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She said: “I have concluded the announcement in itself could not reasonably be said to have the potential to have a material impact on the election.
“For these reasons, I do not therefore believe that there has been a breach of pre-election guidance.
“Decisions about specific projects to be funded under the scheme are not taken by Ministers, but under the authority of a panel whose membership includes a majority of non-Scottish Government members. I am satisfied all those procedures were correctly followed in this case.
“I can assure you we take very seriously indeed the need to adhere to the highest standards of civil service propriety.
Mr Thomson was contacted for comment but had not responded at the time of going to press.
For the third Monday in less than a month Theresa May will face the House of Commons to promote her Brexit deal as MPs and the country grow increasingly exasperated with her procrastination.
The first time was her return from Brussels after EU leaders signed off on the Withdrawal Agreement she had negotiated the previous weekend. The expectation in Downing Street was that while there would be objectors among the diehard Brexiteers, there would be enough grudging support to work on in the subsequent days ah...
Tarrant County has long struggled with infant deaths — the county had highest rate among the state’s largest counties in 2013. African-Americans are the hardest-hit, with an infant death rate two to three times higher than white babies.
Infant deaths also are more common among the poor, those without health insurance and mothers younger than 20 and older than 40, according to research. Prematurity was a factor in 40 percent of infant deaths in Tarrant County in 2013, according to the county health department.
For years, community health leaders in Tarrant tried to tackle the problem by improving prenatal care, but they have concluded that alone won’t solve the problem.
Now, with the help of a five-year, $3.5 million federal Healthy Start grant awarded to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, they’re trying to tackle the social, lifestyle and chronic health issues tied to infant death.
Programs in California and Florida show how a community-oriented, wraparound approach could reduce infant deaths in Tarrant County.
The Magnolia Project in and around Jacksonville, Fla., and the Alameda County Public Health Department’s programs specifically target African-Americans.
They have community markets, health fairs, classes on healthy living, baby showers. They walk door-to-door to publicize events and services. And they coordinate so programs don’t duplicate efforts.
Staff with the Magnolia Project are out in the community almost every day, said Faye Johnson, interim executive director of the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition. They have health fairs around the city two to three times a year and regularly visit public housing projects.
The health department for Alameda County, Calif., uses quarterly baby showers to recruit women with risk factors connected to infant mortality, said Anna Gruver, coordinator for maternal, paternal, child and adolescent health.
Expectant mothers socialize, play educational games and learn about perinatal health and stressors that affect pregnancy. They eat a healthy meal together and participate in raffles for items such as car seats.
Last year, about 130 women attended. The county aims to enroll about 100 in its home visitation programs.
The community market is part of a program called Best Babies Zone, which focuses on a ZIP code in Oakland that has a high rate of infant death. .
Such outreach is vital because healthy lifestyles are as important as healthcare in preventing infant death, said Brent Ewig, director of public policy and government affairs for the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs.
In Tarrant County, the March of Dimes’ Honey Child program offered faith-based prenatal education and mentoring to pregnant, African-American women. Each year, the program had a baby shower to promote prenatal education, serving 40 to 60 women statewide.
Honey Child was discontinued last year because it didn’t reach enough women to show it was effective in reducing infant deaths, said Carmen Branch, communications director for March of Dimes in Dallas-Fort Worth.
In Jacksonville, women have responded particularly well to weekly classes on subjects ranging from nutrition to personal finance, Johnson said. Participants earn points for meeting goals such as attending the classes or prenatal appointments. They can exchange points for household products.
About 700 women participate each year, said Erin Addington, a spokeswoman for the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition.
Alameda’s ClubMom program is similar. Several times a month, 10 to 20 mothers gather in an informal setting to learn how to take better care of themselves. Topics include stress, nutrition, exercise, domestic violence and family planning.
Both agencies offer other services to curtail infant mortality, such as mental-health and clinical services and home visitation programs.
Infant death rates have dropped in both communities.
