Beginning his working life in the aviation industry and trained by the BBC, Tony Gosling is a British land rights activist, historian & investigative radio journalist. Over the last 20 years he has been exposing the secret power of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and élite Bilderberg Conferences where the dark forces of corporations, media, banks and royalty conspire to accumulate wealth and power through extortion and war. Tony has spent much of his life too advocating solutions which heal the wealth divide, such as free housing for all and a press which reflects the concerns of ordinary people rather than attempting to lead opinion, sensationalise or dumb-down. Tony tweets at @TonyGosling. Tune in to his Friday politics show at BCfm.
Please donate now to help save our beautiful steam engine from the knackers yard.
We are planning a promise auction for later in the year to help raise money, and so are requesting promises from our wider community. Have a look here for more information.
About our steam engine
Tinkers Bubble is a small woodland community in Somerset, established in 1994. We use environmentally sound methods of working the land without a need for fossil fuels. Most of the fruits of our labour go back into sustaining the community, but we do sell some produce mostly organic apple juice, cider and timber.
Our engine in happier days. Marshall Britannia No. 88270 was built in 1937
Producing timber here involves managing a 26 acre woodland in a sustainable way – felling selected trees with two-person handsaws and axes, transporting logs with the help of our handsome horses, and processing these logs on a wood fired steam-powered sawmill.
We have heard that we may be running the only remaining commercial portable steam engine in the country. Our steam engine is 83 years old, and we’ve been using her almost constantly for 26 of those years. She is now in need of a new lease of life; a once-in-a-century major refurbishment.
For us to continue to produce timber, and to continue to act as an example of what is possible in this country without fossil fuels, we need to urgently raise the funds to replace the firebox. We will be carrying out as much of the work as we can, but the costs are far beyond our reach.
We have a crowd funder underway and greatly appreciate all donations. We will also update this page to let you know how on how we are getting on with our repairs!
If you think you might be able to help with the engineering, please email tinkersbubble@riseup.net.
Woodlanders Video
Click here to see Woodlanders excellent video of our sustainable forestry operation, including footage of the steam engine sawmill in operation.
An Escalation
Bad news, folks. Ole’ Steamy requires a little more attention than first expected. If new tubes, firebox, tube-plate and a good dollop of molten metal wasn’t enough, the other tube-plate and most of the outer jacket had better be. We got the news a week or so after her triumphant shift over to James in Shaftesbury who gave her a good tickle with a needle gun and got the inspector in to see what was left. A combination of age, good use and poor maintenance means the metal of the outer shell of the boiler has corroded down to less than 6mm. On a vessel running at almost 150psi for most of the day I can assure you more than 6mm of metal holding everything together is a good idea (not to mention legal).
To get Ole’ Steamy from the stripped down condition she now finds herself in to belted up and running the saw-bench again puts our funding aim up to £20,000. On hearing the bad news and the advice from both James and Dave the inspector to “maybe-perhaps-a-good-idea-might-be… to find a new one?” my heart sunk and my head hit the desk. But, we forge on.
This last in a line of set-backs really shook the boat. So much so I started considering other alternatives. There is some pretty nifty little electric saw-benches out there and even feasibly within range of a decent solar set-up. Other ideas included stationary steam engines, generators, gasification units and hydro via our little stream but its fair to say nothing quite inspires the glint in the eye of a volunteer like a dirty green fire-breathing behemoth (ignoring the smutty, sweaty Bubbler shoving Douglas up the back end).
So even though this seems yet more of a mountain (like contemplating the weeding of Greg’s carrot bed) we will rise with the morning dew, put on our boots and cap (sometimes nothing else) and get out there and do it. We need to get this money raised to get Ole’ steamy back. There is not enough thanks that can be conveyed by technology for what everyone has already done for us during this mammoth task. I am incredibly grateful for the advice and support I have received while figuring out the work the steam engine has needed and all the possible alternatives. And, of course, a great big thank-you to everyone who has already donated. Although we are asking for more, it in no way lessens the value of that initial push.
To get ‘Ole steamy back we are also doing fundraising-style open days, a promise auction, and probably other exciting things so please keep an eye on our events page.
Be Warned About The Hijack, compliments of -> Whitney Webb – @_whitneywebb If you are or know someone who identifies as an environmentalist and/or progressive, please share w them my recent interviews w/ progressive outlets On Wall Street’s plans to takeover nature
NEW – At COP26, The most powerful private financial interests in the world announced a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing w institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.https://t.co/8rqDME4OVj
Until recently, it appeared economic competition had been driving the rise and fall of small and large companies across the U.S. Supposedly, PepsiCo is Coca Cola’s competitor, Apple and Android vie for your loyalty and drug companies battle for your health care dollars. However, all of that turns out to be an illusion.
Since the mid-1970s, two corporations — Vanguard and Blackrock — have gobbled up most companies in the world, effectively destroying the competitive market on which America’s strength has rested, leaving only false appearances behind.
Indeed, the global economy may be the greatest illusionary trick ever pulled over the eyes of people around the world. To understand what’s really going on, watch Tim Gielen’s hour-long documentary, “MONOPOLY: Who Owns the World?” above.
Corporate Domination
As noted by Gielen, who narrates the film, a handful of mega corporations — private investment companies — dominate every aspect of our lives; everything we eat, drink, wear or use in one way or another. These investment firms are so enormous, they control the money flow worldwide. So, how does this scheme work?
While there appear to be hundreds of competing brands on the market, like Russian nesting dolls, larger parent companies own multiple smaller brands. In reality, all packaged food brands, for example, are owned by a dozen or so larger parent companies.
Pepsi Co. owns a long list of food, beverage and snack brands, as does Coca-Cola, Nestle, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, Danone and Associated British Foods. Together, these parent companies monopolize the packaged food industry, as virtually every food brand available belongs to one of them.
These companies are publicly traded and are run by boards, where the largest shareholders have power over the decision making. This is where it gets interesting, because when you look up who the largest shareholders are, you find yet another monopoly.
While the topmost shareholders can change from time to time, based on shares bought and sold, two companies are consistently listed among the top institutional holders of these parent companies: The Vanguard Group Inc. and Blackrock Inc.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola — An Example
For example, while there are more than 3,000 shareholders in Pepsi Co., Vanguard and Blackrock’s holdings account for nearly one-third of all shares. Of the top 10 shareholders in Pepsi Co., the top three, Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation, own more shares than the remaining seven.
