News from the UK
We don’t normally pick out individual stories from the Sealand Gazette and put them on the front page, but, well, you’ll see why we’ve done it today in a few seconds’ time.
The piece below is from the Ilford Recorder, a newspaper in north-east London.
Police swoop on the homeless taking sleeping bags and food parcels in coordinated raids in Redbridge
Police swooped on the homeless, grabbing sleeping bags and food parcels donated by the public, in co-ordinated raids around the borough.
Adam Jaskowiak was one of the men targeted and said he pleaded with police to be able to keep his things but was ignored.
He was sleeping with eight other people finding shelter for the night in the former Ilford Baths in High Road, Ilford. All of their belongings were bundled into a police car leaving the men, one in his 60s, stunned.
A police chief told the Recorder the operation was carried out to “reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers”.
But Mr Jaskowiak, 34, said: “They were just taking the sleeping bags and chucking out everything. I asked to keep it and the food, but they said ‘no’.
You can read the rest of the story here.
Ilford is divided into two Parliamentary constituencies, Ilford North and Ilford South, represented by a Tory MP and a Labour MP respectively. We haven’t been able to determine for certain which one the former baths were located on (we think they’re in Ilford North), but we’re not sure it matters.
If that sounds like a country you want to live in, vote No in 2014.
London’s Police acting like the Schutzstaffel . Never !!! Go Figure.
Fucking hell. I mean just…fucking hell.
“A police chief told the Recorder the operation was carried out to “reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers”.
How exactly did they think this would work. The rough sleepers are still there presumably, just less comfortable.
Maybe they intend to replace the sleeping bags with new ones that match the street furniture?
Disgusting. ‘Sorry but you need to move along’ could be understood in certain circumstances, but taking their sleeping bags and food? FFS.
Meanwhile, in Scotland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20870160
Legislation which aims to effectively end homelessness in Scotland has come into force.
The change entitles anyone finding themselves homeless through no fault of their own to settled accommodation.
This is no longer a “something for nothing” country. They never paid for those sleeping bags or food so they are not keeping them. If they freeze, they freeze. If they starve, they starve – it’s their own fault. Isn’t that right, Ms. Lamont?
Shouldn’t police individuals have a ‘conscientious clause’ to opt out of such political intimidation?
This what makes Britain so great, surely?
No? Didn’t think so. How long before they bring back the poorhouse and the workhouse, I wonder?
I never want to be associated with people or a country who would do that to the homeless, their nothing more than selfish bastards.
Vote YES,YES,YES,YES,YES, Vote for a fair and just Scotland.
This is truly shocking
Who ordered this, the police, the politicians or the NIMBY crowd of Ilford?
A wee warning to all of them ‘what goes around, comes around’
It’s part of the social cleansing program being instigated in London, all undesirables from council tenants to rough sleepers are being gradually ejected from the city. Two things I’ve noticed, near my office in central west London there was this young black guy sleeping rough in a doorway for a few weeks, I got to know him a little, an intelligent well-educated guy who lost his job. One morning, as I was walking by, the police were talking to him, I thought they were going to help him with shelter accommodation or something. Walked past later and he was gone and I noticed all his stuff was put into a skip.
About two weeks later my office got an email from some government agency (can’t remember which one) asking if we have any rough sleepers nearby and to report them to the agency. I assume that all businesses in the area got the same email. I thought maybe this was to help them … now I’m not so sure knowing that council tenants are being moved out of the city and council houses being sold off to developers.
At Elephant and Castle 4000 people were moved after being told that the Heygate Estate was going to be flattened and rebuilt with more new social housing. At the Town Hall public meeting which had more private security present than tenants it was announced that Heygate would be privately developed with ‘affordable’ housing (ie £300,000 for a 2-bed flat). The people are all gone, no-one left to protest.
It’s happening all over London now with Scots actor Tom Conti recently hitting out at Camden Council decision to move council tenants out from London and selling the housing stock to private developers. I’ve been in London since 2008 and there’s definitely been a big rise in homeless and beggars in the last five years.
http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/opinion/12456-camerons-big-solution-the-social-cleansing-of-london
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/27/reconfiguration-london-akin-social-cleansing
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-councils-look-to-move-poor-804651
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/actor-tom-conti-slams-inhuman-cuts-forcing-poor-out-of-london-8529047.html
That is simply illegal, I refuse to believe they have any duty or right within the law to remove a persons belongings.
