No longer homeless Tryptamine yeah, no longer homeless, mother & father have had a change of heart and I now have a roof over me barnet one again :weee:123
UK : East : Homeless make pictures with pinhole camera in beer can seems like a smart idea, you need a lot of time to make pics with this old technology, and homeless people have this - keeps folk of trouble and gives them something creative to do they wouldn't normally get a chance at..
BBC News - Cambridge homeless show pinhole beer can camera pictures
"squatting is an excellent thing to do".. Jenny Jones, Green mayoral candidate nice to see someone speaking up against the governments plans to criminalize squatting in the UK.
Squatting is an excellent thing to do, says Green mayoral candidate | Politics
Green mayoral candidate Jenny Jones sparked anger today by supporting squatters occupying empty homes across the capital.
The London Assembly member said squatting was "an excellent thing to do" as long as property was not damaged - and even suggested that moving into vacant properties was one way of tackling the housing shortage.
Recent occupations of several costly properties in London have left owners in some affluent areas too scared to go on holiday in case their homes are targeted. But housing committee chairwoman Ms Jones opposes government plans to make the practice illegal.
"We've got this huge mess waiting to explode," she said. "People talk about building more houses and yet we're almost at the point where it has got away from us. We can't build enough houses. We have to think about different ways of solving the problem.
"There are different sorts of squatting. I've seen squatted buildings that were due for demolition. They were left empty for years and people used them for events. I don't have a problem with that."
Ms Jones called for local authorities to be given greater powers on empty properties, using compulsory purchase orders to bring derelict homes back into use. Figures produced by housing charity Empty Homes show that in 2009 there were about 83,000 vacant houses across London.
Housing minister Grant Shapps said: "I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think squatting an 'excellent' thing to do in London, particularly someone who aspires to be Mayor."
Chris Norris, policy manager at the National Landlords Association, said: "One can't deny there is a shortfall of affordable housing. What we disagree with quite strongly is that squatting is the answer. We don't want to see people taking it upon themselves to occupy empty properties."
Homelessness charity Crisis stressed that squatting was a last resort for many and said the Government's plans risked criminalising vulnerable people.
The group's chief executive Leslie Morphy said: "While for some squatting may be a lifestyle choice, for homeless people this couldn't be further from the truth."
Evictions of SQUATTS in ADAM! Squatting Action In Amsterdam | Anarchist news dot org
On April 3rd, there were two attempts to squat different buildings in Amsterdam. This all took place within the context of squatting being illegalized. The first attempt one took place in the early afternoon. Several dozen people guarded the door while people opened the building. Just as it would happen before the squatting ban, the police were allowed into the building. Surprisingly, the police allowed the building to be squatted.
The second attempt happened in the early evening. Fourty people surrounded the door to the building where the squatted apartment was. The rest of the apartments had a rent-cap (or the Dutch equivalent) and rent could not be raised. The squatted apartment was going to be put on the ‘free’ market which simply means that rent could rise and fall with the ‘free market’. Because of this, the residents of the building supported the squat.
Supporters on the ground distributed leaflets to all the neighbors, explaining what was happening and reminding them of the new squatting
ban. After a small contingent of police arrived, banners were dropped from the front of the building, one of them reading ‘WHEN HOUSING IS A PRIVILEGE, SQUATTING IS A RIGHT.’ The residents of the building went out on their front porches and drank wine, staring down at the crowd and smiling, pleased to be part of the effort.
After a few hours, four vans of riot police (ME—mobile entity) arrived. After ordering everyone to leave over the van loudspeakers, the police got out of their vans and began to beat people away to the edge of the block. Because the residents were so supportive, they did not allow the police into the building and the front door had to be forced open. There were no arrests because the squatters had escaped by boat (an event unique to Amsterdam).
The squatters and anarchists of Amsterdam are in a tricky and overall shitty situation. Squatting is now illegal, making everything difficult and confusing. For example, one squat was allowed to happen, the other was not, with no reason as to why. Also, there are is a government sponsored campaign called ‘anti-squat’ that has been gaining steam since the 1980’s. This campaign allows a few people to pay cheap rent and live in empty properties just so that they are legally occupied and cannot be squatted. There are over fifteen thousand people willingly taking part in this ‘anti-squat’ effort that is very similar to strike-breaking in the US. The squatters and anarchists are repeating the tactics they have inherited from the 1980’s onward but are now in a completely different enivronment. There is now an
urgent nead for more creative and confrontational tactics.
squatters I'm doing a feature on the effect of the possible change of law making squatting illegal in England and Wales.
I was wondering if any squatters would do an email based interview on why they squat and how this change on law would effect them.
Any help would be really appreciated :)
Cheers,
h.arrie@hotmail.co.uk
Pinned
The Story of Squall Fresh flavour in the media soup "So what does it actually mean?......... Squatters Action for Lively Livers?"
Well no, it's a word, rather than an acronym. The dictionary offers its definition as a sudden strong wind or commotion (CoMotion). Attention all shipping. Sea area Dogger Bite, squally showers. Gale force 8. The office lexicon also proffers the Scandinavian root word 'skvala' meaning 'to shout'. There is a need to be heard.
"So what does SQUALL mean?"
We risk an incomplete picture and apply the minimum of spray paint. It lies written on the wall thus: SQUALL is a storm, the course of which disturbs the choking waters, unsettling the sediment, preventing stagnancy, and providing breath to a gasping truth. Bit grand yer think? Well lying behind the poetry is a diagnosis of malaise and a prescription of medicine: Global media is now increasingly owned by a small number of media barons who despite assurances to the contrary directly influence the news agenda on the basis of their market intent. And from the barons to their editors to the staff to the career freelancers, this economic sub-agenda looms large in the reportage. Neither is the voice of national media comment in Britain remotely representative of a diverse nation - rather it is the distilled opinion of a select clique of mostly Oxbridge journos who feel dutybound to protect their monopoly on social comment. SQUALL is a serious attempt to provide a more socially relevant representation, unfettered by the usual sycophancy to advertisers and spin doctors; an attempt to rejuvenate the independence, accuracy and liveliness of British journalism. phew!
The five year history of SQUALL magazine has been fuelled by such outrageous and grandiose aspirations. Each new generation contributes to the achievement of what was previously thought impossible - simply because they did not consider it so. We have not reached our destination but the journey has already borne significant fruit. And who said all the romantics had been drowned in the mire of nineties' cynicism?
A journey of a thousand miles begins with.....
Kenneth Baker doesn't deserve much of a mention in this story. But as Home Secretary in 1992, he stood up at the Conservative Party Conference to utter words significant to the history of farce: "We will get tough on armed robbers, tough on rapists and tough on squatters."
