Category Archives: Bedroom Tax

What will you say when they ask what you did in the class war?


I seem to have hit a nerve when I said the Tories are waging a class war on anyone who isn’t filthy rich.

In fact, two Vox Political articles touched on this class war – the first implied it, the second made it explicit.

Today I opened Twitter to discover those words all over the place:

I’m not claiming credit for calling a thing by its name – this is “multiple discovery”, “simultaneous invention”, “synchronicity” or, if you like, an expression of the “zeitgeist”. More and more people are simply coming to realise, understand and accept that it is the policy of the UK’s Conservative government to push them down unfairly.

That is what the decision – and it was a decision, deliberately made – to punish ‘A’ level pupils who weren’t from private schools was all about. Yes, Gavin Williamson and the other Tories are saying it was down to a mechanical system, an algorithm – but that algorithm was written by a human being who intended it to give an advantage to the children of very rich people.

In this way, the Tory class war has stolen your children’s futures and given them to the undeserving rich.

It’s what the decision  – and it was a decision, deliberately made – not to fight Covid-19 in any meaningful way was all about. Tens of thousands of people in care homes have died – your relatives, maybe – because Matt Hancock and the other Tories said people with Covid-19 who lived in those homes should be sent back to them – never mind the fact that they did not have isolation facilities and the virus would run through those places like wildfire and be transferred to others by part-time staff who worked in different homes run by the same – private – firm.

The Tories – and their private business collaborators – failed to source personal protective equipment, ventilators, tests and the facilities to carry out tests. The lockdown they imposed was half-hearted and failed to stop the progress of the disease. Now that they have lifted it, albeit with a few measures still in place, more people are contracting the virus again. So they have stopped reporting the daily number of infections.

And the Tories have rewarded their private business collaborators for their failures with hugely expensive contracts to continue failing us – all at the public expense. Serco’s test and trace contract has been renewed, even though we know it won’t stop any second wave (really just a resurgence of the first wave that was suppressed but never went away).

You won’t get justice against the Tories by the normal means available to civil society because the Tories have either corrupted them already or are in the process of doing so. Boris Johnson illegally terminated Parliament’s last session in the autumn of 2019 and what was the result? He called a general election, lied to us until he was purple in the face and was rewarded with an 80-seat Parliamentary majority.

Now he is using that power to ensure that the courts will not be able to stop any more of his corruption by planning a curb on judicial review of government activity. He is imposing a dictatorship – just as he told you he would, if you could have been bothered to read page 48 of his election manifesto.

The police won’t help. Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson and the others are all above the law – no matter what they do. Try reporting a cabinet minister for a crime and see how far you get. They’ll tell you they’re treating it seriously, bounce the accusation around a few different departments and then say there’s no evidence. I’ve been there.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died already because it is Tory policy to kill claimants of sickness or disability claimants, who they consider to be “useless eaters”. That’s why the newspapers have been full of reports showing people with long-term illnesses and disabilities starving to death.

They wanted your homes so they imposed the Bedroom Tax and took them away from you.

The list goes on and on.

And still, too many people think they are the best choice to run the UK – even though the economy is in its deepest recession ever, and Brexit means it may never recover. You will suffer – they won’t. They have been stockpiling your cash and will simply use it to sit out any unpleasantness in the future.

But I feel sure a tipping-point will come – a flashpoint. I wonder how much we will all have to lose before that happens. I’m guessing it’ll be pretty much everything.

By then, many people may think there is nothing they can do. I am reminded yet again of Martin Niemoller’s poem about how the Nazis came for different groups who received no help from anybody else until, by the time they come for the author, there was nobody even left for him to ask.

But I am reminded of another group who were put in a similar position. When I visited Bosnia in the 1990s, I was told how – when the tanks from other countries moved in – the people, who were weaponless, left their homes and went up into the hills. They came back at night, when they took weapons – and lives – from the soldiers who had taken everything from them. And slowly, they took back their land from their oppressors.

I can see that happening here in the future.

I would rather it didn’t.

But it will, if people of good conscience don’t wake up, get up and put up a fight.

