Property Versus People

 TOGETHER against evictions.  Unite union flags on tenants' demonstration.  Which side is Labour on?

HOUSING campaigners and other friends are going to Lambeth County Court on Friday to show support for a worker from St.George's Hospital, where I used to work, who is facing eviction from her home, with her two kids, - by a so-called charity. Marian is a Guinness Trust assured shorthold tenant (AST) and she has been living in Kenwood House in Loughborough Park since 2007. Due to the ongoing regeneration of the estate, Guinness Housing Association are taking Marian to court to get possession of her flat which she shares with her two children aged 4 and 8.
Marian is one of the last AST tenants who has refused to leave to make way for Guinness to demolish her block. She is a healthcare assistant in St Georges Hospital and cannot afford private rents in London - she is demanding alternative affordable accommodation. The campaign by Guinness ASTs has meant that almost all the other ASTs who resisted eviction have been rehoused and nobody has been forcibly evicted. Campaigners want to show Guinness that Marian has strong support to resist any attempt to evict her too.


Help stop the eviction – Protest for Marian
Friday August 28 at 13.30
Lambeth County Court, Cleaver Street, Kennington, London, SE11 4DZ

The Loughborough park estate in Brixton was a 1930s estate of 390 social rented flats – until Guinness began their regeneration programme to demolish it and replace it with 487 new-build apartments. When Guinness started on this regeneration strategy more than a decade ago they decided not to take on any more housing association tenants with full life-time tenancy rights and as vacancies came up they brought in ASTs (assured shorthold tenants) who could keep the buildings occupied temporarily before they bulldozed them – but would not need to be rehoused by Guinness when they evicted them.

Many of the existing tenants, however, were not happy with the regeneration plans and opposed the move to new high-rise blocks which would lead to higher rents and would destroy the beautiful old buildings on the estate which had a unique architectural value. They lobbied and challenged the planning process and tried to set up their own tenants association but were blocked by Guinness and eventually ignored by Lambeth council.

The planning permission was delayed by many years but in the end Guinness even threatened to sell the estate outright if they were not allowed to go ahead with their regeneration plans and Lambeth capitulated. Guinness promised only 30 extra social housing units in the new development for rent to people on Lambeth’s housing waiting list – but even this was a deception as the number of social rented housing tenants had already markedly decreased (being replaced by ASTs) so the net effect of the regeneration will be a REDUCTION in social rented flats on the estate from the original 390 dow
- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/protest/a-history-of-guinness-the-loughborough-park-estate/#sthash.3j57gqqe.dpuf

MARIAN is NHS Care Assistant.
Who cares about her and her children?

The battle on the Guinness estate is part of the ongoing struggle for living space in London which has intensified under this government. "Regeneration" becomes a formula for property development that forces working class people out of neighborhoods and even out of the capital, housing benefits are capped while rents are allowed to soar, and new developments bought and sold for profit and even money-laundering while even people in good jobs haven't a chance of buying. With some 40 per cent of council homes sold under Thatcher's much-vaunted "right to buy" policy now in the hands of private landlords and property companies, the Tories have promised to extend this to housing associations - though it would impinge on their charity status, and the cost would be subsidised at the expense of councils building new homes.

Some Tory councils in the capital have waived any obligation on builders to provide affordable homes, and made it clear they don't   want  working class and poor people in their borough anyway.   But some Labour councils too have proved unable or unwilling to resist the trend, and are telling homeless families they must move hundreds of miles away if they want to be housed.         

For all it's called "Conservative", the government can be radical when it is taking away our rights, be it in the workplace or at home. Anticipating more homelessness, and people ready to take desperate measures whether individually or organised, Cameron's Con-Dem coalition introduced legislation turning squatting of empty homes into a criminal offence.

 Some people seem to have decided this was not going far enough. Last year the social media repeatedly carried a news story from the London Borough of Redbridge about police snatching food and sleeping bags or blankets from homeless people who had taken shelter in an unused building.
People who read about this were rightly incensed about this nasty, brutal behaviour by the police who, though acting on their own initiative, said they had been asked to discourage vagrants from using the premises.  But if some Labour politicians had their way such actions would be more general and much worse.

As a local activist in Lambeth observed last year:

Chuka Umunna, Tessa Jowell and Lib Peck recently called for an extension to the law forbidding squatting to include commercial properties as well as residential. Clearly they are on the side of property developers and landlords against the homeless and those great experimental centres of creativity, artistic endeavour and learning that have been made possible by squatting. ....

I have visited several of these places and I am well impressed by their achievements. Did those three visit any of these establishments or were they running on the pure, unadulterated juices of prejudice, hearsay and the tired old Tory canard of squatters stealing peoples homes?

- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/squatting/look-back-anger-lambeths-betrayal-commitment-social-housing/#sthash.S0Y6RwEs.dpufLib Peck is the leader of Lambeth council, and I was told there was a particular local problem over the West Norwood library site.  But whatever the rights and wrongs of that, by turning to the Tory government and asking for it to extend its laws, the Labour trio were opening the door to further oppressive action against the homeless, against community and cultural groups that have made some very creative use of empty and often derelict buildings in Lambeth and other places: and potentially also against workers or anti-cuts campaigners occupying premises to resist closures. It is a far, sad cry from the days when Lambeth Labour was used to being branded "loony left" by the press because it tried to resist the Tories and defend services to local people. 

So whose side is Labour on, the property speculators or the working people? Most Labour people I know would indignantly reply "the people of course!"  But look again at those names. Chuka Umunna was elected MP for Streatham in 2010, and the following year made Shadow Business Secretary. Calling for Labour to target Conservatives and "aspirational, middle-class voters", he said  the party needs to be "on the side of those who are doing well,."and on May 12, announced his candidature for the Labour Party leadership, only to withdraw it three days later. But he has not desisted from acting as a voice for the Right, and warning us what awful things will happen if we vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

Tessa Jowell, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, which if I'm not mistaken covers the Guinness estate at Loughborough Junction, served in both the Blair and Brown governments, while her international business lawyer husband ended up serving time in an Italian prison as a result of the money-laundering and bribery linked to former Italian prime minister (and Blair chum) Sylvio Berlusconi. Jowell is now hoping to be Labour's candidate for Mayor of London, and presumably also hoping that voters remember her part in securing the Olympics for London, rather than asking whether she really knew nothing about her husband getting Berlusconi to pay their mortgage.

There's certainly nothing about it in the letter I've received from "Trade Unionists for Tessa", signed by John Hannett, general secretary of USDAW. A lot of my friends seem to be supporting Diane Abbott for mayor, while my union's London region is backing Sadiq Khan, currently MP for Tooting. Like a lot of Unite members I was surprised just after the general election to receive a 'phone call from someone in a union survey team asking my views about the mayoralty. Contrary to the story that appeared in Private Eye, they did not mention any potential candidates, but asked what I thought should be priorities.  I said something about housing and might have also mentioned transport, and I probably was not alone, as together with a Living Wage, these are taken up in Sadiq Khan's leaflet. 