It was a laughable juxtaposition of course, and coming from the mouth of a British Home Secretary, one deserving of scornful media criticism. There was none. Instead it was left to the likes of the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph to dredge up nightmare after manufactured nightmare in order to lend weight to the demonisation. Armed robbers, rapists and.......
For one group of north London squatters leaning on their brooms, Baker's words breached an already stretched threshold of tolerance. If casual demonisations like this passed as acceptable political currency then the gap between reality and rhetoric yawned in emergency.
Operating under the name lowLIFE?!, this collective of squatters had been the prolific organisers of large cultural events in London squats since 1989. Their regular Arts Feasts brought together diverse performance from all round the world, their Cooking Club presented live music, their galleries were packed with photography, painting and sculpture, their all night parties offered both live music and djs, whilst their free lowLIFE?! magazine provided a forum for community art and writings.
The entire operation was run by volunteers, with the aspirational rollercoaster kept on the rails with passion, commitment and the money collected in a donation bucket at their free events. They were nutters for a cause, and the cause was financially accessible communal culture.
So it was with brooms in hand that the lowLIFE?! team read the Daily Telegraph's appraisal of squatters and travellers as a "swarming tribe of human locusts" and then observed the political dribble build into a hysterical flood.
Our space to live and celebrate in ways outside the official market formula were being legislated away along with basic necessities like the only affordable roof over our heads. And there to facilitate this cultural attack was and is the likes of the Daily Telegraph with its sales figures of over a million a day, the Daily Mail with over two million a day and the poorly written Spectator magazine shoring up the prejudices of its 50,000 readers with fortnightly dollops of right wing pseudo-intelligentsia. After operating for over two years, the members of the lowLIFE?! Collective felt a long way from "armed robbers" and "rapists", and a far cry from John Major's reference to squatters as "creators of municipal rubbish dumps".
By 1992, however, the lowLIFE?! project had run its course. Having started with very little money and few possessions, the project was left with even less after Labour MP Frank Dobson and 35 coppers forced their way into a Camden warehouse, confiscating speakers and injuncting the venue two days before a lowLIFE?! event. What little money the project had was lost, leaving the group with nothing but a sleep debt, two years valuable experience and a small computer.
Published in 1992, the first edition of SQUALL magazine was constructed on this computer. Its front cover cartoon depicted a snail leaving its shell.
Issue one - now lodged in the British Library - was with hindsight a modest affair; a photocopied A5 eight-pager, lovingly (ney determinedly) assembled by pressing over binding staples with reddening thumbs.
It has to be said that this collector's item was not greeted with the expected uprising of the oppressed; the eradication of injustice and a revolution in British journalism's willingness to investigate the truth behind the spin. Instead the conspicuous chirrup of uninterrupted cicadas was only punctuated with a few head-pats and a trickle of feedback suggesting it wouldn't mean a thing unless there was an issue 2,3,4......... In word and indeed, there was plenty to publish, as the political demonisation of squatters proved to be merely the tip of a large dirty iceberg. Within a few months of launching SQUALL, it became apparent that the Government's intention to stamp out squatting was just a part of a much larger assault on British culture. Contained within the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill's 181 clauses were new police stop and search powers, the removal of the traditional right to silence, as well as criminal sanctions against travellers, ravers, festival goers, public assemblies and political protests.
Issue one of SQUALL Magazine described itself as "a magazine for squatter/homeless", a strap line which evolved into "a magazine for squatters, travellers and other itinerants" by issue five, and then to "a magazine for sorted itinerants" by issue ten.
By issue 14, the magazine's brief had galloped full pelt into a vast unpopulated savannah of British journalism we referred to as 'the missing agenda in culture and politics'.
The list of the unrepresented quickly grew wider than those targeted by the Criminal Justice Bill.
Social ills resulting from a compassionless politics were rhetorically reapportioned as blame on single mothers, itinerants, homeless people, dole scroungers and disrespectful youth. Single mothers were a classic example. According to both John Major and the then Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley, women were having babies out of wedlock to ensure that they got a higher priority status on the housing waiting list as single mothers. Those involved in the growing SQUALL team observed such farcical rhetoric appearing in national newspapers with barely a sniff of journalistic dissent. And yet it was laughable that a woman would gestate a child for nine months, go through the trauma of childbirth and accept the responsibility of looking after a child simply to put a few extra points on their housing priority status. And yet even if they did, what did this say about the availability of affordable housing!
Nevertheless, this "burden on the welfare state" was deemed unacceptable and the single parents benefits premium is to be taken away by legislation originally drafted by Peter Lilley and brought before parliament by the new Labour government.
The old testament origin of the word 'scapegoat' proved more than apt as a commentary on current circumstance: A goat used in the ritual of Yom Kippur was symbolically laden with sins by the authorities and cast into the wilderness to die. The people were led to believe that the ritual of sending an innocent goat to its death relieved the populace of responsibility for their own sins.
According to John Carlisle - then Tory MP for Luton North - "All gypsies should be banished into the wilderness". Once again it was difficult to believe that such racially inflammatory comments could pass from the lips of a British MP during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill and not become the subject of media outrage. It is more than ironic that the Bill itself included a clause which created a criminal offence out of racially inflammatory comment!
Nevertheless Gypsies, like most of the social groups targeted by the Act, had little by way of access to a media reply. No champions in the media, no press releases, no media spokespeople, no lobbying power in parliament, no significant economic clout. And, being the object of a historical prejudice easy to re-inflame in the pages of the Daily Mail, they were perfect scapegoat material.
When Alan Travis, the Guardian's home affairs' correspondent approached me after a press conference, I asked him why none of the media seemed interested in the plight of Gypsies - given the kind of bigoted comments emanating from parliament. "I don't know," he said before changing the subject, though in reality nothing was changing except for the worse.
As a result of SQUALL's coverage, one of its journalists was invited over to the Czech Republic by some prominent British-based gypsies, in order to attend a large family christening. During the course of her visit, she was warmly welcomed by the entire community; hearing countless tales of gypsy mythology, all whilst ably aiding the families with their customary demolition of countless bottles of vodka. Squatters Action for Lively Livers after all! She also took part in the ceremony of pouring some of the precious spirit on the graves of dead gypsies. One more for the road. Her subsequently written 'international special' was published in the pages of SQUALL 12, and left readers in no doubt that "banishing gypsies into the wilderness" was tantamount to a crime against humanity.
And yet in every direction SQUALL cast its investigative eye, it found such scapegoats being fattened up with manufactured sins ready for the wilderness and certain slaughter. The goat needed kick.
Despite a series of disruptive personal evictions, possibly exacerbated by the climate- change engineered to precede the Criminal Justice Bill, SQUALL's co-editors attended night classes in journalism and pressed on with issue 5,6,7........ Several members of the team cut their political teeth on activities surrounding the Criminal Justice Bill. Whilst some of the co-editors were heavily involved with meeting MPs, drafting potential amendments and attending interminable committee stage meetings, others were familiarising themselves with publishing techniques and building liaisons within the so called 'underground' movement.
