Tues 24 Oct 2017 KUWG Public Meeting against local jobcentre closures

Agenda for KUWG Public Meeting Against Jobcentre Closures,
Tuesday 24/10/17 6.30pm-8.30pm Kingsgate  Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Road, NW6 2JH

How to get there

6:15pm: Room set up and grabbing a seat!

6:30pm-to-8:15pm: Meeting

8:15pm-8:30pm: Room clearance

Chairperson: A KUWG member who uses Neasden Jobcentre

Speakers

• Giselle as KUWG and Chair of Unite Community Brent, with the aid of a big map, highlighting how people especially with walking problems will be seriously affected, and thus more easily sanctioned
• John Kilvington from Somali Cultural Centre, on the absurd cases he has had and how it obviously will make people with language and cultural issues prone to misunderstand and get sanctioned. 
• Winvisible [Women with Visible and Invisible Disabitlities] to confirm our experiences and offer their campaigning skills.
• Pete Firmin as Chair of Brent Trades Council will speak about how workers could be affected, and mention how other closures of public buildings impact the community.
• Tulip Siddiq MP has sent message of support. 
• MP Dawn Butler has been asked to come or send message of support. 
• Siân Berry Green Party Member of the London Assembly has sent her apologies. 
• Brent Green Party member Peter Murry will speak from a Green Party Trade Union Group perspective
• Green Party Member Alan Wheatley has sent KWUG placards as room decorations, while he cannot attend in person
• Councillor Shama Tatler (Brent Council) who wrote to DWP about proposed closures has been requested to attend.
• PCS [jobcentre workers union] speakers invited, but no response.

PS: WinVisible add:

Tues 24 Oct - WinVisible speaking at KUWG meeting vs Jobcentre closures

Tues 24 October 2017, 6.30-8.30pm

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group (KUWG) have invited us to speak at their:

 

Public meeting on the proposed Jobcentre closures of Kilburn & Neasden JCPs

the impact on claimants and what we can do

at Big Hall, KINGSGATE COMMUNITY CENTRE,

107 KINGSGATE ROAD, NW6 2JH

(wheelchair accessible)

Speakers include: Giselle Winston (“Benefit Tales” blogger, KUWG member); John Kilvington, welfare rights worker at Camden Somali Cultural Centre.

We’ll be speaking about how the closures will affect people, and what we’ve been doing, including pressing the exemptions from ESA/PIP exams, and about the latest benefit concessions won by public pressure.

(See our blog for self-help info, search “exemption”.) 

In March, we attended the PCS (DWP staff union) meeting in Parliament against Jobcentre closures.

Come along if you can!

Tuesday 24 October update: Cllr Sham Tatler writes:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately I cannot attend due to a prior engagement.

I too share your concerns over the closures and the impact they will have on vulnerable residents, particularly as they are in areas in most need.

I had written to the previous minister, and am currently engaging with the DWP over the closures. I have asked to see their equality impact assessment as I am not certain they have taken into account the difficulties our residents will face. I have told them, that we do not understand the rationale for the decisions and am seeking assurances on making sure our residents are protected and not under-served.

I will be continuing to raise the issue and happy to engage with you.

Kind regards

Cllr Shama Tatler

Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Growth, Employment and Skills

Labour Councillor fo Fryent Ward

London Borough of Brent

Information, advice and guidance workshop for UK resident EU nationals at Swiss Cottage Library, Fri 12 May, 1:30pm to 3:30pm

The following appeared first in last Thursday's Camden New Journal print edition as a reader's letter.

Residents face uncertainty – there’s a workshop for EU nationals on May 12

04 May, 2017

• I AM deeply concerned by the uncertainty facing local residents following the vote to leave the European Union.

This uncertainty is a real issue for people making employment, housing, and family decisions for the years ahead. The Conservatives’ refusal to guarantee their right to remain, as Labour proposed, insults their profound contribution to life in the UK and was an entirely avoidable decision.


I will therefore be running a workshop for EU nationals who are anxious over their future residential status. The event will enable residents better to understand their rights and the possible options available to them, as they attempt to secure permanent residency in the UK.