Keir Starmer won’t do it. He agrees with the Tories. That’s why he’s busy turning the Labour Party into Tory Lite Mk II (New Labour was Mk I) and accusing anybody who disagrees with him of anti-Semitism.

If you don’t want this to fall into violence, then you need to think what else you can do.

The ‘A’ level fiasco creates opportunities. Already some further education institutions have said they will take students who were downgraded, on the basis of their predicted results. Some haven’t. Clearly we should take note of the side that each University, each college, takes. Those who do the right thing should be rewarded in whatever ways we can. Those who do not should be shunned – meaning not only that we should not even try to send our children there, but that we should reject their graduates when they seek employment with our businesses. We know they won’t be any damn good anyway.

And employers who turn down applicants on the basis of the Tory algorithm’s discredited results should also be named, so we can stop buying their products.

That’s the best – non-violent – response I can conceive on the spur of the moment, and these things need to start happening now.

We’d better get to it, if we don’t want to roll over and die. And yes, that means you.

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Coronavirus: trust Iain Duncan Smith to try to wreck our chances of survival

He laughed: Remember, Iain Duncan Smith laughed at the terror he was causing a rape victim by using the Bedroom Tax to make it too expensive for her to keep a ‘panic room’. He and the other Tories thrive on terrorising vulnerable people and it is this light that we must examine his comments on Universal Basic Income (UBI).

It had to be him.

Iain Duncan Smith, creator of the huge increase in poverty in the UK since 2010, has spoken out against a plan to keep people from financial ruin during the coronavirus crisis.

His prime minister, Boris Johnson, said he would consider introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to help people hit by the financial impact of social distancing measures he has introduced to fight the spread of COVID-19.

It has been suggested that the idea would cost the Treasury £260 billion – less than the £330 billion measures Rishi Sunak has already imposed, in a bid to protect the economy – and industry leaders like Liam Kelly, chair of the Baltic Triangle group of companies, support it.

He told the Liverpool Echo: “UBI isn’t quite as radical as the idea of dropping money from a helicopter, but it’s clearly a plausible solution to the wealth crisis caused by this global pandemic.

“It will help stave off the unprecedented economic challenges we face and protect us from another. This is a sensible fiscal stimulus and it’s time it went directly to the people, not just to the banks.”

But Duncan Smith, whose Bedroom Tax turfed people out of their homes (including vulnerable people who had panic rooms installed to protect them from violent assault); whose Universal Credit, with its five-week wait before the first payment has unnecessarily tipped millions into poverty; and whose doctored assessments for sickness and disability benefits have denied financial security to the most vulnerable people in society, prompting some to take their own lives and worsening others’ illnesses to the point of death… He thinks he knows better.

Following the recent Tory tactic of putting comments behind a paywall on a Tory-supporting newspaper’s website (this time it was the Telegraph), he claimed that UBI would make no difference to the financial struggles of low-income households and would not alleviate poverty.

He provided no evidence to support this wild claim.

He said a guaranteed monthly income would “disincentivise work” and cost an “astronomic amount of money” – even though it is believed to cost £70 billion less than the measures already announced by the Chancellor.

We must remember that these are the words of a man who believes the best way to wipe out poverty is to wipe out people who suffer from it.

Why else would he have imposed policies that push vulnerable people so deeply into poverty that many of them are unable to survive?

It seems clear that he is trying to protect his vanity projects – Universal
Credit, the Bedroom Tax, biased PIP and ESA assessments – all of which would become redundant if UBI were brought in.

And he wants to ensure that we do not get to see the beneficial effects of UBI, even if it is only brought in for a brief, experimental period.

It seems clear that, while the Tories are claiming to be doing what they can in the face of the crisis, the evil that motivates them remains as strong as it ever was.

Source: Former DWP boss Iain Duncan Smith says Universal Basic Income is “unaffordable” and won’t fix poverty crisis – Welfare Weekly

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The Tory government has refused to lift the Bedroom Tax from victims of domestic abuse

He laughed: Remember, Iain Duncan Smith laughed at the terror he was causing a rape victim by using the Bedroom Tax to make it too expensive for her to keep a ‘panic room’. His Department for Work and Pensions later lost the case in the European Court of Human Rights but we should never forget that he and the other Tories thrive on terrorising vulnerable people.

