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NO SURRENDER!

Mike Lane | 30.09.2005 10:28 | Liverpool

All the agencies and universities that work in partnership with local government and central government Quango’s have always been an instrument of exploitation. Get whatever you can from them in whatever way you can, wave them goodbye and use whatever knowledge they gave you as a tool to expose them with!

I went to this posh meeting the other night. It was held in a fully carpeted modern film auditorium, which is situated in a massive modern building on Edge Lane called Liverpool Digital. The place used to be part of Plesseys but now it belongs to John Moors University and they have received massive funding from the North West Regional Development Agency NWRDA to turn this place into a place that trains young people in media and film making. The North West Regional Development Agency and all that crowd are firmly into anything that involves the media and brainwashing young people into creating a myth making media.

The people who were given centre stage at this stage managed event were two local useless careerist Lib Dem councillors, the £60,000 per year chief exec of the £62m Kensington New Deal initiative and the chief exec of the money grabbing shady RSL known as Community 7, yet another subsidiary of the huge ever growing self perpetuating shady Riverside Group. This shindig was being filmed with the intention of going onto a web site that the people who work in this place and who have received funding (again from the oppressive government quango, the NWRDA) to work in the Kensington New Deal area have constructed. The usual hand picked cronies were in the audience, you know the type of idiot old women, similar to the type who are in all socially deprived areas. But this time they were outnumbered by people who are pissed off at what is going on here. All sorts of questions were levelled at the b…… that were on the stage. They were accused by everyone, including me, of imposing everything onto the community by using totally inadequate shady unjust consultation.

The night came to an end with me having a go at the RSL guy. So robust and angry was my attack that no one would speak to me afterwards, especially the team of brainwashers who are involved in the NDC community myth creating media thing. There is nothing surprising here, you come to expect this behaviour from British people, they complain and do nothing. In the end they always go along with what these people do and want. British people who live in poor socially deprived communities always and everywhere actively participate in their own subjugation by these ruthless paternal service providers.

The guy who runs this team of six or seven media guys within the NDC community is your typical stereo type middle class brainwashed person who constantly bleats on about working in a team and looking after his team, he was weary of me from the minute that he met me because he started giving me the usual veiled warnings that these brainwashed paternal, we know what is best for you, doods always come out with, you know, don’t mess with my team of working class doodes who have seen the light and have come over to our neck of the woods. Man it was really good to mess this guy’s shindig up. One of his team tried to silence and drown what was being said between me and the RSL dood by turning up the white sound on the stage amplifier, but it didn’t work. I've got no love for guys like this. I get whatever I can from them then it's see yer lar!

As we were all leaving the meeting I said to Tom Maguire the ex-working class £68,000 per year chief exec (who I have heard lives in a mansion in Sefton Park with his wife who is also an RSL manager of some sort or other for the Riverside Group): "When you get back to your plush mansion in Sevey Park think of me Tom, barricaded into my flat to protect myself from your criminal tenants who are being manipulated and used by C7 crony tenants to silence the voice of decent in the community." He called me a working class traitor. I replied with: "That's plush coming from you." I wonder how long it will be before they try to drag me through the courts under the harassment laws?



Mike Lane
- e-mail: mickjlane@btinternet.com
- Homepage: http://-

Comments

Hide the following 9 comments

what for?

02.10.2005 14:42

What's this incomprehensible ranting doing on the site? How about giving us a coherent account of what exactly this meeting was about, and why exactly you have a problem with these particular people? What have they done, or not done? Explain how they manipulate and fake consultation processes. If we know how they do it, we'll be better informed and better able to counteract it where it happens.
And please don't insult working class people (however you personally define working class). They're not stupid. They just don't necessarily see the world from a marxist perspective.

Carol Laidlaw


Mike's Not Into Marx

04.10.2005 18:25

This a response to Carol Laidlaw's complaint about Mike's "incomprehensible rant".

Firstly, isn't it a bit rude and unfriendly to have a go a Mike like that?

Fair enough if you didn't understand what he said - I know him personally and I don't always follow his thread - why not just ask nicely?

Secondly, Mike's not a Marxist. How did you get Marxism from his posting? Unlike me (a self-professed marxist) Mike is actually a big fan of the "libertarian educationalist" Paulo Feriere.

I agree with your comment about working class people though. "Brainwashing" is not the problem.


