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

Come, celebrate 5 years of Fuel Poverty Action! Thurs 3-11-16, 7pm onwards, in Brixton

Come and celebrate 5 years of Fuel Poverty Action

AGM Thursday 3 November

Brixton Pound Cafe, 77 Atlantic Rd, London SW9 8PU, Brixton tube

Please contact us re wheelchair access (it’s not great but is being worked on)

FPA was started in 2011. We've gone through a lot – and accomplished a lot – since then.  We have our eyes on the prize, and with our many allies we intend to make concrete gains this year.  We are welcoming new members, and people who want to work with us in other ways.

                                             

More than any other time in the past few years, fuel poverty and energy policy are in the headlines.

• Will Theresa May really bring the bills down as she’s promising?  What pressure are she and the companies under – and how can we increase it? 
• Would her plans dent the increase in deaths from fuel poverty due to government policy – on everything from benefits sanctions to housing?
• How can we support the fight against fracking?
• How can we expose the cost of Hinkley C as opposed to solar, wind and tidal power?
• Why are people in arrears being forced onto Prepayment Meters and then forced to pay more than their better off neighbours – even after the proposed “cap”?
• Why doesn’t London yet have a public energy company as Nottingham and Bristol do?
• District Heating – How can we make sure that those who run it are held to account so that it's win-win for the climate and communities and not a PFI disaster? 

What is Fuel Poverty Action doing about all this?  What is our role, in a landscape of charities and lobbying organisations?
How are grassroots communities organising for our energy rights?
What is being done in other countries?
How can we speak out and defend ourselves and our environment?

Come along and raise your own issues, find out what’s happening, and consider how you might be part of it.

7 pm  Business and elections
7.15  Reports, activities, discussion
8.30 Social

Lovely Brixton Pound café food will be available (for sale) 

before the meeting and for the social at the end.

RSVP – Thank you!

London renters survey by London Assembly Member Siân Berry

Guest blog post

Take part in my Big Renters Survey

My flat’s toilet is never properly fixed by my landlord and has just broken again. I’ve shelled out more than half my pay in rent and lived in six different houses and flats since I moved to London.

As a private renter, like 2.3 million other Londoners, I know that the insecurity, cost and lack of control over your living arrangements can take its toll.

When I launched my policy to support a London Renters Union during the campaign to be Mayor this year it was by far the most popular idea I have ever put forward.

Now, as a London Assembly Member I’m launching a major project to collect evidence, views and stories from renters on the crisis in London’s private renting market, and how a union could help individuals fight their corner and improve rights for renters across the city.

If you are – or have ever been – a private renter in London, please take three minutes to fill in my Big Renters Survey today.

Tell me about your repair nightmares, how you’ve been treated by landlords and letting agents, and how you think a renters union could help.

Share the survey with your friends and help me get the best evidence and the widest range of views to push the Mayor and the Government for better rights and better support for private renters like me.

START THE BIG RENTERS SURVEY

More of my work on renting in London:

• Success as Mayor agrees to look at real living rents for women and students
• How hard is renting now in your borough?
• Statement on the budget as landlord tax breaks continue
• The London Renters Union: helping 2.3 million Londoners stand together

More housing news from me

More about what Spark 2016 is about

From Spark 2016
http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=898d2a4aba664bafee145eef9&id=9521c55d6a&e=821c37175a

Greetings!

Are you unhappy with your housing situation?… How does the criminal justice system effect you?…What educational alternatives are out there? How will we eat and procure food in the future? Who is resisting corporate and political power? Is it working? How could we build safe, caring, communities? Where can you express yourself fully?....
  

Martin Francis: Practical proposals to tackle the housing crisis from House of Lords Committee

Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis considers House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee proposals on housing. Go to
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/practical-proposals-on-house-building.html

BBC News reportage of the EU referendum vs its reportage of the Housing and Planning Bill 2016

A Google search of items related to the "EU referendum" on the BBC News website reveals 1,430,000 results at present:

About 1,430,000 results (0.98 seconds) (1)

A Google search of items related to 'housing' on the BBC News website reveals just 380,000 results:

About 380,000 results (0.64 seconds) (2)

A Google search of items related to "housing bill" 2016 reveals just 212 resuls:

About 212 results (0.63 seconds) (3)

A major thrust of the Vote Leave / 'Brexit' camp in this EU referendum has been that laws made 'in Brussels' have little or no scrutiny from within the UK. Yet if "democracy presupposes knowledge" has the BBC's focus on the EU referendum to the virtual exclusion of the Housing & Planning Bill 2016 contributed to a stifling of debate about its contents prior to the passing into UK law of the Housing & Planning Act 2016 last week?