In Alameda County, the infant mortality rate dropped from 4.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 2000-02 to 4.2 in 2011-13. The black infant mortality rate went from 10.6 in 2000-02 to 7.6 in 2009-11, though it rose to 10.4 two years later.
In the county that includes Jacksonville, the infant mortality rate has dropped from 10.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 2004 to 8.8 in 2014. The rate among black infants has dropped from 15.7 in 2004 to 13.8 in 2014.
In 2013, Tarrant County’s infant mortality rate for non-Hispanic African-Americans was 12.76 deaths for 1,000 births. Overall, the rate was 7.11 deaths for 1,000 births.
That community connection is key to one effort to battle infant mortality in Tarrant County. The Healthy Moms-Healthy Babies-Healthy Community Initiative, or H3, is a coalition of pastors, educators, child-care workers, healthcare workers, community service organizations and parents.
All the members of the coalition live, work or serve in southeastern Fort Worth, one of the clusters of high infant mortality. Marcy Paul, an instructor in the UNTHSC Department of Behavioral and Community Health and the H3 project manager, said the group tries to come up with solutions from within the community.
Paul emphasized a grassroots approach. Too often, people don’t know what programs are available or even that they need them, she said. “Sometimes it’s taking a book to a daycare to read it so I can meet the moms,” she said.
H3 members go to workplaces to show them how to set up areas for mothers to pump breast milk. Those employers can be certified as Texas Mother-Friendly Worksites.
Some approaches elsewhere can’t be duplicated in Tarrant County. For instance, the California and Florida programs are each run through a single organization.
This allows staff to share what’s working and ensure that they don’t duplicate efforts, said Jessica Luginbuhl, special projects manager for the Building Blocks for Health Equity Unit in the Alameda County Public Health Department.
Tarrant’s campaign to reduce infant mortality has never been run by a single agency.
That has resulted in a fragmented approach, said Ann Salyer-Caldwell, associate director of community health promotion for Tarrant County Public Health.
The Tarrant County Infant Health Network has created a guide to help people find the right services. Many programs target different people — first-time mothers, for instance, or those with drug addiction. The guide lays out the requirements of each one and whom to contact.
Some state health agencies, including ones in California, Florida and Oklahoma, have hotlines for maternal and child health. Salyer-Caldwell said that could help.
In Texas, people can call 211 to find healthcare and social services. The people who answer the phone are trained to interview callers to learn more about their problems, even if someone is just seeking help with an electricity bill.
Another difference between Texas and Florida: Florida law requires every pregnant woman and newborn to be screened for infant-mortality risk factors.
Texas doesn’t require such screening.
The groups trying to reduce infant death in Tarrant County are working together better than they used to, Raines-Milenkov said. They understand that they’re accountable to the overall goal of reducing infant mortality.
Alec Horner contributed to this story. The stories in this series were reported and written by 2015 graduating seniors in TCU’s Department of Journalism.
Independent record shops in the county are gearing up for the tenth annual Record Store Day.
The event sees artists and labels issuing limited releases to champion the importance of independent retailers.
In Northamptonshire, Spun Out and Vinyl Underground will be stocking a selection of the official Record Store Day releases.
Also getting in on the act is Spiral Archive which is holding a half-price sale while the Lamplighter will be hosting a record fair from midday.
Spun Out owner Chris Kent said: “Record Store Day is a massive day for us.
“There’s a genuine case to be made for the impact it has had on the revitalisation of the vinyl industry in general and your local record shop especially. When RSD came to the UK, a lot of record shops were struggling and now there’s shops opening which is a total reversal of what was happening.
Alternative quartet Fox Chapel will be playing at Spun Out as part of RSD, with Kent saying the band will be giving their sound a stripped back acoustic edge for the set.
There will also be DJs playing throughout the day.
There are hundreds of records being released as part of RSD, including records by Cabbage, Manic Street Preachers, Bowie, Prince and Super Furry Animals.
Mr Kent added: “The Cocteau Twins releases I think are really interesting pieces of music and highlight a lost point in time and music.
