Jon Snow: don't believe everything you think.

Jon Snow's basic error in commenting on Israel's Iron Dome: confirmation bias, emotional reasoning, and the seduction of affectively-charged thinking. 

Jon Snow, the accomplished British journalist and presenter of Channel 4 News, seems to me to be a very compassionate human being with the highest standards of integrity. He has a sharp intellect and a capacity for asking perspicacious questions of those he interviews, applying his analytical mind in an objective way to complicated situations, and persisting in his attempt to extract honest answers from interviewees who throw up a fog of subterfuge. To his credit, he was most assiduous when he attempted to interview Hamas's foreign affairs spokesman, Osama Hamdan, on 30 July, asking him why Hamas militants do not desist from their missile attacks on Israel, which would then lead to Israel's military action in Gaza being terminated. Jon Snow may not have been able to penetrate the fog of ranting and mendacious subterfuge from Hamdan - the Joseph Goebbels of fascist Hamas, whose Charter is committed to the complete annihilation of Israel and the global genocide of all Jewish people - but at least he did try.

Yet Mr Snow begins this interview with Hamdan by saying:

"Osama Hamdan, Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to go on killing Gaza's women and children, civilians generally: why are you encouraging them by still continuing to fire your ineffective rockets into their territory?"

There are two serious and fundamental flaws with Mr Snow's opening question, however. The first is the choice to use the punchy, emotive expression "Israel killing Gaza's women and children" without suitable qualification. The Israel Defence Force is doing all it can to avoid civilian casualties, even using texts and telephone calls to Gazans to advise them to leave their neighbourhoods before IDF military strikes on buildings where Hamas militants are believed to have concealed military ordnance take place. The problem is that, not only are fascist Hamas deliberately hiding such ordnance in civilian buildings and highly-populated areas, and firing it from such areas, it is also encouraging civilians to remain in their buildings, and even to take their children onto the rooftops, to act as human shields. After all, civilian deaths are something regarded as a double-positive by these Islamist religious extremists: not only do Hamas claim Gazans who die in the conflict will have immediate access through the portals of paradise as "martyrs"; but also, civilian deaths in Gazan human shields are Hamas's key weapon in the propaganda war that gullible and tunnel-visioned members of the international community are allowing fascist Hamas to win. Although the claim Mr Snow makes in his question is accurate - Israel is killing Gaza's women and children - it nonetheless excludes sufficient information to make the question one that is not misleading. It has an emotional charge of bias. It is by no means a perfect analogy, but in some respects it is similar to saying a heart surgeon is killing his patients - men, women, and children - without mentioning that these are patients who only have a chance of survival if they undergo an operation that has a significant chance of causing their deaths. The deaths of Gazan civilians are unintended and unwanted by the IDF, in the same way that the deaths of his heart patients are unintended and unwanted by the surgeon. Both are a tragic by-product of aiming for a positive, valued outcome that is very different from the deaths that come about as a result of pursuing that value.

It is selective use of facts to produce utterances that, although not strictly untrue, convey information in a way that reflects bias in the person uttering them, and are likely to effect bias in the people hearing them who are not in possession of the full facts.  

The other flaw with Mr Snow's opening question lies in his reference to the Hamas rockets being fired into Israel as "ineffective". On the previous day to this interview with Hamdan, after he had returned from Gaza, Mr Snow claimed on Channel 4 News that Israel's defensive anti-missile shield, the "Iron Dome", was keeping "absolutely everything out".  

If you slide the cursor to 1:53 in the above video, you will hear Mr Snow say, 

"Now, of course, Hamas, for its part, was throwing rockets into Israel designed ideally - as they would put it - to kill Israelis. But of course, Israel, courtesy of American finance, has invented the most brilliant shield, which is keeping absolutely everything everything out. And that's a big difference." (My emphasis)

Given that at least 10% of Gazan rockets manage to penetrate the Iron Dome, and that the Iron Dome is ineffective against Hamas mortar attacks, this was a serious factual error on Mr Snow's part. Apart from the Israeli deaths and injuries caused by such rocket and mortar attacks, the psychological impact on the civilian population of continually having to respond to air raids, knowing there was a 10% chance that any rocket was going to explode on Israeli territory, and not knowing where, is traumatic. This is quintessential terrorism: the population being terrorised by an ongoing threat to their lives from an extremist organisation. People are unable to go about their daily lives in peace. If this was happening to UK citizens at the hands of a genocidal, fascist neighbouring government, we would surely expect our government to destroy the enemy's capacity for launching those rockets, too: even if that enemy was using human shields and a significant number of civilians would die as a result.

