A very modern exodus - a local housing scandal

It took Hitler's Luftwaffe to provoke the last great exodus of people from London. First went the children, evacuated en masse to the care of strangers in the countryside, and then after the war whole families were relocated from the rubble of the Blitz to the post-modern New Towns of Britain's brave new world.

Fast-forward seventy years, and a new displacement is underway. But in 2014, people are being driven from their homes and communities not by bombs from the air but by the process of gentrification and the callous indifference of London's housing market.

Today's high-profile case is that of the New Era housing estate in Hoxton, which houses over 90 families at below-market rate rents. Earlier this year, the estate was bought by American property management company Westbrook Partners, who announced their intention to serve notice to the tenants, refurbish the flats and let them at market prices.

The Guardian contrasts the philanthropic spirit that conceived the New Era estate with the vulture capitalism that now threatens to tear it down:

Built by a charitable trust in the 1930s in order to offer working-class residents affordable private rented accommodation. Even when the blocks were sold this spring, residents say they were assured that the old tenets would apply. Within weeks, new owners told them that rents would rise to market values: spiralling from £600 a month for a two-bed flat to something closer to £2,400. That was meant to happen by summer 2016. After [Conservative MP Richard] Benyon’s firm pulled out of the deal last week, residents were told that Westbrook would accelerate the process.

But what seemed like a hopeless case of the little people versus corporate might has now started to attract attention, with a change.org petition approaching 300,000 signatures in a matter of weeks, and Revolution author Russell Brand lending his support to the cause. Boris Johnson has also pledged to investigate, though it is difficult to see the Mayor of London making a significant intervention.

It must be acknowledged that the New Era residents have not always exerted themselves to enlist the support of the casual observer. Hyperbolic claims about being made "homeless by Christmas" ignore the alternative of moving out of the borough, and the suggestion that the Tower of London poppy display represented people who had given their lives for the sacred cause of socialised housing was opportunistic and crass. And in their indignation at the prospect of being forced to leave Hoxton, the campaigners also forget that there are many Britons who, by accident of birth, grew up outside London and never had the opportunity to enjoy subsidised housing in the heart of the world's greatest city in the first place.

But setting aside the human frailties exhibited in the New Era campaign, the remorseless and seemingly unstoppable process of gentrification and displacement raises difficult questions that now require urgent thought. Are we willing to accept the increasing homogenisation of inner London as a place for the one percent and the upper middle classes? How will we bear the social costs of an increasingly stratified city, where citizens are increasingly unlikely to work, rest, play - and so learn to empathise - with other people of differing financial circumstances? At what point is the marginal benefit of another luxury apartment building or soulless shopping precinct outweighed by the cost in human misery of uprooting entire communities from their homes?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions. Some purists would argue that the market must be left to function unmolested, the fate of the working poor be damned. Others, such as Russell Brand, would wave a magic wand every time the "American corporations" or other bogeymen of the left try to move in, always siding with the local residents but harming London's competitiveness in the process. Neither stance is helpful. And in the absence of a national or city-wide conversation on this thorny issue, the residents groups and development corporations go to battle alone.

This would seem to put the New Era residents at a distinct disadvantage, playing David to Westbrook Partners' Goliath. But people power has already achieved one important victory, forcing Westbrook’s collaborator Benyon Estates to withdraw from their involvement in the estate due to negative publicity. Westbrook themselves will prove a more difficult nut to crack – based in America, they have little cause to fear reputational or political damage inflicted thousands of miles away. But the New Era campaigners are gearing up for a fight nonetheless, seeking international solidarity by pointing out that Westbrook’s principle shareholders are the pension funds of low-paid public sector workers in America.

In truth, we all have a stake in this fight, whether we are homeowners or renters, urban dwellers or country folk. Every day, we bear witness to the immovable forces of globalisation and capitalism which are dramatically reshaping our world, and which our leaders frequently seem impotent to control. These forces may not be coming for our homes, our jobs, our own livelihoods – yet. But when they do, who will fight for us tomorrow if we fail to stand up for those like the New Era residents, who need our support today?

Samuel Hooper is a freelance journalist. He blogs at SemiPartisanSam.com and can be found on Twitter @SamHooper.

