With the Tory’s threatening a new benefit cap and cuts to Local Housing Allowance if they win the next election, it is unsurprising that London’s fucked housing market is emerging as a key site of struggle in the capital.
Two diffrent events this week will highlight the grotesque inequality in a city where global billionaires buy luxury penthouses to keep empty as investments whilst people sleep in the streets below
Wednesday (1st October – tomorrow!) the biggest demonstration against the Poor Doors so far is set to take place. This weekly protest, outside 1 Commercial Street E1, began after it emerged that the residents in the meagre supply of social housing in this yuppy block of flats are forced to use a different door to the toffs who occupy the luxury properties.
The protests are now in their 10th week and are growing. Last week the lobby of the building was briefly cccupied, whilst veteran anarchist and fellow blogger Ian Bone, who has supported the protests, was arrested. Unbowed Bone says tomorrow is “likely to be the crunch as Redrow* and the TSG (riot cops) throw their resources into maintaining apartheid in central London…..we’ve got to win this one.” Get down to 1 Commercial Street, E1 from 6pm, Wednesday October 1st and show the rich they are the ones who are not welcome in the East End borough of Tower Hamlets.
*Redrow are the property developers behind the poor doors, you can find them on twitter @RedrowLondon
Then on Thursday 2nd October the Focus E15 mums have called for support outside the courts where Newham Council will attempt to have them evicted from the flats they have occupied on the Carpenter’s Estate in Stratford.
This group of local single parents have been fighting for secure housing for their children ever since they were kicked out of a hostel that Newham Council decided to close to save money. They have been told they face being socially cleansed from the city and could be rehoused as far away as Manchester.
After repeatedly being snubbed by nasty piece of shit Robin Wales, the Labour Mayor of Newham, last week the group occupied several empty flats on the Carpenter’s Estate which is set to be demolished – no doubt to make way for more yuppy flats. The council are seeking a possession order at Bow County Court this week and the E15 mothers have called for support – be outside the courts at 96 Romford Rd E15 4EG from 9.30am Thursday October 2nd.
You can also follow the campaign on twitter @FocusE15 and @E15OpenHouse or join them on facebook.
Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth (HASL) have also been fighting against evictions due to welfare reforms and rampant gentrification, follow them @HousingActionSL Residents of West Hendon Estate in Barnet have faced arrests after fighting the destruction of their homes to make way for million pound flats. Join their facebook page for more details.
And that’s not all as resistance to austerity, forced work and shit housing bursts back into life. Next week sees a Week of Action Against Workfare with events already announced in Edinburgh, Bristol, Brighton, Haringey, Central London and even Amsterdam! Online actions are also set to take place, keep an eye on the Boycott Workfare website for full details.
Meznwhile Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) are calling on people to crash the Tory Party Conference Twittersphere by hijacking their hashtag #CPC14. Send your own tweets or visit DPAC’s website for some of theirs.
Please tweet, blog, share and spread the word about all events and join in if you can.
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Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid
the void 
Tories have gone beyond the point of no return- bring ’em DOWN!
This is just the beginning, look what’s happening in Hong Kong right now, and remember the ‘Arab Spring’. London is next. Then other cities. If it kicks off in Bradford they won’t be able to ignore us any longer, that’s for sure, ‘cos kick off it fucking will. We will fight you evil Tory fuckers to the death.
Point of fact: Dear Leader Bone has NEVER been arrested – make of it what you will 😀
He was arrested a couple of nights ago
Wait ’til they try their Tory Workfare bullshit in Ireland. No doubt Osborne’s family mansion will become a target for reprisals, and our Irish cousins don’t mess about.
L.P You do mean Northern Ireland don’t you. Just in case otherwise?
Universal credit project boss Howard Shiplee quits
Oh dear!
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Universal+credit+project+boss+Howard+Shiplee+quits
………………..AND ANOTHER LIE FROM THE DWP;
A DWP spokeswoman told Campaign4Change that Shiplee is in regular touch with the programme through conference calls and would be back working full-time on UC as soon as he is fit.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………….pocketing his £285,750 for doing absolutely fuck all for the last year, he put two fingers up to his old boss, IDS, and told reporters they should get some other imbecile to do the impossible.
When asked how many claimants were on the flagship “UNIVERSAL CREDIT” that had cost the poor and disabled dearly, he answered……………….
BOTH, I THINK……………………..
But a new UC leader has been drafted in early. Seasoned job centre man Neil Couling will be the seventh person to head up the project. We asked the DWP to explain why Shiplee had ended his commitments to UC earlier than planned.