“It shows British experimental music at its best and is a good reissue for them to pull out of the bag.
“We’ve a building customer base for new and reissued shoegaze which I think was a sound which got lost in time thanks to the grunge movement which during the early and mid 1990s killed off every other genre of rock.
Spun Out in Gold Street and Vinyl Underground in Abington Street both open at 8am. Spiral Archie is open from 11am to 4pm.
In the evening, Alex D’Arcy and Vinyl Underground colleagues will be playing records at The Lamplighter in Overstone Road from 6pm to 1am.
God Help the Girl is being billed as “a story set to music” and was written by Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian (ie. my favorite still-together band, to this day, even though many other folk seem to have forgotten them). Things on this project aren’t progressing in the typical order, however. While Stuart is still...
Matador will be releasing the album on June 23rd in the US, whereas Rough Trade will be giving it a UK bow a day earlier. Prior to this, the song Come Monday Night will be released as a single in May. Stuart Murdoch’s video introduction to the project is embedded in the second half of this post.
Google is extending a share-to-TV capability for YouTube, previously exclusive to Android (News - Alert) devices, to Apple iOS gadgets. The sleeping-with-the-enemy move means that users can now push YouTube content from those devices to the big screen on-demand.
The functionality requires a Google TV-embedded set-top box or TV set.
Users can essentially use their mobile device to browse YouTube content, and, if they choose, use their smartphone or tablet to share the video on the TV.
It’s a very similar technology to Apple AirPlay (News - Alert), which allows users to port content between Apple TV and iOS devices—including through the YouTube app. Google introduced the feature for Android and its Google (News - Alert) TV devices last November.
Women's services, especially for those fleeing domestic violence, are under enormous threat from Tory and Blairite austerity. Socialist Party members have been involved in campaigns to defend services in Doncaster and Derby. From their experiences we have also drawn up a model motion, below, which we appeal to trade un...
It was summer 2017 when South Yorkshire Women's Aid (SYWA) was told that the service, come the end of that year, would no longer receive financial support from Doncaster Council.
Women's Lives Matter (WLM) had started in 2016 to defend Doncaster Women's Aid, which closed due to funding cuts. Led by a staff member Louise Harrison, WLM campaigned for eight months and won the £30,000 grant to set up SYWA, a service won mainly by women in the community, which belonged to the community.
The WLM campaign was not prepared to lose the service again due to funding cuts and so re-launched the campaign with full fervour. The service was told there were no funds due to cuts and that the Labour council's hands were tied. So challenging austerity politics was at the core of the campaign.
Using campaign resources produced by the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and the Socialist Party, we showed the amount of money Labour councils across Britain held in reserves. We were clear: Labour councils' hands are not tied, the Labour council can and should use its reserves as an emergency measure to fund n...
Mayor Ros Jones was eventually forced to address our demands after a formal question to the council. Despite her complete unwillingness to look for no-cuts alternatives, it raised the sights of campaigners - including Labour Party members.
At the height of the campaign we had secretaries of trades councils from across Britain, Labour Party branches and trade union branches pledging their support to our battle. We raised more than £10,000 from the solidarity of the labour movement nationally.
Even John McDonnell made a public statement in favour of our campaign, criticising the three Labour MPs in Doncaster who had stayed deafeningly silent.
The WLM campaign showed incredible determination. We did bi-weekly campaign stalls on the streets of Doncaster for four months, we staged a protest inside the council chamber and attracted national press coverage. SYWA service users heart-warmingly dedicated a therapeutic session at the service to writing letters to lo...
Our demands on the council were common sense to working class people in Doncaster. Many had personal connections to the service and would often join our stalls and protests - for some it was their first political activity. The campaign emboldened and politicised working class women in the community in particular.
SYWA was saved by a big lotto bid. This would never have happened without the work of staff, volunteers and WLM.
