Brixton news, rumour and general chat - August 2014

[el-ahrairah]

I'm not sure I'm going to come along tonight as I'm in the middle of my dissertation but I'd really love to hear all about it and see photos. How exciting!

friendofdorothy i too cannot make it and i too would like to hear stories and view photos. maybe next meet up?

 

[superfly101]

Since the 1960s a lot of activism for women's rights (on pay, employment, contraception, abortion, economic independence) has been about individual rights i.e. why can't Woman A have the same rights as Man B

I'm left handed - we've been in leagues with the devil and getting burned at the stake since.... you think religious people still aren't doing this shit? My father in the 70s tried to convert me to right handed.

Other than that over to Violent Panda

 

[Sirena]

This has probably been posted before but, if not, it might interest the people of Brixges Stane
http://cdn.londonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/anglosaxonLONDON.jpg

 

[SarfLondoner]

This has probably been posted before but, if not, it might interest the people of Brixges Stane
http://cdn.londonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/anglosaxonLONDON.jpg

That's great,

 

[Rushy]

This has probably been posted before but, if not, it might interest the people of Brixges Stane
http://cdn.londonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/anglosaxonLONDON.jpg

Loving UULUUICH!

I didn't quite get what it was so looked up the accompanying text:

Three years ago, we put together a map showing the London area in Anglo Saxon times (roughly speaking, 500-1066AD). It’s pieced together from many resources, showing our guess at the roads, rivers, forests and marshland that characterised the region. The main purpose was to highlight the many villages, hamlets and farmsteads whose names are still part of modern London. For example, the map shows ‘Wemba Lea’, the land belonging to a local chieftain by the name of Wemba. We know nothing about Mr Wemba, yet his name is familiar to millions, perhaps billions, through its continuation into our own times as Wembley. Similarly, Croydon is a corruption of Crog Dene, which meant something like ‘valley of the crocuses’.

We’ve now updated the map, based on feedback and further research. Close-ups can be seen in the gallery above, or we’ve provided a link to download the full picture. We’d love to receive further information: perhaps we’ve got the route of a road slightly wrong, or maybe (inevitably?) there’s a whole village missing somewhere. We’d like this map to become a team effort, gradually improving as Londonist readers provide new information.

The map comes with a few caveats. We’re attempting to show a period of several hundred years in one map. Some features might not have been present for the whole of that time span, and names changed. Features like marshland, forest coverage and farmland are often conjectural in their extent, as are certain roads. Corrections or additions can be left in the comments below, or by emailing matt@londonist.com.

Surprised that quite so many names were supposedly in existence back then. Quite amazing really.
Pity that the A23 doesn't appear to have been named yet.

 

[SpamMisery]

Aka "people in council housing are lazy and feckless and don't work hard"

Get fucked eh?

Not what I said

 

[SpamMisery]

BTW if you are referring to Pimlico I guess its one of the old estates run by Peabody. In which case its not state funded. They are old philanthropic charity who acquired land years ago.

It's not, it is Sanctuary Housing. I had a quick google and it appears they’ve received at least one multi-million pound grant in the past from HMG. They’re a registered charity so do not pay tax. They also describe the rent they charge as ‘subsidised’ – That counts as state funded to me, but I have no idea if this is the normal state of affairs for housing associations

 

[SpamMisery]

Here's a simple way to think about it. Person X has lived in Brixton since their late teens, or the early 90's. They settle, have kids, and build a life here. Meanwhile, Brixton moves from cheap and 'dangerous' neighbourhood into trendy and 'edgy' ones. Person X's rent creeps up and up...past their ability as someone who works as a nurse in the public sector to afford it. Therefore according to your logic, Person X should move out of the area where their children go to school, to somewhere else...where they have no social or family ties to support them... I guess there is a weirdly twisted logic to your point of view, but it's a bit neo-liberal for me...

