Workfare steward the Jubilee

[treelover]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/07/diamond-jubilee-volunteers-nothing-to-hide


Molly Prince responds to her critics in the Guardian, I wonder what PR company she has hired, A4E hired about five when the crisis began...

 

[butchersapron]

Molly Prince convicted of perverting the course of justice

The director of Close Protection UK — the company responsible for the Jubilee stewards fiasco — received a twelve months suspended sentence for perverting the course of justice. The conviction relates to a family dispute which resulted in a man in coma.

 

[xenon]

"the prime minister's spokeswoman dismissed the treatment of the jobseekers as a "one-off" and an "isolated incident".

The spokeswoman said: "This is a one-off … This is an isolated incident. The company has apologised."

How the fuck would they know. Why are they making such proclomations on behalf of a private company anyway.

 

[butchersapron]

As I said, these will probably be useful if all you want to do is cross-check directors etc:

http://companycheck.co.uk/
http://company-director-check.co.uk/

See also:

Who runs it?

These are the names and connected companies of every company director and secretary in the UK. Companies House will show you the directors of a specific company, but we think it's important and helpful to be able to make the reverse search: which companies are connected to a given person? This is useful, for example, for checking the validity of the UK Parliament's Register of Members' Interests. It's also a useful tool for investigative journalism, and many other public interest exercises.

So we bought the data from Companies House and turned it loose in a linked, annotated, searchable form. Free for non-commercial use.

 

[treelover]

I love the net, power to the people!

 

[elbows]

Molly Prince convicted of perverting the course of justice

Nice one.

Here is an interesting comment on her business http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/...y-prince-companies-struck-off/#comment-197388

 

[elbows]

My speculation about the university link seems to have been about right:

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/...tewards-director-in-salford-uni-sham-offices/

“Leadership Development Centre rents a subsidiary ‘virtual’ office from the university on a commercial basis and has no other relationship with us … LDCUK does not provide any other training services to staff or students.”

 

[elbows]

Got my hands on the book. Its even less worthy of being described as a book than I expected, but anyways.

The GBH/perverting the course of justice thing is said to be about the beating up of someone who had beaten his girlfriend, but I don't think there is any point going into Molly's side of the story without having other sources to test the story with.

The couple of good quotes have mostly already been published, but I'll throw this one out there to build on the existing picture, wheel clamper training/certification this time:

And how good for business it was when The Sun newspaper (I think) ran the headline ‘Pay £500, Go to College for Four Days and Become a Complete Bastard’. Because none of the colleges wanted to run the course, we were the first to get accredited in the north, and we were off and running in our second niche market. God bless the clampers – they always turn up with cash.

 

[elbows]

She name drops Mickey Francis, reckons his security company was her first client for door training. She divides her time between England and Costa Blanca.

Anyway rather predictably I see some sections of the press have quotes from people who enjoyed the experience, so I'll be surprised if the story goes anywhere, especially given the nature of this industry.

 

[temper_tantrum]

She has retained Max Clifford to represent her, apparently. Statement immanent.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

She has retained Max Clifford to represent her, apparently. Statement immanent.

If she can afford that parasiteublicist Max Clifford to represent her then she must be doing well.

 

[ViolentPanda]

She has retained Max Clifford to represent her, apparently. Statement immanent.

I know Clifford is powerful, but he's not that powerful.

 

[elbows]

Aha, the book comes in useful after all, because of something Max Clifford says in the statement. Oops.

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/06/jubilee-steward-boss-calls-in-the-lawyers/

Max says:

Two locals who were in the pub accompanied Molly and the barmaid in the car. The barmaid’s boyfriend was hiding in the ally next to her house and the two men who accompanied Molly chased him. This was all that Molly witnessed.
The two men returned 15 minutes later and said he had got away. Molly drove back to the pub with the two men in her car.

But the book says:

So, off we went in my car, minus my boyfriend, who went to bed. The two lads said that they would come with us to make sure that the boyfriend wasn’t waiting for us. When we arrived, they found him hiding down the alleyway at the side of the house, and he got the beating of his life after they had chased him for miles. The lads eventually returned, reassuring us that he wouldn’t be back, and they asked me to give them a lift home.
Whitney went to bed, and I gave the lads a lift. Little was said in the car but our adrenalin was high. When we got back to the pub, the coal fire was still burning, and one of the lads tossed in a big stick, explaining that my fella had given it to him for my protection. ‘Oh fuck,’ I thought. ‘I am really in the shit here.’ And I was.

 

[DaveCinzano]

She's a real criminal mastermind

 

[articul8]

Anyone hear Any Questions on R4 last night? - nasty right wing crowd booed Salma Yaqoob for saying that firms shouldn't be able to exploit young people.