Journalists make mistakes, of course. Yet apparently not knowing that mortar fire and 10% of Hamas rockets were penetrating the Iron Dome and killing, injuring and terrorising Israeli men, women and children trying to go about their peaceful lives, was surely a very serious error for any journalist reporting on Gaza, and especially so for a journalist of Jon Snow's seniority, experience and calibre. The fact that Hamas rockets and mortar shells are penetrating the Iron Dome and landing in Israel is the very raison d'être for the current Israeli military action in Gaza. How this fact could have escaped Mr Snow's attention is astonishing. 

I do not believe for a single moment that Jon Snow knew that Hamas mortar shells and rockets were still hitting Israel but chose to lie on national television and claim they were not. He is a person of great integrity. He clearly did not know the full facts: even a fact as basic as this one. This is highly instructive, as it is a glaring example of confirmation bias: selective attention in the researching and gathering (in this case) or presentation of information where one's opinion about a subject is already made up, and where there is an emotional investment in an interpretation that would be disturbed by the proper effort to diligently research and consider information that contradicts one's opinions. The consensus in the western "liberal" media is that Israel is almost entirely at fault, and that everything must be interpreted and presented from that perspective, with disapproval from one's similar "liberal" social and professional circle if one dares to stray from the accepted anti-Israel Weltanschauung. It is not at all clear to me how Jon Snow could have been ignorant about Hamas weapons hitting Israel unless he had not taken the trouble to carry out the most basic research into Israel's explanation for its current military action. 

This seems to me to be an example of what is happening more generally in the West with regard to the interpretation of Israel's highly vulnerable position in the Middle East in particular, and to Israel's military action in Gaza in particular. If even an accomplished journalist such as Jon Snow can fall into such an easily-avoidable snare of confirmation bias
with regard to Israel and Gaza, so can large swathes of our populations. Most people are not really interested in finding out the causes of the conflict between Israel and Gaza and in researching the region's complex history, and they simply react to images of Gazan civilians being killed, imbibing the interpretation offered to them on a plate by the Western "liberal" media that Israeli action in Gaza is wrong: an interpretation that is forged and confirmed when journalists are so strongly invested in an interpretation, that devoting time and effort to researching and considering evidence that might undermine their interpretation and put them at odds with the consensus interpretation they are rewarded for buying into, is neglected, as it feels too aversive and seems too unlikely to yield salient information.

I once saw a T-shirt on sale at a psychology conference with the slogan, "Don't believe everything you think." This is surely wise counsel: especially when our thoughts are associated with a powerful emotional charge and are reinforced by a feeling of belonging to a community of people who approve of those who value and believe such thoughts. It can sometimes be a pleasurable thing to discover our thoughts are inaccurate; but sometimes, it can be very painful, and expressing dissent from a common "liberal" consensus can result in more pain still when social disapproval kicks in. The best investigative journalists will be alert to the pitfalls of confirmation bias and sacrificing objectivity and impartiality on the altar of consensus conformity and emotional reasoning. When a particular pitfall is so treacherous as to claim journalists of Jon Snow's calibre, integrity and compassion, we can understand how so many millions of unsuspecting good people get unwittingly sucked into it. Most significantly, it is not only an interpretation that does a great injustice to Israel. It is an interpretation that rewards fascist states when they choose to use civilians as human shields, which positively encourages the immoral practice of human shield deployment in warfare.

© Gary Powell, 2014 

Resignation of Baroness Warsi

Would Baroness Warsi resign over an Islamic Israel and a Jewish Gaza?

Baroness Warsi explained her resignation from the UK Government yesterday, on 5 August 2014, by saying that she found the Government's policy regarding the Israeli military action in Gaza to be "morally indefensible". One must wonder what Baroness Warsi would expect to change in the situation in order for it to become "morally defensible". Presumably she would like Israel to stop the military action in Gaza that, although the Israelis are doing all they can to avoid civilian deaths, is still leading to the injuries and deaths of Gazan non-combatants, largely due to fascist Hamas using Gazans as human shields and forcing them to stay where they are when they receive forewarning from Israel of a possible attack in their neighbourhood to kill Hamas militia and destroy Hamas military hardware. 