I don't disagree with you. I said earlier I disagree with ghettoisation and my preferred option is to sell expensive property and build cheaper buildings which can house many more families in the same area. But as someone pointed out, that doesn't seem to happen

 

[boohoo]

I don't disagree with you. I said earlier I disagree with ghettoisation and my preferred option is to sell expensive property and build cheaper buildings which can house many more families in the same area. But as someone pointed out, that doesn't seem to happen

What do you mean by ghettoisation?

In an ideal work, it would be nice to think that the expensive properties which have been sold off by local authorities would be used to go into creating more housing but this doesn't happened. So rather than lose the 'expensive' house from the pool of social housing, it should be kept so that we don't entirely lose these homes. It also doesn't have the same value if it is social housing (called Tenanted Market Value).

Also this idea of the Victorian or Georgian house as being wonderful is subjective, there were times in the last hundred years when both types of property are considered as ugly and people where happy to see them destroyed.

 

[SpamMisery]

Ghettoisation as in not having rich and poor living in the same areas really.

 

[boohoo]

Ghettoisation as in not having rich and poor living in the same areas really.

London has always had rich and poor living side by side. Check out the Charles Booth maps of rich and poor London in late Victorian London.
With examples like the Heygate, it is quite possible that there will be more excuses to get rid of social housing to replace it with developments aimed at the rich and the poor will be pushed out (where I'm not sure - everywhere is getting expensive)

Another book for your reading list - the Blackest Street by Sarah Wise which is about the removal of a slum to replace it with the Boundary Street estate (again late Victorian history)

 

[ViolentPanda]

I personally think childcare is the next frontier for fighting sexism and needs total reform - and that is a matter for both men AND women, those who are parents AND those who don't have or even want children. It's not the fault of women (mothers or not) "failing to organise" to fight for their rights. It's a whole social blind spot about how to pay for the next generation. This is a fundamental and very knotty problem. How do you get a society to ensure all kids are properly provided for without leaving someone feeling marginalised, left out or exploited?

Plus, of course - talking about childcare risks being very boring to those who haven't got children and it doesn't draw media / public attention nearly as much as warring ideologies over porn, sex work, rape or street harrassment - which are still attracting lots of political energy (much of it wasted.)

I'm not a parent, but I do believe that childcare is massively important, especially if we (i.e. "society in general") are to be compelled to fulfil the desire of this and the last government for "those who can work" to work. I'm not convinced, however, that the govt's approach (subsidy of private childcare, where provision varies starkly from locale to locale) is anything but wank. To actually enable parents who want to work, childcare needs to be easily-accessible, cheap/free and publicly-provided, and it needs to be staffed by those who wish to do the job, regardless of their physical sex. Removal of the profit motive militates toward a more "co-operative" approach, IMO.

 

[Gramsci]

When you speak in language like that it only speaks to those in the know. Might be why those members of the working class say "wtf?"

I couldn't really give you a clear definition of what neoliberal, socialism and social solidarity really meant. Sorry -spent too much time reading about the legends of king arthur and local history.

When I have my chats with the guys in the off license they understand exactly what ViolentPanda is going on about. They have all lived through it.

I think you are underestimating what the average person can understand. One of the things that I object to is that people need a degree to have an understanding of how society works.

Violent Panda is always to the point and I do not think his posts are written in an obscure way.

This also goes for people I chat to on local estates.

 

[Gramsci]

Thank you ViolentPanda for your explanation. I have been reading about the Women's Liberation Movement and wondering what is stopping women coming together in the same way to shout about childcare issues (amongst other things) which really haven't been resolved. Has everyone just decided to talk about issues on the internet?

I'm not sure whether there is a bit of romanticising from me about the WLM. Was also reading about Greenham Common and watched this:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/video/2007/dec/12/greenham

Second Wave Feminism was not in reality a single movement. I think ViolentPanda is to harsh about identity politics.

Within Second Wave feminism their were different strands.

The two main differences were between Socialist Feminists and Separatists.

Marxist feminists used Marxism but said that he did not concentrate enough on unpaid labour. In Marxism society needs labour to reproduce itself. Marx concentrated on labour that is sold as a commodity in the workplace. Wages cover the amount needed to feed, house and clothe the worker ( reproduce labour) plus the surplus labour which the factory owner appropriates for himself ( and it was men in Marx day).

