Refake, remodel

Maybe this just demonstrates the herd mentality of the marketing industry, but it has been quite a week for Manx ‘rebrands’. Now (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/52592/iom-alcohol-advisory-services-changes-name) it seems the piss-artists previously known as the Alcohol Advisory Service have joined in.

Oh Joy. A bogus charity that fails miserably (and at public expense) to address three moral panics whipped up by worry-wart godbotherers has also failed to re-invent itself as a happening private facility for market-led pseudo-therapies that are not needed and do not work.

Except, of course, that this is not private enterprise. In fact it will leech more off the public purse than a council estate of third generation junkies (if such an entity ever existed outside of the twisted imagination of Daily Mail readers).

Well, that’s progress for you.

Of sock puppets and empty spaces

One New Year’s Resolution I quickly broke was to get serious about this blog and manage at least a weekly update.

Well, “get serious” might be the wrong term, as one of the few things I’m serious about is not taking anything or anyone (including myself) too seriously, but apologies anyway for an inexcusable break in not-so-serious service.

Another resolution was to disturb ‘business as usual’ for local sock puppets and fake charities.
For those who haven’t explored such arguments, ‘sock puppets’ (see http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/sock-puppets-how-the-government-lobbies-itself-and-why for the definitive study) are ‘independent’ agencies which take government money and, quite coincidentally, produce reports and campaigns which validate policies the government had always intended to carry out anyway. Take, for example, the ‘independent’ survey into end-of-life care carried out last year by the employee of one major recipient of government funds which neglected to gather ‘evidence’ from any agency which was not, and which would not benefit from continuing the current mess.
‘Fake charities’ are an older and wider variant on this, and are typically registered charities taking at least half of their income from government. What they have in common is both totally depend on government to perpetuate their existence, and both would collapse if there was genuine public scrutiny or audit of their policies, methodology or performance.

So it was interesting to see this publicity on a government website (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/health/macmillancanceri.xml ) for an 'independent' charity offering (in theory) services the government is paid to provide. Because, oddly enough, I  remember when that space was going to be a quiet room for non-Christian visitors to the local hospital.

When the hospital opened, devotees of the Zombie Carpenter made sure there was a lavish hospital chapel, on the dubious basis that troubled patients and relatives needed a quiet space to pray. Interests representing the other 95% of the population quickly pointed out that, actually, most religiously minded staff are Muslim or Hindu and couldn’t even do their devotions there, while any non-religious troubled person would just vomit in a room decked in naff Christian art.

The cheap compromise was a broom cupboard near the entrance with the legend ‘quiet room’ hand-written in blue biro on an envelope blu-tacked to the door. Then a business consultant employed at great expense by the hospital (and coincidentally romantically involved with a leading civil servant, now retired and and a hobby vicar) suggested giving this ‘under-used’ facility over to Macmillans.

Quite why  the much larger, better appointed but equally empty hospital chapel wasn’t offered instead I never quite understood. Obviously, all those experts on cushy government contracts (with their little clickers to count visitor numbers and calculators to calculate ‘cost effectiveness’) never did the analysis.

Perhaps they were just late for church elsewhere. Or perhaps we just need another set of consultants to calculate if the first lot are a cost effective use of public money

Centres of Excrement

This (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/district-news/big-plans-for-site-of-albert-road-school-1-4705523 ) worries me. Not a lot – yet – because over the years a lot of idiots have put forward a lot of grandiose schemes to ‘save’ Ramsey, which all fell flat.

Sometimes, it must be admitted, after conning huge wads of public money, and sometimes after wrecking sober plans for decent change which might otherwise have been considered. But they fell, because their proposers and sponsors were idiots so it follows naturally that their schemes were idiotic too.

So is this, because if lunacy was an Olympic discipline this fundament of faith-based folly could win gold without getting out of bed. Which many of their clientele don’t do too often anyway. In fact, judging from the scenes some days around their current den of iniquity the whole CotR empire may be built on tithes from the benefits of the permanently unemployable.

