That is the extraordinary intention of a Conservative flagship council.
Westminster city council, the richest and most powerful council in the UK, is proposing a new bye-law to ban rough sleeping and “soup runs” in the Victoria area of London.
The proposed new bye-law will make it an offence punishable by a fine to “sleep or lie down”, “deposit materials used as bedding” and to “give out, or permit another to give out, food for free”.
Last year, the Tories in Westminster spent £3,973,952 on 12 temporary staff, all of whom cost the council over £500 a day. The highest paid temporary staff member, a temporary head of regeneration and partnerships, costs the council £745 a day and has cost £453,446 for the 608 days the person has worked for the council.
A senior project manager, charges £600 a day, costing the council £852,600 for 1,421 days work, while a senior business analyst, charging £521 a day, has cost the council £827,400 for 1,588 days work. Overall, the council spends £10.5 million a year on temporary staff.
You can buy a lot of soup for £3,973,952.
Yet the council is cutting over £1 million from voluntary sector grants over the next two years, a cut of 25%. Nearly £60,000 (39%) is being cut from the financial support given to information and advice agencies – the sort of people that give advice to the homeless.
Direct support to the homeless is to be cut by £967,000 over the next two years. No wonder they want to make it illegal to sleep in a cardboard box.
To be fair homelessness is already illegal in the UK and has been since shortly after the end of the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century. This would just make it easier for police as they could just give a fine rather than what they usually do which is to arrest you, drive you out of town and then de-arrest you. Westminster council tried to ban soup kitchens a couple of years ago as well. I fear they will have more luck this time and that it will have the desired effect of forcing homeless people out of the area. If it does succeed in that task other councils will probably try to do the same to 'deal' with their homeless population as well.
ReplyDeleteits much more sinister i believe
ReplyDeletefind and root out the cancer in all its forms in our society that calls itself a so called charity
common purpose
the Enemy that is within spreading like a plague through our society drag it into the light and
kill it before it kills us
It's preparing the way for Agenda 21 and FEMA camps, just like the US. NWO is almost upon us.
ReplyDelete