending increased from £109.1bn to £119.0bn and is planned to rise to £123.2bn in 2020/21. This growth rate of around 1% is below the historical average for the UK of 3.7% per year.” – The Health Foundation
Norfolk has a pioneering mental health within Police HQ service, but nationally, there has been a 33% increase in cases with a mental health component 2011-14. As much as 40% of Police time is spent dealing with mental health-related issues.
Eighteen Weeks, as if!
Under the NHS constitutional pledge, patients have a right to be treated within 18 weeks of referral, including mental health.
“the new waiting time standards will be as follows: 75% of people referred for talking therapies for treatment of common mental health problems like depression and anxiety will start their treatment within 6 weeks and 95% will start within 18 weeks.” Pledge of 2014 to be delivered by April 2016.
Yet, the wait for some treatments can be more like 18 months. Just try requesting something more complex than CBT or other less time-limited ‘quick-fix’ therapies. IAPT referrals seen within 6 weeks were apparently 93-96% in Norfolk and Suffolk.
My personal experience, and that of several friends, has been of much longer waits. Calling the acute care line at weekends can result in complete ignorance or lack of access to your medical records. Support lines have historically been cut. People fall between the cracks, and I know too many people no longer with us due to mental health funding and systemic failures.
Discovery or Recovery
Discharge centred mental health, is solution based, with as much an an economic imperative as a wellbeing focus.
“securing a minimum of 50 per cent recovery rate from treatment” – NHS
Mental health in Norfolk has a Recovery College, a course-based approach to improving wellbeing. I prefer to see it as a discovery-centric way of improving self-management with community support. Some mental health issues do not just resolve, yet the NHS insists on “developing a recovery culture” (p13) in mental health which fails those with long term or lifetime conditions.
74% of NSFT patients represented with mental illness symptoms within 6 months, compared to a national figure of 63% (2015 data).
IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) approaches such as CBT serve best those with mild to moderate conditions, whereas moderate to severe need additional and more specialised help, as e.g., with OCD.
Suicide Risk
Between 2010-13, there was a 56% rise in self-harm and suicide across 52 NHS mental health trusts. It has been suggested that the over-capacity of up to 138% and staffing cuts has increased the risk of incidents.
I find the language, even if it has a clinical meaning, and the reality of response to people at risk of suicide, horrifying. The provision of “low level psychiatric support” was referenced in a Norfolk and Suffolk response it its higher than average suicide rate:
“There is a gap between the Wellbeing Service, the counsellors employed by GP practices and what is on offer via the mainstream mental health services. Suicide rate in Norfolk & Suffolk is high. GP referrals to MH are only accepted 20% of the time. GPs are left to manage risk the rest of the time.” – NSFT, pp11-12
The apparent aim is a “reduction in referrals to mainstream mental
health services by offering more low level psychiatric support in primary care.”
Care not Cuts
What worries me, is the low level of funding, of staff, of beds, and the cure rather than care attitude of the system. In contrast, the caring attitude of the staff is to be praised, and they need additional in-work support themselves to be able to deliver services under such tight austerity conditions.
LYLM is a campaign to celebrate and make relevant our markets. The oldest form of commercial trade, many have suffered from superstores, out of town shopping parks, and the online revolution. Keeping them fresh and vibrant remains a challenge. That said, many entrepreneurial migrant people have established stalls and brought international flavours and variety to traditional trades and ownership.
Norwich Market
Today is #LYLM2017 day at Norwich Market from 10-4pm. Historic Norwich Market is especially loveable! It’s mentioned in the Domesday Book, and one of the oldest and largest in the country. It’s been in its present location for 900 years pre-dating the surrounding buildings.
St Peter Mancroft and Norwich Market
St Peter Mancroft was financed by the market’s merchants and its graveyard expanded taking in a row of the market because of 14th-century bubonic plague and famine deaths. All stallholders retain the right to hold their weddings in the church and to be buried there.
Norwich Market, Gentleman’s Walk
St Peter’s Street used to be called Over Row and Gentleman’s Walk, Nether Row. Haymarket, Maddermarket, Timber Hill and elsewhere held additional city markets.
In the 16th-Century there were 37 butchers alongside the oranges and lemons, sugar, figs and prunes – then considered exotic international imports. Also, somewhat exotic, the 17th-Century saw lions, tigers, camels and jackals, displayed at the market, alongside “unusual people”.
