Coastal View & Moor News Issue 17


Your Voice In Parliament Tom Blenkinsop MP


Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland


unemployment, Cameron wants to make it easier to sack you


At a time of record Y


outh unemployment is almost 1 million, an all time record high. Female unemployment is at its worst level for 23 years, since 1988. The overall unemployment level now in Redcar and Cleveland is 12.4% the worst it has been since the last Tory government in 1994. So what is David Cameron’s response to this obvious unemployment crisis he has created? Cameron wants to bar workers


from having rights at work until they’ve worked at a place of work for more than 24 months (2 years). Effectively he wants to make it easier to sack people! New starters like apprentices, young workers, and female workers will be the most affected.


Before 1997 this was the case of course. Until Labour took power in 1997, your rights at work only kicked in after 24


The biggest political scandal you’ve never heard about


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he press has not reported it, nor is it interested by it. It has yet to be


debated by politicians, but it will have the most profound effect upon elections – far more than any leader, war or economic catastrophe. Put simply, the Tories not just content with the gerrymandering of the next election by changing the constituency boundaries, they are also rigging the electoral system to make it easier for themselves to win parliamentary majorities after 2015. You’ll ask, how? The switch from


household registration to individual registration, with a lack of enforcement will lead to a sharp decline of people on the electoral register and therefore deny them their right to vote. Who will this chiefly effect? The poor, disabled and the young. How do we know this will happen? This


happened in Northern Ireland when they moved to this system in 2002 and it is estimated that 3.5 million people eligible to vote (10% of us) will fail to register in the United Kingdom. This Tory measure has echoes of the poll


tax as well. Iain McLean, a Professor at Oxford University says of the poll tax introduction in 1990 by Margaret Thatcher that there was an “estimated one million people shortfall between the electoral register and the (official) estimate of the


qualified population”. McLean goes on and says that this Tory


proposal is similar to the approach used in the USA under the period of George W. Bush’s presidency where there was a flagrant disenfranchisement of the poor, women and the young. The Chair of the Electoral Commission


said the system proposed by Cameron would mean we’d go “from a 90% completeness that we currently have to 60-65%”. Tories and Liberal Democrats talk


about liberties and rights but what we are witnessing is a brazen attempt by the Conservative party to rig British democracy, and keep Tories in power indefinitely. As Jonathan Tonge Professor of politics


at Liverpool University says “If you diminish the number of people registered to vote, you de-legitimise the outcome of elections.” In conclusion, after the August riots


Cameron spoke of a sick society. Yet his own dictation, willingly supported by Tory MPs and ably abetted by Liberal Democrats, will lead to a sick democracy consisting of fewer people registered to vote and even lower turnouts. It is the biggest political scandal you’ve never heard of.


Contact Tom


Please do not hesitate to contact me with your questions or concerns. I aim to reply to all enquiries as quickly as I can.


Write: Tom Blenkinsop MP, Harry Tout House, 8 Wilson St. Guisborough TS14 6NA.


email: info@tomblenkinsop.com Phone 01287 610878 Fax 01287 631894. Twitter:http://twitter.com/tomblenkinsop


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months. Labour made sure your rights kicked in after 12 months strengthening workers rights.


The decision to water down workers’ rights by raising the qualifying period from one year to two is part of a wider set of reforms proposed to improve what ministers say is a “costly and time-consuming”


employment tribunal system. However, I would argue that if you line manage someone at work you can tell if they are suitable for the job or not only after a couple of months at most. Any employer who needs 1 year, 11 months and 30 days to make that decision isn’t managing their staff well enough and certainly isn’t paying close attention to the shop floor.


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Let’s be clear, Cameron’s measure is simply about allowing employers not to have to pay redundancy if they sack people within a 2 year period. I don’t know about you, but a business having more powers to indiscriminately sack people at whim doesn’t fill me with confidence in dealing with our present unemployment crisis.


I recently attended the award ceremony for apprentices at Redcar and Cleveland council who have taken on over 120 new apprentices. The council is giving young people from our area work, skills and future for their employment. That is the way out of our current crisis, giving our young jobs and the entrenching the culture of getting up in the morning to go to work. The only way we will get out of our present situation is through work. Work gives dignity and self respect. It also means people feel part of society and look after the area around them. Let’s fight for full employment for all.


A pint in peace at your local pub/club


he news that a pub landlady has won her bid to be allowed to show


premier league matches from foreign satellite broadcasters is a victory for local pubs and social/workingmen’s clubs. But this was only achieved due to European intervention.


Mrs Karen Murphy took on the multi- millionaires in a David and Goliath battle against the cash and the power of both Sky TV and the Premier League – and won! The previous British law that was used to prosecute pub landlords and club stewards from showing these matches on non-Sky outlets and instead forcing them to pay extortionate sums to Sky if they did want to show these matches is dead due to a landmark European court decision. This is a victory for many pubs and clubs, for whom cheaper Premier league satellite TV subscription is a lifeline.


The Sky stranglehold was always unjust – it was the TV equivalent of saying you could only read a newspaper in a pub if it was owned by Rupert Murdoch. Maybe that’s why the Sun has always been anti-Europe, due to the business interests of its owner, and not necessarily the interests


of its readers - the British public. This European Court ruling will also stop the sneaky practice of Sky sending round paid snoopers to pubs and clubs on a Saturday afternoon, where they have fined pubs and social clubs thousands of pounds via magistrates upholding an unfair British law protecting the big few wealthy clubs and Sky TV.


Mr Murdoch should now finally accept that he has lost and he should let the man in the street enjoy his pint and match in peace. This is a decisive victory for common sense and the common man delivered to them by Europe.


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