That Cockney Lad


Housing

05.10.2005 17:20

You may not agree with Mike's writing style, but what he says is generally right. Housing is a massive issue in Liverpool, not for the middle-classes in the leafy suburbs, but working-class residents on the estates (where you'll very rarely find a lefty). The council want to drive working-class and low-income people out of central Liverpool to make way for more luxury apartments and ivory towers in time for the Capital of Culture yuppie-fest. Unfortunately for the council and property developers, some local residents aren't just going to sit back whilst their homes are bulldozed and communities dispersed. As Joe Hill said, don't mourn, organise!

in solidarity,

Mike.

Comrade Mike C
mail e-mail: comrademike2001@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://liverpool-iwca.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/


Evictions on the rise - what the Liverpool Echo conspires to cover up!!

07.10.2005 23:58

Comrade Mike wrote:

> Housing
> 05.10.2005 18:20
>

>
> Housing is a massive issue in Liverpool, not for the middle-classes in the leafy
> suburbs, but working-class residents on the estates (where you'll very rarely find a lefty).

Actually I've met lefties and socialists on most council estates, I'm a lefty/socialist only ever lived on council estates.

> The council want to drive working-class and low-income people out of central
> Liverpool to make way for more luxury apartments and ivory towers in time for
> the Capital of Culture yuppie-fest.

In all honesty most right wing (Liberal-Democrat, New Labour or Tory) councillors want "to drive working-class and low-income people out" full stop. It's not just happening here in Liverpool or on Merseyside, it's not just happening in the city centre, it's happening right across Britain. It's not even just for land clearance for yuppie middle class housing, it can be for any project or idea (Tescos in Gillmoss) that makes profits at the expense of working class people.

> Unfortunately for the council and property developers, some local residents aren't
> just going to sit back whilst their homes are bulldozed and communities dispersed.

But spend some time looking around the 'Welsh' streets and you'll see a divided community with "DEMOLISH" posters in many windows and flyposted on many empty houses, then in other streets you'll see 'SAVE OUR HOMES' scribbled on empty houses. When a fellow tenant from Croxteth (who recently received an eviction threat for just two weeks rent arrears) and another from Kensington visited the 'Welsh' streets there was but one lone voice of opposition in a divided community, Nina Edge who stood as an independent back in 2004. Nina is shouldering the campaign workload of gaining publicity for the plight of residents there.

Bootle is fighting back and that is to be encouraged, as I did myself back in early 2004 when I visited and met community activists up there, I stated "your community or new housing" you won't get both in this present political climate, not unless you organise yourself and fight back with a clear political leadership and direction.

I have also heard that Kensington residents are organising themselves against demolitions. However Kensington home owners and tenants need to form a united campaign, with a common purpose. The common purpose being that both tenants and home owners wish to remain in their homes and in their community.

There is some good news here on Merseyside, Sefton Borough Council tenants voted overwhelmingly against Stock Transfer in recent months, I was cheered by that. However the council spent £5M plus on the usual con-trick, propaganda, publicity, videos, a shop in Bootle Strand and whatever to trick tenants into surrendering their homes to private landlords, it now has to cut back on its services to tenants due to wasting council/tenants money on Stock Transfer propaganda. It's also worth highlighting here the two Unison housing staff who are still under victimisation/suspension from Sefton Council for actively opposing Stock Transfer, by leafleting in their own time against Stock Transfer.

Here in the Cobalt Housing Company domain/reich in North East Liverpool, you'll have read of the story (or not if you boycott the right-wing propaganda comic - Liverpool Echo, as the story wasn't put online) a terminally ill woman and her family were evicted by Cobalt Housing Company at the end of August using their 'break and enter' method that more tenants are daily experiencing. The Echo got to play the 'hero?!' - "IT WAS THE ECHO WOT DONE IT" after it put the story on it's front page causing the managing director of Cobalt, Dave Lambert (who the SLP have had a couple of run-ins with since 2002) to visit her and try to portray Cobalt Housing Company Ltd as a 'caring landlord' and that they had just made a one off mistake that's all, an attempt to turn a negative into a positive with the collaboration of the Echo. The woman has cancer and the City Council had failed to pay her housing benefit 'allegedly' for over 2 years - there is a common pattern here amongst other tenants being evicted across Liverpool by housing companies/associations. Her home was ransacked within hours of being thrown out, without it being tinned up until the next day.

