lowrib wrote this on Sun 31-Oct-10 08:44:17
(hope it's OK to reproduce it here in full, lowrib)
"Not just social cleansing, voter cleansing too" good point mathanxiety I hadn't thought of that.
However I did think it was a bit strange that the Tories had to readily agreed to effectively give power away by agreeing to the new AV voting system (if we vote for it in the referendum). I know they plan to redraw the boundaries. Perhaps they hope between that and some "voter cleansing" they'll not lose too much power by stacking the odds in their favour.
For those of you who think I'm being paranoid, here's a reminder of the tory homes for votes scandal in the late 80s. According to Wikipedia:
"The Homes for votes scandal was a political scandal... which involved the selling off of council housing to potential Conservative voters by Westminster City Council. ...
"The Conservatives were narrowly re-elected to Westminster City Council in the 1986 local council elections, ... Fearing that they would eventually lose control unless there was a permanent change in the social composition of the borough, council leader Shirley Porter instituted a secret policy known as 'Building Stable Communities', focusing on eight marginal wards where the Conservatives wished to gain votes at the 1990 local council elections
"An important part of this policy was the designation of much of Westminster's council housing for commercial sale, rather than re-letting when the properties became vacant. The designated housing was concentrated in those wards most likely to change hands to Labour in the elections. Much of this designated housing lay vacant for months or even years before it could be sold. To prevent its occupation by squatters or drug dealers, these flats were fitted with security doors provided by the company Sitex at a cost to local tax payers of £50 per week per door.
"Other council services were subverted to ensure the re-election of the majority party in the 1990 elections. In services as disparate as street cleaning, pavement repair and environmental improvements, marginal wards were given priority while safely Labour and safely Conservative parts of the city were neglected.
"Another vital part of 'Building Stable Communities' was the removal of homeless voters and others who lived in hostels and were perceived less likely to vote Conservative, such as students and nurses, from Westminster. While this initially proved successful, other councils in London and the Home Counties soon became aware of homeless individuals and families from Westminster, many with complex mental health and addiction problems, being dumped in their area.
"As Westminster City Council found it more difficult to move homeless people outside Westminster, increasingly the logic of the 'Building Stable Communities' programme required the concentration of homeless people within safe wards in Westminster.
"The most morally disturbing aspect of Building Stable Communities occurred in 1989 when over 100 homeless families were removed from hostels in marginal wards and placed in the Hermes and Chantry Point tower blocks in the safe Labour ward of Harrow Road. These blocks were allegedly riddled with the most dangerous form of asbestos,and should have either been cleaned up or demolished a decade before, but had somehow remained in place due to funding disputes between Westminster City Council and the former Greater London Council.
"Many of the flats had had their heating and sanitation systems destroyed by the council to prevent their use as drug dens, others had indeed been taken over by heroin users and still others had pigeons making nests out of asbestos, with the level of asbestos in flats in Hermes and Chantry Points well above safe norms."
The tory leader of the borough, Dame Shirley Porter, was later forced to pay a fine of £12million for her part in the scandal.