As anticipated Labour got quite slaughtered at the local elections.
I'm not crying about it, I think as the sleazy Tories before them sleazy New Labour deserves everything it gets, although to be fair local elections should be about local issues not a referendum on the Prime Minister no matter how much we dislike him. But the temptation to punish him was very strong. I am now living in a Tory run borough, it might take a while to come to terms with that. Since I have been in London this is the first time for me.
BNP and housing
I believe that one of the many reasons people might have voted BNP is the housing crisis. There is hardly any social housing left in London, I would blame Margaret Thatcher for that rather than foreigners. But what is real and what is perceived are two different matters. The reality is not, I believe that immigrants and or refugees normally jump any queue. Although I would like to know why after the attempted kind of bombs we found out that at least one bomber, healthy, no children and in his early twenties had his own council flat. To be fair asylum seeker or not a person in this situation should do what most British healthy, single and with no children people do: LIVE IN A BLOODY BEDSIT.
Following one of the many Housing Acts, this I believe from 2002, councils are penalised if they fail to provide permanent council accomodation to homeless families with children.
By all means, I do not want to see children in the streets, it is one of the good things that you see in this country compared to others. But I think that councils, partly because of the housing shortage partly because of bad management, try too hard to reach these targets while neglecting other groups of people i.e. disabled, people with illnesses, people living in unacceptable conditions and so on if they do not have any children.
Overall I hate targets as they never seem to take into account every individual case, their only aim is to look good on paper.
As, at least in London, ethnic minorities families tend to have more children, the perceived opinion is that "they" will get housing quicker.
Besides the usual rhetoric I think the only way to defeat a party like the BNP (a party that thrives on it) is to provide a fairer access to resources for everyone and I think housing is one of the most important and obvious ones.