As it happens, though I'm not keen on the mayoral set up at all, or maybe because of that, I have chanced my first choice vote on a rank outsider, Christian Wolmar, whom I only know through his books on London transport, though I see he has also worked for the housing charity Shelter. At least he is not a clown and he is the only candidate standing who is not a career politician.  Whether or not he is the man we need we'll see, but at least his candidature will give them a shake up. I was helped to my decision by seeing Christian on TV recently where he said he would support Jeremy Corbyn (as does Diane Abbott of course),  Since then he has been kept out of another hustings programme, and he also had some interesting things to say about property:

Chuka Umunna, Tessa Jowell and Lib Peck recently called for an extension to the law forbidding squatting to include commercial properties as well as residential. Clearly they are on the side of property developers and landlords against the homeless and those great experimental centres of creativity, artistic endeavour and learning that have been made possible by squatting. See examples (here, here and here)
I have visited several of these places and I am well impressed by their achievements. Did those three visit any of these establishments or were they running on the pure, unadulterated juices of prejudice, hearsay and the tired old Tory canard of squatters stealing peoples homes?
- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/squatting/look-back-anger-lambeths-betrayal-commitment-social-housing/#sthash.S0Y6RwEs.dpuf

The Loughborough park estate in Brixton was a 1930s estate of 390 social rented flats – until Guinness began their regeneration programme to demolish it and replace it with 487 new-build apartments. 
When Guinness started on this regeneration strategy more than a decade ago they decided not to take on any more housing association tenants with full life-time tenancy rights and as vacancies came up they brought in ASTs (assured shorthold tenants) who could keep the buildings occupied temporarily before they bulldozed them – but would not need to be rehoused by Guinness when they evicted them.
Many of the existing tenants, however, were not happy with the regeneration plans and opposed the move to new high-rise blocks which would lead to higher rents and would destroy the beautiful old buildings on the estate which had a unique architectural value. They lobbied and challenged the planning process and tried to set up their own tenants association but were blocked by Guinness and eventually ignored by Lambeth. 
The planning permission was delayed by many years but in the end Guinness even threatened to sell the estate outright if they were not allowed to go ahead with their regeneration plans and Lambeth capitulated. Guinness promised only 30 extra social housing units in the new development for rent to people on Lambeth’s housing waiting list – but even this was a deception as the number of social rented housing tenants had already markedly decreased (being replaced by ASTs) so the net effect of the regeneration will be a REDUCTION in social rented flats on the estate from the original 390 dow
- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/protest/a-history-of-guinness-the-loughborough-park-estate/#sthash.3j57gqqe.dpuf

The Loughborough park estate in Brixton was a 1930s estate of 390 social rented flats – until Guinness began their regeneration programme to demolish it and replace it with 487 new-build apartments. 
When Guinness started on this regeneration strategy more than a decade ago they decided not to take on any more housing association tenants with full life-time tenancy rights and as vacancies came up they brought in ASTs (assured shorthold tenants) who could keep the buildings occupied temporarily before they bulldozed them – but would not need to be rehoused by Guinness when they evicted them.
Many of the existing tenants, however, were not happy with the regeneration plans and opposed the move to new high-rise blocks which would lead to higher rents and would destroy the beautiful old buildings on the estate which had a unique architectural value. They lobbied and challenged the planning process and tried to set up their own tenants association but were blocked by Guinness and eventually ignored by Lambeth. 
The planning permission was delayed by many years but in the end Guinness even threatened to sell the estate outright if they were not allowed to go ahead with their regeneration plans and Lambeth capitulated. Guinness promised only 30 extra social housing units in the new development for rent to people on Lambeth’s housing waiting list – but even this was a deception as the number of social rented housing tenants had already markedly decreased (being replaced by ASTs) so the net effect of the regeneration will be a REDUCTION in social rented flats on the estate from the original 390 dow
- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/protest/a-history-of-guinness-the-loughborough-park-estate/#sthash.3j57gqqe.dpuf

Chuka Umunna, Tessa Jowell and Lib Peck recently called for an extension to the law forbidding squatting to include commercial properties as well as residential. Clearly they are on the side of property developers and landlords against the homeless and those great experimental centres of creativity, artistic endeavour and learning that have been made possible by squatting. See examples (here, here and here)
I have visited several of these places and I am well impressed by their achievements. Did those three visit any of these establishments or were they running on the pure, unadulterated juices of prejudice, hearsay and the tired old Tory canard of squatters stealing peoples homes?
- See more at: http://housingactivists.co.uk/squatting/look-back-anger-lambeths-betrayal-commitment-social-housing/#sthash.S0Y6RwEs.dpuf

“Last week, the political Establishment figures watched as I was undemocratically excluded from appearing on what was supposed to be an election hustings broadcast on LBC radio,” Christian Wolmar said.

“Now, it is reported that three of my Labour Party rivals for selection have been having their campaigns generously funded by property developers.

“My party colleagues forgot to mention this at our election debates.”

Property Week reports today that, “Big-name property developers and investors have emerged as some of the biggest donors to London mayoral candidates in the early stages of the campaign.”
It had already been established that Dame Tessa Jowell received £10,000 towards her campaign from the chairman of Chime Communications, the company founded by Mrs Thatcher’s former spin doctor, Tory peer Tim Bell. Dame Tessa has since taken an executive job with a Chime subsidiary.
Now Property Week reports that Canary Wharf Ltd has given £11,500 to the Jowell campaign, which has received another £5,000 from the former chairman of Land Securities.

Sadiq Khan’s campaign has received nearly £40,000 in donations from three major property developers.

And David Lammy’s campaign has racked up donations amounting to almost £40,000 from various companies and individuals with multi-million-pound interests in property development in the capital.

Christian Wolmar said: “How can these Labour Party candidates for London Mayor say they will drive a hard bargain with developers while taking money from them?

http://unitelive.org/displaced-and-dispossessed/

http://housingactivists.co.uk/category/guinness-trust-2/

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/04/brixton-evictions-and-regeneration-the-story-of-the-guinness-trust-estate-in-loughborough-park-brixton/

http://housingactivists.co.uk/squatting/look-back-anger-lambeths-betrayal-commitment-social-housing/

http://www.wolmarforlondon.co.uk/what_do_property_developers_expect_in_return

Remember Deir Yassin - and Forget Paul Eisen!

WITHOUT  Fear or Prejudice. Jeremy Corbyn (second from right, in open neck) with friends at Islington event, in June this year.  Every picture tells a story, not always the same one (see below *).


THEY say a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on.  These days with electronic media the lie can get right round the world, and probably be on its way back, quite likely embellished, even after it has been refuted. But we must persevere.

On August 16 I took a critical look at a story in the Daily Mail smearing Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn by association with a "notorious holocaust denier". http://randompottins.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-mail-finds-link-or-does-it.html
Thin as the story was - dependent on the MP's support for commemorating a notorious 1948 massacre, and the word of aforesaid Holocaust denier, one Paul Eisen, - it has been put to use, and is becoming shop worn.

That Jeremy Corbyn denies having anything to do with Holocaust denial, and repeatedly condemns antisemitism along with any other kind of racialism is of no importance to his opponents, or to some media hacks. They have a job to do.

I've seen claims on social media that Corbyn "shared a platform with a Holocaust denier" (which even Eisen did not claim) and in the Jewish Chronicle that 7 out of 10 British Jews actually "fear" what will happen if Corbyn wins the Labour leadership. I don't know who they spoke to, but it can't be the Jews I know in Corbyn's Islington North constituency who know and like the MP, and some of whom are supporting him in the Labour leadership contest.

