Church and State blog: Third email to the founder of The Big Issue

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Third email to the founder of The Big Issue

I am afraid that this morning Declan and I must have got out of our sleeping bags with the wrong foot because things have been going from bad to worse.

First in the women’s washroom of the Whitechapel Mission I am told to f*** off by a friend of the homeless woman that a few days back threw a ball of wet toilet paper at me in the same washroom after I wouldn’t get into conversation with her. This time her friend claimed that I had pushed her on my way into a toilet cubicle. (These verbal assaults don’t bother me much. I am in and out of these sorts of places really; it is not like I am living with them in a hostel.)

This bad luck followed us into Covent Garden (where we sell The Big Issue on weekends). We have been going for a few weeks now into this little coffee shop on a Saturday morning. So, here we are drinking our coffees peacefully, as we are talking quietly about how we will present our case against the UK to the European Court of Human Rights, when this worker decides she wants to mop the floor beneath us. She actually had us moved along chairs half the length of the coffee shop when we decided it was best to just exit by the back door. Next Saturday we are going to a bigger place, like a Pret a Manger: see how easy it will be to move us out from there.

However, the bombshell was delivered by the Big Issue's head co-ordinator at Covent Garden: she had been instructed to take our pitch at the Noël Coward Theatre (formally Albery) off us because an outreach worker had found that neither Declan nor I had been there for the past two and a half weeks.

Such a finding could not have come at a worse time for us: we are under financial pressure because for the past two days it has been raining and we were unable to sell The Big Issue (Thursday and Friday also happen to be the best two days for us to sell the magazine), coupled with the fact that on Thursday Declan spent £85.00 on the definitive book available in London on taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The finding is also very worrying. For the past two and a half weeks either Declan or I have been working this particular pitch, as agreed with head office, on Tuesdays pm, Thursdays pm and weekends, bar last Tuesday pm (as Declan had informed head office) and last Thursday pm (the rain).

This is the email that Declan sent this evening to the founder of the Big Issue, Dr John Bird, his third email to Bird to date (see titles):

Subject: Covent Garden pitch

Dear Dr Bird

I refer to the removal this afternoon of the Albery Theatre pitch from the pitch slip of my wife (badge no. 1170) and I (badge no. 1163) by your head co-ordinator at Covent Garden (Sam) and, given that this removal was based on the allegation that neither my wife nor I had worked the pitch for the past two and a half weeks, which we refute, would be grateful if we could be issued a pitch protected by both pitch slip and pitch listings to sell The Big Issue in Covent Garden before 6.00pm on Tuesdays pm, Thursdays pm and weekends.

I beg to point out that not only has either my wife or I been working the Albery Theatre pitch for the past two and a half weeks on Tuesdays pm, Thursdays pm and weekends bar last Tuesday pm (as I had informed head office) and last Thursday pm (it was raining), but last Tuesday morning in your head office a member of staff (Sanjiv) stamped our pitch slip for the Albery Theatre pitch for the week ending next Tuesday, 3 April and registered the pitch in pitch listings for the same period.

Yours sincerely
Declan Heavey

A copy of this email will also be sent to Bird to Monday by registered post.

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Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Saturday, March 31, 2007

Third email to the founder of The Big Issue

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