1
Oct, 2021

Equality

Equality is not equality when one side feels they have to put down the other in the process.

I’ll give two examples, though there are many, where women feel the need to exclude men, who suffer equally on an individual basis, in order to bring attention to their own suffering.

Abuse

Breast Cancer

Both men and women are victims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse which includes rape and murder. 1 in 3 victims of abuse is male.

Men are raped, murdered for their sexuality, attacked at home and work and for every male abused, it’s just as serious as when it is a women except men have the added stigma of men supposedly  being too strong to be abused.

Men can also get breast cancer. The disease doesn’t discriminate so, why do women sufferers? 

1% of all cases are men and for each one of those men, it’s equally as devastating as for women, perhaps more so as it is universally accepted as a women only disease.

Many women are surprised to discover men in a breast cancer clinic, some actually discriminate and demand to know why.

Things only women can get away with

  • Women only Gyms
  • Women only swimming sessions
  • Female sexual harassment of men and, before you argue that the law applies to both. Remember that soft drink advert where the ‘fit’ guy is cleaning the windows and all the women are staring? If that was gender reversed it would have been banned
  • ‘Mum’s gone to Iceland’. That overly sexist banner add from the frozen food retailer though I am not sure if it is worse for the women or the men
  • Women who claim that men get enough their way so all the above is just totally justified
  • 90% of every clothes store
  • Mothers day gifts made at schools for mums yet, nothing for father’s day.
  • Cubicles at swimming pools whilst men just get one room.
  • Preference in parenting from so many sources. In a divorce the assumption and often reality is that the mother gets residency of the children. When children are at school, all letters are sent home to the mother even when there is no mother.
  • The assumption that women are natural parents whereas ‘men’ have no natural bond with their child.
  • Multitasking … the myth that only women can multitask, it is simply untrue and if the gender assignment were switched, there would be complaints from women.
  • Women presenting themselves as the weaker sex in order to get a man to do the heavier work and proudly saying to the man ‘that’s the only reason we have you here’. Let’s reverse that and have a group of men tell a women to do the dishes because, that’s the only reason they let her be there.

There are so many inequalities which both genders persist in repeating and we need to stop this now.

It’s not funny, it’s a form of abuse

When we set someone apart because of their gender we insult them as individuals. All of us have the right to be respect equally to those around us, men, women and those yet to make up their mind.

Equality is exactly that, it is not a war where one side needs to win over the other. In this, we all should come out winners 

One last thing …. yes, of course men had it their own way for years and that isn’t right either but, is it equality or revenge being sought here?

20
Sep, 2021

Bringing the UK closer to the Philippines

I am a British man who has had connections with the Philippines since 2014 to my great pleasure. My husband is Filipino and I adore his family and friends. I do not yet, to my shame, speak the language, any version of it and, there are a few!

My visits there have been few and sadly, because of Covid, not recent. I have not had the chance to fully comprehend the country though, most experiences have been rewarding. Only a few times have I thought that the country is, dare I say it? A little bit racist? Don’t get me wrong, we are all a little bit racist, indeed, we’re programmed to notice any difference. My negatives have been with the overcharging which goes on as soon as a white face is seen. Prices can more than double purely because of ethnicity. It is annoying because the assumption being, all white people are rich. (We’re not).

Anyway, that is an aside.

I’ve been watching some Youtube videos from foreigners (American) who have settled there. They seem to quickly form their little USA and let the Filipina for the Philippines stuff and it got me to thinking what it is like here in the UK for those born in the Philippines but living here now and, it seems to be much the same!

Is that healthy though?

England is a country which has embraced multiculturalism for decades absorbing nationals from all over the world into our way of living. The problems arise from those nationals who will not integrate. Integration does not mean to stop being who you are, it doesn’t mean to lose your sense of national identity. For me, wherever I live I know I will always be British but, if that place ends up being in Ph, I’d like to think that the locals actually think of me being just a little Filipino too.

My very local experience of the Filipinos in this country is that integration is not high on the agenda. Sure, working here is but actually actively seeking English friends is not. Anyone not speaking Tagalog is sidelined in favour of those who do even in an active conversation in English it will be switched instantly to Philippine dialect instantly cutting the English speaker from the chat. As a cultural point, such things are the ultimate in rudeness here similar to physically turning backs on people mid conversation or whispering. We are the same with face coverings including sunglasses too, we just feel uncomfortable and instantly presume the other person is hiding something. Living here this is something the Filipino needs to respect. It’s maybe daft, makes no sense to you after all, you switched languages because, in your view, the conversation no longer applied to them but, still, it’s considered very rude and apologies should be made if you are about to cut a British person out of a conversation and, the reason needs to be because the other person does not speak English.