Duncan Smith’s department told us:
As our Secretary of State said, “Howard has always been clear that, as the programme moves into national delivery, the programme must be led by someone with strong operational experience.”
In May this year we said that we were looking to begin the search for a replacement to lead the Programme to ensure a smooth transition in advance of the next General Election. Howard Shiplee recommended Neil Couling to take forward the next stage of roll out, including implementation to Jobcentres across the country.
It is right that Neil is in place to take this forward with his operational expertise and they are currently in the process of handover. Howard will continue to support Universal Credit in an advisory role.
………………..and this is the cunt set to pick up the slippery baton for the 8th time;
The DWP work services director, Neil Couling, told the Scottish parliament welfare select committee in April that: “My experience is that many benefit recipients welcome the jolt that a sanction can give them. Indeed, I have evidence – which I can share with the committee if members want it – of some very positive outcomes from just those kinds of tough conversations. They are tough conversations to have on the jobcentre side, as well as for the claimants.
“Some people no doubt react very badly to being sanctioned – we see some very strong reactions – but others recognise that it is the wake-up call that they needed, and it helps them get back into work.”
……….a first class shitbag by all accounts, handpicked to oversee the rising mortality rates generated by the state assassination bureau, the DWP…….
29 April 2014 Last updated at 15:09 Help
Neil Couling from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the rise of food banks is the result of poor people maximising their “economic choices”, not by tougher rules over benefit payments, on 29 April 2014.
Neil Couling is the twat who said that Jobcentre’s were inundated with thankyou cards from grateful claimants who had been sanctioned.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/jobcentres_inundated_with_thank
He’s another one who needs a bullet
that’s some delusion.
blaah blahhh blla bull crap.
nothing we do will change what this goverment does.
rant all you want on this “activists” website. nothing! will change and the torys will be in power after the election.
Go away you illiterate idiot.
…………interesting question to the people killers;
From: T.kay
29 September 2014
Dear Department for Work and Pensions,
You will be aware that certain things cannot be paid for using a
pre-payment benefit card such as paying fares on public transport
or buying gas and electricity to top up pre-payment meters.
These have to be paid for using cash upfront.
Please state what provisions the DWP will have in place to ensure
that vulnerable people who will receive these pre-payment benefit
cards are not inconvenienced were this is concerned.
Yours faithfully,
Mr Kay
Link to this
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pre_payment_benefit_card_provisi#incoming-566826
lol 😀
“the torys will be in power after the election.”
Not a chance.
There’s #stopMIPIM as well.
https://www.change.org/p/gordon-brown-mp-go-fuck-yourself
‘Astonishing development’ BBC LATEST
Commenting on Mr Brown’s latest devolution proposals, Mr Salmond said: “This is an astonishing development.
“How can Gordon Brown call for people to sign a petition urging Westminster to keep its promises on more powers for Scotland when he himself has already said that is a vow which will be honoured?
“The ‘Tory trap’ is not the proposals on income tax which Gordon Brown talks about – it is the Tory trap which he and his colleagues are leading people into, in which the issue of more powers for Scotland becomes entangled in a row between factions of the Westminster establishment.”
The first minister added: “Many of the people who voted No in the referendum did so in the belief that those new powers would be delivered, and that is what now must happen.”
Speaking to the BBC on the weekend after the independence referendum, Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney, accused the UK parties of “utterly unseemly behaviour”.
Mr Swinney, who will take part in the Kelvin commission along with fellow SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, called for “absolutely no backsliding whatsoever”.
The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens will also be represented.
Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for 100,000 Scots to sign a petition urging Westminster to keep promises on devolution.
Mr Brown said there should be “no strings attached” to promises of more powers for Scotland.
And he claimed Conservative plans to devolve income tax were a “trap” which could result in Scottish MPs losing the right to vote on UK income tax.
Alex Salmond described the Labour MP’s comments as “astonishing”.
The outgoing SNP leader and first minister said Mr Brown was “calling for guarantees on the delivery of something which he himself said during the referendum campaign was already a done deal”
geoff
yes, the above petition is an antidote to his petition…crash is trying to slide what he promised onto the shoulders of others…like a kid caught in the cookie jar…”it wasn’t me it was the other boys” …
Exactly OBD, which goes to show that in the land of the blind, the one eyed cunt is nothing but a traitor.
