Friday, September 07, 2007

Emily Thornberry Is A Disgrace

This story was flagged up by Justin Hinchcliffe a week ago and then by Hatfield girl yesterday and now it is not only in the Daily Mail but also in the Housing Association Press. Emily Thornberry who sent her children to Grammar school and pontificates about cycling despite weighing as much as a whale has been a standing source of embarrassment for the Old Hard Left local Labour Party and has already shifted her position from extreme Trot to Blairite . Now she seems to have shifted again from a fan of selection for her children to the exploitation of hard pressed local housing stock.
Her tenants are on her Parliamentary team and they include to my knowledge one odious little lickle-spit crawler James Murray 8 and ¾ Islington youngest Councillor who himself attended St. Paul`s School for £20,000 pa ...its not as if he needs the cheap accommodation is it . He has thus far wasted everyone’s `s time sending apple for teacher essays on parking and so on to the Gazette and will be cease pretending to give a toss about Islington any time now.My contempt for him is depthless

How can they face themselves in the mirror , how can they dream they re fit people to run anything still less remove money from hard working families to hand out to their constituency of dependents . Words fail me ... but no for long don`t you worry


A member of a government scrutiny committee has sparked controversy after buying a home from a housing association for her parliamentary aides to live in.
The MP for Islington South & Finsbury Emily Thornberry and her family bought the property from Ujima Housing Group for £572,000. Ms Thornberry sits on the Communities and Local Government select committee.
The property is one of several in the street which was sold against the will of the housing association's tenants. They claimed they contacted Ms Thornberry for support last year as they felt they were being turned out of their homes. The MP's office denied there had been any involvement with the tenants before the house was bought. The name of Ms Thornberry's husband, deputy high court judge Christopher Nugee QC, is on the deeds of the house. Ms Thornberry's office said she had bought the property for young people 'she knows' in their early 20s .
Ms Thornberry - who has championed social tenants' rights - issued a statement saying: 'We bought this property in the spring at auction. This is not about property speculation - we are providing cheap and cheerful accommodation for some young people.' Ms Thornberry - who would have seen that the property belonged to a housing association at the auction - asked for a meeting with housing minister Yvette Cooper last year to complain that Islington council was 'giving in to developers' and building luxury flats instead of affordable housing (Inside Housing, 27 October 2006). Ujima Housing Group was unavailable for comment.





Update - A local Activist has provided me with further information and background . I have had to tidy up his grammar and punctuation a bit but otherwise its almost up to the rigorous standards I require .......


Ujima, the housing association is question has been under a cloud since signally failing to build the number of new homes they committed to building _ by a very lng chalk. In fact they have lost their 'partnership' status from/ with the Housing Corporation, which regulates housing associations. I see that they have also now been given planning permission for an ugly new development in Tottenham, much against the wishes of local residents, and wihout the slightest regard for the environmental impact. But Labour councils let housing associations get away with murder. By the way, Ujima exists specifically to provide homes for black people (did you know that this kind of racism was allowed and publicly-funded?). I was concerned to see that their website does not give the name of a single senior executive or trustee _ very unusual for any organisation _ I wonder why they keep such a low-profile? it would be very interesting to know how mnay of their key people are labour party memebrs, councillors or donors _ 'partners' thereof......

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ujima, the housing association is question has been under a cloud since signally failing to build the number of new homes they committed to building _ by a very lng chalk. In fact they have lost their 'partnership' status from/ with the Housing Corporation, which regulates housing associations. I see that they have also now been given planning permission for an ugly new development in Tottenham, much against the wishes of local residents, and wihout the slightest regard for the environmental impact. But Labour councils let housing associations get away with murder. By the way, Ujima exists specifically to provide homes for black people (did you know that this kind of racism was allowed and publicly-funded?). I was concerned to see that their website does not give the name of a single senior executive or trustee _ very unusual for any organisation _ I wonder why they keep such a low-profile? it would be very interesting to know how mnay of their key people are labour party memebrs, councillors or donors _ 'partners' thereof......

Old BE said...

At £527,000 they are going to have to pack a lot of people into the flat for it to be "cheap" for them to rent!

Does providing exclusively black estates promote social harmony and diversity?

Newmania said...

Wow ...you do not mess about do you David , always a pleasure to hear from you and that is a devastating comment .


I am going to post that...ouch !!!

Stan Bull said...

Newmsie,
She has a majority of less than 500 votes. How come the Lib Dem evil doers didn't pick up the seat in 2005? But then Islington is a Lib dem controlled council. And Lib Dems are a bunch of useless assholes....I think I've answered my own question. Did you know that Thornberry still does work for her former (?) employer, Michael Mansfield QC?

Anonymous said...

Ujima Housing Association is a private Limited company, incorporated 1/1 1981.

I can't find any indication that they've filed accounts or any details of their finances. Can't find any directors listed for the company either. Registered address is in Kilburn High Road.

