Saturday 30 October 2010

My son Charles Atherton-Lauire has returned to Cardiff. Thanks to everyone who made his trip as special as ever. Especially Dave & Amanda.

Friday 29 October 2010

Son Charles says "we went to a film in The Prince Charles Cinema "A Town Called Panic" (with the cravendale guys in) French with subtitiles"
British Museum's CBBC Relic: Guardians of the museum trail 2 had Charles running around "ancient artefacts" to get the right answers to win.
Son Charles says restuarant Inamo, is fun for all the family especially the video games on the tables. Surprised me by eating Nigiri Sushi!
Charles Atherton-Laurie makes illustrator @SarahMcIntyre's blog after drawing event at Foyles Book Shop, London http://tinyurl.com/34ozldz

Thursday 28 October 2010

Charles Atherton-Laurie showing off his graphic artist skills with children's illustrator @SarahMcIntyre at Foyles http://tinyurl.com/l4zl55

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Son Charles, proves his ambition to be an inventor by building automated road bump at the British Library as part of 21st Century Inventions
My son Charles and I go to the Puppet Barge in Little Venice to see play "Town Mouse, Country Mouse" performed on a vessel on Regents Canal.

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Chalres met the Author of the Scream Street series, Tommy Donbavand at Foyles Bookstore, he bought a copy of book 2 & completed it in hours.
My son & I celebrate a grand farewell at club Quintessentially Soho, to our friend Dirk van der Velnden, who is returning to the Netherlands

Monday 25 October 2010

My son Charles Atherton-Laurie in London for his half-term, already enjoyed the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden, many thanks to David.

Friday 22 October 2010

It's unquestionable, Nick Clegg has become the reincarnation of Norman Tebbit. Where's Spitting Image when you need it. Get on your bikes.

Thursday 21 October 2010

One Support, Chief Exec., Mick Sweeney, Improves services as Government Cuts (well with your help, please share) http://tinyurl.com/35j8jap

One Support, Chief Executive, Mick Sweeney, Improves services as Government Cuts announced

Below is a copy of an email thread sent to my so called support worker, Matt Schutz at One Support, part of The One Housing Group.

It clearly shows that the Government needs to concern itself less with cuts and more to do with the quality of services it pays for.

Why are tax-payers paying for another group of individuals when it's the civil servants that should be doing their jobs correctly in the first place.

And if we are, surely they should be able to do it?

From: Paul Atherton
Date: 21 October 2010 12:23:05 PM
To: Matt Schutz,Paul Joghee,Raymond Koker, Thompson,David X, Chuka Ummuna MP for Streatham, Private Eye Magazine
Subject: Paul Atherton - One Support Failures - Chief Executive Mick Sweeney

Matt,

You've offered me a meeting in September when I was seriously ill (and doing nothing to assist) and a meeting in October when you
knew my child would be with me for half-term (as you were supposed to be helping me with accommodation and funding in order to do so - but clearly haven't).

You have consistently ignored request for updates and status reports (I still haven't received a report from the last multi-disciplinary meeting you had in September) and ignored the contents of emails, as this thread of communications below clearly demonstrates.

In September 2009 a plan was laid out and agreed with One Support to what needed to be accomplished in order for me to progress and regain my independence.
Not one of those items has been addressed over a year later in October 2010 all of which are required to ensure my health, well being and accommodation.
The continual drive for meetings for meetings sake, is, and has been, constantly proven to be pointless, unproductive and a complete waste of everyones time.
At every meeting nothing is accomplished, I'm merely informed of what hasn't been done and that nothing will happen until the next meeting where we go through the same cycle.
You are now the organisation that is supposedly assisting me with finding accommodation but have shown no interest in doing so.
One Supports Mission Statement is
"One Support uses choice, innovation and technology in providing top class accommodation, support and care that delivers real life improvement and independence to our customers. "
http://ping.fm/2tTYM
"We offer specialist and professional services and work with our partners to find solutions for our customers, providing a link between housing, social care and health agencies."
http://ping.fm/OcA2I
Where can you prove that in our dealings?
You refuse to use email, ignore my needs, have completed not one thing that was agreed over a year ago in terms of benefits, social care and are now not even attempting to find me accommodation.
I have been driven further into debt by your failings to organise benefits, you haven't assisted with getting Physiotherapy or CBT for well over a year, you don't challenge incorrect thinking within your own organisation when proven to be wrong and you haven't even negotiated with housing to ensure my current environment is safe and applicable to my needs.
Time and time again, I've struggled with the very people who are supposed to be assisting me and rather than providing solutions you have created yet another layer of useless bureaucracy.
And it is for these reasons and following on from the recent research One Housing Group did on customer service, that I contacted your Chief Executive, Mick Sweeney, in order that others in Lambeth, who I know suffer the same poor service, are given the much better respect and service in line with the company's own ethos of excellence, it so proudly boasts on its website.
I'm sure you will be hearing from him very shortly.
Paul Atherton
07812 639121
paul@simpletvproductions.co.uk