Starbucks are at it again

The European Commission, the Brussels bit, have accused the government of the Netherlands and everybody's favourite multinational, tax-avoiding coffee chain - Starbucks, of cooking up some  cosy deal so the coffee shop pays  a very low rate of tax! This apparently is called a sweetheart deal.

So the Commission has launched an official investigation into the tax affairs of Starbucks, Apple and the car people Fiat.

These huge corporations are utterly shameless - they devote so much energy to dreaming up schemes that allow them to pay the smallest amount of tax they can possibly get away with, without the accounts department landing up in jail.

And then  they are so blasé about the whole bloody thing, I suppose it's just a disgraceful mindset they all pick up at accountancy college.

Now no one likes paying tax  but we all do: income tax, VAT, National Insurance, fuel tax, council tax.

So imagine you rang up HMRC (the taxman) one day and said: "I'd like to renegotiate how much tax I pay, this PAYE system is a bit harsh."

What do you think they would say?

That is exactly what corporations do - they NEGOTIATE with governments all over Europe over how much tax they are willing to pay. The Oxford English Dictionary defines tax thus: n. 1 a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on personal income and business profits  or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions. Now what's wrong with that? I think the key word there is compulsory.

There are other countries that the European Commission are interested in investigating; Cyprus, Ireland, Gibraltar, Luxembourg and Malta.

Who cares about mental health?

The mental health charity Mind issued a report this week on the quality of mental health prevention care in England. This report arose from a freedom of information request they submitted to all the 152 local authorities in England. Of these, 86 authorities complied and responded.

It was during the NHS reforms of April 2013 that responsibility for mental health care was moved from local Primary Care Trusts to local authorities.

The report concluded that on average just 1.4 per cent of public health budgets are spent on mental health care! Now you don't need to have a medical background to realise that this is woefully inadequate. Some areas don't even plan to spend a single penny on mental ill-health prevention.

According to the Time to Change campaign, which is a national movement to end mental health discrimination and stigma led by the Rethink Mental Illness and Mind charities; One in four of us will experience a mental health problem in any given year.

That 1.4 percent of public health spending equates to a total of £40 million annually,So compare that figure to these annual spending amounts:

• £76 million on increasing physical activity
• £160 million on anti-smoking initiatives
• £671 on sexual health initiatives

The cost of mental ill-health to the nation is vast - it is estimated that mental health difficulties cost England approximately £100 billion annually. This is through lost working days, benefits, lost tax revenues and the cost of treatment.

It was eight years ago; October 2008, that David Cameron came out with his famous quote: "the NHS is safe in my hands,"

Surely mental health care in England is worth more attention and money than this?

Cameron forgives Freudian slip

So now we know what Lord Freud really thinks of people with disabilities. Lord Freud is the Welfare Reform minister. He addressed a fringe meeting at the Tory Conference. This gave him the opportunity to explain to his audience what kind of reforms he had in mind for people with disabilities: in an answer to a question he agreed that some people with disabilities were "not worth" the minimum wage and should be paid £2 an hour.

Less than 24 hours later some lackey composed, on his behalf, a fulsome apology. This was on the orders of David Cameron. Dame Anne Begg MP who herself uses a wheelchair said he should "consider his position". If Cameron had any gumption he'd have kicked him out of the Cabinet straight away!

Baron Freud has got form for this - being a completely tactless, rich bastard. He was the man who originally coined the phrase "lifestyle benefit claimant",  he has also denied any link between cuts and people using a growing number of food banks.

Try telling that to the Trussell Trust who have launched over 400 food banks. They have seen an almost three-fold increase in the numbers using them in the twelve months from 2012-13 to 2013-14. This total was over 900 000 people. Chris Mould the Chairman of the Trussell Trust describes these figures as "the tip of the iceberg".

Then you've got Cameron boasting in the Commons about the lowest unemployment since 2008. Now that's all very well but this information comes with a caveat: everybody knows their living standards have declined; energy prices are sky high, a report by Which this week tell us that energy costs have risen by an average of £410 in ten years, that is 52 per cent over and above inflation. Then there are pay freezes for the public sector workers, On Monday this week there was  public sector workers strike for 24 hours in protest at this. This resulted in 200 000 PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union) workers demonstrating nationwide.

