Talk about turning a wilfully blind eye: there are armed troops on the streets of Italy, a major EU country, today and not one single UK newspaper has it as a front page story, at least not in their online editions.
To be fair, The Independent does have a front page story about Italy- but it’s about wifeswapping.
This makes up for all the ugly American tourists who make England and Amsterdam hell in the summer with their arrogance and incessant self-absorption:
This summer, New York is awash with visitors from abroad, who are expected to top last summer’s record number, tourism officials say. Thanks in part to home currencies that are holding strong against the dollar, even middle-class vacationers from Hamburg, Yokohama or Perth can afford to scoop up New York style — the clothes, the hot restaurants, the nightclubs — at bargain prices.
But for New Yorkers trapped on the other side of the currency imbalance, it’s easy to feel ambivalent about the invasion. An infusion of foreign money is welcome in a city faced with a wobbly economy and a possible budget gap in the billions. But even some locals who consider themselves cosmopolitan and internationalist confess to feeling envy, not to mention territorialism, in watching a outsiders treat their city like a Wal-Mart of hip.
Their party is raging just as the hangover has started to set in for Americans. Frictions do arise — especially in a summer of looming recession, where many locals do not feel rich enough or secure enough to travel abroad themselves. (And let’s not even get into their weeks of summer vacation).
“It’s Psych 101 — jealousy,” said Randi Ungar, 30, an online advertising sales manager who lives on the Upper West Side. “I’m jealous that I can’t go to Italy and buy 12 Prada bags, but they can come here and buy 18 of them.”
Oh the poor loves, how they suffer!
Steven Schoenfeld, a 45-year-old investment manager who lives near Lincoln Center, said that he welcomes the influx of visitors, in theory, as a boost to the local economy, but “sometimes you feel like it’s going to become a situation where they stop and take picture: ‘Look at that endangered species — a native New Yorker, with a briefcase, going to work.’ ”
Polly Blitzer, a former magazine beauty editor who now runs a beauty Web site, said she believes that a turf war is going on this summer between free-spending Europeans and locals over the chic bistros, spas, boutiques and department stores that she, a native New Yorker, used to consider her playground.
She said the point was driven home to her on a recent trip to Bergdorf Goodman to help her fiancé select a pair of shoes to go with his tuxedo for their wedding.
Wearing the sort of outfit that usually acts as a siren for department store salespeople — a Tory Burch shift dress and Jimmy Choo slingback heels — she instead found herself waiting behind a European couple in sneakers and bike shorts who “had made such massive purchases that we couldn’t get anyone to give us the time of day for our size 11 ½ Ferragamo party slippers,” recalled Ms. Blitzer, 32.
The Europeans, she said, “brought over bags and bags of shoes” while the salesman wrapped their orders and chatted them up about restaurants and travel. “I didn’t want to do the ahem-I’m-sitting-here thing, but we had to sit there for 5 or 10 minutes while these big spenders small-talked.”
She was always used to first-class service, she said, adding, “But now, there’s an ultra-first.”
Don’t like it up em, do they….
Manhattanites without Bergdorf budgets often find themselves working overtime — figuratively and literally — to keep up with their visiting friends from Europe or Asia.
Jessica S. Le, an executive assistant at an investment banking firm who lives on the Lower East Side, said she recently started moonlighting as a dog-walker, in part to earn extra income she needs to see friends from abroad, who are dining at WD-50 or Suba, or drinking at Thor.
These friends from Europe and Asia “come over and play in New York like it’s Candyland,” she said in an e-mail message.
Does she mean playing in Candyland like the midwestern hicks who stand blocking the Amsterdam pavements, smoking dope and blowing it on passers-by – or maybe she means like the West Coast stoners getting so wasted in coffee shops they can barely walk, let alone ride their tourist’s bikes in a straight line let alone on the right side of the road.
Or does she mean more like the East Coast hipsters who drawl so loudly to each other on the tram about their Mummy&Daddy-funded writing/directing/painting/whatever gigs, pleading poverty while wearing head-to-toe Prada and staying in a posh apartment in Oud-Zuid?
