Gaza ‘Return March’ has begun – the refugees won’t stop until their voices are heard

Despite at least 15 deaths and hundreds injured by live fire, many in Gaza believe the only way to resolve the conflict is to return to the root cause

by Sarah Helm, The Independent
Date: 30 March 2018
Ref: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gaza-palestine-land-day-return-march-border-israel-a8281671.html
By first light yesterday Palestinian preparations for the Gaza “Return March” seemed well underway: tents were being pitched all along the Gaza buffer zone and old men were arriving with banners proclaiming the names of their villages, from which they were expelled as children 70 years ago, never to return.

Palestinian factions in Gaza, including the ruling Hamas, had ordered that the demonstration be peaceful, insisting marchers to keep well back from Israel’s barrier wall.

With 100 snipers positioned on the barrier, however, Israel’s preparations were a show of brute force and soon after dawn an Israeli tank shell had killed Omar Samour, a Palestinian farmer with land near the buffer zone – the first Return March martyr but certainly not the last.

Israel’s ruthless response to the Gaza’s peaceful Return March should come as no surprise. The Israeli military justified the show of force on the grounds that Hamas might exploit the event in some way with acts of violence. But Israel’s real fear of the “return marchers” runs far deeper. Nothing has ever frightened Israel more than the demands of Palestinian refugees for a right to return to their pre-1948 homes. And no group of refugees has a stronger case than those of Gaza who live within a few miles of their former villages.

The Arab-Israeli 1948 war, which brought the Jewish state into being, also brought about the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from lands they had lived on for hundreds of years. The Palestinians call this loss of land their “Nakba” or catastrophe. Of those expelled more than 200,000 fled to Gaza.

These refugees came from villages in the Gaza area, close to what is now the Gaza barrier wall.

In 1948 the United Nations passed Resolution 194 agreeing that the refugees should have a right to return to their villages, but Israel always refused. From the first days any who tried to get back – to harvest their lands or to bring belongings – were shot as infiltrators or locked up as terrorists. As the years passed the refugees’ claims were set aside as unresolvable and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, expressed the hope that “the old would die and the young would forget”.

The refugees, however, have never forgotten, as the Return March protest demonstrates.

In view of Gaza’s daily struggles, living under siege, it might seem surprising that they have time to think of the past. Since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, the two million people here have lived under economic blockade, imprisoned by a barrier wall. The Palestinians here have also lived through three wars. The last in 2014 killed more than 2,500, destroyed many thousands of homes and crippled infrastructure. But it is precisely because of the recent wars that memories of 1948 have been revived. Such was the destruction of 2014 that Gazans spoke of “’a second Nakba”. And the deprivations of living under siege have only reminded the people here of what they had as self-sufficient farmers in the villages they inhabited before 1948.

Whether the Return March explodes in more bloodshed, or plays out peacefully as the participants hope, is hard to predict.

As Hamas arranged for buses to take people from the mosques after Friday prayers, the numbers swelled. The intention is to maintain the protest until 15 May – Nakba Day, when the 70th anniversary commemoration will reach a pitch. If Hamas can keep the peace on its side of the buffer zone, the case for the right of return will be heard, perhaps louder and clearer than it has for many years.

The refugees’ despair is also fuelled by Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. This has driven many in Gaza to the belief they now have nothing to lose but rise up and join the march. With no realistic peace deal now on the table, many in Gaza believe the only way to resolve the conflict is to return to the root cause – and that means to address their right of return.
[end]

See also:

Israel army opens fire as tens of thousands march in Gaza

Israel deploys hundreds of snipers to Gaza border ahead of expected protests on Palestinian Land Day

Why are all forms of alternative living, including canal and gypsies/travellers being actively suppressed by the UK’s Tory government? Sound familiar?

The treatment of an alternative green community saddens Tom Greeves

The announcement by Steward Community Woodland, near Moretonhampstead, that most of the 21 residents have now left, and that their homes and other structures are being dismantled, should send a shudder through all of us.

It is the consequence of an enforcement notice issued by Dartmoor National Park Authority following the loss (in August 2016) of an appeal against refusal of planning permission for permanent residency, combined with the refusal of the park authority to countenance a new application for low-impact dwellings in the 32-acre woodland (which is owned by the community).

This is one of the worst environmental outcomes that I am aware of, having studied Dartmoor for more than 50 years. Future generations will be astonished that this has happened in one of our national parks, which are often hailed as leaders in environmental protection.

