Social engineering already here!

Here are some extracts showing how the Government’s welfare benefit reforms are already having an impact in London by increasing the proportion of the income that those on benefits must spend on their housing. The bullet points below are quotes from LVSC.org.uk – Read more on the benefit reform effect on housing.

• Housing benefit reforms introduced in the New Year will cost affected people an average of £12 per week (this is likely to be more in London). Crisis campaign
• Housing benefit has been the main factor in ensuring that low income households don’t become homeless. Crisis campaign research
• One million people have taken on a payday loan to help pay their rent or mortgage in the last 12 months and 15% of respondents had used some form of credit to meet housing costs. The implementation of the additional caps and reforms in 2012 is likely to increase this debt problem. Survey by Shelter
• The number of people now being placed in emergency accommodation is increasing dramatically in London. As the welfare benefit reforms are implemented, more and more people are becoming unable to afford private sector rents in the capital. This situation is predicted to worsen as more measures are introduced in 2012. Survey by Inside Housing

Tories say this is not social engineering designed to expel the working poor out of inner cities into benefit ghettos on the fringes of our large cities. Let’s ask Boris, shall we? What do you think Boris?

A Tory legacy for our unborn children

From the microcosm of Kentish Town, as I attempt to make sense of the enormity of the global financial mess we are in, I find myself putting things into perspective.

The Tory led coalition Government came in with bells and whistles promising to cut the deficit. Instead we have been landed with a choked economy the result of which has been an escalating benefits bill to record levels. Interest alone has gone up under the watch of this Government from £27.2bn to £42.9bn. To put this into perspective just the increase in interest payments on the debt this year alone comes to £257 for every man, woman, and child in this country. Given this spectacular failure to deliver on their promise I am forced to ask why we should trust this Government when they ask our public sector workers to pay more, work longer, and receive less when they retire. Or for that matter, why are they asking carers to take more of the burden for caring for their loved ones. These are only a few questions which will not cover the whole spectrum of the sacrifices which depicts the one-sided unfair burden the working poor are being asked to shoulder for the whole nation.

The hypocrisy becomes even starker when we discover that Vodafone – ranked 99^th in the world and sixth in the UK with a £46.8bn turnover, gets away with paying £6bn less tax in a deal with HMRC – a reduction from £7bn to £1bn, all because this UK giant channeled its business through an offshore subsidiary company in Luxemburg to avoid paying UK taxes where profits are taxed at less than 1% (source: Wikipedia). This makes me reinforce my question; if we are not “in this together”, why should just one section of society go through the pain of the sacrifices demanded by this Government?

Under the watch of Tories we ran a national budget which did not balance resulting in a deficit of £167.9bn – that’s £2,752 for every man woman and child in this country last year alone. Choking the working poor to catch up with the deficit is immoral and a blatantly obvious impossibility. It attacks the social fabric of our communities, results in businesses contracting and pushes up unemployment. We need to shift investment from spending our taxes on funding the unemployment benefits bill, to one which invests in stimulating growth and increases productivity.

We are relying on just a handful of top UK companies to deliver the growth needed. Many of our key players are fundamentally in the finance sector where greed is the dominant factor and we must not lose sight of the fact that some of our banks are owned or part owned by tax payers any way. With most of our eggs in one basket, we cannot afford to carry on printing money to balance the books by inventing gilts out of thin air which this mandate deficient government seems to be endorsing. And we cannot demand that this burden is shouldered by one section in our society alone. The forgiven £6bn Vodafone tax bill is 375 times what Camden Council has had to cut from its Adult Social Care budget which on its own stands at a towering £17m representing the largest share of departmental cuts in Camden directly impacting on frontline care services.

We need to adopt tougher anti-avoidance tax laws, and we need to start from a point which admits that this and the financial crisis is a global problem which requires global solutions. We need a government brave enough to commence a worldwide collaboration process creating a level playing field in global economics, which would give us those high ranking companies we so desperately need here in Britain producing affordable goods, providing viable services and employing thousands. This would increase the nation’s tax intake and plug the deficit and then we can start paying off the nation’s trillion pound debt and invest in our communities thus help reconstruct our social safety nets.

Tories are hell-bent on an ideological trajectory which will bleed the economy and this nation’s people dry, which is destined to push this country into an abyss of haves and have-nots, and a depression so deep that it will take decades to recover from. This is the ideological legacy Tories are handing over to our unborn children.

Who will accept the challenge?

As Camden Council begins to toy with the idea, today’s Affordable Rent proposal gives social housing providers – including local authorities, the discretion to charge up to 80% market rents as a precondition for all future government grants to build new social homes. This forces the question, ‘what is social housing, and is it affordable?’