The No camp got exactly what they wanted, no pain, no gain……..
obd, so Gordon Brown can now be observed as, as gullible, as the rest of those who voted NO to stay in the union. Amazing.
benadette
although he hasn’t come out, as yet to endorsed #indyscot…SLABS are finished in scotland 1.6m + voters for snp ssp scotgreens, sees to that, no if’s, no but’s!
Wow, just wow! Alex Salmond must be rolling in his grave!
“Arise Sir Gordon of Sellout”,
another puppet of the multinationals who sold his own country for a handful of silver………………………..
Another scumbag from the Westminster corridors of power that shit on the poorest and disabled whilst filling their bloated bank accounts.
HongKong has set a precedent that we should all follow, vote with your feet………………
“handful of silver”?! sure it wasn’t a vault full of gold bullion? 😀
Gordon Brown Mucky Stuff
The Chancellor’s hidden blow to disabled people.
The Chancellor’s Conference speech contained a statement about disabled people and benefits which was misleading, but went largely unchallenged by the mainstream media. Mr Osborne promised a two year freeze on working age benefits if the Conservatives are re-elected but made a point of saying, “disability benefits will be excluded”. Is that true?
Well, it all depends on what you consider to be a disability benefit. Included in the proposed freeze are people who receive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and are part of the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). These are people who the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have decided are not fit for work at the moment, but are required to undertake work related activity, with a view to returning to work in future.
The public would probably assume that this group was for people who had had an accident or injury from which they would soon recover, or an illness which was expected to get better. No doubt that’s what most of the audience in the conference hall who applauded the Chancellor’s speech would think, if they thought about it at all.
the audence at the conference are programmed to o applaud they woulds applaud anything he said..
Yeah, there are guys and gals at the front with clapper-boards to tell the party faithful when to applaud!
geoff
if the MSM don’t report it then the masses are voiceless and isolated..this gives MSM and the establishment their power…we must turn our backs on MSM…their cuts are targeted specifically to create hardship…we don’t have a job creation economy because they would not profit from this…
back on brown http://www.newsnetscotland.scot/index.php/scottish-opinion/9802-lets-turn-browns-petition-back-on-him
Prepaid cards won’t allow people to shop around for things like cheap fruit and veg from closing time markets. Knocked-down rotting food from my local Morrisons is usually dearer than good stuff from the market.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/10153159778172892/ rallies for regrouping, #indyscot..
I really hope the movement preserves it’s momentum OBD – though I think the evidence so far is that it will and that Scottish independence isn’t that far away… The movement assisted in that by a Westminster who are obviously so arrogant that they will bungle their part of the ‘deal’ big time.
sib
it has more passion and power than ever, weve only just gotten warmed up…WM union is cracking under the strain, a few more shove’s and we have it…if not before 2015ge but soon after and cymru not far behind…imv they will soon be glad to get shot of us…
sib
believe and the right info will appear at the right time…it just has… http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/10/01/the-trouble-with-scotlandis-that-its-full-of-scots/
I’m not too sure about Cymru… a recent poll (by the BBC, so bound to be iffy) showed that support for indy here is at an all time low of 3%, (even in a good year it’s only around 13%) but it does hang a lot on Scotland. Scotland is fortunate that it has a lot of politicians of many different political colours that have something that most Welsh politicians lack, a backbone. I really wish it was different, but the ‘opposition’ provided by Plaid Cymru to an extremely lacklustre Welsh Labour is risible, or would be if it was funny – Plaid have a golden opportunity to go for Labour’s jugular, but don’t just in case Labour taunt them about indy – at which Plaid usually goes into a defensive tailspin. To be fair though, just as the SNP, Plaid is a coalition of all political colours, from former communist, to closet fascist with the majority being small c conservative (with a bias towards liberal) or those with old Labour Party values being in the majority. Plaid has enjoyed considerable support in the South Wales Valleys area for the past 45 years or so, but never really quite enough to unseat Labour in any serious sense. Sadly Plaid doesn’t exploit Labour corruption and failures enough (or has similar issues to deal with itself) so though Plaid often comes close, and is usually second, it hasn’t yet quite pulled it off. I vote Plaid, (in desperation!) but I refuse to join again, as I left in disgust when Elis Thomas accepted a peerage. I’m also an anarchist, so though I’m enthusiastic about the break up of Britain, my support of any political organisation is purely in the sense of a gradual shift towards the direct kind of democracy of an anarchist society.
I think that once Scotland goes indy, then maybe there will be a much invigorated move in Wales towards that, but at the moment Wales is very much in the same situation it’s been in for the past 70+ years and voting Labour in the hope that things will change.