Whatever. Serve ’em right to be poor and treated like dirt by us Yurpeens for a while. Maybe they’ll show a little more empathy in future.
I’m reposting this March ’08 post because banker David Freud is prominent right now as the evil genius behind New Labour’s brutal welfare reforms.
As the BBC, particularly, seems to be regurgitating government press releases almost verbatim, accepting Freud’s outright lies (he claims 2/3 of Incapacity benefit claimants fraudulent, when the DWP’s own figures say 99% are legit) as gospel truth, swallowing unquestioningly the government’s premise that being jobless is in itself a crime, I thought it prudent to have another look at why it might be that Freud is getting a such an easy time of it from the media. Know the enemy etc.
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Who is David Freud, and why’s he getting such an easy ride from the media?
Freud is the connected City banker and former journalist who made his name in PFI deals and massive privatisation schemes and so was, of course, the perfect choice to conduct the review of welfare policy that resulted in yesterdays budget announcement that sick people will be forced into to work, fit or not, by the imposition of even harsher medical tests.
In the UK sick people with no income may claim Incapacity Benefit, ICB, a benefit paid for by national insurance contributions *from working people* and payable to working people off sick. Those who do not have sufficient contributions get another non-contributory benefit, Income Support.
The current medical testing regime is already one of the harshest in Europe.
For the first 28 weeks of absence from work due to illness or injury, an employed person is entitled to just £72.55 a week. This is called ‘Statutory Sick Pay’ and it is paid by the employer. Self-employed people can claim the Lower Rate Short Term Incapacity Benefit, currently £61.35 a week, plus £37.90 for an adult dependant.
For weeks 29 to 52, for both employees and the self-employed, the Higher Rate Short Term Incapacity Benefit is £72.55 a week for the claimant and £37.90 for an adult dependant.
After 52 weeks, a single adult is eligible for as little as £81.35 a week in State Incapacity Benefits (£4,230.20 a year). If that same adult had a spouse, they may receive just £130 a week (£6,760 a year). Additional benefit depending on age also applies – £17.10 for under 35s, £8.55 for those aged 35 to 44.
Furthermore, Incapacity Benefit is taxable after the first 6 months of claiming.
The unsubtantiated claims of the Daily Mail and James Parnell notwithstanding, it isn’t easy to get Incapacity Benefit to begin with; now it’s to be made even more difficult to obtain – even though it’s an entitlement you’ve already paid for from contributions from pay.
But then you can’t sell off a social security system and bureaucracy that actually pays out money, can you? Where’s the profit in that?
The second element of his report is the proposal that responsibility for such “support” and “training” programmes should be handed over to 11 large contractors, each of whom would have total responsibility for one region. They would be given the contracts to look after claimants for up to three years and would be paid according to results, with a “successful” long-term outcome being that the claimant stops claiming for up to three years. In other words, they would share in the benefits “saved”.
This would be a recipe for coercion of claimants, as well as creating untold opportunities for fraud as the corporations seek to provide training and support for claimants with their sister companies. This bonanza for the employment services companies comes despite Freud’s admission that there was “no conclusive evidence that the private sector outperforms the public sector on current programmes”.
Let’s face it. Darling and Brown have nothing else left to sell to cover the great gaping hole in the public accounts.
The bloated rich got away virtually unscathed in the budget, as did corporations; a sop of a rise in universal child benefit was thrown to the vast, struggling, indifferentiated middles (the poor won’t get it, it’ll be deducted from their benefit, so that’s all right) and the chancellor also chickened out on green taxes for fear of the wrath of the airline and transport industry. but the least able to fight back, well, screw them.
There is no black hole in the public accounts, apparently, there is no looming recession – no, it’s all the fault of those lazy workshy sick people – just look at them leeching off the state to the tune of 50-odd quid a week. Each! There’s your hole in the public accounts! Why, they should be out there picking leeks in Lincolnshire in the rain for a fiver an hour less four fifty in deductions – what’s a little diabetes or kidney disease or arthritis when Nelson commanded a ship with his arm blown off? Bunch of frauds, the lot of them, according to Freud.