Under no circumstances can the removal of belongings be classed as a ‘fair and reasonable action’.
I can only hope some legal eagle gets tore into these animals.
“Isn’t that right, Ms. Lamont?”
Who`s Ms Lamont?
Is she thon gurning wifie who comes out for FMQs, waving her wee finger at Alex Salmond, asking for a debate, before disappearing for another six days?
What can you say?
Defend the indefensible…vote No? Now we know what the Tories were talking about regards Victorian values.
That’s theft, surely?
It doesn’t matter if you are homeless or not.
Dear God, that can’t be effing right under any circumstance. Why didn’t they just finish the job and haul them off to a camp? Bad and bad enough that people find themselves on the street, but this?
We just can’t vote to support actions like these next year. Vote YES.
I am sure the BBC and the Scotsman and Herald will give this disgusting story the publicity it deserves.
They are so caring for the welfare of all us Brits Together.
Is this what Gordon Toom Tabbard Brown meant when he wants parity throughout the Yookay?
What to do about the homeless?
The solution make them homeless elsewhere.
The police involved are frankly guilty of robbery.
I used to laugh at the Labour party when they claimed that fairness and social justice could be achieved as part of the UK. Now I’m just angry. Borderline incandescent in fact. How is it that THIS can happen in a supposedly developed, democratic society with human rights laws? How broken are Westminster’s political and social systems when we have homeless people being treated like rubbish, disabled people made homeless and driven to suicide, poor people, unemployed people, minorities and immigrants all routinely targeted for abuse by the state and the media, and meanwhile the politicians and their banker friends are laughing at the plebs while counting their money and patting each other on the back for how well they’ve screwed everyone. Day by day it feels like the UK is actually becoming a dystopia.
When the movie ‘Children of Men’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/) came out seven years ago it seemed like a scary, but borderline plausible, future. Now it feels like the setting for the film in 2027 could be a realistic prediction. Thankfully we have a peaceful and democratic alternative next year.
How long before they try the Soylent Green solution?
O/T http://news.stv.tv/politics/226610-has-yes-scotland-done-enough-to-make-the-case-for-independence/ [Apologies Rev – wasn’t sure where else to put it]
I just saw this. Am I the only person who thinks that the way to refute the sniping by commentators on the “splits” in the YES campaign, and “Voters want clarity on policy” is to firmly, politely but consistently state, “The Referendum is not about POLICIES in an Independent Scotland. It is about WHO should decide those policies. Scottish voters and a Scottish parliament, or Westminster politicians?”
Blair again was up and down during the interview and was, I regret to say, not convincing and direct enough. Viewers need “bullet points” or even “sound bites”. I know there is a long way still to go, but the short, sharp, simple sound-bite needs to get into circulation as soon as possible.
Gentrification, American Style. I was wondering when that would come to the UK, sadly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tompkins_Square_Park_Riot_%281988%29
I could be wrong, but I doubt Ilford residents asked for them to be moved; My first partner was from there, so I spent a fair bit of time in the area, and although there are educated, wonderful professional people, the place is run-down and working class to it’s core and has been for at least a decade. I remember the drummer from Warrior Soul was killed and his burnt body found in a bin in Ilford too, funny the personal connections you make to places. Anyway, I suspect it’s an order coming down from somewhere outside the place, because criminals are too hard to catch, and Austerity hasn’t hurt the poor and unfortunately enough yet, time to give them a genuine physical kicking and burn their sleeping bags.
Now contrast “news from the UK with this short piece from Stuart Black (he comments on WoS)
http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/norway-as-seen-by-someone-who-worked.html
The closed swimming baths are in the Ilford South constituency, I was in the area last week. The people have been evicted because the Council want to demolish the baths and build a new school on the site. Redbridge council has a LibDem Mayor but most of the cabinet members are Conservatives.
Better Together?
With regard to DMyers’ question: “How long before they bring back the poorhouse and the workhouse”, if there’s ever a Tory/UKIP coalition in England, there’s every possibility of that happening.