Now, let’s look at Coca-Cola Co., Pepsi’s top competitor. Who owns Coke? As with Pepsi, the majority of the company shares are held by institutional investors, which number 3,155 (as of the making of the documentary).
As shown in the film, three of the top four institutional shareholders of Coca-Cola are identical with that of Pepsi: Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation. The No. 1 shareholder of Coca-Cola is Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
These four — Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street and Berkshire Hathaway — are the four largest investment firms on the planet. “So, Pepsi and Coca-Cola are anything but competitors,” Gielen says. And the same goes for the other packaged food companies. All are owned by the same small group of institutional shareholders.
Big Tech Monopoly
The monopoly of these investment firms isn’t relegated to the packaged food industry. You find them dominating virtually all other industries as well. Take Big Tech, for example. Among the top 10 largest tech companies we find Apple, Samsung, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Microsoft, Huawei, Dell, IBM and Sony.
Here, we find the same Russian nesting doll setup. For example, Facebook owns Whatsapp and Instagram. Alphabet owns Google and all Google-related businesses, including YouTube and Gmail. It’s also the biggest developer of Android, the main competitor to Apple. Microsoft owns Windows and Xbox. In all, four parent companies produce the software used by virtually all computers, tablets and smartphones in the world. Who, then, owns them? Here’s a sampling:
Facebook — More than 80% of Facebook shares are held by institutional investors, and the top institutional holders are the same as those found in the food industry: Vanguard and Blackrock being the top two, as of the end of March 2021. State Street Corporation is the fifth biggest shareholder
Apple — The top four institutional investors are Vanguard, Blackrock, Berkshire Hathaway and State Street Corporation
Microsoft — The top three institutional shareholders are Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation
You can continue going through the list of tech brands — companies that build computers, smart phones, electronics and household appliances — and you’ll repeatedly find Vanguard, Blackrock, Berkshire Hathaway and State Street Corporation among the top shareholders.
Same Small Group Owns Everything Else Too
The same ownership trend exists in all other industries. Gielen offers yet another example to prove this statement is not an exaggeration:
“Let’s say we want to plan a vacation. On our computer or smart phone, we look for a cheap flight to the sun through websites like Skyscanner and Expedia, both of which are owned by the same group of institutional investors [Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Corporation].
We fly with one of the many airlines [American Airlines, Air France, KLM, United Airlines, Delta and Transavia] of which the majority of the shares are often owned by the same investors …
The airline we fly [on] is in most cases a Boeing or an Airbus. Again, we see the same [institutional shareholders]. We look for a hotel or an apartment through Bookings.com or AirBnB.com. Once we arrive at our destination, we go out to dinner and we write a review on Trip Advisor. The same investors are at the basis of every aspect of our journey.
And their power goes even much further, because even the kerosene that fuels the plane comes from one of their many oil companies and refineries. Just like the steel that the plane is made of comes from one of their many mining companies.
This small club of investment companies, banks and mutual funds, are also the largest shareholders in the primary industries, where our raw materials come from.”
The same goes for the agricultural industry that the global food industry depends on, and any other major industry. These institutional investors own Bayer, the world’s largest seed producer; they own the largest textile manufacturers and many of the largest clothing companies.
They own the oil refineries, the largest solar panel producers and the automobile, aircraft and arms industries. They own all the major tobacco companies, and all the major drug companies and scientific institutes too. They also own the big department stores and the online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and AliExpress.
They even own the payment methods we use, from credit card companies to digital payment platforms, as well as insurance companies, banks, construction companies, telephone companies, restaurant chains, personal care brands and cosmetic brands.
No matter what industry you look at, the top shareholders, and therefore decision makers, are the same: Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street and/or Berkshire Hathaway. In virtually every major company, you find these names among the top 10 institutional investors.
Who Owns the Investment Firms of the World?
Diving deeper, we find that these major investment firms are in turn owned by their own set of shareholders. One of the most amazing things about this scheme is that the institutional investors — and there are many more than the primary four we’ve focused on here — also own each other. They’re all shareholders in each other’s companies.
“The power of these two companies is something we can barely imagine,” Gielen says. “Not only are they the largest institutional investors of every major company on earth, they also own the other institutional investors of those companies, giving them a complete monopoly.”
Gielen cites data from Bloomberg, showing that by 2028, Vanguard and BlackRock are expected to collectively manage $20 trillion-worth of investments. In the process, they will own almost everything on planet Earth.
BlackRock — The Fourth Branch of Government
Bloomberg has also referred to BlackRock as the “fourth branch of government,” due to its close relationship with the central banks. BlackRock actually lends money to the central bank, the federal reserve, and is their principal adviser.
Dozens of BlackRock employees have held senior positions in the White House under the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations. BlackRock also developed the computer system that the central banks use.
Who Owns BlackRock?
While Larry Fink is the figurehead of BlackRock, being its founder, chairman and chief executive officer, he’s not the sole decision maker, as BlackRock too is owned by shareholders. Here we find yet another curiosity, as the largest shareholder of BlackRock is Vanguard.
“This is where it gets dark,” Gielen says. Vanguard has a unique structure that blocks us from seeing who the actual shareholders are. “The elite who own Vanguard don’t want anyone to know they are the owners of the most powerful company on earth.” Still, if you dig deep enough, you can find clues as to who these owners are.
The owners of the wealthiest, most powerful company on Earth can be expected to be among the wealthiest individuals on earth. In 2016, Oxfam reported that the combined wealth of the richest 1% in the world was equal to the wealth of the remaining 99%. In 2018, it was reported that the world’s richest people get 82% of all the money earned around the world in 2017.
In reality, we can assume that the owners of Vanguard are among the 0.001% richest people on the planet. According to Forbes, there were 2,075 billionaires in the world as of March 2020. Gielen cites Oxfam data showing that two-thirds of billionaires obtained their fortunes via inheritance, monopoly and/or cronyism.
“This means that Vanguard is in the hands of the richest families on earth,” Gielen says. Among them we find the Rothschilds, the DuPont family, the Rockefellers, the Bush family and the Morgan family, just to name a few.