The EU has brought some measure of Proportional Representation to UK politics. Has the debate about EU referendum matters obscured mainstream public debate about the Housing & Planning Bill 2016 to the point that it has been passed against the interests of vulnerable people by a very lopsided 'winner takes all' lopsided Parliament that was elected by a 'first past the post system' that the EU did not impose upon us? 

And has the British Broadcasting Corporation's bias eclipsed potential scrutiny of those already marginalised by a diet of 'home owner TV'?

Links — note: results are likely to vary through time; your results from clicking these links are likely to differ depending on when you do the searching

1. https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=LRNoV8OcMeqg8weqq4HYBA&gws_rd=ssl#q=%22eu+referendum%22+site:+http:%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk
2. https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sclient=psy-ab#q=housing+site:+%22http:%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%22
3. https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sclient=psy-ab#q=%22housing+bill%22+2016+site:+%22http:%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%22

KUWG on the march against the Housing & Planning Act 2016

Kim says:

FAST FORWARD TO 3:31: KUWG are doing a rumble!

Housing costs driving out police, reports Camden New Journal

Read on(1)

Link

1. http://www.camdennewjournal.com/police-cost-of-living

Unite Community-sponsored 'Inequality Bus Tour' 2014 video

KUWG members were there. Sadly, it seems, authors of the Housing & Planning Bill 2016 could not really care about inequality.

Get on board the video record of the event.(1)

Link
https://vimeo.com/93208717

Unite Community-sponsored 'Inequality Bus Tour' (2014) and tenancy rights-related post

This blog post in its original form has attracted over 1,000 viewings since April 2014 — making it this blog's 'All Time Greatest Hits' (since May 2012) #2. As most viewings of this blog have been sourced via Google searches, maybe it deserves an encore with a bit of present looking back rewording? This blog administrator may not have been well enough to attend the 'Kill the Housing Bill' himself yesterday, but he can still make his presence known as an opponent of the Housing & Planning Bill 2016. Or is that an Act of Parliament yet?

Whichever, if it is an Act it certainly needs repealing!

KUWGAs leafleted Kilburn Jobcentre to publicise Unite Community-sponsored 'Inequality Bus Tour'

Inequality Bus Tour went through Kilburn on Saturday 26 April 2014. Get on board!

KUWG placard: Zero Compassion Contracts? No Thanks

Some baldies are more discreet than others

Out and proud! Sunbathing, Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Activist style

What are you laughing at?

What were we advertising? See below

The leaflet from Unite the Union Community Section reads:

A HOME IS YOUR RIGHT

The Housing Inequality Bus Tour is coming to you! Saturday 26th April 2014

OUR CITY IS FOR LIVING IN

We are bringing

• Music
• Refreshments
• Useful information that can help with your housing problems

Hop on the bus to find out more about what is causing London's housing crisis and what we are doing about it.

OUR ROUTE:

• 32 Cambridge Avenue NW6, 1pm Approx.
•  Bishops Avenue N2, 1:30pm Approx.
• West Hendon Estate NW9: 2pm Apprx.
• Jubilee Sports Centre, W10: 2:45pm Approx.
• South Kilburn Estate — Peel Precinct, NW6. 3:30pm Approx.

Our tour visits places in London that show the harsh human consequences of our housing crisis.

Soaring private sector rents, sale of social homes, evictions due to welfare reform and gentrification, and the use of London's houses as investment properties for excessively walthy people, all meaning that ordinary people are finding it increasingly difficult to live in the city. These are things we don't have to accept. A home is your right, our city is for living in!

Organised by Unite the union Community section and local housing groups

community@unitetheunion.org
Facebook: Unitetheunion1
Twitter: @unitetheunion

National march vs Housing and Planning Bill 2016, Sat 18 Jun, 12-4pm — assemble Hyde Park from 12 Noon

Sat 18 Jun, 12-4pm National March – Axe The Housing Bill by Kill The Housing Bill Campaign. From Hyde Park Corner, march to Saville HQ (near Oxford St) the company “advising” government on Housing Act so they can profit from it
https://www.facebook.com/events/983139975074374/

Could 'disaster capitalism''s adoption of Education, Health & Care Plans be levering in more forced separations of children from poor families?