After 67 years of existence it is surely not too much to expect Dartmoor National Park to be a beacon of environmental and social awareness, with well thought-out policies on how the resources of Dartmoor can best be used for the communities that live there, as exemplars of what could happen elsewhere? But it seems we are still light years from that happy state.

There was once a call to ban all cars from Dartmoor

The community had lived quietly and gently in Steward Wood since 2000. Their homes had not been built by means of large machines scouring the earth and replacing the habitats of thousands of living creatures with concrete and brick, but had grown organically, through the skill of their builders, in a symbiotic relationship with the other occupants (plants and animals) of the wood.

Some of us were encouraged by a policy (DMD30) in the Development Management and Delivery Development Plan Document adopted by Dartmoor National Park in July 2013, which specifically allowed low-impact residential development in the “open countryside”.

Anxious to comply with the criteria in this policy, and to address the concerns of the Planning Inspector who refused their Appeal in 2016, in the autumn of 2017 the members of Steward Community Woodland submitted a detailed proposal to the national park for an imaginative new scheme of roundhouses and an “innovation centre”, which would be a base for the study of low-impact living.

‘Anger, grief and sadness’ as ‘off the grid’ community is cleared from Dartmoor

Extraordinarily, the response of Dartmoor National Park Authority has been negative to an extreme (as it has been for the past 17 years).

Rather than allowing the application to take its course, with opportunity for public comment and debate, they would not even validate it.

They claimed that the roundhouse built by two members of the community from their own wood, straw bales, cob and turf, was not of appropriate design or scale for any other structures, and would not fit policy DMD30, which, on their interpretation, was meant to apply only to tents and yurts.

This is despite Pembrokeshire Coast National Park having given permission for many roundhouses of similar type. No sensitive person could say that the roundhouse in question was not a thing of beauty, to be marvelled at for the skills, craftsmanship and sound environmental criteria used for its construction.

This story is, sadly, one of overbearing authority unable to grasp intellectually or practically the benefits to be gained by Dartmoor as a whole from the Steward Wood settlement.

How can a planning authority allow controversial new housing developments on greenfield sites in Chagford and elsewhere, and yet not embrace low-impact dwellings by an established and respected community in their own woodland, hidden from public gaze?

Many people on and beyond Dartmoor have for years recognised and celebrated these contemporary woodland dwellers, for the new and hopeful messages they brought all of us.

They are inheritors of a marvellously rich cultural history, millennia old, contained within our Dartmoor woods. Those who know Steward Community Woodland, and what it aspired to, should seek out David Spero’s wonderful book Settlements (2017), which documents photographically Steward Wood and other low-impact communities in Britain.

If Dartmoor National Park Authority had adopted a similar approach, they would now be extolling the virtues of Steward Wood, which would have brought them deserved plaudits.

Unfortunately the present situation indicates that Dartmoor National Park Authority actually has no deep understanding of the environmental crisis affecting our planet, and no flexible will to allow serious practitioners the opportunity to demonstrate alternative lifestyles.

This is not the sort of cultural behaviour to expect from a national park, which should be open to all new environmental approaches, and it is deeply concerning. We are all diminished, and Dartmoor’s soul has lost a spark of hopefulness for our future relationship with the land.

Dr Tom Greeves is chairman of The Dartmoor Society.

Organisers, Activists for Love, Hull want thousands to take part to give the homeless a voice

Take a look inside the Baker Street squat

The Baker Street squatters will hold a march this week to give the homeless a chance to get their voices heard.

Activists for Love, Hull, have organised the peaceful protest for Saturday, January 27 and will start their march at what has been their home for almost a month.

The march, named “all we want is a bed”, will give those living on the streets th chance to speak and tell their stories.

It will also feature some guest speakers and will make its way through the city centre from Baker Street to Hull City Hall

Activists for Love, Hull said they will be “rolling out the red carpet” for the march, which will start at 12.30pm on Saturday afternoon.

The group want to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless and give them a voice to be heard.

They said: “We would love as many people as possible to join us.”

Organiser, Lou Castrow, said: “We thought this would be the next stage and the march will be a great way to raise our profile. We want thousands there and we want to use their voices.

“We want to highlight what’s gone wrong in our system and why its failing so badly.”

The squatters moved into the MRC building on Baker Street through an open door on Boxing Day and have created a family unit.

Since then, they have struck up a close relationship with the building owners who have offered to provide accommodation for the squatters.

MRC has said:”We have put forward an ambitious plan to house some of them within a large property sourced by MRC.

