Defend Public Services - Build a Greener Society

Councillor speaks out on how cuts will affect young people

The next open meeting of the Brent Fightback Campaign will be on THURSDAY NOVEMBER 4th 7.30 pm at Brent Trades Hall (it says London Apollo Club over the door), 375 High Rd Willesden. Nearest tube Dollis Hill 

Cllr Roxanne Mashari (Labour) will introduce a discussion on how the cuts will affect Brent's young people. Brent Fightback hope there will also be young people and those who work with them present to talk about their experiences and how they see their futures. 4,250 16-18 year olds in Brent are likely to lose up to £1,100 each year with the ending of the Education Maintenance Allowance.

Since Fightback’s  last meeting, the Comprehensive Spending Review has been announced. Councils, people who rely on benefits, the low paid, students and many others are reeling from the ferocity of the projected cuts. 

The Willesden and Brent Times this week highlighted possible areas for cuts including reduced entitlement to free school meals, a £1m cut in Brent’s Sure Start funding over 4 years, and a cut in capital programme funding for schools of 66% over the same period. This could mean the council is unable to provide additional school places.

Brent Fightback supporters have been involved in a number of protests:

• Monday 18th October: Brent MENCAP staged a small but very effective demonstration outside Brent Town Hall to alert Councillors to the anxieties of people with learning difficulties who are very vulnerable to the cuts
• Tuesday 19th October: The new Brent Fightback banner was outside the TUC's anti-cuts rally at Central Hall Westminster and a delegation including officers of the UCU, Brent teachers, Brent UNISON and representatives of Brent MENCAP lobbied Sarah Teather
• Wednesday 20th October: The day the cuts were announced, the banner and a considerable number of our supporters were on the 3,000 strong march that assembled at Lincolns Inn Fields and joined the rally outside Downing St 
• Saturday 23rd October: Brent Fightback supporters went to their local fire stations to express solidarity with the firefighters. The banner went to Willesden and many supporters then joined the march from RMT headquarters to the SE Region TUC rally.

The meeting will hear reports from these protests at the meeting.

Is Israel beyond the law? Public Meeting on Wednesday

ANTI-CUTS ACTIVISTS SHUTDOWN VODAFONE FLAGSHIP STORE IN DISGUST AT £6BN TAX EVASION

65 activists have today stopped trading at Vodafone’s largest retail store on Oxford Street, London, by blockading the doorway in disgust at the HMRC’s deal with Vodafone that have allowed them to walk away from paying a tax bill thought to be worth £6bn to the public purse.




The action started at 09:30 this morning where activists gathered at The Ritz hotel near Oxford Street following rapid mobilization over the weekend via Twitter, Facebook, blogs and text messaging.

The 65 activists confronted the minor security in front of the shop to gain entry to the shop and proceeded to blockade the entrance with arm tubes and banners before the store had chance to even receive its first customer.

This comes exactly a week after George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review in which he announced that another £7bn will be cut from welfare, producing a total of £18bn of cuts from vital welfare services.

These cuts have been widely condemned by charity groups representing the most vulnerable in society, and the highly respected Institute of Fiscal Studies confirmed on Thursday last week that the coalition’s cuts will indeed hit the poorest in society the hardest.

The issue of tax evasion by corporations and the wealthy was not however even mentioned during Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review speech, despite the fact that it is estimated that the deficit to the public purse from tax evasion amounts to at least £12bn each year.

To add salt to the wound, Osborne also announced last week that large corporations in addition will be expected to contribute 4% less in tax to public services across the next four years through a reduction in corporation tax.

Activists on today’s action also note that Andy Halford is both a financial advisor to Vodafone and a corporation tax advisor to the treasury.

Under a banner that read “Pay your taxes - save our welfare state”, Jennifer Kyte said, “The cuts are not fair, we're not all in this together, and there are alternatives. Why not start by collecting - instead of writing off – the tens of billions owed in taxes by wealthy corporations?”

She continued, “The economic downturn was caused by the reckless greed of the private sector, but it is the public sector and those at the bottom that are picking up the bill. Is this their idea of the wonderful Big Society?”