If (God forbid) the Scottish public are fooled by the ‘scare a day’ merchants and vote in favour of the devil they know, i.e. the Union, they’ll soon find out what hell is.
I’m genuinely disgusted at the action of the police, depriving these poor men of their sleeping bags and food parcels. Instead of trying to help them, they turfed them out without food or shelter. What an absolute disgrace.
Bugger (the Panda) says:
24 May, 2013 at 2:29 pm
“How long before they try the Soylent Green solution?”
Yep, there’s only so much horse meat to go round. An infinite amount of horses**t though.
Posted the following on Quarantine last night, feeling it wasn’t appropriate for any current threads.
But it’s certainly relevant to this one if you want to catch a glimpse of how the rich really think and feel about ‘the poor’, and why they react to ‘austerity’ as they do.
It’s a long watch at approx eighty mins, but worth staying with – the guy who made the documentary is heir to the Johnson & Johnson family fortune, and he isn’t afraid to get right in there on the home-front, put his own family on the spot. More power to him.
reduce the negative impact of rough sleepers
because without food and shelter they have a better chance of dying faster.
Can the police steal private property like food and sleeping bags?
Juan Bonnets
Children of Men was my first thought to
Cannot say how angry I am at this. Ach, the sun shines, and we will make Scotland the antidote to this shite. If not in 2014 (and I am not at all confident about the referendum), then very soon thereafter (of this I am certain)
Simply disgusting!
I remember a Prime Minister saying once that there is no such thing as society and we continue to live with her legacy of indifference and injustice, victim blame and a growing divide between those who have and those who do not.
“We need a social recovery to mend the broken society – to me, that’s what the Big Society is all about,”
Prime Minister David Cameron
My first thoughts are that the actions of the police have been embellished here. The sleeping bags and food parcels would be the private property of the individual and they have no legal power to take them. I really couldn’t see officers doing that unless they were particularly unpleasant individuals.
It brought Road to Wigan Pier to my mind. To me this is an alien and ugly place they’re building. I want no part in it. Vote YES
Some pointers on Westminster’s Direction of Travel:
i) G4S, of Olympics Security Fiasco fame, now to run Rape Centers in England!
ii) Virgin running Health Services for Children in Devon:
Head of Integrated Children’s Services
Virgin Care Ltd
Salary: £70,000 – 98,000
Whoever thinks we’re #BetterTogether, needs to rethink their priorities.
David Smith says:
24 May, 2013 at 4:02 pm
“My first thoughts are that the actions of the police have been embellished here. The sleeping bags and food parcels would be the private property of the individual and they have no legal power to take them. I really couldn’t see officers doing that unless they were particularly unpleasant individuals.”
It was claimed during the miners’ strike that the police confiscated food donations intended to feed miners’ families.
Not nice if it happened.
Police are accountable to a quite astonishing degree today in comparison with the 1980s and questions will rightly be asked if private property has indeed been taken without good and lawful reason.
Well Westminster has already declared war on the poor, now they’re starving the destitute.
Great Britain? More like Grotesque Britain. Vote YES FFS!”
It’s a long time in hell for those who do not suffer the Lord’s children.
You could add the photo to your previous article and label it the UK Have-Have Not Border.
@Caledonian Lass
If (God forbid) the Scottish public are fooled by the ‘scare a day’ merchants and vote in favour of the devil they know, i.e. the Union, they’ll soon find out what hell is.
That is my biggest fear about the referendum. I reckon many middle class people will vote No because they think they can afford do. When they start having to pay at least £6,000 per year for their children to go to university, and watch the NHS in Scotland being privatised in the event of a No vote, then they may just have a regret or two. Hopefully that scenario will not pan out and we get a Yes vote. Having said that the Yes campaign do need to start getting the message out soon about the consequences of a No vote.
Actually, these heavy handed tactics by the forces south of the border, slightly worries me. In fact, it worries me severely!
What I fear, with such brutal tactics, is that if Scotland does get Independence, then a swathe of immigrants suddenly decide to upsticks and head north.
With only a population of 5.4 million (and even then, only 4.5 million are actually Scottish), I have an ill feeling that our population could see a growing increase in numbers of what could be a mixture of the poor, illegal immigrants, EU members (especially if England pulls out of the EU) entering our country.