Which is why I worry at least a little. Because if they cannot put up the money for this project, then who is?

Without even digging, I can think of two local developers with form for pulling shady deals using religious groups as a front. In both cases literally millions in public funds and years of effort by public servants have been wasted already. I hope neither of them is up to their old tricks, because if they are the results will be a further disaster for Ramsey.

 But it beggars belief anyway that the Manx government is so willing to give away a valuable chunk of land which is supposed to be earmarked for social housing and community facilities.

And it is a massive insult that the simple and persistent request by Ramsey people for a decent community centre could be answered by letting a ragbag collection of right wing religious lunatics not only plan it, but control it.

Apart from anything else, the best rule of thumb a sane person can have for planning forays into local cultural life is to find out where batwits go to eat or entertain themselves, then avoid it like the plague.

Do you know anyone who has had a wedding reception or ‘charitable function’ at Mount Murray? What church do they and their guests go to?

I rest my case, but would you really want the entire potential for community life in your town controlled by some jazz-handing Jesus junkie clad in beige polyester?

If this freak show gets government help it won’t even be a case of “Will the last person to leave Ramsey turn out the lights.” 

Because there won’t be any lights to turn out. I wouldn’t put it past this lot to nick the light bulbs and sell the lamposts for scrap.

Drop the Living Dead on a Donkey

Tomorrow the Manx public heavily subsidises yet another grubby attempt to pack new punters into churches. Either that or an afternoon out for the unscrupulous few who already doss about these undertaxed faith barns of a Sunday.
The same pack of freeloaders on the public purse who foist the Christmas on the Hill nausea-fest on us are behind it, and posters have been in all the usual ghettos for the last few weeks. Curiously though, not a word in the media until yesterday when this (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/story_of_easter_1_3308791 ) was the front page of the Manx Indifferent. Could it be even idle Manx hacks got so bored by this twaddle that they couldn’t be bothered to cut and paste it?
Anyway, avoid Peel later on Saturday afternoon unless you want to get caught up in a twonk parade, because:
“Saturday’s free event starts at the Creg Malin car park at 4pm – from where Jesus (played by Alex Brown, head of the Scripture Union Ministries Trust) will ride a donkey along the promenade to Peel Castle, which will have been transformed into Jerusalem.
From 4.30pm, the family-friendly reenactment, involving a cast of about 80, will continue inside the castle.”
So, it seems, yet again Manx Heritage, an organisation which has almost single-handedly blocked or destroyed any serious chance to record genuine Manx history, is also involved.
And no, you did not misread that. Because Manx Heritage, within a generation, has destroyed the Manx history project. It is no longer possible for a serious academic to collate primary source material or get either grant aid or Manx government assistance for an objective historical project.
What we got instead for the last decade was laughable Celtic mythologising in a desperate attempt to jump-start a tourist trade which died when cheap air travel was born. And now, having even bored off the kind of middle aged office workers who like Clannad and buy any old New Age ‘alternative therapy’ they’re going really downmarket, in the hope a few low rent evangelical thickos will buy some tourist product while ‘exploring their Celtic Christian roots’….. or some such guff.
It is tempting to just point and laugh, but there are serious questions here.
For one thing, will the god-botherers pay to enter Peel Castle, or be excused the usual £10 or so charge? If so, how do the entrance staff know which are honest families on a day out and which are faith-based freeloaders? Glazed expressions and tasteless 100% polyester clothing might be a rough guide, but is that enough?
And who meets the costs of the extra policing, the parking and traffic problems? Peel ratepayers, or the island as a whole?
Come to think of it, how much did we pay in policing & other costs for Christmas on the Hill? While those responsible will have made sure that this never reached the minutes of any political or civil service committee on public record, it was probably excused on the premise that acolytes of the Zombie Carpenter went on to shop at Stepford Central (owned by Christian zealots who, coincidentally, also run the Police Liaison Committee).
And even if this line is being taken again, what commercial spin-off is there for Peel, given that (a) the event is scheduled from 4 PM to 5.30 PM and (b) Manx Heritage destroyed Peel retail over a decade ago when they blocked all public transport and traffic schemes except one which forced tourist cars and coaches to skirt around Peel itself, straight on to their House of Mannanan tourist trap and then back out of town to do their shopping and refreshing, if any, at Stepford Central?
But there is a bright side. For one thing the press unwittingly did local parents a favour when it published a prominent picture of one of the island’s worst dangers to kids.
For another because:
“It is a one off event – and organisers say Christmas on the Hill won’t take place this year either, after three successful events.”
That’s because it was crap. Hardly anybody went except the organisers, so in all likelihood the cost of extra policing alone didn’t even balance the additional takings at Stepford Central. And, on past performance, I doubt if VAT or other taxes paid by Stepford are anywhere near the grant aid ploughed into developing a ‘shopping experience’ not seen elsewhere since the hilarious ‘zombies on escalators’ scene in George Romero’s Dawn of the Living Dead.

