Archives for posts with tag: Boris Johnson

Are the new new Right in this together?

June 19, 2010 //
0

February feels a distant memory. Back then, the Conservative Party released a report called Labour’s Two Nations, attacking Labour’s 13 year record on inequality. Britain had become (they suggested) a society of low taxation on the rich and high marginal rates on the poor; under Labour, risky personal lending inflating a housing fantasy replaced prudent saving and improving housing affordability.

So do the Conservatives now care deeply about inequality? Darren Johnson put the London Assembly Conservatives to the test this week, proposing that the Mayor of London implement Cameron’s policy of a maximum 20:1 pay ratio in the Greater London Authority group.

Here’s the response of the Conservatives:

In case you’re fooled into thinking that Darren and the Greens are ignoring the low paid, read Darren’s arguments in The Guardian. If we’re all in this together, shouldn’t government bodies ensure that the lowest paid receive a living wage whilst preventing spiralling pay at the top of the scale?

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

Priced out of buying a home?

June 8, 2010 //
0

Jenny Jones has produced a new report and this accompanying video, explaining why the Government and Mayor of London’s approach to affordable housing is fundamentally broken.

It’s something that a growing number of people know, whether you’ve been priced out or you know someone who has by decades of massive house price rises. It is most severe in London and fancy rural communities, but is a growing problem across the country.

I’m pretty proud of the work Jenny and I did on it!

Tags , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

Boris the culture commie?

February 22, 2010 //
1

Are free photos evil? I’m going to stick my neck out and defend the Greater London Authority for setting up a Flickr group where Londoners can submit photos to be used on the GLA web site. A few photographers are upset that anyone can now get decent photos for free from citizens who donate them. Shocker. These photographers want the GLA to use our taxes to pay them for their hard work.

I’m sorry, but that’s just plain ridiculous. Should we condemn the GLA for using free software for their web site, instead of paying for a proprietary content management system? Dearie me. Look, the web has changed many creative industries and bust the business models of those few who were charging for stuff that lots of us will happily share quite freely. Get over it.

This storm-in-a-lens-pouch has been picked up by the venerable Boris Watch and the Telegraph, who both seem to sympathise with the photographers. They echo the photographers and conflate this issue with the way that the police and the More London security guards act stupidly towards photographers, as though this has anything to do with the GLA (a different organisation) inviting its 7.56 million citizens to contribute their lovely photos to the GLA web site.

The great collection of photos in the group – including a few of mine – suggest that most people are quite happy donating their work.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

The cost of housing doubles in London

January 20, 2010 //
0

Halifax have published a great little fact sheet on some key housing trends over the last 50 years. The most dramatic is that the cost of buying a home has risen 273% above incomes over that period, with the sharpest rise during the 2000s when they rose by 63%.

This is the increasing cost of housing adjusted for increases in income; or adjusting for inflation to state rises in real terms, for economists. Imagine if food or heating bills rose that quickly compared to incomes!

Whilst the property-owning journalists hail this rise in house prices, more and more people are squeezed out of the market, or forced to sacrifice huge chunks of their salary to repay mortgages.

Jenny Jones published a report on the housing crisis in London recently. She shows that over the past decade the cost of buying a home doubled in London, well above the national rise of 63%. This makes the misleading boasts of our Tory Mayor – as he fails to even meet his own modest housing targets – all the more sickening.

Unless we double the number of homes we build, which is pretty unlikely, or we make a radical shift away from home ownership, this trend is set to continue for another decade. But our Labour government and this Tory Mayor are both  committed to mostly building homes we have to buy, with a very small minority available for affordable rent, almost no land being held by communities to keep it affordable, and pretty much no support for alternative models like co-operatives.

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

Should we laugh at the BNP?

December 10, 2009 //
3

Jim Jepps praises Peter Cranie for not taking up the BBC’s airtime offer to debate climate change with Nick Griffin. Quite right too. After watching this excellent explanation of the UAE “climategate” emails, well trailed as a “controversy” in the media, I was beginning to wonder if the BBC wasn’t about to go back to it’s old damaging balance position. It hasn’t exactly won the public’s affection over its stance on giving the BNP disproportionate time on news bulletins and Question Time.

But what do you do if you must share a platform with the BNP?