This scenerio was predicted by the SLP and our supporters in our campaigns against Stock Transfer since 1998 and in our VOTE NO campaign against Cobalt's takeover in 2002. It's never great to say 'we told you so' because we told the tenants on the Boot estate back in 1998 and 1999 that they would end up losing their homes and community if they didn't fight to defend them at that time.

The same 'break and enter' method they used on the above tenant was also used on my next door neighbour here in Croxteth at the end July. Cobalt used a locksmith I was told to drill through their new (fitted last year) PVC plastic front door lock while our neighbours were out, so they obviously spy on tenants and wait for them to go out, they then send in Orbis (private security company) to take out the new (again fitted last year) PVC windows and put up metal sheeting literally while our neighbours desparately gathered their possessions and attempted to find somewhere to put them, the sheer humiliation and oppression is breathtaking and unsettling for those of us who've experienced homelessness in our lives both young and elderly alike. Our neighbours were also allegedly two years in rent arrears, they were on benefits which means yet again Liverpool City Council had failed to pay their housing benefit in full and/or on time, nothing new there as the McKay family whom the SLP helped get a home off Community Seven back in July 2004 will confirm only too well. The mother, her man and children (including a toddler) were literally chucked out on the street while Orbis tinned up the house around them. I was taken aback, I originally thought the neighbours were moving home, when I went out to ask what was going on they informed me they were being evicted for rent arrears, they'd already been to court and were due to go again, the mother had only months earlier suffered a cot death.

IT DOESN'T GET ANY WORSE - OR DOES IT?

Well I suggested they remain in the house and ask 'us' their neighbours to back them up and to refuse to leave until Cobalt's staff went home, however they left dejected and humiliated, I offered to organise a sit in at Cobalt's office on the Friday night to get their home back, they declined the offer, all I could then do was offer them an information sheet with CAB and other phone numbers on it.

I later said to our former-neighbour Cobalt's housing staff, two women and one man were having a laugh and joke outside while she was inside attempting to gather her essential belongings, she said "I thought it was just me being paranoid", I said "no that's what I saw too". No thought at all for a vulnerable family being made homeless. I expressed my anger to the Cobalt staff, one of whom had parked his Porche sports car right outside our home -alongside all the staff's other cars and the Orbis van - stopping me at first from parking outside until I told him to shift it.

I took the time to inform Orbis workers a number of times that they were part of a process that threw a working class family out on the street, just because their housing benefit hadn't been paid they appeared sympathetic but 'obviously just doing their job' though the man gave me some inside and valuable information by way of relieving his conscience, as he himself stated he was a small time landlord too.

The eviction didn't make economic sense (to start with) as the house has been empty for over two months, meaning a rental loss of around £400 just in rent alone, additionally the costs of Orbis security, the high volume alarm regularly screeching off at 3am in the mornings due to mice infestation (I was told), the rental of metal sheeting on a daily basis, the cost of two weeks of gutting the house, new kitchen, bathroom suite, floor boarding, plastering and full central heating system, it all adds up to many thousands of pounds of costs to the housing company.

Now even if the family were in rent arrears for two years, that would only add up to £2800 x 2 total of £5600 (at £54 a week) for two years which surely would have been less than the costs of upgrading the house and supposedly loss of rent. I'm informed by people I spoke to that Cobalt and other housing companies/associations like to threaten eviction against tenants to put pressure on the City Council to pay housing benefit on time. I figure that the new tenant who I've heard aren't on benefits, ie a working family, are going to pay a higher rent the 'full market rent' rather than 'affordable' or the previous council 'fair rent' levels. So consider a methodology of evicting tenants who are poorly waged or in receipt of benefits so as to enable higher income families to displace them so as to increase the rental stream of these profit obsessed private sector commercial landlords.

The week the woman with cancer was evicted at the end of August, I was informed by an Orbis contact the very same week that Orbis had helped to evict seven other families, some of whom were only in rent arrears of two weeks, one family were evicted because their home was deemed to be in mess, so again we have spying on tenants, the family was moved back in (probably with a new tenancy agreement, with additional rental costs) after their next door neighbour complained that they were minding their property.