“Raise the Roof and it’s trustees have agreed to rent this property and together with Activists for Love, Hull, have pledged to continue providing care and support to those who have committed themselves to becoming drug and alcohol free.

“We have been informed that within the squat environment, a family unit has formed giving mutual aid and support to each other and we are sure that this will be replicated within the house and will help the transition into independent living.

“MRC will be ensuring the property is compliant with all current legal requirements prior to handing the property over to Raise the Roof, who will then be redecorating and furnishing the property with the assistance of Activists for Love, Hull in readiness for the tenants to move in.”

“All we want is a bed” will start at the Baker Street squat at 12.30pm on Saturday January 27.

Home truths about the housing crisis
The only way to solve the issue that cripples the ordinary home-owner or rent-payer is to levy a fair tax on land ownership
by CAROL WILCOX, Labour Land Campaign

Published in The Morning Star
Date: 22/02/2018
Ref: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/home-truths-about-housing-crisis

THE HOUSING crisis is a consequence of land ownership. Land has always been the prime source of power and wealth in Britain and today 158,000 families own two-thirds of all the land. That concentration is increasing. This can be deduced from the fact that home ownership is declining.

While this country has the poorest housing stock of any developed nation, it is the land beneath which holds the value, especially in London and the south east, where the land-to-building ratio is huge.

While building costs rise generally in line with price inflation, land values have risen by much more since the 1990s.

There is a way to solve the housing crisis and reduce the concentration of wealth — simply tax land values.

It is both fair and necessary that people pay on a continuous basis for exclusive access to the land which is our common inheritance — no-one manufactured land — and the traditional way of a one-off payment for or outright theft of land must end. In other words, pay the rent.

Land value taxation (LVT) effectively nationalises land by nationalising the rent.

Just as wages are the return to labour and profit or interest is the return to capital, rent is the return to land, but, unlike labour, capital and land are inanimate and passive and cannot “earn” any return.

LVT is impossible to evade — you cannot hide land in a tax haven — and simple to administer. All land is valued and the owners sent an annual bill.

The Valuation Office (VOA) provides valuations of properties for business rates and that was the case for houses too before the domestic rating system was abolished in 1990. Land is easier to value than land plus building and the VOA already does this for the purpose of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), whose methods could be improved by digital technology.

The Land Registry is more than 85 per cent complete and the ownership of the rest is known by other authorities, such as the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs. LVT billing could then be administered by local authorities as they do for council tax and business rates, or another centralised system might be created.

The housing crisis can only be solved by building more homes and that first requires land. LVT could bring unused and underused land, suitable for residential development, onto the market. There’s a lot and that would force down the price.

But new builds can only represent a small fraction of housing stock in the short term. It is ownership by those able to exploit the crisis that is the real problem. Private landlords receive over £10 billion per annum in the form of housing benefit, but those homes should be well maintained, affordable council flats and houses.

LVT is intended as a replacement for inferior taxes, not an additional one. Some advocates claim that it could replace all taxes as its revenue potential is at least £200bn per year and the dynamic effects it will unleash would augment that over time.

More realistically, it could replace standard-rate income tax on earned income and reduce the VAT rate or whatever might replace it after Brexit. Except for business rates and the annual tax on company-owned properties (ATED) all these taxes exacerbate the housing crisis, while council tax is the most regressive one we have — the owner of a Westminster mansion pays the same as the tenant of a Weymouth bedsit.

LVT would be levied on the owners of all land which has a market value, exempting most publicly owned land and, for some, this would mean paying a property tax for the first time, particularly the owners of farmland.

Others who would be affected are the owners of unused land, such as development and brownfield sites, some of which are eyesores that actually lower the value of neighbouring locations.

The people most liable to be badly affected by an immediate comprehensive implementation of LVT would be the ordinary homeowner living in an expensive location, which may not have been so when they started on the property ladder, or those struggling with a big mortgage.

This is not just a political difficulty, it is one of fairness.

When the 2017 Labour Party manifesto contained a small reference to LVT, the Tory Party and its obedient media servants went to town the week before the election on Labour’s “garden tax,” claiming it would treble council tax and decimate house prices.

The irony is that the paper they quoted from, gleaned from the Labour Land Campaign website, clearly stated that the implementation proposed was designed to avoid both those outcomes.

The manifesto distinguishes between land under a primary dwelling and land which generates, or has potential to generate, an income or provides a privileged benefit such as a second home or a large estate. All businesses generate income — that’s what they are there for — and that includes farming but also the private rented housing sector.

