High Noon at Highbury Magistrates Court on Thursday 13 July 2017! Show solidarity for civil disobedience vs fiscal policies bad for health

Guest blog post by Revd Paul Nicolson, founder of Taxpayers Against Poverty, writing in a personal capacity

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE in solidarity with everyone in UK suffering mental or physical ill-health due to inadequate incomes and debt 

I have been summoned to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court, 51 Holloway Road, London N7 8JA at 13.30 on Thursday 13th July.  There will be a demonstration outside the courts from 12-1.30. 

I am refusing to pay my council tax, as an act of civil disobedience, in solidarity with everyone in the UK suffering mental or physical ill-health due to grossly inadequate incomes and debt in work, self employment, unemployment  or zero hours contracts; particularly those who have been forced by national and local government to go to a food bank. 

​TWO UNPRECEDENTED RISES IN DEATH RATES.  

How many more infant deaths, how much more diminished life expectancy, do there have to be before UK national and local governments accept the overwhelming and undeniable evidence that low incomes impact on mental and physical health? Some 52,400 more deaths were reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to have occurred in the year to June 2015 as compared to the same period a year before,

​

Nine blogs on health equality 

Dr Angela Donkin Institute of Health Equity, Profs Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson Equality Trust, Maddy Power University of York, Carl Walker University of Brighton 

​​I will be asking the Highbury Corner Magistrates when and how they checked the costs of £115 they award this year against, mostly impoverished, council tax defaulters, 27,270 times in 2016/17.  ​

The bailiffs were dispatched by Haringey council to the doorsteps of Haringey residents 11,492 times in 2016/17​

There is a comprehensive description of how  £73.10 single adult unemployment benefit has been reducing in value since 1979 on the TAP website.  Its increases were frozen in 201I. It cannot afford 20% of the council tax, let alone court costs and bailiffs fees, introduced in 2013.  It also has to pay rent dues to the bedroom tax and the benefit cap.. 

OBJECTION TO HARINGEY'S COUNCIL'S  ACCOUNTS

I have raised an objection to Haringey Council's 2016/17 Accounts asking the auditors BDO, LLP 55 Baker Street, London W1U 7EU to audit the council tax costs awarded to Haringey Council by the Magistrates. 

​I have told the auditors that there is a profound public interest in the council and the magistrates ceasing to impose mental and physical ill health on the poorest ​Haringey ​tenants by enforcing an unpayable tax against grossly inadequate incomes adding court costs and bailiffs fees​, and failing to collect over £2million every year.  

Camden and Westminster Councils have already exempted benefit claimants from the tax. 

​Haringey's auditors BDO LLP  are authorised and regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales 

I have reminded the auditors that ​BDO LLP is authorised and regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales ("ICAEW") under registration number C001055835. .May I remind you of the ICEAW code of ethics. "ICAEW members are expected to demonstrate the highest standards of professional conduct and to take into consideration the public interest. Ethical behaviour plays a vital role in ensuring public trust in financial reporting and business practices and upholding the reputation of the accountancy profession".

HARINGEY COUNCIL TAXES BENEFIT INCOMES OF ITS 
POOREST RESIDENTS OF UK'S MOST DEPRIVED WARDS WITH 
LOW LIFE EXPECTANCY AND HIGH RISK OF LOW BIRTH-WEIGHT.

Ten blogs on affordable housing by 

Stephen Hill MRICS Churchill Fellow, Prof Danny Dorling University of Oxford, Fred Harrison Land Research Trust, Alison Gelder Housing Justice. 

Nine blogs on health equality 

Dr Angela Donkin Institute of Health Equity, Profs Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson Equality Trust, Maddy Power University of York, Carl Walker University of Brighton

Save Tavistock Place bike lanes! Consultation deadline ends Friday 21 October 2016

Guest blog post by Cllr Siân Berry of Camden Council's Green Party councillor for Highgate Ward

Save Tavistock Place bike lanes The Council began a 12 month trial of better bike lanes in December last year and it has been hugely successful. Doubling the space for people on bikes in Tavistock Place and Torrington Place has led to a 30% average increase in cycling at peak times, and air pollution has reduced in the area, dropping by up to 21%. The Council is now consulting on whether to make the change permanent, while also makeing the street better for walking too, with wider pavements. It takes just two minutes to do - simply choose YES for Q6 “Would you like the current street layout… to become permanent?” and NO for Q7 “Would you like the street to return to its pre-trial layout…?”. Tavistock Place consultation page - deadline: end of 21 October You don't have to live in Camden to fill this in - so please send this on to anyone you know who uses this street.