I've not seen what if anything is being said  'Stateside, where people may not know much about our Labour Party, but on past experience when stories like those assailing Jeremy Corbyn are put around they get exaggerated  and cruder, whether because Americans don't do subtlety or their libel laws are more relaxed, and some stories suit certain agendas. So I am pleased to see that as well as some letters from Jewish people defending Jeremy Corbyn finally breaking through the media wall,  there's a Facebook group called Jews for Jeremy, started by that clever entertainer Ian Saville, and including besides British Jews supporters in the United States, Israel and other countries. Hopefully these chaverim will be able to help counteract the lying.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/903669616335883/?fref=ts

One of the "facts" that the Daily Mail writer found most telling was that when Paul Eisen approached Jeremy Corbyn - his MP  - fifteen years ago - about Deir Yassin Remembered, the MP took out his chequebook.  It does not seem to occur to the writer Jake Wallis Simons that fifteen years ago, far from Paul Eisen being "notorious", nobody had heard of him.  I doubt whether he's that famous now.  Whereas the massacre at Deir Yassin was well-known, and nobody denied it had happened, even if Simons and the Jewish Chronicle's Marcel Dysch seem to think they can relegate it to a "controversy" now.     

Stephen Marks on Facebook has managed to put Jeremy Corbyn's generosity fifteen years ago into context, with a little aide memoire:

As Jeremy has already pointed out in the C4News interview, he gave money to DYR when it was founded 15 years ago. At that time Eisen had not ‘come out’ as a holocaust denier, and indeed there is no evidence that he was one. And Jeremy Corbyn was far from the most distinguished public figure to give the cause his support.

According to the Jewish Chronicle on 16 April 2001;
‘Five prominent Progressive rabbis joined Sunday's Central London commemoration of the 1948 massacre of Palestinians at the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. In a concluding prayer to the evening also attended by MPs, Arab diplomats and British-based Palestinians Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues' life president Rabbi John Rayner spoke of "sorrow and shame" that the "land of our ancestors" had been the scene of bitter conflict…

‘Rabbis David Goldberg and Mark Solomon, from the St John's Wood Liberal Synagogue, Finchley Reform minister Rabbi Jeffrey Newman and Durham University lecturer Rabbi Moshe Yehudai-Rimmer also supported the event, which attracted an attendance of several hundred.

‘Rabbi Newman confessed to having been "nervous" in advance about the atmosphere at the commemoration, organised by a joint Jewish and Palestinian group, Deir Yassin Remembered. But he told the JC afterwards that the mood had been "absolutely remarkable, particularly because of the absence of hostility, rage or anger. In many ways it was a mirror image of a Jewish evening of the best sort, with music, drama and poetry," he said. ‘

Moreover there was one other even more distinguished public figure who expressed his support for the event - Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a letter to Paul Eisen, Blair’s Private Secretary, Anna Wechsberg, stated, "The Prime Minister was grateful for your kind invitation, but regrets that due to his existing diary commitments, he will not be able to attend the commemoration on 1 April.” However she added that the Prime Minister “has however asked me to pass on his good wishes for the event.”’ [see http://www.deiryassin.org/pdf/blairletter.pdf].

Once Eisen’s holocaust denial became open most of the distinguished names on the Board of DYR resigned. But many of their names remained on the website (http://www.deiryassin.org) despite requests for them to be removed. Among those who resigned, either in protest at Eisen’s views or because of the co-option onto the board of such figures as the notorious antisemite Israel Shamir, are Israeli activists such as the civil rights lawyer Leah Tsemel and Michael Warshawski of the Alternative Informaton Centre, Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, as well as Norman Finkelstein and Professor Ilan Pappe (see for example http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com.au/…/lea-tsemel-resi… and (http://www.kadaitcha.com/…/bds-attacked-by-deir-yassin-rem…/)

As the latter site makes clear, Eisen’s board of DYR is opposed to the Palestinian campaign for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions. Meawhile Eisen has been vigorously, and predictably, defended by his old friend and ally Gilad Atzmon, who is on record as saying that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which Jeremy Corbyn is a Patron and which has condemned Eisen and Atzmon, is ‘controlled by Jews’.

Another person who makes an informed and well-argued case against the anti-Corbyn smears is journalist Asa Winstanley on the US-based Electronic Intifada website:
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/4-reasons-anti-semitism-attacks-jeremy-corbyn-are-dishonest

The most shocking accusation, originating with The Daily Mail, is that Corbyn has “long standing links” with Paul Eisen, a “notorious” Holocaust denier involved in the group Deir Yassin Remembered.

Eisen certainly expresses disgusting views, denying the Nazi Holocaust took place and frequently expressing other anti-Semitic opinions on his blog.

However, his only real notoriety is for his attempts to infiltrate the Palestine solidarity movement.

Once it became clear what his views were, he was widely condemned and shunned by a movement which is fundamentally anti-racist in its basic principles. Indeed, even in the blog post which the Mail relied on as the source for its smear, Eisen admits that the movement has long “despised me.”

The only real link between the two men (as the Mail conveniently omitted) is that Eisen happens to live in Corbyn’s Islington parliamentary constituency in North London.

Eisen claims to have met him in that capacity – as Corbyn is his member of parliament. It is nonetheless odd that the Mail would be so keen to take the word of a Holocaust denier when it comes to his relationship with Corbyn.

A photograph has been produced of a memorial event which the Mail claims was run by Eisen. However, as this 2013 email sent out by the Palestinian Authority’s UK Mission shows, there was nothing in the advertising about the Holocaust and nothing naming Eisen. There were certainly no links to his blog.

http://palestinianmissionuk.createsend4.com/t/ViewEmail/j/E231FA473C5F10A4/E293E0DBA44E3B9DC67FD2F38AC4859C

Indeed, even on the Deir Yassin Remembered website, Eisen is not named on the contact page, the About page or the Board of Advisors page.

The page misleadingly includes several people as advisors who resigned after some of the the group’s troubling associations became clear.

This includes the Palestinian-American novelist Susan Abulhawa, who stepped down after Eisen wrote an anti-Semitic post on his blog.

See also:
How the Jewish Chronicle dismisses letter-writers supporting Jeremy Corbyn:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142553/anti-israel-activists-attack-jc-challenging-jeremy-corbyn

* And just to give a broader picture, as seen above,from United Synagogue news

On a recent look at events and stories on the You & US pages, I was intrigued to see an announcement that Islington Council, together with Islington Chabad were organising a commemorative plaque to be fixed to Barnes Court, Lofting Road, N.1 - the original site of North London Synagogue. - See more at: http://www.theus.org.uk/article/family-trip-down-memory-lane-islington#sthash.SZF05gWe.dpuf

Rabbi Mendy Korer, who helped to organise the event, followed with telling the audience of his involvement from inviting the local MP Jeremy Corbyn to Shabbat dinner when the MP suggested applying for the plaque to the procedure for residents in the locality voting for its installation.

Also in attendance was United Synagogue’s President Stephen Pack
- See more at: http://www.theus.org.uk/article/family-trip-down-memory-lane-islington#sthash.SZF05gWe.dpuf

Not all Angels, but Not Just Victims Either.