Zeketa Darby said, “We will not pay for their crisis! The public need to join together and hit the streets to take concerted action to fight these cuts”

Government’s cuts are “reckless gamble with the future of this country” - Lucas

The Chancellor’s strategy is to “close his eyes, cross his fingers, and hope that the private sector will manage to produce the jobs that have been destroyed in the public sector”, says Green MP on flagship current affairs show

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP made a powerful contribution to last night’s BBC Question Time programme, in which she condemned the government spending cuts as unfair and unnecessary.

The first question from the audience was put to Caroline first. Audience member Michael Teague asked: “Can the government really talk about fairness when it is talking about cuts that will devastate the unemployed, the sick and the poor?”

Caroline Lucas responded: “No, absolutely not. This reckless gamble with the future of this country and this economy is deeply unfair.

“And it doesn’t need us to say that, we’ve got people like the IFS – the Institute for Fiscal Studies – and many others, who are repeatedly saying that the poorest 10% are going to be paying at least more than the average when it comes to who actually pays the price for this.

“When you see what is being done, it is an absolutely wicked targeting of the most vulnerable.”

The Brighton Pavilion MP argued later in the programme:

“I do not think that the best way of getting the deficit down is through cuts, and I appreciate that sounds counter-intuitive, so let me explain.

“We do need to get the deficit down, but there is every risk that if we try to do that through throwing more and more people out of work, we will simply lose their tax revenues, we will have to pay out their redundancies, we will have to pay out benefits, and actually that’s going to make matters worse, that is more likely to tip us into that double-dip recession.

“George Osborne’s strategy is basically to close his eyes, cross his fingers, and hope that the private sector will manage to produce the jobs that have been destroyed in the public sector.”

She concluded:

“What this government should be doing is things like tackling tax evasion and tax avoidance in a serious way, not in the pitiful way they are doing at the moment, and use that money for investment, for example, in energy efficiency and renewable energies.

“This is the best way to get people back to work, it would also address the issue of climate change, getting our emissions down. There is an environmental crisis, there is an economic crisis: we can tackle them both at the same time.”

Caroline Lucas’s responses were greeted with applause and cheering from the studio audience.

At the end of the programme, “Caroline Lucas” was the most mentioned phrase in the UK on Twitter, and 7th most mentioned worldwide.

Caroline Lucas appeared on the panel alongside Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond; Shadow Business Secretary, John Denham; former head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt; former political editor of The Sun, George Pascoe-Watson and journalist Polly Toynbee of The Guardian.

Brent Council forced to widen Preston Manor consultation

Following complaints from residents at last week's consultation meeting that they had not been written to about the proposal to expand Preston Manor High School into the primary sector, Brent Council this week circulated 4,000 letters to local people. At that meeting they had claimed they followed procedure and could not send out lots of letters.

There was a further consultation at Wembley Area Consultative Forum on Wednesday which succeeded in producing more confusion rather than clarification. Half a dozen men from Brent Council, Preston Manor High School and Watts the project managers stood at the front of the hall next to the screen as a power point presentation was made. ("How many men does it take to do a presentation?" came the whispered comment behind me.)

The presentation included the claim that there were 72 reception aged children out of school 'in the area of Preston Manor'. This was slightly different wording than the 'immediate area of Preston Manor' claimed at the previous meeting, but I pointed out that we had already been told that this meant the whole of HA9 and HAO, which clearly includes children a long way from Preston Manor. One of the presenters said that there had been confusion about whether it was an 'all-through' school or not (without mentioning that this was a confusion stemming from different descriptions in their own two consultation documents) and claimed it was not an 'all through' because the primary building was some distance from the secondary school and separated by playing fields. In fact 'all through' is a matter of whether the primary and secondary departments have one overall management structure and one governing body - not their proximity.