On 21 Oct, 2010,at 10:35 AM, Matt Schutz wrote:


Hello Paul,

We have offered a meeting both in September, and now October. Paul Joghee and David Thompson have busy diaries but have shown willingness to make a time to meet with you. I have asked for a commitment to meet with them, to address your needs, and you could suggest a time when this would be appropriate. Our Support Agreement stipulates that regular meetings to agree a support plan are needed. If you are unwilling to agree to a meeting we can only assume that you not longer need our service and will proceed to with draw our service as we have indicated.

Matt Schutz
Support Worker
Lambeth Tenancy Support Services

represent those of the company. Finally, the recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

E-mail: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk
***********************************************************************************



From: Paul Atherton [mailto:theballetofchange@me.com]
Sent: 20 October 2010 17:37
To: Matt Schutz
Cc: Paul Joghee; Raymond Koker; Thompson,David X; chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk; Amanda Paul
Subject: Re: RE: Paul Atherton - One Support

As I said, I'm sure you will hear from your Chief Executive in due course.

A meeting wouldn't be appropriate at this juncture (nor as you would know, would it be possible during half-term, as I have my son).

If you have made any progression please forward me any status or update reports.

Many thanks

Paul
Paul Atherton
07812 639121
paul@simpletvproductions.co.uk




On 20 Oct, 2010,at 04:45 PM, Matt Schutz wrote:

Hello Paul,

It is good to hear from you after so long รข€“ I think you last mailed me in August.

Paul Joghee and David Thompson need to meet with you to provide an update, and have been awaiting a response to their email invitation sent you 9th September. Paul and David have allocated time to come and visit you at Leith House at 3pm on Thursday 28th October. Please confirm that you will be at home for this meeting. They will be happy if you wish a friend, such as Amanda Paul to attend with you.

If we do not have confirmation that you will be able to attend this meeting, by 26th October we will assume you no longer need our support, and exit you from our service. If you disagree with this decision you may appeal using our Appeals Policy. If you intend to appeal you must do so within 28 days of 26th October ( the end date of your support). Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this or if you would like a copy of the Appeals Policy.

If you have been unhappy with the service you received from One Support you can make a formal complaint using our Complaints Procedure. Please contact me if you would like to receive a copy of the procedure.

You may be able to receive support from us again if your circumstances change. Please call 0800 707 6615 to discuss a re-referral.

Matt Schutz
Support Worker
Lambeth Tenancy Support Services

represent those of the company. Finally, the recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

E-mail: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk
***********************************************************************************



From: Paul Atherton [mailto:theballetofchange@me.com]
Sent: 18 October 2010 17:11
To: Matt Schutz
Cc: Paul Joghee; Raymond Koker; chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk; chuka.umunna.mp@parliament.uk; Amanda Paul
Subject: Paul Atherton - One Support

Having heard nothing from you in regards to your progress following on from your last multi-disciplinary meeting (though the MP's office said it was handled appallingly as nobody from Housing Benefit or Leith House was in attendance and since then, they have constantly pursued you for information that was never forthcoming) or about any advancements with finding me appropriate housing, I am unclear what more input I can give.

As you know, I am in communication with your Chief Executive, Mick Sweeney and will await the outcomes of his deliberations, which I assume will be passed down to you in due course and which should address how we progress.

Paul Atherton
07812 639121
paul@simpletvproductions.co.uk




On 18 Oct, 2010,at 03:07 PM, Matt Schutz wrote:

Hello Paul,
We have endeavoured to contact you since the beginning of September . I have enclosed a letter which will be posted to your address.
If we do not hear from you by 26th October, we will have to assume you no longer either need or want our service. I understand from the Hostel service, that you remain at your room in Leith House.
Matt Schutz
Support Worker
Lambeth Tenancy Support Services

represent those of the company. Finally, the recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this e-mail.

Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

E-mail: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk
***********************************************************************************



One Housing Group (OHG) reserves the right to monitor and review the
content of all messages sent to or from this email address. Messages sent to
or from this email address may be stored on OHG's email system.

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If
you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the
presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by
any virus transmitted by this email.


Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

Email: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk

One Housing Group is registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies
Act 1965 No. 30236R and is registered with the Tenant Services Authority Registration No.L4451.

Registered address: 100 Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH


One Housing Group (OHG) reserves the right to monitor and review the
content of all messages sent to or from this email address. Messages sent to
or from this email address may be stored on OHG's email system.

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If
you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the
presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by
any virus transmitted by this email.


Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

Email: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk

One Housing Group is registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies
Act 1965 No. 30236R and is registered with the Tenant Services Authority Registration No.L4451.

Registered address: 100 Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH


One Housing Group (OHG) reserves the right to monitor and review the
content of all messages sent to or from this email address. Messages sent to
or from this email address may be stored on OHG's email system.

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If
you have received this email in error please notify the system manager.
Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company.
Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the
presence of viruses. OHG accepts no liability for any damage caused by
any virus transmitted by this email.


Violation of this notice may be unlawful.

Email: administrator@onehousinggroup.co.uk

One Housing Group is registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies
Act 1965 No. 30236R and is registered with the Tenant Services Authority Registration No.L4451.

Registered address: 100 Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH
Finally a journalist whose talking in the language I've been using for the past 2 years in regards to #Benefits. http://tinyurl.com/2wlt3u4

Wednesday 20 October 2010

My MP, Chuka Ummuna on BBC, commenting on the Government's #spendingreview. If he takes rhetoric and applies it, real changes can be made.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Two young German boys (15) stopped me in the Apple Store, asking to have their photographs taken with me. Apparently I'm a famous Producer?

Monday 18 October 2010

After 18 months waiting for compensation to replace stolen Laptop whilst in hospital, told by Health Ombudsman they won't get involved.
The Play, "Yes Prime Minister" prove that
Jonathan Lynn & Antony Jay haven't lost their scripting talents. Big thank you Ponni for tickets.

Thursday 14 October 2010

The #SavoyHotel's American Bar is stunning in being left untouched in refit. The staff have got until Friday to get standards back to normal

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Dinner at amazingly high tech Asian Fusion restaurant Inamo. You order food through pictures projected onto table. Thanks to Alison Gaumont

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" was not the nostalgic journey I was hoping to take. "Greed is no longer good, it's legal" says it all

Monday 11 October 2010

Baba ganoush, cherry tomatoes, freshly baked foccacia, champagne picnic on Primrose Hill in the sun thanks to friends Tamara, Dirk & Ponni.

Sunday 10 October 2010

The Savoy re-opens today and the American Bar looks reformed back to its former glory, is this the start of my life getting back to normal?
The play Blood & Gifts at the National Theatre with actors Chris Lambert and Emily Davis, was a tour-de-force in performance and a must see.
Today is the 7th Anniversary of my Fathers death. Please raise a glass for the homophobic, misogynist who despite his faults I loved dearly

Saturday 9 October 2010

A Thousand Voices for a Broken System meeting with Charles Wahab (following appearance on BBC News about his Twitter Bus timetable genius).

Friday 8 October 2010

Dear friend & first love, Lisa Robinson (formerly Evans), proves action rewarded by the media, an example for all http://tinyurl.com/33x56wx

Thursday 7 October 2010

Council failures told to me via A Thousand Voices for a Broken System makes news like this the tip of the iceberg http://tinyurl.com/3836plf
Filming first #Apprentice winner, Tim Campbell being "Grilled" at The London Press Club by deputy chair David Selves, thanks Dirk on Camera.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Lee Jasper and I got into a Facebook debate about the statistics in relation to racism I thought it worth posting http://tinyurl.com/33ajb8r

The Mythologies of Statistical Racism A Facebook Debate Between Lee Jasper (former Mayor Ken Livingstone's Race Adviser) and Paul Atherton

A Facebook debate about racism was sparked by Dr. Tony Sewell's appearance on BBC London Tonight, discussing the demise of the term "institutional racism" and suggesting that Black children are failing because of their own problems and not because of race.

