Workers' Liberty

From binge drinking and the problems associated with it, to privatisation, the dumbing down of education and low paid, “flexible for the bosses” work, life under New Labour has a bit of everything bad for working class youth. At work, millions of working people are paid a pittance, and the younger you are the worse it is.

Hot news today. Sending your kids to nursery turns them into yobs, yes it does.

Today, I spent some time filling in forms to get some additional services for my son Joe, who has Asperger's Syndrome.

Through Hackney Family Back-Up, we can get various services, including a monthly Saturday afternoon club for kids with "challenging behaviour".

Of all the industrialised countries Britain is the poorest, unhealthiest and most depressing place to grow up in.

Today, Tony Blair is having trouble making his mind up. According to his press briefing this morning, Tone is struggling to make a decision about whether to exempt faith-based adoption agencies from anti-discrimination legislation. You see, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has written a stern letter to the Prime Minister and Cabinet demanding the "right" of Catholic adoption agencies - and those of other faiths - to refuse to consider same-sex couples as potential adoptive parents.

Blair whines that "this was an issue with sensitivities on all sides" and is "not clear-cut or straightforward". Au contraire, Mr P.M., it's very straightforward. You either allow homophobic bigotry or you don't.

Roger Evans, Tory Transport spokesman on the Greater London Authority, blogs his proposal that free bus travel for kids should be scrapped.

There aren't too many Employment Tribunals where I'd support the boss against the worker. But here's one.

Andrew McClintock claims he was forced to resign as a family division magistrate because he was not prepared to agree to remove children from their families because they might be placed with a lesbian or gay couple.

Controversy rages over suggestions of compulsory parenting classes for parents of kids who get into trouble.

By Colin Foster

From the Blairites, and from further to the right, we hear more and more about “restoring discipline” and “restoring old-fashioned standards” in schools.

The real chaos generated in some schools by social decay and by incessant “restructuring” from above is being used as a springboard for the re-imposition of more punitive, authoritarian regimes in schools.

CBBC Newsround is running an on-line survey asking whether there are enough places to play outdoors.

So the Child Support Agency is to be scrapped. Sounds like good news for all those people - men and women, 'caring' and 'absent' parents - who have been let down or persecuted by it. Problem is, it looks set to be replaced by something even worse.

It seems that about a third of parents entitled to set up Child Trust Funds have not done so. While the banks and the government tear their hair out wondering why, they might consider the fact that parents of babies are just a bit busy and just a bit tired.

"Shame upon such crimes!

Shame upon us if we do not raise our voices against them!"

Samuel Gompers, U.S. labor activist, 1881

With credible estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million, India has the largest number of working children in the world. Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make enough to eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do not go to school; more than half of them will never learn the barest skills of literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of four or five, and by the time they reach adulthood they will certainly be exhausted, old men and women by the age of forty, likely to be dead by fifty.

Ricardo, Montevideo, Uraguay

I am 16, but not for much longer. My birthday is soon, although I have never received a birthday present in my life. I’ve been living on the street for the last six years.

By Dave Ball

There are estimated to be 11 million street children in India. This includes those who are on the streets in the day but return to a family or other home in the evening, as well as those who sleep on the streets. Worldwide there could be as many as 170 million street children. The April 2005 issue of New Internationalist (NI) (published on the web at www.newint.org) focussed on the issue, giving most of the space to street children themselves to tell their experiences and put forward their hopes in their own words.

• Tescopoly

• Health inequality
• Childhood obesity

TESCOPOLY

The announcement by Tesco boss Terry Leahy that his company made £65 million profit per second last year was greeted with joy by the capitalist community. Declan Curry of the London Stock Exchange was only surprised at how muted the announcement was. “We should not be ashamed of profit,” he said. Tesco says it will “create” 25,000 jobs next year.

Visit to the museum's exhibition on child labour, plus a meeting in the museum to discuss the issues. Children are welcome. During the exhibition they can play in the museum's soft play area with supervision.

You can download a PDF leaflet advertising this event here.

Sixteen Liverpool striking social workers, and their supporters from London and Surrey, picketed the General Social Care Council’s conference in London on 27 November.

The Government says has improved the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable children in the UK. It wants to make its record here a centrepiece of its election campaigning. But a just-published report by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England shows the Government is failing to protect children from abuse, depriving some children of an education, putting vulnerable children at risk, and falling a long way short of its pledge to “eradicate child poverty”.

Jenny Lindsey reviews 'Shrek 2', written and directed by Andrew Adamson

Call me a sucker, but I enjoyed this sequel. It takes the piss out of beautiful and it takes the piss out of cool. So, I'm predisposed to like it.

'Shrek' and 'Shrek 2' take old fairy tales and turn them on their head. The ogre wins against Prince Charming. The Fairy Godmother is a scheming, no-good witch (with the persona as well as the voice of Jennifer Saunders). Sleeping Beauty is not impressed with cool, smooth-talking men, oh, and she's a karate black belt. The Gingerbread Man doesn't run away, but comes back fighting. Puss-in-Boots is a hired hit man.

By Jean Lane

When my daughter was 20 months old, I took her to a parent and toddler group on a nearby estate. The parents sat at one end of the room nattering and gossiping, while a paid, trained worker took the responsibility away from them for a while and provided equipment and company for the kids to play with.

Children need rights and protection

By Rosalind Robson

At the beginning of July the House of Lords voted on the Children's Bill. They debated whether or not there should be a ban on all physical punishment of children - in schools and in the home. This prompted a huge public debate. The Lords, in the end, voted to allow parents to continue to smack their children. The law is now both confusing and more to the point continues to be iniquitous and oppressive to children.

Nursery Nurses across Scotland have been on all-out strike from 1 March 2004.

The basic pay for this vitally important job runs from around £10,000 for a newly qualified nursery nurse up to £13,800 after 10 years' experience. In a dispute that has been running for three years UNISON have made a claim for nursery nurses to take their pay up to £14,000-£18,000 with merit for nursery nurses working longer hours and weeks. They also want a career structure for promoted staff.

Greenpeace is targeting Disney. On 15 April Greenpeace activists dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse climbed the UK headquarters of Disney and unfurled a massive banner highlighting the company's contempt for its customers. Despite being told six months ago that tests showed that Disney-branded pyjamas contain toxic chemicals, the company has refused to remove the affected products from sale.

Nursery nurses in Scotland are continuing their indefinite strike action after the Scottish Parliament rejected calls for a national pay settlement. Around 300 of the 5,000 nurses on strike demonstrated for improved pay outside the Scottish Parliament as MSPs debated the issue on 11 March.

By Cathy Nugent

Government social policy has focussed heavily on issues to do with 'the family'. Some of this is warm and friendly - policy geared towards balancing work and family life, for instance. Some of it is more aggressive - measures to tackle problem, 'anti-social' families: parents who don't get their children to school or teenagers who roam the streets after 9pm.

Nursery nurses in Scotland have just completed a fresh found of strike action. Between 6-10 October nurseries were closed in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Stirling, Inverclyde, the Highlands, Orkney and Moray.

Workers at the charity Child Poverty Action Group struck for the day on 17 September, in a strike for equality.

Management is bringing in new workers on terms worse than those current employees receive, with cuts in sick pay, compassionate leave and annual holidays.