Fewer than a third of the 2.7 million people claiming incapacity benefit are legitimate claimants, a government welfare adviser has said.
David Freud, an investment banker, said up to 185,000 claimants work illegally while on the benefit.
He told the Daily Telegraph it was “ludicrous” medical checks were carried out by a claimant’s own GP.
What? Their own doctors said they’re too sick too work? Then they must be lying. Or there must be something wrong with the tests. Stands to reason. But no, David Freud doesn’t even know the system he’s criticising. ICB medicals are carried out by BAMS, the privatised medical service.
State Incapacity Benefit can be claimed for an initial 28 weeks on the basis of assessments provided by the individual’s doctor.
After 28 weeks, individuals must complete a lengthy questionnaire and be assessed on their ability to carry out any occupation – not just the role carried out before they became ill. Fifteen different functional areas are examined covering physical, mental and sensory abilities. Each functional area is assessed and State Incapacity Benefit only continues when the total impairment is sufficiently significant across the full range of areas.
Whatever, the government can’t be spending all this money on unproductive sick people, not when there’s a war to fund. (Funny how Iraq didn’t get mentioned in the budget..).
You’d think the media would notice and investigate the background to these draconian changes; remember when Thatcher stopped the free school milk? Then it was all “Thatcher, Thatcher, milk-snatcher”. But unelected crony David Freud does something much, much worse and yet the British media consistently say very little that’s not laudatory about the very rich man who wants to drive the already poor in deeper poverty.
Why?
It could be because British journalists have swallowed the myth of New Labour meritocracy (largely because it justifies their own privileged positions as deserved) seeing those who are poor, or sick or otherwise disadvantaged as being there through their own fault (the converse of which is that the rich, like Freud, are rich because they are such superior beings). I’m pretty sure there’s a generous helping of that, yes, but I think mostly he’s getting an easy ride because of his name and his connections.
No-one wants to offend a Freud, it’d be career death to any budding journo.
Freud is related by birth and marriage to a family that’s embedded in the cultural and public life of the country, not least in the media and journalism.
Other notable members of the Freud family in the media include such luminaries of spin as Edward Bernays, the father of public relations. Cousin Matthew of Freud Communications PR agency for Live8 and the G8, is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert and media mogul in her own right.
The backing that Live 8 has won from media mogul Rupert Murdoch is just one indication that a massive business machine has been set in motion. Murdoch’s British tabloid the Sun gave the event enthusiastic support, although it is not a paper noted for its interest in Africa or liberal causes. It is, however, a key supporter of Blair.
The Murdoch and Live 8 connections are close. Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, is married to Matthew Freud, one of the organisers. Freud runs a leading public relations company that is, according to the Financial Times, one of the most influential in the UK. It has the largest media and entertainment client list in the country, with clients including famous actors and major companies such as AOL—of which more later. He and his wife also have connections to the Blair government. They sit on various government committees, and his company, Freud Communications, has organised events for both the government and the Labour Party.
And of course the man himself is a former FT journalist. How very nicely cicular.
Should any future scholar want an exemplar of how Labour turned into a party of patronage and moral corruption they could do worse than study the history of the younger sprigs of the Freud family during the Blair years. The rise and rise of the Freuds and the abolition of Clause IV are all of a same piece, as is the victimisation of disabled people by someone who’d probably spend more on feng-shuiing their conservatory than 6 months incapacity benefit pays someone with cancer. Yes, very socialist.
When – and they will be if there’s any justice in the world – Labour politicians are called to account for the ruin of the country, they’ll probably claim that they were deliberately subverted from within and it was all a capitalist plot.
But no. New Labour know and have always known exactly what they’re doing: eventually corporations are to have complete control over people’s livelihoods and the conditions of their existence and David Freud and his colleagues in the media/political/City nexus are right in the vanguard of the process.
