October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was of course born in India, and died in India, but studied in London so is included in my month’s roll-call due to his connection with Britain. My blog, my rules.

A lawyer who led the successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule, Gandhi inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The title Mahātmā is Sanskrit for ‘great-souled’ or ‘venerable’, and was first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa.

Born and raised in a Hindu family in Gujarat, Gandhi trained in law at the Inner Temple in London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in 1891. Unsuccessful in his attempts to set up a law practice in India, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit – and stayed for 21 years. He raised a family there, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. (The composer Philip Glass wrote an opera about this period in Gandhi’s life, called Satyagraha, which I saw in London a couple of years ago.)

In 1915, aged 45, Gandhi returned to India, where he organised peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Gandhi became leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921, and led nationwide campaigns on poverty, women’s rights, religious and ethnic amity, ending ‘untouchability’, and achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

The same year Gandhi started to wear the Indian loincloth or short dhoti and shawl as a mark of identification with India’s rural poor. He lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. He led the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 in protest against British salt taxes, and called for the British to ‘Quit India’ in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, on many occasions, in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi had a vision of an independent and pluralistic India, but in 1947, Britain granted independence but partitioned its Indian empire into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Displaced people made their way to their new lands amid outbreaks of religious violence – one of the worst mass migrations in history, with over a million deaths. Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace and undertaking several fasts to the point of death to stop the violence.

In 1948 Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist.

Gandhi’s birthday, 2 October, is commemorated in India as a national holiday, and worldwide as the International Day of Nonviolence. Gandhi is commonly considered the Father of the Nation in India. 

More about Mahatma Gandhi at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi

An over-lengthy and fractious meeting of the County Council’s General Purposes Committee this morning, as the development of the Council’s budget for next year begins.

The prospects are not good. Even if the battle against COVID goes well, the Council will need to find savings of £40M in the financial year starting next April. If COVID goes bad – and the evidence so far suggests cases are continuing to rise – then the savings needed could be over £82M.

It is unlikely, to put it mildly, that the Government will come charging over the hill with £82M in its pocket. And unless there is more cash coming Cambridgeshire’s way, the options available to the Council will mainly be ‘efficiency savings’, cuts to services, increased fees and charges, lucrative commercial investments*, and council tax.

(*Not working out so well at the moment – the money they put into buying student accommodation in Cambridge and leisure facilities in Wisbech isn’t making great returns in a pandemic.)

Already lines are being drawn ready for the political arguments that will last through to February’s budget meeting and beyond. The predictions we’ve been given so far assume that Conservative councillors running the Council will go for an increase of two per cent in council tax for adult social care (a service facing huge increases in need), but zero council tax increase for general services.

We don’t yet know what maximum council tax increase the Government will allow this coming year. In the past few years councils have been allowed to set rises of around two or three per cent without having to conduct a ruinously expensive referendum – and the Government generally assumes councils will do that. Assuming the maximum this coming year is of a similar level, it might be considered sensible to start building that figure into the calculations. (If the Council were to try to bridge the whole of a £40M funding gap by way of council tax increases, the rise would have to be about 15 per cent, and nobody – absolutely nobody – is suggesting that.)

Conservative councillors are talking about council tax rises being their last resort after every other option. Liberal Democrats are saying that while nobody relishes higher council taxes, cutting services and increasing charges will affect the most vulnerable population worst, and assuming an increase in council tax of a couple of per cent at this stage would help bridge that gap (albeit only partly in the scheme of the financial problems unfolding).

The Council is now approaching Government to ask for more financial support. That’s all well and good, but the Government will want to see the Council doing all it can to bridge its own gap – and appearing to resolutely stand against raising council tax at all probably won’t persuade the Government of the urgency of the Council’s case.

It’s also fair to say that the Conservative Council has been asking the Conservative Government for ‘fair funding’ for many years with little to show for it, and there’s no reason to assume they will have any better luck this year when COVID has already trashed most of the economy, and a no-deal Brexit in a couple of months’ time will trash the rest.

We could of course all be surprised, but seeing what the Government has just done to Greater Manchester doesn’t suggest that will be likely.

October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Wilfred Wood was Bishop of Croydon from 1985 to 2003, the first black bishop in the Church of England.