The below is adapted from an email letter sent by Dude Swheatie of Kwug to his local ward councillor. Please note that the 'David Cameron' paragraph below has been substantially amended and improved upon since the original was written. 

It should be very clear that the Christianity of Prime Minister David Cameron differs considerably as an ideological 'locus of control' from that of Council Tax protester Revd Paul Nicolson. http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/the-need-for-active-participation-in-divine-gratuitous-love-never-greater-than-in-the-current-millennium/

Hi, Cllr

The Department for Education & Skills has published figures for take-up by local authorities (LA's) throughout England regarding statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Education, Health & Care (EHC) Plans for children.(1) Disability News Service has drawn attention to low take-up of SEN statementing as suggesting that LA's are struggling with funding.(2)

Meanwhile it strikes me that councils' execution of EHC statementing may impact along the lines of 'papering over the cracks' in their agendas and thus collude with Conservative Government agendas toward forcing more adoptions of children from poor families against the ideological framework of Milton Friedman's 'Holy Trinity' of neoliberal economics. That 'Holy Trinity', as highlighted in Naomi Klein's 2007 book The Shock Doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism, consists of

privatization, deregulation and cuts to social spending -- in which governments …. abandon public ownership, reduce taxes, eliminate the minimum wage, cut health and welfare spending, and privatize education. She calls the means of achieving this goal "disaster capitalism" and describes how it has resulted in a worldwide redistribution of income and wealth to the already rich at the expense of economic solvency for the middle and lower classes.(3)

I further argue that 'disaster captialism' turns vulnerable service users into commodities. This has already been observed in the 'welfare to work' industry's secondment of economically vulnerable people in a new slavery industry,(4) and in the privatisation of social services in general.(5) There is also, of course, the sell-off of social housing to private investers that displaces whole communities.(6) I believe that this conversion of vulnerable people into commodities may now be a factor in councils' adoption of EHC's as a rationale for a surge in forced separation of children from their parents, a surge that has been highlighted by Legal Action for Women.(7)

In housing advice services funded by LA's, it has been standard practice for some years to not allocate legal advice to people facing the prospect of eviction until an eviction notice has been served. That practice leads vulnerable families and individuals to crisis point and often to eviction before alternative accommodation can be found. Now, the Housing and Planning Bill 2016 raises the prospect of an even greater surge of evictions of vulnerable people.(8) And the most recent Queen's Speech raises the prospect of more forced separations of parents from their children; state intervention into the lives of families at breaking point as the walls close in on them is far more likely to focus on forced separation of families than supporting of the family unit.(9) 

It would seem that David Cameron's Government does not regard burgeoning promiscuous sanctions against economically vulnerable people as in any way suspect but entirely corrective..(10) In other words, his focus is entirely upon the violence committed within poor people's homes without regarding the actions of an oppressive State as a root cause and role model. What I have observed and identified as 'burn out' symptoms in people who have been denied benefits by accident or by design has made me somewhat glad that I have only been a one-person household in those times.  People can get very irritable and irritating when they are denied basic rights, and such behaviour is all too easily regarded as the fault of the person's nature rather than how they are treated. Gandhi observed: "Poverty is the worst form of violence." And it is often easier to 'lash out' in anger at those most easily to hand rather than to acknowledge just how much we have been abused by supposedly legitimate authority. [Author's note: The link text for (10) and text up to this point has been amended and extended since original publication this morning.]

Caroline Lucas MP (Green Party) has said of that Queen's Speech:

"Just a few months ago we had another eye watering budget — and further cuts to local services are now hitting hard. The idea that the Government can build social reform on the carcass of a gutted welfare state is a fallacy."(11)

Maybe it all depends on what sort of 'social reform' that government desires?

Thus I ask you as my ward councillor to contact Legal Action for Women toward scrutinising how much [my local council] might or might not be colluding with an agenda of privatising parenthood and reducing the rights of poor people in favour of those whose social worth is supposedly enshrined in their finances.(12) Yet it is a very unequal world that we are living in. With privatisation of adoption services and parenthood, children become commodities in a form of legalised human trafficking.