If Israel were to allow the Gazan policy of using human shields to be successful, it would have to continue to suffer Hamas missile attacks against its citizens with impunity, at least 10% of which penetrate the Iron Dome. And this, for as long as Hamas decide to continue with them. The Israeli people have clearly had enough of being terrorised with Hamas missiles, given that 90% of their population, which includes the bulk of their left wing, support the current Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in Gaza. There is no reason to believe that 90% of our own population would not feel the same if we were in similar circumstances. Would Baroness Warsi seriously expect the UK to exercise similar long-suffering restraint in the face of missile attacks by a genocidal fascist enemy government against our citizens? Would we be voting for politicians who failed to protect us from that? Would we have been able to fight against Hitler on that basis?

Imagining the reversal of cultural religious polarity in the Israel/ Hamas conflict might be instructive. Imagine that Israel was a Muslim state and that Gaza was densely populated by Jews. Imagine that Jewish Gaza had elected an extremist religious administration whose charter called for the genocide of all Muslims worldwide and the annihilation of Islamic Israel. Imagine that this Jewish Gazan administration was firing thousands of missiles into Islamic Israel with the purpose of killing Islamic Israeli citizens, and refused to desist from doing so, even though it was the key to stopping the Islamic Israeli military action; that the Jewish Gazan administration was concealing weapons in synagogues, schools and hospitals, and launching them from densely-populated areas; that they were forcing Gazans to stay where they were to act as human shields after receiving warnings from Islamic Israel that their neighbourhood would be targeted. Imagine the Jewish Gazan administration was using international aid to build tunnels into Islamic Israel in order to kill citizens and kidnap soldiers: tunnels that had claimed the lives of many Gazan children building them and that civilians were not allowed to use as shelters.

Where would international sympathies lie then? Would any Islamic state, surrounded by countries that wanted its complete annihilation, be expected to suffer missile attacks in perpetuity from a neighbouring genocidal regime with impunity? If Baroness Warsi would also have seen fit to resign in such a scenario, where the pictures on our TV screens were of Jewish human shield casualties caused by the weapons of an Islamic state trying to stop terrorist missile and tunnel attacks, then her decision to resign from the Government, although still misguided in my view, would not have discriminated on the basis of religious cultural background. It is, of course, the intentions and actions of the conflicting parties involved that are of relevance here, and not whether they identify themselves as culturally "Jewish" or culturally "Muslim". Any state has a duty to stop a neighbouring genocidal regime trying to kill its citizens with missiles and other terrorist activities. Tragically, there are no just wars against genocidal oppressors without civilian casualties, as Britain itself experienced in World War Two. A state defending itself against a genocidal aggressor does not merit being singled out for condemnation in the international community simply because it identifies as Jewish. 

(Based on my comment post in The Times in response to, "The Wrong Resignation: Baroness Warsi’s attack on the government’s Middle East policy was misguided," 6.8.14.)

Encouraging fascists to use human shields.

Condemning Israel positively encourages the future use of human shields by fascists.

It is a tenet of behavioural psychology that reinforcing a behaviour with rewards tends to condition an organism to repeat that behaviour. That applies to humans as well as to lab rats. If a rat gets given a food pellet whenever it nudges a particular lever, it will nudge that lever with increasing frequency in future. If a child is given a generous payment whenever he mows the lawn, he will make efforts to mow the lawn more frequently in future. Conversely, punishing a behaviour with a negative stimulus tends to lead to that behaviour becoming less frequent. Giving a lab rat an electric shock (btw I hate laboratory maltreatment of animals) when it nudges a certain lever will lead to it avoiding that lever in future. Grounding a child for swearing at his parents will generally discourage a child from swearing at his parents in future.

Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning informs the approach adopted by many governments towards kidnap and blackmail. If you pay the ransom, you have provided positive reinforcement for the behaviour of kidnapping for ransom. A reward has ensued from behaviour “X”, and so behaviour “X” becomes more likely to be repeated. So although freeing the kidnap victim may be inspired by compassion and the greatest of humanitarian motives, it will increase the likelihood that more kidnappings will take place in the future: not only by the kidnappers themselves, but also by those who have observed kidnapping to be a successful undertaking. Not paying a ransom that then leads to the murder of an innocent individual is an evil. But paying the ransom to liberate that individual might encourage several kidnappings to take place in the future that otherwise would not have happened. The more people who are kidnapped, the greater the likelihood that victims are going to be murdered, either because the ransom was not paid or could not be paid, or because some kidnappers will kill some hostages regardless of whether or not they are paid the ransom. The money paid to kidnappers is also often used to finance further criminal and murderous activities. Paying that ransom might well also directly lead to the deaths of several individuals who are not victims of kidnapping.

