Ian Wright, Minister for Demolition, was on local TV last night defending the pathfinder programme and explaining how he intends to give a billion pounds more to millionaire property developers.
Wright, a parliamentary lightweight, has obviously been given the job of defending pathfinder because more experienced MPs have realised that it's an electoral liability. Previous people wheeled on to defend pathfinder have included Yvette Cooper and Hazel Blears. Carefully avoiding any direct answers Ian Wright carried off the interview by filling it with jargon and generalisation.
The report that went with the interview featured Tish Brown. She is currently under seige by Gateshead Council who want to buy her 11 roomed home for pennies. On the TV they were quoted as "offering market prices". The problem for Tish is that the market now consists of one buyer - Gateshead Council. So they can decide what a market price is.
For those new to Gateshead Council tactics the market price is how much someone will take when life becomes unbearable. To make it more unpleasant they will turn off the street lights and allow their other properties to be broken into and vandalised. In other words make life a hell for people before offering rock bottom prices.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Beijing Tactics Come To Gateshead
Over a century ago towns and cities all over Britain discovered that good street lighting protected the vunerable and reduced crime. Light protected people and reduced accidents.
Having street lighting is a basic council service that residents pay for through their council tax. Yet this is the service Gateshead Council choses to deny the blighted demolition zone of central Gateshead. In its effort to force residents to sell up and leave, Gateshead Council has pulled the plug on street lighting.
Demolition is not just about the horror of having your home pulled down or seeing your community slowly disappear. It is also about the physcological warfare that local authorities go through in an effort to remove you. By generating fear among remaining residents they hope that people will accept less money to move.
Curiously these are the same tactics used by the Chinese government to prepare for the Olympic Games. Moving residents out to socially cleanse an area. In fact Gateshead Council does so well at terrorising ordinary hard working families it should perhaps offer some of it's staff a secondment to the Beijing city authorities for getting rid of their citizens who want to stay safe in their own homes rather than be demolished.
Having street lighting is a basic council service that residents pay for through their council tax. Yet this is the service Gateshead Council choses to deny the blighted demolition zone of central Gateshead. In its effort to force residents to sell up and leave, Gateshead Council has pulled the plug on street lighting.
Demolition is not just about the horror of having your home pulled down or seeing your community slowly disappear. It is also about the physcological warfare that local authorities go through in an effort to remove you. By generating fear among remaining residents they hope that people will accept less money to move.
Curiously these are the same tactics used by the Chinese government to prepare for the Olympic Games. Moving residents out to socially cleanse an area. In fact Gateshead Council does so well at terrorising ordinary hard working families it should perhaps offer some of it's staff a secondment to the Beijing city authorities for getting rid of their citizens who want to stay safe in their own homes rather than be demolished.
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