In conclusion, I would point out that supporting families in the face of poverty can be an example of what 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' (1970) author Paulo Freire called 'authentic liberation', whereas forced adoption can be regarded as an example of 'false generosity'. I would also argue that in cases where there is domestic violence, that domestic violence is pioneered by oppressive attitudes and practices by the State against hard pressed parents.

Your constituent

Name

Address

NB: The constituent's home address helps validate their writing to a particular ward councillor or councillors. As Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is focused on the London Boroughs of Brent and Camden, the respective 'find your local councillor' page links are 

LB Brent Councillors(13)

LB Camden Councillors(14)

TheyWorkForYou.com has a form for helping you identify and contact your local Member of Parliament.(15)

Links

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2016
2. http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/sen-stats-suggest-many-councils-are-struggling-with-funding/
3. http://www.naomiklein.org/reviews/ms-magazine-review-shock-doctrine
4. http://www.boycottworkfare.org/
5. http://www.socialworkfuture.org/attachments/article/490/RESPONSE%20TO%20THE%20LABOUR%20PARTY%20CONSULTATION%20DOCUMENT.doc
6. http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/house-builders-own-600000-plots-of-land-so-barnet-council-sells-them-some-more-for-3-see-bbc-documentary/
7. http://legalactionforwomen.net/2016/06/04/press-release-7-june-suffer-the-little-children-end-forced-separations-of-children-mothers/
8. Reference to Housing & Planning Bill 2016 pending
9. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/05/18/cameron-advance-social-work-reforms-new-legislation/
10. https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
11. http://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/caroline-lucas-slams-queens-speech
12. http://legalactionforwomen.net/contact-2/
13. http://democracy.brent.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx
14. http://democracy.camden.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx
15. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mps/

Council sourced housing as a workplace and suckerdom issue

Regarding the exploitation of 'licensees' by a 'property guardian' company called VPS using old Camden Council stock, the Camden New Journal reports:

Empty home schemes: As the costs go up, property guardians ask 'where are our rights?'(1)

Published: 28 April, 2016
By ELLA JESSEL

LIVING as custodians of former pubs, empty offices or in the twilight zones of council high-rises awaiting demolition, Camden’s property guardians are something of a hidden population....

For the charges issued by another 'property guardians' company, go to Global Guardians.(2)

A CNJ reader questions the maths on all this.(3)  It might be argued that the licensees and council are the 'suckers' in this, but we need to face the fact that if the Housing & Planning Bill 2016 gets passed by Parliament, we will all be suckered into slavery and exploitation by a global elite and their friends in Parliament and the 'popular press'. Former Community Care magazine 'Outside Left' blogger Mike McNabb criticised the blinkers of the Daily Mail on housing issues.(4) Yet the clutches of the Daily Mail on Transport for London are contractual, and Green Party Mayoral hopeful 2016 Sian Berry proposed an alternative to that dominance or hegemony.(5)

It is also against the backdrop of the so-called Housing & Planning Bill 2016 that Kill the Housing Bill has been set up, and they have a blog.(6) 

 

Links

1. http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2016/apr/empty-home-schemes-costs-go-property-guardians-ask-where-are-our-rights
2. http://www.global-guardians.co.uk/available-guardian-properties/
3. http://www.camdennewjournal.com/propertyguardians
4. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2010/07/asylum-seekers-2m-home-but-who/
5.  http://www.camdennewjournal.com/sian-berry-locals
6. https://killthehousingbill.wordpress.com/

Gentrification and commuting times

Wembley Matters blogger Martin Francis currently has blog posts about links between

1. gentrification and regeneration in South Kilburn,(1) and
2. gentrification, housing and travel commute times(2)

Here is Dude Swheatie of Kwug's now-published comment on the latter:

A recent Camden New Journal lead story: Priced out of Camden, teachers commute by rail... from Folkestone.(3)

It can be very instructive to relate the impositions on benefit claimants re travelling distance they are prepared to commit to in daily commutes. Eg, there is this from 2008 when the Labour Employment Minister was actually Tony McNulty:

"John McNulty, a DWP minister responsible for employment, claimed around £60,000 in allowances for a second home in his Harrow constituency, just 11 miles and a 40 minute tube ride away from Westminster. Yet he has recently decided that jobseekers’ allowance claimants should be prepared to travel up to three hours a day (instead of the previous two) to find work. - See more at: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/06/dwp-ministers-hypocrisy-over-e/#sthash.7Cvvbsf1.dpuf" — Souce: Community Care article DWP Ministers' hypocrisy over expenses claims(4)

Nowadays, travel commute expenses are also an issue when it comes to people on 'work for your benefits' sentences being sent from Kilburn to Tottenham and the like.(5)

Question: what was it Gary Vaux said in introducing the blog piece DWP Ministers' hypocrisy over expenses claims(4)?

