Tag: Squatting

On “post-truth” politics

Over the last few days speeches by leading US Republicans have been scrutinized by the world’s media. Paul Ryan’s contribution has come in for widespread criticism for its lack of veracity. The Guardian published a piece subtitled A round-up of his most audacious untruths. Even Runner’s World has […]

Squatting again …

Over at Cif today Grant Shapps makes another attempt to make the case for the policy of criminalising all squatting of residential buildings. He makes the connection to homelessness support and rightly points out that there is more money going in to homelessness services, which may compensate for […]

Laying the foundations?

Yesterday saw the publication of the Coalition’s housing strategy. It brought together policy touching upon housing from across a range of Whitehall Departments. The document represents a welcome recognition of the importance of housing to the broader economy and society. It covers quite a lot of ground, although […]

Criminalising squatting

[Originally posted at Liberal Democrat Voice, 01/11/11] The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offender Bill has returned to the House of Commons this week. The problems with the Government’s proposed Legal Aid reforms have been apparent for a while. Some people will see their access to justice […]

Caring diddlysquat about democracy

[Originally posted at Dale&Co, 27/09/11] One of the less pleasant characteristics of the Coalition government is its cavalier attitude towards transparency, accountability and Parliamentary process. This is part of a more general impoverishment of democratic practice. We hear reports of serious, but relatively small scale, issues such as […]