Archive | November 2011
November 8, 2011  

Beware the Big Society Trap

Wandsworth has invented a wonderful new trap for the unwary councillor – it’s called the Big Society Grants Fund.

Instead of making £1 million available to large organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Tory councillors have come up with a Big Society grant fund of £150,000. So far the average grant is only a few hundreds of pounds. They have been distributed to a range of local groups for a myriad of reasons, from helping an oap home to buy new TVs and PCs to assisting a club organise soccer for young people in the area north of Clapham Junction Station.

The really neat trick though is that instead of relying on established and perhaps slightly distant organisations such as the CAB, which have serviced their customers in a very traditional way, the Council has introduced a much cheaper version dependent upon patronage and friendship.

This new grant system makes the councillor, yes including me, feel important and well respected as we sign off relatively small sums of money – £5-700 say for a new TV system for an oaps sheltered home lounge. Now that is really nice but are Labour councillors right to think, as Tories obviously do, that these small very directed grants are any substitute for the big sums that once went to organisations like Cancer Support or Citizens’ Advice Bureaux?

November 8, 2011  

Criminalisation of squatting

At the October Wandsworth Council meeting the decision to support the criminalisation of squatting was supported without comment. Today, less than a month later, it is clear that the move to make squatting a criminal offence, as opposed to a civil one, is being opposed by Shelter and most significant housing charities and associations.

The UK’s 99% protesters include it as one of their complaints about current political developments and yet Wandsworth councillors agreed it without comment.

Squatting has, of course, been a problem for the “authorities” since the first property rights were established. Personally, and emotionally, I rather support the aboriginal view that it is clearly absurd for anyone to claim they own “the land”. But unfortunately that simple philosophy long since bit the dust here in civilised Britain.

That squatting is not a criminal offence speaks volumes for the wisdom of UK lawmakers over the years. Making squatting a criminal offence will not solve the problem of the conflict between the housing rich and the housing poor – it will merely drive the problem into hidden corners, criminalising the desperate homeless.

If enforced, it would bring people into the prison system for the penalty of being poor and homeless. And if squatting were to occur on a widepread scale, then it would be impossible to enforce systematically. It would certainly bring the law into disrepute.

That’s why historically governments refrain from criminalising strike action, though many would dearly love to.

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/03/criminalising-squatting-law-trespass-homeless for another comment.