Ice cream on Norwich Market
Public punishments were also carried out at the market at its Guildhall end where the stocks and pillory were located.
Norwich Union (Aviva) was founded, over 200 years ago, to provide fire insurance to stalls and shops around the market.
The market now, once again, celebrates an international city with food and provisions from many countries as well as organic, vegan, and community-social enterprises. You can also buy hoover parts, DMs, flowers, clothes and more… Support and love your local market today.
Norwich Market, support it to keep it open and prosperous
The EDL, UKIP, Britain First etc blame Muslim immigration for last week’s Westminster terrorist attack. Yet Adrian/Khalid was middle-class Kent-born, with a white British mother, well schooled, popular, sporty until he turned violent down the local pub – you know that breeding ground of foreign national terrorism – the British pub. His parents live on a farm in Wales, and his mum runs a craft business.
Actually, it seems he was radicalised after custody for a violent knife attack when imprisoned at HMP Wayland, Norfolk.
Violence is the problem, not nationality.
Immigration
Masood was not Syrian, nor a migrant or refugee; not on Trump’s country flight ban list. Nor were all the perpetrators of the 7/7 London terrorist attack, they all grew up in diverse liberal Britain. Even in America, just 0.0006% of refugees have been convicted over the last 40 years or terrorist attacks.
Extremism is the problem, not immigration.
“We fret, rightly, that Isil is at war with Western civilisation. It is. But it is also at war with Muslim civilisation.” – Daily Telegraph
Islamist Terrorism
Adrian Elms’ conversion to Islam in a rural category C British prison was probably further narrowed in ideology during 4 trips to Saudi Arabia and its Sharia-supporting Wahhabism.
A disproportionate number of terrorists are adult converts to extremist Islam. 2-3x more likely. Zealotry, “evangelism”, recruitment, conversion.
“In the UK between 2001 and 2013, 12% of “homegrown jihadis” were converts, but less than 4% of the overall Muslim population were. In the US, the total in 2015 was 40%, against an overall level of 23%.” – The Guardian
Fundamentalism is the problem, not flags of origin.
Homophobia
Listening to BBC Any Questions and Douglas Murray, a Spectator editor and regular newspaper writer, talking about British Muslims wanting homosexuality to be illegal, ignores the facts that so too do a minority of British Christians. Whilst surveys point to something a shade over 50% of Muslims opposing homosexuality and just 20% having no problem with it, those proportions were equally true of Christianity a few decades back. Indeed, surveys of Anglicans showed that 50% opposed homosexuality until around the year 2000.
Hate and fear are the problem, not faith
I don’t support any religious opposition to LGBT freedoms. I also know LGBT Muslims and Christians. They are not incompatible, it depends upon your interpretation and ideology. I will always challenge the ideology that is homophobic but not the person with peaceful, inclusive views. The fewer exemptions for Faith Schools from experiencing and encountering diverse, liberal cultures and education the better.
As we are not born with hate, it is clearly taught and caught, it stands to reason that it can be untaught and uncaught.
Education is the answer, not bigotry.
Not in my name
Among those of religious affiliation, even Muslims, #notinmyname is the more likely response to terrorism. Again, surveys point to around 1-4% of Muslims supporting terrorism. The actions of one person or even one per cent do not a majority ideology make. The more moderates, however, that do stand up and say “Not in my name” the better. You only have to listen to a range of news sources, rather than just right wing tabloids and far right political parties to realise that British Muslims were just as condemning of last week’s terrorist incident as the non-Muslim population. Indeed, surveys point to a majority of Muslims feeling more British than other indigenous or immigrant populations here.
Today, Tuesday 23 August, is the last day to “nominate your stars of Norfolk‘s arts scene” for a special EDP People’s Choice Arts Award. The deadline for submission is midnight to put forward your favourite community or corporate arts organisation, artist, or event.
The Norfolk Arts Awards is the Hostry Festival‘s red carpet gala event celebrating the arts. It’s really an opportunity to celebrate people who make a difference. The EDP People’s Choice Awards is a chance for people to have their say and nominate their own stars for the award. The top 10 in each category will be revealed and then there will be an online vote to find three winners. Winners will be announced at the Norfolk Arts Awards ceremony at Norwich Cathedral’s Hostry on Friday 21st October.
