Showing posts with label Haringey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haringey. Show all posts

Saturday 14 March 2020

Thy Kindom Come: Rev Paul Nicolson (10 May 1932-5 March 2020) Lived Adventurously, Building Compassion & Dialogue


“Compassion in politics has to transcend and override all party political allegiances.” — Paul Nicolson Source LINK



Paul Nicolson demonstrating outside Church House “in the role of a homeless person for five hours from 9am to 2pm,” 13 Feb 2020. Placard states: “86,130 families in temporary accommodation in England, with 127,000 children. “4600 people sleep rough every night.” “With & for Street & Family Homeless.”

I am grateful to Alan Wheatley formerly of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group for this guest post

Retired Revd and Taxpayers Against Poverty (TAP) founder Paul Nicolson wrote on 14 February 2020:

Yesterday, Thursday 13th February 2020, I was begging on the doorstep of Church House, Westminster in the role of a homeless person for five hours from 9am to 2pm. It was the last day of the February meeting of the General Synod, which is the governing body of the Church of England comprising a House of Bishops, a House of Clergy and a House of Laity all meeting together. I was supporting from the street two excellent motions to be voted on that day. One was promoting a better friendship between church members and impoverished people in line with the priority given to it by Jesus. The other was opposing the shredding of legal aid which is blocking access to justice for many Both motions were passed unanimously. 

 By demonstrating for the homeless I wanted to draw the attention of Synod members to the concerns I hear so often from TAP’s supporters about the Church of England’s commercial use of very valuable land in ways that do not contribute to ending homelessness. 

I was wonderfully cared for by the door keepers of Church House who brought me coffee and checked I was OK from time to time. Two friends came to be with me for about an hour and another brought me lunch and hand warmers. “I did not feel the cold until after I had finished the vigil. Then my body felt chilled until it warmed up in the early hours of the next morning. Charities, shelters and cold weather policies of local authorities simply do not meet the need for or the right to a home in all weathers….” LINK 

 

Core values and compassionate listening leading to rapport with poor people

 

Yes, Paul was a great and compassionate listener despite being very hard of hearing. It was through such compassionate listening that he became a devout campaigner and, I’d say, “early warning system” for what has only made it to the mainstream with the pandemic of Universal Credit injustices.

A key example of that was illustrated by his sending me a Guardian Society cartoon from July 2003 in response to my 2016 reflection that saying, “Telephone calls [to the Universal Credit helpline] can cost up to 55p a minute from pay-as-you-go mobile phones, which are commonly used by people with lower incomes,” is less illuminating than saying that the call charge is £33 per hour.

Paul responded to my observation: “Dear Alan – I wrote a similar letter to Guardian Society in 2003. It was published with the following cartoon. - good wished – Paul” 



Benefits helpline message: “All our operator are busy just now… Why don’t you go out and buy another top-up card?” 

I first met Paul in about February 2012 at a street demonstration outside Parliament, a few months before his 80th birthday. The backdrop to our meeting was parliamentary debate about the Welfare Reform Bill 2012, spearheaded by investment banker David Freud who had been Blair and Brown’s ‘welfare reform guru’ before accepting a life peerage on the Tory benches. 

Had Paul Nicolson been recognised as a government ‘welfare reform guru’, things would have been very different than they are now. Whereas New Labour had talked about getting Incapacity Benefit claimants into jobcentres since at least as early as 2000/2001, I had been a disabled jobseeker since 1977 witnessing inadequate governmental support for disabled jobseekers. 

Paul had been an anti-Poll Tax campaigner in the early 1990s while I was more intent on “slugging it out in the hope of making it instead of fighting the forces that exploited [me]” and that David Freud represents. (Social mobility quotation by Dinyar Godrej, New Internationalist, March-April 2020.) He thus set up anti-poverty charity Zacchaeus 2000 (Z2K) and attended court hearings of debtors as a McKenzie Friend and would have interacted with people not readily considered “core Green Party voters.” 

