A reply from me to recent posts. I just wish to remind people that my view is that the present situation is caused by the ongoing systemic political failures that now feature in our country. Austerity was a political choice made by the successive governments since 2010.
While government has given greater responsibilities to individuals and bodies outside the remit of central government, local authorities, unitary authorities, county councils, the police service, the judiciary, the prison service, health services, child services, youth services, career services, schools, FE colleges, etc etc have all had either severe cuts or increases that have failed to meet increasing demand or inflation. Chaos is the result.
At the same time there have been 'opportunities' for principals, Vice Chancellors, CEOs, and so on to do very well. My opinion for what it is worth, that we have gone through the motions of democracy and ended up with sock puppets.
The net results are that society is breaking down and suffering, while the wealth gap has increased, along with opportunities for corruption for those close to government. The abdication of responsibility of government gives them the opportunity to fingerpoint and blame others ... always.
They use external bodies to monitor services and ignore every report that implicates failures of government. The promises are frequent but ultimately empty and optimism becomes unfulfilled.
You'd think reading the press that women's prisons are safe places for women. They are not. Women's prisons are terrible places with high levels of violence and sexual abuse perpetrated by women on women.
Please read this report and try not to be shocked ...
https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/local-news/derbyshire-womens-prison-most-violent-7633074
It is not true that female prisoners would be safe if were not for trans women being housed on female prison estate. In one other case violence was at a high level. The trans prisoners were moved out, shortly after the violence was reported as being worse.
There is nothing like shortage of resources, lack of facilities, lack of support services, lack of leisure and education to cause unrest in a prison. There's nothing like a lack of engagement and boredom to create trouble in any institution - ask any teacher!
The so-called trans debate, and demands for trans exclusion have commonality; trans has become the default for deflection and distraction, a mask if you will for political failure.
The way forward, if one exists, is careful and detailed examination of the problems, and advocacy for solutions. The UK is desperate for a pay rise and for services to be restored to the levels they were prior to 2010.
Austerity was supposed to be a temporary fix to enable the country to pay down sovereign debt. Pre-covid sovereign debt had increased to the extent that graphically it was almost a straight line upwards. Covid has added to our woes it is true, but corruption forced it higher than it needed to be.
In 2010 sovereign debt stood at £0.8tn, this figure included the loans and guarantees of loans (not all taken up) by banks.
UK sovereign debt now is close to £2.8tn - that's an increase of £2tn since 2010.
Check this out ...
https://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
Trans people are not the enemy of this country, political failure is. Trans people are not the cause of our political failures, government is.
Sorry for my lecturing tone (I used to do it for a living).