Much to consider... We only have about 20,000 council houses left here in Liverpool and the Liberal Democrats are shifting them over to their private sector mates (the housing companies/associations) one by one, they call it 'trickle transfer' with no votes at all, the ever dwindling housing is facing being chucked into this shark infested free-market profiteering heartly housing market while also the council is encouraging demolition of empty properties as well, at the same period homelessness has risen I believe by over 40% here in Liverpool.

All of this was predictable, however when evaluating the whole Stock Transfer situation across Britain and comparing it to Liverpool, the housing here has been denied essential upgrades for decades, outside toilets in many council homes, front doors that were insecure; poorest quality available and very ugly, no central heating in most homes, no modern double glazing, lack of essential repairs. Then compare housing in a places like Sedgefield Borough Council, which has had a consistent housing improvement programmes for years and extremely good repairs, housing staff who treat all their tenants with a respect (I know personally) that few housing staff rarely do here in Liverpool (again I know personally). If you consider the housing over in Sefton, PVC double glazing, decent front doors, central heating for many, new kitchens for many recently and a good repairs service.

Both Sedgefield and Sefton tenants VOTE NO to STOCK TRANSFER in 2005, here in Liverpool and on the Wirral and up in Glasgow all solidly working class and poor tenants living in bad quality and poorly maintained housing have often been given a no way out, they've been told again and again, and yet again you either VOTE YES or you'll get no repairs, no improvements - no nothing ! ! !

Cobalt Housing Company Limited has 'Charitable Status' and as any genuine working class socialist or trade unionist fully knows 'CHARITY' is an abomination to our class and that's been recognised ever since victorian times.

Question: How do we fight Stock Transfer? With a Defend Council Housing campaign alone?

Answer: We must fight Stock Transfer within a wider political programme offering an real alternative, we must also offer our fellow tenants a here and now option of taking a 'group' or collective legal action to force council's to undertake their legally binding duty to repair and improve their housing. If as happened here in Liverpool you have house owners leading tenants/residents associations (including a impotent Tenants Federation) and collaborating with council housing officers, councillors and housing associations then you have to find other ways of gathering tenants to take collective action and it is hard (but not impossible) if the house owner led tenants/residents associations have access to the local meeting places and we tenants are access to denied them, if they have the offices, local advice centres (like the one here in Croxteth did throughout the Stock Transfer campaign) support the Stock Transfer by putting up posters for one side but not for the other ie the tenant led 'VOTE NO' campaign, they additionally often have the back up of councillors (Labour, Lib-Dem, Tory etc) and the funding via Tenants Levy or even grants given to them, like LHT (Cobalt's owners) did with CLASS (in Norris Green) who have a shop on Lower House Lane on a main bus route.

So you vote away your SECURE TENANCIES for new PVC windows and front doors and they won't mean a thing if you've got no real security of tenure at all and get evicted the following year because the private landlord doesn't follow the law or even their own assured tenancy rules.

Shock! Horror! - Still too many believe "IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE?!"

Kai Andersen
mail e-mail: aokai@tiscali.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.socialistlabour.org.uk/housing.html


response

08.10.2005 17:23

Life is too short to read all of Kai "Why use one word when 10 will suffice" Anderson's rantings.

However, whilst I agree that people should have the choice of whether they want to be tenants of the council or an RSL or an ALMO etc, does he honestly believe (considering his beliefs about what the major parties want), that keeping them in Council ownership will deliver the utopia he dreams of? Or will that only come when people simultaneously vote for his Party?

The truth is that many councils use Council housing for their own political ends rather than deliver better housing for people. RSLs may be money-grabbers but at least it is in their interest to provide decent homes. After all, it is becomes their asset which they use for raising funds.

Additionally, a lot of the poorest people who some may believe will be dealt a blow with higher rents are covered by Housing Benefit. Seems fair that once you earn enough then you don't have this benefit (arguments over the level are valid here) then you pay. Or should everyone be allowed free housing?

Oh, and get used to Mr Lane's ramblings. He has been posting on here for years and I still haven't figured out what his problem with the RSLs and NDC actually are. He would rather post vitriol without evidential backing, than discuss the issue. Sounds like something a politician would do!! (But then, Mike has already said he is disenchanted with the far left and won't stand for them again - cue Mike standing as an independent next year and shooting himself in the foot...again).

teddybear


It's no teddy bear's picnic!