The meeting will be on Friday May 12 at Swiss Cottage Library [88 Avenue Road, NW3 3HA] and people are free to drop in at any time between 1.30pm and 3.30pm. I look forward to welcoming all those unsure of their futures in the UK to this important workshop.

[Location map and how to get there]

TULIP SIDDIQ
Labour candidate,
Hampstead & Kilburn

Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq stands with Kwuggies against government-driven-suicides

Tulip Siddiq joined Kwuggies outside Kilburn Jobcentre on Monday 3 April 2017, on our demo against austerity-driven suicides.
Tulip outlined her voting record against nasty right wing 'welfare reforms' that are driving more and more people to suicide.

Discussion and explaining around the role call of austerity-related suicides



More at

Kilburn Job Centre protest 3/4/17 ' Demonstrate and Commemorate'

What the Welfare Reform & Work Act has in store for us — and the BBC rarely, if ever, mentions

Voting on the then Welfare Reform & Work Bill — now an Act of Parliament — occurred on Monday 20 July 2015, almost exactly a year ago today. As previously stated on this blog, a majority of Labour MPs abstained while 48 Labour MPs including Hampstead & Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq and Brent Central MP Dawn Butler defied the Labour Whip to vote against that legislation.(1)

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas outlined her opposition to that legislation, saying that that legislation was aimed at "dismantling" the welfare state. She said that George Osborne was 'playing politics with poverty', and said that the legislation would "lock in child poverty' and 'leave ministers significantly less accountable for their policies."(2) The diminished 'accountability' is linked to use of 'statutory instruments', by which new measures can be brought through without an obligation for them to be debated in Parliament.(3)

Link addresses

1. http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/brent-labour-mps-2-1-against-welfare.html
2. https://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/the-welfare-bill-caroline-stands-against-dismantling-of-the-welfare-state
3. https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A9mSs2uKN4ZXqaEABA5LBQx.;_ylc=X1MDMjExNDcxNzAwMwRfcgMyBGZyA3lmcC10LTQyMy1zBGdwcmlkA2l2MXY5b2dxUU9DSjJseXF6MGY5N0EEbl9yc2x0AzAEbl9zdWdnAzAEb3JpZ2luA3VrLnNlYXJjaC55YWhvby5jb20EcG9zAzAEcHFzdHIDBHBxc3RybAMEcXN0cmwDMTE5BHF1ZXJ5AyUyMnN0YXR1dG9yeSUyMGluc3RydW1lbnRzJTIyJTIwd2VsZmFyZSUyMHJlZm9ybSUyMGFuZCUyMHdvcmslMjBiaWxsJTIwc2l0ZSUzQSUyMGh0dHAlM0ElMkYlMkZ3d3cuYmVuZWZpdHNhbmR3b3JrLmNvLnVrBHRfc3RtcAMxNDY4NDEzOTk1?p="statutory+instruments"+welfare+reform+and+work+bill+site%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.benefitsandwork.co.uk&fr2=sb-top-uk.search&fr=yfp-t-423-s

GE2015: Hampstead & Kilburn constituency result

Uploaded by Dude Swheatie of Kwug with the help of Camden New Journal and the BBC

08/05 05:22  RESULT: Labour's Tulip Siddiq is the new MP for Hampstead and Kilburn

Tulip Siddiq, Labour, 23,977.
Simon Marcus, Conservative, 22,839.
Maajid Nawaz, Lib Dems, 3,039.
Rebecca Johnson, Green, 2,387.
Magnus Nielsen, UKIP, 1,532.
The Eurovisionary Carroll, Independent, 113.
Robin Ellison, The U(niversal) Party, 77.

— http://www.camdennewjournal.com/liveblog (1)

Pie chart by Dude Swheatie and Lotus 123 shows percentage shares of result.

Dude Swheatie's analysis

Tulip Siddiq's polling shows an Labour majority. Nationwide Labour did very poorly by contrast in terms of numbers of seats won. That largely demonstrates that local Labour activists who could be seen going to and from Labour campaign HQ on the Kilburn High Road were successful in trumping the combined impact of opinion polls and fallout from the failings of 'austerity-lite' and local Labour councils in LB Brent and LB Camden.