You and I, and people like us know that the days of the UK are severely numbered, things can’t go on as they are, and I suspect that we will soon see some very big edifices come crashing down, whether that is Tesco, Sainsbury’s or one of the other very big companies that rely on the money of the ordinary people, who due to the austerity measures, no longer have any money, are no longer able to consume in order to preserve those edifices. Ultimate contradiction of capitalism.
johnny void | October 1, 2014 at 1:39 pm | Reply
this isn’t a forum for people to have a go at individuals who are trying to do something or to bring up old gripes. criticism the action by all means if that’s how you feel, but keep personal shit out of it.
Point accepted. Apologies. My badly expressed view concerns first, the take over of large amounts of London property by wealthy foreigners, which is driving Londoners out. This issue is expressed very clearly by one of the Class War election candidates whom I intend to support. My second point – perhaps a bit arty farty – concerns a need to maintain some kind of collective self management of the struggle against rich property owners.
Once again – apologies if the comment appeared personal.
BBC News: David Cameron pledges tax cuts ‘for 30m people’… paid for out of benefit freezes and benefit sanctions! Cunt!
It makes me Sick and Angry how many Stupid Pratts are Brainwashed by the Worst Elements of the Media into Accepting the Victimisation of the
Poor and Vulnerable instead of having Human Decency and Standing
Up For the Poor and Vulnerable
Get the Tory Bastards Out of Office and their Liberal Democrat
Lackeys Now and Forever
Socialism Not Slavery
Millions of Fiendish Scum Voted Tory Nazi in 2010 and it Takes a Fiendish Scum to Support the Wrecking of Public Service
The Heartless Nazi Bastards
David Cameron is a CUNT!! | October 1, 2014 at 2:52 pm | Reply BBC News: David Cameron pledges tax cuts ‘for 30m people’… paid for out of benefit freezes and benefit sanctions! Cunt!
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Reblogged this on The Heckler and commented:
We know this post is about housing struggles in London, however, in light of recent comments by Essex County Councillor, Kerry Smith relating to new housing developments planned for Basildon and his fears that the area will be used as a ‘dumping ground’ by London boroughs as the pace of gentrification intensifies, we think this is of interest to people out here. We do intend to write an in depth piece on the relationship between housing pressures out here in south / south-east Essex and the process of gentrification / social cleansing in London at some point – for the time being, this post on the Void is a useful introduction…
The vehicle licensing agency went down after it overloaded, imagine the same scenario with a benefit card system that went tits up………………
“THERE HAS BEEN A TECHNICAL FAULT, PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER WHEN YOU HAVE STARVED TO DEATH”
I could not make it to the biggest demo ever against the poor doors this Wednesday, but I heard that some hippies were handing out flowers. Bit of flower power eh. Hopefully the TUC march will divert to the area. I am also looking forward to hearing the point of view of the tenants themselves – that is, if their consciousnesses has been sufficiently raised.
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It is Right to Point Out the Outrage in the Housing Situation in London
The Homelessness Situation in London is a Crime against Humanity
just as the Greed and Selfishness of too Many Vain Rich People is a
Crime against Human Decency
I Am Angry with the Tory Scum about this as whilst the Homelessness
Situation was an Outrage before May 2010 Netherless they have made
it Worse by making it a So Called ” Criminal ” Offence to Sleep in an
Empty ” Residential ” Building peacefully and without Violence when
the Real Crime is the Gulf between Rich and Poor and the Homelessness
Situation in the First Place
This is what has Happened when Politics is Dominated by Rich People
who Live in Ivory Towers of Luxury Selfishness and Greed
We Need Common Sense and Compassion People For the Poor to
come to Power and Help the Homeless by giving them Places to
Live a Basic Human Requirement
We Need Decent People to be Involved in Politics and we Need
More Decent People than has been the Case since May 2010
when Millions have Sickening Acted like Ostriches and Brainwashed
Zombies instead of Demanding Social Justice
The protests continue. Why the need for separate doors? Ever lived in accommodation for low income people? The stench of piss on the stairs, needles, used condoms, discarded female sanitary wear, puke everywhere. I can see why people will pay to avoid this. I can see why Labour have discarded the poor – can’t have Oxbridge educated socialists canvassing these areas for votes. There was a time when hard up working class people in terraced houses, polished their front steps, took a pride in their meagre environment.
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Social cleansing? That’s right, there are about 5 English people left in Newham. Walk along East Ham high street – you’ll hardly hear English spoken – and if you do it wont be with a London accent.