Feminist Marxist pointed out that it is also the unpaid labour of women that reproduce the workforce by childcare. Why they argued for state support for childcare. They also pointed out the many working class women worked and did most of the housework/ childcare.

( btw as I have read Capital volume one it has interesting insight of the labour movement and attitudes to women. Marx reports on how working men couched reduction of women and children working as moral good. That it was morally corrupting for men and women to work all day in factories. Reading between the lines seems to me that some young women found personal freedom in the new capitalist order despite the poverty. Which shocked middle class Victorian England and the respectable working man)

The more separatist strand was not identity politics. The argument went that the main division in society was gender not class or race. Thus Greenham Common was women only as it was not women who caused wars. It was protest against gender based violence. ie masculinity was the problem. Or rather the form it took.

What is known as identity politics started out as way to go beyond both viewpoints. The separatist strand was "essentialist". Meaning that it assumed that women were caregivers etc. When in fact social identity is socially constructed. ie its not a given. Feminist historians for example looked at how femininity changes over time. Its not fixed. Same goes with how children are brought up. Childhood is an historical construction. In Victorian times most children did not have a childhood in the modern sense. They worked. Even before capitalism children worked from an early age helping there parents.

The success of the WLM of that time is that , even though issues of childcare and equal pay etc are not resolved, most people do not deny they are an issue. Back in 70s that was not the case. Its easy to forget that its only in recent times that legislation around equal pay , abortion, gay rights have been made. So imo the WLM of that time served its purpose. It cannot just be re invented now.

Anyway a few thoughts.

 

[boohoo]

Gramsci Thank you - some interesting points. Some of the books I've read written in the 70s and 80s really do show how much has moved forward for women.

You might find this book interesting: Women and the women's movement in Britain, 1914-1959 by Martin Pugh - he is very thorough about the women movement post the Suffragettes and pre-WLM. He also seems to get into splendid bunfights with Women historians especially those who focus on the Suffragettes:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/pughs-book-is-full-of-errors/166782.article

 

[Gramsci]

Gramsci Thank you - some interesting points. Some of the books I've read written in the 70s and 80s really do show how much has moved forward for women.

You might find this book interesting: Women and the women's movement in Britain, 1914-1959 by Martin Pugh - he is very thorough about the women movement post the Suffragettes and pre-WLM. He also seems to get into splendid bunfights with Women historians especially those who focus on the Suffragettes:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/pughs-book-is-full-of-errors/166782.article

Thanks for that. I did not know that book.


I tend to agree with the criticism of Pugh. He appears to be making that basic historical mistake of looking at the past from present views on sexuality. Intense friendships were normal in previous times. They would not be seen as homosexual in the way we might see it. In fact its a loss that everything is seen in purely sexual way now. Whilst there are more liberal attitudes its a mistake to see the past in our terms.

Someone rang me and my train of thought was disrupted.

Meant to say that Marxist feminism later moved onto ( and this is where identity politics is usually seen to have started) trying to relate gender, race and class. This led to fiendishly difficult theory that tried to move from essentialist arguments that one form of oppression was "in the last instance" the main underlying one to a non essentialist one. "Post Althusserian" if you want to look it up. Its this that gets panned as leading to identity politics.

 

[boohoo]

Thanks for that. I did not know that book.

I tend to agree with the criticism of Pugh. He appears to be making that basic historical mistake of looking at the past from present views on sexuality. Intense friendships were normal in previous times. They would not be seen as homosexual in the way we might see it. In fact its a loss that everything is seen in purely sexual way now. Whilst there are more liberal attitudes its a mistake to see the past in our terms.

Pugh is quite patronising towards women in his books - it's hard not to find him irritating.

 

[leanderman]

My maths show that even including RSL gains, there's still a deficit of 3,000 social housing dwellings in Lambeth based on 2001 and 2011 figures for holdings, so how you arrive at "hardly any decline in social housing supply" is beyond me. 3,000 social housing units is a massive deficit to social housing supply.