So the unemployment figures have gone down but this is illusory when you consider the numbers working part-time, zero hours contracts...

If we were to believe David Cameron everything here in the garden here at UK PLC is rosy, George Osborne is a fantastic Chancellor.

Then there is the Child Poverty Map published this week by the End Child Poverty campaign, this is published annually. On this map you can see the areas most blighted. It is broken down into Parliamentary constituencies, then in to wards for better focus. Ten of most deprived constituencies are in London.

The aim of the End Child Poverty campaign is to eradicate child poverty by 2020 this is something often trumpeted by David Cameron. However it seems this government is failing. The Institute of Fiscal Studies who are an independent research institute, have warned the government that by the time of the General Election in May 2015 the numbers of children classified as living in poverty will have risen by 400 000. They go further; they calculate that by 2020 the figure will have increased by 1 million.

David Holmes of the End Child Poverty Group said: "We are concerned that this draft strategy as it stands, falls short of what is required to guarantee a reduction in child poverty and is just not radical enough to meet the goal of ending child poverty. Tackling child poverty requires bold action across wider society, for example to tackle low pay, unaffordable rents and crippling childcare costs."

I don't think this is anything for Mr Cameron to brag about.

Lies, posturing, defections, elections and resignations

So it is the conference season again, oh joy.

The Labour conference passed by with little comment apart from the fact Ed Milliband forgot his lines and subsequently didn't mention the deficit.

We had better luck with the Tory one which kicked off in much more interesting way, two weekend's ago. First of all we had an MP who nobody had ever heard of - Brooks Newmark, the 56 year old MP for Braintree in Essex. He resigned when it emerged that he had sent a 21 year old Tory public relations "girl" a picture of himself, which was described as "explicit" in the press. I haven't seen this picture myself but he is apparently only wearing the top half of his pyjamas! For this he will go down as a sad episode in Tory history, his wife and his five children haven't said what they think.

In a further irony, Mr Newmark was the Minister for Civil Society who were campaigning to get more women involved in politics.

I tell a lie, we have heard of him, he's the pillock who agreed when asked a question: "that charities should stick to their knitting and stay out of politics".

It used to be said that the Tories were always involved in sex scandals and the Labour Party scandals always involved money. The situation clearly isn't that black and white nowadays.

Then there was another defection to UKIP.

I remember the referendum in 1975 to join what was then called the Common Market and the Tories have been arguing bitterly about it ever since, that's nearly 40 years!

Nigel Farage knows this - he's older than me and he's been playing on this ever since he was one of the founding members of UKIP in September 1993.

I don't think I know any Tories but I can only think this is their standard Pavlovian response to Johnny Foreigner and the fact that the EU costs an absolute fortune. Let's face it we all know that whole chunks of EU infrastructure that are a profligate waste of money.

It would be utter madness to come out of the EU - it may cost an arm and a leg to run and wastes money hand over fist but the UK and the EU are gigantic trading partners. The most recent figures I can find on the HMRC website are for the month of July 2014. We, the UK, imported goods from EU to the tune of £19.6 billion for that month. We sold goods to EU countries to the tune of £12.3 billion for that month. Although these figures fluctuate they have remained consistent for the last 18 months. OK so there is a trade deficit but whichever way you look at it these figures amount to an awful lot of jobs on both sides of the English Channel.

So the other bit of news that came out the weekend of the Tory conference was that a Tory MP defected to UKIP, this is another MP we've never heard of; Mark Reckless, He is well known as a Eurosceptic. After his defection to UKIP, this poor soul has had to move himself and his family; he is married and has two children, to a secret location. According to Nigel Farage "this is because he has been subjected to really unpleasant, nasty, abuse."

As far as I can tell, or it's maybe just wishful thinking on my part but is the Tory Party in trouble? Eight Tory MPs who got elected in 2010 have already indicated that they will not be standing in next year's election. Louise Mensch has buggered off to America, to write and look after her family. She was also elected in 2010. Boris has already started jostling to place himself in an ideal position to stand to be the next leader of the Conservative Party. UKIP are on the way up and will damage the Tories more than the Labour Party, although I think  they will make inroads into both.

My thanks go to my friend Suzanne Cowling who pointed out to me that it was Brooks Newmark who made the snide remark about charities.

