Democracy Online

I suppose it's reasonable to believe that when you're browsing the comment sections of blogs, interactive media or Facebook that you are reading the thoughts and opinions of genuine readers. Naturally some of them may work for the state or be functionaries of political parties but would you actually expect them to be paid expressly with taxpayers money to post messages of a particular nature?

Welcome to the rise of the professional, tax-funded internet Troll.

Here's the job advert : http://www.w4mpjobs.org/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=45223

45223

10 April 2014

21 April 2014

Job Title:

Social Media Coordinator

Working For:

International Alert

Location:

London

Salary:

Negotiable

Job Details:

This is a short-term consultancy contract until the end of May 2014, with an immediate start. Job share or part-time considered.

Are you a social media enthusiast? Do you engage on a variety of different social channels? We’re looking for someone creative and dynamic that has a natural flair for social media engagement. You will work closely with International Alert’s Communications and Europe Teams, and be responsible for running a short-term social media campaign (#EUnify) to counter racist and xenophobic discourse in the UK in the run-up to the European elections.

You will be responsible for building and engaging with audiences on the project’s social media channels, which includes coming up with content ideas, creating new content, amplifying messages online, managing and starting community conversations and making sure the social campaign is in line with the project's goals.

Tasks include:

• Building and amplifying campaign messages online
• Updating the project’s social media platforms - publishing daily posts on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and any other relevant social media channels
• Increasing networks and expanding our reach across all social media channels
• Managing and moderating user generated content and posting responses including on-going conversations and private messages
• Working closely with internal teams and partners to respond to issues and co-ordinate content activity
• Disseminating messages and materials to partner networks and channels
• Setting appropriate targets on engagement and activity
• Compiling statistics and monitoring engagement on a regular basis

Skills required:

• Ability to create engaging and compelling written and visual content
• Proven ability to conceive, implement, and manage cutting-edge online strategies, including mobilisation campaigns
• Proficient in using and managing Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and blogs for marketing/campaigning purposes
• Ability to work to tight deadlines with a ‘can do’ attitude towards managing multiple tasks
• Expertise with online analytics
• Demonstrated ability to understand complex public policy and translate it into compelling digital content

For the full details please see the advertised post on our website: http://international-alert.org/jobs/social-media-coordinator.

Closing Date:

21 April 2014

I bring your attention to this section :

You will work closely with International Alert’s Communications and Europe Teams, and be responsible for running a short-term social media campaign (#EUnify) to counter racist and xenophobic discourse in the UK in the run-up to the European elections.

I think it's clear that they mean to target UKIP.

International Alert is an NGO, that means in reality a taxpayer funded, un-elected and permanent wing of the Labour Party.

This is the new face of democracy.

That's my vote decided. 

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Should I send this?

General Teaching Council for England

Whittington House

19-30 Alfred Place

London

WC1E 7EA

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Dear Sirs

GTC Registration Card

Thank you for my GTC registration card, received yesterday by post, which I return herewith.

The card appears to have no useful official function, other than to thrill the issuer, for I note its caveat that possessing it certifies nothing except the historic and now irrelevant fact of my registration with you at the date of the card’s issue. It serves no purpose for me personally, either: fortunately, despite advancing age, I still know who I am, who I work for and my teacher’s reference number.

For an English teacher, to be associated with this card is something of a liability. The motto on the obverse (“for children, through teachers”) is very modern in both literary and political styles, in that it conveys a fuzzy sense of generalized good intent and lacks verb, subject and any hint of how the undefined objective is to be attained (other than by treating teachers as instruments rather than as autonomous agents). I suppose we must be seen to keep up with the fashionable flight from literacy and from any disputable basis of fact or principle.

The reverse is embellished with a quotation from the “Code for teachers” (which, according to your media release dated 1 July 2009, has been created with reference to “an extensive process of public and professional consultation,” an exercise which had hitherto – and, I suspect, despite strenuous and costly effort on your behalf - escaped my notice). The excerpt reads, “Teachers’ knowledge, skill, judgement, creativity and commitment play a vital role in society.” As an example of stating the obvious it could scarcely be bettered. It is also infuriatingly patronising: I am forced to infer that my motivation is improved by jejune bureaucratic praise and recognition such as this. Its presumed intended effect is undermined by the fact that it is printed in two colours, as though, like my primary age pupils, I have such a short attention span that I cannot complete reading a sentence unless it changes its hue partway through.

