Skip to content or view screen version

March for Homes feedback + BBC coverage, etc

Christopher Eakin | 31.01.2015 17:39 | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles

March for Homes feedback + BBC coverage, etc

Congratulations to everyone who took part in today's well-attended, friendly, noisy and enthusiastic March for Homes protest in London today, 31 Jan 2015. Thousands marched on City Hall to tell corrupt property developers and Boris Johnson where to shove it. The march was attended by housing activists, tenants groups and their many supporters, including Focus E15 and New Era, Defend Council Housing, South London People's Assembly, Unite Housing Workers, Occupy and TUSC etc, and lots of parents with prams.

The demonstration received predictably good coverage on Russia Today - which is something of a mixed-blessing, however RT coverage does take the message out to millions of TV viewers world-wide. While BBC News 24 did give good coverage to the massive anti-austerity rally organised by Podemos in Spain, when it comes to Britain, the BBC surpassed even their standards of journalistic cynicism, by (so far) not broadcasting any coverage of the demo at all, prioritising instead "dramatic scenes... as Los Angeles police rescue a dog from a fast-slowing river"!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVG2jzmTGPc

 http://marchforhomes.org/ +  http://focuse15.org/

See you on the next demo :)

Christopher Eakin

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Class War - not devastating any avenues where the wealthy live

01.02.2015 17:49

Despite their extremely small numbers, the actions of Ian Bone's Class War group seem worthy of analysis here, at least insofar as Class War finally seem to have realised that the purpose of demonstrations is to protest about important social issues, not to display banners advertising Ian Bone's jealous vendetta against Owen Jones (as they've done on previous demos). One Class War banner effectively reminded marchers that in 35 years of telling us all how "we must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live", Class War havn't devastated any avenues, anywhere.

It's nice to be told what "we" (sic) "must" devastate, but encouraging other people to take risks you're not prepared to take yourselves (especially risks that might entail serious prison time) is guaranteed to make you look like a bunch of jerks. What Class War have done, very effectively, is spend 35 years encouraging division between middle-class and working-class activists

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divide_and_rule

Also infiltrating the thousands who attended the March for Homes demo, the equally bizarre minions of the CPGB-ML group also numbered less-than-ten, and did their best to smear the march by association with brutal dictators (these dickheads also run an outfit called the Stalin Society).

Indie regulars may recall that, far from being "Proletarian" (as per the name of the CPGB-ML newspaper) instead the CPGB-ML is run by a wealthy businessman called Harpal Brar, who pays for a big house in Hampstead by importing Pashmina shawls, which retail (each) for more than what most tenants spend on a full month's rent.

It would be nice if the above groups would kindly not attend future protests

Tim


Homeless writes Saturday 07 February 2015

07.02.2015 15:41

Homeless writes Saturday 07 February 2015

I wonder if the really clever people going on about the march for Boris
Johnson have any interest in looking at his records on housing since being
allowed in at the May 2008 poll
Boris Johnson did make a statement that at the time received very high profile coverage by the BBC and others in the mainstream Media.

That was about ‘social cleansing’.
So far as evidence goes, that was Boris Johnson’s second, socially-responsible ‘stance’
After he swiftly moved to end the tenure at the Met of the Iain Blair Commissioner regime.

If we look at Boris Johnson’s other actions since becoming Mayor of London, the evidence shows that he has cancelled out all the positive impact of the two (above).
Boris Johnson has failed to follow up his stated stance (2010) on ‘social cleansing’,
He has equally failed to do anything about the main issue of social housing.
And the rest is easily verifiable by looking him up on all the main search engines.
Back to that march for Boris- why do I call it ‘March for Boris’?
Because being a Saturday, it was not going to be a working day so he had an excuse.
Even with the strength of the case for social housing, the turnout was poor and worse still, the actual ‘project’.
If you take away the women from ‘Focus E15’
No real demand was heard or articulated.
This is because the Labour Party is not really any different from the Tories, as was made very clear with the transfer of Council housing stock.
You look at the ‘Morning Star’ and even they could not find one single
Genuine housing rights campaigner from Tower Hamlets who had a complete narrative.
And the barrenness goes on elsewhere too.
Although the Guardian does have a long list on trendily-worded housing-linked problems, the substance is lacking.
The Guardian has refused to examine the role of the real housing crisis-makers among the institutions and or agencies of the State, namely the following:-
1 The local Councils who have the largest data bases and the most extensive issues about housing as the primary issue and the related consequences
2 The County Courts that are responsible for rubber stamping most evictions

The Guardian has failed to initiate due examination of these and has also discouraged the truth of the role of these two main causers of the Housing crisis from being
recognised and dealt with.

The third area the Guardian ahs also left uncovered is the Housing Associations, who form the biggest block containing social housing responsibilities and powers
The housing rights lawyers are the next group who too enjoy a soft treatment from the Guardian.

So even when the Guardian is ‘not like the BBC’, the substance is not really any better than what the BBC’s denial of the events is.

If there is a Housing crisis it is caused by the crises that exist in the above areas too. They are linked.

Homeless