Philately funds the flat earthers

I blogged before on a nasty little deal cut between the Manx and Vatican Post Offices to profit from Benny the Boy Nazi’s pointless UK holiday. Seems from the latest follow-up
(see http://www.manx.net/default.asp?id=18&articleid=11362 ) that at least the Manx one no longer wants to give the game away.
Maybe they’re taking note of growing public anger, rather than excitement, over a waste of over £100 million on security costs alone, most of which must be met by local authorities because Westminster views police spending as a ‘regional’ matter. Money, as many are saying, that means further cuts must follow in public services already being told to save up to 25%.
But, as I discovered yesterday, that hasn’t stopped our Post Office colluding with yet another bunch of right wing spook-chasers. If you take a look at http://www.iompost.com/stamps/FutureIssue.aspx?categoryid=203 you’ll discover (to your horror if you know them) that Ramsey’s best known purveyors of evangelical claptrap (and drain on public funds) have done it again.
As if the public money and helpful tax holidays for (let’s see now) building a film studio, ‘training’ film technicians (more accurately being subsidised to employ them for something like 60% of usual UK film industry rates even after ‘training’) and getting Education and Film Board support for the naffest cartoon series in history (hated by all except some pseudo-award from a Christian Concern for our Nation spin-off group) isn’t enough, now they’re flogging stamps?
It’s enough to make you give up posting letters for ever. In fact, I may just stick to e-mail until after Christmas, just to see if it works.
I was also saddened to find out that the Manx Gaelic translation of this borderline end-timer twaddle – paid for by Manx Heritage Foundation – is being undertaken by two folk whose stalwart work for the Manx language movement I used to admire.
I’ve come to expect nothing better from the Manx Heritage Foundation, but true Manx cultural workers used to be proud of being better read and in the frontline of any local fightback against bigotry and ignorance, so I hope this isn’t the beginning of a new trend.

Kermit is risen. Hallelujah!

