London is currently a giant building site. Wherever you go new developments, in identikit glass and steel, snake up towards the skies, blotting the light, and the life, out of the capital.
Nobody normal can afford to live in these so-called luxury apartments – so-called because they are being built on the cheap as quickly as possible. You wouldn’t know that from the price however – even modest flats in the poshest postcodes can cost a million pounds or more. According to the Financial Times there are around 50,000 properties planned or under construction in this price range as every last brick in the city is turned into an investment opportunity. The losses to the capital’s history and culture are incalcuable. The end of Tin Pan Alley, once the heart of London’s music industry. The destruction of Soho’s gay scene. Half of Camden Market flogged off to a dodgy developer to build high price flats. London’s skyline damaged beyind repair. And, most tragically of all, the mass social cleansing of every working class area of London. Pubs, markets, community centres and libraries all gone to make way for the global super rich. If you are on a low or even moderate income, and stuck in the cut-throat private sector, then you’ve probably left already. If you are in social housing, hold tight, they are coming for the council estates as well.
But there are signs that the feeding frenzy is coming to an end. There may well be 50,000 high value properties on the way, but as the FT also points out, just 3,900 homes costing more than £1m were sold in central London in 2014. The villains at Foxton’s have recently announced falling profits whilst financial experts are warning openly of a crash. And the Office for National Statistics recently revised how house price statistics are calculated which resulted in a shock fall in London’s prices between January and February this year.
Now is the time to send a message to every pampered hipster, spiv banker, property developer and global billionaire that we do not want you in our fucking city. Let’s crash their party and their market. Rage against horrifying inequality in the capital grows ever fiercer and it is the rich who are becoming the targets. There have always been consequences when the decadence of the upper classes becomes too visible or obscene, and there is an obscenity taking place in London right now. It’s time to make them feel unwelcome. To let them be the frightened ones for a change. To take the class war to their fucking front doors just like they have done to us. The battle of the capital is just getting started. Don’t be late.
The fourth London Fuck Parade will take place on May 1st. This boisterous anti-gentrification street party made headlines around the world last time. The parade starts at One Commercial Street, Aldgate East, London E1 7PT at 6pm. For the latest news visit the website at: https://fuckparade.wordpress.com/
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