This 'movement' was emerging from its subterranean status as a prominent voice of political dissent. Groups representing the different minorities targeted by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill began organising themselves and disseminating more representative information. The term 'DIY' movement sprang up and found resonance as an encapsulation of the notion of not sitting around just waiting for things to improve. In reality though, 'DIO' (Do it ourselves) is a more accurate representation of the communal rather than individual response.
The two anti-Criminal Justice Bill marches held in London in 1994 attracted unusually large numbers of people, including many not normally seen at such protests. Though often ignoring the underlying issues of concern, the national media began passing comment on this new political phenomenon. Even parliamentarians slumbering through the passage of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill began taking notice. Something unusual was happening in the state of Britain; the goats weren't accepting the load. Meanwhile, now blind to their own indiscretions, politicians were revelling like Caligula in their own warped sense of decadent social injustice. The only rule now was not to get caught and, except for a few rare incidences, the national media were failing miserably in providing the investigative background information essential for such exposure.
It was both educational and alarming to meet MPs during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill. Those principled enough to stray from the regurgitation proffered by the usual party line, admitted there were reasons behind the legislation which had little to do with the farcical rhetoric used to present it to the public. None of them, however - much as they might realise what was happening behind the scenes - would risk their political necks by standing up for travellers, squatters, ravers and the rights of public protest. Labour MP John Battle - then shadow housing minister - had a history of representing travellers and homeless people. We were actually thankful for at least his honesty when he told us that he was unable to risk his neck and create too much of a fuss. The climate for principled speakers in the Labour Party, we were told by several of its MPs, was becoming more rarefied by the minute. We were advised and duly wrote to the shadow Home Secretary, asking for a meeting to discuss his response to the Bill.
"I'm afraid I don't have time to meet you at the moment," wrote back Tony Blair. "But I can assure you I will oppose anything that is wrong." Rest assured? We thought not. The Labour Party refused to oppose the Bill, allowing the new law through with a casual ease, pin-pricked only by the 43 principled MPs prepared to risk the rungs of their career ladder and vote against it. Noone was impressed by Tony Blair's honesty even then.
It was more than ironic when several of the MPs whom we met during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill arrived to our appointment carrying books on media and politics. We did not remark upon it and neither did they, but it left a notable impression.
Ever since the power-dressed Margaret Thatcher refined her Grantham accent to beat the laconically attired Michael Foot in the 1983 general election, the sacrifice of substance for salesmanship has become ever more prevalent as political currency. We've all seen them, driving up and down the M1, salesmen with their selling suits on coat hangers in the back, ready to be donned at the crucial moment in the cause of unconscious consumer persuasion. False and phoney by any definition of the words. And so to politics with its increasingly formulaic oratorical techniques, profuse verbal obfuscation and an increased political power base afforded to spin doctors and image makers. Presentation oozing from every photo-opportunity to plaster the face of politics with cheap foundation.
And the medicine for this malaise.......
The majority of people enjoy good presentation, indeed it is an art form in its own right. But when used as a duping technique, its art is harnessed to the cause of falsity, its techniques used to sugar coat a poison. Hearing persuasive words, gestures and pictures only to find them lacking in reality, serves only to rob us all of language. Our aural and visual sensitivity readjusts to cope with the onslaught of hidden agendas and, whether we realise it or not, we begin to switch off. To steal back the significance of language simply add at least as much substance to the recipe as garnish. In the subsequent pursuit of this aspiration, the designers and production staff at SQUALL began adapting and absorbing the best creative techniques around whilst inventing a few of their own. Were the magazine to lie on the shelves next to any other, the casual browser should not immediately be able to tell that one was produced by a fully paid commercial staff and one by a bunch of committed volunteers. Despite very little formal training, SQUALL's designers learnt on the job and, with the introduction of high quality photography to the magazine in issue eight, began producing a magazine second to none.
The resultant presentation served the message well, although problems have arisen when some of the magazine's diverse readership consequently assume SQUALL must be running with a full staff on wages. To this day few people realise the core staff at SQUALL numbers about six, all of whom are voluntary and all of whom work for a publication which survives on donations, subsriptions and magazine sales, having eschewed the usual deluge of advertising.
Attending the standing committee stage of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was also an instant education in the processes of parliament. Almost every new law goes through such a stage, the aim of which is to consider and vote on every clause and potential amendment. The process involves 30 MPs supposedly chosen according to their 'interest' in the subject and apportioned according to party political divisions in the House of Commons. The sessions are held in a committee room within the Palace of Westminster which, with its swinging gates and two small wooden grandstands, bares resemblance to a wild-west courthouse. In contrast, the public gallery consisted of two tight rows of plastic chairs only a matter of feet away from the Government MPs on one side and the opposition (although they provided little of such) on the other.
Being so close to the (in)action provided a close-up view of what we are taught to respect as democracy. It was possible to see MPs pondering over the crossword in the Daily Telegraph, doing their constituency work, reading the sports results and falling asleep during the passage of the debate. Triple-chinned Tory MPs would suddenly blurt "here, here, here" whenever their minister spoke, even though it was patently obvious they had not been listening. I wanted to stand up, stop the proceedings, and ask these MPs what it was that they had just given their vocal consent to. I also wanted to speak up when MPs confidently littered the debate with factual inaccuracies and I twitched with the desire to berate the acquiescent 'opposition' benches; this was my life and the lives of many others they were legislating over.
But the public were only allowed to observe, they were not allowed to take part. And so in the cause of observation, I sat on my tongue, knowing that if it dared articulate the truth of what was occurring before me I would be evicted forthwith. Better to observe now and reveal later.
A live debate on Granada Television provided SQUALL with a rare opportunity to call an MP to account. Granada had originally promised us a face-to-face with Home Office minister, David McLean - Michael Howard's Field Marshal on the Government benches during the committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill. Having reigned in my tongue whilst observing him at work during committee, I relished the prospect of having it out infront of a live studio audience. However, much to my disappointment, he refused to appear at the last minute. Instead the TV station hired in local Tory MP, Geoffrey Dickens, a red mass of a man, whom, I was told, had appeared on the programme several times previously to talk about whatever they wanted him to talk about for an appearance fee. Dial-a-comment!
A first class train ticket awaited me at King Cross station - costing more money (£150) than I usually lived off for three weeks. I was put up in a Manchester hotel at a further cost of £100.
In front of a live studio audience I listed the organisations who had strongly expressed their reservations about the Government's extreme measures against squatters. They included the Institute of Housing, the Metropolitan Police and the Law Society. I then asked Dickens to point out who, beside the right-wing compliant press, were actually in favour of such draconian measures. On live TV he pulled an envelope out of his back pocket and proclaimed it to be a "long list of organisations which supported the measures".