So although paying kidnappers a ransom to release a hostage might feel like the right thing to do at the time, it simply encourages the behaviour of kidnapping, and makes it all the more likely that hostages will be taken in the future, with more and more victims being killed, and more and more money going into the coffers of terrorists, criminals and murderers. Not paying a ransom in order not to encourage and facilitate the greater suffering of more people in the future may therefore be the lesser of two evils. It is a fact of human psychology that immediate pain tends to feel more significant than imagined future pain, and accords to itself a premium of importance it does not really deserve. The suffering of the additional people who are killed as a result of kidnapping and terrorism that results from our paying the ransom to release one individual, feels too abstract in comparison to our present-moment grief and horror at the kidnapping of one countryman whose face we see on our TV screens. We have an emotional bias that overrides normal logical thinking.

The current global condemnation of Israel for targeting fascist, genocidal Hamas militants and their military hardware because they are deliberately concealed amongst civilians being used as human shields, also needs to be analysed through the lens of logic rather than of passion. In the civilised West, our values are such that our governments would never consider using our own citizens as human shields in any military conflict. Of course, an Islamofascist administration such as Hamas would not baulk at killing our citizens, (they have been firing missiles to deliberately kill Israeli citizens for years). But the fundamental reason why the West would consider the use of civilians as human shields to be a war crime is because it has established certain rules in an attempt to limit and circumscribe the horrors of war. (Having said that, western anti-Israel “progressives” seem to be strangely muted about Hamas’s war crime in using human shields, or else they choose to deny it is happening. Their hatred of Israel has created a shared tunnel vision, any challenge to which represents a serious breach of the pseudo-liberal orthodoxy, and therefore behaviour discouraged by punishment, again according to Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning.)

My impression is that many selective progressives hate Israel with such a vengeance that they would blame Israel for any action it took in defending its citizens against attacks by a hostile neighbouring administration and hostile militants against its civilians. The thousands of missiles fired into Israel at civilians by Hamas, 10% of which evade the Iron Dome; the attacks via tunnels paid for from international aid, that even take place during so-called ceasefires; the strapping of explosives to men, women and children – including people with learning disabilities – to kill Israeli citizens in suicide bombings. All of this is glossed over, and somehow “Israel’s fault”, with some commentators, who should know better, saying that they themselves would probably fire those rockets or wear those suicide vests if they had been Palestinian. Such selective progressives make no similar comment about Hamas having caused the military action in Gaza by refusing to stop firing missiles to kill Israeli citizens, and of Hamas committing a war crime by deliberately using the people of Gaza as human shields, and encouraging them to climb onto the rooftops of buildings instead of evacuating them as advised by the Israeli authorities before the buildings are shelled. Hamas is a fascist terrorist organisation whose Charter is committed to the genocide of all Jewish people and to the annihilation of Israel. Yet the exposure of Hamas’s appalling ideology in the media and particularly on the Left, and proper criticism of Hamas’s responsibility for causing this current military action in Gaza  and ensuring its continuation, seem to be too much for the orthodoxy of the selective, pseudo-liberal media and the Left to accommodate.

In the charged anti-Israel climate that Leftist propagandists and international pro-Islamist, anti-semitic propagandists have managed to create, where Israel is damned whatever it does, and whatever is done to it – the greatest victim has been logic and rational thinking. Condemning a state for defending itself against missile attacks from a hostile power just because that hostile power is using human shields, is so similar to paying ransoms to kidnappers. The current message given to Hamas by the international anti-Israeli community – and we must remember that Hamas claim any citizen killed in an Israeli attack is a “martyr” and will have immediate access to paradise – is that Hamas’s current strategy of using human shields is one that must be allowed to succeed, and that can be used in the future with impunity against any western power. This is a very strong weapon to gift to any fascist, genocidal Islamist state. It is a weapon they now know can be used with great success against any civilised western power in the Islamist jihad for the establishment of a global caliphate. Western pseudo-progressives condemning a just military action because of the deaths of civilians as a result of Islamists deliberately using them as human shields, simply encourages the exploitation of civilians by Islamists as human shields. The result of this will be more civilians dying as a result of human shield exploitation in the future, just as paying blackmail ransoms encourages more kidnappings in the future.

