Did the BNP have success in Barking??? Computer been down for days and no other way of knowing....

[moondog]

(Not at poss. of BNP success obv.)

Yes. 11 councillors moondog :(

Blimey..
Thanks Marina.
That'sdemocracy I suppose...

barking's the word obviously.

why??

Lots of people are keen to blame their Labour MP, Margaret "Hoxha", for being scornfully and vituperatively dismissive of local concerns about immigration, and of the BNP's chances.
General consensus was she forgot she was not in N1.

i was talking to my boss about this - as some of you will know i work in housing. there is a great fear that the BNP will soon be running a local authority.

at this point what do housing providers who have traditionally working in partnership with the LA do?

refuse to work with the local authority?

they could ghettoise black and asian people by the back door - only nominating black people for one area and white people for another.

as a worker for a social landlord - with philanthropic principles - which suit my pinko liberal side, this is a very worrying occurance.

hopefully (as in previous years) their success in the local elections won't translate to success in the general election

They'll be out at the next election custy, this was a protest vote and I expect the people elected will prove pretty useless.
But I agree totally about the threat to pinko-liberalist housing authorities :(

I thought it was quite funny the way they tried to blame Margaret Hodge, because most of the criticism I've come across says the opposite to the criticism you've described Marina - it concentrates on the idea that she played up their chances of winning and encouraged people who to vote for them who otherwise wouldn't have.

Seems to me that they're desperate to blame someone in the absence of taking a real, proper look at why people vote BNP and addressing the reasons. And on the whole, like most problems in this country, the reasons come down to housing. Which none of the major parties really appear to be interested in.

I stand corrected as to how MH might or might not have influenced their success, thanks caligula :)
Agree that availability and allocation of decent housing for all seems to be a very low priority for local and national government at present. But hey, perhaps that will change now Ruth Kelly's in charge...

they interviewed local people on one of the news programmes - while alot of them were horrified, the ones who admitted they voted BNP all mentioned the housing issue (custardo, had never thought of the problem you mention).

If I can summarise what they said basically, it all came out as 'they get big houses and lots of benefits and we're all stuck in tiny flats and having to prove ourselves to get any money at all' - that was the gist of it anyway.

yeah it always is - all over the country - thats what is said and its ignorance that breeds it.

however back to housing issue. the Govt actually have housing high on the agenda and we are heavily regulated by Govt bodies to ensure this goes ahead.

big estates all over london are being stock transfered to HAs becuse they can borrow money from banksfor refurn work - and councils cannot.

within the social housin sector - its run like any other business, there has to be enough money in reserve in case something goes tits up - the bigger the HA the ore millions it is.

as its run like a business with business ethics - at the top you quite often get traditional business minded people.

this is not just in the HA i work for.

its sector wide. these business people seem to think that bigger is better and measure success by the amount of "units" or homes each asociation has.

now - every housing association rolls over and licks it balls, juggles with fire sticks, and copulated with frogs - anything the councils want - the HAs will do becuase they want the stock transfer over another housing association - yes indeedy competition.

so for instance - if the BNP got Barking, ran the council they would now be the ones we as "housing for all - colour, creed, ability blah de blah" would have to do what exactly to win contracts with the council - to secure a stock transfer of large estates?

do we promise to build blocks more suitable for asian people? or eastern european ( which is the new big "i hate" agenda by bigots) the ghettoisation of these people being masked under clever spin - oh and believe me our organisation can spin like allan sugar would die for.

more facilities suitable for the needs of eastern europeans. a cultural community centre with integrated learning facilities.
yad a yada - see where i am going?

only the white english people will be housed somewhere else.

i'm not saying it will be better housing = i am just saying that it will be part of a speration of cultures agenda the BNP has long campaigned for.

bump. someone show an interest and post damn you - i love this topic.

I am interested-very interested Custo,esp. with what someone who works in housing has to say.

One person's idea of hell is another's Nirvana.
Living in Eastern Europe,expressed my horror at the identikit Soviet era blocks that everyone lives in and got a real telling off from the woman I was with who urged me to put them into context.

For those moving out of (albeit pretty) wooden houses with no running water,and in many cases,communal facilities,these were a dream come true she told me,in the 50s.

The people I saw interviewed in Barking who had voted BNP, not only complained about the perceived disparity in the provision of social housing, but also the fact they wanted more of the social benefits they believed they were entitled to. Huh? Nothing about jobs or more resources for schools etc.

As an aside, I was listening to a current afffairs programme on the radio the day after the local elections. A guy came on ranting about immigration and he wanted to know when the Tories were going to come out with tough policies. He said that if immigration in this country did not get sorted, he and his family were going to move to Spain. I could not stop laughing at this ignoramus - does he not realise that by moving to Spain he becomes an immigrant? The thing is, he is not alone. Just look at some threads on moving to Australia.

I think what didn't help was that this news story broke in the run up to the election ...