MATCHGIRLS,1888 strike lit way for new trade unionism.

REBEL councillor Minnie Lansbury on way to arrest and jail, 1921

"ANGEL OF CABLE STREET", Dr. Hannah Billig

CABLE Street, in the East End of London, entered the pages of history on October 4,1936, when police attempting to force a way through for Sir Oswald Mosley's Blackshirt fascists ran into resistance, barricades, and unpleasant objects such as the contents of chamber pots hurled at them from the upper storeys of houses. 

A much larger crowd was waiting at Gardners Corner. Eventually,though heads were bloodied and arrests were made, the police, or the Home Secretary, decided to call it a day. Mosley was told his march was off,and he should pack up and go home. Many an East Ender had stories to tell of what they had been part of that day, and most of the legend they handed on to their young were true.

But if the Battle of Cable Street has rightly been remembered, the "Angel of Cable Street" deserves her place in history too,   Born in Hanbury Street, Spitalfields, in 1901,and growing up around Brick Lane, Hannah Billig, the daughter of refugees from Czarist Russia, qualified as a doctor in 1925, and worked in hospitals before setting up her surgery in a Georgian townhouse at 198 Cable Street in 1935. A blue plaque there commemorates her work. Soon the lady doctor riding around to visit people, on her bike with her big black bag, became a familiar sight. She always seemed to have time for the local kids, whether ill or not. And in those pre-NHS days she would see to the patient first, and worry whether they could pay later, if at all.  Sometimes she would pay for medicines out of her own pocket.

During the Blitz on London, Dr. Billig took care of the sick and injured in the air raid shelters in Wapping.  On March 13, 1941, she was tending to people at Orient Wharf  when an explosion threw her out of the shelter and broke her ankle. After bandaging it herself, she helped to get the others out of the rubble, and cared for them through the night.

For her courage and bravery, Billig was awarded the George Medal. Not content with this service, Hannah joined the Indian Army Medical Corps in 1942 as a Captain and was posted to Calcutta. For her work with injured soldiers and refugees in Assam, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1945. The story goes that she apologised for being unable to collect her decoration at the Palace because she was too busy with her patients.  She carried on in the new NHS until her retirement.
 
Hannah Billig is one of many brave and outstanding women made what they became by their experience in London's East End, but making their own mark on history,and the prospects of future generations.  It was here that Eleanor Marx helped the gas workers organise, and Sylvia Pankhurst turned from women's suffrage to workers' revolution, her follower Minnie Lansbury going on to play a leading part in the Poplar council fight.  Not all the makers of history were particularly famous. We can't give the names of all the Bryant and May "matchgirls" who lit the way for the new trade unionism at the end of the 1880s, or the women who stood their ground united in the Stepney rent strikes of the 1930s, creating in their own way yet another barrier to fascist aims of divide and conquer.

But all deserve to be remembered.

 So when a new museum promising to be ‘the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history’ got planning permission to open on Cable Street, that seemed only right, and commendable,something to look forward to.

The original application for the museum said: “The museum will recognise and celebrate the women of the East End who have shaped history, telling the story of how they have been instrumental in changing society. It will analyse the social, political and domestic experience from the Victorian period to the present day.”

The document cited the closure of Whitechapel’s Women’s Library in 2013 to stress that the “Museum of Women’s History”, as it was billed, would be “the only dedicated resource in the East End to women’s history”.

But what has actually opened on Cable Street has turned those apparently virtuous intentions into a sick joke.  Instead of commemorating the matchgirls' strike of 1888, this museum is dedicated to the life of  Jack the Ripper, the serial killer who viciously murdered women across London's East End, from 1888 and 1891.  The founder (a former Head of Diversity at Google) claims "It is not celebrating the crimes of Jack the Ripper but looking at why and how the women got in that situation in the first place”.

This is rubbish. The Ripper's victims may have turned to prostitution in order to live, but they were not to know they would fall victim to a psychopathic murderer who managed to evade detection and whose identity remains a matter of mystery and speculation to this day. Critics of the new museum see it as victim-blaming, as well as treating victimhood as the only role for women, quite the opposite of the kind of history we have cited.

Besides which, it is pretty evident that what was promised in the planning application and what has been delivered are very different things. The new museum, with its sign depicting the supposed Ripper as a black silhouetted figure in Victorian costume on a rose pink background, is turning what may be a legitimate historical and criminological interest into an entertainment for tourists. Besides the implications of treating real-life murders this way, it insults all East Enders, though especially women, by treating the area as a mere backdrop for psychopaths and killers.

A petition is now under way, calling on Tower Hamlets council  to revoke the planning permission for the new museum on Cable street or force it to close down and re-open as the women's history museum we were promised. 



http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/museum-which-promised-to-celebrate-east-end-women-now-devoted-to-jack-the-ripper-10423690.html

About Hannah Billig:
http://www.eastendtalking.org.uk/ourhistory/dr-hannah-billig

 Sign the petition to Tower Hamlets council:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/celebrate-suffragettes-not-serial-killers

 Learn some real East End history on the streets where it happened:
http://www.eastendwalks.com/

And read Dave Rosenberg's book "Rebel Footprints":
http://www.eastendwalks.com/?page_id=613

Nasty business in Bromley

Eviction threat to diabetic carer and daughter

 AS a responsible council worker and trade unionist, Paul Rooney thought it his duty to criticize the policy and workings of Tory-controlled Bromley borough council.  

 http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/bromley/9139983.Bromley_councillors_to_decide_on_sharing_library_services_with_Bexley/?ref=twtrec

http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/10632356.Campaign_over__lamentable__commissioning_plans_from_Bromley_Council/

As well he might. Bromley is closing libraries and other services - a day care centre for disabled adults is next in its sights,  - with little or no consultation or concern for what service users and workers think.  It isn't just a matter of saving money. It's policy. The Tory council plans to cut its workforce from 3000 to 300. Critics say it has over £150 million in its reserve fund alone, yet is still refusing to spend this.

Like their counterparts on Barnet council over in north London, the Bromley councillors not only want to cut services to a minimum but to become a commissioning body, farming out work and service provision to private firms who can make a profit.   

You'd almost think they'd be glad to see the back of Paul Rooney, when he gave up his job as a social work manager. 

As for the rumour that someone had said they were out to get Paul Rooney, if it reached him he probably shrugged it off.  What could they do? This is England. Leafy, respectable Bromley. 
Anyway, enough of rumours. Here's what's happening. A statement from Unite the union.
   

Eviction threat to diabetic ‘facing £51,000 council tax bill is cruel’, says Unite

The attempted eviction of a Bromley insulin dependent diabetic, who looks after his severely disabled daughter and was wrongly charged a total of £51,000 for his council tax bill by outsourcing giant Liberata, was branded as ‘ham-fisted and cruel’.

Unite, the country’s largest union, has rallied in defence of Paul Rooney, who gave up work as a social work manager to look after his 14-year-old daughter Roisin, as bailiffs today (Monday 13 July) descended on the home he owns at 22 Yew Tree Road, Bromley BR3 8HT to take repossession.

Liberata, which runs the council tax collection service on behalf of the controversial Tory-controlled Bromley council, claims that Paul Rooney allegedly owes just over £2,000 in council tax. Liberata, it is alleged, has also tacked on £49,000 in solicitors’ fees.