It also perhaps demonstrates that Tulip Siddiq was much more electable than London SE3 resident Glenda 'What Do You Expect Me to Do About It?' Jackson who only achieved a majority of 42 at the 2010 General Election.

KUWG activists were among Tulip Siddiq's supporters. My own favourite was Rebecca Johnson who proved an excellent candidate, performing well at hustings and reportedly being excellent at engaging with the public on the street. My contacts with Green Party activists in Camden and Brent, though based on limited sampling, showed much greater interest and support for Rebecca's campaign on the Brent side than the Kilburn side. Like those who 'held their noses' to vote Labour' the one Camden Green Party member I spoke to about Rebecca's campaign was concerned that Rebecca's campaign were worried about 'letting the Tories in'.

Rebecca and some Green Party inclusion in initial televised 'leaders' debates' served to increase the Green Party's 'market share' of the vote by 3% from the 2010 General Election. (2)

This should help the Green Party in the 2016 London Assembly Elections that have a number of Assembly Members elected by Proportional Representation. The Green Party currently has two Assembly Members in London, Darren Johnson and Dame Jenny Jones, who will be standing down from the London Assembly at the next elections for the Greater London Authority.

Nationally, the Green Party of England & Wales achieved only the return of the one Green Party MP Caroline Lucas albeit with an enhanced majority.(3) Gifted and experienced public performer commendable Caroline Lucas had a great record in Parliament but also a strong focus of national activists' support.

In order to have a chance of getting one parliamentary seat in a 'first past the post system', the Green Party has targeted resources into a few constituencies. A vast proportional pooling of the Green Party of England & Wales' financial resources are required even to come 2nd in a parliamentary constituency, and with 'first past the post' even that does not 'hit the spot' into having an impact on Parliament this time around.

Note

(1) http://www.camdennewjournal.com/liveblog
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000727
(3)  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32633718

Tulip replies to challenge

The following content was sent by Hampstead & Kilburn Labour Parliamentary candidate Tulip Siddiq to the blogmeister's gmail inbox.

Thanks for your email. I have now read the blog [piece A challenge to Tulip Siddiq: stand up for claimants, not just the camera!].

A few points - 

When Boris Johnson walked past my office, I asked Boris Johnson what he was going to do about the No 13 Bus which he is planning to scrap. He refused to answer. It's a very important bus for elderly residents in this constituency and therefore, I felt the need to raise it. The CNJ reported that I asked that question in their coverage. 

Secondly, did you invite me to the protest on 7th April? Apologies if I missed it but I can't see an email about it. I would have attended if I had known about it. 

Thirdly, please can you let me know the name of the person who dropped into my office? I can look into their case. 

Lastly, there are plenty of Labour posters and garden stakes up in Brent. There's also a big poster in the window of the Good Ship on Kilburn High Road. And of course, that's the Brent side of Kilburn High Road. 

I'm happy to help constituents but of course, my power is somewhat limited as a candidate. If I am elected on 7th May, I will be in a stronger position to help people in the constituency.

Best wishes  

--

Tulip Siddiq

Parliamentary Candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn
The Labour Party

Email contacts are signed up for an e-newsletter, with the usual unsubscribe/reply features.

Whoever you choose, don't forget to vote on Thursday 7th May.

An Harlesden to Kilburn hustings report

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug(1)

Report on Harlesden to Kilburn Transition Town hustings

I felt it refreshing to act as 'fly on the wall' observer at an Hampstead & Kilburn constituency hustings outside my own geographic voting area. Tory and Ukip candidates did not turn up but I believe sent apologies to Queens Park for Harlesden to Kilburn Transition Town hustings on Thursday 16 April that was arranged very differently from whole panel conventional hustings. I thought it was perhaps a missed opportunity for those candidates who did not turn up and the audience alike;(2) but I know from a friend who is a parliamentary cnadidate in another constituency that 'the candidate trail' can be tiring and candidates can get ill.

Having three candidates instead of five made the event more streamlind and less gruelling for the audience than it might have been with five and the event had quite a high audience turnout despite the clash with the televised 'Leaders Debate' that excluded Conservative and Lib Dem party leaders.(3) Labour, Lib Dem and Green candidates had mini-meetings in a hall with rotating personalised audiences around them yet also a small time slot for whole hall addressing.