One of the thousand or so criminals who Charles Clarke let slip through the deportation net went on to kill that Bradford WPC.

Nodding vigorously at the contributions of both SMs.

Failure to inegrate is a failing on the part of many immigrants,but we have to ask how welcoming we,the British people are.

The answer is,not very.

Living in Turkey,am astounded by the countless small daily acts of kindness and courtesy that are extended to me as a foreigner.
Everytime I take my children to the park,someone calls me over to have tea or sends over a plate of food fresh of their bbq.

How many of us would go and talk to a foreign womasn in a British park????

lol at threatening to emigrate to Spain because of immigration!

custy, ghettoisation by the back door already happens ime (though not where you work, obviously!) People who are perceived as foreigners are more likely to be offered housing in "foreign" areas. Do you think that a middle class family like Damilola Taylor's would have been housed on a crap estate if they were English?

I saw a headline in an American newspaper recently which said "How immigrants are keeping the poorest Americans down"
I guess it is that sort of mentality that gets the BNP in, not any real issues. Blame the foreigners, especially the poor ones. How dare they sully my doorstep. What? they want the same lifestyle as me. How dare they! White people built this country....

houses are allocated on need. theres a points system - you dont get offered somewhere based on colour.

i truly dont believe that is happening. i absolutley do not think that white people are not offered housing in a certain area becuase its predominantly a black area. i just dont. i really dont. it would not be worth the company reputation - the loss of major contracts and those all too lucrative housing developments if word got out that your housing association is racist.

and as i said before we are heavily regulated by the housing corporation and the audit commission.

Spectator had a very good article re housing needs and BNP a few weeks ago.
Custardo,arguably (as Spec says) many immigrant families have far more pressing housing issues and needs than the standard caucasian nuclear family.

thats in the south and london i am refering to, however up north there used to be a choice. in oldham there were predominatly asian and white communities and they werw seperated. white communities were usually housed in social housing on council estates - 60's stylee. asian communities were not. now whilst i do not believe the housing provider be that the council or HA were collaberating conciously to keep white and asian communities seperated i do believe that there was a choice and asian people didnt want to live on a housing estate - and could turn that offer down and get another one quite quickly. this is becuase of the intimidation they would encounter and the racism.

this was cited as a major contributing factor in the report which followed the Oldham Riots. the segregation of housing and therefore community leading tobigotry and misunderstanding.

then shitloads of Govt money funded shitty community development programmes ( i worked for one ) into the million of tax payers pounds doingt hings like " bridgebuilding" govt buzzword and hype - becuase lets face it - you may as well like the Govt arse to get the money over some other council - say the right things - in the right circumstances ( the riots) hey presto millions of pounds come your way.

some was used for much needed physical urban regen and business regen. but some was just bullshit fannying about - thats what i did for a living.

An uncomfortable truth is that people (of all colours) quite often don't want to mix and live integrated areas.
Is it then right to make them for the Greater Good I wonder???

yes moondog thats true.

plus there is an inherant unfairness in the system. ( well there are many) - so you live in a council house - the council have never had much money and govt to govt they fuck about with the purse strings, consequently you live in your london flat with fuck all services and no heating for years, no one has done any repairs to speak of gfor years - yet you are " decently housed" or "adequatley housed"

now with the new govts "decent homes standards" those older properties are being surveyed and all have to come up to certain standards - great

however - new properties that are build are offered to those in housing need top of the list - lovely new lovely gorg houses.

whilst some people have been living in shitholes for years - they see some albanian immigrant get a brand new house with new kitchen, walls you can hang a picture on , new bathroom, stuff you would die for.

now hopefully everyone will have a decent home by the year 2020. but some residents want to get the choice to move into a new property - but they cant - they are already adequatley housed!

some london councils are beyond poor. i mean i have never ever encountered anything like it ever. its piss poor, they are stuck in policy of the 1980s, they wont entertain residents involvement in the standard of services unless they join a tenants association ( whether they want one or not - they must!!!) some people i meet have had no heating for years. Internal systems and staff have changed - the council obviously dont know there is no heating - but people just stop asking. they think they are not entitled to, or that the incompitence is so rife - there is no point.

Incompetency,yes.
On both sides though.
When i worked (years ago) in lowly housing position,staggered at how many people saw it as the council's responsibility to change a light bulb,paint a wall and so on.

What do you think of prescott's plans to raze housing in places like Liverpool and build new stock?
Can't work out if it is good or bad..

Have you read Polly Toynbee's 'Hard Work' btw re her experiences in council housing doing menial work?

no i havent read it.

i dont know about the housing in liverpool - it would much depend on community - no point in making mistakes of the 70s again.

i guess there should be some substantial consultation.

i agree re changing lightbulb.

but i think thats a communication failing on behalf of the association - the tenants expectations are negative becuase the reality has not been commicated - so ask that person what they think of repairs service they will say shit - waiting for lightbulb for 5 years.

when we were never going to change lightbulb in first place - the way in which we communicate is paramount