Three County Court judgements are listed against the above company. One in Central London Case no 5CL20404 (satisfied), one in Edmonton Case no 5ED04107 (satisfied)and the last in Wandsworth Case no 5WT04010 for £5000 (no indication of satisfaction on that yet)

Ah! Company registration number ends in 'R' which means, I believe, that they are registered as an 'Industrial and Provident Society'.

Yep, just found a note to that effect. That means that they must have a rule book, adhere to it, be open to new members, may distribute any profits and submit annual accounts.

Auntie Flo'

Newmania said...

Hui Stan I did niokt know that...I think the presence of Emily Thornberry is a bit of mystery to us all but then her nearest neighbour is the hilarious Jeremy Corbyn so she may appear relatively sane

Newmania said...

Thats very impressive Flo , I find it somewhat emasculating that you are obviously so much better at the business world than I am but I `ll forgive you.

Don`t suppose you would know where to look to find otu where Compass get their money from would you ? Its hidden behind some trust

BTW I got as nice email from the Boris team thanking me for my advice on Leaseholders

Go me go me !

Anonymous said...

Don't suppose you'd know where to look to find out where Compass get their money from? (newmania)


I'll see what I cna find out, n

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

Compass Direction for the Democratic Left Ltd..hmmm,hmmm,hmmm.

They're a private Limited company registered at 7 Cecil Road, N10 2BU.

On current assets of £70,000 in 2005, they made a PROFIT would you believe!

Just a 1,000 though. Nevertheless, I don't know about you, but I call that Capitalist - they may be inept and feeble capitalists,but they are making dosh all the same.

Bit more to come when I've had a cuppa

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

Their assets have increased from £67,000 three years ago to the shining £70,000 they have now.

And you know what that means, don't you?

THEY OWN STINKING PRIVATE PROPERTY.

And it's accumulating value.

bloody hypocrites

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

But times are hard for Compass under nulab though, n, their profits have nose dived.

2003
Turnover 1,000
Pre tax profits £1,000


2004
Turnover £1,000
Pre tax profits £1,000

2005

Turnover £2,000
pre tax profts £1,000

That would be quite a serious dip - 50% fall in profits - if it didn't look so contrived....nice little round sums :)

That profits dip appears to be partly due to increased current liabilities, these rose from £38,000 in 2003 and 2004 to £40,000 in 2005. Hmm, hmm, hmm, someone's had a pay rise?

Auntie Flo'

Stan Bull said...

Ujima's tenants are, I suspect, none to happy with the "service" they get:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2006/11/356404.html
And there's more Ujima unpleasantness here if you're interested:
http://www.iwca.info/cgi-bin/iwcanews.pl?record=19

The Housing Inspectorate of the Audit Commission is none too impressed either. In 2005, they noted that:
"...Performance is not yet in the top quartile for similar associations. Challenging targets and rigorous monitoring are needed to achieve further improvements..."

Hmmmmmmm....I smell a hideous mix of incompetence, political correctness and typical NuLabour municipal madness in all of this, i.e. business as usual.

Anonymous said...

Woops, my profound apologies to newmania and Compass, the data I gave above isn't that of Compass, it's of another company owned by one of the Directors of Compass. My datastreams got jumbled.

Auntie Flo'

Anonymous said...

Compass are non trading, no turnover or profits. So, no help there.

Auntie Flo'

Old BE said...

What advice did you give on leaseholders N?

I am interested as I am one.

Newmania said...

I wrote the the local Papers several times to express fury at the class warfare inflicted on them in the form of unfair service charges which were not capped. It has been along and complex war but eventually I arranged a meeting with Michael Gove with the representatives in Islington where there are 11,000 leaseholders . Other deputations were received from other parts of London.

It was announced the other day that the service charges will be capped under a Conservative government although its a bit more complicated and Owen Hart contacted me in a state of euphoria that years of campaigning might actually have born fruit I wrote to Boris to tell him that this move made them free votes for him is the most difficult areas to crack . Labour for all its smiling deceit have actually hated them from the start and their battle with the housing establishment is , I sometimes feel , where the real politics happens It is an ideal Borisian theme and there is no down side . What’s more these people are politicised voters now and I expressed a hope that Boris would identify with his Parties tremendously principled stand on the matter.
They sent me back a very nice email with a few remarks and all in all, I felt the whole thing had been worthwhile. They are a tremendous group of fighters and the leader is particularly robust and on occasion blistering . When I was at the tonw hall to offer some support he gave me the petition to hand in.. For an organisation that is supposed to be strictly non partisan it was a kind gesture . They know we are the only ones on their side . A word here and there and they are votes in the bag as they wrote to me to say. I was able to get the meeting arranged because I know Chris Skidmoore who is David Willets’ underling and previously leader of North Islington by the way

With some effort you can achieve more than you think .I wish I had realised earlier.

( So basically I `m fucking great…..!!!… oops bragging will now cease)

Old BE said...

Good work N.

I haven't yet been stung by service charges or rechargeable work. Bizarrely, though, Lambeth council have yet to charge me ANY service charges and I've been here 6 months. I keep contacting them but they never get back to me it's most off. I suspect at some stage they will notice and send me a letter demanding a huge wad of cash by return.

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