However, I knew, because I also had such an envelope in my back pocket, that the document he was waving was in fact the appearance fee cheque we'd been given for coming on the programme. Bang to rights - or so I thought as I informed the Granada audience that this was the case. Immediately, however, the boom arms swung away from me and the presenter of the programme - ex-head of Factory Records now media careerist Tony Wilson - asked the studio audience if they had any further questions. I could hardly believe the speed with which they'd made a decision not to put the MP on the spot. Dicken, meanwhile, looked over at me out of camera, and smiled. In the hospitality room afterwards I sat sipping a glass of rough red wine and watched as one of the blonde cropped female presenters - who had hosted a debate about Barbie dolls in the second half of the same programme - flashed her eyelids and doted on the reptilian MP. Media and politics inseparable, in league, insufferable and insulated.
One of the prescriptions offered by SQUALL as a contribution to journalism is its insistence on accuracy. This was considered an absolutely essential prerequisite for two very important reasons.
Firstly, given the deluge of information and message now available in the media and on the world wide web, a reputation for accurate source material will become ever more important if organs like SQUALL aren't simply to drown in the media soup. It is sometimes said that journalism is the first draft of history. And yet from the word off, it became clear to SQUALL that the national media's commitment to factual accuracy is temperamental.
Only by developing a reputation for researching published material thoroughly, can any sense of faith be worthily reinvested in a media source. Information is your weapon but what use is a blunt sword?
However, a reputation for sharp observation and accuracy is not something achievable overnight. It is necessary, quite rightly, to do it again and again before such a reputation is earned and it has to be said that such an aspiration produces a huge workload of research and double checks.
Secondly, the last thing anyone in SQUALL wanted to get tied up in was a lengthy legal battle over a careless libel. British libel laws are a lengthy and costly business even before they get to trial, rendering them a tool largely at the disposal of the wealthy. As a consequence they are commonly adopted as a political strategy designed to intimidate truth tellers into silence.
Rather than compromise ourselves however, SQUALL decided to print without fear but to always go armed with a sharpened lance of factual accuracy. To accompany the lance, a shield......
If you print what you know, when in fact you firmly believe there to be more, individuals and organisations are less likely to sue you if it will inevitably result in the exposure of more than what has already been printed. Running the gamut of this fine line takes considerable care.
Not only does SQUALL aspire to be more accurate than most of the national media, but we have so far managed to do so without the much needed services of a trained libel proof-reader. We simply studied hard and learnt on the job.
To this day, and much to many media professionals' amazement, no attempt has been made to counter attack SQUALL with a libel suit. We are, however, in no doubt that certain quarters would rather the magazine wasn't around to stir the sediment. Preventing careless juxtapositions of potentially libellous words from becoming the rope with which we are hung is another major behind-the-scenes task.
At least some of the credit for this clean libel sheet must be extended to a small group of people who set a powerful precedent with their stance on behalf of free speech. Driven by Helen Steel's and Dave Morris's tenacious refusal to apologise, and more than ably aided by a support group co-ordinated by Dan Mills, the McLibel team provided SQUALL with both extensive investigative material and an intensive course in British libel laws.
When SQUALL visited Helen and Dave at each of their homes, it was difficult not to view them as modern day heroes - a tag they themselves would strongly disapprove of. Files bulged from the shelves of their small living spaces, sometimes spewing across their bedrooms to invade the sanctuary of their sleep. As a single parent, Dave was forced to digest mountains of relentless documentation whilst also looking after his eight-year-old son Charlie. Meanwhile, whilst co-defending her way through the longest court case in English legal history, Helen worked nights in a West End bar to earn her living. Dan Mills, on the other hand, had left his job with a top UK legal firm in order to support Dave and Helen's stand. Throughout the four years he has co- ordinated the McLibel Support Campaign, he has slept on the floor of the tiny McLibel office, his dreams punctuated with bulging faxes and late night international telephone calls.
Their legal struggle began with the service of a libel writ by McDonald's in 1990 and went on to engulf Helen and Dave's lives until a decision was finally delivered in mid- 1997. As they emerged from the High Court following a mixed verdict, the media pack surrounded them like scrabbling paparazzi. Despite this flurry of attention, however, coverage of the serious issues raised in the case were largely ignored by media analysts. True the McLibel team had generated copious amounts of attention; with McDonald's twice offering to give money to charity if Dave and Helen would agree to apologise and put an end to the Corporation's increasingly troublesome PR disaster. However, the media often treated the story simply as an oddity in the British justice system, playing heavily on the David versus Goliath connotations whilst largely steering clear of the gritty issues raised in court.
Yet from the very start the national media had every reason to view Helen and Dave as champions of their cause. Previous to the McLibel trial, Channel Four and The Guardian were among a long list of organisations and individuals forced to apologise to McDonald's under threat of libel. With the massive financial outlay involved in defending libel cases, no-one could afford to fight the formidable McDonald's legal department, even if published allegations were true. Up until Helen and Dave's stance, this policy of persistent legal intimidation had created a climate of paralytic fear. Even those parts of the national media prepared to publish mildly dissenting material steered well clear of criticising the way in which McDonald's conducted its business, despite the international significance of the information.
Helen and Dave, on the other hand, not only remained standing where all others had backed down, they also seized the opportunity to force court disclosure of huge amounts of primary source material about the workings of the world's largest fast-food corporation. In essence, Helen and Dave had turned a libel suit directed against them into a unique opportunity to force a long required degree of corporate accountability. They had also halted the domino effect of retractions and public apologies which had stifled public debate for so long.
The significance of this tenacious extraction was made even more apparent by McDonald's powerful connections in politics. When the corporation withdrew from purchasing British beef during the BSE crisis, they took £350 million out of the British economy. By the end of this century McDonald's will also be one of the biggest employers in the UK, after doubling its expansion plans in 1996. McJobs for all! By way of courting this economic clout, Margaret Thatcher opened McDonald's new UK headquaters building in 1982, whilst Michael Portillo and Tony Blair have both since posed before the press serving McDonald's burgers to children. SQUALL published photographs of each of these episodes. Meanwhile, ministers at the Department of Health, in line with the World Health Organisation, continue to urgently recommend a less fat, less salt, higher fibre diet; in direct contradiction to the political endorsements freely given to McDonald's high fat, high salt, low fibre food. With transnational corporations assuming ever increasing global political influence, companies like McDonald's are largely treated like powerful nation states. Despite the appalling human rights record of China for instance, the United States - home of land and free and self appointed protector of the democratic principle - still proffers the country with a 'most favoured trading nation' status. The nuns and monks of Tibet, who have long suffered both torture and cultural destruction at the hands of the Chinese are just some of those who most keenly feel the hypocrisy. With human rights and justice so readily cast aside for financial reasons, such a situation merely confirms to the world that for all the gallant rhetoric, economic clout prevails as the main currency of political respect. Transnational Corporations now have similar globally significant economic clout.