The Tory government has confirmed that it will not lift the Bedroom Tax from victims of domestic violence, after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that it was an act of discrimination.

A cross-party group of MPs had written to demand that the government should lift the Bedroom Tax from such people.

The letter, signed by 44 MPs, was organised by Labour’s Stella Creasy and follows a decision by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Tory government had imposed the Bedroom Tax on a rape victim who had been given a panic room as part of a “sanctuary” scheme, but the ECHR had ruled that this was an act of discrimination as it meant she would be unable to afford to rent the property.

Full details are here.

According to the BBC:

44 MPs have written to Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey urging her “to take immediate action on this life and death matter.

“The application of the ‘bedroom tax’ to Sanctuary Schemes clearly undermines this aim.

“So too, seeking to encourage people to leave their homes for smaller ones as this policy does, is also in conflict with the aim of Sanctuary Schemes – which are designed to enable those at risk of domestic violence to remain in their homes safely.

“We call on the government to act now and create an exemption for this very vulnerable group.”

Last week, the DWP said it was “carefully considering the court’s decision”.

But now we’re being told: “The government said there were no plans to abolish its policy on the removal of the spare room subsidy.

“It said the policy helped contain ‘growing housing benefit expenditure’, strengthens work incentives and makes better use of available social housing.”

So it’s still all about the money: the Tories are ignoring the courts to continue persecuting victims of violence and rape – and putting their lives in danger. Think about that!

Source: MPs oppose ‘bedroom tax’ being applied to domestic abuse survivors – BBC News

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‘Welfare Persecution’ secretary reduced to sneaking into her own home town

Not smiling: and with her record, Therese Coffey has nothing to smile about.

Therese Coffee really is a piece of… work, isn’t she?

On March 6, she made a visit to Liverpool, dropping in on the Job Centres at Bootle and Toxteth (recently the subject of a BBC documentary).

It’s her home town; she went to school there – but she had to sneak in like a burglar because her views make her hated.

She claims to be a Liverpool FC supporter but considers Margaret Thatcher – who blamed Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough disaster – to be a personal hero.

She voted for the Bedroom Tax.

She voted to cut Universal Credit – and refused to support ending the cruel five-week wait for the first payment of that benefit.

She voted to cut disability benefits – and has failed even to sign up for Disability Confident, a scheme that encourages employers like her (she pays for staff in her Parliamentary office) to take on disabled workers.

This last is particularly hypocritical as last November she appealed to employers to “take a look at their record on disability employment and think about what they can do to help create a more equal Britain”.

Clearly Ms Coffey considers herself to be above that.

Still, it seems there’s a precedent. Of all the previous Tory Work and Pensions secretaries, only Stephen Crabbe is actually listed as having signed up to Disability Confident (although Damian Green says he has, and that he has a disabled staff member).

Iain Duncan Smith, who introduced the scheme in 2013, isn’t on it.

Nor were Esther McVey, David Gauke and Amber Rudd ever part of it.

What a shower.

No wonder Ms Coffey doesn’t want to announce it when she comes to visit.

I’m surprised that she was allowed in by staff at the job centres.

Source: DWP Chief Thérèse Coffey tried to sneak into Liverpool but we found her and asked about her views – Liverpool Echo

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Who’s laughing now? DWP loses six-year fight to discriminate against victims of domestic violence

He laughed: Remember, IDS laughed at the terror he was causing a rape victim by using the Bedroom Tax to make it too expensive for her to keep a ‘panic room’. He thrives on terrorising others.

Remember when Iain Duncan Smith laughed with pleasure at putting a rape victim in fear for her life?

He had used the Department for Work and Pensions to persuade a court that she had to pay the Bedroom Tax on a panic room installed in her house to prevent further attacks against her.

As a result of the ruling, she was evicted from the house and Duncan Smith laughed with joy when he heard the news.

Since then, the people of Chingford and Woodford Green have re-elected him as their MP – thrice. They must be so proud of themselves.