 

[BigTom]

Great piece in the Guardian today by John Harris:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/08/jubilee-stewards-unpaid-labour-growing

Back to the workhouse

In all the debate about jubilee stewards sleeping under bridges, one big fact is being overlooked – Britain's army of unpaid labour is growing bigger each month

I hope this is in print as well. Much wider than just the jubilee stewards - a huge and well placed attack on workfare / work programme on a first read at least.

 

[BigTom]

ACtually, I'm just going to quote this bit as well, about argos..

In his first week, he worked for 30 hours ("10 hours more than anyone who was getting paid to work there"), before contacting Seetec and discovering he was only meant to put in 16. "I was doing the bit where you get the item from the warehouse and put it on the shelf, for [the customer] to collect it," he said. When he arrived, he was one of four people on jobseekers' allowance doing supposed work experience; three weeks later, there were six such people, working a variety of shifts, out of a workforce of between 15 and 20.

One man sent to Argos by Jobcentre Plus, he said, had been working unpaid for 30 hours a week in a six-week placement. "No one who was paid was getting overtime any more," he said. "Everyone was being cut down to four-hour shifts. A guy who worked there told me that. The staff were very demoralised that we were taking up so much potential shift work."

This needs to be repeated everywhere.. and it has to be asked, where are the unions in all this? USDAW, Unite? I know retail is very badly un-unionised but they should be down at argos shops tonight with this article printed out and information. I'm certainly about to go and post on the IWW mailing list here and see if anyone would be up for it.
Is there any legal route for dispute here? I guess all the staff are on zero-hour contracts so there won't be. Fucked up situation and it needs to be organised around in a wide and serious way, amongst claimants and workers both.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Useless Seven Days A Week. If you want 10% off a ticket to Alton Towers or decent quotes for home insurance, they're great. Aside from benefits and otherwise more costly legal advice, anything important with regard to the bettering of working conditions, forget it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Useless Seven Days A Week. If you want 10% off a ticket to Alton Towers or decent quotes for home insurance, they're great. Aside from benefits and otherwise more costly legal advice, anything important with regard to the bettering of working conditions, forget it.

In a changing world, some things stay the same, USDAW's crapness being one of them.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Just listening to any questions on radio 4 and the thick, degenerate vermin in the audience are cheering on this inhumane and degrading of workers and booing anybody who objects to it. These servile, reactionary, fawning bastards represent everything that's rotten in this country. Their utter lack of solidarity, empathy and basic decency is unbelievable. Bunch of middle class cunts.

 

[articul8]

told you so above - this lot would be cheering Nazis goosestepping up Whitehall. Wonder how widespread this kind of attitude is?

 

[_angel_]

Just listening to any questions on radio 4 and the thick, degenerate vermin in the audience are cheering on this inhumane and degrading of workers and booing anybody who objects to it. These servile, reactionary, fawning bastards represent everything that's rotten in this country. Their utter lack of solidarity, empathy and basic decency is unbelievable. Bunch of middle class cunts.

Do you see where the problem is now? Just turn it off and put some soothing music on.

 

[articul8]

Plus, they were in Yorkshire. What else can you expect ?

 

[free spirit]

oi

 

[ViolentPanda]

Plus, they were in Yorkshire. What else can you expect ?

Cricket anecdotes?

 

[extra dry]

Cricket anecdotes?

Man is taken to the ER with a cricket ball stuck in a rather embarrassing place, the young doctor who just started his 16 hour of the shift enters the cubicle....


Man: Doctor Doctor I have a cricket ball stuck in my ass...

Doctor: How's that?


Man: Ah Don't you bloody start....

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Just listening to any questions on radio 4 and the thick, degenerate vermin in the audience are cheering on this inhumane and degrading of workers and booing anybody who objects to it. These servile, reactionary, fawning bastards represent everything that's rotten in this country. Their utter lack of solidarity, empathy and basic decency is unbelievable. Bunch of middle class cunts.

Vile, wasn't it.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

In a changing world, some things stay the same, USDAW's crapness being one of them.

There are trade unionists within it, who want to see an end to the pro-business 'social partnership' model adopted under Labour, but it's like pissing in the wind. Join the union, we know you only get a few pence above minimum wage but it's okay, have some vouchers instead.

 

[mentalchik]

Just listening to any questions on radio 4 and the thick, degenerate vermin in the audience are cheering on this inhumane and degrading of workers and booing anybody who objects to it. These servile, reactionary, fawning bastards represent everything that's rotten in this country. Their utter lack of solidarity, empathy and basic decency is unbelievable. Bunch of middle class cunts.

don't ever listen to the phone in on Radio 5 ......

 

[ViolentPanda]

There are trade unionists within it, who want to see an end to the pro-business 'social partnership' model adopted under Labour, but it's like pissing in the wind. Join the union, we know you only get a few pence above minimum wage but it's okay, have some vouchers instead.

TBF, it was only slightly better before nu-Labourism. There were more stewards around, but the shit was still the same from the regional officers and the employers, including promoting union activists out of branches where they might have an attentive audience and the r.o.s turning a blind eye to it.