The mini-audiences lasting about 10 minutes consisted of candidate on seat on podium surrounded by semi-circle of about 20 packed audience seats plus standing audience members with a predominantly white and [probably] 6th Form audience from a school that had a hand in the organising and logistics facilitating in one of the most leafy areas of Hampstead & Kilburn constituency west of the Finchley Road or even the Kilburn High Road.

The min-sessions — incorporating candidate inputs from omnibus session that was about themselves and why they're standing for Hampstead & Kilburn constituency

Candidates chaired or facilitated their own mini-sessions.

Lib Dem candidate Maajid Nazaz (medium sized male) stood on podium looking down on his  audiences.

 Maajid Nawaz

• Outlined his history as prisoner of conscience in Egypt leading through his release and political assylum to his working with youth in Brent with mental health problems.
• Said that like most young people in the area he was forced to rent and would never be able to buy  when properties are priced at about £2m a house
• answered a few questions, saying that Lib Dems and Nic Clegg its leader had been mistaken in their promises regarding student tuition fees in 2010 when the best Lib Dems could have hoped for was coalition involvment anyway; 
• said that we have coalition government through interworking of polls anyway;
•  delighted in prospect of online voting and votes for 16 year olds; and the options he gave his audiences for voting excluded by omission the option of voting Green Party.

Labour candidate Tulip Siddiq (very small female) sat on podium looking down on audience

Tulip Siddiq

• Delighted in her long-term living in Kilburn and her Kilburn councillor past and human rights charity work while omitting mention of her privileged but tragedy-ridden background.(4)
• Said that a lot of "single mothers have jobs on the side" — or was it that that is a popular misconception; and 
• Responded to my 
• "'For a more sustainable future while youth unemployment, student debt and unpaid internships upon unpaid internships for 16-23' are more the norm than the exception, the Dept for Work & Pensions should focus on modelling compassionate support.' Discuss" question 
• by saying that the main problems are excessive sanctions and zero hours contracts, and Labour would abolish those.

Green Party candidate Rebecca Johnson (medium height) started with her chair on the podium but progressed to being seated off the podium, maybe even being sat on her haunces, looking up at her audience rather than down

Rebecca Johnson

• Told the audience that she had lived in Kilburn in the past and been one of the Greenham Common women of the 1980s whose campaign managed successfully to remove American Cruise missiles from our shores and thus she had an heritage of 'Talking Truth to Power'. Returning to London for waged work after full-time study, she had moved to Hackney but still delighted in her Kilburn past and really wanted to serve the people of Hampstead & Kilburn constituency. 
• Spent perhaps too long at first in her answer and voice projection to one question at one end of the semi-circle of chairs before getting more 'into the groove' of the 'speed dating' format of the event
• Celebrated the interplay between the Green Party of England & Wales' stance of supporting a 'Yes' vote in the Scottish independence referrendum, the politicisation of young people both sides of the England-Scotlan border, and the upsurge of Green Party membership that had resulted.
• Extolled Caroline Lucas' heritage as one pioneering Green Party MP building on common cause with members of other political parties in joint campaigns for the environment and human rights including rights of the most vulnerable in UK society.
• Answered the usual 'wasted vote in a 1st past the post' electoral system question by affirming that if people exercise too much compromise in voting for what they believe in, they will never get it.

There was more to this event than reported here, both in terms of the content up to my early departure and what I missed entirely. Returning home five overgound stations away on a cold evening for which I was under-dressed, I reflected on my observation that perhaps the greatest obstacle to Rebecca Johnson's electoral promotion by the Green Party via door-to-door leaflets is that 'first past the post' polling has led the Green Party of England & Wales to 'target to win' prioritising as a means of allocating its much more limited resources, and I believe that such events help further the electoral promotion of Green Party candidates. Bring them on!(5)

For a fuller list of candidates standing for Hampstead & Kilburn constituency and how to contact them, see Candidates (PPCs) for Hampstead & Kilburn.(6)

See also

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

http://www.votematch.org/

Questions for Readers

1. Apart from matters of 'personal branding style' and 'pedagogy', what impact might Rebecca Johnson's coming off the podium have had on accessibility at an event where there were other dialogues going on concurrently?
2. Might that 'unelevated seating position' have been rooted in her Greenham Common activist past?