Or is this chameleon-like transformation from maroon to blue intended as a political metaphor? In which case, the order of the colours should be reversed, for as you know, the GTCs were set up under an earlier Conservative government’s Teaching and Higher Education Act (1988), itself in part a response to the teachers’ industrial action of 1985, which in turn was a protest against the way in which the profession’s remuneration relative to that of other workers as established by the 1974 Houghton pay award slipped rapidly in succeeding years, to the extent that an article in Punch magazine in the 1980s, comparing workers’ pay, felt able to call teachers “dowdy underachievers” . A medical acquaintance told me years ago that the unstated purpose of the General Medical Council is to suppress and bully doctors, and some may think that the similarly-named General Teaching Councils have an analogous hidden agenda.

It is also regrettable that you should put yourselves (or should I say, us?) to such unnecessary expense when the country is running short of money. The minutes of the GTC for England’s meeting on 27 January 2009 reveal that, despite a registration fee of £37 per member and an expected total income of £21.44 million, your budget will be in deficit to the tune of £354,000. Surely it would assist your finances to desist from glossy, self-aggrandising mass mailings.

I think one could go further, in these straitened times: according to http://www.nethouseprices.com/ residential properties in Alfred Place have sold for an average £561,583 each in recent years, so if you happen to own your offices, the fast-recovering London property market should allow you to sell numbers 19-30, retain a healthy cash reserve and find a new location that would cost far less in staff pay, travel allowances and other perquisites. If you wish to be in closer touch with your unconsenting membership, you should know that the geographical centre of England is Meriden; but doubtless the Economic and Social Research Council could guide you to areas where wage levels are more competitive still. In the latter context, it is also worth remembering that there are some 200 million English speakers in India, where the average entry salary for a graduate is US$300 – 500 per month (E. Wayne Nafziger, “Economic Development”, 4th Edition, March 2006).

In short, while I must perforce acknowledge that I am obliged to be registered with you, please exclude me from every mailing possible, other than the one asking me for a cheque once a year; and please do what you can to be less of a burden on my, and my colleagues’, time and money.

Yours faithfully

Is it officially permissible to be a Christian? Or indeed, anything?

Here in the Daily Mail is a sample of the hoo-ha about nurse Caroline Petrie, who was suspended for offering to pray for an elderly patient. (She also used to leave a mildly evangelical Christian pamphlet.) The patient says, "I have Christian beliefs myself, but it could perhaps be upsetting for some other people if they have different beliefs or thought that she meant they looked in such a bad way that they needed praying for."

Both parties seem reasonable and decent. What's worrying is what happens when officialdom gets involved, as the rest of the story shows.

But I'd love to see a Philadelphia lawyer let loose on the "Nursing and Midwifery Council code" (full text here) which Mrs Petrie is deemed to have breached. By implication, this code regulates not merely conduct, but opinions and even religious faith.

The code commands nurses to "Be open and honest, act with integrity" and straightaway gives a very contentious clarification of the term "integrity": "You must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity." The managers at the health organisation for which Mrs Petrie works clearly understand "equality and diversity" to cover religions. The logic of this is that Jews, Muslims and Christians (among others) cannot work as nurses - for note the word "personal" in that order. It may be that atheists would also be precluded.

All this results from two things: the State getting too big for its boots; and in attempting to govern every aspect of our lives has delegated insanely wide-ranging powers to quangos, who make and apply rules with a whim of iron. The professions and semi-professions - doctors, teachers, nurses and so on* - all have their own little councils to terrorise them. Such prodnosing easily magnifies a "storm in a teacup" into an issue that could affect your job, wealth, family life and physical liberty.

We need a Constitution to limit the powers of would-be tyrants, even if they are now soft-handed, well-dressed ones. Resist the Red Armani Choir.
_______________________
* ... even foster parents.

Abolish the Federal Reserve

On The Big Picture, a rude but concise video by Neal Fox about the Federal Reserve. As his catchy song points out, its existence defies the Constitution - the same Constitution that made President Obama say his Presidential Oath again.

Yet again, I say economic issues resolve into democratic ones. The Constitution is very clear that the power to create money (using gold and silver) must remain with Congress; yet in 1913 that power was given away to a newly-invented quango, run by people whose names and organisations are not permitted to be publicly known (which secrecy gives rise to some very paranoid theories!)

Why wait until its centenary to abolish it? No "four more years", please.

And while I'm on, let's have a massive cull of quangos in the UK, too.