Original Date 26th May 2017
One thing I used to do when I was the Member of Parliament for Yardley was to call together meetings of all of the religious organisations in Yardley as a Yardley multi-faith group. In many ways it is the creation of informal links between people that makes communication easier even if there is no formal decision making power.
Obviously this is something I would intend to do again if the people of Yardley ask me to take on the responsibility of representing them in parliament.
It highlights the sort of thing that politicians can do which arises from a leadership role within communities rather than any constitutional position.
I have already written in an earlier blog post about the principles of resolving conflict. It can be summarised as "murdering innocents is wrong".
A number of local mosques have issued statements following the atrocity in Manchester and I think it is worth quoting from parts of them.
One said that the mosque "Unequivoc…
Comments
With the amount of commonsense floating around the government at present, it should be reasonable to commit an MP to an mental hospital without too much concern, if another MP leaked something, surely any MP leaking something after what happened to Green is insane?
Whistleblower Hotline considered
Ofsted is considering introducing a "whistle-blower hotline" for social workers in light of the Baby P tragedy, the watchdog's chief inspector has said.
Christine Gilbert said the measure would allow frontline staff to raise any "serious concerns" they had about child safety.
The measure would be in addition to those announced by Schools Secretary Ed Balls which were aimed at tightening up child protection services in local authorities.
Ms Gilbert announced the measure as she gave evidence for the schools select committee in Westminster, central London.
She said: "We want to make it easier for front-line staff to tell us when things are going wrong."
She added: "We are considering the introduction of a confidential whistle-blowers hotline in 2009 for social workers and other front-line professionals to alert us to any serious concerns about practise that fails to ensure the safety and welfare of those they serve."
Ms Gilbert the cross-party group of MPs of various concerns that had been raised during Ofsted's recent investigation of child protection services at Haringey Council, which had been requested by Mr Balls.
This included social workers failing to identify issues which should have been picked up.
She said: "There were certain procedures which weren't being picked up. The ideal is you try to see the child alone or have some personal connection with the child during the visit, that is not always possible in which case it should be recorded as not possible.
"It was being recorded four or five times that a child could not be seen. This should have been picked up in supervision, which happens between a social worker and the managers."
© The Press Association
' hired-gun' unchallengeable experts are in place? To try to achieve exactly that, of course!