good evening everyone thank you all for
coming tonight uh it's really good to be
here in Tottenham um I think it's a
great time to be here and I think it's
it's particularly good because obviously
on top of George we have a really really
good panel speakers what I would refer
to personally as solid sisters women who
work timly for our communities who've
always put the interest of of our
communities at the Forefront and who've
spoken entirety worked for them so so um
I did mention I did joke to Zita when I
first saw I said there is something for
somebody who chairs these kind of events
that is so annoying it's when you have
fantastic speakers such as these that
their CVS are so impressive you just
simply can't say it all in one way you
just have to read it so I'm afraid I'm
going to have to read the whole list of
their achievements and it's pretty
impressive um our first speaker is an
award-winning Community human rights and
Trade union activist and campaigner
she's also a poet spoken word artist
writer visual artist and curator she's
the co-founder and National co-chair of
black activists Rising against Cuts
Barack UK and is elected to the TU race
relations commit committee public and
Commercial Services Union national
executive she's also PCS group vice
president and an actor NEC member she's
a founding member of a number of anti-
austerity and race and other equality
campaigns organizations she founded the
roots culture cult identity art
exhibition to showcase the talents of
young black and migrant artists facing
double discrimination in the labor
market and institutional racism in the
art sector her art is used in
illustrations political campaigns
example the TU psc's and has been
featured in a broad range of exhibitions
she was commissioned by the TU to design
the artwork for their Steven Lawrence
Center fundraising appeal she's
described as a political poet and a Grio
of the struggle and was a finalist and
one of the People's Choice poets in the
mon monolog extreme oh monolog extreme
spoken word context her new book of
poetry will be published by Hansa
publishing she's the winner of the
positive role model for race at the
national diversity Awards she was listed
by the afro news as one of the top
African and Caribbean women of the year
she is one of 14 women campaigners
featured in the book here we stand women
changing the world which this year one
of the BR Rose's award for radical
publish yeah yeah she WR to various
journals which has included the voice
and the Morning Star ladies and
Gentlemen please welcome Z
hobber Gooding everyone it's really good
to be here this evening as a not to
myself now to cut down when somebody
says they wanted
introd say they less text um it's really
good to be here um I want to start by
talking a bit about my organization bar
UK and what we do and why we do it and
barck is a national campaign group and
so we have um barck structures in
various cities across the UK and um we
set up barck in 2010 when we knew the
cuts were going to have a clear
disproportionate impact on black
communities we used black in the
political sense to Encompass um all
people from the African and Asian
diasporas um and we campaign against the
disproportionate impact of cuts and
austerity on black workers black
communities and black service users but
we also campaign against Injustice and
racism and what we've found since 2010
is actually uh racism and Injustice has
deepened you know um as we go along so
we constantly ask for support and help
in individual cases in Collective cases
in um you know Community campaigns for
people that have never had to to run a
campaign because of the the impact on
them um austerity and cuts have had a
clear disproportionate impact on black
communities the cuts of the public
sector employment and the KnockOn impact
on the voluntary sector because funding
cuts um uh have taken place meaning that
a lot of black organizations anti-racist
organizations or specialist
organizations black and migrant
communities women and all other all
sorts of other equality groups have had
to close their doors in the last uh five
years because their their funding has
been slashed down to nothing you know
they've gone from running an
organization with paid workers to only
having volunteers to having to run the
organization out of their front room and
finally close their doors and in my bar
in New we've heard that new monitoring
um uh group it's a longstanding
anti-racist group that supports victims
of um you know police hatred and also
race hatred um is as um coming to a
point where they're going to have to
close their doors and it's a horrendous
situation it means that we're not
actually monitoring or knowing exactly
the extent of um race cases that are
taking place race hatred of cases that
are taking place or police uh
victimization um because those
organizations they they they not just
provided you know monitored but they
also provided a Lifeline to a lot of um
uh families and communities who come to
them for
help and um the cuts of the public
sector have had a particular impact on
um black communities because it's the
largest employment area of black people
and the voluntary sector is another
large area so it's not just users of the
voluntary sector but the employees in
the voluntary sector and the reason for
that is because of the Discrimination in
the private sector meaning they couldn't
even get a foot in the door you know on
the ladder to um build careers after um
the scarman report the riot of brickton
there were um what was considered at the
time you know stronger equality policies
put in place in the public sector which