Whilst McDonald's may not use instruments of torture to enforce its message, there are still major inconsistencies between what is officially deemed healthy for a nation (employment, food, environmental and advertising standards) and the way the Corporation strategically plans to dominate the world market regardless of social consequence. In the McDonald's Corporation's 1995 Annual Report there is even a chapter entitled "Strategies for World Dominance".
As James Cantalupo, president of McDonald's International, said recently: "I don't think there is a country out there we haven't gotten enquiries from. I have a parade of ambassadors and trade representatives in here regularly to tell us about their country and why McDonald's would be good for them."
As SQUALL sat with Helen and Dave watching the television coverage on the day of the McLibel verdict, I could only sigh with exasperation when the election of William Hague as Conservative Party leader, and Tony Blair's decision to go ahead with the Millennium Dome folly, pushed the McLibel verdict story into third place on the BBC's main news. Contrary to so many other national issues, media analysis of the wide-scale implications of the mixed verdict did not appear and the issue was almost completely forgotten about within a couple of days.
And yet McDonald's were deemed by the judge to offer poor quality employment; they had also been deemed "culpably responsible" for cruelty to animals, for the deceptive promotion of the quality of their food and for "expoiting" children with their advertising. Big issues kept at bay in the subsequently sparse media coverage. Helen and Dave on the other hand seemed less bothered and were almost immediately planning their appeals and helping to facilitate the continual dissemination of information released by the trial. A SQUALL journalist once asked Dave Morris whether, given the significance of the information uncovered by his and Helen's stance, he was ever disillusioned by the small number of people willing to help. He replied: "If you call a public meeting about an important issue and only ten people show up, don't worry about the hundreds who didn't or you'll completely waste the presence of the ten."
The copious quantity of investigative articles written about the McLibel trial in SQUALL were partly an attempt to redress the national media's selective deployment of its blind eye. "We see no sugared chips"!
We are lingering much on the McLibel trial with due deserve...... Many of the issues raised by the trial were ones which concern us all both culturally and politically (as if these two criteria could be separated) and illustrated much about the nature of media. Given that McDonald's had successfully applied to remove a jury from the trial, it was - we felt - partly our responsibility (respond to your ability) to present the issues to a wider jury. (Respect is also due to the incredible McSpotlight team (M c S P O T L I G H T) written about elsewhere in this book). Like much of what appears in SQUALL, this presentation had to be done in such a way that anyone with a mere glimmer of an open mind would be impressed by the significance of the subject.
Indeed, it was always SQUALL's intention never to get stuck as a ghetto magazine. From the outset, the projects' intentions in this direction were articulated as 'a presentation to the unexclusive bridge'; the bridge between diverse backgrounds and social sensibilities. Good quality writing, photography and production, mixed with factual accuracy, helps attract people of all backgrounds.
It is a guiding aspiration rather than a claim of arrival, although the project's successes in this area were most graphically illustrated to the team after 400 replies were returned from a postal survey of SQUALL's subscriber base.
The analysis of responses surprised us. Not only did the majority of subscribers own their own homes (none of the SQUALL team do!) but their backgrounds were even more multifarious than the team had supposed. Doctors, teachers, legal professionals, social workers, nurses, librarians, academics and politicians were amongst an eclectic list of readers. Being annual subscribers of course, the survey sample was largely confined to readers with stable addresses, about one seventh of the magazine's readership.
The survey also revealed that an average of 5.5 people read each single copy of SQUALL, with the majority of respondents tending to pass the publication around; an inspiring communal network. Multiplied by the 7000 copies printed of each issue, the survey thus suggested an extrapolated overall readership of around 35,000. SQUALL was going places, even without the usual marketing campaigns associated with media source development. What is more, the survey also demonstrated that readers tended to keep their copies of SQUALL rather than say lining their cat's litter tray, wiping their bums in lieu of toilet paper, or feeding the council recycling bins etc. With bookshops, newsagents and grapevine networks all steadily increasing their orders, the last three issues of the magazine have sold out bar the few we keep for specific requests.
Amongst this swelling readership is a fair quotient of national media journalists interested in the "unusual angles on a plate" offered in the magazine. When some of these began picking up on SQUALL's stories, it introduced a dilemma. For whilst dissemination of accurate information is a yoke behind which SQUALL willingly volunteers its shoulder, national journos were ringing up the office for background material on stories and then using our work to make themselves money. Precious few ever remunerated the project for either the story or the often extensive help with research and, although respect is due to the few who do support the source, the majority simply rode on the project's back acting as if they were doing us a favour. Many never even paid for copies of the magazine sent to them whilst some directly plagiarised SQUALL word for word without either accreditation or remuneration. After a couple of years of battling with this rankling situation, the sheer quantity of insistent parasites reached a point where the SQUALL team now has to firmly insist on a better quality of respectful interaction. On the inside front cover of every issue of the magazine are the words: "Open copyright for non-profit making use only". We mean it.
There was little point in fighting for respect on a societal level if we then put up with disrespect in our own backyard, and the scurrility associated with professional journalism is largely a well-deserved reputation.
Nevertheless, as long as respect is afforded, SQUALL does interact with national media in a profuse way. Indeed, some of the team earn a partial living from freelancing in the nationals. Spokespeople from the team have also appeared on almost every terrestrial TV and national radio station in the UK, in nearly every national newspaper, as well as on many cable and local media outlets; talking about subjects ranging from homelessness to youth crime, dance culture to current legislation. The glare of the lights and the intimidating environment of a live studio were never easy to overcome in the delivery of a calm yet cutting message. However, members of the team threw themselves into the task and once again learnt on the job. One of the most laughable requests amongst many, came from a staff feature writer at the Daily Telegraph. She was keen to write an article on squatting and wanted to know whether we knew any "middle class squatters" she could interview. Asked what she meant by the phrase, she replied: "People who earn a high wage and squat for fun." She was told that SQUALL had never heard of a high wage earner who squatted for fun but that we might be able to put her in contact with some real squatters. She replied: "Well, er, unfortunately, you know how it is, this isn't what the Telegraph readers want to read about. Do you know any that earn a wage, are articulate and preferably good-looking."
We laughed and told her we'd do what we could, and then promptly did nothing in the hope her phoney agenda would choke on its own lack of reality. However, although the Telegraph never ran its feature, the Daily Mail picked up on the farce with a two page spread published a couple of months later. Written by "undercover investigative journalist Helen Carrol", the article was headlined: "Camcorders, cannabis and Earl Grey tea. Welcome to the world of middle-class squatters - The phenomenon of the well-educated youngsters who prefer to live in filthy squats."
