UK housing crisis

On the second anniversary of the violent eviction of the occupied Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, I recall that experiment in community solidarity, and also cast a critical eye over other current housing developments in the London Borough of Lewisham, ending with a call for councils across the capital to come to terms with the Covid-induced end of “business as usual” in a housing market that, for far too long now, has been shamefully devoted to private housing profits and unaffordable rents.

Videos made using found footage by Bren Horstead, the drummer of my band The Four Fathers, to accompany the release of our most recent studio recordings, which we recorded in December with the great Charlie Hart (Ian Dury, Ronnie Lane): ‘The Wheel of Life’, ‘This Time We Win’ and ‘Affordable.’

Drawing on an excellent article about COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by the anthropologist Wade Davis for Rolling Stone, I look at the crisis of leadership in the US when it comes to dealing with the unprecedented challenges for our economic future caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and compare how similar failures of leadership also plague the UK.

Marking 3,000 days since I first set out on my bike on a daily basis to take photos of the changing face of the capital for a project that became known as ‘The State of London.’ On the fifth anniversary of the start of the project, I began posting a photo a day on Facebook, where I have now posted 1,176 photos.

Today, Bandcamp, the US online music service, is waiving its fees to help musicians, so please feel free to buy any of the studio recordings by my band The Four Fathers, including our brand-new online single, ‘The Wheel of Life’, a meditation on mortality and living in the moment.

Today marks three years since the Grenfell Tower fire, which led to the deaths of 72 people, and which only occurred because those responsible for the safety of the residents put cost-cutting and profiteering before their lives. Three years on, shamefully, no one responsible has been held accountable.

I look at the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the construction industry in London, enthusing about the shutdown of sites, and hoping that the entire bloated industry will collapse – not only because its developments are either unnecessary or overpriced, or both, but also because the entire industry is so environmentally ruinous. My critique is also part of a wider analysis of the huge drop in emissions since the lockdown began, in which massively reduced car use has played a major part, although this progress will be rapidly undone without a renewed commitment to a permanent reduction in emissions as countries begin to try to ease their way out of lockdown.

My new article about the impact of the coronavirus, with a particular focus on rental problems, both in a domestic context, in which furloughed workers, and those suddenly laid off, are facing unprecedented problems paying their rent, but have received no help from the government, and, in a business context, with numerous businesses, including restaurants and pubs, calling for rents to be suspended to prevent them from going under.

Today I’m marking the eighth anniversary of when I set out on my bike, with my camera, to take photos in all of London’s 120 postcodes. Eight years later, I haven’t stopped, and, in the last seven weeks, I’ve been seeing the capital through new eyes during the unprecedented coronavirus lockdown.

An interview about my activism — involving Stonehenge and the Battle of the Beanfield, Guantánamo, the housing ‘regeneration’ industry in the UK, and the currently unfolding environmental crisis — as published in Gonzo Weekly and International Times, based on questions from the publisher and activist Alan Dearling.