The Christmas #PMQs Tweeted & Translated
So as the Democratic Republic of Congo’s stolen election is being protested against in the streets of London this is what was discussed in the mother of all parliaments…
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A JOKE
Ken Clarke is attempting to sneak through anti-squatting laws
From SQUASH Campaign
Housing charities, MPs, squatters, property consultants, activists, lawyers and artists have accused the coalition government of sneaking in an amendment to the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill announced on Wednesday by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke to “make squatting in residential buildings a criminal offence”. Campaigners say the amendment will not take into account the thousands of consultation responses submitted earlier this month and will not add any further protection to residents.
Over the past 3 months the government have been undertaking a consultation process entitled “Options for Dealing with squatters” which came to an end on October 5th. Squatters Action for Secure Homes (SQUASH) have accused the government of “ignoring the consultation” by rushing through anti-squatting laws only 3 weeks after the consultation has ended. The squatting consultation response has just been published. 90% of responses argued against taking any action on squatting. Of a total of 2217 responses, 2126 were from people concerned about the impact of criminalising squatting. The consultation response recognised “that the statistical weight of responses was therefore against taking any action on squatting”.
Was the Dale Farm eviction really “Ethnic Cleansing”?
Over the past day, weeks and months, we have witnessed an unprecedented use of force and power towards one section of an ethnic minority community based in Essex. The local police constabulary and Basildon Council have admitted that the residents of Dale Farm pose no criminal threat nor are a source of other social antagonism other than simply wanting to live among the more “settled” elements. However the “peaceful eviction” was initiated by riot police bludgeoning faces with batons and firing tasers at protestors.
This was we are led to believe part of “facilitating” the enforcement of civil law. It is clear that the state is going beyond its normal throes of oppression. “Yeah it is really bad”, a friend tells me, “but is it really ‘ethnic cleansing’? Doesn’t that hyperbole totally demean all those people that really are suffering from ethnic cleansing and genocide?”
“Cardboard City” Flash Mob against Homelessness on 15th September
From Dale Farm Solidarity London (dalefarmldn[at]gmail.com)
Eric Pickles' office has been targeted by anti-homelessness protestors
On Thursday 15th September, friends and supporters of the Traveller site at Dale Farm in Essex and activists from various campaigning groups will assemble in a flash mob to create a “cardboard city” at the offices of the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
Supporting activists and groups include No Sweat, Dale Farm Solidarity, trade union activists, Amnesty International supporters, anti-racist groups such as UAF and audacity.org
Only 35 schools out of 2000 take up Gove’s school bribe?
Results of a survey passed to the Anti Academy Alliance suggest that only 35 schools have decided to enter in to a Faustian pact with Michael Gove by taking up his offer of a fast track to academy status.
If this is true, it is a welcome set-back to the Con Dem government’s plans to dismantle locally supported comprehensive state education and create in its place a socially divisive hierarchy of academy, “free” and second-class schools, with its upper tiers accountable only to Michael Gove himself.
Southwark Unites Against the Emergency Budget – 19/07/10 @ 7pm
Southwark Trade Union Council presents: Southwark Unites against the Emergency Budget at the Salvation Army Community Church Hall, 1 Princess Street, London SE1 6HH on Monday 19th July 2010 at 7pm.
The Coalition Government have declared war against working people and the poor. Despite attempts to dress up the budget as “progressive”, independent economists have given it a damning verdict.
Academies: My school blazer costs £90
By Joshua Rooney
Gordon Brown and Ed Balls at the City of London Academy
From 2004 to 2008, I attended the City of London Academy in Southwark, one of four Academies sponsored by the Corporation of London; the others are in Camden, Islington, and Hackney. The main subject focus of the school was therefore Business studies, regardless of the fact that it was neither a required curriculum subject nor students’ desire to actually study business, and students were also required to take the mandatory Business GCSE, again, regardless of student needs or wants.
In addition to the educational favouritism, the school also had a token amount of students who actually lived in the City, and they were provided with minibuses to ferry them to and from school every day, whilst non City students had to take public transport – even when it was quite late at night after clubs and detentions, there was no consideration for the younger students who were made to travel on buses through rough areas as late as 9PM. Uniforms were also expensive, up to £90 for a blazer, and a requirement for leather shoes, once again, not a problem for the City kids, but a large investment for the families of students in poorer areas which made up about 95% of the school population, including myself.
Coalition Government cuts homes for workers
From A Thousand Cuts
The Homes and Communities Agency has got back to me with figures on the affordable housing budget cuts.
You may recall that government funding cuts have left a shortfall in the agency’s budget. As a result, there will be cutbacks in affordable housing programmes across the country – with 4,500 affordable homes at risk of cancellation.
Osborne’s Legacy – A generation on the unemployment scrap-heap
by Chuka Umunna
So now we know: the action being taken by this Lib-Con government in the name of deficit reduction will cost at least 1.1m jobs across the public and private sectors. How do we know this? Because the Treasury says so, hence today’s big story.
But far from the media circus, a new deficit is growing. Not a fiscal deficit, but a generational one. It takes the form of the thousands of young people who will leave school this September with no prospects of work or training and who risk slipping into a crippling cycle of long-term unemployment. It is a debt that the new government is racking up in order to fund a macho, ideologically motivated drive to slash government spending deep and fast. And unlike the fiscal deficit, it will not take four or six or 10 years to pay down; it will take a generation.
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Yesterday’s Prime Ministers Questions – Condensed in Tweets
As some followers of The Multicultural Politic, are aware, every now and then I translate the waffle and guff spoken during Prime Minister’s questions into ordinary language. The words in quotes are literal, everything else is inferred by me.
DISCLAIMER: This is only for fun not an accurate reporting of the event.
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