It is unlikely that the Daily Mail bug the Daily Telegraph's Canary Wharf telephone lines, and more likely that their similar pre-agendas arise from a mutual penchant for news manipulation.
Now, all this shit - when it's so in yer face - can sometimes get you down..... On the back cover of SQUALL 13, we printed a quote from gay South African satirist Peter-Dirk Uys, encapsulating what the team had always thought: "Politics on its own is deadly dull. Entertainment on its own is deadly irrelevant." Indeed, much of the politics SQUALL was required to understand in the development of a socially relevant magazine, was and still is incredibly boring. So boring in fact that it seems almost designed to keep the subject an exclusive preserve for those who derive perverse pleasure or foster perverse financial ambition from learning its terminally turgid intricacies. And yet much of the serious behind-the-scenes manipulation in politics is achieved through convoluted means, most of which are a nightmare to articulate to a reader in an attractively accesible way. And yet it simply has to be done....politics matters that badly.
Most of us of course, would rather live life than argue about it but whilst ignorance might be blissful in the short term, it's downright dangerous in the long term. For, unfortunately, whilst a few million people are still recovering from their 'cultural' weekends on a Monday morning, corporate and political strategy departments are already having their first meeting of the week. Paying no attention to the hidden intention is perilous....... but then again so is excessive yawning. 'Act up', 'Lively up yourself'. 'Stoke it up' and 'All fired up' have all been phrases used on the front cover of SQUALL. And whilst the magazine is undoubtedly political, there is no desire from any of the SQUALL team to cease our cultural celebrations. One of the many facets which singled out the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act as a particularly draconian piece of legislation was the legal definition it placed on the terms 'rave' and 'rave music'; the now legendary "series of repetitive beats". The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 had already been preceded by the Entertainments (Increased Penalties) Act 1990, and then succeeded by the Noise Act 1996 and the Public Entertainment (Drug Misuse) Act 1997. This avalanche of legislation targeted against festival and dance culture revealed just how out of touch politicians actually were with modern youth culture, and just how far they were prepared to go in legislating against something they had no understanding of. And yet when asked to make speeches at raves during the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill, SQUALL was often heckled: "Fuck politics, put the music back on." With necessity breeding ingenuity, SQUALL speakers began asking for the music to be left on at a low level and for reverb and phaser effects to be put on the voice. As a result the speeches became that bit more enjoyable to both deliver and receive. Just as politicians seemed hell bent on squeezing the joy out of people's lives, so SQUALL was increasingly interested in the ways and means of reincorporating it as a necessary partner to social awareness.
Despite the initial prevalence of a dismissive dance-floor attitude to imminent dangers, a new consciousness began emerging from the rave and festival scene. Those who realised that culturally destructive forces were plotting strategically behind the scenes, began to speak and act up in defence of diversity and cultural space; and there is none so powerful as the combination of consciousness and culture. The most striking example of this new spirit emanated from the Luton-based rave organisation, the Exodus Collective. Ever since SQUALL paid a visit to Exodus's housing projects following a brief meeting with some of its members at a Welsh festival in 1993, the two teams have liaised extensively. For just some of the reasons why this interaction has induced such considerable inspiration, the chapter on Exodus written elsewhere in this book is a well recommended read.
Such dances with new dimension offer entertainment that isn't deadly irrelevant and socially relevant politics that isn't deadly boring. The inspirational Reclaim the Streets and a host of spirited road protest campaigns provided further examples. Both these persistent and well populated enviro-political stances mix music, theatre, sculpture, craft and ingenuity with serious and urgent political consciousness. As a result, much of the dour laboriousness associated with politics dissolved in a potent concoction of imagination, celebration and dissent. You need a laugh to live, you need a life to laugh; with celebration as an essential pre- requisite for personal health, especially when involvement in urgent political campaigns can often leave a person run down, cynical, angry and unhopeful. Health, afterall, is the confluence point for the huge diversity of urgent single issues represented in the magazine's pages. Common ground.
Throughout its journey SQUALL has sought to spotlight those who overcome the debilitations, desperations and restrictions of a disrespectful world in order to deliver fresh fire, spirit and solution; those who weave blessings from curses and help twist the mangled environments around us into something emanating more health. It is not possible to say and even seems rather unlikely, that in fifty years time a copy of SQUALL Magazine issue 300 will lie on the newsagents' shelves with "est. 1992" under its title. However, there is little doubt that the actively deployed ideas presented in its pages will have already offered a contribution to the achievement of what was previously thought impossible; a better quality of media, a better quality of mutual respect.....
Hove MP calls for end to ‘squatter rights’ A Brighton and Hove MP wants squatters and tenants who stop paying their rent to be dealt with in criminal courts.
Mike Weatherley, who represents Hove and Portslade, said they caused damage and disruption and should be held to account for their actions. Currently landlords have to go through the civil courts to get squatters or problem tenants evicted. The Conservative MP has written to the government calling for the law to be changed.
Brighton and Hove has 3,655 empty homes, the highest number in Sussex. Mr Weatherley said: "I'd like to see it criminalised. "What happens is there's no criminal act so they get evicted from the home and move to another and then evicted and evicted and evicted. "We ought to make it criminalised so these people can be held to account for their actions." He added: "A lot of people say there's enough laws for example, but they're all technical laws. "One of the laws, for example, says you can't use utility companies. "Until the police actually sit outside and see a light on they can't do anything about it. "It's just not acceptable. We need a faster process and we need to have them criminalised so they don't keep reoffending."
Labour peer Lord Steve Bassam of Brighton, who squatted in the 1970s, said: "Our campaign was largely directed at private landlords and persuading the then council to make sure that they made better use of empty properties, and that really is the issue. "What we cannot have is queue jumping and illegality." He said his sympathies were with landlords and local authorities that had to "pick up the pieces".
But Lord Bassam added: "What we should do is make sure that the legislation that is in place is properly used and that the legislation that is there to ensure that empty properties get brought into use is adequately used so that people are not homeless."
In Scotland, squatting is a criminal as well as a civil offence but in England, Wales and Northern Ireland it is a civil offence only.
In Scotland, owners can evict squatters without notice and they could face a fine or a prison sentence.
BBC News - Hove MP calls for end to 'squatter rights'
Squatters, BZers and Activists Act NOW! SQUATTERS/ BZers/ ACTIVISTS ACT NOW!
Call out from the Netherlands
per "Spirit of unity" collective21 nov 2009 08:55:05
We are squatters from the Netherlands. We are asking you to organize a protest (for example by dutch embassy) in your country against squatting prohibition in the Netherlands. We suggest to organize your protests between 26 and 28 of November, because Eerste Kamer (First Chamber of dutch parliament) will vote about squatting prohibition beginnig of December.