The scheme was supposed to work on different tiers: existing social housing tenants – largely unaffected, and new tenants paying the higher rents. This is not how it has worked out in practice so far and has serious implications for all social housing tenants.

According to research carried out by East Thames housing group, rather than offering tenants more flexibility and a greater chance of lifting themselves out of social housing, the Affordable Rent policy could lead to greater dependency on housing benefit.

The study found that in Newham – one ofLondon’s poorest boroughs, families would need a combined income of £43,384 to escape the housing benefit trap. All sample households studied, with the limited exception of those with a median income level and two full-time working adults, would require housing benefit to afford a three-bedroom property. Rents could increase by as much as £233 a week for social tenants in the most desirable streets of the borough.

The higher end of middle income earners will be the ones who can possibly afford to pay these rents. But they will do so at the expense of the low income earners further forcing them to move out and concentrate in areas of high deprivation. This in turn may mean they will not be able to afford to pay the high costs in commuting to their work places. This will lead to job losses further exacerbating dependency on benefits in deprived areas, at the same time leaving affluent parts of our towns and cities without the core work skills.

This policy is ideological in nature, conceived by a Right wing government who aspires to see the cleansing of the poor out of the more affluent parts of our cities, driving a deliberate policy of concentrating dysfunctional families in council estates to create a medium – a justification if you like, in order to privatise council housing. On the one hand it proposes to increase social rents; on the other hand it caps housing benefits, creating a contradiction by nature. It pretends to lift the poor out of deprivation and smacks in the face of diversity and community cohesion, and will further exacerbate the divide between the haves and the have-nots in to geographically defined areas. It is nothing less than a con.

This crisis will not be resolved through ideology. For as long as ‘housing’ is considered to be contributing to the nation’s asset-wealth instead of providing ‘affordable homes’ for the many who need or want one – regardless of their social need or background, there will be no solution in sight.

Resolving this problem requires a brave government who would be prepared to drive down artificially high market rents by increasing social housing stocks to sufficient levels in high demand areas at the same time pealing this asset from the nation’s balance sheet. This seems unattainable at first glance but through self financing regeneration schemes and a combination of government grants obtained from council housing revenue receipts it is possible.

On paper the nation may well appear poorer if this were to happen, but that would be mitigated many times over through a housing benefit bill which would come down drastically to realistic levels. It would be mitigated when people who are currently in ‘artificial’ benefit traps, would be incentivised to work because a larger portion of their income would be retained instead of it being spent on extortionately high rents. That would boost productivity and contribute to the nation’s wealth.

A brave government indeed! The question is, who will accept the challenge!

Fair penalties for all – not just council tenants !

Riots are the convenient excuse for the Right to stigmatise single mums for opportunistic and sensational headline gains. The Prime Minister, senior politicians and the media have a social responsibility to refrain from stoking unfounded myth leading to hyperbole. The vitriol displayed on electronic media comments to stories covering single mums living in £1million council homes is a convenient but dangerous outlet to vent our anger on. To depict all single mums as lazy baby machines from different fathers who do not have a right to a council home is just like being on la-la-land. Most single mums I have come across have lost their partners in tragic circumstances and find themselves in situations whichfrankly most men would run away from.

The reality is that the council housing allocation system is based on government legislation which places a responsibility on councils for housing people on the housing register and sets criteria for prioritising the most vulnerable.Camdenis no different then any other local authority and is merely tasked to implement a system based on government legislation. The new Localism Bill will give us an opportunity to review our allocations system. We shall use this opportunity to consult all affected stakeholders and tenants in the next few months and come up with a ‘Camden Labour’ led proposal.

Camden Labour has also been the pioneers of the use of ASBOs over the last 10 years, and will not flinch from taking robust action on all forms of anti-social and criminal behaviour. However, we shall not be forced into knee-jerk policymaking that could potentially exacerbate any underlying problems our neighbourhoods face.

Eviction is a draconian and drastic measure and one which the council uses when it has exhausted all other punitive steps available to us.  Each year we evict 2 or 3 households involved in persistent harassment or disorder. If our tenants, leaseholders or members of their households engage in anti-social behaviour we already consider using a wide range of sanctions that we feel are both proportionate and effective to tackle these issues.

Knee-jerk responses sound tough but we all know they are not a long-term solution to most cases. We also don’t feel that setting up a two tier system of punishment between council tenants and non-council tenants is fair. Why should there be an extra penalty just because someone is a council tenant as opposed to living in private rented accommodation or a home-owner?