For ordinary homeowners, the initial implementation would have the LVT rate set to replace council tax receipts on a revenue-neutral basis for each local authority. During the transition to full LVT, which could take decades, rates would be converged and uplifted to collect the maximum of land value for public benefit.

Some would see this as a concession too far for homeowners, who have benefited so much from the current system, and believe that the reduction in other taxes would balance out disposable incomes. This is debatable. Politicians are surely aware that turkeys do not tend to vote for Christmas.

There is little doubt that prices would come down substantially as soon as it is perceived that LVT is here to stay and the gravy train was about to hit the buffers. This would cause problems for lenders and would have to be managed intelligently. Otherwise, would lower house prices be such a bad thing?

One reason why LVT would cause land and thus house prices to fall is that prices and taxes are inversely related — the higher the tax the lower the price. An explosion in house prices in London and the south east has occurred since the domestic rating system was replaced, first by the poll tax and then the council tax. More than 50 per cent of homes in London are rented and LVT will have a big effect there.

Another consequence of LVT is that the supply of land for building would increase and increased supply means lower prices. It would “persuade” land hoarders to offload their non-performing assets.

The big house builders with land banks would have to build or else sell to those ready and willing to do so because they will be liable for LVT as soon as planning permission is granted or at least within a reasonable period.

Development will also be hastened because builders will no longer need to negotiate dodgy deals with local authorities to minimise their statutory obligations. Infrastructure and social housing will be funded from future LVT revenues, as all such investment feeds directly into local land values which can then be reclaimed from increased LVT bills.

It is essential that land values should be frequently reassessed so that all public investment is clawed back via LVT. From the start, much more LVT will be collected from residential properties than from council tax.

But the really exciting thing about LVT is the power it will give to local authorities to take control of social housing. The game will be up for the amateur and parasitic landlords. For the first time, they will be responsible for the property tax throughout their ownership.

And there will be no transitional concessions for them. Where the tenant has paid the council tax, the landlord will only be able to raise the rent by that amount. Otherwise they will not be allowed by law to pass on the higher tax in the rents they charge.

LVT campaigners say that it is impossible for landlords to do this, as the market will eventually adjust rents to their previous level, but tenants need to have their fears allayed that their landlords will not throw them out at the first opportunity.

Landlords with properties in the “hottest” locations will see the biggest LVT bills and hence the largest drop in their income and they will be eager to sell up.

This is where the major price crash will come and where the local authority will be able to step in and acquire the housing stock they need at bargain-basement prices, to re-let as council houses to the sitting tenants.

And the government, taking a more proactive stance, could choose a site for a new town or garden city such as a big country estate. It could designate zones for business, residential and wildlife and plan the major infrastructure work.

The estate owner would then receive an LVT bill based on the various permitted uses. Bingo! Estate owners are lazy people, they will not relish the work or expense involved in developing a whole town or city and will be begging someone to take the land off their hands.
[end]

Carol Wilcox is secretary of the Labour Land Campaign.

By Thom Forester – 1st February 2018
​When the late Gerald Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster -often credited with being ‘Britain’s riches man’- was asked what advice he had for young entrepreneurs, Mr. Grosvenor told The Financial Times, “Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.”

Although the Grosvenor family dates back to the Norman Conquest. Most of their fortune is rooted in the 1677 marriage of Sir Thomas Grosvenor to the 12-year-old Mary Davies, heiress to 430 acres of boggy marsh between what is now Knightsbridge and the Thames in London’s West End. This bog would later became some of the most expensive real-estate in the world.

In 1066-7 William the Bastard declared that all land, animals and people in the country belonged to him personally. This was as alien to these Isle’s laws and customs as the colonial land-grabs were to the First Nations of America. Over a very short space of time, we went from a country in which >90% of people owned land, to a country of landless serfs, themselves owned by foreign lords. Our lands were parcelled up and given as payment to Williams mercenaries.

Still today, the monarch’s land monopoly remains, in theory and practise, a legal reality. Most of the largest land-owning families are direct descendants of the Norman Yoke and William the Bastard’s 22th great-granddaughter sits upon the ‘English’ throne. Meaning, in this ‘property owning democracy’, land distribution is -for the most part- still determined by ‘Right of Conquest’. Important to bare that in mind… especially if you run out of space whilst pegging your washing out on that increasingly thin-blue-line! 😉

In 1872 the British Government published ‘The Return of the Owners of Land’, only the second audit of land to have taken place in British history, the other being the Domesday book. After 2 years of gathering all the information the returns found that 1 million people owned freeholds, about 5% of the population. 10 Dukes owned over 100,000 acres each with the Duke of Sutherland owning 1,350,000 acres (1/50th of the entire country). Return of Owners of Land, confirmed that 0.6 per cent of the population owned 98.5% of the land and half of Britain was owned by 0.06% of the population. These findings are still well hidden till this day. 