This led to a much wider debate on race and the use of statistics an extract is contained below:

LEE:

"How many mixed area developments in a single ward do you know? There a simply thousands so its entire possible to suffer white flight in the way I describe."

PAUL:

"White Flight" in the UK was researched by the Institute of Community Cohesion in their report published in July 2009 (3,000 participants) .
(http://www.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/Resources/Toolkits/Health/TheNatureOfCommunityCohesion)

It covered 13 areas, all in the heartlands of working class environments. All the schools involved, were failing, underperforming and showing poor results.

The report shows that most parents were concerned of the impact of non-english speaking students in the schools and how it would impact on their own children's education.

And it was for that reason that they moved them to different schools.

This isn't racism. This is good parenting.

Other research, that shows "White Flight" in the middle-classes is born out of residents moving to richer area's and as I rightly contended has nothing to do with race and everything to do with money

(Prof Ceri Peach, of St Catherine's College, Oxford, author of a study of ethnic geography based on the 1991 census to date.
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/staff/cpeach.html

&

Moveme Study (20,000 participants)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-561311/Mass-exodus-families-leaving-crime-ridden-cities-white-flight-countryside.html)

What is most important here, is the overwhelming evidence that we all self segregate. People move to places where people like them live.

That's why Southall is predominantly Indian, Brixton (at least until recently) predominantly afro-caribbean.

Again, I reiterate that I am not contesting that racism exists merely proving that certain factors often blamed on racism are in fact something entirely different.

And there is a danger of playing the victim to racism where none actually exists at the cost of fighting on the fields where it actually does.

To use a football analogy, you'll get penalised for diving in the penalty box and trying to claim a foul and overlooked by the referee the next time your legs are actually taken out from underneath you.

LEE:

Secondly we know exceptions that does not change the objective facts. The figures for black and white people in the same economic groups are not as you say comparable.

PAUL:

I think Harriet Seargent's conclusive report for the Centre of Policy Studies, "The betrayal of white working class and black Caribbean boys" would be a good place to start to counter that.
http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/Wasted.html#a1206

She shows that both groups are suffering from a poor education, which by the age of 14, are worse for the White working classes than for the Black:

"...at the age of fourteen, 63% of white working class boys and 55% of black Caribbean boys has a reading age of seven or less"

The National Union of Teachers report "Opening Locked Doors" 2010 says much the same thing:

"While white working class children are not the only underachieving group, they are the largest in number and by many criteria the greatest under-achievers. Thirty years ago a 14 or 15-year-old working class young person could walk out of school and into a decent working class job. That is no longer the case."

http://www.teachers.org.uk/node/10746

"Social class has the greatest effect on educational achievement. It is still the case that how much your parents earn and the quality of their own education has the greatest influence on the achievement of their children."

In 2009 Exam results proved that White working class boys were performing worse than their Black Counterparts in primary schools:

"There are almost 200,000 white British boys, of whom 31,237 (16%) were from homes poor enough to qualify them for free school meals.

In the past, poor black boys have tended to have the weakest performance.

But this year 51.6% of black boys on free meals made the grade and the gap in their attainment compared with the national average, 20.2, was down from 21.8 in 2008.

Attainment was 49.7% among the weakest group of black boys, those from Caribbean backgrounds.

This left the white British boys on free school meals at the bottom."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8368240.stm

And the Runnymede publication

Who Cares about the White Working Class? edited by Kjartan Pรƒ¡ll Sveinsson, Runnymede Perspectives, 72 pp, January 2009,

"Thus the primacy of anti-discrimination not only performs the economic function of making markets more efficient, it also performs the therapeutic function of making those of us who have benefited from those markets sleep better at night. And, perhaps more important, it has, รข€˜for a long timeรข€™, as Wendy Bottero says in her contribution to the recent Runnymede Trust collection Who Cares about the White Working Class?, also performed the intellectual function of focusing social analysis on what she calls รข€˜questions of racial or sexual identityรข€™ and on รข€˜cultural differencesรข€™ instead of on รข€˜the way in which capitalist economies create large numbers of low-wage, low-skill jobs with poor job securityรข€™. The message of Who Cares about the White Working Class?, however, is that class has re-emerged: รข€˜What we learn hereรข€™, according to the collectionรข€™s editor, Kjartan Pรƒ¡ll Sveinsson, is that รข€˜life chances for todayรข€™s children are overwhelmingly linked to parental income, occupations and educational qualifications รข€“ in other words, class.รข€™

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n16/walter-benn-michaels/what-matters

LEE:

"Black graduate unemployment, the fact that research tells us that blacks are usually over qualified for their job. Talk to African here and they tell you they are doing cleaning jobs whilst holding a Master's degree."

