You can follow the current proceedings online: here.
There has been a “massive bonfire” (words of counsel) in the National Domestic Extremism Database recently, partly or perhaps mainly because of the HMIC’s assessment that there was massive overinclusion of data.
The existence of this database was revealed by the media (The Guardian, I believe) in 2009. It may have been in existence since 1999 and have widened its scope later.
Police and CPS like soft targets. (I call it sandwich justice, but sometimes, it goes a lot further than mere sandwich justice.) Thankfully, she was not jailed for 12 months.
Readers, howmany more similar stories am I going to have to cover?
A woman whose benefits had been stopped stole food from a supermarket.
Wendy Rogers, 51, of Garstang Road East, Poulton, pleaded guilty to two offences of theft.
Chrissie Hunt, prosecuting, said Rogers took a shoulder of pork from Asda on September 28, and the following day returned to the store and took a packet of cream cheese.
Trevor Colebourne, defending, said his client, who had no previous convictions, was severely disabled and had had numerous operations.
At the time of the theft she had problems over her benefits and was penniless.
Rogers was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £15 victims’ surcharge by Blackpool magistrates.
On 28 November, MPs can vote to outlaw revenge evictions, evictions that happen just because a tenant asks to have the heating fixed or a mould and moisture problem dealt with. The law currently still allows that. Find out if your MP is standing up for renters. Mine is (but I don’t know yet if he will also attend the debate in Parliament that day).
Here are examples of other MPs who are voting to end revenge evictions:
Andrew Smith
Oxford East
Bob Blackman
Harrow East
Nicola Blackwood
Oxford West and Abingdon
Peter Bottomley
Worthing West
Philip Hollobone
Kettering
Sarah Teather
Brent Central
Stephen Williams
Bristol West
Tessa Munt
Wells
Andrew Slaughter
Hammersmith
Annette Brooke
Mid Dorset and North Poole
Caroline Lucas
Brighton Pavilion
David Lammy
Tottenham
Diane Abbott
Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Don Foster
Bath
Heidi Alexander
Lewisham East
Jeremy Corbyn
Islington North
Jim Fitzpatrick
Poplar and Limehouse
Julian Huppert
Cambridge
Karen Buck
Westminster North
Kate Hoey
Vauxhall
Keith Vaz
Leicester East
Lynne Featherstone
Hornsey and Wood Green
Simon Danczuk
Rochdale
Stephen Pound
Ealing North
Teresa Pearce
Erith and Thamesmead
Brian Donohoe
Central Ayrshire
Once upon a time, there was a woman who got really ticked off because her disabled brother was unable to get a job. Employers told him ‘no’. So she started a business herself and offered him a job.
The year was 1999. The startup location was in Amsterdam, right around the corner from where I was living back then. Today that business has 17 branches all over the country. Two years ago, in 2012, it was acquired by a larger enterprise, but the business philosophy remains the same.
Valid Express only employs couriers who are physically disabled or chronically ill.
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Privacy is a cultural concept. Privacy does not mean the same in the US as it does in the UK and it does not mean the same in the UK as it does in the Netherlands and it does not mean the same in the Netherlands as it does in Hong Kong.
That’s a challenging idea.
A battle between a Hong Kong-based businessman and internet search giant Google is set to cost some £2.36 million by the time it reaches the end of a five-day trial set for later this month, according to figures given to a High Court judge.
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Last September, the Independent reported that about 50,000 people – mostly disabled – were being threatened with eviction on account of the so-called bedroom tax (a cut in the benefits of those people who need support most, generally). Someone just alerted me to this post about the eviction of Michael Hilton in East Lancashire.
If this account of events is accurate and fairly complete, a violation of the Interference with Good Act 1977 occurred in this case, and under circumstances that I find repugnant.
The Lancashire Telegraph also reported on this eviction but did not mention the destruction of Mr Hilton’s belongings. I hope that the ‘rifling’ through the skip was done by caring neighbours who tried to salvage some of Mr Hilton’s possessions, if they were indeed disposed of instantly.
To me, the ‘bedroom tax’ sounds like an instrument fitting for a feudal aristocracy as those who are affected by it are often unable to change their circumstances in such a way that they can avoid it. There is an almost feudal relationship between those who impose this astonishingly ridiculous and cruel ‘bedroom tax’ (the government) and the affected persons, but that is not what this post is about.
It is not necessarily true that tenants who appear to ignore eviction notices are burying their heads in the sand. The real reason can be that there is simply very little such tenants can do. There is a general misconception among the public – including police – that tenants who receive an eviction notice can make this ‘go away’ if only they will act.
There is no magical solution called ‘help’ out there. Many councils are unable to do anything for tenants threatened with eviction. The councils can rehouse some of the most vulnerable people, but that appears to be relatively rare. I think it is a fair assumption that anyone who is unable to escape the bedroom tax is equally unable to do something about a subsequent eviction.
The idea of eviction makes most people feel so extremely vulnerable that they distance themselves from other people’s evictions by telling themselves that eviction could never happen to them. They, after all, would act if it ever happened to them. That assumption is wrong. Eviction can happen to anyone. If it were to happen to you, you might find yourself just as powerless and just as distraught as Mr Hilton, certainly if you’d been living in your home as long as Mr Hilton had. 30 years.
In all fairness, Hyndburn Homes appears to be trying to do what it can, but it is a bit hard to tell from a distance. I am finding them very communicative, though, and that is usually a good sign. I have asked for concrete examples of solutions Hyndburn Homes finds together with tenants. Seeing what is possible might help diminish the number of tenants who seemingly refuse offers of support and ‘choose not to work with’ housing associations.
When you’re very stressed, which is almost always the case when you’re about to be kicked out of your home, it becomes very hard to see solutions. All you likely still see is a giant wall of problems closing in on you. I too would like to know what solutions housing associations are able to offer. Because many people – tenants and housing associations alike – need that inspiration.
England often seems to have a big problem with them. White shoes. Sneakers. Trainers.
I’ve been wearing them for decades. No, not the same pair, ha ha.
I love to walk and I love to run and I love being able to make that bus, train or tram on account of a last-minute sprint instead of being hampered by my high-heeled footwear. Wearing those white shoes also helps if you have to traverse long corridors and many staircases in university buildings a lot, like I used to do.
My Dutch GP used to compliment me on my sensible shoes, but many English people seem puzzled and amused or even alarmed by it when I wear white shoes. Trainers. Sneakers.
I don’t know the exact background for the strange looks I sometimes get because of my white shoes – something to do with ‘chavs’ ? – but I can’t be the only one who gets them. Those looks. Next time you catch one or dole one out, remember the following, and smile.
A white shoe firm is a top firm in law, management consulting or investment banking. Clifford Chance, as one example, is usually seen as part of the magic circle, but would be called a white shoe law firm much more often if it weren’t English and the description weren’t of American origin.
And next time someone comments on my white shoes? Maybe I will smile, and counter that I work at a white shoe firm.
If the British pay more attention to substance and less to color-coordinating their acccessories, and hire more people on the basis of their capabilities instead of on size of tits and perceived fuckability or the fact that someone is the son or nephew of the Duke of Dipshitz, Britain may soon be in much better shape than it is today and be a better place for everyone.
I usually wore my white sneakers while at work at Clifford Chance. Because Clifford Chance cared more about what I was able to do than about what I was wearing. (Might that be because HR was Dutch?) Yes, I was on a contract. Yes, I quit, but I was overqualified, only there to make some extra money, and they were aware of that. They looked after their legal secretaries pretty well and most of their lawyers were pretty damn good. Some were even better than pretty damn good.