I fear we could be flooded by a lot of people, who are determined to escape persecution and fear, and this worries me. What I’m afraid of, is that we develop an attitude like a lot of English folk at this time, and all because of a creeping increase in immigration.
I would hate to think, just as we get our Nation back again, that given a short space of time, we suddenly have our own immigration problem, and an attack on our culture.
Poor people can be a real nuisance sometimes.Cluttering the place up and making it look untidy.If they went to a FUNCTIOING bath house a bit more often they wouldn’t be so bad.
And why,oh why,do people insist on feeding them??? And why are we paying expensive policemen to clear them out? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to contract the work out to a vermin control agency? Poor people are a bl**dy nuisance!!
Poor people are a bl**dy nuisance!!
Well, we need to incentivise them out of poverty, by taking their money away.
@ mealer I sincerely hope that is an attempt at satire because if not you are one very sad individual
Is this what giving society a “nudge” looks like?
We all know Mealer was using satire, but who knows where JLT is coming from.
Compare and contrast.
When I lived and worked in Amsterdam some years ago. I saw on the local tv a piece about a couple of policemen who had been concerned about the rough sleepers that they saw, in their regular places, on their night patrols in a very cold winter. Most these were not the poor unfortunates who have lost their job and home and would desperately like to have both again, they had been found shelter. These were largely citizens with mental health issues who had been and still could have been cared for in institutions but preferred the freedoms of street living.
Anyway, these guys took big flasks into work had them filled in their all night canteen and had a whip round amongst their colleagues for sandwiches which they took out with them on patrol and gave to the street dwellers. It was well received and they then applied, successfully, to the council for funding, to continue on a permanent basis. These people are citizens as well. So on their night patrols they visit these citizens and provide them with a hot drink, soup, sandwiches, a carton of milk and some fresh fruit, as well as checking that they have sufficient blankets/sleeping bags.
When I saw this I felt really proud that a tiny amount of my local taxes were being spent in this way.
Police like that or like Ilford? I know what I would want in our country.
Something has happened in parts of the UK so that nobody says to themselves “There but for the grace of god go I.” and that along with the fact that nobody else picks them up on it is the root of what is driving us towards a society very reminiscent of the US. I do blame Thatcher and those who espouse her philosophy of Greed is Good even now. Maybe it is a lack of social cohesion, but you don’t have to be in and out your neighbour’s house to treat them with common decency. Maybe it’s indulgence when we’re young, so the consequences of our actions are no longer spelt out for us and enforced. Maybe its the establishment taking advantage of the general apathy derived from the disenchantment of the democratic process. What I will say is that sometimes I see it in the Central Belt of Scotland, but not as much as I see it in England, and I hope that the spark that independence lights, burns away the cobwebs that have been allowed to gather on Scottish Society and it takes it’s place as a valid construct in a new country.
Given the recent history of the MET and the impunity they seem to enjoy for, among other things, killing newspaper vendors – is it any wonder that they now openly engage in organized theft? After all they are paid to keep order in the place where the really big crooks reside – banking speculators and such – who get bonuses, knighthoods and impunity for bankrupting the institutions they “serve”. Why should they be any different from their masters? But why should their masters be Scotland’s masters? And why shouldn’t Scots be masters in and of their own house?
JLT
Anyone who choses to make a life here in Scotland will be more than welcome – lets face it there are some that just won’t hack it – our weather will make sure of that.
Shinty
We have plenty of spare land and we are going to have to rebuild a country after 300 years of neglect so I agree with you , come one , come all , as long as you are willing to contribute to helping us rebuild Scotland .
The way I see it is that if they want to evict people from council property they probably have the legal (not the moral) right to do it.
They don’t have any right to take their food and their personal belongings. That’s theft by anyone’s standards.
Sounds like the police in Ilford don’t have standards.
Anyone can become homeless. You are single; you lose your job; you can’t get a full rent or council tax rebate; you are evicted. Or you are partnered and you split up and one of you have to move out and there are no places for single people, because despite the numbers of people living alone growing over the last 20 years, no one had the foresight to build single accommodation.
