Ben Reeve Lewis Friday Newsround #162

[Ben Reeve Lewis is feeling angry this week …]

My life has changed a lot in the past few months.

I’ve swapped being a TRO for the dubious pleasure of being a rogue landlord enforcement officer.

Meaning I don’t do one to one case work anymore and instead of appearing in court arguing the toss on landlord/tenant law, I’m climbing through the windows of cannabis farms wearing body armour.

I spent until nearly midnight on Thursday evening sitting in a sweaty, fart fragranced police van staking out a particularly nasty property run by a Chinese Triad gang . NICE!

My weekend lie-ins have been swapped for letting the puppy out at dawn so he learns to crap in the garden not the house, pleased to say we’ve done it.

And I am trying to learn grown-up scales on my guitar so I can more comfortably attend the Sunday afternoon meetings of the London Jazz Guitar Society, without coming across as a boxing glove wearing Wilf among my contemporaries.

A story to make you angry

But a story that arose this week in a number of newspapers reminded me that although the day to day rounds of my life may have changed my fundamental principles haven’t.

I still get unreasonably angry at unfairness and social inequality.

Winning the prize for the Ben Reeve-Lewis snivelling little shit of the year award is Tory MP Richard Benyon, Britain’s richest MP

The Daily Mirror article came via Tessa’s Landlord Law Blog Roundup on Sunday.

The smug little bastard has bought the New Era Estate in Hoxton, home to many families, some of whom have been there for 70 years, and has announced that rents would be rising considerably next year, meaning that none of the residents would be able to continue living there.

A bit about Hoxton

Hoxton, in case you don’t know about it is a once working class area only a spit from Brick Lane and Shoreditch, has for some years been an overpriced square mile of trendy lofts, Spanish delicatessens and Vodka bars.

Occupied by the growing crowd of overpaid hipsters who sport that horrible greasy hair thing that looks like a wet fish sitting on top of a bunch of bristles whilst growing Brian Blessed sized beards and wearing suit jackets deliberately tailored so small they look like they came out of Norman Wisdom’s wardrobe.

Market rents are staggering there.

Speaking at a recent residents meeting, snivelling little shit number two, brother Edward Benyon announced:

“The goal, which is something I have had to say to all of you, is the fact that the rents will be going to market value.”

Before adding with an ignorance so astonishing I cant help wondering if he was being sarcastic:

“We’ve never evicted anybody because when people haven’t been able to afford to pay the rent they’ve moved out.”

So that’s the trick is it? Don’t bother evicting people, just raise the rent so high that nobody can afford to stay there.

The Mail and the Mirror

Now before you say, “Well you’d expect the Daily Mirror to take that approach wouldn’t you?”, bear in mind that this story of heartless greed was also reported in the Daily Mail, whose line of attack was exactly the same.

Now when the Daily Mail start agreeing with the Daily Mirror you have to start thinking, “Maybe this guy really is a 24 carat bastard”?

In fact the Mail went further and captioned a picture of him handing a loaf through a window to a local window:

“Britain’s richest MP Richard Benyon, under fire for lecturing poor families on not wasting food, takes part in a tradition where the owner of Ufton Court in Berkshire hands local people loaves of bread through a window”.

Apparently this annual tradition of tossing scraps to the hoi poloi began in 1581 when Benyon’s witless ancestor got lost in the woods and the local peasants saved her.

Feckless poor people, wasting all that food

What irked the Mail was the fact that Benyon, worth £125 million, has been behind some astounding lectures of the poor:

“‘Food wasted means fewer pounds in our pocket. Household bills are squeezed at the moment and we have the opportunity through a variety of different agencies to inform people better about where their food comes from and how to use it most economically.”

To which even Cameron remarked:

‘Obviously, that does not look good.’

Dianne Abbot also wrote about him in the Huffington Post but to be honest I have even less time for her than I do for him so she ain’t getting a quote here.

Ghandi had it right when he said

“The earth has enough for every man’s need but not enough for every man’s greed”.

Cabinet reshuffle

Staying with the caring, compassionate world of Members of Parliament, you couldn’t have escaped the news that Cameron, feeling his middle aged male millionaire cabinet were starting to get fingers pointing in a Benyon style way, dumped several of his mates off the bus and recruited loads of younger women for the most part.

Trying to make his cabinet look like more of a family and less of an officers mess in the Punjab of 1930.

Which means that after just 10 months it’s bye-bye Kris Hopkins, hello Brandon Lewis.

Brandon Lewis – yet another new housing minister

Yes folks, we have yet another new housing minister. Except he isn’t, he is a housing AND planning Minister.

Although doubling up on duties, the role has at least been re-elevated back to ministerial status, after the post was demoted when Hopkins was put in it.

More politically minded readers may have different views on his abilities but looking at the outline provided by the Guardian he does seem to have a relevant history:

• He is an ex council leader.
• A barrister
• He worked in the DCLG and was responsible for high streets, councils, fire services etc.

So in theory he should at least have a broad enough experience and knowledge base to at least understand the complex nexus of housing matters.

However where is his heart?  That’s what I want to know.

Time will tell. I don’t care if he is a Tory or a lib-dem or a bleedin Communist, I just want to see if he can empathise with the people he is elected to represent.

Politicians – on a different planet?

But the older I get I find myself coming back more firmly to ideas I held as a 20 year old, particularly when it comes to any confidence or faith in politicians.

They move in a different world from the rest of us and their big picture decisions as they swan around in limos looking important, have less impact on the lives of the man on the Clapham omnibus (What a tellingly patronising phrase that has always been) than the work done at local levels by local councils and local groups which is more immediately felt by us all.

Should we stay in Europe or leave? I have no idea……….

I’ve read the arguments for both but all they ever talk about is the effects on business and trade which to my mind simply means that it helps big business to go on making big money, none of which trickles down to the lower table, so by all means lets get out, it will make little difference to my daily life.

We need to stop holding daft beliefs that anything these idiots do will significantly improve the lives of people like the residents on the New Era Estate.

As Alf Garnet once said “I’ve always voted Tory, My father voted Tory and his father before him. My grandfather borrowed a pair of boots and walked 20 miles to vote Tory”

Says it all.

See ya next week, hopefully in a less angry mood.