Many belong to royal bloodlines and are the founders of our central banking system, the United Nations and just about every industry on the planet. Gielen goes even further in his documentary, so I highly recommend watching it in its entirety. I’ve only summarized a small piece of the whole film here.
A Financial Coup D’etat
Speaking of the central bankers, I recently interviewed finance guru Catherine Austin Fitts, and she believes it’s the central bankers that are at the heart of the global takeover we’re currently seeing. She also believes they are the ones pressuring private companies to implement the clearly illegal COVID jab mandates. Their control is so great, few companies have the ability to take a stand against them.
“I think [the central bankers] are really depending on the smart grid and creepy technology to help them go to the last steps of financial control, which is what I think they’re pushing for,” she said.
“What we’ve seen is a tremendous effort to bankrupt the population and the governments so that it’s much easier for the central bankers to take control. That’s what I’ve been writing about since 1998, that this is a financial coup d’etat.
Now the financial coup d’etat is being consolidated, where the central bankers just serve jurisdiction over the treasury and the tax money. And if they can get the [vaccine] passports in with the CBDC [central bank digital currency], then it will be able to take taxes out of our accounts and take our assets. So, this is a real coup d’etat.”
The Spartacus Letter
Again, I urge you to watch the documentary at the top of this article, and keep an eye out for my interview with Austin Fitts, which will be published in the near future. In closing, I want to highlight a mysterious letter posted by an anonymous individual who goes by the name “Spartacus.”
“COVID-19 — The Spartacus Letter” was originally posted on docdroid.net, but has since been deleted. Another copy can be found on mega.nz.1 The Automatic Earth2 and ZeroHedge3 have also published the letter in full. The letter starts out saying, “My name is Spartacus, and I’ve had enough”:
“We are watching the medical establishment inject literal poison into millions of our fellow Americans without so much as a fight. We have been told that we will be fired and denied our livelihoods if we refuse to vaccinate. This was the last straw.”
What follows is a compilation of data showing the COVID pandemic was a biowarfare attack that has been kept going using sophisticated psychological warfare tactics. It also reviews the dangers of the COVID shots, noting that the virus and the “vaccines” were made by the same entities.
A summary of Spartacus’ findings is as follows. Each summary point is elaborated upon in later sections of the letter, which you can read in any of the three references provided.
COVID-19 is a blood and blood vessel disease. SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of human blood vessels, causing them to leak into the lungs.
Current treatment protocols (e.g. invasive ventilation) are actively harmful to patients, accelerating oxidative stress and causing severe VILI (ventilator-induced lung injuries). The continued use of ventilators in the absence of any proven medical benefit constitutes mass murder.
Existing countermeasures are inadequate to slow the spread of what is an aerosolized and potentially wastewater-borne virus, and constitute a form of medical theater.
Various non-vaccine interventions have been suppressed by both the media and the medical establishment in favor of vaccines and expensive patented drugs.
The authorities have denied the usefulness of natural immunity against COVID-19, despite the fact that natural immunity confers protection against all of the virus’s proteins, and not just one.
Vaccines will do more harm than good. The antigen that these vaccines are based on, SARS-CoV-2 Spike, is a toxic protein. SARS-CoV-2 may have ADE, or antibody-dependent enhancement; current antibodies may not neutralize future strains, but instead help them infect immune cells. Also, vaccinating during a pandemic with a leaky vaccine removes the evolutionary pressure for a virus to become less lethal.
There is a vast and appalling criminal conspiracy that directly links both Anthony Fauci and Moderna to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
COVID-19 vaccine researchers are directly linked to scientists involved in brain-computer interface (‘neural lace’) tech, one of whom was indicted for taking grant money from China.
Independent researchers have discovered mysterious nanoparticles inside the vaccines that are not supposed to be present.
The entire pandemic is being used as an excuse for a vast political and economic transformation of Western society that will enrich the already rich and turn the rest of us into serfs and untouchables.
A Criminal Conspiracy
It’s a long letter, so I won’t reproduce the whole thing here. However, the following sections are of particular interest, with regard to a criminal elite that is orchestrating the destruction of life as we know it, in an effort to usher in a technocracy-led system of global governance and control:4
“In November of 2019, three technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology developed symptoms consistent with a flu-like illness. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, and Ralph Baric knew at once what had happened, because back channels exist between this laboratory and our scientists and officials.
December 12th, 2019, Ralph Baric signed a Material Transfer Agreement (essentially, an NDA) to receive Coronavirus mRNA vaccine-related materials co-owned by Moderna and NIH.
It wasn’t until a whole month later, on January 11th, 2020, that China allegedly sent us the sequence to what would become known as SARS-CoV-2. Moderna claims, rather absurdly, that they developed a working vaccine from this sequence in under 48 hours.
Stephane Bancel, the current CEO of Moderna, was formerly the CEO of bioMerieux, a French multinational corporation specializing in medical diagnostic tech, founded by one Alain Merieux. Alain Merieux was one of the individuals who was instrumental in the construction of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab.
The sequence given as the closest relative to SARS-CoV-2, RaTG13, is not a real virus. It is a forgery. It was made by entering a gene sequence by hand into a database, to create a cover story for the existence of SARS-CoV-2, which is very likely a gain-of-function chimera produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and was either leaked by accident or intentionally released. The animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 has never been found.
This is not a conspiracy ‘theory.’ It is an actual criminal conspiracy, in which people connected to the development of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 are directly connected to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and their gain-of-function research by very few degrees of separation, if any. The paper trail is well- established.
The lab-leak theory has been suppressed because pulling that thread leads one to inevitably conclude that there is enough circumstantial evidence to link Moderna, the NIH, the WIV, and both the vaccine and the virus’s creation together.
In a sane country, this would have immediately led to the world’s biggest RICO and mass murder case. Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, and Stephane Bancel, and their accomplices, would have been indicted and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Instead, billions of our tax dollars were awarded to the perpetrators.
The FBI raided Allure Medical in Shelby Township north of Detroit for billing insurance for ‘fraudulent COVID-19 cures.’ The treatment they were using? Intravenous Vitamin C. An antioxidant. Which, as described above, is an entirely valid treatment for COVID-19-induced sepsis, and indeed, is now part of the MATH+ protocol advanced by Dr. Paul E. Marik.