It is appalling that innocent civilians are being killed by bombs. People being killed by bombs is always an evil. But it is a greater evil to allow a genocidal fascist outfit to continue killing another state’s innocent civilians with impunity, to consolidate its own power over its oppressed citizens, and to succeed in its cruel fundamentalist religious objectives – especially when the reason for allowing that genocidal outfit to continue killing with impunity is to avoid the deaths of the citizens it is exploiting as human shields. The reason for this is that, when we rule out military action against an enemy simply because it is using human shields, then we encourage the use of human shields. Encouraging the use of human shields will either lead to the deaths of even more civilians in the future, or else it will mean that, whenever a civilised nation with progressive values suffers a military attack from a fascist Islamist state, the missiles will only ever be able to come in one direction. This is appeasement and surrender, not defence.

It is very important to remember that some situations only allow options that are intrinsically evil, but where one of the options is clearly less evil than the others. What many on the Left are doing at the moment, as well as many Islamist sympathisers and appeasers, is to airbrush out of discussion and out of consciousness the greater evil of encouraging the use of human shields as a successful strategy in any Islamist military conflict against civilised, democratic, liberal countries, whose values Islamists hate. This is a strategy for the defeat of western civilisation, and for the possible eventual imposition of a global Islamofascist caliphate in the context of a post-nuclear Iran that currently seems frighteningly possible. Whilst Islamofascist governments such as Iran are developing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach western cities, we are declaring to enemy states our paralysis at the thought of taking any military action that could result in large numbers of their civilian casualties. Any nuclear power that presents such weakness to an aggressive, hostile religiofascist state with nuclear weapons that longs for our subjugation or annihilation, is asking for very serious trouble: just as a refusal to countenance the tragic killing of large numbers of civilians in Nazi Germany would have led to the defeat of the Allies and the triumph of National Socialism.

© Gary Powell, 2014 

Hamas: the modern Nazis.

Israel has learned the important lessons from the Holocaust. The international community has not.

Apparently, 90% of Israelis support the current military action in Gaza, including the bulk of the Israeli Left. I wonder whether that might be because a neighbouring fascist, Islamist government, whose Charter expresses commitment to the complete annihilation of Israel as well as to the genocide of the Jewish people (see the Charter of Hamas), is firing thousands of rockets to deliberately kill Israeli citizens - men, women and children - of which 10% fail to be blocked by the Iron Dome. Not to mention terrorist invasions via tunnels, paid for from Israeli and international aid to Gaza, and built by Hamas, who are hated by the Gazan people.

The UK would never tolerate missile bombardment by a genocidal alien government with impunity, and neither should Israel be expected to do so, especially with memories of the Holocaust in the Jewish psyche. Yes, civilians are being killed in Gaza in the military action. But Hamas have refused to stop firing missiles at Israeli citizens, and are using Gazans as human shields. If military action where citizens were collaterally killed was always wrong, then the Allied raids on Germany could never have taken place, and the Nazis (Hamas's historical counterparts) would have been victorious.

When Jewish people were subjected to the Holocaust, other people looked away and continued unjustly heaping blame on them, stirred up by the propaganda of the fascists who hated them. There were lessons to be learned from this. Israel has learned them. The international community apparently has not.

(My post on Times Comments, 30.7.14, under "Netanyahu left with no easy options."

Would you trust the Local Govt Ombudsman?

Would you trust the Local Government Ombudsman?

Local Government Ombudsman “Have Your Say” Staff Survey Exercise, November 2012

Significant point extract from internal LGO staff document containing unpublished results of the survey.  

(Unpublished report sent to LGO Watch by an LGO staff member.)

This document was submitted as evidence to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee in 2013 to support their continuing Inquiry into the Local Government Ombudsman. Some sections from that submission have been removed as a matter of good form, as they refer to comments in the staff survey report about an unnamed senior employee at the LGO. Even without those comments, the staff survey report is more than damning enough. A more recent staff survey has been published since this one, where there are some marked improvements in the statistics. What this doesn’t change is that the way the LGO dealt with the 2012 survey is proof of its institutional dishonesty and subterfuge. It also doesn’t change what the arrogant and complacent LGO leadership have over the years allowed this taxpayer-funded institution to degenerate into: from the mouths of their own staff.

The 2012 staff survey report itself was not published by the LGO. Instead, they published a “summary and response” that omitted inconvenient key details and distorted the content of the report. However, an obviously disaffected member of staff at the LGO leaked the survey report to LGO Watch.