meant it was a more attractive option
for black workers is somewhere where
they could apply for work so the cuts
that happening to the public sector
having a particular impact on black
communities but particularly black women
because they've got a double whammy of
gender and race discrimination they're
two of the groups in the employ in
public sector employment who are the
hardest hereit so if you're a black
woman and you're also the breadwinner of
the family your main income is coming in
because your partner other members of
the family are in low paid work um on
zero hour contracts and temporary
contracts you may be relying on that
income that's coming in from the public
sector worker and to give you an example
in some London um Burrows where um black
women made up around 8% of the workforce
they made up 20 to 30 to 40% of the
redundancy so you can see the clear
disproportionate impact and there's a
knock on impact on young black people
because as the slashing jobs making
people redundant making us work longer
to get our pensions it means that young
people are going to be virtually middle
age before they can even get a job in
the first place is the jobs are not
there for them apart from these very
temporary jobs and zero hour contracts
which you can see employeers are really
exploiting at the moment and if you look
at some of the um like like fast food
and Care Industries and look at who's
working in those jobs it's black and
migrant workers that are impacted on
that and what that means for young
people is that they can't start to um
build a future of life even if they go
to university if they can handle the
triple tuition fees the slashing of EMA
and everything else that's happened
they're coming back to live with
families they can't afford to get a
mortgage in any shape of for they can
barely afford to rent from the private
sector there's no um social housing
being built if you look at what happened
with the Olympics Legacy you know before
the Olympics they knocked the tower
blocks down because they said in the
area you know they weren't good
environments to live in they're now
creating them again with Penthouse
Suites for rich people and you know
they're private they're not they're not
creating social housing so young black
people are really being hit left right
and Center by the car the slashing or
VMA was a particular issue for um black
students because was a Lifeline for some
um poor and and and also obviously white
um students as well from poor and
deprived communities because it could
mean the difference between them having
their bus fair and their lunch money and
being able to buy a book or two you know
for their for their studies or not and
the tripling of tuition fees means that
they they're creating an education
system that's for the rich and Elite and
is not for everybody I believe education
should be free and it should be for
everybody and a few days ago I was here
in Tottenham we marked the fourth
anniversary of the shooting of Mark
Dugen and his family are still fighting
for justice and barck supports a lot of
family Justice campaigns and those
families literally have to put their
lives on hold to fight for justice it
means that somebody in that family at
least one person has to literally give
up work give up whatever they were doing
in their lives and the family can't
mourn because until you've got answers
and you've got closure there's no way
that you can mourn so families are
fighting and then the cuts to legal aid
mean that they can't even you know
pursue their case in the courts because
they're not getting any funding for that
they can't work because they're having
to campaign so where's the money
supposed to come from and on top of that
the Discrimination that we face in the
workplace which is deepening under
austerity it's Amplified by austerity
you can't a lot of people can't go to
employment tribunal because they've inod
fees so employers know this and they you
know they take advantage of that I think
yes we can get away with discriminating
because how are they going to challenge
it in the courts if they can't afford it
employees will come with a team of
lawyers a team of barristers and then
you'll have an individual if they're not
in a unionized environment you know
where they're represented by the union
they're supposed to Face all of that
it's very intimidating let alone having
to face the cost of the the fees um and
we shouldn't forget that you know the
the riots that happened or uprisings
happened here in Tottenham and other
areas they were as a result of yet
another young black man's life being
taken there's a series of young black
men killed at the hands of the state um
and if you look up where those um riots
took place looking at London in
particular they happened in the most
deprived areas of the London in fact of
the whole country they were areas that
were officially declared deprived and
they were the areas that had the highest
take up of EMA before it was Slash and
the highest take up of free School meals
meaning that they were very poor areas
but what we s after the riot so clearly
there are going to be areas that were
disproportionately black and migrant
communities living there because of the
Discrimination we face in society and in
the labor market it means we're more
likely to live in the poorest area where
there's more social housing because of
that discrimination um and what we saw
is an emergency debate in Parliament
where young black people would demonized
and called every name under the sun and
also black mothers were blamed and said
they're not spending enough time with