PAUL:

The research in this area is incredibly spurious and much debate is being played into its accuracy. Not least, where the degree was obtained (in the UK or elsewhere), what kind of degree held and the subsequent competition of entry levels for entry into the required profession etc. the grasp of English, the ability to network etc.

In the Sheffield University Paper "Labour market job matching for UK minority ethnic groups. January 2007"

The author explains the problems:

"More recent approaches to measuring over education have started to combine data from different sources. Green and McIntosh (2006) pointed out that less than half of those defined as over educated reported having skills they were not using in their job. This has led to the recognition that the use of only one of the above definitions will lead to the spurious and over classification of over education. Chevalier (2003) combined several measures to define over education and the skill level of graduates to create 6 possible outcomes including defining a category of รข€˜apparent over educationรข€™. A later paper also incorporated workersรข€™ job satisfaction scores (Chevalier and Lindley, 2006)."

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/9960/1/SERP2007003.pdf

However, another study acknowledges the problems with race, but not down to ethnicity alone:

Ethnicity and graduates' early outcomes Study 2004 concludes:

"ethnicity is almost certainly making a contribution to the relative labour market disadvantage some individuals experience, but the causes are more complex than ethnicity aloneรข€¦.It is a combination of a number of indirect effects, rather that direct ethnic effects that have the greater significance, though in different ways for different ethnic groups"

http://ww2.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Labour_market_information/Graduate_Market_Trends/Ethnicity_and_graduates__early_outcomes_Winter_05_06_/p!edcbFXe

And anecdotally, I know as many Black People woefully under qualified for their roles as I do being overqualified for them.

LEE:

"The most telling statistic is that black boys who are not get free school meals do just as badly as those who do. Damming evidence if ever there was. How about the ethnic pay gap in the UK that results in black being paid on average ร‚£7,000 pa less than their white counterpart or the fact that racial attack on blacks are more in frequent majority white middle class wards than in mixed working class wards."

PAUL:

The only statistics I could find in relation to the academic achievements of black boys who did or did not receive free school meals came from Warwick University

"Strand, Steve (2010) Do some schools narrow the gap? Differential school effectiveness by ethnicity, gender, poverty and prior achievement. School Effectiveness and School Improvement"

And in an abstract reads

"The results show that Black Caribbean boys not entitled to free school meals, and particularly the more able pupils, made significantly less progress than their White British peers. There is no evidence that the gap results from Black Caribbean pupils attending less effective schools. There is also no evidence of differential effectiveness in relation to ethnic group; schools that were strong in facilitating the progress of White British pupils were equally strong in facilitating the progress of Black Caribbean pupils."

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2717/

Which would imply this again, wasn't a race issue.

But if you could point me in the right direction for other evidence, will address this in more detail at a later date?.

But the Times Education Supplement makes my point about statistical imbalances of using a national average to measure a minority outcome in education:

"The reason white children as a group perform at or around the national average is simple: in statistical terms they determine the average."

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2227510

In relation to your pay gap, I think your referring to the headline grabbing report published by The Ethnic Minorities Employment Task Force back in 2004.

But a quick glance at their methodology immediately eliminates any results:

"The figures are based on average wages for each ethnic group, rather than comparing salaries for those in equivalent jobs, which means part of the gap is likely to be rooted in under-achievement at school, leading to low-paid, dead-end jobs."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/nov/21/race.immigrationpolicy

Clearly not comparing like with like.

However the TUC report "BLACK WORKERS IN EMPLOYMENT 1997 - 2007" acknowledges how the bangladeshi contingent skews the results even further:

"In important research for the Ethnic Minority Employment Task Force and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Lucinda Platt has pointed out that Bangladeshi men have outstandingly low pay"

http://www.equality-ne.co.uk/downloads/220_tenyearsafter.pdf

Which is of course a language issue, with the vast majority of Bangladeshi's unable to speak English.

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/resources/wrkgpaper-93.pdf

As for racially motivated crime:

'"The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people from black or minority ethnic communities said they had been a victim of a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded.

At the same time 92,000 white people said they had also fallen victim of a racially motivated crime. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000.