Summary of survey and responses

The survey of opinions among staff working for the Local Government Ombudsman took place from 1st – 12th October 2012. The Communities and Local Government Select Committee had instructed the LGO that a staff survey must be carried out. There were 50 questions, 203 potential respondents, 181 actual respondents (response rate 90%) and a survey completion rate of 95%.

Demographics

90% of staff completed the survey: 66% female, 34% male. 56% were Investigators, 11% managers, and 33% support staff.

Focus groups

“Approximately 55 staff members including Support Staff, Investigators and AOs (Assistant Ombudsmen) attended to share their views and supplement the information gained from the survey.”

The Identity of the LGO – Qualitative Survey Themes

“Respondents indicated that they felt the reputation of the LGO was held in higher regard by councils than with the government and the public.”

“The LGO is increasingly being seen as inward looking, focusing on meeting tight timescales and decision numbers, rather than positive outcomes.”

“The LGO appeared unprofessional in front of the Select Committee. Respondents said that this was a very public embarrassment and was very damaging to the public face and image of the organisation. Comments made suggest that this demonstrated why they felt the LGO is not held in high regard by the government.”

(Here is the best bit. Look at how the LGO misreports unfavourable data) -

27% of LGO staff disagreed with statement “We provide a great service to our customers,” with 7% strongly disagreeing. (In the LGO’s published summary and response, the LGO simply stated “39% believe we provide a great service to our customers but 34% are undecided.” This is a highly misleading statement, as although 34% of the respondents were indeed undecided about the statement, a further 27% positively disagreed with it, resulting in a total of 61% of respondents unable to affirm the statement because they were either unsure or actively disagreed with it. This is typical LGO selective reporting and spin-doctoring. GJP)

About the LGO

Statement: “We are influential in shaping public life in relation to the work of Councils and Care Providers.” A total of 35% of respondents disagreed, with 11% strongly disagreeing.

Statement: “I believe the LGO is held in high regard by the Government, Councils and complainants.” A total of 50% of respondents disagreed, with 17% strongly disagreeing.

The Way We Are Currently Organised

Statement: “The current structure of the LGO helps us deliver a good service.” A total of 41% of respondents disagreed, with 11% strongly disagreeing.

Statement: “Our operating procedures for case handling help us to deliver an efficient and effective service.” A total of 51% of respondents disagreed, with 17% strongly disagreeing.

Statement: “The management information systems we have in place help us to deliver an efficient and effective service.” A total of 59% of respondents disagreed, with 25% strongly disagreeing.

Statement: “General communication is clear and timely throughout the organisation.” A total of 68% of respondents disagreed, with 28% strongly disagreeing.

Change within the LGO – Significant Findings

“77% of respondents feel that the recent changes have been a negative experience for them”

“60% of respondents do not believe that the change will make the LGO a better place to work.”

“57% of respondents do not believe that the change has been clearly communicated.”

“65% of respondents do not believe that the change has been managed well.”

Future Change within the LGO – Qualitative Survey Themes

“Overall, respondents said they needed the LGO and Senior Management to provide much better direction and joined up messages with a clear vision of where the organisation wants to be.”

“Respondents suggest that there needs to be a change in organisational culture, which is currently perceived to be one of blame and lack of trust.”

“According to the responses, there is a need to increase the level of respect for staff and an acknowledgement that they are experienced and knowledgeable people. They want the leaders of the organisation to trust their skills, treat them as responsible people, set clear expectations and provide clear guidance and advice.”

Future Change within the LGO – Qualitative Survey Themes

Statement: “The change has been managed well. A total of 65% of respondents disagreed, with 35% strongly disagreeing.

“There was very strong feeling that respect for staff was missing. Change feels imposed on staff, and the leadership team within LGO needs to display more support, empathy and understanding of how people are feeling about the changes.”

“People recognised the need for culture change within the LGO and believed that a significant change in behaviour was required to build trust and confidence.”

Leadership and Management within the LGO – Qualitative Survey Themes

“Concerns were expressed over the Ombudsmen’s lack of knowledge and credibility [ ....]”

“Many respondents identified a lack of trust in Investigators and a failure to acknowledge their expertise, experience and skills.”

[ ....]

Leadership and Management within the LGO – Qualitative Survey Themes

“Senior Management and the LGO are not seen as visible, but rather distant, inaccessible and remote. When they are seen it is often perceived to be as a result of micromanaging and a lack of trust as outlined above.”

“A high number of respondents raise the issue of unclear and mixed messages and a level of inconsistency from the Ombudsmen (individually and collectively) which leads to confusion and a lack of direction or sound advice.”