But the last laugh is on him because the European Court of Human Rights has confirmed a ruling that the Bedroom Tax discriminates against victims of domestic violence.

Judges at that court ruled in October that the Bedroom Tax discriminated against the woman.

DWP lawyers tried to overturn the ruling by demanding that the case be heard in the court’s Grand Chamber – but have been rebuffed.

Now the hated ‘Department for Welfare Persecution’, as some have dubbed it, must pay the woman – a rape and assault victim – £8,600 for the “damage she suffered”.

And the victim’s legal team is calling for the government to make immediate changes to the Bedroom Tax rules, in order to make them comply with the ruling.

They say almost 300 more victims of domestic violence are in the same situation:

The department decided she and her 11-year-old son only needed two bedrooms – despite the third bedroom in the property being specially adapted by police to contain a panic room as part of a sanctuary scheme.

Research by the legal team representing ‘A’ found almost 1 in 20 households using the Sanctuary Scheme for people at risk of severe domestic violence have been affected by the bedroom tax, amounting to 281 households across the country.

Oh, and guess what?

The vast majority of people in the Sanctuary Scheme are women.

Once again we see the Conservative government discriminating against vulnerable women.

The DWP has said it is “carefully considering the court’s decision”.

In the light of all the historic evidence, we may conclude that the department’s lawyers are trying to find a loophole, so they can continue persecuting these women, who have already suffered enough.

Will we get an announcement? Or will current Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey try to brush this case under the carpet?

Source: DWP told Bedroom Tax domestic violence discrimination ruling is final – Mirror Online

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Will Bedroom Tax eviction leave this man threatened with a freezing death on the streets?

This is despicable – and shows the depths to which the Tory government sank when it imposed the Bedroom Tax on unsuspecting tenants.

The Bedroom Tax is not extracted from pensioners and Ken May, 65, is due to retire next month.

He had been living with his mother in his childhood home in Gateshead – but her death three years ago meant he became eligible to pay the tax on “spare” bedrooms until the date of his retirement.

He has struggled to do so, and is now £1,200 in arrears – so landlord Gateshead Housing Company has launched court action to evict him.

Mr May says he believes the company is desperate to shift him out of the property before he retires, as the cancellation of his Bedroom Tax and the arrival of his pension could leave him in the building indefinitely.

The company says it has tried to work with Mr May to resolve the problem (although I note that we are not told what it proposed).

I say this would not have happened if the Tories had not imposed the Bedroom Tax, which removes 14 per cent of tenants’ housing benefit for the first room deemed to be spare, and 25 per cent for two rooms.

Labour is promising to abolish the tax, which is unfair because it is levied on people who have been given no choice about where they live.

But even if Labour is elected into government, will there be a chance to repeal the tax before Mr May is thrown onto the streets?

Freezing weather has already killed one homeless person the winter.

Mr May could still end up being one of the Tories’ last victims.

Source: Man faces losing childhood home after bedroom tax plunges him into rent arrears – Mirror Online

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Labour will hold an inquiry into all the benefit-related deaths overseen by Tories. VOTE LABOUR

Bring out your dead: This is how it has felt under the Conservative (and Liberal Democrat) governments since 2010. The death toll has been colossal. It is long past time the authorities who inflicted an early death on vulnerable, sick and disabled people were brought to justice. Labour has announced an intention to do so.

At least 130,000 people have died as a result of victimisation by the Department for Work and Pensions – on the orders of the Conservative government (helped by the Liberal Democrats during the Coalition).

That is the bare minimum as the Conservatives no longer respond to Freedom of Information requests on the subject and those responses we have are incomplete.

I have been writing about the deaths incurred as a result of Tory/DWP benefit denial, practically since I started This Site nearly eight years ago.

I knew there was never any prospect of an inquiry under a Conservative government – and to be honest, I despaired of seeing Labour promise it until Jeremy Corbyn was installed as leader. Remember when Rachel Reeves was shadow Work and Pensions secretary? Dark days!

It must be obvious that I’m leading up to this:

“A Labour government would set up an independent inquiry into the deaths of disabled benefit claimants linked to the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its private sector contractors.”

The details are on the Disability News Service website and, by all means visit and read them.

