British anti-bedroom tax campaign

This video from Britain is called Anti-Bedroom Tax Protest – Liverpool – March 16th 2013.

By Peter Lazenby in England:

Residents condemn bedroom tax as an attack on the poor

Friday 12 April 2013

A packed public meeting on Thursday night heard how the coalition government’s vicious bedroom tax is causing fear and anger among council tenants in West Yorkshire.

The meeting in Halifax was organised by local campaigners against the tax and by Calderdale Save Our Services.

Speakers included left-Labour former MP Alice Mahon.

The meeting heard how the Tories had learned from the failure of the poll tax not to take on working people all at once but to divide them and drive in wedges of division, picking off one group at a time.

The bedroom tax hits only people receiving housing benefit, dividing them from other working-class people.

Out of 55,000 council tenants in neighbouring Leeds 8,000 will be hit by the bedroom tax.

Lawyer Ryan Bradshaw said: “The bedroom tax is just one of the many cuts that are going to be affecting the poorest in society.”

Mr Bradshaw pointed out that people will also be hit by legal aid cuts, the new universal credit and harsher sanctions.

And he noted that housing benefit will now be paid to tenants instead of landlords, and monthly instead of fortnightly.

“Imagine how that will impact on someone with mental health problems.”

When the new payments system was introduced in a trial rent arrears went up by 700 per cent, he said.

“It is targeting people who need help most.”

Young campaigner Jonathon Maguire said: “I got brought up being told ‘your home is your castle – this is your domain.’ I heard the term ‘a council house is for life.’ I despise them for doing this. What the government is doing is despicable.”

But he said people should recognise the power they have collectively.

“We can make a difference,” he said. “People need to unite against this. We have to say to those people who feel isolated and have no support: ‘We are here for you’.”

A protest against the bedroom tax will take place in Leeds next Saturday April 20.

Tory ministers behind the bedroom tax got a dose of their own medicine on Saturday when hundreds of campaigners turned up at their mansions to serve eviction notices: here.

Related articles

• British anti-bedroom tax demonstrations (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• The Bedroom Tax – a nasty Tory/LibDem policy driven by broken ideology and utter incompetence (leedsnwclp.wordpress.com)
• When is a bedroom not a bedroom? Lights out on the bedroom tax (mirror.co.uk)
• Bedroom Tax will affect 17,000 blind people (mirror.co.uk)
• ‘Bedroom tax’ and welfare cuts protesters take to streets across UK (guardian.co.uk)