I am not trying to preach here but share some of the differences.

As I found in the Philippines, it doesn’t matter whether I agree with the culture or not, it is not my place to ignore or disrespect it and there are a few things I found very challenging to just accept. One guy was openly telling me how having sex with 14 year old boys was his thing, he loved young boys. If someone here in the UK said that I’d be horrified but, this isn’t unusual over there for consenting Philippines nationals though … I understand it’s a minefield of legal confusion! Either way, not my place as an Englishman to question a Filipino on what he can apparently do with another … my mind did go there on gay sex there but, that’s not the point. The reality is, as we say in England, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Effectively saying, we each should accustom ourselves to the expectations of the country we are in and not expect them to change for us. I also learned this in France where I asked a lovely lady a question in English and she said to me back (in French) that if I cannot be bothered to at least try and speak her language she cannot be bothered to answer my question and then made it clear, her English was perfect. I screwed up, I learnt a lesson!

What I think we need is to try and mix more. I’d love to learn Tagalog but, I won’t do it by those around me turning to each other and speaking it clearly excluding me. Please, for me to get to know you, speak to me in English and then, maybe help me with Tagalog. It feels very odd for me to have friends not speak to me in English in England. I am very grateful for any English I can get back in the Philippines but, of course, so many do speak English anyway.

My husband gets invited out by his Filipina friends and yet, we do not get invited as a couple. The only difference with me being, I am English but then, this is England so, should that be a problem? Ironically, he may well come home with many questions and ask me to help out, easier done first hand!

Never ever stop using your mother tongue, it’s important though, at the same time, out of courtesy, remember, it’s not a language anyone here is taught, we will not understand you. If we cannot understand you we cannot embrace you as we would like as ‘one of us’. I really want loads of friends from the Philippines, I want to or need to really embrace the culture but, until or unless I learn Tagalog, I need that friendship to be exclusively in English.

Gatherings, those too seem problematically to be predominantly Philippines affairs. Husbands and children of filipinas can go but, the expectation is that the entire thing will focus on recreating the Philippines in the UK. The majority language is Tagalog and, as can be seen on the faces of the mainly bored English guys there, unless they talk to each other, they’d rather be somewhere else. That’s not how to feel at home when abroad. Our home is the people around us, our family and our friends. Surrounding ourselves only with those who speak the same language cuts us off from some of the most amazing friends we could make locally. I know it’s not what I want to do if we retire to the Philippines as easy as it surely is. If I am living there and don’t have Filipino of Filipina friends then, I’ve failed and not just because they are the wives of foreign nationals but friends in their own right.

I’d love to perhaps go to a Philippines themed event here in the UK where all the food is from the Philippines (the recipes, not the actual food as that’s problematic). Let’s face it, British food is quite bland! Let’s have some Filipino songs, I’ve a few favourites myself. But let us embrace our cultures. Sure, ideally the evening would need to be in English, you cannot get us to get you if you shut us out by speaking a language we don’t understand. I’ve seen many British husband, they’ve just given up caring what goes on now. Just sit there looking at their watch drinking a beer unwrapping their cheese and pickle sandwiches. Being British, as many now are, needs to be embraced too. Never forgetting the Philippines but embracing how the two nations are now connected especially those with kids who are getting older who, maybe, are getting fed up with mum or dad constantly speaking in a language they cannot be bothered with because, all their mates speak English, all their TV and movies are English, they want and need their parents to ‘fit in’ when their mates come over.

Still many kids with parents who won’t speak English won’t invite their English friends over because it’s too embarrassing for them. I can remember way back when my kids were little trying to talk to a little German kid in bad German just so he felt OK playing with my kids. He was so excited I could and wanted to talk to him. MY German is rubbish now but back then it wasn’t too bad.

Can we just really try to thoroughly mix? I’ve got about a decade to speak passable Tagalog to equip me for life over there though, I am still undecided just now. Part of that is that I don’t like that me and Dennis will be instantly not a couple the moment we land, not a single legal connection between us. I’d just be a foreigner living in the Philippines. I am nowhere near coming to terms with that so really prey the law will change by then. The other being that my health isn’t so great and leaving the safety of the NHS worries me.