Born in Barbados, Wood trained for the ministry there and was ordained a deacon on the island, then in England as a priest in St Paul’s Cathedral, having served as a curate at St Stephen’s Church, Shepherd’s Bush. He spoke out on racial justice, and was elected president of the Institute of Race Relations in 1971.

In 1974 he joined the Diocese of Southwark as Vicar of St Laurence, Catford. In 1977 he was appointed Rural Dean of East Lewisham and Honorary Canon of Southwark Cathedral, then Archdeacon of Southwark from 1982 until his consecration as area Bishop of Croydon in 1985.

Wood was a champion for racial justice, launching several initiatives, serving on committees, and playing a significant part in founding the UK’s Martin Luther King Fund and Foundation.

In 1992 together with the Bishop of Liverpool he co-sponsored a new set of race equality principles for employers, known as the Wood-Sheppard Principles. He was Moderator of the Southwark Diocesan Race Relations Commission, the first of its kind in the Church of England, and also served as Moderator of the World Council of Churches’s Programme to Combat Racism.

In his last years as Bishop of Croydon, Wood protested at the honours given to Enoch Powell upon his death, stating that “Enoch Powell gave a certificate of respectability to white racist views which otherwise decent people were ashamed to acknowledge. In 2000 he argued against the then British government’s and opposition’s negative attitudes to asylum seekers.

Wood was a board member for the local Mayday Hospital for more than ten years, and in 2002 was made an Honorary Freeman of the London Borough of Croydon. He was President of the Royal Philanthropic Society, dedicated to the welfare of young people at risk. He served on the Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure which recommended the establishment of the Crown Prosecution Service, and on the board of the Housing Corporation where he supported local housing associations and promoted black housing associations. A number of housing developments have been named after him.

Wood holds honorary doctorates from the Open University, the University of the West Indies and the General Theological Seminary, New York. In the year 2000 he was appointed a Knight of St Andrew, the highest class within the Order of Barbados “for his contribution to race relations in the United Kingdom and general contribution to the welfare of Barbadians living here”.

Wood retired as Bishop of Croydon in 2002, whereupon he returned with his wife to their native Barbados. He has been blind since 2004.

More about Wilfred Wood at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Wood_(bishop)

October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Learie Nicholas Constantine, Baron Constantine, MBE was a West Indian cricketer, lawyer and politician who served as Trinidad’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and became the UK’s first black peer. He played 18 Test matches before the Second World War and took the West Indies’ first wicket in Test cricket. An advocate against racial discrimination, in later life he was influential in the passing of the 1965 Race Relations Act in Britain. He was knighted in 1962 and made a life peer in 1969.

Born in Trinidad to the grandson of slaves, Constantine established an early reputation as a promising cricketer, but decided to pursue a career as a professional cricketer in England due to the lack of opportunities in his home country. His father wanted him to establish himself in a career, so he had become a clerk in a legal firm but faced many social restrictions as a black man. On arrival in the UK he played for Nelson in Lancashire, while remaining a member of the West Indies Test team, and was chosen as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1939.

In 1927 Constantine had married his wife Norma Cox; they had a daughter, Gloria, in 1928.

During the Second World War, Constantine worked as a Welfare Officer responsible for West Indians employed in English factories, and was awarded his MBE in 1947 for his wartime work. In 1943, after a London hotel refused to accommodate him and his family because of their colour, Constantine successfully sued the hotel company (Constantine v Imperial London Hotels) – a milestone in British racial equality.

Constantine qualified as a barrister in 1954, while also establishing himself as a journalist and broadcaster. He returned to Trinidad in 1954, became a founding member of the People’s National Movement, subsequently becoming a minister in the Trinidad government. From 1961 to 1964, he served as Trinidad’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was knighted in 1962, and became involved in issues relating to racial discrimination. He served on the Race Relations Board, the Sports Council, and the Board of Governors of the BBC, and was awarded a life peerage in 1969, becoming the first black man to sit in the House of Lords.

Constantine died of a heart attack in 1971, aged 69, and was buried in Trinidad. Norma died two months later.

More about Learie Constantine at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learie_Constantine

October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

John Edmonstone was born into slavery, probably in Demerara, British Guiana, in the late eighteenth century, but later gained his freedom. He learned taxidermy from Charles Waterton, who used to visit Charles Edmonstone at his plantation in Demerara. Waterton took John under his wing and taught him taxidermy or in his own words, ‘the proper way to stuff birds.’ The two would travel together on expeditions into the rainforest and John would learn the skills he would go on to teach Darwin.

