Mule weekly digest 20 – 24 August
Article published: Tuesday, August 28th 2012
Expansion at Manchester Airport brings new questions for the environment, new business for Richard Branson, and fresh opportunities for the fire-sale of public assets. Danny Dyer gets ousted from Pride following public pressure, and teachers speak out against Michael Gove’s ‘grade-fixing’ scandal.
Monday
“Painfully low” turnout predicted for police commissioner elections
Turnout for November’s election of Police and Crime Commissioners could be as low as 18.5 per cent, according to the Electoral Reform Society. The Society accused the government of “shirking its responsibilities” by only providing information online and failing to inform voters by post, not providing leaflets translated into other languages or made accessible to people with sight difficulties, and holding the vote in the winter.
Although the elections are intended to “reconnect the police and the public” the Society noted that the lack of a publicly-funded mailout would undermine independent candidates who lack party resources needed to campaign across large constituencies.
Candidates in the Manchester running for the £100,000 per year post include former Labour party chair and Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd and former Wigan mayor and Conservative councillor Michael Winstanley.
The soon to be scrapped Greater Manchester Police Authority, which will be replaced by the Commissioner, plans to celebrate its own demise with a three course meal at the five star Lowry Hotel. One assumes the lavish jolly will attract four letter words from many Mancunians…
Privatisation afoot as Manchester Airports Group eyes Stansted takeover
Manchester Airports Group (MAG) received a boost to its hopes to buy Stansted after the current owner, BAA Airports Ltd, dropped its legal challenges to the Competition Commission’s ruling that it must sell off the South East transport hub along with Gatwick and one of its Scottish airports.
Stansted handles 18m passengers a year and is expected to be valued at up to £1.3bn. MAG, which is publically owned by each of Greater Manchester’s 10 councils, plans to part-privatise itself to raise funds by selling a 35 per cent stake in the group worth around £1bn to the Australia-based firm Industry Funds Management if the deal goes ahead.
Tuesday
Respect candidate joins condemnation of Galloway rape comments
Respect party candidate for the Manchester Central by election Kate Hudson joined her party leader Salma Yaqoob in denouncing comments made by the Respect MP for Bradford West George Galloway in relation to the Julian Assange affair.
Assange is wanted in Sweden on allegations that he raped two women in 2010. The Wikileaks founder disputes the allegations and has sought diplomatic asylum with the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in an attempt to evade extradition.
In a podcast Galloway downplayed the allegations, claiming they amounted to little more than “bad sexual etiquette” and “not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it”.
Respect leader Yaqoob denounced Galloway’s comments as “deeply disappointing and wrong”, saying “let me be clear, as a politician and as a woman. Rape occurs when a woman has not consented to sex.”
Yaqoob added, “There are many political issues entwined in the case of Julian Assange. These issues cannot be used to diminish in any way the seriousness of any allegations against him”. She also said the incident had “taken the debate around violence against women a step backwards.” Hudson echoed her remarks, saying “I am with you Salma” on the social networking website Twitter.
Problems down the line as Virgin launches London-Manchester flights
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic announced the launch of a London – Manchester air route, days after losing its contract to run the West Coast train mainline to rival company First Group. The new service, which a Virgin Trains spokesperson said was “unrelated” to the rail decision, is expected to run three times a day from March next year.
The decision to hand the contract to First Group sparked widespread dismay, for reasons regular users of the company’s Manchester bus routes will sympathise with. Branson, who has made something of a career out of exploiting public subsidies, was quick to capitalise on this, and an e-petition urging the government to reconsider the deal has already reached 100,000 signatures. Confirmation of the decision is expected to be made by Transport Secretary Justine Greening next Tuesday.
Some analysts also reacted with scepticism, with Jonathan Guthrie of the Financial Times noting that to make the £5.5bn 13 year contract viable the company would have to achieve higher sales increases than Virgin, an ambitious target given slowdowns in rail travel growth. Overall train fares are expect to rise by up to 11 per cent next year, despite passengers already paying £3bn more than when the railways were state owned.
Wednesday
Christies could open branches abroad for profit under NHS shakeup
Specialist cancer hospital The Christie as well as both Wythenshawe and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are exploring plans to set up centres oversees, according to Alice McKeegan of the Manchester Evening News.