Norfolk Arts Awards 2016
Hostry Festival Norfolk Arts Awards EDP 2016
The Arts Awards consist of 15 awards, with 30 nominations and celebrate the rich and diverse world of arts and culture in Norfolk. The EDP People’s Choice Award features 3 categories and nominating arts groups or individuals for the public vote closes Tuesday 23rd August – it is your chance to have your say by recommending an arts project, organiser or artist for their creative work in Norfolk.
Check out the interview with the event’s co-founder, Stash Kirkbride, on BBC Radio Norfolk (from 3h34m).
“Nominations have already been flooding in for this year’s awards, and people have until Tuesday, August 23 to send in their entries. Once again there are three EDP People’s Choice Awards categories – individual, small organisation and large organisation.” – Emma Knights, EDP
This year the awards are returning to the Hostry building at Norwich Cathedral, held on Friday October 21st 2016, 7-9.30pm with after show canapes and champagne reception.
Rebecca Tamás organised a rally of over 400 people on 12 July outside Norwich City Hall, with a dozen speakers across cultures and continents, writers, politicians, faiths, artists, academics and activists, as well as the daughter of the Eastern European village shop on Magdalen St that was arson attacked on 8 July. The purpose of the gathering was to affirm the city’s welcome of migrants, refugees and all its international communities. Norwich is a city of refuge and literature to everyone with a story, a safe place for future chapters to unfold, even if there are isolated incidents of hate or racism, Norwich remains a fine city where the community responds to hate with love, to darkness with light.
Rebecca Tamás organiser and speaker at Migrants Rally, 12 July 2016 – more event photos here
Hungarian-British UEA PhD student and organiser of the rally
Rebecca Tamás described the event as:
“a testament to the power of love and inclusion” – UEA Concrete, interview
In the same post-rally interview I said that:
“Nobody can say there’s even such a thing as ‘English’, let alone ‘British’ or anything else: we are already a melting pot of different cultures and backgrounds, bloodlines and everything. But it’s about, even more than ever, despite that background, recognising that we are part of a global village. And it is this bigger picture we often miss: the fact that we are all human beings whose duty it is to always watch out for our fellow humans… at the end of the day, it is about stories, we have personal stories and people have community and country stories, but it’s having the freedom to have your own story, the freedom to then tell that story to others, to be heard and to be recognised.” – UEA Concrete, interview
We are all migrants. We are all story-tellers. We are all humans. We deserve the same opportunities, the same love, and the same respect. And, at the end of the day, it really is as simple as that.
Hate is taught and caught, not born with, children begin life accepting everyone until we teach them otherwise, it is good for, particularly young people, to be out demonstrating a positive response to diversity and difference, rather than the rise in xenophobia and hate crime witnessed post-Brexit vote.
Event Speakers
Katy Jon Went, writer & diversity activist (full transcript below)
Marcia X, UEA
George Szirtes
Samantha Rajasingham
Dr Becky Taylor, UEA
Pa Musa Jobarteh of BridgePlus
Fern Richards, UEA
Mohammed Ameen from Chapelfield Mosque
Annie Henrique from Norwich Liberal Synagogue
Tim Hughes from Stand up to Racism.
Rebecca Tamás, UEA
Cllr Alan Waters, Leader of Norwich City Council
Clive Lewis MP for Norwich South – by message
An excellent summary of each speaker’s main points can be found on Tony Allen’s blog.
Katy Jon Went speaking at Norwich Solidarity With Migrants Rally, 12 July 2016 – more event photos here
The UK and, indeed, East Anglia have long traditions of immigration. We currently have some 8 million foreign-born people in the UK, about 1-in-8 of us. But, more than that, many of us, if not recent migrants, have Roman, Viking, Norman, Saxon, Dutch, African, Caribbean or Indian ancestors.
Ironically, Brexit Boris Johnson has Turkish and Franco-German ancestry and was born in the USA so is included in that 8 million figure! Unless you want to class bombastic British Boris as foreign, the actual number is nearer to 5 million, or about 1-in-12 people.
Whatever the figures, though, the important thing to recognise is that we live in a global community, locally expressed.
It is community cohesion and communication we need to build to counter fear, hate, and prejudice.
