Wednesday, December 29, 2010



The secret documents that reveal Tory plans for social cleansing of the poor in West London

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Secret documents I have just recovered through an FoI request reveal that the Conservative Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, Stephen Greenhalgh, told senior Conservative Party officials that council estates are “ghettoes”. The people who live there “add to the welfare cost of Government” and “have fallen into a cycle of unemployment and dependency”. “We (the taxpayer)” get “no return”. “What is needed” is “a solution to concentrations of deprivation”.

As part of the process exposed by the documents, the Council gathered together a secret group of people to discuss this. Someone asked: “What is a ‘Poor person’?” Someone else said Fulham Court “is not a place, it is a barrack for the poor”. Yet another suggested the 2,000 strong White City estate was “an ideal place to develop and deliver a ‘master plan’”. And someone else said it was “hard to get rid of people”.

Participants acknowledged “’Porteresque’ accusations of gerrymandering or social engineering needed to be faced head on”. Hence: “funding needed for political problem of management”, and “regeneration should not be stymied by a very few who object on spurious or ideological grounds”.

The “message” is “ownership empowers”, and “the Sacred Cows need to be shot!”. “We need to create mixed communities in concentrated areas of deprivation.”
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# posted by intcoex : 11:26 AM




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