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

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:

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See also:

The Evening Standard is just as bad

Follow Mike
Twitter: @MikPollitt
Email: michael.pollitt@snipelondon.com

Some neighbourhoods organise against crack houses, <del>Dalston</del> Homertonians organises against posh hotels

We’ve said it. Others have said it. Dalston isn’t like the rest of London. While other neighbourhoods organise to drive out prostitutes or close the local crack house, Dalstonians Homertonians organise to close a new posh hotel.

Edited to show that it’s actually Homertonians who live in fear of hotels, not the live-and-let-live Dalstonians. Thanks Dean Nicholas.

Tereza by Trails and Ways

A dreamy, sunshine coaxing cut from Oakland four-piece Trails and Ways, fronted by Emma Oppen. She virtually orders you to sit back, relax and succumb to the potent aroma of petunia and cooking meat. Someone fetch me a margarita and a foot spa, pronto.

Mayor Johnson identifies with the hapless mayor of Amity Beach from Jaws

- Mayor Boris Johnson in response to the question, Who is your favourite hero of fiction in the May 2012 edition of Vanity Fair. In the novel and in the film, Amity Beach mayor Larry Vaughan refuses to close the beach after a woman is eaten by a shark to placate a business community worried about the tourist trade. This results in several more deaths.

Some extremely disheartening facts about housing in London

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.

See also:

PDF of the report
@IPPR on Twitter
Phil McCarville at Homes for London summing up the report
Dave Hill’s housing posts at the Guardian

London agenda for Tuesday 15 May 2012

1. Does anyone have thinner skin than a journalist? Then this night of journos-turned-stand-up-comedians could be hilarious and painful. Bright Lights: Journalism [Run Riot]

2. Watch Kid ‘n Play’s House Party followed by some of the best 90s Hip Hop, RnB and New Jack Swing at Wax On Wax Off [Don’t Panic]

3. Listen to a lecture on the new Thames sewer [Ian Visits]

4. Admire the Canada Gate [Tired of London]

The Queen was hot, suggests new art exhibition

Cathy Lomax’s portrait of a youthful her majesty goes on show in the Diamond Geezer exhibition at WW Gallery.

From the curators:

“The exhibition explores the ‘guilty pleasures’ of Jubilee celebrations: street parties, memorabilia, and all the joys of revelling in the high-camp of that very British of institutions, the monarchy.”

Revelling in the monarchy’s hereditary wealth and power is undoubtedly where most people, even, perhaps especially, young progressive people, are right now. The Shoreditch Jubilee street party is a fine example. If John Lydon wasn’t so busy making adverts for butter, he might raise his eyebrows at how things didn’t turn out.

The confusing world of Olympic brand partnerships

There’s something deeply amusing about the Soviet-style, monolithic imagery employed to promote Sir Steve Redgrave as the rather puffy face of these BP Olympic medallions. Forget for a moment that it’s the blameless Redgrave, and it’s imagery entirely in keeping with the authoritarian, banny state feel of the whole Games.

Two years on from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is still affecting the US coastline, BP is benefitting from the fuzzy warm glow that only a multi-million pound sporting event tie-in can provide.

On the other hand, the medallions possess a nostalgic charm, will be sold in petrol stations to 10-year-old boys whose hope-filled hearts are untainted by cynicism and doubt, and all profits will go towards supporting British Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

It’s going to be a challenging Olympics for the agonised, sceptical observer.

Full disclosure: I went to this Olympic fund raiser/gala at the invitation of the PR company promoting these medallions. In an auction to raise money for the athletes, people were bidding £1000+ for a week’s work experience at the BOA. It was weird.

Brainlove Festival: Crushed Beaks

Crushed Beaks are a duo whose live performances win you over right away with their unabashed and unbridled energy. Or at least that was the case with Brainlove/Snipe’s very own John Rogers who, upon seeing the noisy twopiece play at Dalston’s fashionably crammed Powerlunches venue, decided to give the band a little more space and booked them for this year’s Brainlove Festival.

We spoke to frontman Matt about what we should expect, what they’re looking forward to and, of course, the Windmill’s infamous resident dog on the roof.

Could you introduce a little about yourself first and foremost?
We’re a two-piece based in Peckham and Lewisham. We make noisy pop songs with limited means and boundless energy. We released our first single on Too Pure Records in November. Since then we’ve released a ‘cover swap’ split single with our bros Torches, where we covered one of their songs and they covered one of ours.

For people who haven’t seen you live before, what can they expect?
Our live set up is quite stripped back, we just use an electric guitar, a drum kit, vocals and a couple of pedals. We like to concentrate on making really good songs, without letting ourselves get bogged down with loads of equipment. Also, my shed (where we rehearse) is too small to fit much stuff in, so that’s another reason we’re a two-piece.

Have you played or even been to the Brainlove Festival prior to this year?
We haven’t been to Brainlove festival before, but we’ve played a few shows at the Windmill and we bloody love it.

What are you looking forward to most about it?
The dog on the roof, obviously.

Looking at the line-up, who are you excited about seeing live?
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone on the line-up before, so everything is going to be new to me.

How do you find festivals in general? Do you prefer smaller venue shows?
I’m actually a massive fan of huge, impersonal stadium venues where I have to use binoculars to see the band and pay £9 for a pint of beer in a plastic cup.

Do you enjoy the prospect of people that necessarily aren’t that familiar with your music getting the chance to stumble upon you?
I think that’s probably the best thing about playing festivals to be honest. It’s always good to be a little bit out of your comfort zone and play to people who haven’t heard you before, and to see how long they stick around before they head back to the bar.

Could you tell us a little bit about the track you chose to give away as a free download?
‘Close-ups’ was the A-side from our single with Too Pure. It’s only two and a half minutes long. If that hasn’t sold it to you already, I honestly don’t know what will.

Tickets & Lineup Info for Brainlove 2012 at: www.brainloverecords.com/festival.