Me and ‘her indoors’ have just finished laughing at an inane Pentecost special on BBC 1. We’d turned on expecting our usual Sunday morning gigglefest at The Big Question, but this was even better. Classic tripe – and the Beeb’s religious programming unit really don’t know how much joy they (unintentionally) give to us heathens at times like these. Christians, by comparison, must be squirming in embarrassment.
In case anyone’s wondering, no, the nipper wasn’t watching. She’d spotted more sophisticated fare on a kiddie channel. Anyway, even her voluntary enjoyment of religious TV would constitute child abuse in our book, and swivel-eyed loons in pastel hued 100% polyester clothing so isn’t a role model for any infant.
The tragedy unfolded from some waste of a potential carpet warehouse in Peckham, and was led by the startlingly monikered Rev. Frog Orr-Ewing, backing music courtesy of a bunch of shoegazers who look and sound like U2 might if they couldn’t afford effects pedals and a light show.
As if the name wasn’t bad enough, Orr-Ewing had us wondering if Posh Boy Cameron has relatives born wrong side of the blanket. The facial features were identical (apart from a weird birthmark suggesting he’d wandered into a door with his eyes closed while praying), as were the mannerisms and oratorial style. Quite disturbing. Someone really should look into this.
On a more serious note, we probably ought to ask why the Beeb gave a Sunday morning spot to an atrocity exhibition which included (I kid not) two rhythmically challenged teens doing a creationist rap and numerous blatant adverts for the Alpha Course – the last commercially orientated bastion of homophobia in the UK, coming to an empty church near you if you’re not careful.
Various background pieces on the participants (inserted to break up the monotony of white care in the community types shuffling and waving their arms about to dirges they didn’t know the words to while token black folk looked on in horror) suggest there is serious money in this racket too. Frog and his ersatz Muppets were seen ‘ministering’ in a sink estate playground, and dropped numerous hints that they (and numerous others) will be funded to pester the public during the London Olympics.
So, do you know where YOUR council funds are going these days?
And another thing.
I see the programme, while based in Peckham, was produced by BBC Manchester. Now I remember from college days that this is where the Beeb’s religious team hang out, and these days the employees to my certain knowledge include an advisor on media strategy to the Catholic church and an Evangelical Alliance stooge. The latter also not only sits on the Beeb’s main ‘independent’ religious advisory bodies but is elsewhere employed as a TV producer by the Beeb, runs a website for an offshoot of the Evangelical Alliance and also does the PR for a ghastly megachurch in the Manchester area.
So, do you know where YOUR licence fee is going these days, and are you going to protest about it being used to publicise homophobic, anti-scientific, Christofascist scams which leech off the public purse and screw up the lives of the dispossessed?
Alternatively, like me, you could just draw attention to them, and take the piss relentlessly until the Church of Kermit is too much of a laughing stock to do serious harm.

Unwanted, unloved, and an unbelievable waste of public funds

My old mate George Broadhead, Manx born secretary of the Pink Triangle Trust, is not happy about the visit of a certain homophobic boy nazi to the UK next year, especially as it’s at public expense.
In a PTT press release a few days ago he said:
“This pope has shown himself to be paranoid about homosexuality. His opposition to LGBT rights knows no bounds. In his Christmas message last year he declared that saving humanity from homosexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. This must be the most outrageous and bizarre claim yet made by someone who has already got a well-deserved reputation as one of the most viciously homophobic world leaders on a par with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
“The Vatican reinforced its anti-gay reputation by strongly opposing a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against gays and the Pope’s Christmas message provided clear evidence of an obsession about homosexuality which is tantamount to paranoia.
“It is imperative that the strongest possible protest be made when he visits the UK next year. This is not without precedent. During the last papal visit to the UK by John Paul II in 1982, a protest called POPE (People Opposing Papal Edicts) was instigated by the Gay Humanist Group of which I was a founder member.
“It had the support of other gay and secular organisations, including the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the National Secular Society. On the occasion of the next papal visit, we must pull out all the stops to demonstrate our opposition.”
And no sooner had Gorgeous George planted that thought in a few minds than the fun began. For example, another PTT member has a freeedom of information request in to the Home Office for a breakdown of the likely costs, including accommodation for Ratzo and his entourage, public functions, other entertainment, policing and other security, publicity, transport, diversions, etc.
Now there’s a petition up on the Number Ten website too (see http://petitions.number10.gov.uk:80/PopeBan/).
The thinking is, if Geert Wilders isn’t fit to enter the UK and speak to a group of mature politicos, why isn’t a humanity-hating, bare-faced lying scrote with previous as long as your arm on the ‘banned’ list too?
Go on, sign up.
We saw off Hitler. Why go soft on his disciples?