Unite said that the mistakes made by Liberata were in not processing his application for council tax benefit correctly and this resulted in the council tax not being paid on time – which the union said was ‘an astonishing cock-up and a catalogue of outrageous incompetence’.

Pilgrim Tucker said: “Bromley's notoriously bad outsourced council tax collection service has repeatedly messed up the processing of Paul’s council tax, and now his home is threatened with repossession today.

“Paul, a former Unite rep, gave up work to care for his daughter Roisin, who has a brain tumour and chromasome disorder, with consequent physical and learning disabilities.

“Liberata has presided over an astonishing cock-up and a catalogue of outrageous incompetence – it is shameful. It is ham-fisted and cruel.”

About 30 community activists from Unite and local residents were at Yew Tree Road in a bid to stop the bailiffs from evicting Paul Rooney and Roisin, who has a brain tumour, a chromasome disorder and, as a result, physical and learning disabilities. He gave up work to care for his daughter.

Unite’s London community co-ordinator Pilgrim Tucker said: “This is a horrific case that is inhumane and proves that the outsourcing of council’s services to the private sector is a shambles and they should be brought back in house immediately.”

Bromley council is fully committed to becoming a commissioning council and reducing the number of council employees from 4,000 to 300 – despite having £130 million in reserves. The accelerating privatisation programme has been opposed by Unite’s council members who recently staged a fourth wave of strikes over the plans.
.
Unite regional officer Onay Kasab, who represents members at the council, said: “This appalling case just reinforces the case that Unite has repeatedly made that privatising council services has been a horrendous mistake.

“Our members at the council will continue to fight for the maintenance of decent in-house council services and the jettisoning of the deeply flawed privatisation agenda.”

On its website Liberata claims to be “a business process innovation company that helps customers reinvent complex services, transactions and processing. Our strategy is simply to create value with our customers by building better services for theirs.”

Bromley trades union council  as well as Bromley Unite members are rallying to the side of Paul Rooney, and have raised the issue in the Greater London Association of Trades Union Councils (GLATUC). They are also supporting a lobby at the Civic Centre on Wednesday 15th July, at 6pm to defend the Astley Centre against privatisation.The Astley Centre provides essential support for adults with learning disabilities and it is now being hugely threatened by privatisation efforts.

https://www.facebook.com/bromleyunitetheunion

Call it "Community". Sounds nicer than Slavery on the High Street

LONDONERS and South-East commuters must be very well-informed. We get regional news and features on TV, and free newspapers cluttering the tube. We even have a new regional commercial TV channel. We know from national TV how well the country is prospering, and people are getting back to work, and house prices, even if we can't afford them must mean prosperity in London and the South East.

Some people even have two jobs, Boris for example, and even if Labour now has a string of London boroughs, we are told it must do more to target the "aspirational", those who "shop at Waitrose" and want a "home and garden". Obviously those Londoners who have been told they might have more chance of a council flat if they move to the Black Country are not enough.

There's more to London life than the diet of government hand-outs and West End shows publicised on  BBC, as people know from experience, but it sometimes seems to take less conventional media and unpaid journalists to see what's going on, and talk about it.  One example I've come across is a poet, entertainer and educationalist going by the name of  Pete the Temp

Here's an extract from his blog recently:


Workfare, Forced Labour and the new ‘Business and Community Wardens’.


Arriving at Finsbury Park station I came across a group of men people in high vis vests. Their vests read ‘Business and Community Warden’. I’ve learned to be suspicious of people who claim to be ‘public officers’ or ‘wardens’ so I went up to one to ask what they do. My mistrust quickly melted to sympathy. The man I was speaking to walked with a heavy head, sagging eyes and a narked expression.  His colleagues also looked seriously bored and disaffected.

He told me he is on a six month, 30 hour per week Workfare placement. The work is a compulsory condition for receiving his Job Seekers Allowance –  a meagre £240 a month to live off. Of this he has to pay his own travel (£88 a month) to get to and from his  unpaid work. That leaves him a grand total of £152 a month (or £38 a week) for food, bills, and any other services or contingencies needed to maintain his home and his health. I don’t imagine his weekends are particularly lively.

The frown on his face crept over my own as he told me that he they do not provide food so many days he can’t afford to eat at work. One day he was ill with a virus and needed to miss a day. He was told that “that wasn’t good enough” so he worked through his illness. If he misses a day of work he loses 1 month pay. If he misses 3 days he loses months of pay.

I was left wondering how much time he and his fellow unemployed colleagues  were able to look for work while they stood motionlessly and reluctantly outside the station waiting for members of the public to ask them directions. They told me that they “have a list of things to do” including patrolling local supermarkets (they have been dealing with shoplifters for both Sainsburys and Tesco) but mostly they have to just stand there.

Why do these supermarkets (who have already dodged so much tax) get free forced labour from some of the borough’s most vulnerable involuntarily unemployed? Was it not these same corporations who lobbied so hard against the minimum wage and are now cutting costs on their own security? If they are benefiting from this labour then why don’t they, and not the tax payer, pay the Job Seekers Allowance ?

“How do I complain?” I asked the Warden.

“Phone the number on my vest and speak to Courtney Bailey, he’s the boss”

When I phoned I got through to The Finsbury Park Business Forum. This is an odd place to be directing a complaint about a body of public wardens, regularly briefed by the MET to carry out low level police patrol and ‘counter terrorism’ duties as a kind of forced volunteer unit of para- police. The Business forum’s website says that one of their duties is to ‘lower the perception of crime’ at the station. In helping the police clear the area of ASBOs this can be seen as the civilianisation of social cleansing. Poor people forced to police poor people on behalf of business.

Courtney Bailey met my complaint by quickly becoming loud, aggressive and insulting. When I pressed him on the scheme he accused me of being “wrong in the head”, “full of it” and “one of those anarchists” (he was at least right about that last point).

“Name me one person who is has no choice to work for us?!” he shouted.

“I’m not going to name them because you might report them to the Job Centre and they could lose their benefits” I replied.

He hung up.

Kerry- Anne Mendoza, in her fantastic new book: ‘Austerity: The Demolition of the Welfare State and the Rise of the Zombie Economy’ points out:

‘Article 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights clearly states: ‘No-one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour.’ If the government threatens to withdraw a person’s sole lifeline unless they supply their labour, then it can clearly be argued that this labour has been obtained forcibly. The labour is also clearly compulsory.’

She goes on to point out that benefits such as the JSA are a safety net that help citizens ‘live in dignity’ and are a ‘foundation stone of social democracy’. Why are we now submitting people to compulsory work in order to get it?"

The Jobcentre sends people on this scheme where they are supposedly gaining training and experience.  Pete reckons the "training" consists of a visit with someone from the Metropolitan Police to give the "volunteers" training in "self-confidence".

The Forum says ‘This is truly a community coming together as one team for a safer neighbourhoods in   Islington…Our aim is to promote community solidarity and encourage neighbourhoods to identify and solve problems and be a trusted friend for Business and the Community.’

"The newsletter thanks VIPs in the police, local businesses and stakeholders. Not a word of thanks  goes to the Wardens themselves, who will be working without pay outside Finsbury Park station for the next six months.  The scheme is soon set to be rolled out to Drayton Park, Arsenal, Highbury & Islington, Holloway Road, Angel, Camden, Kings Cross – tube and train stations."