08.10.2005 23:09

regarding "teddy bear's" response...

>response
>08.10.2005 18:23
>
> Life is too short to read all of Kai "Why use one word when 10 will suffice"
> Anderson's rantings.

Well don't waste your life reading it then, you're not being forced to. But then again that's not your aim is it.

> However, whilst I agree that people should have the choice of whether they want
> to be tenants of the council or an RSL or an ALMO etc,

But tenants aren't being given "the choice" it has been imposed upon us! CHOICE is the Thatcherite/Blairite exchange for fundemental rights. Tenants are now being conned into switching landlords after home visits by the new landlord’s (Cobalt) housing staff up in Sparrow Hall with a biased word or two from Cobalt's housing staff, tenants are encouraged literally to 'sign here...' Obviously with no balanced advice at all those tenants have in many cases signed a completely new tenancy agreement (or contract as commerical landlords call them) which obviously surrenders rights in favour of the commercial landlord.

> does he honestly believe (considering his beliefs about what the major parties want),
> that keeping them in Council ownership will deliver the utopia he dreams of?

Playing to the audience are we... with your pseudonym? Well as I clearly said in my article, council housing can and indeed does *deliver* housing on the basis of need in progressive councils, Liverpool City Council is not a progressive council, it's a regressive free-market capitalist council. If however we collectively vote in political parties that are then in charge of delivering services based on principles that they are fundementally and viciously opposed to then we'll get attacks and destruction of essential services. It's like voting in count dracula to run the the blood transfusion service.

> Or will that only come when people simultaneously vote for his Party?

The SLP here in Liverpool and elsewhere has been honest, principled and consistent we've fought against housing privatisation on every level while always raising the level of the debate.

> The truth is that many councils use Council housing for their own
> political ends rather than deliver better housing for people.

That can't be denied, no one is denying that, however at least when we have an active and vibrant tenant movement we can ensire that tenants get the housing and services we require, if we don't then we have to get political (which collectively we're not yet) and push councillors and MPs into positive actions towards council housing (and rented housing in general) or better still elect tenants as councillors, if it means we threaten councillors and MP's cosy careers and lifestyle in the process.. TOUGH ! !

> RSLs may be money-grabbers but at least it is in their interest to
> provide decent homes.

They provide housing on the basis of greed not on the basis of need! Many of these 'money-grabbers' simply haven't and don't provide 'decent homes' to all tenants full stop. In many cases they won't provide any homes -for the homeless- at all unless pressure is put upon them. So there's no 'MAY BE' about it, I'm not fabricating lies I'm in constant dialogue with tenants and tenant activists wherever I meet them.

> After all, it is becomes their asset which they use for raising funds.

You're talking a load of capitalist free-market nonsense!

You'll be defending the privatised railways next, telling us how it's in rail operators interests to provide a decent rail service and not cut basic maintainence to boost shareholders profits killing both passengers and railworkers in the process.

> Additionally, a lot of the poorest people who some may believe will be dealt a
> blow with higher rents are covered by Housing Benefit.
> Seems fair that once you earn enough then you don't have this benefit
> (arguments over the level are valid here) then you pay.

You either haven't read the article or you simply haven't comprehended it at all. Many are not even getting their partial housing benefit paid on time -here in Liverpool- and have faced an eviction threat or an actual eviction in the process. I know personally of some family on benefit who've been thrown into hundreds of pounds of debt or they've lost their homes. What you obviously don't know is that not all tenants living on 100% welfare benefits (including pensioners) get full 100% housing benefit (due to changes in government policy) many are forced to pay a significant part of their rent that housing benefit doesn't pay from their already megre benefits.

> Or should everyone be allowed free housing?

That's a debate for progressively minded people another time, another place.

> Oh, and get used to Mr Lane's ramblings. He has been posting on here for years
> and I still haven't figured out what his problem with the RSLs and NDC actually are.

Again you obviously seem unable or blindly unwilling to hear the concerns that are forwarded by those who write about the unseen, unheard and unrepresented.

> He would rather post vitriol without evidential backing, than discuss the issue.

You are quite obviously on the other side of the line (politically speaking) from us tenants, you are the 'doubting Thomas' who due to an inability to empathise with the sufferings of others allow oppression to cut evermore deeper. You side by default with the oppressor because you won't accept the truth of their oppression.