The FDA banned ranitidine (Zantac) due to supposed NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) contamination. Ranitidine is not only an H2 blocker used as antacid, but also has a powerful antioxidant effect, scavenging hydroxyl radicals. This gives it utility in treating COVID-19.
The FDA also attempted to take N-acetylcysteine, a harmless amino acid supplement and antioxidant, off the shelves, compelling Amazon to remove it from their online storefront. This leaves us with a chilling question: did the FDA knowingly suppress antioxidants useful for treating COVID-19 sepsis as part of a criminal conspiracy against the American public?
The establishment is cooperating with, and facilitating, the worst criminals in human history, and are actively suppressing non-vaccine treatments and therapies in order to compel us to inject these criminals’ products into our bodies …
Conclusions: The current pandemic was produced and perpetuated by the establishment, through the use of a virus engineered in a PLA-connected Chinese biowarfare laboratory, with the aid of American taxpayer dollars and French expertise …
Either through a leak or an intentional release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a deadly SARS strain is now endemic across the globe, after the WHO and CDC and public officials first downplayed the risks, and then intentionally incited a panic and lockdowns that jeopardized people’s health and their livelihoods.
This was then used by the utterly depraved and psychopathic aristocratic class who rule over us as an excuse to coerce people into accepting an injected poison which may be a depopulation agent, a mind control/pacification agent in the form of injectable ‘smart dust,’ or both …
They believe they can get away with this by weaponizing the social stigma of vaccine refusal. They are incorrect. Their motives are clear and obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.
These megalomaniacs have raided the pension funds of the free world. Wall Street is insolvent and has had an ongoing liquidity crisis since the end of 2019. The aim now is to exert total, full-spectrum physical, mental, and financial control over humanity before we realize just how badly we’ve been extorted by these maniacs. The pandemic and its response served multiple purposes for the Elite:
Concealing a depression brought on by the usurious plunder of our economies conducted by rentier-capitalists and absentee owners who produce absolutely nothing of any value to society whatsoever …
Destroying small businesses and eroding the middle class.
Transferring trillions of dollars of wealth from the American public and into the pockets of billionaires and special interests.
Engaging in insider trading, buying stock in biotech companies and shorting brick-and-mortar businesses and travel companies, with the aim of collapsing face-to-face commerce and tourism and replacing it with e-commerce and servitization.
Creating a casus belli for war with China, encouraging us to attack them, wasting American lives and treasure and driving us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Establishing technological and biosecurity frameworks for population control and technocratic- socialist ‘smart cities’ where everyone’s movements are despotically tracked, all in anticipation of widespread automation, joblessness, and food shortages, by using the false guise of a vaccine to compel cooperation.
… The Elites are trying to pull up the ladder, erase upward mobility for large segments of the population, cull political opponents and other ‘undesirables,’ and put the remainder of humanity on a tight leash, rationing our access to certain goods and services that they have deemed ‘high-impact,’ such as automobile use, tourism, meat consumption, and so on.
Naturally, they will continue to have their own luxuries, as part of a strict caste system akin to feudalism. Why are they doing this? Simple. The Elites are Neo-Malthusians and believe that we are overpopulated and that resource depletion will collapse civilization in a matter of a few short decades.
They are not necessarily incorrect in this belief. We are overpopulated, and we are consuming too many resources. However, orchestrating such a gruesome and murderous power grab in response to a looming crisis demonstrates that they have nothing but the utmost contempt for their fellow man.
To those who are participating in this disgusting farce without any understanding of what they are doing, we have one word for you. Stop. You are causing irreparable harm to your country and to your fellow citizens.
To those who may be reading this warning and have full knowledge and understanding of what they are doing and how it will unjustly harm millions of innocent people, we have a few more words. Damn you to hell. You will not destroy America and the Free World, and you will not have your New World Order. We will make certain of that.”
The Ombudsman’s “damning” report accuses councils of creating a “culture of blame” for tenants who are living in squalid conditions, explains ITV News Political Correspondent Daniel Hewitt
The Housing Ombudsman for England has called for a culture change in social housing, accusing landlords of blaming tenants and not taking responsibility for disrepairs following an ITV News investigation.
Richard Blakeway told ITV News he was “shocked” by the news reports, saying councils and housing associations lack empathy and respect for residents.
In a damning report, which investigated 142 social housing providers and spoke to hundreds of tenants, he demanded “changes in culture, behaviour and approach; from being reactive to proactive, and from inferring blame to taking responsibility.”
The Ombudsman’s inquiry was launched after a series of ITV News reports which found social housing tenants living in uninhabitable conditions, in homes riddled with mould, damp, leaks and collapsing ceilings.
Dan Hewitt on the damning report and what needs to change to improve social housing for tenants
Britain’s Housing Shame: Shocking conditions and despair at a lack of action
The man struggling to breathe in council flat ‘unfit to house humans’
“The recent media coverage clearly demonstrates the significant impact on residents when things do go wrong, complaints are not responded to appropriately, and lessons are not learned,” said Mr Blakeway.
“There is a strong legislative and policy basis to prevent these issues arising but it is clear that despite this, residents are still facing problems, sometimes extreme problems, and landlords are struggling to resolve these. This means we need a fresh approach.”
‘There needs to be a zero tolerance approach, there needs to be a change in culture’
He said the distress caused by landlords’ failure to resolve mould and damp cases was “the most profound we have seen”, raising concerns about tenants’ physical and mental health, and stressing the impact on children.
It has also led, the report states, to “the loss of trust and reputation.”
What does the report call for?
The report makes 26 recommendations to councils and housing associations, demanding they:
adopt a zero-tolerance approach to damp and mould interventions
review the accessibility and use of their systems for reporting repairs and making complaints
improve staff training
avoid automatically apportioning blame or using language that leaves residents feeling blamed
treat residents with “respect and empathy.”
Mr Blakeway told ITV News: “I think the focus of scrutiny that you’ve brought on this issue, alongside our work as an Ombudsman, means that most landlords are waiting for this report, and want to read this report and see what action they can take as a result of it.”
The Ombudsman announced in April an inquiry into the prevalence of damp and mould in homes across England, after a series of ITV News reports into social housing conditions.