Lies, more lies and moral cowardice

Since the row broke out a few weeks back because local Muslims want to meet in a ‘proper’ building instead of someone’s garage I've followed developments in the local press with interest.
It didn’t surprise me when the only Manx BNP member willing to identify himself joined in, or that my good mate Jim Hawkins made an honest and articulate case in opposition to a mosque – though I don’t share his opinion or fears.
It doesn’t surprise me that another letter was written by someone to timid to give his proper name or any of his address, yet claimed to speak for ‘others’. And I found it absolutely hilarious when, in a desperate attempt to boost numbers, there was even a letter (presumably dictated at a seance) from an objector who has been dead for years!
On a more serious note I was intrigued that no-one took up the gauntlet thrown down by veteran journalist Val Cottle, who asked, ‘Where is the moral leadership from the Lord Bishop, or other church or humanist groups, where is the rejection of such racist views from other politicians?’
Good question, Val. Wonder why nobody has answered it yet?
I knew some minority faiths had got together and penned a letter to the papers, then let the moment pass without agreeing the final wording. That’s a shame.
Churches Together in Mann? Forget it! What can you expect from a body where two ‘faith leaders’ both ring to check the other won’t be there before turning up to meetings where a maximum of four elderly blokes decide major statements on public morality representing ‘thousands’…. without daring to consult them?
And you can’t expect moral leadership anyway from a political squatter foisted on us by another country’s spook merchants, though this is usually the cue for a senior Anglican to try potting us secular types for small minded bigots, so the silence of Sentamu’s Apprentice was also curious.
Well, read http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Unholy-row-erupts-over-St.5321571.jp, and in particular the two additional pages, and all becomes clear. The Anglicans were about to sting the public for cash, so couldn’t have that spoiled by a public debate over religious buildings, privilege and the role religion plays, if any, in 21st century life.
On the strength of page 1, where it’s explained they’re ripping some pews out of the local cathedral to make a more flexible space, it seems fair enough. Yeah…. whatever. Do what you want with your playhouse, just don’t ask me to pay for it.
But then Canon Godfrey says, 'These maintenance costs can only be justified if the building is made to work for its living.'That means making it available to more than just the Anglican worshipping community’.
Hmm!
It’s when you get to page 2 and they refer to concerts, exhibitions and school visits before going down the rosy heritage and public facility path you realise this means a drain on the public purse, not just begging from local companies with a crap public image. When you think it through you realise there will be bids for cash from the heritage, conservation and education public pots, and that's just for starters.
In fact, given that at the last budget we were told no government departments are being allowed new projects, it looks like the future ‘public consultation’ referred to on the Cathedral changes is a sham exercise to rubber stamp plans already privately made between the churches, education and heritage bodies. No wonder the government is closing down public scrutiny of or participation in Manx heritage and public education (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/registries/educationcouncil.xml and http://www.gov.im/lib/news/cso/reviewoftheconst.xml).
Ah well, bent business as usual with the Manx government and churches then. No wonder they dare not comment on real religious affairs for fear of us laughing.

Don't get fooled again

The temperance nazis are up to their old tricks next month. Must be the time of year when funding to the alcohol advisory bodies is up for renewal.
The official announcement is at http://www.gov.im/lib/news/dha/ceo/worldrenownedexp.xml and on paper it looks legit enough. Gilmore is a top man in the Royal College of Physicians and a liver specialist, so he knows a bit about relevant topics.
But he’s also a poster boy for the Christian Institute and the Christian right in general. They love to quote him ad nauseum to ‘prove’ we’re all going to hell unless we get back on our knees and grovelling to sky-fairies again.
The other problem is, in addition to their habit of quoting him totally out of context, even a doctor can’t resist making pronouncements on topics he knows nowt about.
Take that innocent statement: ‘alcohol is a drug of addiction’.
Oh no it isn’t, and this isn’t his area of expertise so his is not an expert opinion. Since when was the liver part of the brain?
Now I’m not even a regular tippler, but when experts are used like this by pious pillocks who get public funds to stand on their soapbox and preach it’s enough to drive you to drink.
And just how many times does an interested amateur (who can be bothered to do the basic research) have to correct self-styled ‘experts’ (who get fat fees to spout shite that feeds kneejerk prejudice)?
Addiction is a myth that appeals to dodgy ‘therapies’ not based on science or professional expertise. This is why you see pseudo-scientific jargon like ‘dependency’ used instead, to avoid legal liability.
Much to the disgust of a nasty little industry based on selling ‘therapy’ no-one needs (and godbothering nosey-parkers who like to push everyone around) you CAN have a couple of drinks without turning into a drooling vegetable or destroying the lives of all around you.
It takes self-discipline, certainly, but people do it. Some not only do that, they smoke spliffs or use class A substances up to and including heroin.
Sorry to burst your puritan bubble, but people do it all the time without harming themselves, so there it is.
Anyways – if we’re taking about addiction and dependency, why limit it to chemical substances? How, exactly, would you describe the relationship between losers who need to throw away all their spare time and money on religious organisations and the scrotes who get both a living and power over others from the odious cults involved?
Addict/dealer? John/pimp?
Seems about right to me.