Taxpayers Against Poverty: The arithmetic of the powerful makes poor people ill

Guest blog post from Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

Dear all, 

I am glad my letter was publised by The Guardian on Tuesday morning. The photo was taken outside the DWP headquarters at Tothill Street, Westminster where UNITE Community had called a demonstration to remember those who has died after a benefit sanction.  They also published the link to Amelia Gentlemans's helpful article

I wrote and said the following prayer at the demo. The first paragraph of draws on the work of Psychologists Against Austerity. (https://psychagainstausterity.wordpress.com/) who have listened to sanctioned people and from my own work with people struggling with unmanageable debt imposed by the State.

It has been published by the Iona Community 

We remember all who have died while their income was sanctioned,

who were overcome by any feelings of humiliation or shame,

by fear or distrust, insecurity or loneliness;

or by a sense of being trapped and powerless​,

under the abuses of power by the State

in a time of austerity.

In a time of austerity we pray,

in solidarity with the 1000s of UK citizens currently suffering sanctions,

which are imposed with the maximum use of the media

to blame decent people for their own unemployment and poverty;

for the millions of UK citizens who are suffering under unmanageable debts

due to

​ 

high rents, the council tax, the caps and cuts in social security

​ 

imposed by Parliament, made worse by sanctions.

We pray too for those in power, and seeking power, that they may find; 

The courage to work for and implement social and economic justice, 

The will to build a well-being state on the ashes of the welfare state

​ ​

in which

rich and poor and Parliament are in solidarity with each other. 

The policies to ensure that no one will have to choose between

heating or eating,

the rent or the streets,

life or death

​,

due to the unjust enforcement of debts

against inadequate incomes,

or no incomes at all,

due to a sanction.

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen

from the Reverend Paul Nicolson

Taxpayers Against Poverty

No citizen without an affordable home and an 

adequate income in work or unemployment. 

93 Campbell Road, Tottenham, London N17 0BF, 0208 3765455, 07961 177889, 

https://www.facebook.com/Taxpayers-Against-Poverty-299911526728884/

https://twitter.com/taxpayers_a_p www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk, 

www.z2k.org, www.prohousingalliance.com

Reflections on prime ministerial legacy of David Cameron by KUWG singers, Revd Paul Nicolson and geographer Prof. Danny Dorling

Though this blog editor disapproves of the chorus for this song, I concur with the narrative record of the verses.


The song was recorded on youtube video before David Cameron stood down as Prime Minister, but is still very valid as a testimony to what he did as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Revd Paul Nicolson and Prof. Danny Dorling seem to confirm the chorus content if not the character references given in the chorus:

"Cameron’s record was on​e​ of ever declining well-being among the population and then increasing death rates.​

"Professor Danny Dorling  reveals evidence of rapid decline in health across the UK since 2010 and then rapid rises in overall death rates in 2015 (with small rises in 2013).

"None of this became clear until new data was released by ONS [Office for National Statistics] on June 23rd (the vote day)....."

Continue reading their findings at 

http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/camerons-record-was-one-of-ever-declining

There's a hole in your logic, Dear Government

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty reports that the Government response to his most recent letter avoids reference to key terms used in his letter to them. DWP brushes letter to PM about impact on health of cuts, caps and council tax under the carpet of Universal Credit(1)

Revd Paul Nicolson writes:

The words “health” or “debt” or “nutrition” or “rent” or “maternal” or “sanctions” do not appear even once in the DWP’s letter to me of the 17th June. It does not cite even one example of independent evidence about the impact on the health of the employed and the unemployed who engage with the current or future systems of social security.

Well, the Government won the General Election, didn't they; so why should they give any reasonable answers to valid concerns of people who really try to help the most vulnerable people in society, eh? It holds the BBC by the purse strings, anyway, and the unemployed are 'the enemy within', aren't we? And of course this is the Government that wants to scrap the Human Rights Act and abolish Freedom of Information requests.

So, yes! While David Cameron really is taking from the poor to pay the rich with the collusion of all those who voted his Government in and those who devised Labour's 'austerity-lite' manifesto, avoiding the real issues concerned is the best defence of a Government that lies through its teeth when it says that it is determined to protect the most vulnerable in society.

It really does seem as though they know as much about loove as rapists or masturbation addicts.(2) (3)

Notes

(1) http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/dwp-brushes-letter-to-pm-about-impact-on-health-of-cuts-caps-and-council-tax-under-the-carpet-of-universal-credit/

.(2) See also Expressions that defame us are too often parroted without examination

 http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/expressions-that-defame-us-are-too.html

(3) Benefits for people in work cost 6 times as much as for people out of work http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/benefits-for-people-in-work-cost-6x-as.html