The masthead text of the Z2K: Fighting Poverty website currently reads: “We believe the social security system should be a tool to help people move out of poverty and into a stable, dignified life. “We work with people in London to solve their housing and welfare issues. We campaign to change policy that is causing the most harm to our clients.” LINK  

Opposing ‘poverty porn’ and the taxing of incomes too low to tax

 

Under New Labour the public perception of benefit claimants was largely skewed by a blitz of Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) ‘Targeting Benefit Fraud’ adverts toward the manufacture of consent for harsher treatment of benefit claimants while claimants were already hard hit below the mainstream radar. Eg LINK  Whereas Z2K stands with and for poor people, Citizens Advice England now kowtows to a DWP gagging clause. LINK   

 That does not surprise me. On 20 January 2005 I got a phone call from prospective employer telling me that my pre-Christmas 2004 job interview had been successful, pending references and police check, but I also got a call from the DWP telling me that my Jobseekers Allowance was suspended because I had not attended my first signing-on session after the Christmas break. As I explained to the CAB worker who later handled my case, as a very long term disabled jobseeker I had experienced emotional turmoil since the 22 December 2004 job interview. I had been out of full-time waged employment for over a decade and really wanted the job. I had felt like a prisoner facing “all the joy and fear of leaving such incarceration” and the date stamp for my 14 January signing-on date had been a blur. 

So the CAB worker got on the phone to DWP: “This is Elizabeth from Kentish Town CAB and I’ve got one of your claimants, a Mr Wheatley here and he’s got himself into a right mess...” leaving me feeling humiliated and deeply ashamed more than wronged by a heartless system in which I had heard of myself at the jobcentre as “an overstayer on New Deal” in 2003! (Yes, I did get my Jobseekers Allowance reinstated, but….) 

Though Paul Nicolson stood down from his directorship of Z2K when he set up the more outspoken Taxpayers Against Poverty, I doubt very much that I would have got such ‘just deserts’ handling from Z2K! 

Yet the gulf between claimant realities and government spin widened cataclysmically with the emergence of ‘poverty porn’ tv documentaries such as ‘Benefits Street’ and ‘Can’t Pay, We’ll Take It Away’ that Paul opposed. 

When Tory Government brought in the reduction of Council Tax support for benefit claimants, Paul decided on civil disobedience, by refusing to pay his Council Tax, and being taken to court until the London Borough Haringey reinstated full Council Tax Reduction for benefit claimants. LINK His stance later helped lead to a revolution within the Labour Party in Haringey, deselecting right wing Labour councillors who would engage in ‘social cleansing’ of council housing stock to the benefit of Australian company ‘Lend Lease’. LINK 

 

Paul’s legacy

 

The above is just a sampling of what Paul Nicolson undertook, and this is already a long article. I shall just close here by emphasising that he had been working on the Elimination of Homelessness Bill with support from Debbie Abrahams MP (Labour) and Compassion in Politics at the time of his death, and supply the following ‘further reading’ links. And the best way that I can pay tribute to his work is for me to carry on with the benefits justice campaigning we had in common. 

Further Reading

 http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/ 
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/the-secretary-of-state-shall-each-yearc-publish-a-scoial-housing-plan-seeti
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/reverend-paul-nicolsons-fight-on-behalf-of-the-most-vulnerable-continues-on
http://taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk/news/building-on-the-legacy-of-martin-luther-king-tap-e-petition-published-in-th 
https://policypress.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/danny-dorling-on-the-housing-crisis-and-hope-for-the-future/
https://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.com/search?q=nicolson

Saturday 27 June 2015

Alert sounded on return of Pinkham Way waste plant proposal




The Pinkham Way Alliance LINK  have circulated an alert on the return of plans to relocate Barnet's 6 acre Cricklewood Waste Transfer Station (WTS) to the Pinkham Way site, working again with the North London Waste Authority (NWLA).

The Alliance claim that any plant handling black-bag waste can have major problems with odour and fly infestations and that WTS facilities pose a particular fire risk. They quote statistics that show between 2011-2013, there was a fire in UK WTS's almost every three days. 

Barnet's facility would be directly adjacent to the A4506 and the East Coast Main Line.

The Alliance say that the number of lorry movements will approach that of the previous, abandoned waste plant proposals on one of the most polluted and congested road stretches in London.

Stephen Brice, Chair of the Pinkham Way Alliance, will be addressing Haringey Cabinet about the issue at the start of their meeting on Tuesday 14th July at 6.30pm, Haringey Civic Centre, Wood Green, N22 8LE.