Notes

(1) While the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is non-party political, the author 'declares an interest' in that he has been a Green Party member since autumn 2005 and a Green Party voter even longer, after having been a Labour Party member 1980-84, Ecology Party member 1984-86, and Lib Dem member 1996-98.
(2)  It had earlier been revealed by member Arotina to the KUWG meeting that afternoon that after attending hustings that included Ukip candidates she had been struck by how their panacea for "how we're going to pay for all their bright ideas" had been, "Once we leave the EU, we will have far more money to spare as a country." Yet her eventual research into how much the UK hands over to the EU and how much it gets back, that the UK gets far more from the EU than it spends on the EU.
(3)  You can view the Leaders Debate on BBC iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05r87pr/bbc-election-debate-2015
(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tulip-siddiq-the-north-london-labour-candidate-trying-to-improve-the-woeful-diversity-of-westminster-10157378.html
(5) Kilburn Unemployed site search for hustings
http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=hustings
(6) https://yournextmp.com/constituency/65576/hampstead-and-kilburn

A challenge to Tulip Siddiq — stand up for claimants, not just the camera!

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Tulip gatecrashes the Tory party. Photo: Camden New Journal

The Camden New Journal reports re the photo-opportunity vying of Tory Hampstead & Kilburn (H&K) parliamentary hopeful Simon Marcus accompanied by London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson, and Labour hopeful for the same parliamentary seat Tulip Siddiq near her constituency office in Kilburn High Road:

"As the Tory 'Blues' marched closer to this nerve centre, the Labour' Reds' radar bleeped and a defence system kicked in. Tulipistas were sent to cut the Mayor down, drawing their line in the pavement halfway down the road, outside the Classy Chicks clothes shop." (CNJ April 9, 2015)

Electioneering politicians seem to think it their democratic duty to stand up and be photographed in places of prominence. What about helping people who have been highjacked by the unfairness of the way that public servants seem to follow orders to "cut the welfare bill" etc? Is it dangerous for politicians to support benefit claimants? Do politicians fear the censure of a mistaken public opinion that has colluded with Benefit sanctions [as] Britain's secret penal system?

Some of our members had recently dropped into Tulip's office in getting from A to B and told her office of the situation of one of the people we support having had her benefits stopped for allegedly making herself 'unavailable for work' while the part-time course she's on is only 5 hours per week but cost her £4,000 to get onto. Down the road a bit from the Labour offices, Kilburn Jobcentre said that the person would have to give up her course in order to get her Jobseekers Allowance back. (While Parliament is dissolved, jobcentre customers have no MP, yet when Glenda Jackson was their MP many felt unrepresented all the same.)

On Tuesday April 7, 2015 we supported such sanctions fodder at Kilburn Jobcentre and commemorated the 3rd anniversary of the sanctions and eviction-related suicide of a former Kilburn Jobcentre customer from the South Kilburn Estate and were joined by members of one of the other parties contesting the H&K seat. link As we were packing up to leave the jobcentre for Ngell's former address, the police turned up, saying that jobcentre management had called on them because the noise of our megaphone was upsetting their customers and staff.

We would have loved to have been joined by some of Tulip's team if not Tulip herself yet understand that Labour's Work & Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves is an ex-banker who has said that Labour has nothing to offer people who are unemployed. But what does Tulip say?

Meanwhile it seems to me from walking down one of the Kilburn High Road side streets on the Brent side last night that no party's posters were displayed in the windows I saw. But I was not surprised.

It can take a lot of persuading to get a poster displayed in someone's window, and in the first place it can be difficult to persuade people to go out knocking on strangers doors along unfamiliar streets. Yet I have read by email that in at least one constituency the more televised parties have felt so threatened by the record of the MP standing for re-election that they have attempted to get residents to remove the posters for the person standing for re-election and have it replaced by one of their own.
 
I wonder whether those arrogant and apparently fearful persuaders were unpaid volunteers or paid employees of the party concerned?