My partner is Dutch and my family name has Dutch emigrant roots. In the 16th century Norwich welcomed Dutch and Flemish ‘Strangers’ till they made up a third of our population, bringing new skills that enhanced our then status as England’s second most prosperous and prestigious city.
Before that, back in the 12th century, Norwich was 7% Jewish but after the killing of a teenager, posthumously to become St William, that was falsely blamed on the local Jews, and so began the Blood Libel. A persecution and killing of Jews that spread across East Anglia and to Europe, from our fine city of Norwich. By the end of the 13th century all remaining Jews had been expelled from Britain.
In addition, slavery, empire, and commonwealth’s, often coerced, contributions to wars, trade, and labour, mean that Britain’s success owes a moral debt to people from around the world. Economically we have, and continue to thrive on, migrant people’s hardworking and entrepreneurial spirit. Economic studies show that immigration is a net benefit, that immigrant people are more likely to be in work or starting their own trades, paying tax, and not claiming benefits, than people of longstanding British heritage.
Whether people come to Britain fleeing war, terrorism, homophobia, transphobia, or poverty, they are all fleeing a threat to life, liberty, or livelihood. Even poverty is a slow death and until #Brexit we were the 5th most wealthy economy in the world after Germany which has twice the percentage of migrant background population. We are fully able to sponsor and support asylum seekers, refugees and even so-called economic migrants.
What we have to do is engage with British communities that bear the greatest new influxes so that integration is successful. London with over a third foreign national origin people is a successful example after more than 60 years of immigration, Boston and Great Yarmouth, among others, need time to adapt.
That means that grants and benefits need to fall upon domestic as well as international communities in those areas. It means increased spending on schools, the NHS, and community services, not austerity which falls hardest upon the poor. Doing this will reduce societal division, fear, hatred, jealousy and suspicion.
Solidarity With Migrants, Norwich, 12 July 2016 #SafetyPin – more photos here
Hate crimes have surged by 42% in England and Wales since the Brexit result, over 200 a day, the worst rise on record. Three race hate crimes an hour is three too many, especially when nine more per hour go unreported.
The UK needs to be at the forefront of offering opportunity and safety to all. Freedom of belief, expression, identity and speech, alongside freedom from poverty, persecution, FGM, homophobia, forced marriage, racism, and torture, these are the very foundations of a truly forward thinking country and culture.
Our Home Secretary will become our Prime Minister tomorrow, unopposed. She herself, though, has opposed immigration and despite after much petitioning reviewing asylum seeker processes continues to preside over conditions and interrogations of refugees that demand they prove their sexuality and threats at home in invasive ways.
Theresa May may have Tory ‘Maymentum’, and Momentum may have a meeting tonight amidst Labour’s leadership woes, but we here in Norwich have migrant momentum, maintaining Norwich’s place as a growing city of cultural and international diversity, safety, and welcome. Here’s what the City Council have to say:
Solidarity With Migrants, Norwich, City Hall, 12 July 2016 – more photos here
“we, as people of Norwich, should be reminded and encouraged to take pride in our ethnic and cultural diversity and rejoice in what we can share with and learn from others. Above all, we should be on our guard against anything or anyone who sets out to destroy it. As an institution (Norwich City Council), which is an integral part of city life, we once more declare our abhorrence and utter rejection of any form of injustice and pledge ourselves anew to celebrating cultural diversity and to ensuring that all members of our city feel nurtured and embraced.” – NCC statement
Strumpshaw, Tincleton & Giggleswick have produced a map of silly, rude and NSFW (Not Safe For Work) United Kingdom place names. Up and down the inland aisles and coastal isles of Great Britain some 1400 naughty names have been enumerated including around 300 “Bottoms” such as “Scratchy Bottom” in Dorset. In East Anglia alone there are “Two Mile” and “Six Mile Bottoms”, along with a “Cat’s Bottom”.
Cheeky Map of British Bottoms
You will also find among the names of ill repute and comic creation: “Booby Dingle”, “Cock Burn” and “Fanny Burn”, “Twatt”, and numerous “Cocks”, “Dicks”, “Knobs” and “Willies”. Not to mention “Crotch”, “Minge”, and a “Bushygap” in Northumberland only a stone’s throw from “Cockshot”!
The Orkneys and Shetlands both have several “Twatts”, a “Ladies Hole”, “Sodom” and “Loch of Bottoms”.