Most of the offenders (57%) in the racially motivated crimes identified in the British Crime Survey are not white.

White victims said 82% of offenders were not white."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6128466.stm

And as for more attacks in middle class wards (again I couldn't find any research on this per se) it could be caused by

"Middle-class girlfriends are highly prized by violent gang members because they can stash weapons, drugs and cash under the police radar, a study warned today.

Young women attending private schools and living in the Home Counties are being drawn into crime by their "bad boy" boyfriends, academics said.

...The findings were contained in a report into the impact of youth violence on girls by social policy think tank Race on the Agenda."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/middleclass-girlfriends-prized-by-gang-members-1909374.html

LEE:

How about the offense driving whilst black Michael Eboda former editor of New Nation can testify to that or the fact that black youth are still 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than their white working class counterpart?

PAUL:

I'm sure most of us have a stop and search story.http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/feb/23/race.ukcrime
I certainly have a couple most of them in Cardiff (one in Streatham - none in Central London).

Though whenever I got pulled over in my early twenties because I drove a sports car, the officer would approach my window and be confronted with the chorus of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana or some other piece of classical music emanating from it, he would immediately profusely apologise for having inconvenienced me and withdraw almost as quickly as he had arrived.

I love the notions of stereotypes.

I was cultured therefore I couldn't possibly be a criminal.

As for the 7 times figure, whilst recognising stop & search as a problem (as does the European Court of Human Rights), this really doesn't tell the true story.

If we take the 2005/6 figures. 878,153 people were stopped and searched. 77% or 684,959 were White, 15% or 131,723 were Black and 8% or 70,251 were Asian.

If we use the demographics of London in 2006 (as most stop and searches took place there) the population breaks down to 69% White, 13.1% Asian, 10.2% Black and 7.7% Chinese and other.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7069791.stm

Suddenly the figures look more in keeping with the demographics of the population, don't you think? With bias being shown more to White than Black, whilst Asian, Chinese and others are entirely under represented.

LEE:

"Its a fanciful dream that you can rebuild community and family whilst not tackling racism and poverty. What is ludicrous is this the acute denial I hear about the reality of racism All this aspirational community building stuff only works in the context of a equal society . One where racism is not a feature and opportunity abounds - to urge people to strive against the odds whilst not tackling the disproportionate economic exclusion they face is to entertain a dangerous illusion."

PAUL:

I am always bemused about people's notion of equality.

We are not all born equal in any real sense.

Some have greater intelligence, others greater physical prowess, some are born healthy others born sick, some are born into wealth, others into poverty, some are born into caring loving families others abandoned to fend for themselves.

No one is equal.

There is no level playing field, there never has been and there never will.

Even communism proved unsuccessful with the famous quote from George Orwell's "Animal Farm" encapsulating the problem:

"We are all equal. But some are more equal than others".

A top down approach can never be successful, to much resistance from those requiring to change.

The only place change can ever be affected is with the individual, then the family, and only then society at large.

LEE:

"Its an act of political and moral cowardice , its a betrayal of our struggle for freedom and justice, its dillussional and dangerous. Im sorry but I feel that strongly about it"

PAUL:

As do I, about how important it is to accept personal responsibility for your successes or failures with or without the problems of perceived or actual racism.

I genuinely think, that you can't blame anything on others until your own house is in order and I think as a community we are a long, long way from that.

The full debate can be found on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1275452798&v=wall&story_fbid=156552304370118&il=0
#LisaRobinson (formerly Evans) makes TV debut BBC News about standing up to football hooligans on Cardiff train http://tinyurl.com/2wn4w5f

Monday 4 October 2010

My dear friend and first Love, Lisa Evans (maiden name) shows amazing courage in taking on antisocial behaviour http://tinyurl.com/354mkde

Saturday 2 October 2010

Welfare reform that appears to make sense, abolition of M4 bus lane, Big Society ideas to replace overpaid public servants - good weekend.
Non-existent traffic crossing the Severn Bridge to go and visit my son in Wales, what happened to the hordes of visitors for the #RyderCup?

Friday 1 October 2010

Who didn't see this coming? Major event in Wales, outdoors, its going to rain, #Rydercup golf beaten by downpour http://tinyurl.com/2dpwb95
Beat sheets for Vigilia laid out & almost complete thanks to writer Rhianna Pratchett & director Amanda Baker the story is looking stunning.