steelcityman

A VERY APT FOLLOW ON ARTICLE from my previous RED BOX post, AFFORDABLE HOUSING……. It now seems that the policies of this fascist Tory led coalition excuse for a government are beginning to bite where it hurts…right at the heart of the most vulnerable in society. It appears that if you live in the borough of NEWHAM , belong to the poorest group of residents living in private rented accommodation and claim housing benefit, then you are not wanted there because the Council will not pay out the housing benefit required to keep a roof over your head…They (the Council) say they can’t afford to supplement the spiraling rent charged by private landlords because of the government cap on housing benefit. The cap being effective at £250 per week for a one bed flat, rising to £400 per week for a four bed house. The situation is being made worse by people in inner London being forced to join the scramble for ‘social housing’ in places like Newham…Outer London. Newham alone has a council housing waiting list of over 35,000, so that will be GREATLY increased as less viable economic refugees are squeezed out of the central boroughs and head for the suburbs….. The comedic spectre of the Lord Mayor of London,  Puss in Boots,  sorry, Boris Johnson, says , he doesn’t want a situation developing like in PARIS where the poor people have been squeezed out into the suburbs…..WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE, BORIS….IT’S ALLREADY HAPPENING…THE BOROUGH OF NEWHAM ARE TRYING TO OFFLOAD 500 FAMILIES TO STOKE ON TRENT !!!!!!….. Incidentally, the housing association involved in Stoke on Trent have refused to take them even though Newham have offered to pay 60% of the benefit plus £60 for every family moved out of the borough….Linking to the ‘Affordable Housing’ article …..‘WHAT AFFORDABLE HOUSING ????’ ….

It is surely a sign of the times to come….the thin end of the wedge…The centre of our cities will become the preserve of the wealthy and the growing number of upwardly mobile young professionals …who don’t want to see the ‘poor’ wandering the streets around them !! …What on Earth do the politicians who make up these laws and rules, which devastate both communities and individuals, think they are playing at?? For playing they are !! They seem to have absolutely no concept of how ordinary people exist in (their) self centred, myopic vision of what’s decent and just in life. Even some of their own back bench MPs have started to complain about the way the cabinet are performing.

Today Tory MP Nadine Dorries launched into an extraordinary attack on him and George Osborne by branding them ‘arrogant posh boys’ who ‘don’t know the price of milk’. Mrs Dorries told the BBC’s Daily Politics show: ‘There is a very tight narrow clique of a certain group of people and what they do is act as a barrier and prevent Cameron and Osborne and others from actually really understanding or knowing what is happening in the rest of the country.….Well said Mrs Dorries, though my words would have been stronger.

Some of the residents of NEWHAM don’t even have that choice now. Some say it’s the Labour party, (Newham Council) simply electioneering all ready….what I say is that Newham Council should be making a stand against this coalition of a mess and should be supported by the Labour party and all others to the left of fascism…..Councils CAN stand against the government….remember what LIVERPOOL did when they stood against Thatcher’s mob. Whatever this Fascist Tory led government are doing with this sceptred Isle…it is not working…taxes UP…wages…DOWNN..(ok, if you want to be pedantic, wages are frozen, but that is a cut in real terms…as the politicians would say !!) The Fuel duty alone is crippling the country !!!! Can they see that ??? of course they bloody can’t….fuel is a cash cow for them and they milk it every budget…and in between !! The domestic fuel costs are rocketing out of control and no one seems to mind at all….WELL I MIND CAMERON !!! I never thought it would happen to me but I now put on extra clothes instead of the heating. The choice is…pay the rent or have the heating on.

There are answers to the problem, it’s not rocket science….invest in a national program of building decent council run homes, not houses for sale but for the poorer sections of society to rent.
I’ll take a closer look at those proposals at a later date, but for now let the clarion call sound out to organise and let our elected representatives know that decent people deserve a decent home  and the city Centres are not the playground of the wealthy and the upwardly mobile young professionals, that the poorest sections of society should not be displaced and moved on to other, cheaper parts of the UK. These are dark days indeed if we turn a blind eye to the events now taking place in NEWHAM…..