A question asking what the catchment area of the new new primary school would be ('catchment'  is a geographical concept which allocates particular streets to particular schools - you can find your street on Brent's website and see which school is allocated to your children) was answered by reference to the over-subscription criteria and the priority in which places would be given - not on whether the new department./school would have its own catchment area. All Brent community primary schools, with the exception of Sudbury, have their own catchment areas. If Preston Manor were to have its own catchment then those of neighbouring primary schools would have to be redrawn. However if the new primary school has Foundation status then community school catchments would not apply and the school may devise its own admisisons criteria.

In fact we were told that Preston Manor was conducting the consultation because it was a Foundation School and therefore managed its own affairs, although it was made clear that Brent Council strongly backed the proposal. Confusion was increased when Watts seemed to be addressing educational rather than building issues and speaking for the council.

Only three questions were allowed by the chair of the meeting because of the crowded agenda so 'consultation' was more about residents being 'told' rather than asked. However residents did manage to speak about their concerns about increased  traffic and in a soapbox earlier, Rose Ashton, head of nearby Chalkhill Primary School, was able to express her concerns about the impact of the expansion on her own school which has vacancies in both its nursery and reception places. This phase of the consultation ends on Monday so there is still time to get a response in. Consultation document HERE

If Preston Manor governors decide to go ahead there will be a further six week statutory consultation ending in December.

GLA Backs 'Still Human Still Here" Campaign

The London Assembly today expressed its support for the 'Still Human Still Here' campaign which calls for a change in the rules governing the right of asylum seekers to seek work.

In a motion agreed today, the Assembly said a change in policy would help many asylum seekers living in London out of poverty and would reduce the burden on the taxpayer and charities.  

The campaign calls for asylum seekers whose cases are taking longer than six months or who have been refused asylum, but temporarily cannot return home through no fault of their own, to be given permission to work until their cases are finally resolved.  

The Assembly called on the Mayor to join it in making representations to the Government in support of the campaign.

Darren Johnson AM, who proposed today's motion, said:

"The majority of asylum seekers survive on just £5 a day. If asylum seekers were allowed to earn a living and pay their own way, it would improve their self-esteem and self-reliance. It would also reduce some of the hostility they face and the burden on the taxpayer."

Jennette Arnold AM, who seconded the motion, said: 

"This would provide a route out of poverty for asylum seekers affected, the majority of whom live in London. Something needs to be done to help those who have been waiting for more than six months to have their application dealt with. What we are arguing for is a workable and fair way to deal with those seeking shelter in this country."

The full text of the motion reads as follows:

"This Assembly supports the Still Human Still Here campaign calling for asylum seekers who have been waiting for more than six months for their cases to be concluded, or who have been refused asylum but temporarily cannot be returned home through no fault of their own, to be given permission to work until their cases are finally resolved. This policy would provide a route out of poverty for those affected, the majority of whom live in London, and reduce the burden on the taxpayer and the charitable sector. 

"This Assembly resolves to make representations to the UK Government in support of this campaign, and calls on the Mayor to join it in making these representations, including by commissioning supporting evidence regarding the impact on London from GLA Economics."

"A budget to destroy a million jobs," Lucas

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP has called George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review a “budget to destroy a million jobs” – and has again argued that the worst cuts could have been avoided by an alternative policy based on a fairer tax regime.

Caroline Lucas said immediately after the budget statement:

“This is a budget to destroy half a million jobs in the public sector, according to the government’s own estimates. And the knock-on effects will be at least as many jobs lost in the private sector.”

The Brighton Pavilion MP added:

“When those public sector workers find themselves out of work they will, along with disabled people, feel the full force of the additional £7 billion worth of cuts in welfare spending, on top of the £11 billion of cuts announced in June. The housing benefit regime will become much more harsh, risking a rise in homelessness.

“They will also find that the loss of public services that this budget represents will massively disadvantage them, and all the most vulnerable people in society who rely on those services.”

She asked:

“Where’s the fairness in a budget that lets vital public services go to the wall, hitting the poorest hardest?”

Britain’s first Green Party MP concluded:

“This was a budget of false economies, undermining the economy and hitting the most vulnerable – and all, incredibly, under the banner of fairness.”