3,000 minus any social tenants who privatised their properties and are provided for that way. That must be a four-figure number. So ... hardly any.

With RTB, would have been much better to give social tenants a deposit for a private house and keep hold of the social housing unit. Could hardly have cost any more.

 

[Gramsci]

Gramsci Thank you - some interesting points. Some of the books I've read written in the 70s and 80s really do show how much has moved forward for women.

You might find this book interesting: Women and the women's movement in Britain, 1914-1959 by Martin Pugh - he is very thorough about the women movement post the Suffragettes and pre-WLM. He also seems to get into splendid bunfights with Women historians especially those who focus on the Suffragettes:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/pughs-book-is-full-of-errors/166782.article

A contemporary feminist who cover all the debates well is Nina Power.

I think you raise a good point about childcare. Even todays feminism spends a lot of time on issues like lap dancing bars etc. Even Nina Power concentrates on these issues. As they are the ones that are most talked about.

The present recession has hit women hard. Cuts do affect women with children. But its not something that has led to resurgence of feminism.

 

[Gramsci]

Not what I said

Back in post 565 you said in relation to those who exercise right to buy. (se5 was saying thay RTB reduces affordable housing for those on lower income. Which is reason its not good idea). So you post that RTB is ok as it "rewards" those who "made an effort".

That I'm not so sure about as it rewards those that have (and I realise this doesn't sound good but I struggle after a few beers to find a better turn of phrase but) made an effort to improve themselves *enters bomb shelter*

shifting gears said:

Aka "people in council housing are lazy and feckless and don't work hard"

Its not exactly what you said but its what you meant in that previous post.

 

[elmpp]

We've gone from gentrification to centre vs left conversation here

 

[Gramsci]

For me, that's why younger people say "what the fuck" when you mention such things - because they've been brought up to think of such ideas as alien (and of individualism as natural), just as I was brought up, a generation or two earlier, to believe that such ideas were perfectly natural for working class people to hold - ideas and institutions that glued us together, at home and in the workplace.

Some of us did both!

I would not agree on this. A lot of young generation I meet both from here and other EU countries have been badly affected by the economic crisis.

I would say that those in late 30s to 40s are more likely to say wtf..

I read this interesting article in Guardian which made a lot of sense to me from what I have noticed anecdotally.

The change is so rapid that the contrast that matters is not just between the stereotypical cosseted baby boomers, with their indexed pensions and spacious homes, and their children (emphasised by Willetts) but between cohorts much closer in age. Life is very different for a “just in time generation”, now in their late 30s or early 40s, who had secure careers before the crash hit and perhaps bought a house when that was still realistic, and the under-35s, for whom work is perpetually insecure and home ownership an impossible dream.

Not helped by Osbourn doing his bit for the "rentier" class.

The most fateful decision for young Britons has been George Osborne’s ditching of his promised rebalanced recovery in favour of a return to growth on the old model, a change encapsulated in his “help to buy” scheme. He reportedly quipped in cabinet last year that he would stoke “a little housing boom, and everyone will be happy as property values go up”. The chancellor’s joke was not one to bring a smile to young lips, since pump-priming assets rather than earnings could leave Generation Y locked out of renewed national prosperity indefinitely.

I think there are a lot of pissed off people leaving school/ college. Also people in 20s who are on low pay and seen it worth less. As article shows pay in real terms for many has dropped.

I predict if this goes on there will be more social conflict in future. Not necessarily violent but more volatile electorate. The present consensus at Westminster is that getting into power depends on getting the "centre" vote.

An example is the Ritzy LLW campaign. A lot of whom are the younger generation.

 

[Mr Retro]

I mentioned earlier in the thread my wife had an interview for a job back in London. We found out late last night from the agency that she is going to get an offer next week.

