Church and State blog: Extreme poverty

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Extreme poverty

Yet another round of extreme poverty. Having been starved on Thursday (see previous blog on the latest takeover of my Big Issue pitch by the free ShortList magazine), on Friday morning I was forced to go back into Liverpool Street Station to beg so Declan and I could buy some food over the weekend, as no homeless centre opens around our area on Saturday or Sunday (except the Methodist Church-run Whitechapel Mission, but we were barred on 18 June by the minister’s wife due to concerns about our safety).

On Wednesday morning, in the station, I was informed as two police officers were ticketing me for the second time in two days for begging – I have been begging in the train station since mid-September without difficulty, but then, of course, Declan didn’t have what is now a well-endorsed petition up on the internet to the UN for a declaration in respect of research cloning of embryos and stem cells – that the next time I am caught begging I will be arrested or given a fine of £80, which, if I don’t pay, will land me in prison. Anyway, I went back in carrying my own bags, having said good-bye to Declan and not knowing when I would meet him next.

As soon as a kind person is passing me some change, who comes from behind me but the (Polish, I think) policeman who on Tuesday gave me my first ticket, as his partner was calling me “scum of the earth”, and forcibly removed me from the station, which I am confident was improper behaviour. This time he doesn’t ticket, arrest or fine me. Instead, he menacingly informs me that he has already told me begging is illegal and that he doesn’t want me in the station and to get out of it.

So we didn’t have the money to buy food for the weekend, nor the fare to take a bus to the West End where we might avail of a soup run. It meant I had to take my chances and go and beg on Friday evening around the Liverpool Street area, where people like to drink outside a few pubs. There were police standing around the pubs, so I just roamed the streets looking for somebody sitting or standing about. I was of course carrying my bags, so that if I was arrested Declan would not be stuck with them, and had arranged a time to meet Declan outside McDonald’s on Liverpool Street.

The begging didn’t go well at all, and all we have had for food for the weekend has been less than £3: Declan wanted me to eat and I wanted him to eat, resulting in both of us starving and feeling overall very weak, which is in all probability what the agenda actually entails. It doesn’t help either that we are ill-equipped for the bitterly cold nights: the nun in charge of clothes in the Sisters of Mercy-run Dellow Centre told me the week before last that she has no winter clothes – you would be forgiven for thinking spring just arrived – and gave me a teddy bear pyjamas bottom and a small old cardigan.

As I was walking the street on Friday night, I took comfort in the thought that Declan and I are humbly following in the footsteps of Galileo. Where has all my willingness to leave the train station landed us? For the first time since we started selling the Big Issue back in December, we can’t even afford to buy a magazine (70p) to sell. When Declan goes to the Big Issue head office early tomorrow morning to register our pitches – in the past there were so many problems with the weekly registration of our pitches that for months now, and by arrangement, Declan has been supervising the registration himself – I will be in the train station begging until I can put together the money we need to buy Big Issues and lunch (all I am eating today is bread).

If the police throw me out of the station, I am going right back in. If I am forcibly removed, like on Tuesday, it will be without my cooperation. The only way I will stay out is if I am forced either because I am arrested or injured as police seek to remove me (one of my shoulders has been dislocated several times).

On 8 September Declan lodged his case against the UK, together with an urgent request for expedition, with the European Court of Human Rights. The last time Declan wrote to the Registrar was on 6 October, enclosing, among other things, his latest hospital discharge summary report of 4 October, this time from the Royal London Hospital where he was hospitalised for two days with a viral infection, and my police statement of 22 September, having been woken by a guy who repeatedly kicked me in the chest and shoulders while shouting “f*****g tramp” – all to no avail. (As I have already stated in this blog, the case of Papon v France was expedited by the Court under rule 41 of the Convention because of the advance age and ill-health of the applicant in prison: the case was lodged on 12 January 2001 and on 23 January the Court asked the respondent Government to submit information and comments about the applicant’s conditions and regime.)

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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Sunday, November 18, 2007

Extreme poverty

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