My heart wants to commit, my brain doesn’t.

For those who have been here, what did you think about the way we try to mix up all of our friends regardless of where they are from? We have a mix of foods, karaoke. We even had some heat though, to be honest, that’s always luck in the UK! Imagine if all those people here were just your friends as well as those who speak Tagalog? Wouldn’t that be great?

Personally, I am often getting bored at home during the day, I’d love to meet up, maybe have someone teach me some Tagalog? Have a laugh, who knows?

This is my blog, on here it is nearly always a long read, way more so than Facebook and, as it is ‘my’ blog, it doesn’t leave room for interjection or disagreement which I am more than open to. I am not always right, just sometimes and some of what I write is so easy to misread so, this isn’t conversation, please don’t take away lasting judgements unless we speak in person.

NHS, very poorly indeed

I am not old enough to remember the NHS at inception but had a lot of experience of it during the 1960-70’s. There was one surgery where I had waited about a year for but that was seen as very exceptional at the time. Mostly my procedures were done within weeks or months of need. Several times I’d barely wait for a consultant appointment and this was at a time when the NHS had huge pressures by virtue of such now obsolete practises.

Never was I an inpatient for less than 2 weeks regardless of the procedure. A week of assessment prior to surgery and a week of recovery for normal for me.

My GP was certainly a different experience to today. He knew us, we knew him. This was in Dagenham, not a small place by any means but, we had the one doctor. We didn’t have appointments, we went when we were sick and we were seen the same day after a fair wait. Sometimes a half hour, others a couple hours. Several times I was direct to the hospital.

Wind forward and a decade or so back the ethos of the NHS was still in place, ‘Free at the point of need’. I mean, it really was. I say that, up until the Conservative (Thatcher) government of 1979, it had remained at 20p for much of the decade and then had year on year above inflation increases. Had it just been kept to inflation then we would now pay just £1.03 per item. Currently we are at £9.35 per item. If we reversed that trend then in 1979 we would have been paying £1.77 rather than that 20p!

Moving forward, and this is not political, it’s the facts of the time. Since the Labour party lost power in 2010 (11 years) funding in real terms and allowing for inflation has been cut over and over. Countless hospitals have been placed in special measures. Despite a range of targets, wait times have continued to rise in recent years prior to the pandemic. Staff retention has been low because of poor working conditions and low pay.

As such, the NHS has not been able to deal with both the pandemic and standard health issues. As such, many thousands have died waiting on treatment they would otherwise have got in good time. Cancer patients for example have died on waiting lists as under resourced hospitals have been forced to move over to emergency care for Covid patients. Despite opening hospitals at the start of the pandemic, the Nightingales, these were barely touched at all because there was not the staff to operate them.

A whole host of terrible political decisions over the last decade or so has directly and indirectly caused the deaths of thousands who should not have died, who, had measures been in place previously agreed in contingency planning meetings, they’d have continued to get routine treatments whilst the covid patients got the care they needed with medics wearing the correct PPE using available ventilators we were supposed to already have in reserve for just such an event.

Where are we now?

The reality for many if that they cannot see a doctor of any kind at all for anything other than a life threatening condition. Most routine surgeries are on indefinite hold. Many hospital appointments are seeing patients waiting months for a telephone appointment only to then go on another waiting list for several more months for just the slight hope of treatment.

Prior to the pandemic, GP surgeries and hospitals were given a list of treatments and surgical procedures the NHS would not fund, patients were told to go private.

I personally have experience of some of these:

A growth on the eyelid which gives blurred vision on the one remaining OK eye (still a high prescription) is seen as cosmetic and no longer available on the NHS

Vitamin D, prescribed by a GP as an essential supplement, is again, not something the NHS will fund and patients have to buy it themselves even though, not having it is likely to cause further complications in the years ahead.

A painful growth on the hand making all sort of things difficult is not life threatening and I’ve to wait many months just to get an ultrasound before it can be diagnosed.

A frozen shoulder has so far been left all of 2021 awaiting steroid injections after which the consultant expects I will need surgery but that too would be many months away.

All too often now the ethos of the NHS, the slogan which sold it, is dismissed as the NHS gets less and less funding and more of it is reassigned to the private sector.

