IDS on 'Right to Buy ghettoisation'

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

This timely gem came to me just now by way of a keyword search of the Community Care online magazine website:

Iain Duncan Smith admits ghettoisation under Tory housing policy(1)

By Mike McNabb on 25 March , 2009 in Uncategorised

Conservative MPs are famous for having their epiphany moments: Michael Portillo’s (3) face at his constituency’s general election count in 1997 signified his; former party leader William Hague, who fought the 2001 general election as the scourge of asylum seekers, now deputises for David ”hoodie hugger” Cameron; and then there is Iain Duncan Smith.

Smith has now admitted that ”right-to-buy”, the keystone of housing policy of the Thatcher/Major years, was perhaps not such a good idea after all.(4)

For a Tory, Smith has been taking an unnatural interest in social justice recently through the medium of his think tank.(5) But his comment that the right-to-buy scheme has ghettoised those who could not afford to take up the kind offer is revealing. It would have been easier to direct his barbs at a Britain ”broken” by Labour.

He says of the Thatcher administration’s right-to-buy policy: ”We didn’t have any real sense of where this might go and what needed to happen. Big social reforms should have taken place then, and they never did. While the economy was moving on, society was not. Swathes of the population got left behind.”

Moreover, Smith’s coments were made to the Fabian Society,(6) not known for its espousal of all things Tory.

The question must be asked: where is Smith heading? It couldn’t surely be a case of ”by the left, quick march!” Could it?

That keyword search included the search term mcnabb. Mike McNabb wrote the Community Care 'Social Policy' blog until his services were dispensed with by Community Care in 2011. Given his output on such matters as CareUK, I would not be in the least bit surprised if Mike McNabb's services were disposed of on account of advertisers' pressures.(7)

How times have changed for this 2015 UK General Election Conservative Party Manifesto! (8)

See also Bob Holman's blog piece: Poor must meet Gordon.(9)

Notes

(1) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2009/03/iain-duncan-smith-admits-ghett/

(2) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/MikeMcNabb/

(3) Michael Portillo links has fallen to 'page rot' that happens over the years

(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/duncan-smith-attacks-key-thatcherite-policy-1651728.html

(5) http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/

(6) Fabian Society link has fallen to 'page rot' that happens over the years

(7)  CareUK mcnabb link: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/search-results/?q=right%20to%20buy%20mcnabb

(8) http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/right-to-buy-extension-david-cameron-is.html

(9) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2008/02/poor-must-meet-gordon/

Careworker's and service users' lives made even less happy by Care UK

By Kate Belgrave

Doncaster careworker: I had to leave my flat because #CareUK wage cuts made paying rent impossible

 Have more to add to this, but here’s a short post for those who are wondering why it is becoming impossible to make a living at carework:

Today, I spoke with Doncaster careworkers, including Mags Dalton, 44, who were protesting outside Bridgepoint Capital about charming private firm Care UK’s massive cuts to Doncaster careworkers’ wages. The careworkers work with people who have learning difficulties. Bridgepoint is the private equity company that owns Care UK – Mags’ employer.
Mags has lost about £400 a month as a result of those wages cuts and has been on strike for days this year in protest. Now, she’s had to give up her flat because she couldn’t afford the rent any more. She will move back to Newcastle to live with her parents. She will start another job and try to save up to move into another flat of her own at some point.

Mags is one of a number of Doncaster careworkers who have (and are as we speak) taken lengthy strike action in protest at the pay cuts of up to 35% being forced through by Care UK. Careworkers were transferred from the NHS to Care UK when the service was recently outsourced.

True to private sector form, Care UK quickly turned its attention to careworkers’ wages and conditions – wages and conditions which were hardly generous in the first place....

Continue reading on Kate's blog

Swheatie of the KUWG and Social Work Action Network London adds

See also these Community Care magazine blog pieces that have been more easily  accessed via a 'site' search of the Community Care website than by way of a Google search launched on the Community Care website! I suppose that potential loss of advertising revenue from Care UK may have been one of the factors that led Community Care to abandon the Outside Left blog that was excellently written by Mike McNabb.

1. A nice little earner for Care UK chairman | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2010/03/...   Cached

   Those familiar with the line “because he’s worth it”will be interested in the windfall that is about to blow into the lap of Care UKchairman John Nash. Nash, as ...

2. Even Panorama cannot hold back Care UK | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2009/11/...   Cached

   In April, Care UK was the subject of an investigation into domiciliary care for BBC One’s Panorama, which pointed out that the plc’s operations in Hertfordshire ...

