Memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Budapest
Around this time of year, I always get an upsurge of anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying comments, most of which are thankfully caught by my spam filter. They usually attach to this post and this post. This year’s batch were particularly virulent, and I happily deleted them, but it reminded me of the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day, which was this weekend. I couldn’t make any of the Oxford commemorations, so was hugely glad when an email dropped into my councillor account inviting me to a talk by Professor Deborah Lipstadt tomorrow. She was the woman whose book on Holocaust denial landed her in court on charges of libelling David Irving. She won, of course, proving him the liar that he is.

If anyone’s around in Oxford tomorrow night, feel free to join me: the invitation is open to all. Deborah Lipstadt will be talking about her encounter with David Irving, Tues 30 January at 8pm at the David Slager Centre, 61 George Street, hosted by the OU Chabad Society.

Every morning, I read the Oxford Mail and as much of the Guardian as I can on the bus to work. Today’s G2 contains an article about the final words of the 376 prisoners executed in Texas since 1982.

I should say now, that I am as implacably opposed to the death penalty as you would expect a Guardian-reading Labour feminist type to be. And then I read this sentence (preceding one included for context):

After a while, when you have read 100 or so of these final statements, they start to run together into a ghoulish mass of murder and rapine, so you start looking for the differences. The man who wanted to reassure the husband of the woman he strangled, raped and killed that she fought him to the end.

I’m not sure what it was that got to me about that sentence. Perhaps it was the patricharchal assumption of the murderer that it might comfort a man to know that even to death, his wife was not unfaithful. Just for a moment, I didn’t care that this man had been murdered by the state.

Via John, innit, I came across Tabitha Kumalo’s speech at the TUC conference earlier this week. Tabitha, if you remember, is the Zimbabwean trade unionist that I heard speak earlier this year. She’s also now the most senior Zimbabwean trade unionist outside prison, as while she was in the UK, the rest of the leadership of the movement was beaten and imprisoned. I’d urge all my readers to write or fax the Zimbabwean embassy to demand their release. More details here.

From let’s be sensible, a good point well made; the idiots demolish John MacDonnell’s odd priorities for the leadership; and Alan Johnson talks about slaying the dragon of desperate poverty (hat tip to someday I will treat you good).

This. No, it’s not baby asbos, though reading the papers at the weekend you could be forgiven for thinking that midwives would be to slap an ankle tag on newborns.

The prime minister gave an excellent speech today, acknowledging that hardcore social exclusion is the product of both individual choice and structural inequality, and flagging measures coming up in Hilary Armstrong’s national action plan which will be published on Tuesday. The priority groups are (no surprises): looked after children; families with complex problems (usually drug and alcohol dependency of the parents); teenage pregnancy; mental health patients.

I’ve not had much engagement with young people in local authority care, but over the past few years I’ve met lots of teenage mums who’ve talked about how getting pregnant was their only aspiration and who lacked the tools to see other options and to make better decisions; several families who exist on a yo-yo of temporary stability and chaos; and friends who, without family and friends who loved them, could have spent their lives in and out of inpatient mental health care.

But what do you reckon the chances are of seeing this speech given the full consideration it deserves in the papers tomorrow? Well, it’s currently (8.19pm) the 23rd headline on the website of the paper most likely to report the measures…

Update 8.54pm - have just realised that, as so often, Tom has written the post I wanted to write on this.

(Originally posted on Thursday night, then lost until just now when I worked out how to retrieve it)

Interesting to see the Prime Minister putting so much emphasis on teenage mums producing problem children in his first interview since returning from holiday. The interview on Thursday night seems to have been about trailing the speech on social inclusion he’s giving on Tuesday, in which we know he’ll announce new measures to support families with disabled children, people with persistent mental health problems, looked after children and yes, new plans to tackle teenage pregnancy. All groups of people with particularly difficult circumstances who need extra help - so far so good.

But I have alarm bells ringing at the thought that benefits may be withdrawn from families who don’t attend the parenting support offered to them. In the oral interview (video link at the side of the BBC piece), Mr Blair even floats the idea that if families with children who are likely to grow up to cause problems don’t co-operate, they may have their children taken away from them. Dreadful idea, using threats like that to coerce families to take up support, especially as consultations like Get Heard point out time and time again how terrified low income families are that they might lose their children. Counterproductive, too, when services like Sure Start are almost universally appreciated by low-income families, and when the hardest-to-reach families could be reached with just a bit more effort and investment in getting to them.

At the weekend I listened to a fascinating discussion on the radio about the recommendations of the Crime and Society think tank on how to reduce crime. They advocate reducing poverty as a way to fight crime, and also - and they came out and said it - reducing sexism. From the Observer:

There was also a great need to tackle some men’s attitude to women, it said.
One survey from 2000 showed 40% of men believed it would be acceptable to hit their partner for sleeping with another man and 20% for neglecting their children.
“Much violence suffered by some of the most vulnerable in our society will not begin to be addressed until the systemic misogyny and sexism of British society is confronted,” today’s report said.

I live in a flat above a parade of shops next to a council estate. Most of the flats in our parade are let through private landlords to recent immigrants. I talked a bit more about the demographics of my area here.

You wouldn’t really expect many marketing leaflets to come through our doors, and no, the Next catalogue van doesn’t often stop here. But, still apart from the fast food ones, there is a type of leaflet which does arrive frequently. At least once a week, there’s a door drop from one or other credit card or financial services company offering loans and cheap money, a way out of your debts, help to stay in control of your budgeting…. you know their spiels. Yesterday’s one offered me a credit card with a typical rate of 39.9%, one last week was 49.9%. It’s daylight robbery, targeted at vulnerable people.

Thankfully, there are other ways. I’m hoping that in future, this scheme for people renting through a social landlord will become more generally available, and in Oxford, we have a brand new credit union. I don’t know much about the readers of this blog (except your IP addresses, of course!) but if you live or work in Oxford, you’re eligible to join. If you’re having financial difficulties, make the credit union your first port of call. If you’ve got a savings account, consider moving it across to the credit union, where it’ll help the staff build up the capital to make more loans to people who need them, give people who can’t get a bank account some security and provide local jobs and services.

Small Town Scribbles lets us in on the tell-tale signs:

In your shopping trolley you have extra virgin olive oil (Spanish), rosemary focaccia, sundried tomatoes, Dijon mustard, organic vegetables, mozzarella di bufala and Fairtrade coffee, and you don’t feel the least bit self-conscious.

Read the rest.

Tom, on the new Liberty Central coalition:

There are two quick tests I tend to apply to people who go on about this sort of thing. One is to see whether there are any Hitler references - and to be fair, they’re doing alright on that score so far. The other is to look at what they’re talking about and what they’re not talking about. If, as is usually the case, their list of complaints doesn’t include the Mental Health Bill, I tend to think that they’re self-indulgent and not terribly serious.