The experts and academics present were the theorists and ideologues of welfare to work. What linked many of them together, including Aylward, was their association with the giant US income protection company UnumProvident, represented at the conference by John LoCascio. The goal was the transformation of the welfare system. The cultural meaning of illness would be redefined; growing numbers of claimants would be declared capable of work and ‘motivated’ into jobs. A new work ethic would transform IB recipients into entrepreneurs helping themselves out of poverty and into self-reliance. Five years later these goals would take a tangible form in New Labour’s 2006 Welfare Reform Bill.
Unum Provident is already delivering incapacity benefit medicals for the government while selling policies by emphasising the lack of state benefits. No conflict of interest there, then.
I wonder if- and if so, how many – Unum Provident shares Brown, Darling, Freud et al have in their private portfolios?
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[Edited slightly for grammar, spelling and general incomprehensibility]
BBC REPORTS Irish reject European constitution.
Whatever your political, aesthetic or other views on his work cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot, like the rest of us, supposedly has the right to free expression of them, even anonymously – or at least the Dutch constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights say he does. Not so, say the Dutch government who arrested him with great fanfare this week even though he’s been publishing for years:
Insulting’ cartoons under investigation
By Philip Smet*
16-05-2008
The Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office has announced that the cartoonist who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot was arrested for publishing ‘insulting cartoons’.
The cartoonist will not reveal his real name out of fear that Islamic extremists will seek revenge for the cartoons, many of which make fun of the Muslim religion.
It is extremely unusual for a Dutch artist to be arrested for his works. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin says he does not believe the case has anything to do with suppressing free expression.
On Tuesday, Gregorius Nekschot was arrested at his Amsterdam home. The arresting force was made up of the magistrate, five police officers and three members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. His home was searched and he was taken to a police station, where he refused to answer questions. That night he had to remain in the cell; he was released the next day.
Investigation
The complaint which Public Prosecutor’s Office is handling was made in 2005. The Public Prosecutor’s Office’s issued a press release saying:“The investigation has revealed that a number of cartoons published on the internet were, according to our office, insulting to Muslims and to people of colour. Moreover, the Public Prosecutor’s Office believes the cartoons could inspire hatred.”
Gregorius Nekschot published his cartoons on his own website. Film producer and columnist Theo van Gogh, who was killed in 2004 by a Muslim extremist, also used to publish Gregorius Nekschot’s cartoons on his website. The cartoonist is known for his extremely insulting caricatures of religion and left-wing politicians. One of the reasons he was not arrested earlier is because he works anonymously – the Public Prosecutor’s Office says they simply couldn’t find him.
Personally I find his cartoons tasteless, vaguely insulting and not really that funny, but so is Viz and each to their own. Plus he was a friend of Theo Van Gogh that posthumously sainted arsehole, and therefore he partakes of at least some of that arseholery by association. But none of that negates his right to free expression, anonymously or otherwise. So why is Nekschot being prosecuted, except for political reasons? The Netherlands’ right wing Christian-led government wants insulting religion (theirs) to remain an offence. Therefore they feel compelled to conduct this show trial so as to not look partial.
I fail to see how these cartoons could be construed as fanning the flames of racial or religious hatred even if they do intend to offend and indeed do offend. It’s not as though they’re plastered on the sides of buses – you have to make an effort to go look at them, either on his website or in a book.
Polder Pundit has more on the legal arguments surrounding the arrest: I am, I think, theoretically breaking Dutch law even by linking to his website. [But the site is unavailable from this Dutch IP and I haven’t tried a proxy, can’t be arsed. Maybe someone can tell me whether it’s reachable from elsewhere?] Which is pretty ridiculous when a google image search gets you as many offensive Nekschot cartoons as you like.
But do I care if it’s illegal? Do I fuckery. As Polder Pundit puts it:
Seeing a cartoon where Mohammed sodomizes Anne Frank makes us wish we hadn’t, but it doesn’t change our feelings about either. The only thing it incites us to do is, again, to abstain from buying Nekschot’s books.
If something’s offensive let the public decide, not some up-themselves Dutch prosecutor with a name to make.
