Weekend Press Round-Up

August 3, 2014  |   Filed under: North London  |   Posted by:
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This week’s press round-up sees privatised services being brought back in house, an examination of the housing crisis and a posh Camden school finding new ways to weed out the weak from the strong;

 

Unite has welcomed Islington bringing it’s repair service back in house;

The council has broken the £16.5 million-a-year contract with construction firm Kier, which had been running the service for 14 years.  The 140 staff involved will now become council employees. 
  
Unite hailed the move as a significant step forward in the campaign to clean up construction and called on other councils to follow suit.  Kier is one of several companies accused of being involved in the notorious practice of blacklisting which saw thousands of construction workers frozen out of work by anti-union employers. 

London rents double the rest of country for the first time ever, from London 24;

Average rents across the country went up 6.3% over the last 12 months and now stand at £862 a month compared to £811 a year ago , the study found.

But tenants in the capital face average monthly rents of £1,412, compared to £694 for the rest of the UK once London is excluded, and saw prices soar 11.2% in the year up to June 2014.

It means that London has “pushed beyond the boundary” of what is affordable amid increasing concerns about a cost-of-living crisis, experts said.

Londonist investigates the causes of homelessness in London;

It’s hardly any wonder that some former rough sleepers, after working so hard to reach a level of independence, take a look at their surroundings and decide it’s not worth it. The transition from hostel to private housing is a difficult one anyway — going from a place with lots of company and things happening to being alone can be isolating, especially if the new housing is in an unfamiliar area.

A ten year old asks a difficult question in the Haringey Independent;

The trickiest came from Summer Gomez-Sullivan, of White Hart Lane. Her home above the tattoo parlour run by her father, Robert Sullivan, is set to be knocked down under the council’s plans for Tottenham’s High Road West area.

The (national) Independent says police files show Met police corruption rife;

Scotland Yard holds an astonishing 260 crates of documents on police corruption in one corner of London alone – and very few of the rogue detectives have ever been successfully prosecuted.

A review led by one of Britain’s most senior police officers has unearthed a mammoth amount of intelligence spawned by Operation Tiberius, a secret police report written in 2002 that concluded there was “endemic corruption” inside the Metropolitan Police.

Politics.co.uk interview the opposition on Islington council. Her name is Caroline;

There have been moments when I’ve felt like I have a bit part in Yes Minister. I find I can ask officers absolutely anything and they will provide me with an answer.  However, the one question they cannot answer is “what question should I be asking you?”

And finally (as they say) the Camden school who staged a mock school shooting, possibly reminiscent of the great film of school time alienation and rebellion If… in the Camden New Journal.

Headteacher Adam Pettitt, who appears in the film, said the shooting scene was “very British” and a reference to “cinematic gun crime” rather than the “American actuality”.

He added: “A leavers film without controversy would be like fish and chips without the salt and vinegar, and the annual question is whether this joke or that joke is, in fact, in bad taste.