“There is the perception that COIN* has been forced through, with no appreciation of the negative impact it has on the Investigators’ ability to do their job to the required standard, in the required timescales. Comments included the suggestion that it encourages decisions by box ticking, rather than through use of judgement and expertise.”

Leadership and Management within the LGO

Statement: “Our LGOs demonstrate good leadership skills.” A total of 80% of respondents disagreed, with 46% strongly disagreeing.

Statement: “Our LGOs are visible and accessible.” A total of 67% of respondents disagreed, with 32% strongly disagreeing.

Leadership and Management within the LGO – Focus Group Themes

“The Local Government Ombudsmen were not seen as visible, available or approachable. Contact with the Ombudsmen was often for the wrong reasons, perceived to be down to a lack of trust. Staff believed that visibility needed to improve for the right reasons – to lead, support and set direction.”

“There is a perceived lack of challenge at the top of the organisation, in particular from Deputy Ombudsmen and Assistant Ombudsmen, with ideas pushed through unopposed regardless of the impact on the Investigators and other staff.”

You and Your Role – Qualitative Survey Themes

“Some respondents expressed a drop in willingness to go the extra mile due to the current regime. They suggest the apparent failure of Senior Leaders to support them and the organisation (for example, with the Select Committee) means that staff have started to feel less inclined to strive to do the extra. Recent changes to the ways of working have removed any enjoyment.”

“There is further heavy criticism of COIN and the level of administration it imposes on Investigators, with the strong feeling that it is making their jobs more difficult.”

“Some respondents feel that going the extra mile counts for nothing and there is the suggestion that management will eventually use up the goodwill that comes with wanting to do a good job. Loyalty to the organisation is diminishing.”

“Feedback is usually critical and often perceived to be unfair, with little regard for context of the problems / issues. More positive feedback would be welcomed.”

You and Your Role

Statement: “I feel that my contributions are valued by the organisation.” A total of 37% of respondents disagreed, with 12% strongly disagreeing.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*The COIN case management system was introduced two years ago in the LGO Advice Team.
COIN is a combined information software system with an open government license. In essence, any public body can use and modify it to their own needs. http://data.gov.uk/dataset/coins

Prepared by Gary Powell

November 2013.

Is That Person Really a Bigot?

Why we should be cautious with our use of the word "bigot".

Opposing gay marriage doesn't usually equal hating gay people.

The inspiration to write this post came from the Pink News piece of 27 May entitled, "Tory blogger Tim Montgomerie: 'I support gay marriage but most traditionalists are not homophobes.' " The Pink News article seems to be based on Tim Montgomerie's piece on Conservative Home: "The Ten Creators of Ukip."

It seems to me that there is a problem of language where the word "bigot" is concerned. At the moment, the word is applied to a very wide range of people. I often see the word being used in LGBT media comments pages as an unchallenged description of everyone who does not support same-sex marriage, with or without the prefix "hateful".

At one end of the spectrum, there is the real hateful homophobe, who would like homosexuality to be a criminal offence and LGBT people to be ridiculed, victimised and excluded. Some such people (particularly in fundamentalist Islamic states) think we should be executed.

At the other end of the spectrum is the person who harbours no hatred or dislike towards LGBT people, is outraged by homophobic discrimination when he or she perceives it, and supports an equal age of consent, job protection from discrimination, and a whole raft of equality measures, but because of a specific (usually religious) belief about the word "marriage" needing to be restricted to heterosexual relationships, finds himself or herself unable to support equal marriage.

The word "bigot" is a pretty blunt instrument to apply to both these people. To put them into the same category surely trivialises the evil of the former, by implying he or she is no worse than simply being in the same category as the latter.

We are all human. Let's listen to one another.

Where bigotry is concerned, I think it is best to look at evidence for what is going on in people's hearts. If they are wilfully ignorant and wedded to their hatred and disdain of LGBT people, then they are bigots. If they are generally good people who show good will towards LGBT people, but have a misguided belief here and there, then they are just misguided, and hopefully we can gently persuade them of their error, or agree to disagree given that we are otherwise very much on the same page.

I write this as someone who strongly supports equal marriage, and who has spent a lot of time arguing and campaigning for it.

What concerns me is black-and-white, entrenched thinking, from whatever side of the debate. Where LGBT people are concerned, most of us have experienced a great deal of suffering as a result of discrimination and prejudice. It can be very easy for that suffering and a response of anger to be triggered. Extreme language should in my view be reserved for those who really deserve it: otherwise the power of the language we have to describe evil people and evil deeds becomes diluted by too wide an application.