But they don’t really matter.

Under Labour, we may finally find out the real death toll – although I warn you now, it will probably be horrifying.

Under Labour, we might just be able to see those responsible for this years-long atrocity brought to justice.

So if you don’t have any other reason to support Labour, do it for this.

The families and friends of the dead need this.

Vote Labour for justice.

Source: Election 2019: Labour pledges inquiry into seven years of DWP benefit deaths – Disability News Service

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If Tory policies are so great, why are so many more of us forced to visit food banks?

A food bank.

Boris Johnson tells us the UK’s economy is fundamentally sound, and only “small improvements” are needed, such as “addressing transport bottlenecks, improving rural bus services and broadband connections”.

None of that is true, though.

If it were, the Trussell Trust would not be telling us – on the same day – that more people are being forced to resort to food banks than ever before.

The charity has said problems with the benefit system run by the Tory-controlled Department for Work and Pensions have created a 23 per cent increase in the number of food parcels it has handed out, compared with the same period last year. It is the steepest rise since the organisation’s network of food banks was fully established.

That is not an indication of a “fundamentally sound” economy.

It is a sign that millions of UK citizens are on the brink of starvation, destitution, and collapse.

That is what nine years of unremittingly cruel Tory austerity has done to people like you and me.

The figures make nightmarish reading:

The trust distributed a record 823,145 food parcels between April and September, including 301,653 that went to children.

The DWP was responsible for all of the top three reasons cited by people needing emergency food: insufficient benefit income (36 per cent), delays in benefit payments (18 per cent), and changes to benefit (16 per cent).

It supports the findings of the Trust’s own State of Hunger report, that said benefit changes such as the imposition of Universal Credit and the Bedroom Tax were driving the increased use of food banks.

Of course, the link between benefit policies and extreme poverty is hotly contested by Tory ministers – despite the fact that it is clear to anybody capable of reason.

People only started going to food banks after the Conservatives cut tens of billions of pounds from the benefit budget. No other explanation presents itself and even if it did, this would be the simplest. Occam’s razor tells us that the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is most likely correct.

Labour has accused the government of pushing people into destitution, and promised to lift them out of it:

The Trussell Trust has called for politicians of all parties to protect people from hunger – but you’ll notice that the Tories don’t even acknowledge that as being an issue to be addressed.

And when the government of the day refuses to admit the existence of a very clear and obvious danger to its citizens, it is time for the electorate to remove it.

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Humiliation for DWP after years-long Bedroom Tax bid to persecute a rape victim

He laughed: Remember, IDS laughed at the terror he was causing a rape victim by using the Bedroom Tax to make it too expensive for her to keep a ‘panic room’. The man thrives on terrorising others.

I said it defied belief when this story first broke.

And I said it was sickening when, hearing of the terror he was causing a rape victim by using the Bedroom Tax to make it too expensive for her to keep a ‘panic room’, Iain Duncan Smith laughed.

Well, it seems the last laugh is on him.

This is a story that began in 2014 – the DWP has been torturing a rape victim for five years.

The woman, resident in a three-bedroom property with her 11-year-old son, has been the victim of rape, assault, harassment, stalking and threats to kill at the hands of her former partner.

Her council home was fitted with a secure panic room to protect her from this violent man.

A women’s refuge charity spent thousands of pounds at her property reinforcing window frames and the front door and making the back garden more secure. A panic space was installed, with alarms linked to the police station.

Then Iain Duncan Smith’s Department for Work and Pensions imposed the bedroom tax on it, claiming it was a spare room.

The woman’s housing benefit was reduced by 14 per cent because of the bedroom tax policy.

Hers was among almost one in 20 households benefiting from similar sanctuary schemes for people at risk of severe domestic violence that have been affected by the under-occupancy penalty.

Unable to afford her rent with the added burdn of the under-occupancy charge, the woman was facing eviction when Labour raised the issue in Prime Minister’s Questions. Then-incumbent David Cameron said money was available for people in such a predicament.

And Mr Duncan Smith? He laughed about it. He thought it was funny that a woman who had been raped was being turfed out of her sanctuary against further violation.