Strumpshaw, Tincleton & Giggleswick
Marauder’s Map, “Mischief managed”, Harry Potter
The cartographer map specialists Strumpshaw, Tincleton & Giggleswick, sound like a shop on Diagon Alley in Harry Potter although this is no Marauder’s Map tracking living people up to mischief, just a record of mischievous names given to places by people now dead, since most wouldn’t get past the planning stage nowadays. If you are reading this as work tapping “Mischief managed” won’t help!
The makers take their work seriously, saying:
“Researched, designed and made in Great Britain, our maps boast a precise measure of pedantry, a small portion of innuendo, and an uppity pinch of pomposity. They are carefully calibrated to entertain, delight and – on occasion – cause the odd mouthful of tea to be spat out.”
Norwich also had a “Gropekuntelane”, now Opie Street, which was written in Latin as Turpis Vicus, “Shame Street”. The long-known and used word, ‘cunt’, has been in use since at least 1230, and ‘grope’ of sexual touching since 1380, but their use in street names describing areas of prostitution died out after the late 16th century. Sniggering, on the other hand, will never die out.
Julie Bremner with Socialist Worker protesting Get The Tories Out – Strike, Protest, Occupy at Norwich NPA Rally
Saturday 30 May at midday saw several hundred people “depressed and angry about the election results” gather at the Norwich Haymarket who wanted “a more equal, fairer, kinder system…” standing together to find “a better way”. The growing local Norfolk People’s Assembly saw hundreds of local activists heed the call for a National day of Action from the UK People’s Assembly as a pre-cursor to a larger anti-government rally on 20 June in London. Some 475 joined the Facebook event and around 200-250 showed up at the Norwich Haymarket, nestled between McDonald’s, Top Shop, Next, Starbucks, and Primark. The statue of a pensive Sir Thomas Browne – the medic and author of “Vulgar Errors”, looked down upon the modern crowd, probably wondering why we hadn’t yet solved 17th century problems of inequality and poverty, more than 3 centuries later.
Norfolk Peoples Assembly Anti Austerity Demo, Norwich Haymarket 30 May 2015
Different interest groups but a common message
Banners for Saving Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk (currently in special measures), the Norfolk People’s Assembly and DPAC Norfolk (Disabled People Against Cuts) were unfurled along with dozens of printed and home made anti-austerity signs held aloft by arms weary after 5 years of Coalition cuts and now faced with another 5 years of threatened welfare budget reductions under the recently elected Conservative Party.
Stop the war against the poor
Diverse people representing numerous special interest bodies such as Save the NHS or the Hewett School, students, unemployed, disabled groups, political parties, affiliations and none, all called in unison for an end to the cuts and austerity.
A lone young female heckler raised a sober voice saying that “you people on benefits already get too much”. Perhaps, influenced by the hardline Right wing and Ukip rhetoric in the East of England during the recent election campaign.
Passionate Political Speeches
If the personal is political then that rang true of speakers from across the board, less because it was about them, more because of the passion with which they spoke for and on behalf of others but from the depths of personal experience of austerity and cuts to their sectors or own lives.
Political speeches at Norfolk Peoples Assembly Anti Austerity Rally, Norwich Haymarket
Speakers from the rally organisers, included Jan McLachlan, representatives of the Green Party, and Mark Harrison of the disability charity Equal Lives who drew attention to the ongoing access issues at the Duke Street work capability assessments centre.
Recently elected local Labour MP for Norwich South – Clive Lewis, suggested that even illegal direct action may be necessary to oppose immoral laws and Government inaction. Lewis spoke in an impassioned way that would probably shame the current batch of Labour leadership hopefuls and their copycat “aspirations of hard working families” soundbites.