Answer: 

The stories about MPs’ expenses have shown some are making the type of claims that would have benefit claimants in court - See more at: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/06/dwp-ministers-hypocrisy-over-e/#sthash.YE0lX1hb.dpuf

The stories behind MPs' expenses have shown some are making the type of claims that would have benefit claimants in court.(4)

That was said in 2008. Now it seems, the grounds for benefit claimants being sanctioned into worse penalties than people get with court fines are ever diminishing in proportion to the extended length of the sanction.(6)

Comments on this blog are always welcome but seldom sent. How to leave a comment on a blogspot blogpiece.(7)

Notes

(1) http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/regeneration-and-gentrification-in.html
(2) http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/housing-and-anti-gentrification.html
(3) http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2015/apr/priced-out-camden-teachers-commute-rail-folkestone
(4) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2009/06/dwp-ministers-hypocrisy-over-e/
(5) https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22travel+expenses%22+workfare&fr=yfp-t-903
(6) http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
(7) https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/42399?hl=en

Leave comments on a blogspot blog post

https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/42399?hl=en  

What Green Party votes stand for

A Personal View By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

In the face of not only BBC cenorship of the Green Party leader's involvement in last Thursday's 'leaders debate' but also BBC news broadcast non-reporting of the Green Party in daily broadcasts of 'what the main parties are doing in the run-up to Thursday's poll', I offer the following clues, some of which have clickable links to manifesto entries on the Green Party's website.

There are alternatives

 Margaret Thatcher's infamous saying, "There is No Alternative," gave her the nickname 'TINA'. Perhaps the BBC News editors should be described as Auntie TINAs?

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group is non-party-political and contains members of various political parties and none. Outside of the options presented by the BBC as the only valid options, the main parties of interest to Kwug members seem to be TUSC (Trade Union & Socialist Coalition)(1) and the Green Party of England & Wales(2). Some Kwug members while being keen on TUSC advocate voting Labour as a lesser evil than letting in a party that promises or threatens '£12bn further [and unspecified] welfare cuts' even where Hampstead & Kilburn Green Party candidate is making an excellent stand and getting electoral support as a result. I disagree with that stand point, not only on the grounds of making a stand for Proportional Representation.

Green Party votes acknowledge the level of internal democratic process that has led to the formulation of a real alternative electoral platform and the elections of Green Party Members of the European Parliament, London Assembly Members and a Green Party MP.(3)

What Green Party votes stand for

No ifs, no buts, the Green Party stands for no benefit sanctions

---

We have everything we need to build a fair economy: natural resources, skilled people, modern technology.

But the Westminster Establishment has built an unfair [economy] where those at the top gain while those at the bottom suffer.

We can transform our economy if we have the courage to challenge the vested interests and close the gap between the righ and the poor.

[Read on... ](4)

---

We all want somewhere warm, safe and secure to call home.

But we have a housing crisis with soaring private rents while social housing is being sold off left, right and centre....

[Read more....](5)

---

We have world class universities, brilliant teachers and talented students.

But by putting a price tag on education, running schools as businesses and making them exam factories we are wasting children's potential and stifling creativity....

[Read on]....(6)

---

Outline continued on special blog page....

---

Notes

(1) http://tusc2015.com/
(2) https://www.greenparty.org.uk/
(3) See 'What Difference Can a Green MP make?' short film accessed 4 May 2015 https://youtu.be/Uq31QIMjVtU
(4) https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/fair-economy.html
(5) https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/decent-homes.html
(6) https://www.greenparty.org.uk/we-stand-for/free-education.html

Market forces, public money, electoral decisions

By Dude Swheatie of Kwug

At this 2015 UK General Election the Conservative Manifesto says that more people should have the 'right to buy' and councils and social landlords should be forced to sell properties in 'more desirable' areas.(1) Yet it is now fairly well-known that Thatcherite Right to Buy has increased the social housing shortage and that supply shortage led rogue landlords to sponge off public money before the 'benefit cap' that was brought in by the Conservative-Lib Dem (aka 'Con-Dem' coalition) that 'came to power' in the wake of the 2010 UK General Election.(2)