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/ 



A few years ago I seconded a motion at the annual conference of trades union councils calling for a campaign against these workfare schemes. Some sisters and brothers from Merseyside felt our London motion did not go far enough, and they successfully moved an amendment promising more action.

I'm afraid I missed the report the following year on what had actually been done. If anyone can set me right on I'd welcome their accounts.

Meantime, we have the Tories back with a vengeance, and we can see why they are keen to get rid of awkward notions like Human Rights that they find restrictive.

Tower Hill to Mayfair, the Message is the Same

 WORKERS from London's Crossrail project where Rene Tkacik was killed last year were among those who gathered by the statue of the Unknown Building Worker on Tower Hill on Tuesday morning, April 28, for International Workers Memorial Day.

Rene Tkacik was buried under a falling section of 'shotcrete' in a tunnel at Holborn.  Speakers who had attended the inquest on Rene at St.Pancras Coroners Court on February 23 said fellow workers who had escaped near misses were not allowed to give evidence, nor were those reporting that contractors on Crossrail had sacked workers who complained of inadequate safety.

Phil Lewis from London Hazard Centre read a letter from Families Against Corporate Killing, remembering young workers killed while still in their teens. Peter Farrel from the Construction Safety Campaign said fines for safety breaches were nothing to building companies making huge profits. He also called for release of government documents about the jailing of the 1972 Shrewsbury building pickets.

Shadow Employment Minister Stephen Timms pledged that if Labour was returned in the election on May 7 it would reverse Tory cuts in HSE inspections, and would order a public enquiry into blacklisting of building workers. Gail Cartmail from Unite the Union urged workers to defend the National Health Service, and to oppose the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) which would undermine both services and safety regulations.

UCATT building union members laid a wreath under the statue, apprentices released a flight of black baloons for every building worker killed in the past year, and the crowd held a minute's silence in tribute.

  In the afternoon the action moved to posh Mayfair, and specifically South Audley Street, where the State of Qatar has its embassy. Migrant workers, mainly from south Asia, are hard at work in the blazing heat of this Gulf state on the stadium and infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.  Many of these workers are from Nepal. If present working conditions and rate of fatalities continue it looks as though the World Cup preparations will have killed as many people as the Nepalese earthquake.


On February 19, 2014 The Guardian's chief sports correspondent, Owen Gibson, reported the Indian embassy in Doha had confirmed 502 Indian migrant workers died since January 2012. The International Trade Union Confederation also called to the deaths and the plight of migrant workers in Qatar, many of whom have been employed under a system called Kafala, which requires the workers to pay sponsors to come to Qatar.  Once there they find themselves in debt bondage, exploited and living in poor conditions, and unable to leave a job.

Migrant workers brought into Qatar for the building boom and other work are now the bulk of the country's population.

Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, told a European Parliament hearing: "Qatar is a slave state for 1.4 million migrant workers. It doesn't have to be that way. Qatar chooses to build its modern nation with the labor of migrant workers and deliberately chooses to maintain a system that treats these workers as less than human. . . . If you continue to run the World Cup in a state which enslaves workers, it shames the game. The government must end the system of kafala if the World Cup is to be played in Qatar in 2022."

"Companies, governments, and FIFA must not be complicit in treating workers as slaves in Qatar and the escalating death toll. Our conservative estimate, based on data on deaths of Nepalese and Indian workers alone, is that more than 4,000 workers will die before a ball is kicked in 2022," Burrow said.

A Qatar employment ministry's statement said it had increased the number of trained labor inspectors by 25 percent, and was hiring additional inspectors. It also promised to reform the kafala system.

 http://ohsonline.com/articles/2014/02/19/qatar-migrant-worker-death-toll-confirmed.aspx

http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/660891

But at the end of the year a report said:
"Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to host the 2022 World Cup have died at a rate of one every two days in 2014 – despite Qatar’s promises to improve their working conditions, the Guardian has learned. The figure excludes deaths of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi workers, raising fears that if fatalities among all migrants were taken into account the toll would almost certainly be more than one a day. Qatar had vowed to reform the industry after the Guardian exposed the desperate plight of many of its migrant workers last year. The government commissioned an investigation by the international law firm DLA Piper and promised to implement recommendations listed in a report published in May.
 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/23/qatar-nepal-workers-world-cup-2022-death-toll-doha

More than Chutzpah Behind the Bulldozers

 

 HOW IT WAS

A historic London pub has been demolished by a developer's bulldozers, without planning permission, and without warning to people in neighbouring properties or any precautions for their safety. Even the landlady was not told.

Now people are watching to see what action Westminster council takes, and demanding the company responsible are compelled to make good what they have destroyed or that the site is taken off them and used for social housing -and a new pub or social club.

 "Passers by stared in amazement as two bulldozers tore into Carlton Tavern in Carlton Vale, destroying its shell and all its contents including a wide screen television, darts trophies, pictures, and a pint glass left on a table.

No safety precautions had been put in place resulting in concerns about security of nearby buildings and if the utilities had been switched off prior.

Patsy Lord, the pub’s landlady, rushed to the scene from her home in Maida Vale after she was alerted to the demolition and told she needed to move her son’s car. After opening for business on Monday and hosting an Easter quiz, she was told the pub would be closed for an ‘inventory'."

Local councillor Tom Crockett said: “Neither the council, my fellow councillors nor local residents had any notice of this demolition which I saw with my own eyes being conducted without any obvious safety precautions such as hoardings, barriers or formal traffic controls. All took place as children on school holidays played outside and unsuspecting traffic went past through clouds of smoke and dust.

(This might well have included asbestos dust - RP)

“The demolition clearly took place under a cloak of secrecy; neither the locals nor the landlady knew. Televisions remained on the walls and the bar appeared fully stocked.

“We are urging officers to take the strongest action open to them. I have personally taken the time to ensure that photographic and film evidence has been collated and passed to officers for referral to the Health and Safety Executive whom I urge to consider bringing prosecutions.”

A Westminster council spokesperson told Londonist: “Westminster City Council’s Planning Enforcement Team received a report that the Carlton Tavern was in the process of being demolished. A planning inspector of the planning enforcement team visited the site immediately following receipt of the report and noted at 2.30pm that the building had indeed been substantially demolished with only one side wall remaining
This is truly outrageous behaviour which has to be dealt with properly. "

 In the past we have remarked on the mystery fires which destroyed some derelict pubs when owners were waiting for planning permission.  But in this case the company neither took its time waiting nor resorted to subterfuge. It is possible one reason for its hurry was that a preservation order on the building was expected, so the bulldozers were ordered in first.

Councillor Rita Begum, Maida Vale ward for Labour, said: "It was a shock. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. "I went past just the other day and there were people drinking inside the pub - there was no warning whatsoever.

"They were going to confirm it as a listed building on Wednesday. I think the developers found out it was going to be a listed building and that's why the destroyed it.

Planning permission was sought in June 2014 on behalf of CLTX Ltd by Kieran Rafferty, of KR Planning, who describes himself on Twitter as an "independent planning consultant helping people deal with the anchors on society". 


