Mrs Angry called in to visit the occupiers of Margaret Thatcher House this morning, finding them in good spirits and keen for our local MP Mike Freer to accept their invitation to join them for a night in the cold, to experience what it is like for someone without a home to live out on the street. They have this morning sent him this letter:
Dear Mike
We appreciate you taking the time to communicate with us, thank you for the permission from you and your office to conduct our peacefull protest on the front yard piece of land at 212 Ballards lane N12.
The protest at your constituency office is a result of us trying to engage with the parliamentary democratic process in which we followed your procedures,for a public consultation.
Lobbying campaigning and raising awareness,whereby 96% of the replies to the public Consultation said do not criminalise squatting.
Including Judges, police and lawyers associations as well as homeless charities and housing NGOs requesting the law not be enacted.
However your government chose to ignore their own public consultation and press ahead undemocratically to criminalise sheltering (squatting) in empty buildings.
We are further concerned greatly by Chris Grayling the justice minister saying he may once again undemocratically criminalise non residential squatting.Which is one of the last safety nets for many homeless and landless people who are not helped by the housing system.
Part of serving your constituents is to represent all constituents including rich and poor this includes some of your homeless constituents currently evicted onto your front yard from a community centre around the corner the Bohemia.
We have many points of importance to raise with you around the issues of the Housing crisis,the rise in street homeless,the bedroom tax,the further criminalisation of non residential squatting etc.
The law you co sponsored sec 144 Laspo act is unfair, unjust, undemocratic, unlawful, unaffordable and unworkable,and is causing great misery by removing an ancient and basic human right to shelter.
Also leading to an increased number of people freezing to death over winter.Many of your constituents are facing urgent housing/homeless and medical issues,which we hope you are willing to address.
We have had numerous liaisons with the inspectors from Colindale police of the past days (which we have filmed recorded and logged ) who are happy for our protest to continue, acknowledging that:
We are not breaking any laws and that we have rights to peacefully protest and assemble under ECHR articles 10 and 11.
That at all times we are endeavouring to be polite, courteous,co-operative with police requests through regular Liason.
We are keeping the area clean and tidy and are aiming to install some plants and window boxes to make the area more beautifull and attractive.
We are keeping the main access way very clear to your doorstep all times.
We have trained health and safety managers who are monitoring the situation.
We politely ask you to meet with us to discuss matters of great national importance such as the housing crisis which we feel your sec144 is exacerbating.
We would like to invite you to spend a few nights camped out with some of your homeless constituents to discuss these and many other issues,over a cup of tea, in an atmosphere of co-operative democratic discussion.
Having been ignored by your so called democratic public consultation, we have taken this act of peacefull protest to facilitate direct discussion and to stimulate the debate in the national media.
We are, having met with you and shared our views with each other,and some of our conditions met, happy to discuss an end date to our protest in a reasonable and proportionate manner without recourse to the law.
We hope to avoid unnecessary court time and expense.
We shall be advised in all the matters by our good friends Bindmans solicitors.
Looking forward to a discussion of solutions to the housing crisis that we can all work towards together.
Yours sincerely
Phoenix
Daniel
Mordecai
Petra
Peter
Graham
Dom
Mark
Bohemia Caretakers
Not backing Boris: the Bohemian occupiers of Margaret Thatcher House
One of the occupiers is Mordechai, a former director of the Jewish theatre of Budapest, who explained to Mrs Angry that he has been celebrating the first night of Chanukah, a festival of lights, but also commemorating an uprising against oppression. It seems a suitable festival to re-enact, in the circumstances.
And as Mrs Angry pointed out to Phoenix, even the Pope has made a point of speaking out yesterday on behalf of the plight of the homeless and dispossessed in a papal 'exhortation' issued yesterday:
No to an economy of exclusion
53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Here is the testing point then, in the story of the occupation of Margaret Thatcher House. Who will win? The rule of might, and the interests of the powerful, or the voice of the excluded, and dispossessed?
Mrs Angry would suggest that Mr Freer accepts the invitation of the occupiers, and spends a night out in the cold, and demonstrates that he does have sympathies for those constituents beyond the boundaries of Hampstead Garden Suburb.
Leaving Margaret Thatcher House and wandering up the road to North Finchley, Mrs Angry bumped into a local sympathiser who was taking some coffee and food to the occupiers. He commented that he had enjoyed the previous post, and the psychogeographical references. He was himself, he confessed, a former Situationist. Of course. This is Broken Barnet: the streets of are full of them.
And here in Finchley, in November 2013, we have the spiritual home of Conservatism, where now, in the grip of this heartless government, we see the battleground of a war we are only just beginning to understand: the fight for the heart and soul of something whose very existence Margaret Thatcher denied: society, community, call it what you will - we want it back, and if it doesn't really exist anymore, we will have to re-invent it, won't we?