The reason for all this secrecy is because Britain has the worst land-distribution of any country on Earth (except Brazil). As it stands, AT LEAST 70 per cent of land in the British Isles is owned by fewer than two per cent of the population. Meanwhile Britain’s 16.8 million homeowners account for barely 4 per cent of the land between them… which is about the same amount as is ‘owned’ by the Forestry Commission.

I have to thank the late Gerald Grosvenor for his honesty, at-least he didn’t attribute his vast fortune to some ‘divine right’… although, he may as well have -it’s not like you peasants are gonna do anything about it… ARE YOU?!

MEET THE NEW LANDLORD – REITS: WHAT ARE THEY?
Real Estate Investment Trusts – a tool of asset accumulation as an escalation of the division of wealth and class separation in Britain and across the world:

REITs are trusts that buy commercial properties, such as apartments, office buildings, and shopping centres which produce income. When a person buys shares in a REIT, they become a part owner in all of the property holdings of the REIT. REITs are traded like stocks on the major stock exchanges, so they provide the liquidity of stocks with the diversification and income of commercial real estate. REITs first appeared in the US, after being approved by Congress in 1960 to offer small investors a chance to participate in the commercial real estate market. As of 2016, are were 224 REITs on the FTSE (London Stock-Exchange). The Internal Revenue Service shows that there are about 1,100 U.S. REITs that have filed tax returns in the USA, including more than 225 REITs in the U.S. registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission that trade on one of the major stock exchanges — the majority on the NYSE.

AGAINST REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (REITs):
Throughout the world, Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) are playing a rapidly increasing role in organising private financial investments in housing and cities. Real Estate Investments Trusts (REITs) are joint stock companies that primarily derive their income from real estate. They are free from corporate tax and they are legally forced to pay out high parts of their profits.

After a longer period of development in Northern America disastrous consequences on social housing are evident:

– Buying out of social, public and low-cost housing

– Rent increase and increase of heating costs, service charges etc.

– Demolishing of affordable complexes and replacement by more profitable buildings

– Disinvestments, neglect of/worse maintenance of the housing stock

– Pressure to leave on financially disfavoured tenants, replacements by wealthy residents

– the ending of social neighbourhoods programmes, participation process etc

– Construction on public spaces, privatization of public spaces

– Lobbying governments for weakening legal standards

– Exit to private funds

The large U.S. REIT AIMCO gave a shocking example how these investors

treat tenants.

* Video on forced evictions by AIMCO at Lincoln Place

Although negative consequences in the USA, Canada and elsewhere are obvious, the introduction of REITs in most of the countries took place without protests and even without critical debate. They just happened in the extra-democratic spaces where financial lobbyists make their deals with governments.

HOW DO REITS WORK?

Lots of small investors can take part by owning shares in the Trust which owns the buildings. This means they can buy or sell their shares in the trust easily whenever they like exposing homes to the volatility of speculative markets. No tax is paid by the Trust; tax is only paid by the shareholder, with their dividend income return added to their annual taxable income. If the shareholder is a charity (such as a housing association which has a charitable arm), the shareholder may be exempt from paying any tax at all.

‘In the United States and France, REITs have lead to higher rents and to asset stripping; where the most profitable housing has been enhanced at increased rents, whilst the rest has been left to decay or emptied for redevelopment or demolition.’ From London Tenants.org

There are several different types of REITs available on the market:

[1] Equity REITs own and operate income producing real estate, such as apartments, warehouses, office buildings, hotels, and shopping centres.

[2] Specialized REITs focus on a particular type of property, such as shopping centres or health care facilities.

[3] Geographically-focused REITs specialize in a single region or metropolitan area, while others try to acquire properties throughout the country. Mortgage REITs lend money to real estate owners and operators, and raise income from the interest payments on the mortgages.

4] Hybrid REITs own properties and provide loans to real estate owners.

FINANCIAL MARKETS: ASYLUM FOR CAPITAL

Taken from FROM CRISIS TO CRASH

Ref: www.beigewum.at
The financial markets prove to be an ideal place of refuge for anxious owners of capital. They are flexible and global. An IBM stock can be exchanged in a few moments for a Yen credit or a government bond. For big customers, the expenses are trifling. State incursions like taxes and restrictions tend to zero.