More Cameron attacks on council tenants

Calls for rioters and their families to be evicted from council homes suggests a blanket policy. Under existing tenancy agreements, there are clear guidelines which lay out unacceptable conduct by tenants including anti-social behaviour by minors which could potentially lead to a whole family’s eviction, but all under a due process. Why are the Conservatives attacking council tenants when the facts show the underlying problem is much wider? Their approach is ill-advised headline grabbing that could badly backfire.

See Standard article and vitriolic comments: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23979746-mother-refuses-to-take-riot-suspect-son-back-over-fear-of-losing-home.do 

 

The other side of the same coin #2

What is it that drives a person to criminal action? What is it that tips-over a young mind to say “it’s ok to steal from my own community; it’s ok to smash my neighbours’ shop windows and burn them to the ground”? What is the perception of this person’s sense of ‘right and wrong’ – indeed why have these concepts become so grey for them?

We are right to ask these questions of course. But let’s wind the clock back. In the time it has taken this very generation of young people to abandon our sense of morality of right and wrong, what were the questions that we should have been asking but have failed to ask?

Why have we not challenged the muggings at bus stops when teenagers were attacked for their mobiles? Why have we given up on reporting ‘low-level’ crimes to the police? Why have we allowed Murdoch gain a monopoly over our media? Why have we not challenged authorities who issued the pill to under age girls behind their patents’ backs – on the one hand we disempower, and on the other we criticise? Why have we allowed a senior police officer get away with a simple resignation when he was apparently fraternising with the very people his officers were investigating for serious despicable telephone hacking crimes? Accepting for just a millisecond that the banks are the devil we need in this relationship, why have we allowed them to play monopoly with our money? When our taxes rescued the banks why have we allowed them to pay their executives huge bonuses? Why are we allowing utility companies to increase their charges by such a disproportionate margin? Why are we allowing the elderly to have to make a choice between food and heat when the utility companies are making such huge profits? Why have we allowed the concentration of dysfunctional families to be housed in council estates? Why do we continue to pretend our ‘equal opportunity’ laws are working? Why are we allowing MPs who made immoral (if not illegal) expenses claims seemingly get away with a slap on the wrist? Why are we devoted to a culture of consumerism putting brand-names above of moral values? How many of us knew that prior to the riots, there had been 17 murders committed this year alone – young people killing young people, often gangs on gangs? Until two weeks ago, why was it politically incorrect to use the word ‘gang’?   

David Cameron speaks of a sick society, and as the cuts begin to bite there will be other opportunities for political point scoring; but for once I have to agree with him. I for one am ashamed that I have allowed all these things to happen. As a society unless we are all prepared to ask these difficult questions, we cannot even begin to heal the underlying sickness the Prime Minister speaks of. But his solution will only brush the real problem under the carpet!

I am in no way saying two wrongs make a right – wrong is wrong. The reality though is that our generation of young people have grown up watching us fail to ask these questions let alone answer them. We are their role models, and despite this failure most young people have managed to rise above all this ‘injustice’ – as they must surely see it. Some though have not, and it is only right that the full force of the law deals with them. But dealing with just one wrong – any wrong, on a pile of wrongs, will only postpone the inevitable. Frustrations will boil over, and in not a distant future we would find ourselves asking the same questions again.

The other side of the same coin !

This is a YouTube video of a BBC interview. As I write this blog this clip has clocked up just over 3millon views in as many days. Is this the other side of the same coin?

 

Surely to resolve a ‘problem’ we must first understand it. But how can we understand the problem if we cannot even bring ourselves to ask the difficult questions which for so long we have been brushing under the carpet. I agree that we must not tolerate violent and criminal gangs to exist which are peppered around within our cities. But don’t we all have a responsibility to at least ask the question; “why have we avoided from addressing this concern before now ….  “why have we allowed ourselves to understand why these gangs have come about?

Isn’t this a collective responsibility – governments, politicians, the media, the police, society, communities, people, parents, teachers, individuals….?

Note we were out in ordinary uniform, not full riot kit, ‘cos as SNT chaps, we don’t do that.

This is an email I received from our Safer Neighbourhoods Sergeant. He ends by saying “ Note we were out in ordinary uniform, not full riot kit, ‘cos as SNT chaps, we don’t do that.” I will leave you with the mooving accounts of Sgt Pete Ryan.”

Yes, there was a concerted attack on our SNT base at 0145hrs last night by a 200 strong group of yobs that had barricaded the street with barriers, planks, bin bags and recycling bins.

By pure chance I came across it backed by two riot carriers and chased them off.

Our windows went in by the door but our security shutters saved us. I have no doubt that given a little more time they’d have set fire to the building. The kids doing this last night were from local gangs and estates in the main, though hooded to prevent us IDing them.