The London Assembly gives me regular access to the BNP’s “mr chips” Assembly member Richard Barnbrook. Word is, by the way, that he only ever eats plates of chips in the cafeteria, which might explain a few things. This week he tried to deny climate change by helpfully pointing out that there aren’t any cows on Mars. He can barely get through a question without confusing himself; statistics are his favourite form of masochism. A quick search for his name on the GLA web site is good for at least half an hour of entertainment, if you’re bored.

Of course this all means he’s also very bad at getting anything done. If you can’t formulate a really cutting question, or trick the Mayor into giving a commitment, you’re not going to get anywhere. And that’s not all. Aside from overt racism and xenophobia, Barnbrook purports to defend the working class. This would be why he denounced 10:10 as a “stealth tax on the poor”.

But if you really care about elderly people not being able to heat their homes, wouldn’t you support a campaign that wants better insulation? If you want families on low incomes to have access to cheap, quality food wouldn’t you worry about climate change pushing up food costs? Isn’t low cost public transport pretty handy for people on low incomes?

The consensus seems to be that if you must share a platform with the BNP, you either try to ignore them (as Boris Johnson affects to do), or your laugh at them (as most London Assembly members seem to do).

All jolly fun, but I wonder if any of those potential BNP voters – the type who aren’t particularly racist but just feel let down on housing or crime by Labour – if they ever see this. What would they think? What does it achieve? How can we make clear that Richard Barnbrook is (a) completely useless at pushing his agenda and (b) not very good at standing up for the people who vote for him? How can politicians who must share a platform get this message out effectively?

Tags , , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

Boris scuppers the South London Line

November 18, 2009 //
3

One of the London Mayor’s favourite tactics is to totally confuse an issue, joking around to avoid anything sticking. With an issue like the South London Line he’s in his element. Except that residents of south London might prefer if he used his wit to help save public transport services, rather than trying to deny any responsibility.

Jenny Jones and me by a SLL train

To recap very quickly, the excellent train service (which I use daily) is due to be axed in 2012. Boris has tried to claim it’s the government’s responsibility; that it is purely a technical decision which he can’t reverse; and that he is fighting our corner (only when his hand is forced, of course). In fact, we can be pretty sure that it all comes down to money, and that Boris won’t stump up the measly £2.4m per year for two years out of a massive central Government grant to save the line because he came up short on the East London Line extension.

OK, this is getting a bit nerdy. But today Southwark Councillor and London Assembly Member Jenny Jones stuck it to him again, asking if he would set-up a meeting between Transport for London and Network Rail to discuss the technical issues with London Bridge station. His answer? No.

He can fluster and wheeze about his commitment to public transport all he likes, but campaigners in south London know a Mayor who doesn’t give two f**cks about our services when we see one!

Tags , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized

Getting a home we can afford

October 14, 2009 //
0

Dave Hill writes in his Guardian blog about Boris Johnson’s housing plans for London. What could be more important to Londoners than housing that is affordable for all, of a decent quality, energy efficient and in the place they want to live? He has done great work on this topic, but he misses some basic facts and figures that expose just what Boris’ priorities are.

SH_MK_compare

All the evidence shows that London needs a mix of new social, intermediate and market (private) housing that is evenly spread around the city – much like this photo, which I took in south Camberwell. The most pressing need is for social housing, and to end “segregation by tenure”, where your income determines which ghettoised community you can live in. Thankfully my patch is pretty integrated, but go down into Dulwich or up to Elephant & Castle and you quickly enter predominantly rich and poor areas.

But Boris’ plans only deliver around half the needed social housing in the next ten years. His  Strategic Housing Market Assessment, partly based on central government research, says we need roughly 18,200 new affordable homes every year, and that 80% of these should be social housing. But Boris’ Housing Strategy and his London Plan set targets for only 13,200 new affordable homes, of which only 60% will be social. Market and intermediate housing for middle class and rich people will exceed targets, whilst social housing falls disastrously short. We won’t even meet growing demand, let alone deal with the backlog of families in overcrowded homes, B&Bs and temporary accommodation.

That’s not all. Alongside the lack of supply, parts of London suffer from terrible segregation by income. Rich people live in one area, poor people in another. Dave Hill has exposed the contemporary vanguard of this old Tory policy in Hammersmith and Fulham. Boris has removed the requirement to build affordable housing into every new development, and his London Plan only recommends that more private housing is built in predominantly social housing areas. No word on building social housing in wealthy areas.

Until Boris delivers a strategy that meets the demands thrown up by his own analysis, London is just going to keep getting less affordable for the average Londoner.

Tags , , , ,
Categories Uncategorized