In March we revealed the shocking state of a block of flats in South London owned and managed by Croydon Council, where for years tenants’ complaints of thick, black mould, soaked floors and dangerous leaks had been ignored. The living conditions were described by leading housing charity Shelter as the worst they had ever seen.
Here is ITV News’ first report into the shocking state of social housing some tenants have to put up with – the first of a hard-hitting series of reports
ITV News has been inundated with cases across country of tenants living in damp, mould-infested homes struggling to be taken seriously.
The Housing Ombudsman’s inquiry is one of five investigations prompted by ITV News’ housing investigation, including:
An independent inquiry into Croydon Council, which found tenants health and safety was put at risk
A Regulator for Social Housing investigation into Croydon which found the Council guilty of breaching consumer standards
A Regulator for Social Housing inquiry into Clarion – Britain’s biggest housing association – following an ITV News report into conditions on the Eastfields estate in Mitcham
An investigation by the Welsh Government into the state of social housing in Wales.
At the Wellingborough Diggers memorial – with Independent Socialists Paul Crofts & Richard Jackson
A group for all independently-minded people who are broadly “socialist” in outlook and beliefs. You do not have to be a member of any political party, but you can be if you want. Campaigns for progressive social change in Wellingborough and Northamptonshire/UK
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ISWellingborough/
At the Wellingborough Diggers’ memorial – with Wellingborough Independent Socialists Paul Crofts & Richard Jackson
www.thisweek.org.uk Martin Summers & Tony Gosling 01 Oct 2021
The Wellingborough Diggers of 1650: A tribute to Mischief-making on a grand scale
https://paulcrofts.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-wellingborough-diggers-of-1650.html
The contribution of the Diggers cannot be underestimated as we wrestle with opposing the gross and disgusting inequalities of wealth and income across the globe that is there for all to see and developing a vision of a different kind of society in the future. The Diggers dreamt of a new type of world and that dream is still with us today, albeit the language in which the dream is described may have changed over the passage of time. I have used the term mischief, because this is the word used to describe the Diggers at the time. A contemporary letter of April 15th 1649 (1650)[1], from the Government of the day (Council of State) to “ … Mr. Pentlow, Justice of Peace for County Northampton” said:
“We approve your proceedings with the Levellers in those parts, and doubt not you are sensible of the mischief these designs tend to, and of the necessity to proceed effectively against them. If the laws in force against those who intrude upon other men’s properties, and that forbid and direct the punishing of all riotous assemblies and seditious and tumultuous meetings, be put in execution, there will not want means to preserve the public peace against attempts of this sort of people”.
In particular I draw your attention to then words “… mischief these designs tend to, and of the necessity to proceed effectively against them.” What were the Digger’s designs and actions that were so threatening that “… there will not want means to preserve the public peace”?
In a unique “Declaration of the Grounds and Reasons” issued by the Wellingborough Diggers in 1649 (1650), we have an opportunity to hear their own voice across the centuries:
Their actions were very simple:
“(We) have begun and give consent to dig up, manure and sow corn upon the Commons and Waste Ground called Bareshanks, belonging to the people of Wellinborrow by those that have subscribed and hundreds more that give consent”
Why were they taking this action?
“We are in Wellinborrow in one parish of 1169 persons that receive alms… our trading is decayed; our wives and children cry for bread; our lives are a burden to us, divers of us having 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in family, and we cannot get bread for them by our labour. Rich men’s hearts are hardened; they will not give us if we beg at their doors. If we steal, the law will end our lives. Divers of the poor are starved to death already; and it were better for us that are living to die by the Sword than by the famine …”
How did they justify their action – what underpinned the philosophy or set of ideas that encouraged them?
“We find (in the word of God) that God made the earth for the use and comfort of all mankind, and sat him in it to till and dress it…
God never gave to any sort of people that they should have it all to themselves and shut out the rest …
We find that no creature that ever God made was deprived of the benefit of the Earth, but mankind … it is nothing but covetousness, pride and hardness of heart that hath caused man so far to degenerate.
That in the last day the oppressor and proud man shall cease and God will restore the waste places of the Earth to the use and comfort of man, and that none shall hurt or destroy in all His Holy Mountain.
We have great encouragement from two righteous Acts, which parliament of England has set forth, the one against kingly power and the other to make England a free Common-wealth”
Within a few weeks (we do not know for sure how long it lasted) the Digger enterprise in Wellingborough had been brought to an end by the forces of “law and order” – unleashed by the nice Mr. Pentlow, Justice of the Peace, on instructions from the Government of Cromwell. The Diggers’ leaders were arrested, taken to Northampton, and charged with riot and affray. After this nothing is known of what happened to them.
I don’t think it was so much what the Diggers did that rattled the ruling class of the day (is sowing seed on common land so threatening?), so much as the ideas that the declaration promoted and was spreading throughout the country. Are there resonances here of how the Occupy Movement and UK-Uncut and other movements against injustice around the world are being treated today?
The incipient “Great Reset” is a multi-faceted beast. We talk a lot about vaccine passports and lockdowns and the Covid-realated aspects – and we should – but there’s more to it than that.
Remember, they want you to “own nothing and be happy”. And right at the top of the list of things you definitely shouldn’t own, is your own home.
The headlines about this have been steady for the last few years, but it has picked up pace in the wake of the “pandemic” (as has so much else). An agenda hidden on back pages, behind by Covid’s meaningless big red numbers, but perhaps no less sinister.
You can find articles all over the net talking up renting over owning.
Last month, for example, Bloomberg ran an article headlined:
America Should Become a Nation of Renters”
Which praises what they call “the liquefaction of the housing market” and gleefully expounds on the idea that “The very features that made home buying an affordable and stable investment are coming to an end.”
Other publications go more personal with it, with anecdotal columns about ignoring financial advice and refusing to buy your home. Vox, never one to sell their agenda with any kind of subtlety, have a piece titled:
Homeownership can bring out the worst in you
Which literally argues that buying a house can make you a bad person:
It’s the biggest thing you might ever buy. And it could be turning you into a bad person.
So what exactly is the narrative here? What’s the story behind the story?
The short answer is fairly simple: It’s about greed, and it’s about control.