As for the chances of even Tory Westminster council having to take tough action, this may not be easy.  The company which had applied to build flats on the site  is C. L. T. X., based in Tel  Aviv.

As one commentator says, "The only director of C.L.T.X. Ltd is Ori Calif, born 1977 (Director ID: 915883939) Registered address and Trading Address in London is 21 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3HH. Other registered address for Calif is 8 Shaul Hamelech Blvd, Tel Aviv, Israel 64733. Any lawsuit will be an issue since the company is only worth £942 and has £1,458 Cash It has £5,917 Assets with £4,975 Liabilities. I suppose jail would suffice!!"

This has brought some wry allusions to Israeli house demolitions, and we could also refer to the use of planning regulations to order them.  But more to the point, we must wonder how a company based so far away, and with such modest assets, could find its way among the big boys of the London property market and propose to build a block of flats, with apparently less cash than you would normally need to pay a deposit or raise a mortgage to buy a flat in London?

It must take chutzpah, sure, but surely also require good contacts. My guess, as a mere amateur with no business experience or proper knowledge of these matters, is that this company must have backing. And if they were tipped off that the building was about to be listed, so that they decided to send in the bulldozers right away, that sounds like they or their advisors had a useful contact in Westminster council's planning office.  Only saying....

 


 
http://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/heritage/shock_as_historic_pub_in_kilburn_is_demolished_with_no_warning_and_without_permission_1_4027231

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/developer-demolishes-historic-london-pub/8681094.article

http://londonist.com/2015/04/shock-as-historic-pub-demolished-without-permission.php

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/11525262/Bulldozers-level-historic-pub-the-day-before-it-is-due-to-be-listed.html

http://www.endole.co.uk/company/07578871/cltx-ltd 

• C.L.T.X. limited - incorporated 25 March 2011. Companies House has a proposal to strike off, perhaps due the non delivery of their 31 March 2014 accounts which were due 31 December 2014. Registered office 21 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3HH. One director - a Mr Ori Calif of 8 Shaul Hamelech Blvd, Tel Aviv, Israel 64733. C.L.T.X. has a subsidiary Ye Old White Bear Limited - again registered at 21 Bedford Square (this is probably their accountant's office). Ye Old White Bear was founded on 11 June 2013, no accounts or company return ever made so there is again a Companies House proposal to strike off. Our old friend Ori Calif is the sole director, but this time his address is given as 28 Kensington Park Gardens, Notting Hill W11 2QS and his occupation given as lawyer. There is a law firm called Ori Calif & Co registered at 8 Shaul Hamelech Blvd which claims a special focus on international taxation and real estate. Don't know if it is connected but there is a pub called The Old White Bear in Hampstead which was supposedly saved from being developed into a 6 bedroom house last year, but apparently has yet to re-open as a pub.-         'Wolfie Smith'

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/carlton-tavern-in-carlton-way-kilburn-is-demolished-with-no-warning-and-without-permission.333913/

Dirty Money fuels 'Social Cleansing'

 (photo Martin Francis, Wembley Matters),
http://wembleymatters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/housing-groups-call-urgent-meeting-with.html

A DELEGATE to my local trades council was reporting last week how families in his part of the London Borough of Brent were being told they should move to another part of the country if they wanted housing.

Up the road in the neighbouring Tory-run Borough of Barnet, tenants and residents of the West Hendon neighborhood are confronting a privatised regeneration that will leave many with neither security nor the ability to afford to stay.

Across London in Labour-run Newham the E15 Mothers occupied an empty estate to highlight the council's policy, under which they were told to move to the Midlands or further afield.  

I first heard the expression "social cleansing" used when Tory Westminster council was removing people from the run-down Artillery Mansions block of flats across Victoria Street from City Hall.
To be precise, I saw it on an improvised banner protesting what the council was doing, slung from the building's upper-storey windows.  I'd just come back from Bosnia so the protesters' allusion to ethnic cleansing needed no explaining.

Dame Shirley Porter's policy of clearing streets and council homes of working class people, in the name of "building stable communities" became associated with gerrymandering, and better known as the "Homes for Votes" scandal, leading to the Tesco heiress moving to the Israeli seaside resort of Herzliya, and eventually having to pay a £12.3 million fine.

But the broader policy of privatising and selling council housing to Yuppie buyers had been pioneered by Tory Wandsworth council without much problem (except for less affluent people on the housing list who saw entire estates taken out of their reach). Taxi drivers told of fares asking for Battersea destinations across the bridge as "South Chelsea".

The battle for urban space that has become too fashionable or convenient for the centre (the Cities of London and Westminster) and so is priced out of reach for working people, has been a recurrent feature of the capital. The problem was intensified under Thatchernomics, when industry, even in parts of London, was left to rust, while the City finance sector and the property market for a time boomed. The pressure on housing, and on transport, with everyone having to come into the centre to work, has continued. Even today, though Mayor Boris Johnson blames homelessness and rough sleeping in the capital on "immigrants", most of the people migrating into London for work are coming from other parts of Britain.

London's prosperity does not extend to other parts of the country, nor down to everyone in London.  But during the previous period of growth the Duke of Westminster, whose family had donated land to the city for housing working-class people, had to fight a legal battle to prevent Westminster council selling off the estate behind the Tate Gallery, because the council claimed there was no such thing anymore as a "working class".  I don't know which new social thinkers the Tories has been reading.      
Nowadays the battle to resist social cleansing has become more widespread. The government's policy of capping benefits does not help, since nobody is doing anything about rent capping. In Hoxton, once far from being a fashionable area, the New Era estate tenants were faced with a 'developer' threatening to double rents and evict those who could not afford them.  The long neglected Battersea power station site is finally being developed for housing, but not at prices most Londoners can afford. On a smaller scale, flats being built as part of the Willesden Green library redevelopment are being advertised in Singapore, apparently. Whether anyone in sunny Singapore really fancies moving to Willesden we don't know, but as with Battersea, they are being sold the flats as an investment.

Well, we've all played Monopoly. But whereas that's just a game, the pundits and politicians on television talk as though the supply and demand for land, and the price of homes, is some kind of objective process, the values are real, and we have to move out to the Green belt, or treat old and run-down estates as "brown belt" for redevelopment -and more expensive- housing.  Oh, and at least two thirds of the council homes which were supposedly sold to tenants are now in the hands of private landlords renting for profit.

And now another aspect of all this has come into view.

This is taken from yesterday's 'Independent':

Billions of pounds of corruptly gained money has been laundered by criminals and foreign officials buying upmarket London properties through anonymous offshore front companies – making the city arguably the world capital of money laundering.

Some 36,342 properties in London have been bought through hidden companies in offshore havens and while a majority of those will have been kept secret for legitimate privacy purposes, vast numbers are thought to have been bought anonymously to hide stolen money.

The flow of corrupt cash has driven up average prices with a “widespread ripple effect down the property price chain and beyond London”, according to property experts cited in the most comprehensive study ever carried out into the long-suspected money laundering route through central London real estate, by the respected anti-corruption organisation Transparency International.

Some sources claim it has skewed developers towards building high-priced flats and houses rather than ones ordinary people can afford. While corruption and tax evasion are likely to be the biggest sources of the illicit money, drug dealing, people trafficking and sanctions busting are also common, police say.

