Tag Archives: Westminster Council

Tory bid to stop homeless people dying outside Parliament is an outrage

The Conservative Party has decided the best way to stop homeless people from dying outside Parliament is to make them go away and die somewhere else.

Tory-run Westminster council is using an excuse that the streets have to be cleaned, so private belongings left there by homeless people will be removed, to force people away from the area.

The council is claiming, weakly, that the purge is not aimed at anybody in particular, but it seems certain this underhanded move has been motivated by the death of Gyula Remes in late December.

Signs have been put up on walls directly opposite tributes to Mr Remes, saying: “These walkways are cleaned on a daily basis. Private property must not be left unattended within the walkways. Any property or possessions that appear to be left unattended for any period of time and for whatever reason may be removed without any further notice and may be disposed of as litter or waste.”

In cold winter weather, possessions like blankets and sleeping bags are a lifeline for people who have been forced to sleep rough because of cruel Conservative policies.

The threat to remove these items under the pretext of cleaning the streets is a transparent attempt to move homeless people away, so MPs don’t have to see the human effect of their policies and don’t have to witness the deaths that are directly attributable to their decisions.

I would not be surprised if Conservative-run Westminster Council had been ordered to do this by their party leader, Theresa May.

The prime minister certainly put her foot in her mouth when discussing homelessness during Prime Minister’s Questions today (January 9).

Here’s Labour’s Rachael Maskell to set the scene:

Mrs May responded: ““Every death of someone while hopeless…erm, homeless or sleeping rough on our streets is one too many.”

“Hopeless”?

If that’s her attitude, no wonder her cronies on Westminster Council are clearing these people off the streets.

And does she really mean every death is one too many, or that every death we are able to see is one too many?

For the answer to that, I think we only have to look at the Department for Work and Pensions, which hid the unexplained deaths of thousands of claimants from public sight until I was able to use Freedom of Information laws to bring the facts to light – after years of legal arguments.

It seems clear that Conservatives such as Mrs May are happy to take the decisions that kill off the vulnerable; they just don’t want to see it happening.

So they get their council friends to do the dirty work for them and then stutter about it in Parliament. Sickening.

Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

This Week in Toryland – your copy-and-keep guide to Conservative news

Welcome to This Week in Toryland! Feel free to copy the guide below and share it anywhere – with a link back to This Site, of course.

This Week in Toryland a regular feature. If you find a piece of news you think should be included, please send it to the Comment column marked “This Week in Toryland”.

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

UK policy on refugees: Let Them Starve

As a nation, we should be ashamed of this story in so many ways.

Firstly, we should be ashamed that a family of three asylum seekers from abroad came to the UK, believing that they would be treated well.

Then we should be ashamed that this group became dependent on charity handouts – despite their successful claim for asylum – because of ‘significant problems’ transferring them from Home Office administration to mainstream welfare support. This meant they had to be on the streets before local authorities – in this case the Conservative flagship Westminster Council – could offer help.

It is bitterly shameful that the child of this family, living in destitution on British streets, was allowed to starve to death.

Even worse is that, after this happened, the government axed its funding for the Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES)- which paid transitional support for successful asylum seekers like this family. This means others will find themselves in an even worse situation, as soon as they arrive in the UK.

Most damning of all is the fact that this is a major news story across the world – but in the UK both the BBC and Sky News have ignored it, apart from a link on the BBC website to a report by Inside Housing.

Why is that?

Is it because our Coalition government doesn’t want us to know it is letting asylum-seekers starve?

Is it because, even in a country where anti-immigration and anti-asylum-seeker feeling has been stoked by the right-wing press, ministers know that letting them die will still upset the British sense of fair play that many of us still (perhaps surprisingly) have?

Is it because the government has no intention of changing its ways?

Westminster Council warned the government to fix the flaws in its support system for successful asylum seekers, by letter, in March 2011. Support for RIES was cut six months later. It seems clear that the government never paid serious attention to the council’s comments.

The Refugee Council has said stories like this are increasingly common, and Refugee Action says more and more asylum-seekers are being forced onto the streets.

And guess who is partly responsible for this, alongside the Home Office?

Yes, yet again it is the Department for Work and Pensions, which seems to have set itself the task of causing the most avoidable deaths ever, within a single Parliamentary term.

The International Criminal Court has already been asked to consider charges against Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, alongside his former cronies Chris Grayling and Maria Miller, both of whom have moved on to bigger Cabinet portfolios, where presumably they can cause even more havoc.

Perhaps this latest scandal could be added to the list.