Anticipating the effect of the Coalition’s Local Housing Allowance reforms

The Government paid out £8bn in Housing Benefit in England in 2009/10, of which £1.5bn was spent in London. In an attempt to reduce this, a number of changes are being introduced to the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), which sets the maximum amount of rent that can be met from Housing Benefit. From 2011 LHA is being reduced from the median level of local rents to the 30th percentile and an absolute limit is being imposed on the allowance. From 2013, LHA will be increased in line with consumer price inflation (CPI) not with rents themselves. Cumulative CPI inflation between 1997/8 and 2007/8, for England, was 20%, compared with 70% for rents.

Anonymous are chatting about the possibilities for engagement, as flagged up in this quite good piece in HuffPo:

Jonathan Stephens, the permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), told a select committee that he would neither confirm nor deny his alleged role in allowing Adam Smith, Hunt's special adviser, to speak to James Murdoch's office. Later, the DCMS issued a statement saying Stephens was "content" with Smith's role.

This video arrives via Paul Norman's Olympic blog. On September 28 2011 he chaired a debate at the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation's annual meeting. He says:

On April 23rd 2012 - Shakespeare's birthday and the launch of the World Shakespeare Festival - a group of merry players known as the "Reclaim Shakespeare Company" took unexpectedly to the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, just before a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of The Tempest. This piece of guerilla Shakespeare aimed to challenge the RSC over its decision to accept sponsorship from BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster and the oil company's decision to start extracting highly polluting and destructive tar sands in Canada.

Someone reminded me of this recently from around the time of the 2004 Torch Relay protests on the Millenium Bridge:

Which dodgy company most deserves the Greenwash Gold medal in 2012? Who is covering up the most environmental destruction and devastating the most communities while pretending to be a good corporate citizen by sponsoring the Olympic games?

Steam Roller on Sandy Lane Leyton Marshes: the machine of choice for the ODA

It seems Danny Boyle plans to celebrate law breaking protest inside the Olympic stadium even as the police and politicians are clamping down on the same outside!

By Tim Hardy

Photo: @DSG_DSG