He calls on supporters to be out on force in the public gallery and more, for 'barely half an hour' that evening to let politicians know the strength of local feeling.

Twitter: @PinkhamWay

Monday 8 April 2013

Remembering Bernie Grant on the day Thatcher died by Patrick Vernon


Apart from the death of Margaret Thatcher, today also marks the 13th anniversary of the death of Bernie Grant one of her greatest enemies. In this guest blog first published on The Voice website, potential Labour candidate for Brent Central, Patrick Vernon, asks what would Bernie make of the current political climate:

TODAY IS the 13th anniversary of the death of the late Bernie Grant, MP for Tottenham between 1987 to 2000 and former leader of Haringey Council.


In the 1980s and 1990s Bernie often spoke the truth, real feelings and passions on behalf of every one which meant he became a thorn in the side of Thatcherism and New Labour.


However, he was still respected and revered as the elder statesman and father of the house for black parliamentary representation.


People today still talk about Bernie’s life, achievements and legacy at times in a present tense which reflects his impact but also the gap in current black leadership and the question of more elected representatives.
Just imagine if Bernie were still alive today. What would he have made of this period of austerity and the coalition government with increasing inequality facing BME communities; the introduction of bedroom tax; welfare reform, immigration policy, and massive cuts to public services?


How would Bernie make the case today for all black Parliamentary short list, social justice and reparations?


I believe that Bernie would be turning in his grave to see how the coalition government has no or very little regard to race equality policy and legislation which he and many others made this a life and at times a death struggle over the last 50 years.


The issue of black representation and self-organising groups like the development of Black Sections in the Labour Party (now BAME Labour) and black workers groups in trade union movement was one of his strategies for empowerment and developing a black-led perspective on Democratic Socialism.


Bernie today would be supporting and sustaining a new breed of candidates based on following policy and campaigning areas: climate change; defending public sector services; fighting for all equalities; stopping the privatisation of health and social care; affordable and more social housing; tackling education inequality; open government; regulation of financial services /taxing the bankers; tackling poverty and social inequality; police accountability, foreign affairs, international development, heritage and the arts.


One way of taking forward the legacy of Bernie Grant is developing a political education programme around his vision and principles to attract and identity the next generation of potential councillors, MPs, MEPs and community activists.

Bernie supporting a traffic protest
Bernie believed in the community and the community believed in him.


That is why he is still popular and an iconic figure which was reflected in Bernie being in the top ten of 100 Great Black Britons back in 2002.


So let us use this opportunity to reflect on his legacy in politics, the trade union movement and grass roots activism.


I know many of us are trying to do capture and follow his vision today. That is why his political legacy, The Bernie Grant Arts Centre, The Bernie Grant Trust and his archives at the Bishopsgate Institute are essential resources for political education, learning for young people, aspiring, seasoned politicians and campaigners.


‘The Importance of the Black Vote’ will be held at Dalston CLR James Library, Dalston Square, Hackney, London, E8 3BQ on Friday April 12th 2013 at 18:30- 21:00. Speakers include Simon Woolley of OBV, MP Diane Abbott, Jules Pipe Mayor of Hackney, Ngoma Bishop of BEMA and Pauline Pearce from the Hackney Liberal Democrats. The event will be chaired by Andrea Enisuoh of BEMA & Hackney Unites.

Vernon explains why he wants to represent Brent Central at the beginning of this video LINK

Monday 28 May 2012

Downhills Primary carpet Lord Harris

On Saturday, about 50 parents and children from Downhills Primary and other local  Haringey schools had a ‘carpet time’ in Carpetright, Tottenham Hail to protest against the Secretary of State’s attempts to force our school (and at least one other Haringey primary) to become an academy sponsored by Lord Harris.  Lord Harris has donated millions of pounds to the Tory party and is described as a ‘close friend’ by Prime Minister David Cameron; he made his fortune selling carpets, not educating children.  We thought that if Lord Harris wants to take over our school, we should take over his shop for a short while.  The children listened to the story of ‘The Magic Carpet Seller’ who came to realise that children cannot be mass produced and manufactured in the way that carpet can.  We left the shop after ‘carpet time’ and assembled outside to sing our campaign song ‘Save our school’.  Thanks to Hazel Gould for writing the fantastic story and Andy Graves for the illustrations.