You reply was a pointless acidic attack, you attack on the basis of 'no evidence' then when someone provides evidence (while not rigorously academically researched by nicey people with posh voices and degrees in bullshit) you attack and undermine with immature and petty comments like "Why use one word when 10 will suffice".

Kai Andersen
mail e-mail: aokai@tiscali.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.socialistlabour.org.uk/housing.html


Joined the picnic

09.10.2005 18:40

As a Council tenant myself I wonder how I canbe on the "other side" but then you're not to know. Muddies the issue somewhat.

And I have spent time reading Mike's posts. I consider myself well edicated and intelligent enough to decipher meanining in many places but his ramblings end up being just that. I still cannot figure out anything beyond their "it's divide and rule" and "gentrification" he puts forward without any hard eveidence that that is the case. I'm not unwilling or blind, it's just that I want to see hard evidence. The belief that there are people after him does not constitute hard evidence in my books. And it is no surprise that he is ignored at meetings if he rambles on like he does here. I saw his video he pointed us towards when he was in Wavertree and it made little sense either.

And as for capitalist free-market nonsense, it seems you believe anything that goes against your myopic view is such anyway.

But what should I expect. You came to my Uni at the last election and it was an exercise in futility listening to you.

teddy bear


I rest my case and my typing fingers!

10.10.2005 15:03

Teddybear wrote:

> As a Council tenant myself I wonder how I canbe on the "other side"
> but then you're not to know. Muddies the issue somewhat.

Politically speaking just because you're a council tenant doesn't necessarily mean you support council tenants political or housing rights from a working class perspective. I'm not a council tenant, I had no choice my own home was given to Cobalt Housing Co.Ltd. on a minority vote of tenants, NO VOTERS and NON-VOTERS outnumbered YES VOTERS.
I still campaign alongside council tenants and indeed non-council tenants to defend our 'collective' rights.

> And I have spent time reading Mike's posts. I consider myself well edicated
> and intelligent enough to decipher meanining in many places but his ramblings
> end up being just that.

I have known Mike Lane since late 1998, when at that time he was campaigning against the misdirection of European Objective One funds (granted due to poverty). Myself and members of the SLP were campaigning against the attacks on council housing up in Pinehurst, Norris Green and elsewhere then. After twelve years, the Objective One funds have largely been spent in the city centre on the aleady well resourced and funded middle classes and the rich. Poverty is now higher than it was before it was Obj-1 was awarded Liverpool. Don't take mine or Mike's word for it chase up another website called People Not Poverty who came to the same conclusions based on figures, research and statistics released by the city's very own establishment in fact.

> I still cannot figure out anything beyond their "it's divide and rule" and
> "gentrification" he puts forward without any hard eveidence that that is
> the case.

Divide and rule occurs in most communities here in Liverpool (its purpose is obvious if you understand the history and political climate) and I've experienced it first hand. I've seen organisations such as tenants associations being controlled by housing association staff. It's always been their organisational agenda (against tenants interests) being promoted by themselves often in the most underhanded manner (LHT circa 1991-1993). I've seen the agenda promoted second handly by politically ignorant and self-interested tenants (often manipulated by insincere house owners) not acting in the collective interests of tenants. Thirdly by house owners pushing their own selfish agenda using tenants power, finance and organisation. Fourthly by council's own housing staff (including Norris Green's own council housing manager) allied with houseowners and easily manipulated tenants.

I've also seen it first hand in an organisation I was a founder member of in 1992, Communities Against Poverty (1992-1995). I noted all the divide and rule occurences but the control elements within CAP had quickly taken control and power (they were not the people actually in poverty) they'd chased out the politically advanced at an early stage, who were far more advanced than I was then. The black members who I quickly allied with clearly saw the elements who 'controlled and contained' the interest of those of us living in poverty they also left. However if those around you fail to see their own oppression you can not fight the battle against your oppressors, you can obviously highlight the issues as I did many times.

Look up Owen's character in Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.

It is the 'highlighting' of the issues which Mike Lane has done, he has constantly exposed the reality of those who control and those who are controlled and whose agenda is being forwarded. While his methods and approach are criticised and attacked by the doubting Thomas's (who either knowingly or unknowningly aid the control elements in NDC and other organisations) they become their allies by default. Fact is that more people question the process and not merely the outcomes, they move from being passive receipients of decisions made against their interests to people speaking up for themselves and questions decisions. Some of us keep the door open and yet we are unable to pass through it.

