Thursday, March 03, 2011

Tory run Westminster Council want to make homelessness illegal

From Labour Uncut:

"The Tories have a new policy on homelessness: make it illegal. That is the extraordinary intention of a Conservative flagship council. Worse, they want to ban Salvation Army soup kitchens.
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”.

If these proposals are passed, they will also prohibit companies with a proud record of corporate social responsibility from doing good things. Companies like Pret a Manger, who have, very quietly, for many years, given away their unsold food to London’s homeless. If the Tories get their way, companies like Pret will be forced to throw the food in the bin."

Go to the link to read more.

What the everloving fuck?  I cannot comprehend how people think like this.  How this ever pops into someone's head, has them thinking yes what a good idea, then manages to convince others to do then gets it accepted enough to get it proposed as a motherfucking piece of law.

FUCK.

Edit, written a few days after I scheduled this post:
The comments on the original post give linke to the proposed by laws and evidence that this is fact true.  A number of people have questioned it's veracity, I think because of the way the piece was written.  It is certainly very emotive.  It is written by a Labour website, so their interests are to discredit and humiliate the Tories.  A less engaging (and just as truthful) piece could have framed the story as 'Westminster council introduces new vagrancy laws".

The problem is, this new legislature will just move homeless people into other boroughs.  It won't stop people becoming homeless, just encourage them not to be in Westminster Council's district.  Out of sight out of mind is not a realistic or effective way of problem solving.  And that's where the people who put this bill together are failing.

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