Pimps, Parsons....and Politics

I’ve posted before on the efforts of the UK Home Office, aided by ‘God’s own pimp’ (the Rev. Steve Chalke) to change the laws on prostitution. Purely coincidentally (I’m sure) the plan is to push through changes this month in a way that would excuse yet more public subsidy of nice little earners badly disguised as charities that Chalke has been setting up in recent years (See Pimps, Parsons, Police & Prostitution on 28 Dec).
When in Shakti Man last week I was amused to see Stop The Traffik merchandising, based on the efforts of local evangelicals who ‘support’ teachers during ‘citizenship’modules. They pose as womens rights activists but don’t appear to know that Chalke registered the slogan as a trading name even before incorporating the company via a downmarket London company formation outfit and selling it on to some other right wing spookchasers linked to the Alpha cult.
Chalke could easily still be taking a cut, I suspect hiding involvement or possible control by merely acting as a ‘consultant’, not a director. This is the oldest trick in the book, and should fool no-one, especially in an offshore jurisdiction where 50% of the adult population administrate hundreds of such companies. Just goes to show, the folk trying to dictate Manx morality aren’t even bright enough to work as office juniors in the real world.
Thankfully UK churches aren’t managing to bamboozle the politicians as easily as they expected, and may have to wait a lot longer before they get their hands on the loot – if at all.
Witness these three Early Day Motions, for example.

EDM 523 / Prostitution and the criminal law / Tabled by Lynne Jones
‘That this House considers that the measures in relation to prostitution contained in the Policing and Crime Bill, though well-intentioned, are deeply flawed; believes that there is no justification for involving the criminal law in consensual transactions that cause no public nuisance; notes the opposition to the proposals from the Royal College of Nursing and other members of the Safety First Coalition, who call for an end to the criminalisation of prostitution, which they consider makes sex workers more vulnerable to attack; further notes that police evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee has cast doubts on the enforceability of the proposals on paying for the sexual services of a prostitute controlled for gain and therefore opposes these provisions in the Bill; and calls on the Government to make more effective use of existing laws against trafficking and sexual exploitation and to enlist the support of purchasers of sexual services to help expose those establishments that use trafficked women.’

EDM 525 / Definition Of A Brothel / Tabled by Lynne Jones
‘That this House notes with disappointment that the Government has failed to use the Policing and Crime Bill to honour the commitment in the Home Office report of January 2006, A Co-ordinated Prostitution Strategy and a summary of responses to Paying the Price, for an amendment to the definition of a brothel so that two or three individuals could work together from shared accommodation; and is concerned that the omission of this provision misses an important opportunity to allow women in the sex trade to work more safely, to have more control over their work and to make it easier for them to leave the trade should they so wish.’