The lady concerned – who has only ever been identified as ‘A’ – took the DWP to court – and won. The Court of Appeal ruled that the imposition of the bedroom tax was unlawful and discriminatory.

So the DWP appealed against the decision in order to force her to pay the charge anyway – or be evicted.

And the Supreme Court – to its shame – allowed it.

So the case ended up before the European Court of Human Rights*, challenging the breach of A’s rights and “other vulnerable women whose lives are at risk”.

Almost three years after her Supreme Court humiliation, judges ruled that the benefit cut discriminated against a domestic violence victim who was forced to pay extra for her panic room.

The UK’s Tory government has been ordered to pay the woman 10,000 Euros (£8,600) for the “damage she suffered”. If only it could come from Iain Duncan Smith’s salary.

Lawyers have now demanded the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) act to help almost 300 women estimated to be in a similar situation.

Clearly, considering the length of time it has taken to resolve this case, nobody should hold their breath waiting.

All the way back in 2014, Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: “On average two women every week are killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales. Protecting abused women and their children is a matter of life and death, and we should always remember this.”

Iain Duncan Smith couldn’t care less at the time, and none of his successors have shown any change in attitude since.

Isn’t it time we stopped them from abusing anybody else?

Source: DWP Bedroom Tax dealt defeat in European Court of Human Rights – Mirror Online

*Not to be confused with the EU’s European Court of Justice.

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Deaths of homeless people hit record high – but Tories are STILL lying that they care

These snow effigies of homeless people were created in 2018 to demonstrate that rough sleepers were freezing to death [Image: @TrevorCoultMC on Twitter].

A record 726 homeless people died in 2018 due to Conservative government policies – and Tory mouthpieces Therese Coffey and Danny Finkelstein are still pretending their party cares.

The novice Work and Pensions Secretary and the former Tory speechwriter professed outrage at claims that the Conservatives were not compassionate (remember “compassionate Conservatism”?) and didn’t care in a stomach-turning display of hypocrisy on the BBC’s Politics Live.

Ms Coffey tried to blame the 22 per cent increase in deaths since 2017 on drug use. But why do people take drugs? They do it to escape the hell of their existence – a hell into which they have been forced by Tory policies.

Universal Credit, the Bedroom Tax, and cuts to sickness and disability benefits have all been engineered to make it impossible for people to afford to pay for their accommodation and to eat.

Have no doubt about this – the Tories have been deliberately levering poor people out of their homes. The evidence is in the policies and in their result.

If they really were trying to solve homelessness – as they vowed to do in 2017 – there would have been a 100 per cent fall in homelessness-related deaths, not a 22 per cent increase.

A record number of homeless people died last year, marking the biggest increase in deaths since reporting began, official data shows.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show an estimated 726 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2018. This is a 22% rise from 2017 and the highest surge since the data was first collected in 2013.

Drug-related deaths saw the biggest increase, rising by 55% since 2017.

Charities called for an urgent investigation into the deaths of vulnerable people, saying it was heartbreaking and that they should not die “unnoticed and unaccounted for”.

The mouthpieces rushed to cover their political rears on Politics Live, provoking a predictable reaction from This Writer:

Even The Guardian‘s Helen Pidd was finding excuses for the Tories, with a claim that defied reason:

And the simple fact is that deaths will continue to rise until homelessness becomes an automatic death sentence.

I said that was the plan when the Conservatives announced their plan to halve homelessness by 2022 and eliminate it by 2027 – and this is more evidence that I was right.

The answer to homelessness, and the problems that come with it, have been known for years – give these people a place to live! That would relieve burdens on the health service and also on the police and justice system – as has been proved in Utah.

The Conservatives know this but refuse to take the appropriate action.

Therefore we may conclude that they are deliberately driving people to their deaths.

And there’s only one way to stop it – unless you are one of the thugs who consider rough sleepers to be targets for violence and would rather pour petrol on them and set them alight than help. And I don’t think Vox Political readers are thugs.

We need a Labour government, as soon as possible – or these Tory policy deaths will only increase.

Source: Homeless deaths in 2018 rise at highest level – ONS | Society | The Guardian

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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