It almost always is, in the end.
The longer answer is rather more complicated. Major investment firms such as Vanguard and Blackrock, along with rental companies such as American Homes 4 Rent, are buying up single-family homes in record numbers – sometimes entire neighbourhoods at a time.
They pay well over market value, pricing families who want to own those homes out of the market, which forces the housing market up whilst the Lockdown-created recession is lowering wages and creating millions of newly unemployed.
Of course, this is motivating people to sell the houses they already own.
People all across America have been saddled with houses worth less than they bought them for since the 2008 economic crash, and are eager to take the cash from private investment firms paying 10-20% over market value. Combine an economic recession with a created housing boom and you have a huge population of motivated sellers.
Of course, many of these sellers don’t realise, until it’s too late, that even if they attempt to downsize or move to a cheaper area, they may be priced out of the market completely, and forced to rent.
As such, in the last year, the private investment share of single-family home purchases is estimated to have increased ten-fold, going from 2% in 2018 to over 20% this year.
As more and more people are forced to rent, of course, rental properties will be in higher and higher demand. This in turn will drive the cost of renting up.
Which means, this weekend, while Senators adjourn to the summer homes they probably don’t rent, the ban will officially end and a lot of people are likely to have their houses foreclosed or their landlords kick them out.
The newly empty buildings will be a feeding frenzy for the massive corporate landlords. Who will descend on the banks like starving hyenas to snap up the foreclosed properties for pennies on the dollar. Just like they did in 2008.
Yield-chasing investors are snapping up single-family homes, competing with ordinary Americans and driving up prices
However, since then, something has clearly changed. The propaganda machine has kicked into gear to defend Wall Street from any backlash.
No better example of this shift can be found than The Atlantic, which ran this story in 2019:
WHEN WALL STREET IS YOUR LANDLORD
With help from the federal government, institutional investors became major players in the rental market. They promised to return profits to their investors and convenience to their tenants. Investors are happy. Tenants are not.
BLACKROCK IS NOT RUINING THE US HOUSING MARKET
The real villain isn’t a faceless Wall Street Goliath; it’s your neighbors and local governments stopping the construction of new units.
Wall Street isn’t to blame for the chaotic housing market
Which ran just a few days after the Atlantic article, and is practically identical.
Both these (oddly similar) articles argue that Wall Street and private equity firms can’t be blamed for buying up houses, and that the real problem is the lack of supply to meet demand.
You see, all the “selfish” people who already own homes (they did say it makes you a bad person) are blocking the construction of new houses, and thus driving up the cost of property through scarcity.
This has been a logically flawed argument around the housing market for decades.
That there aren’t enough houses for people to buy is patently absurd when the US census data says that there are over 15 million houses currently standing empty. That’s enough to house all of America’s roughly 500,000 homeless people 30x over.
There’s plenty of houses, there’s just not enough money to buy them.
For decades now, wage increases have lagged behind increases in the cost of living. In the 1960s one full-time job could afford a decent standard of living for a family of four or more. These days both parents work, sometimes multiple jobs each.
It was huge amounts of financial de-regulation which created this situation. So, whether you believe Vox’s BlackRock apologia or not, one way or another Wall Street very definitely is to blame.
But this isn’t just about money. It never is. Just as the war on cash isn’t just about efficiency, and the environmental push isn’t just about climate change. Ditto veganism. It’s about control. Just like vaccines, lockdowns and masks.
It always comes down to control.
It’s an oft-used cliche, but no less true for that, that homeowning “gives people a stake in society”. A family-owned house is a source of security for the future and something to leave your children. It is also sovereignty and privacy. Your own space that no one else can control or take away.
In short: A homeowner is independent. A renter is not. A renter can be controlled. A homeowner can not.
It’s the same reasoning behind the way working people were encouraged to take out loans and become debt slaves. If you limit people’s options, if you make them rely on you for a roof over their heads, you have control over them.
Under Feudalism, land wasn’t owned by the working class, but provided to them by landed barons, hence the term “Land Lord”. If you disrespected your Lord, or broke his rules, or he perceived another peasant/farm animal/crop would be a better use of the land, he could take it back.
Essentially, the behaviour of serfs was kept in check by their reliance on the nobility for a place to live. That’s very much the dynamic they’re going for here.
Rental agreements can be full of any terms and conditions the landlord wants, and the more desperate people get the more of their consumer rights they will sign over.
Maybe you’ll agree to smart meters which monitor your internet or power-usage habits, and then sell the data to behavioural modellers and viral marketers.
Maybe you’ll have to agree to certain power limitations or water shortages in order to “fight climate change”.
Maybe it will get worse than that.
Maybe they’ll go full Black Mirror style corporate dystopia. Maybe, through affiliation programs, the mega-equity firm which owns your rental house has ties to McDonald’s, and as such will require you to not eat at any competing fast-food franchises, or demand you observe at least ninety seconds of Disney advertisements per day.
Maybe it will be as simple as including vaccine status in the tenancy agreement, making it impossible for the unvaxxed to find a home.
Maybe they just want to make poor people miserable.
After all, the super-wealthy have got all the money they could ever need, and all the luxury they could ever use. Their living standards are as high as physically possible. So maybe the only way they can keep “winning”, is to start driving the living standards of us proles down.
The residents of the Kingfisher Caravan Park in Ingoldmells claim that in October 2019 the council informed people on the site of changes to contracts. This meant that there could be no caravans that were more than 15-years-old on the premises.
As a result of this, more than 100 residents will be taking legal action against East Lindsey District Council.
The council extended the date that the caravans needed to be moved due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But, the group says that the council has now set a deadline of the end of the year for certain caravans to be removed.
Steve Wakefield and his wife Kim bought their caravan in 2001 and will be massively affected if the changes go ahead.
The Kingfisher Caravan Park in Ingoldmells.
Speaking to Lincolnshire Live, he said: “It’s totally unfair. I just can’t understand the council’s position at all, and I sometimes wonder if they understand it themselves.
“I don’t think they thought through the implications of it because there’s bits of this site that look like a ghost town now because of the number of people who have left.
“The council didn’t seem to realise how many people would be leaving so quickly because at the end of the 2019 season it looked like a flood of caravans leaving the site – just one after the other.”