It can happen to anyone. As someone said above, what goes around, comes around. It could be one of these policemen next month.
What a foul place to live the Uk is becoming. At least we can get out of it. Let’s not waste the chance.
Totally OT…
this is from a posting I came across on Yes Scotland…
Isaac Buick LOL those scottish cunts will never get independance BRITISH PRIDE
Like · about an hour ago
Re. Isaac Buick. At least we shouldn’t be lacking for warmth and….(sorry, couldn’t resist). (embarrassedsmiley)
Great post there from Caroline Corfield. Total agreement.
Less so re ‘JLT’
Guys,
I’m not saying people aren’t welcome here. What I am saying is that it wouldn’t take much for the percentages to change.
Bear this in mind. We are looking for a society in Scotland that we want to be socially and universally liberal. If we do decide to stick with things like free tuition, free prescriptions, etc, then great, that’s what I want to see too! It makes us a moral and social society.
My fear is, that if England does get heavy handed and we become independent, then if you were an immigrant in the UK, which nation would you choose. Do you take the right-wing neo fascist state or do you go for the land that offers everything. It’s not a hard decision.
England has a population of 50 million; we have 5. England can absorb 5 million immigrants, but just look what the hell has happened down there. My point is that immigration in Scotland is less than 1% …in places like Norway and Sweden, it sits at 10%. In Switzerland, it is 24%.
My argument is, I don’t want to see us ‘flooded’ where it puts a strain on our services – especially as we are just getting the nation started. We are a nation of 5.4 million, with only 4.5 million Scots.
If we do go our own way, I would like proper control of our borders. I’m very happy for people to come here, for as long as they have a job, pay their taxes, and are going to integrate into our society. I don’t want to see enclaves as we see in some English cities.
I read a lot of history books, and you’ll be surprised at the mistakes that are repeated again and again. I would use, and learn, what we have seen in England, and make sure that the population is balanced with a percentage of immigration. We all know what Labour did when they were in office, and it has led to some right bad-blood down south.
If you think I’m being nasty here, then go and speak to some of the English. They are bitter …very bitter at what they feel has happened to their nation.
What I don’t want is an open doors policy, and then 30 years later, we also have a problem. It can easily happen. Personally, I would take the line of Australia; hard but fair is their policy. They realised at the start of the millennium that their culture was being swamped. That was why they took a harder line; you are welcome, but only for as long as you are here for work, to pay taxes, and are willing to work for the Australian nation itself.
I’m not being racist, and I’m not trying to poison things. I’m being cautionary …there is a difference.
@JLT
I understand what you’re saying, however Scotland’s population has been held down for a century or more – another ‘benefit’ of the union. Our population should really be approaching 10 million, and we’ve plenty room.
http://www.arcofprosperity.org/population-growth-in-independent-countries-and-scotland/
With a sensible immigration policy I’m sure we can develop the sort of society we all want.
Albert Herring,
That is exactly what I mean. A sensible immigration policy – certainly not the open -door policy that Labour implemented. It has caused nothing but bad blood down south.
So JLT – this is the civilised debate starting up for a benign immigration policy. Can I draw your attention to something another poster said elsewhere. In September 2014 the people of Scotland will vote in a referendum to decide who will set the policies needed by Scotland in the future.
If it is for continuation of the SNP/Scottish Government by voting YES – they already have a policy for the immediate start of discussions with the UK Westminster government to prepare terms essentially created by Scotland becoming an independent entity once again.
If it is for the status quo by voting NO – the UK Westminster Government will implement UK policies throughout the UK with token regard for Scotland’s wishes, represented by the mixed bag of Labour/Conservative/LibDem/SNP MPs who will ineffectively be sent to Westminster.
It doesn’t take much extrapolation to realise that with the YES and NO camps being poles apart in their projected policies for Scotland either as independent, or remaining in the UK, that life will be radically different, one to the other.
If this episode in Ilford, coupled to an obscenely high occurrence of similarly punitive actions from recent UK governments, is an example of what life will be like after NO, then I am in no doubt whatsoever that Scotland must vote YES and escape from this self-destructive UK mad-house.
And I haven’t even factored in the highly likely poisonous effect of UKIP on future policy making from Westminster. That, just doesn’t bear thinking about.