The Metropolis

Thursday 17 May

“The police were called just after 11.30pm amid screams from the council chamber”

The compulsively readable Ted Jeory has news of the Tower Hamlets councillor arrested last night over an alleged threat to kill. In the council chamber.

Read his post, for details. It contains the phrase “Sopranos but with curry.”

London Agenda

10:14 AM

1. Watch a film of London’s skaters attempt to kill themselves in City of Rats [Le Cool]

2. Stand athwart history and yell ‘Stop!’ at Surviving Progress [Run Riot]

3. Get caught between different planes of existence at the group show, Liminal States [Flavorpill]

4. Spend the night at This is not happening [Don’t Panic]

5. Watch the City enforce its medieval borders at Beating the Bounds [Ian Visits]

6. Attend Late Shift at the National Portrait Gallery [Tired of London]

London Agenda is Snipe's daily compilation of what to do in London as suggested by everyone else. Send additions to listings@snipelondon.com

Wednesday 16 May

CHELSEA COW FOOTBALL SWORD OF DAMOCLES

Chelsea supporting cow faces uncertain future

By Mike Pollitt 6:32 PM

So the cow seems safe, albeit she’s probably feeling a little blue (that’s a her, right?). Chelsea are big in Nigeria, partly because of John Obi Mikel.

London Agenda

1:10 PM

1. Watch the long anticipated documentary on NY Times society photographer Bill Cunningham [Le Cool]

2. Hear the amazing Niki & The Dove and Elliphant at XOYO [Run Riot]

3. Listen to Blackpool’s Karima Francis at Hoxton Hall [Don’t Panic]

4. Get some Hackney history in context at Hackney’s oldest tower [Ian Visits]

5. Eat at the Roundwood Park Cafe [Tired of London]

London Agenda is Snipe's daily compilation of what to do in London as suggested by everyone else. Send additions to listings@snipelondon.com

BOOKS BRENT KENSAL RISE LIBRARY

Right now, Brent residents are trying to stop their council stripping Kensal Rise Library of its books

By Mike Pollitt 1:01 PM

Here are some tweets which tell the story. The library has already been closed but today the council came for the books.

@SaveKRLibrary looks like a good place to follow this today.

GREENWICH POETRY PUPPETS TED HUGHES THEATRE

War-horse puppeteers to perform Ted Hughes' Crow in Greenwich

By Mike Pollitt 10:49 AM

“Black is the earth-globe, one inch under,
An egg of blackness
Where sun and moon alternate their weathers
To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
but flying”

This sounds great. Handspring Puppet Company, the puppet handlers behind War Horse, are turning Ted Hughes’ Crow into theatre for the Greenwich + Docklands Festival next month. Details here. The Independent have more here.

Tuesday 15 May

BEING ADULT EVIDENCED-BASED POLICY FOXES KIT MALTHOUSE NATURE

Forget Kit Malthouse's scaremongering, here's some practical advice for dealing with urban foxes

By Mike Pollitt 4:23 PM

See UPDATE at end of post

Kit Malthouse, the Deputy Mayor who you might remember from Adam’s Boris Johnson’s deputy interfered with hacking investigation story, popped up in the Ham & High earlier this week to slag off urban foxes. He said:

““People are afraid to let their small children play outside because of them. They are more and more worried about the number of foxes as numbers continue to grow.”

The story goes on to quote a resident on record claiming to have seen a fox “the size of a wolf” in St John’s Wood.

This is hysterical nonsense. For an adult response to the fact that humans and foxes live in overlapping territories, we must turn to Bristol City Council, who produced this leaflet which has since become something of a standard text. You can see why. It’s calm, authoritative, rooted in sound scientific study rather than hysterical gossip. It’s also full of useful advice rather than useless scaremongering.

If you are concerned about urban foxes, read it and follow the advice given. It’ll do you a lot more good a politician’s grandstanding ever will.

Urban Foxes Leaflet

UPDATE Kit Malthouse has been in touch to deny a declaration of war. An uneasy truce perhaps best sums up the situation:

Some extremely disheartening facts about housing in London

By Mike Pollitt 11:16 AM

Last week the IPPR, a think tank from the centre-left, published a report (PDF) called Affordable capital? Housing in London.

It contains a lot of facts and charts about housing supply, renting, buying and benefits in London. Let me condense the current situation, firstly in my own words:

“It’s a fucking mess”

And now, more constructively, in the report’s words (my gloss in italics):

“London’s population of 7.9 million people, living in approximately 3.3 million households, is expected to increase by 1.02 million people (12 per cent) over the next 20 years.” Demand for somewhere to live is only going to rise

“While London’s population grew by 8 per cent between 1997 and 2011, the number of actual households cr eated increased by just 4 per cent.” Twentysomethings are house sharing for a long time

“There are currently no London boroughs in which the average rents are below £700 per month.” Even the cheapest boroughs aren’t that cheap

“The majority (22) of London boroughs have median rents that cost more than 50 per cent of median local full-time earnings.” Housing chairty Shelter calls that “unaffordable”

“In nine London boroughs, the average private sector rent is 65 per cent or more of the median take-home pay.” Ouch

Then the report considers housing benefit reform. I’ve written before that some reform to the status quo is necessary. The Guardian’s Dave Hill and Josh Hall on this site objected that reform will cause suffering to vulnerable people. The report makes grim reading for both sides.

“In the [private sector] in London, Local Housing Allowance is costing £1.6 billion a year, or 28 per cent of the nation’s entire bill for this allowance”. That’s money going from the taxpayer to private landlords. Supportable?

“The reforms are predicated on the assumption that, when faced with shortfalls in their rent, individuals and households will be able to renegotiate their rents with their landlords or move home. In the case of London, both of these assumptions may be flawed.” There aren’t enough cheaper homes to move in to

“While there have been a number of rather alarmist figures regarding likely mass evictions and an unprecedented migration of inner London households to outer London, it is more likely that a significant proportion of those households affected will have no choice but to stay in their current homes and reduce other outgoings”. People claiming housing benefit will be poorer when the changes hit

Either we continue filling landlords’ pockets with public money, or we force people on low incomes to live on even lower ones. Not good, is it?

So, more homes need to be built. But this isn’t easy, either. I’ve thought that we should be building upwards, and that local people objecting to new towers are helping keep rents high by stifling demand. But it’s not so simple:

“Much new housing development in London consists of one- or two-bedroom flats suitable for young, childless and mobile households: these properties offer advantages to developers and to public servants with targets to deliver specified numbers of units, but they do little to address the problems of overcrowding and council waiting lists associated with unmet demand from families.” Building towers of flats can’t solve underlying problems, though it might help provide some additional supply

If you’re still reading at this point, I commend you to read this blog post by the IPPR’s Phil McCarvill outlining some things he thinks the Mayor could do to help the situation. These include a separate housing benefit cap for London, and for the Mayor to take over repsonsibility for housing benefit in the capital. Devolved power is surely the way to go, but it’s clearly going to take a very long time to get out of a very big hole.