The residents say they have been left with “no option” but to take the council to court.
An aerial view of the caravan park, which has already seen caravan owners leave.
The most recent attempt at mediation between the two sides came during a meeting on July 21, but it failed to resolve any issues.
Stuart Allen is representing the residents and says that more than 300 owners and caravans have been removed since being told about the contract change.
He says that some residents felt they had no choice but to sell their vans for scrap, given that they were only informed of the change just three weeks before the end of the 2019 season.
Peter Blackburn, 66, stays on the site with his wife for most of the season, but is considering his future.
He said: “We first came here in 2009 but the current caravan we’re in is one that we bought in 2013 and so it’s eight years old now.
“So we’re a few years off the age limit yet, if it still goes ahead, but another rule the council has is that you can’t sell the caravan privately after ten years so I’m already thinking about what we’ll do.
“All these rules that they have, and the new age limit one that they’re trying to bring in, is all just stress that you don’t need.
“My wife and I bought our caravan as a retirement thing for life that would be our forever home, and now it’s looking as if it might not be.
“She’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer and so I will not be moving the caravan in the immediate future because she loves it down here and I want her to be able to enjoy it.
“If the council was really bothered about the age of the caravans, then they should have done it through a process of natural wastage – where they told residents that they couldn’t pass the caravan on to their kids or whatever.
“But when you’re seeing old couples driving off the site in tears, you know that this can’t be the right way to go about things.”
It could take up to two years for the case to be heard, according to Stuart Allen, as he will be submitting papers against the council soon.
He added that the cost of the court action could rise up to £60,000, with the group having already spent £30,000.
Lloyds Banking Group is reportedly planning to become one of the UK’s biggest landlords, according to the Financial Times.
The banking giant is aiming to buy 50,000 homes in the next 10 years and charge tenants rent as a private landlord. The Financial Times said that Lloyds Banking Group has launched the ‘Citra Living’ brand in an attempt to move into new streams of making money.
Lloyds is the biggest mortgage lender in the UK, providing nearly one in four home loans to prospective buyers, but, with interest rates at historic lows for more than a decade, returns have been squeezed.
The newspaper said an internal job advertisement has set a “strategic challenge” of reaching 10,000 properties by the end of 2025, with a further aim to hit 50,000 by 2030.
Based on current property prices and rental estimates, this would create a portfolio worth £4 billion, generating pre-tax profits of around £300 million.
If the targets are hit, Citra Living will overtake the UK’s current largest private landlord, Grainger, which has 9,100 properties worth around £2.1 billion.
Citra may consider “M&A (mergers and acquisitions) opportunities and/or strategic alliances” to help it reach the targets, the advert added.
Previously, the bank has been cautious on the potential for the new division, with finance chief William Chalmers saying expansion into the private rental market would be “on a limited basis while we explore the area”.
Several big name fund management groups and insurers have entered the private rental market in recent years, including Legal & General and M&G.
And retailer John Lewis recently announced plans to convert unused floor space in its department stores into rental homes.
The switch from small-scale private landlords follows changes in tax rules which mean buy-to-let mortgage payments are no longer tax deductible.
A Lloyds spokesperson said: “As highlighted at launch, Citra Living will initially start small, with a focus on buying and renting good-quality, newly-built properties. This will be achieved by working alongside leading house builders to address the increasing demand for rental properties.
“The aim is to gradually provide incremental stock to the UK rental market over the coming years.”
On Romany Holocaust Memorial Day, JAKE BOWERS warns that the new laws now being levelled at Britain’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities by the Police Bill once again threaten an entire people’s way of life
TODAY is Romany Holocaust Memorial Day yet ask most lifelong anti-racists what the significance of August 2 is and they will be puzzled.
For our history, just like our plight, remains one of Europe’s dirty secrets.
So come with me, if you will, on a journey into the past of Europe’s 12 million Romany people because we desperately need your help to secure a better future. Because history does not always exactly repeat itself, but in 2021 it is starting to rhyme.
On this day, in 1944, 4,300 Romanies were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
They were taken during the night from their barracks to the gas chamber by SS guards.
The mass killing was a reprisal on the community who led a desperate uprising at the death camp.
Just months earlier, on May 16, Romany prisoners of the so-called Zigeunerlager (Gypsy camp), having heard of the imminent liquidation of the camp, stood up against the Nazi guards armed with only hammers, pickaxes and shovels.
As a result of their defiance, no Roma died in the gas chambers on that day. The Romany revolt against the Nazis is the only recorded uprising in Auschwitz and is now commemorated as Romani Resistance Day.
We still do not know how many of us died in the Holocaust. Unlike the Jewish community, many of our ancestors could not read or write, so few independent records were kept.
Estimates range from 500,000 to 1.5 million people, their lives and stories are often lost within German statistics of those “remaining to be liquidated.”
We were the only other racial minority alongside the Jewish community specifically subjected to the Nazi “final solution” and a similar percentage of the Romany and Jewish community was eradicated.
But there the parallels end, because what the intervening decades have taught us is that some inequalities are sadly far more equal than others.
So today we will weep for those we lost, but tomorrow we must again pick up the shovels.
Across Europe a mudslide of racist violence is once again engulfing our people. From Hungary to Britain, right-wing governments are once again scapegoating our people and the results can be lethal.
In the Czech Republic, Romany man Stanislav Tomas died in Teplice on June 19 2021, after a Czech police officer knelt on his neck for six minutes.
In images comparable to the murder of George Floyd in the US, the video went viral, prompting Romanies across Europe to protest police violence.
The Czech Republic authorities deny any wrongdoing and the police were praised by the interior minister for their good work.
After the Council of Europe called for an independent investigation, the Czech president said he had no reason to doubt the results of the internal investigation, which found the police officers’ behaviour to be correct.
In New York, Berlin, Brussels, Glasgow, London, Vienna and in countless cities across eastern Europe where Romany populations are big and growing, Romanies are demanding justice for Stanislav and themselves.
Directly inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, a Roma Lives Matter movement has seen thousands of Romany people demand better treatment on the streets.
For many of us the end of the Holocaust did not lead to turning point in our treatment and life chances. Those who had survived the Nazis were soon forcibly settled and assimilated into urban deprivation by Stalinist regimes.