Clive Lewis Labour MP for Norwich South speaks passionately about opposition and direct action
Media & Press Coverage
Norwich Evening News covers NPA Anti Austerity Rally
Norwich Evening Newsreported very briefly on the rally but unfortunately made the demonstration sound like it was organised by Clive Lewis, which was not the case. Great publicity for the LabourMP, whose support and speech were appreciated, however poor journalism and social media tweeting by the EDP‘s Evening News arm, neglecting to mention many speakers and making it sound like the excellent Norfolk People’s Assembly organisers joined Mr Lewis, rather than the other way around. Political fairness also dictates that other parties such as the Norwich Green Party were also represented there. After contacting ArchantI was assured that they would pass on “corrections you’ve pointed out to the reporter who wrote the story who will amend as appropriate”. Four days later, finally, an amendment to the online news story: “The rally, organised by the Norfolk People’s Assembly, was attended by Unison members, and pupils and parents from the Hewett School.” But still no response to the original and even more inaccurate tweet:
— Norwich Evening News (@EveningNews) June 1, 2015
If Monday is a slow news day, then posting about Saturday’s event, also on the EDP site, has led to 44+ comments, the most commented on article today (58 now).
Education was well represented by Ian Anderson a spokesperson for the We’re backing Hewett campaign, UEA staff, and Postgraduate Education officer UEA Students Union Liam McCafferty.
Liam, depressingly depicted a dystopian future where people would not be able to afford higher education.
Nick O’Brien speaking at the Norfolk Peoples Assembly Anti-Austerity Rally
Local deputy head teacher, NUT Campaigns Coordinator, Norwich Pride Chair and social activist, Nick O’Brien mentioned the reportedly over 27,000 children in Norfolk now living in poverty, at increased risk of poor health and educational achievement, whilst more than half a dozen children of protesting parents were happy, beyond most young kids’ attention spans, to hold up placards drawing attention to the plight of people of all ages and abilities under the current cuts.
NPA Press Release
Family solidarity as kids affected by austerity say “No Cuts”
Norwich Radical writer and NPA Press Secretary, Jack Brindelli, issued this statement for the press:
We at the People’s Assembly are steadfastly opposed to the Tories vicious plans for Britain, and the implications they will have for the people of Norfolk. On David Cameron’s watch as Prime Minister, the country has become bitterly divided along the lines of wealth inequality. His government’s cuts have shamefully targeted society’s most vulnerable – from the disabled, to the unemployed, to the unborn.
Whilst the Conservatives have been selling off the NHS through the backdoor, Britain’s infant mortality rate has risen to become the highest in Western Europe. Since 2010, the Black Triangle campaign estimates more than 80 suicides have been directly linked to cuts to social security – as those who need help most have been driven to desperate decisions by the Tories’ savage austerity measures. Over the duration of the last Parliament, the government have also butchered our legal rights by cutting legal aid – and are currently poised to axe the Human Rights Act, which currently protects ordinary citizens of all races from torture and persecution.
Young emboldened activist stands defiantly for “No Cuts”
They have dismantled the comprehensive education system with their failed Free Schools and Academies scheme, turning schools like Hewett into profit-driven production lines, and they have tripled tuition fees – essentially ending the chances of a generation to learn beyond a GCSE level.
Kids who can’t vote yet say “Get the Tories Out”
We have a clear choice for the next 5 years then. If we want to live in a world without an NHS, without universal education, without opportunity, without hope, then we need only sit back and wait for 2020’s election to at best deliver us cuts from a different party. If however, we are intent on not only protecting the ideas of freedom, opportunity and the right to live with dignity, but also determined to literally save hundreds of lives, and to provide our children with a future worth living, then we must stand together now. Over the coming months, across the country from Glasgow to Newcastle, to Liverpool to London, the People’s Assembly plans to take action to stop David Cameron’s gang of market-extremists in their tracks, and build a better alternative. For us, the fightback starts here, in Norwich.
More photos of the Norfolk People’s Assembly Norwich rally here.
UK Uncut Anti-Austerity Rally in London
Human Rights Act protest
London saw two rallies on Saturday, one against the proposed replacement of the Human Rights Act by an expected to be watered down British Bill of Rights, and another called for by UK Uncut which saw 4,700 join the Facebook event. Less than that, as is usual with online events, turned up, but the hundreds that did protested peacefully and painted in situ a large 20m banner: “12bn more cuts. £120bn tax dodged – Austerity is a lie“, which they subsequently hung over the side of the bridge opposite Parliament. Although paint bombs were let off and direct action was called for, no arrests were made. Beth Cunningham told reporters:
“Direct action is what works. It sends a loud and clear message that people aren’t happy. And it’s part of acknowledging that our current political resources aren’t enough. People don’t have enough resources in the current political system to make their voices heard and that’s why we resort to direct action.”