One thing I have learned in the course of my life is the importance of trying not to write people off, to damn them into a permanent and perpetual ossification of badness because of a view they hold that I do not like and do not agree with. In the case of some individuals, it is quite a challenge to live according to that maxim. In the case of others, it has become less of a challenge. 

There is a place for forgiveness and generosity in disagreement.

No-one forms their views in some kind of vacuum: life experiences and one's inherited disposition have a great influence on what we come to believe. We all harbour mistaken views at some points in our lives that may cause hurt to others when expressed or acted upon. I suppose that making room for such errors, in the hope that today's adversary may be tomorrow's ally, falls within the domain of what we mean by forgiveness. If we can only show very little forgiveness to others, we will only find very little forgiveness for ourselves, and that is a formula for suffering all round. 

Maybe the parable of The Good Samaritan is a good metaphor for how the person with whom we disagree may be the very person who would offer a helping hand during a time of crisis and adversity. That must surely be worth something.

© Gary Powell, 2014

UKIP's MEP David Coburn

What Scotland's new Ukip MEP thinks of the LGBT rights movement. 

“Equal rights lobby are not interested in equitable solutions,” Mr David Coburn told me via Twitter on 31 May last year, before calling me a "bigot" and saying I have "got it in" for people of faith because I supported the legalisation of equal marriage.

But Mr Coburn isn't any old Ukip reactionary. He is himself openly gay, and wrote to attack equal marriage in a Pink News piece of 2012. 

So here we are: campaigners for LGBT equality are degraded to the "equal rights lobby" in Mr Coburn's mind. But not only that. Apparently we are "not interested in equitable solutions."

This is the mentality of Scotland's new Ukip MEP. A gay man who, with glib generalisations worthy of Melanie Phillips, denigrates the movement that has provided him with the freedom and equality he is able to enjoy as a gay man today.

The link to the Twitter thread where Mr Coburn makes his comments is here. (I have a screenshot, in case this comment should ever disappear.)

I had posted on Twitter as I'd wanted to know how Ukip could claim they were protecting the rights of people of faith by opposing the introduction of equal marriage. After all, no-one was going to force churches etc. to marry LGBT couples; and if the European Court of Human Rights were going to impose SSM on churches, mosques, etc., it would surely already have done so in those EU states where SSM had already existed for some time. Furthermore, if the ECHR were likely to use equalities legislation to do this, I was wondering why Ukip was not warning of the risk women priests would be imposed on all churches, too.

Here are Mr Coburn's noteworthy comments from my Twitter exchange with him, which you will see in the thread linked to above:

Coburn: “Equal rights lobby are not interested in equitable solutions”

Coburn: “Equal rights political expression cant be trnaslated [sic] into religion”

Powell: "'Equal rights lobby are not interested in equitable solutions.' Disgraceful you dismiss civil rights movement like this"

Coburn: “If you take rights from one group and hand them to another that is not equitable -it is also not tolerant”

Powell: “Campaigners for LGBT rights have achieved much to be proud of, in the face of reactionaries & opportunistic colluders.”

Coburn: “Yes and Gay marriage is a step too far”

Powell: “The only "right" of religionists that equal marriage is denying is their

perceived right to discriminate.UKIP is a sell-out”

Coburn: “You have obviously got it in for People of Faith - so you must be the bigot”

Coburn: “If you truly believed in equal rights you'd make sure they are for all - inc people of Faith”

Powell (in response to Coburn saying SSM was "a step too far": “It wasn't in Canada or Netherlands or the many states/ countries that have introduced it & it

isn't for our elected MPs.”

Coburn: “ok getting bored-you're ranting and raving now”

Powell: “When "People of Faith" try to undermine civil rights & impose religion on others, yes I will oppose them. UKIP opportunists”

I will leave it to the reader to decide whether I was "ranting and raving", or whether Mr Coburn found he was out of his depth with his flimsy Ukip platitudes, just as I will leave it to the reader to decide who, if either of us, was the bigot in this exchange.

In my own Pink News piece of 5 May 2014, I explained how Ukip had stitched up the UK LGBT community on equal marriage in order to poach socially conservative voters from the Conservative Party. Clearly a very important strategy for Ukip, and Mr Coburn now receives his reward for his loyal defence of this thoroughly cynical policy with its thoroughly indefensible justification.

© Gary Powell, 2014