> I'm not unwilling or blind, it's just that I want to see hard evidence.

I'll say what I said to someone who phoned me in 1999 on the Boot Estate Norris Green, a couple of roads away from me. Caller "You say the council has the money to do up our homes, where is the money, can you prove it". I replied "You and I both agree our homes need improvement and urgent repairs..?", Caller "Yes!", "If I spent all my time researching the evidence to prove that the council has got the money, would you then agree with what we're (SLP) saying?", Caller "No!", I finish with "So why should I spend all my time proving to you that the council has the money, when you've just said you wouldn't believe it anyway?"

I've proven more times than I care to recall, that the (Lib-Dem) council actually has the money. Fact is it just chooses not to spend it on council housing improvements for its own and the (New Labour) governments' free-market anti-working class agenda.

> The belief that there are people after him does not constitute hard evidence
> in my books.

It's often a question of faith and of trust, to give our trust to someone or something they have to earn it. If it means person X and/or organisation Y states that negative situation A will happen if we allow to, when A happens then person X and/or organisation Y has proven that they were correct. If doubting Thomas's want more proof, ie that it wasn't a one off (a supernatural prediction) then how many times and how much proof does a reasonable person have to have and how many a political predictions come true before they decide to join in the opposition to oppression or an injustice?

> And it is no surprise that he is ignored at meetings if he rambles
> on like he does here.

If someone feels the need to make a stand, then that stand must be based on strongly held concerns. I've spoken out many times, I've been forced to leave by the police under orders of house owners in Norris Green. What myself and the SLP predicted would happen on the Boot Estate has happened and the fact is it is happening elsewhere as well. Thus the SLP and our supporters (many ordinary people not in any party) have been proven correct, yet the process of researching the facts and figures and then putting out information takes money and resources that the opposition has that and we don't, it requires incredible energy and a high level of commitment to the cause and our supporters have shown that time and time again.

The only community where residents have taken on board the experiences of others (so far) who've been through what they were due to go through is Bootle. They've chosen to defend their communities against the bulldozer, Jim and his supporters impressed me incredibly back in early 2004 with their commitment already to their homes and community.

> I saw his video he pointed us towards when he was in Wavertree and it made
> little sense either.
>
> And as for capitalist free-market nonsense,

Well again, a free-market in the rented housing sector has been the political push and direction since the 1980's. Liverpool's rented housing sector is mostly in the free-market now and housing associations have been a transistionary move from publicly owned ('fair' rented and regulated) sector to the shark infested unregulated free-market sector, where evictions are sky-rocketing. Look up Rackmann or Rachmannism if you want to know where many tenants are headed.

> it seems you believe anything that goes against your myopic view is such anyway.

In regard to my view, it is a working class socialist view based on rational and principled beliefs with affordable policies.

> But what should I expect. You came to my Uni at the last election and

The SLP was invited to the Liverpool Uni' hustings, organised by the Guild of Student, I was the stand in for our candidate.

> it was an exercise in futility listening to you.

The section of the audience (the least enthusiastic questioners I've ever seen) who asked questions weren't even listening to the answers already given by candidates to previous questioners. I publicly called Israel a terrorist state and stand by that comment, that wasn't an act or 'futility'.

The one comment that summed up the hustings for me, was when a posh middle or upper class young man came up to me at the end and told me he was fundementally opposed to our party's socialist policies and explained that he was a 'beneficiary of inequality in education' having gone to a public (private British) school and he wanted it to stay that way.

Of the three husting events I attended, one in a community, another online at FACT and the Uni' one in a noisy largely disinterested canteen in the lunch hour, the Uni' one was the worst organised and the least worthwhile for any candidate, the entire hustings event looked like it was an imposition upon mostly disinteretsed students.

HENCEFORTH I END MY CONTRIBUTION TO THIS THREAD...

Kai Andersen
mail e-mail: aokai@tiscal.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.socialistlabour.org.uk/policies.html


Advice to Kai

01.12.2005 01:19

It is true that your posts are too long. I couldn't be bothered to read them either. It is possible to be concise and intelligent at the same time. Please try this and you will get your message across much better.

Brutus


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