Rowntree Report blows ‘lazy poor’ myth out of the water

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A Guardian article that draws attention to the fact that the ”Majority of children living in poverty have at least one working parent” is based on the Rowntree Report ”Ending Child Poverty in a Changing Economy”. The report shows that over the past decade, the number of children with parents with ‘in-work poverty’ has grown as the majority of children in poverty have working parents. The current projections, however, show a partial reversal of this by 2010, with 54% of children in poverty being in non-working families. An overall projected fall in child poverty due to rises in benefits and tax credits means that the number of children in poverty with working parents is projected to fall by 20–30 per cent between 2006/7 and 2010/11. However, the number in poverty without working parents is projected to fall by only 5 to 10 per cent.

Battersea Power Station owner £1.62 billion in debt

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Real Estate Opportunities, the current owners of Battersea Power Station are £1.62 billion in debt. Its auditors at KPMG believe its £1.62 billion debt pile and the collapse in property values could sink the company and therefore its controversial plans for the Battersea Power Station.

Locals might sigh in relief that the ugly, grandiose and greedy plan might not happen but this is just another episode in the “pass the parcel” property game where the lucky winner will be the owner who gets permission to knock it down and make a killing.

This waiting game by a succession of property speculators, they are not “developers” as they have done nothing but knock up artist impressions and take the roof off, means the whole area continues to suffer from planning blight. It is time the Power Station was taken back into public ownership as a London amenity like its sucessful sister building the Tate Modern.

When will English Heritage, the London Mayor or Wandsworth council act?

Doubt plagues Battersea after owner suffers crippling debts

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Torture at Guantanamo Bay: Excerpts and Extras Now Online

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Preview clips and extras from the upcoming Spectacle film ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo’, which documents the treatment of those held in Guantanamo Bay prison and other ‘dark prisons’, are now available to view online. As a lot of the material filmed for ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo’ will not be included in the final edit, it has been made available on the Project Page and in the Archive pages of the Spectacle website to make it widely accessible. The material includes interviews with lawyers, campaigners and ex-prisoners, plus longer interviews with ex-detainee Omar Deghayes, who describes his interrogation by British intelligence agent ‘Andrew’, and James Yee, former US Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, who underwent intense investigation.

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Or visit our Guantánamo project pages for more information and videos.

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Barnfield Estate Tour and Residents’ Meeting

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The Spectacle team visited the Barnfield Estate in Greenwich to film a tour of the area, during which two local boys gave us a helping hand with the camera! Particularly salient was the disuse of the former community centre building, a large space which is currently boarded up. Renovation of the building would create a safe environment for residents to meet and take part in communal activities.

Following the tour was a residents’ meeting during which different Well London partners presented research, ideas and opportunities to members of the community. Spectacle invited residents to take part in workshops to make a film about the Barnfield Estate and community. If you would like to get involved, visit the Well London Media Project page.

White City Fun Day and Tour

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As part of the ongoing Well London project, Spectacle visited the White City Estate in Hammersmith to attend the Fun Day in BBC Park and to film a tour of the key sites of the area. Members of the community were invited to take part in filming workshops during which a film about White City, its Olympic past, its transformation and its future will be developed. A number of interviews were also recorded with key advocates of the Well London and other local initiatives. We are uploading all the Well London activities we have filmed onto the project page of the Spectacle website, where it can be viewed. If you would like to be involved in any aspect of the film about White City visit the Well London Media Project for more details.

Ministers determined to “avoid” scrutiny over torture, say MPs

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Channel Four last night reported that the joint committee on human rights, investigating claims of UK intelligence forces complicity in torture, have called for a major inquiry into the role of British security forces abroad. The group of MP’s described the government’s level of accountability on this matter as ‘woefully deficient’.

The committee has been investigating a series of allegations against British security forces, including those of Binyam Mohamed, that they used information gathered under torture as part of MI5 investigations  into terrorism.

According to Channel Four the committee’s report finds:

‘the accusations of complicity in torture would amount to illegality if proved; but says the government has failed to engage with the charges, instead “hiding behind a wall of secrecy”.

“As to what may have happened in the past, general assertions of non-complicity are no longer an adequate response to the many detailed allegations,”

Spectacle has been reporting on allegations of torture through it Guantanamo project and has video testimony from Omar Deghayes describing his maltreatment at the hands of the British.

It’s good to see MP’s within parliament are beginning to put pressure on the government to take responsibility for it’s actions. Torture is illegal and those who are complicit in a crime should be sent to jail whether they are ministers or not.

To see Channel Fours report on this issue please click here

To see edits of Spectacles film The Guantanamo Files which deal with torture please click here

‘How the other half live’ fails to tackle real issues

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From the makers of ‘Secret Millionaire’, ‘How the other half live’ is Channel 4’s new program dealing with poverty in the UK. Each week a rich family looks at the life of a poor family and at the end of the program gives a certain amount of money or ‘sponsorship’ to that family.

The makers of  ‘How the other half live‘ may have had the best intentions in the world with this program, asking the viewer to explore the gap between rich and poor, highlighting the poverty that exists in UK and encouraging people to be as generous with those who need help in this country as they are with those abroad, but it is still, as Keith Watson put it in the Metro  ‘patronising‘ and astonishingly contrived.

Instead of looking at the general picture of poverty in this country it focuses on a handful of ‘lucky’ people who are to become the benefactors of a handful of wealthy patrons. This view makes each episode an almost Dickensian style story of the hopeless poor being rescued by the good-hearted rich.

Having a nice easy solution at the end of each program, where a single familie’s problems are solved by a cheque book, actually masks the real issue of the thousands of other families who continue to live in poverty. It also fosters the idea that poverty is a personal issue to be solved by wealthy individuals rather than a societal issue to be dealt with by all.

What do you think?

Are these programs helping or hindering those in poverty?

What is wrong with rich people adopting poor families?

To find out about Spectacle’s Poverty and the media project please visit our Project Page

Hammersmith and Fulham – About to Launch

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You may have seen us filming already. Now we’re looking for White City residents to produce they’re own film about the area. Anyone interested in being involved will be taught to use our professional digital video equipment to create a film about the Olympic history, how White City’s changed since then and how it’ll continue to evolve in the future.

White City has transformed so much over the last century, this will be a great opportunity to be tell that story and pick up some useful skills and local knowledge along the way.

The first shoot date is Thursday 6th August, when we’ll be running an introduction at Pheonix School before going down to film the Street Athletics and hopefully get some interviews with Linford Christie, Andy Slaughter MP and those watching and taking part in the event.

If you can’t make the day but would like to be part of the project there will be more chances to film, research and get involved. To get details for the day or get in touch check the Well London Media Project

Criminal investigations into torture finally begins

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According to The Guardian (July 10), the metropolitan police have launched an investigation into allegations by Binyam Mohamed that MI5 officers were complicit in his torture.

The investigation has been launched by the Attorney General after Binyam, a former Guantanamo detainee, persistently argued he was interrogated by MI5 and the FBI while being tortured in Pakistan.

Later on in his detainment, whilst being held captive in Morocco, Binyam became aware of British agents feeding his torturers questions and information. This supports  the claim of many other former captives, including Omar Deghayes who is featured on the Spectacle website, that British agents were not only aware of torture by foreign agents but used it to garner information from suspects.

The question we have to ask is why it has taken the police so long to launch this investigation and when  will criminal investigation be extended to every case of torture?

Furthermore, given the governments reluctance to release key documents related to Binyams case how indepth is any investigation going to be?