3. Domiciliary care | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/...   Cached

   Private provider Care UK may have been celebrating its rise in profits three weeks ago but this week marks the end of yet another contract, this time in Islington.

4. domiciliary care | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/...   Cached

   Outside Left Weighing into the social policy debate. ... Even Panorama cannot hold back Care UK. By Mike McNabb on 19 November , 2009 in Domiciliary care, Older people.

5. Care UK loses another contract after complaints | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/.../care-uk-loses-another-contract   Cached

   Private provider Care UK may have been celebrating its rise in profits three weeks ago but this week marks the end of yet another contract, this time in Islington ...

6. Remove care home bedrails at your peril | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2010/05/...   Cached

   Outside Left Weighing into the social policy debate. Remove care home bedrails at your peril. By Mike McNabb on 11 May , 2010 in Adult care, Adults, ...

7. Those CQC ratings are less than adequate | Outside Left

   www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2009/12/...   Cached

   Outside Left Weighing into the social policy debate. Those CQC ratings are less than adequate. By Mike McNabb on 9 December , 2009 in Care Quality Commission, Local ..

Kate Belgrave: Talking with people dealing with public sector cuts AND highlighting the importance of integrity in public life

By Swheatie of the KUWG

These days as KUWG's friend Kate Belgrave highlights in her interviews taken outside jobcentres, jobcentres are more geared to torturing vulnerable people economically in the name of 'promoting personal responsibility' than they are into 'the help you need when you need it'. Link to Kate's latest blog piece on her fieldwork outside Kilburn Jobcentre. Such blog pieces so far rely exclusively on transcripts of interviews rather than video-footage.

Kate also does a lot of blogging about the plight of homeless single mums in LB Newham that do incorporate video camera work. Newham's policy is not to help economically vulnerable people find waged work — no way! Rather than Newham's policy being anything like 'nice work if you can get it', Newham's policy equates to 'hope of housing if you can get the work, and sod off if you can't'. Kate's latest blog piece juxtaposes video-footage of Newham Mayor Robin Wales facing the Focus E15 Mums of Stratford and Kate Belgrave herself, with video-footage of mould growing in rented, Housing Benefit-subsidised accommodation that is not desirable for growing human minds. Link to blog piece: Children in mouldy, decaying houses, councillors at property investor fairs in Cannes …

That blog piece incorporates links to information about a property-developers' fair in Cannes that was attended by Newham Mayor Robin Wales. Wales is quoted as telling the Guardian regarding the expense of Newham being represented in Cannes: 

“It's all paid for by our development partners.” 

I find that extremely worrying as Kate Belgrave does when she calls for “absolute transparency on all of this — who met with who, when, why, what was discussed, who willbe 'investing' in what and what sort of money will move between whichorganisations and people and why — and how the people who turnedout to [a 'Meet the Mayor of Newham' event] to try and get theirhousing problems solved will benefit.”

This is all at a time when there is a controversial matter called the 'Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership' being discussed in the European Parliament that is alternatively known as TAFTA [TransAtlantic Free Trade Agreement] in the USA. That potential dodgydeal would allow global corporations such as those intending to profit from wining and dining elected representatives of UK democracies, to sue UK democracies should, say, the electorate vote in a party that does not go in for dodgy deals that would result in a sell-off to global billionaires and tax-dodging corporations. The potential beneficiaries of TTIP already act as latter day colonial rulers, never bothering to look at the mould and mice droppings that people in their 'colonies' have to face on a daily basis.

In closing, I note that the property-developers' fair in Cannes that Robin Wales attended is now an annual event that is organised by Reed MIDEM — A member of Reed Exhibitions'. 

Ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, Reed also owns the social work 'trade magazine' Community Care. Former Community Care blogger Mike McNabb's 'Outside Left: Weighing into the social policy debate' blog series contains a very revealing blog piece that pre-dates benefit caps and all the woes to poor families emanating from the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Link tot blog piece: Asylum seekers' £2m home: but who's playing the system? Since that blog piece was written, Mike McNabb lost his blogging station at Community Care. Link to his 'Outside Left' swansong piece, The last post: Thank you and goodbye from Outside Left. Now that Mike McNabb can no longer embarrass customers of a Reed-promoted property-developers' fair while drawing a Reed calary cheque, it's great that Kate Belgrave can help highlight the importance of integrity in public affairs.

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's over-riding motto is 'Never attend anywhere official alone'. With the aid of Kate Belgrave's video-capture and interview transcripts, more and more people can serve as witnesses to the hardships and official indifference faced by the Focus E15 single mums of Newham even while the integrity of Community Care magazine as social work's 'trade magazine' is brought into question by association of parent company with arms fairs and property-development exhibitions.