In recent decades, the forced sterilisation of Romany women, poverty and over-representation in state care and special schools for Romany kids and deeply ingrained prejudice have kept us moving.
Such racism has led to a huge wave of Romany migration to western Europe. This has led to a doubling of the British Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population to at least 600,000 people.
But Britain is no safe haven. The hostile environment experienced by Britain’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community for over 500 years has recently been cranked up.
Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill not only limits the right to protest, but also seeks to completely outlaw nomadic Gypsy and Traveller culture.
If passed it will entirely eradicate nomadic life in Britain, giving police the power to seize Gypsy and Traveller homes and fine Gypsies and Travellers up to £2,500 and imprison those needing to follow a nomadic way of life because of a lack of safe, legal stopping places.
On July 7 over 1,000 community members gathered in the shadow of the statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and suffragette Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square to kick-start the Drive 2 Survive campaign that will roll from Westminster to the Appleby Fair (the world’s largest Gypsy horse fair) in August in Cumbria, to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester in October 2021.
Much as Gandhi, Mandela and Fawcett used direct action to fight for equality, Gypsy and Traveller community members will resist the outlawing of our cultures. Our communities have unified to fight the Bill, but we desperately need your help to stop it.
“As nomadic people that have roamed the lands we have lived on for our whole recorded history, to suddenly be told our way of life has no place in society is totally wrong and hurtful,” says Irish Traveller activist Chris McDonagh.
“We all live in a country that is supposedly proud of its acceptance and equality for all ethnicities and minorities, but we now see this is a lie. We are people and we deserve to live our lives as we always have. We deserve to exist.”
The Drive 2 Survive Campaign’s first aim is the scrapping of part four of the Bill that creates a criminal law of trespass and dramatically increases police powers over anyone residing on land that they do not have permission to be on.
We believe that the draconian powers within the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act that already lock nomadic Gypsies and Travellers into a cycle of trespass and eviction and do not need strengthening but repealing.
Patel cannot ignore the fact that police powers are already too excessive. It’s not just Gypsies, Roma and Travellers who are resisting these new powers, but representatives from the National Police Chiefs Council.
In evidence to the committee stage of the Police Bill, the community and the police were united in calling for a better way of resolving the conflict around a lack of stopping places.
The community takes the threat of the new legislation so seriously that it has organised the first Romani Kris (council of elders) in decades to debate and decide a unified response to Patel’s Bill at Appleby.
Hereditary Appleby Fair organiser Billy Welch sees a direct parallel with the state violence that Romany populations were subjected to before the Holocaust, because before the death camps came the outlawing of nomadic life across the Third Reich.
“The people I represent are anxious about these proposals and with good reason. They are reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the start of the process of ethnic cleansing in which Gypsies were forced off the road by fines and imprisonment.
“Their horses and vehicles were confiscated, which eventually led to them being sent to death camps or murdered on the side of the road.
“There are still many Gypsies alive who lost their families in that Holocaust and they have not forgotten this is how it began.
“All of what was done then was legal in the eyes of the Nazis, but history teaches us clearly that just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right.”
This summer we will show the Conservative Party that we will not go quietly into the history books in fact we will not be going at all.
To show your solidarity with the Drive 2 Survive Campaign, come to Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria between August 12 and 15
attend the National Drive 2 Survive Rally at the time of the Tory Conference in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, at 1pm on Saturday October 2 2021.
Holkham Estate the Royal West Norfolk Golf Club, National Trust, and others keep grabbing common land. They know that commoners risk losing their homes and hundreds of thousands of pounds by taking these land-grabbers to the high court. They have refused to negotiate with those whose traditional legal rights they’re stealing.
We want that to stop. We want to see respect for and restoration of one another’s legal rights, and to see the talking resume.
Please come equipped with tent, rollmat, sleeping bag, kite and anything you’d expect to find. Further details from Tony on 07786 952037
PUBLIC TRANSPORT – train and bus
Train to Kings Lynn leaves hourly from Kings Cross £40 return.
Main other rail connections to Kings Lynn are via Peterborough on the East Coast Main Line, or Ely.
Then a five to ten minute walk almost due west through the centre of Kings Lynn to the bus station.
Now it’s a 20 minute walk from the bus stop. Go about 100 yards back West on the A149 and turn right, north. With St Mary’s Church on your right, head toward the coast up Broad Lane for a little under a mile. That’s a 20-30 minute walk to our camp by the Brancaster Beach Car Park.
If you get lost please call or message Stephen for directions on 07469 233401. We also hope to pin a note, in nearby Brancaster Staithe, on the Fish Shed (local produce shop) nearly opposite the White Horse pub. Fish Shed & White Horse are three bus stops East of The Ship on the A149 coast road.
Why are we on the Scolt Head commons?
The Land Is Ours was founded in the 1990s by XR guru and Guardian columnist George Monbiot. Our aim is to further the public debate over land in an age where private property rights are encroaching on, or enclosing, so many of our valuable shared spaces.
In our towns and cities libraries, pubs, clubs and other places we congregate are being closed, sold off for private use. Anna Minton in her 2012 book ‘Ground Control’ drew attention to the privatisation of city centres through shopping malls, streets formerly patrolled by police, now by private security.
Along the North Norfolk coast private landowners have been extending their boundaries into the Scolt Island commons. Legally they must compensate rights holders if they want to use registered common land but they are refusing to meet local residents or even reply to letters. This disrespect for local laws has proliferated alongside spiralling property prices with wealthy second and third home incomers forcing the younger generation out of the area.
New laws being introduced by Home Secretary Priti Patel this Autumn mean gypsies and travellers who have stayed on our roadsides for thousands of years will be criminalised, their homes confiscated, they and their children jailed.
‘The Earth Is A Common Treasury For All’ was the cry of the English Civil War ‘Diggers’, and they were right. Land can never be absolute ‘property’ in the same way as, say, a car or a television. It’s a free gift to mankind and we all need, to a degree, to share it to survive.
Back in the 1990s The Land Is Ours helped start a national debate which led the the Blair government’s Countryside and Rights of Way Act (2000).
This time our ambitions are smaller. We simply want to see private landowners along the coast, including the National Trust, show respect for their common right holder neighbours, and for the rule of law.