To all the people who are against squatting prohibition, to all the squatters, to all ex-squatters, to all young people who would like to become squatters in the future, to all the friends of the squatters, to all political activists, to all antifascist activists,
to all artists who create art and/or perform in the squats, to all bandmembers and DJ's that play in the squats, to all people who enjoy parties and concerts in the squats, to all travellers who visit and stay in the squats, to all of you who are not mentioned above.
As you probably might know dark days are coming for the squatting movement in the Netherlands. On 15.10.2009 the Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber of the dutch parliament) voted for a squatting prohibition. Please remember this would not have happened without the support of racist and xenophobic politicians as Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders. From 1st January 2010 squatting can be illegal in the Netherlands. Beginning of December Eerste Kamer (First Chamber of the dutch parliament) will discuss and vote about squatting prohibition. If First Chamber of the dutch parliament approve this law, persons that try to occupy an empty building, will be considered a criminal and punished by dutch authorities. Penalties are very high and range from one year up to two years of prison!
This is very serious threat! Don't let politicians destroy squatting movement in the Netherlands! We can't wait! We must act now!
The future of the dutch squatting movement is in our hands. It is a big responsibility as well. We should show respect to those previous squatting generations who made squatting possible in the Netherlands. They sacrified a lot of time and energy for us. We should think about all the youth who would like to have the possibility to live in squats in the future.
Mass media and politicians say that we are few, but our spirit is stronger then this rotten and unhumane law that politicians have created! We are willing to show politicians and police forces our determination in the defence of our rights for housing. There is lack of cheap houses in the Netherlands. For example in Amsterdam price of renting one room range from 300 till 550 euros a month!
Mass media and politicains say that we are violent, but those christians from CDU (Christian Democratic Party), CU (Christian Union) and SGP (Orthodox Protestant Party) are violent. For them empty buildings are more important than human beings searching for a house. Those christians decided that police will come to arrest us, if we try to occupy a house after 31st December 2009.
We are proud of who we are and we are willing to defend our rights to occupy empty buildings. We won't give up without struggle! Some of you remember those proud and angry youth from Kopenhagen who were fighting for Ungdomshuset and dignity. Some of you probably have joined the struggle. If will be necessary, we are willing to bring the spirit of youth from Denmark and Greece to our streets!
Politicians did not leave us another choice! From 1st January we have to choose between being homeless or criminals. This choice is not suitable for us! We won't live on the streets or in the prison! We are human beings and we deserve respect!
There is few hundreds squats in the Netherlands. We can't afford to lose this enormous infrastructure!.. There are houses, autonomous centers, places for cultural activities. In all those buildings we live and/or practice and promote our political ideas. We use that space to promote independent art and underground counter culture in opposition to mainstream pop culture and art.
Let us be a bit sentimental. For many of us to be a squatter is way of life. A lot of us spent the best times living in the squats. We had unforgettable adventures together. We have plenty of invaluable experiences, like living in self-organized communities or housing collectives. Many of us met their best friends in the squats. Yet another reasons to struggle against squatting prohibition.
Don't ignore serious threats for squatting movement in the Netherlands! Use your imagination, open your eyes, stand up and act!
Our struggle is for a world without capitalism, race and gender differences, poverty and war!
We are going to be very thankful for all your support. Solidarity is our weapon!
You can write your complaint to Eerste Kamer, e-mail address: postbus @ eerstekamer.nl
"Spirit of the unity" collective.
Source: Indymedia Barcelona: Call out from the Netherlands12
NL : Dutch "freedom" party’s official policy is end to drugs tolerance and squatting This is the party of Geert Wilders - which made big gains in recent Dutch elections...
Taken from their official election leaflet..
Einde gedoogbeleid: sluiten coffeeshops, krachtige aanpak thuisteelt en drugsoverlast, geen vrije heroïneverstrekking
An end to tolerance; close coffeeshops, take a powerful approach against home cultivation of drugs and drugs nuisances..., no more free heroin prescription for addicts..
Kraakverbod
Prohibition of squatting..
Squatting under threat UK Indymedia - Squatting under threat...
The Conservatives have today announced new plans to tackle widespread public concern about the exploitation of the planning system. A new policy blueprint will pledge to address the small minority of travellers who occupy illegal or unauthorised sites. The proposals will include plans to:
* Create a new criminal offence of intentional trespass, as already in place in the Republic Of Ireland. Trespassers who refuse to move after being asked to do so by a uniformed police officer will face arrest. At present, trespass (which does not involve criminal damage) is a civil offence - forcing the landowner to go to court. This will allow both squatters and travellers occupying property without permission of the landowner to be removed quickly.
* Curtail the ability to apply for retrospective planning permission. This will stop the practice of people laying down concrete on weekends or bank holidays and then putting in a planning application (currently, planning enforcement cannot commence whilst an application is pending).
* Scrap John Prescott’s unfair Whitehall planning rules, which are compelling councils to build traveller camps on the Green Belt and compulsory purchase people’s land to find sites.
* Give tougher ‘stop notice’ enforcement powers to councils with authorised sites, and support central funding for councils to build authorised sites â€" rather than it failing to local taxpayers.
* The Human Rights Act will be replaced with a British Bill of Rights to prevent 'human rights' lawyers sidestepping the planning system and demanding special treatment. The Bill of Rights will bring
greater clarity to the police and councils when taking decisions on planning and eviction.
Shadow Minister for Local Government and Planning, Bob Neill says:
“The British public want to see fair play for all, rather than special treatment being given to some. Labour’s changes have undermined community cohesion by creating a legitimate sense of injustice in the planning system. Law-abiding citizens understandably have to jump through many hoops to build in rural areas. Yet it’s wrong that certain groups have been given a green light to bypass those rules and concrete over the Green Belt when no-one’s looking.â€
Labour Ministers have given travellers special treatment and allowed them to flout planning laws. But law-abiding homeowners have to go through town hall bureaucracy if they want to build a new home or an extension. This perception of unfairness breeds causes tension in local communities.
Many travellers have been buying farmland to set up permanent encampments in breach of planning law. They only apply for planning permission retrospectively, if at all, and use the legal process and Labour’s Human Rights Act to sidestep planning rules. Court decisions, coupled with weak planning enforcement powers, have created precedents that give travellers the green light to establish encampments on greenfield land.
Whitehall planning guidance issued by John Prescott in 2006 has given the green light to development on the countryside, weakening Green Belt protection and forcing councils to consider using compulsory purchase powers to meet new top-down regional targets for traveller camps (ODPM, Circular 01/06: Planning for Gypsy and Traveller Caravan Sites, February 2006.). In the two years before that 2006 guidance, 68 per cent of planning appeals relating to traveller sites were dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate; in the two years afterwards, 65 of appeals were granted planning permission by the Inspectorate (DCLG, Progress Report on Gypsy and Traveller Policy, 16 July 2009, p.13).