TI’s research, which includes previously unreleased internal figures from the Metropolitan Police Proceeds of Corruption Unit, found that 75 per cent of properties owned by people under criminal investigation for corruption are held through secret offshore companies.

London has become a global magnet for corrupt funds, TI said, due to the high prices of property – enabling millions of pounds to be laundered at a time – and Britain’s notoriously lax rules on the disclosure of property ownership.

Any anonymous company in a secret location, such as the British Virgin Islands, can buy and sell houses in the UK with no disclosure of who the actual purchaser is. Meanwhile, TI said, estate agents only have to carry out anti-money-laundering checks on the person selling the property, leaving the buyers bringing their money into the country facing little, if any scrutiny.

Anti-corruption activists including Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition figure murdered in Moscow last Friday, have repeatedly expressed frustration that the UK does so little to stem the flow of money stolen from their countries.

Boris Nemtsov was outspoken about the UK's efforts to clamp down on money laundering Boris Nemtsov was outspoken about the UK's efforts to clamp down on money laundering (Getty)

Robert Barrington, executive director of TI, said: “This has a devastating effect on the countries from which the money has been stolen and it’s hard to see how welcoming the world’s corrupt elite is beneficial to communities in the UK.”

Over £180m of UK property has been investigated by police in the past decade, but this is likely to be only a small proportion of the actual amount, the report says. UN figures suggest only 1 per cent of money laundering flows are   detected.

Detective Chief Inspector Jon Benton, director of operations at the Proceeds of Corruption Unit, said: “Properties that are purchased with illicit money, which is often stolen from some of the poorest people in the world, are nearly always layered through offshore structures.

“In nearly all the grand corruption cases we investigate, we find – what we suspect is – proceeds of corruption being used to purchase high-value properties.”

Preferred option: the British Virgin Islands Preferred option: the British Virgin Islands

Companies set up in the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories such as Jersey, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar are the preferred option for concealment of corrupt property purchases.

More than a third of company-owned London houses are held by effectively anonymous firms in the British Virgin Islands. Jersey companies own 14 per cent and the Isle of Man and Guernsey 8.5 per cent and 8 per cent.

Mr Benton said: “The lack of access to beneficial ownership information about offshore companies that hold property in the UK is a major barrier for our investigations.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-property-boom-built-on-dirty-money-10083527.html

What was it Mrs.Thatcher said about not letting criminals profit from their crimes?

Perhaps if David Cameron wants a monument to the 'Iron Lady' it could be a Statue of Dirty Liberty inscribed "Bring Me Your Crooks and Corrupt Dictators, and especially the Money".

Hendon story:
http://www.londontenants.org/Pages/projectsderrick.htm

Such treatment of staff is a National Disgrace

NATIONAL GALLERY, January 19.  Two thirds of staff told jobs will be privatised.

FINE art can be a profitable business, hoarded as private wealth, or patronised for prestige by big business, but when the care and appreciation of art treasures comes up against the quest for short-term profit, what comes first?

Four years ago the famous art dealers Sotheby, at their New York branch, tried to dispense with professional art handlers and entrust valuable works of art to untrained casual delivery staff. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), Professional Art Handlers' Local 14, resisted, even sending a team to London for support, and with other trade unionists I was proud to join the US brothers - and sisters - picketing Sotheby's one evening in Bond Street.  I'm pleased to say that after a ten month lock out, the management signed an agreement with the union and members got their jobs back.

TRANS-ATLANTIC SOLIDARITY on Bond Street.  Guests arriving for white-tied evening do at Sotheby's greeted by union pickets from New York and London.

 Staff at major art galleries have a double responsibility,  looking after the pictures and the public. Both can require sensitive handling.  The staff at London's prestigious National Gallery are used to that.  They are not highly paid, but they might have expected some respect.

 But last year, for a special exhibition of Rembrandt's later works, sponsored by Shell, which opened in October, the Gallery contracted a private security firm to do the work. And by January 18, when the exhibition ended, the workers had been told privatisation was here to stay. Organised in the same Public and Commercial Services (PCS) that covers other civil servants, they are fighting to defend their jobs and the service they provide.  Earlier this month the staff walked out on strike, and they are planning further strike action starting on Sunday.  

"The National Gallery has told 400 of its 600 staff they are to be taken over by a private company. They are responsible for the security of the paintings and the public and look after the millions of visitors.

The National Gallery is the only major museum that does not pay the London Living Wage.

FORTY THOUSAND SAY PRIVATISATION NO WAY

Over 40,000 people have signed our petition and supported our campaign to halt the privatisation.

The Gallery has brought in a private company CIS to “temporarily” take over services in a third of the gallery at the additional cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money.

So privatisation raises public costs, and the private company's profits, not the workers' pay and conditions, nor the standards of service. 

PCS recently received an email from a gentleman complaining that staff in the National Gallery Rembrandt exhibition were rude and aggressive, and that there is no reason why visitors should have to put up with staff shouting at them.
"We don't have to be nice to you" is a phrase he recalled being used by one or the staff.
We explained that the Rembrandt exhibition was staffed by the private security company CIS not by National Gallery staff.
He replied “Clearly these CIS staff are a not up to the job – their hectoring manner is that of prison guards. Please feel free to use this information in support of your campaign. Good Luck!”
We are including here some other bad experiences, mostly taken from the comments on Polly Toynbee’s article in the Guardian. http://gu.com/p/452t7/sbl

Can you help us? Did you have a bad visitor experience at the Rembrandt exhibition? Would you tell us about it in the comments below or send us a personal message?
We are campaigning against the Gallery’s privatisation plans. We don’t like the idea of a private company damaging our reputation and that of the Gallery, and would like to try and establish whether these are just a few isolated incidents, or if they’re more widespread. Thank you!
...Also, we're out on strike 22nd-26th February. Details on how you can support us here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/880876355297820/

Just to show how eager they are to impress the Con Dem government and London's Tory Mayor perhaps, and how uninterested in reaching agreement with their workers, the National Gallery bosses have suspended a senior PCS union representative, Candy Udwin. Candy's 'offence' it seems was  drafting a question for the PCS Negotiation Officer about the cost of CIS.  Supporters have collected over 8500 signatures for a statement condemning this victimisation and calling for her reinstatement.

Appeal for help:

Make a donation to our strike fund – Thanks to those who already donated over £6000!
Most strikers do not even earn the London Living Wage so any donations will help.
Donate to Sort code 086001 Account no 20169002 or cheques to Culture Sector Hardship Fund, c/o PCS North West Region, Jack Jones House,1 Islington, Liverpool L3 8EG.
Write to the Gallery Trustees
Email the chair mark.getty@ng-london.org.uk 

A Commons Early Day Motion, 300, on staffing and security at the National Gallery, has attracted 59 signatures. 
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/300
Ask your MP to support the campaign and back Early Day Motion 300.  Email your MP here: http://action.pcs.org.uk/page/speakout/no-privatisation-at-the-national-gallery


Sign and share the no privatisation petition – make it 50,000!
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no-privatisation-at-national-gallery

Email noprivatisationatNG@gmail.com  or
www.facebook.com/nonationalgalleryprivatisation %E2%80%99s

On US teamsters' dispute at Sotheby's, see:
http://www.labornotes.org/2012/06/ending-lockout-teamsters-wrap-agreement-sotheby