I can see a point over the next decade when the government of the day declares the NHS to be too broken and invites in a higher level of private care with the NHS only available to those means tested to receive it.

Budget Day

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So, we have the ‘Let’s buy a whole host of gullible voters day’ with George Osborne. No doubt we’ll be told how employment is rising, how the deficit is falling, how we’re all so much better off now than we were (compared to what?). We’ll be told that there are still tough times ahead but that only a Conservative government can steer us through them. It will be pointed out how inflation remains low, how not raising duty on fuel has helped everyone as is seen by the current lower prices at the pumps (it’s going up again George). In short, I should listen to this budget later and decide to vote Conservative in May but, I won’t.

Labour certainly did nothing to avoid the mess the country got in but they didn’t cause it. They made the mistake of trying to be too conservative, allowing high finance the freedom to cause a catastrophic cock up for which they took zero responsibility. They made the mistake of allowing Gordon Brown to take the job of Prime Minister, one for which he is totally ill suited.

The Conservative party have only managed to achieve the level of deficit reduction Labour said was sustainable but they have done it in a way which made the lions share of the burden fall upon the poorest and most vulnerable in society whilst ensuring the rich got richer, that is morally unjust. Our level of borrowing is no less under this government than it was under Labour, most likely more yet, they call Labour the party of borrow and spend. Now, let’s look at some common sense here. When you take money away from the least well off they cannot spend (unless they borrow which caused the damn mess in the first place). If the majority cannot spend as they’d like then we have no need to manufacture as we did, no need to employ so many. Reduce the level of manufacturing and employment and the burden on the state increases from increased benefits and reduced tax revenue. Overall, there is less money to play with in the economy so cuts to vital services become essential. Benefits are hit first reducing income still further. Allowing such things as zero hours contracts (I do blame Labour for those) to flourish might make the employment figures look good but it still means more handouts both in direct benefits and in tax handouts. It’s curtains and kippers as my nan used to say, keeping up appearances to hide the fact there simply is no money flowing.

Even at a local level we see the Conservative party doing the same things. Here in Northampton we’ve had huge spending on totally pointless schemes to pretty the place up. We’ve had our ugly but working bus station reduced to rubble to be replaced by a new shiny one which is too small and doesn’t work, it causes traffic hold ups everywhere. We’ve got a shiny new station, it looks great but, we have no extra trains stopping, many just speed through on their way to London or the north. We are having new office developments being built despite us still having an office space surplus because these are prime sites and office blocks look better than gas holders. We’ve the promise of a new University campus in town replaces two of the existing sites bringing new revenue into the centre but … what shops are they going to use? Many of the familiar shops in town have closed and gone elsewhere. We cannot herald the new ‘Next’ or ‘Primark’, nice as they are because they are stores which simply moved from elsewhere. Their loss from their previous locations has caused more damage than what has been gained in the mall. We lost an anchor store, the ‘House of Fraser’ and we lost ‘The Disney Store’ … both should be seen as a consequence of the mismanagement of the town centre as I can’t imagine Milton Keynes losing either there. We’re becoming a town of coffee shops, 99p stores and charity shops with the occasional short lease store for good measure. Then we have the reintroduction of a road in Abington Street to encourage more shoppers to use that part of town which was completed just as the major retailer that end of town encamped in the Grosvenor Centre! There is barely anything down there, I can’t imagine H&M staying for too much longer as they are clearly isolated down there losing trade to the other end of town. We also have ‘quarters’ popping up around and about, art museums, who the hell, except the wealthy, would spend local tax revenue on art? This is the Conservative party though, totally out of touch with where spending needs to happen.

We’re no doubt going to see some handouts to the poor in this budget, increases for apprentices, a rise in the minimum wage, a 1% reduction in income tax for the least well off, a further freeze on fuel duty. I expect to see something for first time buyers and for small business to take some of them out of some business tax. Things which won’t cost too much and which can be balanced by further welfare announced cuts. I also expect to see an increase in inheritance tax and other concessions to the highest earners balanced with harsh words against tax avoidance.The argument that if we compensate them they might pay some tax. The key emphasise will be on stability, gently on the rudder and the assertion that these hard times must continue for the benefit of the hard working family.

So, let’s see how close I am, should be interesting though, I don’t expect to watch it live so will get the edited highlights later.