Labour Ministers have issued a ‘diversity and equality’ planning guide. It calls for ‘positive action’ and tells planners to give minority groups like travellers special treatment in the planning process (Hansard, 9 February 2009, Col. 1700WA). Under Labour, promoting the ‘equality and diversity’ is now a material consideration in the planning process, but the effect on residents’ house prices from an illegal traveller camp is not (Hansard, 9 September 2009, Col. 2014WA).
Harriet Harman’s new Equality Bill will give travellers even more privileged treatment, because of new duties on local authorities which will distort planning applications and the provision of local services (Hansard, 5 October 2009, Col. 2295WA; Hansard, 5 October 2009, Col. 2295WA).
The Government claims that it has given new powers to councils to issue Temporary Stop Notices to tackle breaches of planning controls. Yet Whitehall guidance states that they cannot be used to stop an illegally erected building being occupied as a residence; and they can only prohibit the continued stationing of a caravan if there is a ‘compelling public interest’ and a ‘risk of harm’ - yet such stricts test will rarely apply (ODPM Circular 02/2005, Temporary Stop Notice, March 2005).
The Government has even admitted: ‘There has been a number of cases reported recently of developments of... traveller sites where planning applications have been submitted to the local authority just as it was closing, and too late for any action to be taken to prevent development taking place over the course of the weekend’ (DCLG, Progress Report on Gypsy and Traveller Policy, 16 July 2009, p.13).
Labour’s special treatment has led to more illegal traveller sites not fewer. The number of unauthorised traveller sites has soared since the introduction of the Human Rights Act. Many travellers are now buying cheap farmland and building on it without prior planning permission.
Since the Human Rights Act came into force in 2000, there has been a four fold increase in unauthorised traveller camps on travellers’ own land which are ‘tolerated’ â€" indicating how travellers are treated with a ‘soft touch’ from some town halls. Similarly, there has been a near three-fold increase in traveller camps since 2008 on their own land which are ‘not tolerated’ (January 2000 to January 2009, cited in Hansard, 8 June 2009, Col. 757WA). As of January 2009, a massive 1,279 unauthorised travellers are ‘tolerated’ and a further 1,086 are not ‘tolerated’ on travellers’ own land. There are a further 1,315 unauthorised traveller camps on other people’s land (ibid.).
THE CONSERVATIVE POLICY PROPOSALS
“Conservatives believe in social responsibility. Different people, from different communities, should be free to lead their lives in different ways. But this freedom must come with a responsibility to the wider community. The vast majority of travellers accept this, but a very small minority do not.
Planning rules should ensure fairness between the settled and the traveller communities. Local authorities have a role to ensure the provision of suitable authorised sites to tackle genuine local need for their area in consultation with local communities. In addition, recent UK case law has clarified that councils need to provide authorised sites locally if they are to be able to take effective action against unauthorised sites, even though enforcement still remains a major problem.
Where, therefore, councils have made appropriate provision for authorised sites in their area, which reflect local need and historic demand, we will provide them with stronger enforcement powers to tackle unauthorised development and illegal trespass. In addition, we will introduce a new criminal offence of intentional trespass.
At the same time, it is important that settled council taxpayers do not foot the bill for the construction of new authorised sites. We will also therefore reform the system of traveller site funding to councils so that councils are properly compensated for new sites and require travellers to make a contribution to the appropriate cost of services on authorised sites.
The Human Rights Act affects all the planning, eviction and enforcement decisions made by all public authorities, including councils and the police. It has made it more difficult and expensive to evict trespassers from private and public property, and has overridden planning law by allowing travellers to go ahead with unauthorised development. We will replace Labour’s Human Rights Act with a new British Bill of Rights, which will help address these problems.
The Labour Government has used the regional planning system and top-down targets to force local planning authorities to build new traveller camps, often on Green Belt land and, if necessary, use their compulsory purchase powers to obtain land for these new traveller sites. Conservatives disagree with top-down building targets, be it for traveller camps or new houses.
As part of the abolition of regional planning and the Regional Spatial Strategies, targets for the provision of traveller camps will be scrapped. In addition we will also scrap John Prescott’s controversial guidance on travellers.
Our promise to limit the concept of retrospective planning permission will also ensure that another route by which the planning system has been abused by those seeking to use unauthorised sites will be curtailed.
As a result we will have introduced a legal framework, similar to that which exists in the Irish Republic, to enable councils to remove unauthorised dwellings. This will allow councils to tackle the problem of unauthorised sites including both those built on land which is owned by travellers and land which is not.â€
Anna Key
Feed the Homeless in Orlando Florida and go to Jail! What a sick law, some christian nation they are.
Eric Montanez faces a curious criminal charge in Orlando, Florida: feeding hungry people. The good people of Orlando, Florida have decided to join other cities in making it a crime to feed poor and hungry people caught up in this recession. Even at Yellowstone you are simply asked not to feed the bears, but in Orlando feeding the hungry will get you arrested. There was a guy in the New Testament that did such things and look where that got us.
Orlando’s ordinance makes it a crime to feed groups of 25 or more people in parks and other public property within two miles of City Hall without a special permit. While most of the witnesses at the hearing testified against the ordinance, it was supported by a small group of businesses objecting to the gathering of poor people and the trash that they left. (Of course, one could easily see an ordinance that ticketed groups that do not clean up after such distributions of food).
The Orlando ordinance would make Jesus as habitual offender in Orlando. After the twenty-fifth fish was handed out, it apepars that Orlando would have thrown him into the pokey. Matthew 14:13-21 reads like a nightmare of a recidivist food felon in Orlando:
Jesus withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
“Bring them here to me,” he said.
And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
5000! That is a lot more than 25. Unfortunately, those Roman governors were not as vigilant as the Orlando City Council. It may be true that “where two or three have come together in my name” (Matthew 18:20) there may be God, but there will not be lunch if they bring 22 others.
The ordinance can probably pass constitutional review. However, cities have generally allowed food bank so long as they do not prepare food without a permit. They can distribute the food at the site and they are required to clean the surrounding area of resulting trash.
Don’t Feed The Local Citylife: Man Arrested for Feeding Homeless in Orlando JONATHAN TURLEY
Squatting im interested in squating a shop thats been closed for years. i went to a party last night in a huge mansion which was squated in lestier square. well it wasnt exactly a mansion but it was MASSIVE!!!!!! four storey house. dj was phat. but i dont know the first thing about squating. anyone can tell me how? xx:weee:12
Brighton Squatters haha! no u cant get them out...
[URL="http://http//www.theargus.co.uk/search/display.var.2266825.0.brighton_squatters_defy_raid_by_bailiffs.php"]http://http://www.theargus.co.uk/search/display.var.2266825.0.brighton_squatters_defy_raid_by_bailiffs.php[/URL]
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