My hero of the day was the bar manager from the Quinns pub, who, amidst hooded youths around him, was on his own clearing up the road with a broom, stating that “this rubbish shouldn’t win” – referring to the yobs, not the litter strewn road. So across Highgate, Cantelowes and Kentish Town, we’ll take Vince’s inspiration and patrol as usual, looking out to keep the streets clean and searching for stashed or improvised weapons on the estates.

Evans Cycles, Chalk Farm wasn’t fully shuttered so was looted as we were outnumbered when Dave Gibson and I and two others got there first. We were pretty stretched across Camden until about 2am.

Simpson Cycles and Chamberlains Cycles were shuttered and in fact all shuttered businesses resisted the not-so-sophisticated gangs. These yobs aren’t very brave individually and work in packs.

The SNTs of Cantelowes, Highgate and Kentish Town are working 12pm-midnight for the next three days, our rest days have also been cancelled until the 16th August so far.

I am most put out that these fools have effectively cancelled football matches in London as there are no police available for duty for those matches.

Supporting my personal views about recent Camden youth violence being drug violence, is that the majority of prisoners arrested last night for burglary, looting and disorder tested positive for Class A drugs. Almost entirely, in fact. So Camden Police have decided to use our post arrest drug testing powers on ALL people arrested during the days of disorder. The rest of the Met are following suit thinking that is a good idea.

This information can be shared, it is fact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxwHWjG-l8Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I feature in this footage, as we repelled a hostile, missile throwing mob at Harmood Street j/w Chalk Farm Road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIH1vpVxLSY

This clip precedes it. Dave and I are there after about a minute or so. I’m the one shouting, making decisions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGeyzEh12pc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This shows the same footage after 2m30secs of me, but shows some of the provocation that followed us about last night. Harder to deal with than pure aggression.

The people videoing had been gesturing and taunting before we cleared that junction to get a reaction, getting in between us and the very large mob, advancing on us and Evans Cycles, throwing missiles.

Note we were out in ordinary uniform, not full riot kit, ‘cos as SNT chaps, we don’t do that.

 

This is not frustration boiling over – it is mindless destruction

Feral youths; criminal thugs; a British made problem; mindless destruction; betrayed generations – just some of the quotes from BBC 1 – lunchtime today. The debate just goes on.

What drives a young person to mindless destruction of personal property? Do they understand the difference between right and wrong – do they care? Why not? Indeed; do they value life itself – weather it’s their own or that of their nemesis?

Of course, these questions are in no way intended to detract from the need to address the immediate criminality. But I keep re-running in my mind something my son told me at 2am last night as we watched around 60 hooded and scarf-wrapped youths being chased up Kentish Town Road by riot police from our second floor living room window. He said “It makes me sad when I compare a Libyan youth rioting in the streets of Tripoli defending his right to freedom from repression by his own leader, and a British youth in the streets of London defending his right to take a plasma television without having to work for it.”

I like to think of myself as an interwoven part in the fabric of my community. It has taken me the best part of 25 years to get to this stage. And still, even now I am struggling to see what society owes these youths. How have we betrayed them? Who is to blame for families becoming dysfunctional?

We have built community centres. We have provided youth facilities. We have employed youth workers. The ones who were interested have engaged with us. They have made and are making the crossing into productive citizens.

However I fear that the ones rioting last night are the minority who simply refuse to accept that wrong is wrong. I only thank the Camden police for their bravery and restraint under impossible conditions, often putting their own safety in jeopardy to protect people and property – it could have been far worse. Last night’s riots were not a statement against the police, nor were they the result of this Government’s cuts for they have yet to bite. And when they do, I fear we shall need our police more than ever.

Therefore, my message to our Government is that now is not the time to cut our frontline police men and women. We should value and respect them and what they do for society.

More choice and competition – a fallacy according to health research

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley is on record saying “the NHS needs competition and choice to become more efficient”.

According to a research published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, compared with top 19 western countries, the NHS is one of the most cost-effective health systems in the developed world.

Researchers say “The results question why we need a big set of health reform proposals … The system works well. Look at the US and you can see where choice and competition gets you. Pretty dismal results.”

• UK saved more lives
• UK cheaper than Germany, USA, Canada, Switzerland, France, ….
• UK– spends less than average of 19 western countries

The report concludes that in cost-effective terms, i.e. economic input versus clinical output, theUSAhealthcare system was one of the least cost-effective in reducing mortality rates whereas theUKwas one of the most cost effective over the period.

Where does this leave Andrew Lansley and his claims that the NHS needs competition to become efficient? If competition was a key requisite why is the nation best at having competition, ranked worst at its healthcare?

Researchers say it’s not broke – why fix it?