EDM 524 / Policing and Crime Bill provisions introducing orders requiring attendance at meetings / Tabled by Lynne Jones
‘That this House notes that Clause 16 in the Policing and Crime Bill providing for the introduction of Orders Requiring Attendance at Meetings for those found to be loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution is simply a rehash of the abandoned proposal in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill for compulsory rehabilitation; considers that there is no evidence that compulsion assists in rehabilitation and agrees with the Royal College of Nursing that the proposal will lead to greater detention of some of the most vulnerable, stigmatised and marginalised people in society whose criminalisation helps institutionalise them in prostitution; and therefore urges the Government to concentrate instead on providing high-quality outreach programmes, independent of the criminal justice system, which offer healthcare and support, sexual health advice and drug rehabilitation opportunities that individuals who want to leave prostitution can access.’

With the Labour Party whipping the nation’s godbotherers and jam-makers up into the biggest frenzy over a folk myth since the white slave trade common sense like this is rare to find. But at least some are fighting back, and good luck to them.

No faith in prison reform

A piece in yesterday's Observer about godbotherers in prisons make me wonder if even the 'broadsheet' press bothers with basic fact-checking any more.
In Faith groups spreading the word on the wings one Jamie Doward claims: 'the unspoken truth is that, in an increasingly irreligious society, Jesus continues to walk the wings of Britain's prisons, offering salvation to those who have no other chance of saving themselves.'
He goes on to quote ad nauseum from twattish cults like the Kainos Community and Prison Fellowship Ministries without bothering to verify their claims.
Take Kainos's claim, 'independently verified by academics' , that 'only 13 per cent of the serious offenders who complete its courses go on to reoffend after two years, compared with 35 per cent across the prison service average.'
Actually, the report they're referring to was demanded as part of a 1999 Home Office review to decide if Kainos should be further funded after running out of public money two years into a four year program. It's not available to the public, as Kainos paid for it, but a parliamentary committee considered it, and their 'executive summary' said that a comparison between those who had been through Kainos and 14,000 prisoners serving similar sentences in similar prisons found no significant difference in re-offending rates. By comparison, prisoners on other, more secular, rehabilitation programmes were on average 10% less likely to offend again.
Then he confuses things by saying 'The Prison Fellowship has more than 120 local prison prayer groups and 900 volunteers from all Christian denominations' , but unless I'm mistaken, this refers to their US program where they are one of four beneficiaries of a $22.5 million diversion of public funds towards evangelical chancers and away from proper prison reform work, not the UK. They shouldn't even be working in UK prisons since their 'InnerChange Freedom Initiative' was kicked out of Dartmoor for failing to ‘enhance diversity’ (i.e. they wouldn't work with anyone of other faiths or none) and this at the initial request of the UK's Chaplain General himself.
Funniest of all, Doward refers to Working with the Third Sector to Reduce Reoffending as a 'new document'. It has been available since early last year, and taken such a kicking from everyone from the BHA through to all serious prison reform and prisoners rights groups that there isn't a 'fact' left unchallenged.
OK, he later quotes doubters ranging from the NSS to the Howard League and NAPO, the prison officer union, but would most folk read that far anyway?
This has a Manx angle too. Since about 2003 the Salvation Army have been lobbying Tynwald to hand over prison reform to them in entirety, using an example of a Kainos style program they ran in a Nottinghamshire prison. They already run the bail hostel, where I continue to hear that good court reports depend on prayer meeting attendance - last year, for example, two Muslim remand prisoners seem to have been unable to get any bail before their court case came up because of this. The SA depend for 'drug and alcohol counselling' on the equally ridiculous Stauros cult running out of Broadway Baptists down the road. Housing and resettlement help for ex-prisoners is organised by a 'family liason officer' who also helps run Graih - another pathetic Broadway initiative where hardcore homeless alkies give an excuse for public funding to evangelicals too disorientated to stack Tesco shelves.....and so it goes on.
Considering that, by my calculations, at least as many evangelical pastors have been imprisoned for serious offences on the island in the last decade as have been employed for prison chaplaincy work, you have to wonder if anyone is still awake at the Department for Home Affairs.
The further you look and join the dots, the more you realise the Manx government are simply not serious about tackling social exclusion, but quite content to hide that by employing 'faith groups' to provide token programs with no proper audit procedure at a 10th of the cost of the professionals.