The revelation came as the government announced plans to invite NHS trusts to open up for-profit branches abroad from the Autumn to generate income for UK hospitals, although it is understood Christie managers first considered the idea one year ago and similar ideas were floated by Labour in March 2010. Leaving the cynicism of allowing NHS trusts to violate founding principles by charging people overseas for care to one side, the move heralds one further commercialisation of the NHS at a time when the government will permit hospitals to raise 49 per cent of their income from the private sector.
£100m expansion planned at Manchester Airport
A planning application for a £100m “logistics hub” have been submitted by Manchester Airports Group as part of the Airport City “Enterprise Zone”, a location which grants companies tax breaks in exchange for local councils having the power to claw back tax revenue growth from the government. The group claims the freight facility will lead to the creation of 1,800 jobs over 10 to 15 years and develop the airport from a regional transport hub to an international export (and, we note, import) centre in its own right.
The group proudly boasts that the new buildings will be built to the “highest possible” environmental standards, although that will probably not offset the airport being one of the biggest polluters in the North West. The airport also hopes to double passenger numbers by 2030, an expansion which involves green belt encroachment and the demolition of the homes of several local residents.
Thursday
Danny Dyer ousted from Pride
Manchester Pride organisers dropped actor Danny Dyer following public pressure from members of the city’s LGBTQ community. Due to headline the annual festival’s Saturday night set, the controversial figure provoked outcry due to a column written for Zoo magazine in 2010 in which he advised a ditched boyfriend to “cut your ex’s face and then no one will want her.”
The incident caused fury and prompted the lad’s mag to sack Dyer and issue an apology. Dyer at first denied writing the column, claiming he had been “completely misquoted”, then later admitted to the Independent that “I just said a stupid thing. I said a really stupid thing. Which had no substance to it, I didn’t mean what I said, at all.”
One Facebook campaign group dubbed the booking “morally repugnant” and in contravention of Pride’s charitable aims to promote equality and diversity. Eventually Manchester Pride organiser John Stewart, in a rather grudging statement, announced the actor’s cancellation, saying “Danny Dyer has a clear appeal to a section of the LGBT community and his past controversy was now behind him.
“However, we’re aware his inclusion has caused some upset and anger amongst others so we have listened to these concerns and have subsequently withdrawn him from the Manchester Pride main stage line-up.”
On twitter Dyer said, “So the minority got there [sic] own way I won’t be Djing at gay pride this year coz [sic] apparently I hate women #father to 2 wonderful daughters.”
Teachers furious as government accused of moving exam goalposts
Staleybridge school Copley High has submitted a formal complaint to exam body AQA following accusations that the government surreptitiously shifted grade boundaries for English GCSEs half way through the year, reports the Manchester Evening News. The change may have caused many students previously predicted to achieve Cs left instead with Ds, leaving them unable to gain entry to college.
Nationally the scandal has led furious headteachers to demand a total remark of English papers, as GCSE pass rates have fell for the first time in the exam’s history and experts warned that 250 schools could come under threat of closure or forced Academy conversion. Overall Manchester schools reported improving pass rates however, with 53.5 per cent of Manchester students achieving five good A – C grades compared with 51 per cent last year.
Friday
Homophobia endemic in Manchester schools
Homophobic bullying remains rife in Greater Manchester schools, according to a survey of 750 of the region’s teachers sponsored by gay rights group SchoolsOUT and carried out by the National Union of Teachers. 51 per cent said they witnessed it among pupils on a daily or weekly basis, and one third said they saw or overheard individual children being targeted for bullying or discrimination.
Almost all teachers agreed or strongly agreed that the issue demanded action, although 89 per cent said they did not feel confident addressing it. The report’s authors also highlighted concerns over how homophobia is dealt with in the region’s academies, noting that “until very recently” the policy of the Academy chain Oasis, responsible for Oasis MediaCity Academy in Salford, “was to only teach students about human sexual diversity in connection with fatal diseases.”
National SchoolsOUT co-chair Sue Sanders accused the British education system of imbalance and said schools should “‘put centre stage child safety, the joy of learning, the creation of the rounded individual and not a system in which exam cramming dominates the curriculum and academic year. The politicians have a lot to answer for.”
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