Mental Health England- A Car Crash

Mental Health in England is a car crash, according to the outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Prof Sue Bailey said that the mental health services are in crisis, she also accused the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP of lacking the basic understanding of mental health.

Mr Hunt rejected this, saying; he had made it a priority and that he visited the front line of the NHS most weeks and pledged £450 million in funds.

I don’t know whether Mr Hunt lacks the basic understanding of mental health or not. However, you would expect a health secretary to have studied medicine, or at least worked in the medical field. Nothing in Mr Hunt’s impressive resume suggests that he has ever rubbed shoulders with a mental health patient, at least in a professional manner.

Mr Hunt majored in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, perhaps, that explains why he justified his position by referring to the funds pledged.

Funds are essential to tackle the mental health catastrophe facing us as a nation. However, it is a drop in the ocean of the list of requirements to establish a mental health system which can withstand the test of time.

I am sure that Mr Hunt is aware of the fact that the most common forms of mental illness are mixed anxiety and depression; with one in four of us likely to develop some form of the illness in their life time, and with 9% meeting the criteria for diagnosis according to the Office of National Statistics.

In most cases the depression or anxiety was triggered by external factors rather than biological or internal factors. To help these people, in addition to the money and the facilities, they need further help which money could not buy; they need empathy, care and love, these poor people lost their sense of purpose and are in desperate need of a leader figure to remind them of their true value as members of the society; that could have a more lasting effect than tons of medicine and equipment shipped from China, when they have had a rough day of therapy and unemployment, the last thing they want to come back home to is a Minister calling them scroungers.

Arguably love and empathy are usually provided by family, friends or partners. Or is it? Love could be provided through many mediums such as religion, art, music etc.

Fortunately the awareness among charities and social enterprises and non-governmental organizations is at its highest levels, each year the Mental Health Foundation supports a mental health week which aims at raising awareness, the last event was held 12-17 May and focused on anxiety, and the next event is expected to focus on relationships.

What is Beauty the Exhibition is another illustration of how concerned local communities are, endeavouring to spread the love through art, film, poetry and painting. And a forum aiming at establishing “what beauty means to each and every one of us”, perhaps, discover a universal meaning for beauty in the process.

The Exhibition is expected to be held in Hackney on 22 July, and is sponsored by Poached Creative and Mediorite; the exhibition is in support of a petition to properly fund mental health services.

On the other hand; and In Mr Hunt’s defence, the first thing the current coalition government did after removing Labour from power was to publish a new health strategy for England in 2011 aiming at improving the quality of care and reducing the number of patients.

 The strategy seemed fine on paper and was widely welcomed. However, in reality it was faced by many setbacks; the economic recession had its bearing on the strategy; it led to significant extra pressure on parts of the population (fear of debt or losing a house or a job and so forth) which consequently led to a dramatic increase in the number of reported mental health problems; normally about half people with common mental health problems are no longer affected after eighteen month. However poor people, the long term sick and unemployed people, are more likely to be affected; the economic climate provided all the previous ingredients, which in turn provided the recipe for disaster.

  Furthermore, the mental health problem is as old as mankind. It wasn’t until recently that it has been acknowledged and steps taken to address it.

 In all fairness, it is only under New Labour that this country had a half functioning Mental Health Authority, prior to the Second World War, persons with mental illness symptoms were treated through confinement, in the period also known as the asylum era.1959 saw the introduction of the land mark Mental Health Act, followed up by advances in psychiatry and drug treatment, and greater emphasis on human rights accompanied by advances in social science and institutionalisation theory.

Generally most people with mental illnesses received no organised systemic care until the 19^th century, care was basic and comprised of basic sedative drugs and bathes in various shapes and forms to calm the patient down. Therefore, it could be argued that the mental health system in this country has not yet truly and fully evolved, which makes the responsibility placed on Mr Hunt and the NHS the greater.

Prof Sue Bailey, a consultant child and adolescent forensic psychiatrist in Manchester, will be replaced by Sir Simon Wessely as president of the royal college.

She said, she will continue to promote mental health services, but in a broader context:

"One way to make societies healthier, including mentally healthier, is to invest in the health and education of women because women play this vital role in the rearing of the next generation,"