Yet it was a Daily Mail style mode of 'investigative reporting' that led to the benefit cap as Housing Benefit claimants — especially asylum seekers — that got the blame for how much was screwed out of the public purse for the benefit of the real spongers who were dodgy private landlords.(3)

Now, at the time of 2015 UK General Election 2015, it is timely that

1. Panorama produced an investigation into rogue landlords milking the system, Panorama: The Great Housing Benefit Scnadal(4) and 
2. Argotina followed that up with a blog piece relating such a private rented market's poor service to tenants in her 'more desirable' neighbourhood. Welfare Tales: Rogue Landlords and the Benefit Cap(5)

The enemies of 'red tape' have already extracted the legislation's teeth

Here is an excerpt from Argotina's blog piece, Rogue Landlords and the Benefit Cap:

The house next door to mine, once a family home, is now 4 flats containing 11 people, with no fire exit from the top floor. The tenants are frightened of a potential fire, they have small children and live in the converted attic. But they cannot tell the council because they’ll just be evicted, and its nigh on impossible to find an affordable flat in London, no matter how cramped and unsafe. This is a working family, not on benefits.

And its not as if the government doesn’t know. Here’s a Panorama program saying the same thing from 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…/fron…/newsid_9122000/9122529.stm This was before the benefit cap.

The benefit cap means that NOBODY on benefits can afford a private rented flat in Inner London, or most of outer London. There are no council flats, they are being destroyed in their thousands and replaced by ‘luxury apartments’. The local authorities are being forced to satisfy their statutory obligations to house the vulnerable by placing them into slum rat holes, or move them hundreds of miles away from their support networks to where rents are cheaper. This is pushing up rents outside of London, too.

The Residential Landlords Association agrees there’s a problem, but says we don’t need more legislation. They say the existing legislation is perfectly adequate, the problem is that savage cuts to Local Authorities budgets means they cant enforce the laws that already exist. Last week the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that over the course of this Parliament, the budgets of local authority enforcement departments have been cut by over 37% per head of population in England. http://news.rla.org.uk/private-rental-market-is-being…/

So, Local Authority budgets need to be sufficinet to enforce legislation, does it not? General Election time is a time that helps instal the Central Government that will administer tax payers' money to local authorities to act locally.

You are not only deciding for yourself. Decide compassionately and wisely

This General Election is a time of decision. If you are registered to vote, think of those who are not registered to vote. How about people whose electoral registration letters have been opened by their rogue landlords and thus confiscated? Rogue landlords help being exposed, as the Panorama programme showed. Perhaps a vote for tougher enforcement will lead not only to such landlords being 'outed' but also to being forced out of practice?

So how about raising these issues with candidates in your area for the 2015 UK General Election? You can get in touch with them by way of the Your Next MP interactive portal website. (Of course, that is assuming that you are able to get online. Many people are not; and given the online-only methods of pollsters, what sort of world is being created with and for the exclusion of people who cannot get online? Universal Credit that Conservatives are pledged to bring in at even further taxpayers' expense really amounts to Furthered Offline Exclusion because you have to be online to register for it!)

See also

• Vote for Policies interactive portal website (7)
• Vote Match interactive portal website (8)
• Councils' out-of-area placements breaking the law:  Councils in London have broken the law by placing more than 8,000 families in other areas without properly notifying the receiving authority.(9)

Notes

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32295970
(2) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2009/03/iain-duncan-smith-admits-ghett/
and
http://www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/manifestos-no-secure-tenancy-policy-for-families-to-raise-children-in-community-solidaritypensioner-parents-nearby/
(3) http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-policy-blog/2010/07/asylum-seekers-2m-home-but-who/
(4) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05s99p1/panorama-the-great-housing-benefit-scandal accessed 27 April 2015
(5) https://welfaretales.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/rogue-landlords-and-the-benefit-cap/
(6) https://yournextmp.com/
(7) https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ accessed 27 April 2015
(8) http://www.votematch.org/ accessed 27 April 2015
(9) http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/councils-out-of-area-placements-breaking-the-law/7009398.article accessed 27 April 2015

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