After he was freed in 1817, Edmonstone came to Glasgow with his former master, Charles Edmonstone. From there he moved to Edinburgh, where he earned a living stuffing birds at the Natural Museum and taught taxidermy to students at the University of Edinburgh.

In 1825, Darwin came to Edinburgh to study medicine. Having changed his mind about making his future as a doctor or surgeon, Darwin took lessons from Edmonstone on bird taxidermy.

It has been suggested this this is how Darwin’s interest in naturalism began, and that it inspired him to explore the tropics. Within five years, Darwin was on the HMS Beagle as the ship’s naturalist for its famous voyage in 1831 to South America, Australia, and New Zealand.

More about John Edmonstone at https://www.history.co.uk/shows/not-what-you-thought-you-knew/articles/john-edmonstone-%25E2%2580%2593-the-man-who-taught-darwin

The following planning applications in the Sutton division have been published by East Cambridgeshire District Council.

20/01211/CLE
Little Downham
Alfie Acres 1B Second Drove Little Downham
Certificate of Lawfulness for existing use as a residential dwelling.

20/01299/FUL
Witchford
87 Main Street Witchford CB6 2HQ
Single storey rear extension.

20/01193/FUL
Witcham
Hillcrest Mepal Road Witcham
Two dwellings (phased development Plot 1 & 2).

20/01204/FUL
Witcham
Oneway Headleys Lane Witcham
First floor extension and garage conversion.

Further information can be found on the district council’s planning pages. If you would like to respond formally to the council about any planning application, comments should be addressed to the district council and not to me.  Comments may be made

• online using the council’s public access web page (the link above);
• by email to plservices@eastcambs.gov.uk;
• or by post to the Planning Department, The Grange, Nutholt Lane, Ely, CB7 4EE.

October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at the age of seven or eight and transported to North America. She was purchased by the Wheatley family of Boston, who taught her to read and write and encouraged her poetry.

By the age of twelve, Phillis was reading Greek and Latin classics in their original languages, as well as difficult passages from the Bible. At the age of fourteen, she wrote her first poem, and the Wheatley family supported Phillis’s education and promoted her poetry.

On a 1773 trip to London with her master’s son, seeking publication of her work, Phillis was helped to meet prominent people who became patrons. Her book of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in 1773. It was printed in eleven editions, and praised by luminaries such as George Washington. Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, subsidised the publication of her poems, though they did not meet. The French writer and thinker Voltaire said in a letter to a friend that Wheatley had proved that black people could write poetry.

Phillis was set free by the Wheatleys shortly after the publication of her book. However, they both died shortly afterwards, and Phillis was cast into poverty. She met and married John Peters, a free black grocer. They struggled with poor living conditions and the deaths of two babies. Peters was imprisoned for debt in 1784. Phillis had a sickly child to care for, and went to work in a boarding house, where she died in obscurity as a scullery maid at the age of 31.

More about Phillis Wheatley at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillis_Wheatley

October is Black History Month, so every day during October I will be posting up an introduction to an historical person of colour with a place in the history of the United Kingdom.

Ira Aldridge was an American and later British stage actor and playwright who made his career after 1824 largely on the London stage and in Europe, especially in Shakespearean roles. Born in New York City, Aldridge is the only actor of African-American descent among the 33 actors of the English stage honoured with bronze plaques at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon. He was especially popular in Prussia and Russia, and at the time of his sudden death at the age of 60 he was on tour in Poland.

Aldridge was born in 1807 in New York City, where he attended a charitable school for the children of free black people and slaves. In the early 1820s he performed onstage with the African Company, who built the first resident African-American theatre in the United States which came under protests, attacks, and parody by neighbours, competitors, and even the Sheriff of New York. 

In the face of this discrimination, Aldridge emigrated to Liverpool, where he invented a story of that he was descended from African princes, and for a time he took the name of Keene, after the popular British actor, Edmund Kean. At the age of 17, he appeared on the London stage in Othello and his career took off, though he still faced prejudice.

In 1831 Aldridge successfully performed in Dublin and around the UK, and in 1852 took on his first tour to continental Europe, including Germany, Budapest, Serbia, and Imperial Russia. He applied for British citizenship in 1863, and shortly before his death was planning to return to America to perform there.