It looks like we're coming back to Brixton. It feels like coming home and I'm nearly shitting myself with excitement. I haven't really slept all night, never thought I'd be like this. I'm in my 40's but I feel like a 10 year old. X100

 

[Ms T]

Congrats Mr Retro! Where did you move to?

 

[boohoo]

We've gone from gentrification to centre vs left conversation here

well it makes a change.

 

[Mr Retro]

Congrats Mr Retro! Where did you move to?

We've been in Amsterdam for the last 6 years having lived in Brixton for 10 years before that. We've been very happy here but it's never been home really like Brixton was (even though we're Irish but the place gets under your skin).

 

[SpamMisery]

Its not exactly what you said but its what you meant in that previous post.

For the record, it's not what I meant.

 

[ViolentPanda]

3,000 minus any social tenants who privatised their properties and are provided for that way. That must be a four-figure number. So ... hardly any.

9,500 Local Authority social housing dwellings were lost through RtB between 2001 and 2011 (and "social tenants" who exercised RtB are no longer "social tenants": They're owner/occupiers).
Compensatory to the loss of stock (bearing in mind the state of Lambeth's need for social housing above and beyond retained stock, running at around 17,000 residents, so if we're conservative, maybe 4,000 households plus), 6,500 RSL dwellings have been "added", leaving a deficit of available social housing properties of 3,000.
It's not about whether tenants have been converted to owner-occupation, it's about a removal of housing units from social use. A net deficit of 3,000 properties came about between 2001 and 2011, and no amount of havering or spinning on your part changes that fact.

With RTB, would have been much better to give social tenants a deposit for a private house and keep hold of the social housing unit. Could hardly have cost any more.

Councils originally had schemes that did offer the above. They were stopped at the same time as the first-refusal buyback schemes were stopped, around '87-'88.
The same schemes were instituted with regard to Housing Association properties when "Right to Acquire" was launched, in order to divert tenants away from taking as large a bite of the HA cherry as tenants had taken from the LA cherry, and although (IIRC) those schemes are still in place, they're not exactly over-subscribed, because the deposit offered is a fixed sum, rather than a percentage of possible market value of the property they're currently tenanting - i.e. most people would have to not only move out of their current area, but generally out a lot further to be able to make use of the deposit scheme.

 

[ViolentPanda]

We've gone from gentrification to centre vs left conversation here

The two are indivisible, at least in terms of the "politics" behind gentrification.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I would not agree on this. A lot of young generation I meet both from here and other EU countries have been badly affected by the economic crisis.

I would say that those in late 30s to 40s are more likely to say wtf..

People in their late 30s to 40s are "the young generation" to me (past my half-century and proud!).

More seriously, though - while I agree that there's a hell of a lot more youth grassroots discontent and activism than there's been in a long time, due to the "credit crunch" and subsequent imposition of "austerity" economics, it's still more likely to be "wtf?" than "to the barricades!" or even "let's picket the job centre".

I read this interesting article in Guardian which made a lot of sense to me from what I have noticed anecdotally.



Not helped by Osbourn doing his bit for the "rentier" class.



I think there are a lot of pissed off people leaving school/ college. Also people in 20s who are on low pay and seen it worth less. As article shows pay in real terms for many has dropped.

That pretty much applies from the mid '70s-onward, with a few ripples, and for graduates, applies pretty much from the mid '90s-onward, especially if you studied a non-core subject and/or didn't attend Oxbridge.

I predict if this goes on there will be more social conflict in future. Not necessarily violent but more volatile electorate. The present consensus at Westminster is that getting into power depends on getting the "centre" vote.

An example is the Ritzy LLW campaign. A lot of whom are the younger generation.

I've been saying for the past 6 years (since der finanzkrise) that "austerity" economics will push us (i.e. the masses) gradually toward a "tipping point" where the penalties for social conflict and aggressive (i.e. forceful) activism will be outweighed by both necessity, and by possible social gains. Obviously, this will cause a fit of ameliorationism by whoever is governing at the time, as opposed to revolutionary change, but depending on the degree of amelioration, people may be satisfied with the status quo for a while longer.