Profits were and are now gained from shares (dividend distributions based on business profits), national debts (compound interest financed by taxes), credits (interest payments from private or state debtors), organisation of firm takeovers or the purchase and sale of securities at the right moment. The latter is a very popular option since it requires the least waiting-time. Through deregulation and internationalisation, getting into and out of investments as fast as lightning is increasingly possible.

With this flexibility, pressure is exerted on everything that does not bow to the desires of investors. This structure is the central lever for the restructuring and realisation of better profit conditions for capital in general, not only the much reviled ‘speculators’.

https://www.varsity.co.uk/comment/14335

In response to new plans to fine people for sleeping rough, Charlotte Lillywhite condemns councils callous treatment of the homeless

Stoke-on-Trent council plans to reduce their funding of homelessness services by £1m – by Charlotte Lillywhite

Sunday January 7 2018

The proposal issued by Stoke-on-Trent City Council to fine homeless people for sleeping in tents, for persistent or aggressive begging, and for sleeping in public toilets, is appalling. Although the proposal concerning the use of tents has now been scrapped following a public petition, the council is still considering whether to impose fines for the other activities. An on-the-spot penalty of 100 may be issued, followed by prosecution and a bill of up to 1000 if the initial penalty is left unpaid. This doesnt mean that the fine for sleeping in tents is any less relevant, however: the councils desire to put it in place, and the support that the proposal attracted, is telling in itself.

Economic motives lurk beneath the surface of these proposed fines. The proposals were primarily supported by businesses in Stoke-on-Trent. This indicates that people are more concerned about the way that the city appears to tourists and consumers, than they are about those who have found themselves in desperately vulnerable situations. The charity Shelter recorded that 43 people in Stoke-on-Trent were without a home this year. It also noted a 22% increase in homelessness in the West Midlands in the last twelve months.

How do councils expect the homeless to pay these fines?

The prioritisation of appearance over reality is also revealed in the impracticality of these policies how does the council expect homeless people to pay the fines which are to be needlessly imposed upon them? This inefficacy forces us to interrogate the councils motives. Are the proposals designed to send out an intolerant message to the citys homeless?

A sinister behavioural system begins to emerge from behind the legitimate fa硤e of the councils policies: an effort is being made to criminalise the homeless. By trying to make sleeping in a tent an offence, and by attempting to criminalise aggressive and persistent begging terms which can be subjectively defined and thus manipulated councillors legitimise the stigmas which propelled them to punish rough-sleepers in the first place.They exploit social fears by forging an imaginative link between homelessness and crime. This validates their treatment of the homeless as criminals, excusing their perpetuation of prejudice by deflecting any criticism onto the idea of law and order. Through this, PSPOs (Pubic Space Protection Orders, which allow councils to criminalise activities within certain areas) become a series of legal loopholes, enabling unjustified punishments to be proposed.

This exploitation is widespread: 36 local councils in England and Wales are working on similar policies involving PSPOs, including Newport City Council, which is trying to place a blanket ban on rough sleeping and begging. On a larger scale, the government is distorting the reality of homelessness in our society. At PMQs on 13th December, Theresa May brazenly lied about the situation, claiming that statutory homelessness peaked under the Labour government and is down by over 50% since then. This implies that the Conservatives are responsible for reducing the figures. The truth, however, is that, while statutory homelessness did peak under Labour, this was a result of Conservative control from 1979 to 1996. Labour went on to reduce the number of rough sleepers to its lowest level since 1998. Homelessness only began to rise again once the Conservatives returned to power in 2010: the DCLG reports that the number of households in temporary accommodation has increased by 65% since December of that same year.

This rise is irrefutably linked to Conservative policy. Since coming into office, the government has slashed benefits, cut council funding and reduced the availability of affordable housing. This pushes people into desperate situations and has left a considerable number of them homeless. For example, the DCLG has linked 28% of cases involving those who have become homeless since 2010 to Assured Shorthold Tenancies. Those who are victimised by government policy are then punished by the same authorities. This is exemplified by the situation in Stoke-on-Trent, where the recent proposals run alongside a plan to reduce support for homelessness services by 1m, due to budget cuts.

This forces people back into the vulnerable situations in which they started. Only now there is a framework which legitimises their callous treatment. To truly change the situation, the prejudice which encourages the formation of these policies and grants them legitimacy must be dismantled: systemic action is required to change the causes of the issue rather than the effects. We need transparency to ensure reality is no longer distorted and to avoid the manipulation of the public at the hands of authority.