Aldridge married an Englishwoman, Margaret Gill, in 1824, and they lived in Upper Norwood in London. In 1857 he was successfully sued by a fellow actor William Stothard, who accused him of having an affair with his wife and fathering her child. On Margaret’s death forty years later married his mistress, the self-styled Swedish countess Amanda von Brandt – they had four children, one of whom died in infancy. The remaining three went on to have musical careers.

Aldridge in August 1867 while visiting Łódź, Poland, and was buried in the Old Evangelical Cemetery there.

More about Ira Aldridge at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge

Today is the last day to complete East Cambridgeshire District Council’s online survey on the impact of COVID-19 on businesses in the district.

The purpose of the survey is to gather information about how the pandemic has affected businesses and provide an overview of the predicted long-term effects. The Council will use this data to further tailor the support and advice it provides as part of its COVID-19 recovery plan.

The survey includes questions about the financial impact of business disruption, measures taken to cope with the impact of the pandemic, and the Small Business COVID-19 Grant Funding schemes.

It will also cover how COVID-19 has affected training and apprenticeship programmes, the impact on supply chains, key concerns for the year ahead, and what additional support businesses feel they need.

If you’re a local business and haven’t completed the survey yet you can find it at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/ECDCCovidSurvey

This afternoon’s three-hour meeting began with a petition organised by Unison asking the Health Committee to step in over plans by North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust (covering Hinchingbrooke, Peterborough, and Stamford) to outsource more than seventy jobs in a range of services including cleaning, catering, linen, patient services, porters, post room, and security.

A number of members of the Committee are due to hold their quarterly meeting with the NHS Trust shortly, and we asked them to take up this issue then and report back.

We had a long discussion about NHS dentistry in times of COVID. Dental surgeries are working at about 25 per cent of previous activity levels, due to the need to focus on urgent treatment for people in pain, and to allow time for aerosols caused by sprays from drills and other equipment to settle before surfaces are cleaned down between patients. We were concerned at the long-term effects on dental health of delays in routine treatment, hygienist appointments, and check-ups – and also at the potentially increasing inequality of treatment and care. My colleague Cllr Lucy Nethsingha raised the issue of children’s check-ups, and we wondered whether these could be offered off-site to free more time and space in surgeries.

We discussed the latest COVID update, and the rise in cases. I asked about arrangements for Halloween, Bonfire Night, and Remembrance, and was told that Government guidance was still awaited and that the local Public Health team didn’t want to conflict with this or send mixed messages. Frankly, Government, it’s all getting a little late.

We were united in our concern at proposals for recommissioning of children and young people’s mental health counselling services which would have removed access for these services from 18-25 year olds in Cambridgeshire. We felt that it was not clear that adult counselling services would be either available or suitable, and it was clear that there was no expectation that the money currently spent on this age group would be moved to meet their needs in another way. So we asked for this paper to come back and to be clearer about meeting the needs of young adults.

We talked about children and families in light of COVID. The paper we were given was somewhat light on detail, and referred to us being in ‘the recovery phase’ of COVID, when it doesn’t feel like that at all as case numbers rise again. I asked about breastfeeding now that mothers aren’t getting face to face support in most cases, and was heartened to hear that numbers of mothers breastfeeding appear to have increased in the first quarter of the year. We had previously (pre-COVID) received a report about the much lower numbers of breastfeeding mothers in Fenland, and it’s not yet clear whether that inequality has been affected in any way by COVID. It was good to hear that a new contract is in place with the National Childbirth Trust to provide breastfeeding support in Fenland.

We received a report on homelessness, with the shocking statistic that ‘the mean age of death of homeless people (44) is 32 years lower than the general population, and even lower for homeless women at just 42. The move of so many homeless people nationally into accommodation at the start of lockdown did leave one wondering why that couldn’t have been done without a virus. There have been large bids from Cambridge and Peterborough for funds to support homeless people, because that is where the need is, and a much smaller bid from East Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and South Cambridgeshire.

Finally, in considering the agenda plan for future meetings, I drew the committee’s attention to the damning report by the Care Quality Commission into the ‘toxic culture’ at the East of England Ambulance Trust, and suggested we needed to see them at Health Committee to ask them what they were doing about it. As the Trust covers so many counties, this may be difficult, as everyone will be wanting to ask the Trust some searching questions, but we agreed to try.