However, unfortunately the campaign was ultimately sold out by some in the labour movement who worked closely with Doncaster council, including some who have been awarded with councillor positions. The same people had tried to tell the campaign to not be vocal against the council.
Eventually, through vindictive tactics, WLM was forced out of SYWA. Louise Harrison, the staff member who set up the service, did not have her contract renewed - a decision made by SYWA trustees who have been working closely with the council.
After five months of 'back room' conversations with the council, the supposed victory from these tactics is a £200,000 grant from the big lotto. This is not substantial to the service in the long term. Without secure local authority funding, in a few years the service faces the same fate as many other domestic violence...
WLM continues to fight for secure and substantial funding for violence against women's services. Women's lives are lost to cuts and only uncompromising and consistent organisation against all who implement them - including right-wing Labour councils - will give domestic violence services the lifeline they need.
Ultimately we need socialist policies like those which Corbyn's general election manifesto gave a glimpse of - mass council housing, a £10 an hour minimum wage now for all, a fully publicly funded NHS - to start to create a society based on the understanding that all women's lives matter and the fight to end inequality...
Derby Women's Centre has existed since 1978 and has been supporting women throughout Derbyshire who are at the most vulnerable point in their lives. The main aim of the centre is to reduce the devastating impact of mental health issues and domestic violence, but it offers many other vital services too.
Until early 2017 the centre had survived with funding through charitable grants, donations and fundraising efforts. Last May the centre's most substantial grant came to an end and it was faced with the threat of closure.
The centre has remained open only as a result of the heroics of two women. Both were users of the centre and were determined to save the centre - which they say saved their lives.
Annette and Kelly launched a campaign. Kelly attended a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition post-general election meeting in June 2017 and both subsequently joined the Socialist Party. We discussed what the party could do to help.
We held campaign stalls in the centre of Derby with the slogan 'Save Derby Women's Centre'. This was the first time Annette and Kelly had done anything like this and the response was amazing. They ran the stall with support from others and it attracted an incredible response, mainly from women but also men.
Annette has personally raised over £15,000 during the last year. This has come from events such as 'Samosa sales'. An event including music and speeches organised by the daughter of a Socialist Party member raised over £2,000.
Annette wrote a letter that was emailed to all Trade Union Congress-affiliated unions. Many responded with donations, again raising thousands.
Annette also spoke at many meetings highlighting the campaign, including a National Shop Stewards Network meeting held in Birmingham. The campaign has also had support from Unite locally and Momentum in Derby.
A group of us attended the councillor surgery of Rangit Banwait, Labour leader of Derby City Council. We pointed out that the council had funded the centre until five years ago.
He was asked for a loan to tide the centre over. He refused.
It was then put to him that the council has millions in reserves. He could offer some of this to help fund the centre.
His response was that the reserves were for emergencies. You can imagine our faces when he said that.
The Socialist Party campaigns for council reserves to be used to prevent any further cuts to jobs and services. This could then be the starting point for Labour councils to launch a mass campaign for the funds required to fully fund all the services we need.
This would mean that the women's centre would be fully funded by the local authority and not have to rely on charitable donations which have shown how precarious they can be.
At the moment the centre is providing a limited service compared to what it has done in the past but remains open and is awaiting the result of a bid for lottery funding. The fight goes on!
1. Domestic violence kills women. On average two women a week are murdered by a male partner or ex-partner in the UK and a further three women a week kill themselves to escape abuse.
2. Services for women and children fleeing domestic violence are being slashed. Since 2010 almost a quarter of the funding for council services has been cut on average - with almost half in some areas. Over a six month period last year 1,000 women and children were turned away from refuges due to lack of funding.
3. Government changes to funding of council domestic violence services through the introduction of Universal Credit will exacerbate this with four out of ten remaining refuges threatened with closure. Theresa May's domestic violence bill does nothing to address the funding crisis.
4. While charity funding for these essential services shows the breadth of support for such services it is not a reliable source for services that cannot be allowed to fail. Councils have billions in reserves which could be used to prevent the closure of vital life-saving services.