Germany’s aggressive push for a clean-energy future (+video)

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

Manchester City’s council leader Richard Leese,  went to Copenhagen in 2009, waving a piece of paper, ‘Manchester – A Certain Future‘.  Supposedly outlining how Manchester would become a green city and reduce its carbon emissions.  It has become a worthless piece of paper, just as Neville Chamberlain’s, ‘Peace in our Time‘, was mocked by Hitler.  All the while, he has ignored good examples of how this can be achieved, such as in Freiburg, Germany.  Who have managed to embrace renewable energy and energy efficiency, without destroying its historic architecture.  Is it because the Greens are the largest party in their town council?  Unlike Leese in Manchester, who has cleared acres of social/council housing and historic buildings, to build his energy inefficient ivory towers.  Woking, Surrey, is about the only UK town or City, that comes anywhere to Freiburg, in renewable energy and efficiencies.  But Richard Leese has delusions of grandeur, which are fuelled by his sycophantic colleagues and business people.  And instead of looking towards best practice, just blames other councils for not get their act together.

Germany’s aggressive push for a clean-energy future (+video).

Most jobseeker agreements ruled unlawful – and the DWP doesn’t care

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

This Conservative Government continues its attack against those in an unfortunate position, even though the courts find they they are acting illegally. Another problem is, where is the condemnation of these practices by the opposition Labour Party.
“Any jobseeker who can demonstrate that s/he has taken 3 steps a week to find work has complied with the law. Any jobseeker’s ‘agreement’ that imposes more than three steps is illegal and legally unenforceable. Any claimant sanctioned for failing to meet such an illegal requirement has a right to have it overturned on appeal.”

SKWAWKBOX

A reader of my blog has written to me with an update about a case that I referred to her for her expert help some time ago. The appeal against draconian sanctions that she helped our mutual contact to conduct was successful, with the judge ruling that the ‘conditionality’ imposed on a jobseeker was unreasonable – and that the benefit sanction (immediate stoppage) used to punish the supposed miscreant was therefore unlawful.

But the Tory-led government is so single-minded in its determination to penalise benefit claimants for failing to find jobs that don’t exist that it is knowingly ignoring the judicial ruling and the precedent it sets, in order to continue what can only rightly be called persecution of the disadvantaged and vulnerable.

Here’s what she wrote to me:

I am a keen follower of your blog and thought you may be interested in this story…
I have recently helped…

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Landlords use the bedroom tax to hide their own incompetence

Posted on by Patrick Sudlow

An update on the heinous bedroom tax and how the UK tax-payer is bailing out the private rental sector and losing out. The bedroom tax does not treat social tenants the same as private tenants.