their children it's their fault that
their children did this absolutely
disgraceful um Behavior by politicians
not of course
George um in Parliament and that was
across the political Spectrum it was
across parties demonizing young people
in this way and if you look at the
prison sentences that the C the
sentences the young people got they were
disproportionate to the crime there was
um a place for example that was broken
into already and somebody went in there
and took two scoops of ice cream they
got two years so you imagine then if
they took a third scoop of ice cream
they would have to go to prison for 3
years um there was somebody who received
a stolen item A friend gave it to her as
a gift and she also received a sentence
they opened the courts you know extended
hours in the evening so they could rush
through these cases but the vast
majority of them were overturned on
appeal that's where the young people had
the support and the networks to have
somebody come in Pro boner lawyer to
come and um represent them so it's a
horrendous State of Affairs and we know
that um when um austerity hits if you
look through history racism increases
and we've seen an increase in the um far
right the edl Britain first and what
that's done together with politicians
demonizing migrant communities and black
communities scapegoating uh migrants and
scare mongr so they can shift the blame
of austerity away from themselves and
onto migrant communities um is that
that's
empowered ordinary people who hold
racist views who may have held it back
before because they know there's laws
there's you know there's policies they
didn't feel safe before confident to
express it to be so bold to express
their racist views you know that kind of
language that my mother's generation
coming from the Caribbean her you know
go back to where you come from go to the
Jungle you monkey you're hearing all of
that kind of horrendous language
happening again because people feel well
we're backed up by a far RI we're backed
up by ukip we're backed up by government
policies you've got the Immigration Act
that was introduced and supported by all
the political parties with the exception
of a very small handful of MPS that
actually it seeks to create an aart tied
state in the UK and I saw things saying
that I'm out of time so I just wanted to
conclude by saying I think this meeting
is really important I'm not going to say
anything about David Lamy there was a
lot said about him at the the video we H
from Mark Davin I know because I've done
lots of meetings in Tottenham before
that communities here are not very happy
with um him and um you know how he's
engaged with black and migrant and poor
and priv communities um but we need
somebody that's run in London that
actually is engaged with our issues
acknowledges our issues understands them
but more importantly acts upon what we
say is a concern to us thank you
bra thank you very much Z I think and I
understand that that CV that very
impressive CV uh just before we move on
to our next speaker can I just sort of
mention a bit of the nitty-gritty about
all this obviously know we're running a
campaign and campaigns are incredibly
costly Affairs uh we're not a rich
outfit and everything is coming out of
our pocket so if I could actually ask
for at any point any of you could make
donations however big or small that
would be very very welcome i' appreciate
that um our next I think well um we
often describe London as being a very
diverse Capital which obviously it is
and it includes numerous communities I
think that not only should we be
speaking about the issues of our
communities but it's also important now
to understand the full history of our
the numerous communities that actually
make up London and so our next speaker
is has a very interesting uh CV once
again I'll have to read it out because
it is very impressive she was she's a
Jewish consult specializing in the
practice of law as resistance
reparations legal specialist and
internationally acclaimed reparation
list she serves as co- Vice chair of
Parco panafrican reparations Coalition
in Europe co-founder of the Global
African people's Parliament
as well as co-founder of the African
reparations transnational community of
practice she's also a member of the
first August emancipation day African
people's reparations March organizing
committee as a result of Esther's
Community engaged reparations scholar
activism she's currently undertaking PhD
action research in history at the UN
University of Chichester on the history
of the UK contingent and the
international social movement for
African reparations isma based in the UK
which recovers the history of African
and African diaspora reparations store
advocacy and other forms of activism in
the UK from 1700 to the present day
ladies and Gentlemen please welcome
Esther
[Music]
San greetings all and thank you for
inviting me to share a few words by way
of a message in terms of your bid to be
mayor of London well if you do become
mayor of London you've already made a
particular pledge that you will
establish a museum for the slave trade
as you tweeted as a down payment on
reparations due so I'll use that tweet
to introduce what it is that I'm going
to be sharing um well I'm a reparation
and basically that means a reparations
activist and campaigner and many people
have mistaken view about what
reparations is about it essentially
means all the efforts we make all the
measures we need to adopt and engag in
to repair the
injustices and Legacies of enslavement
and colonization and neoc colonization
as they are impacting on the descendants
of oppressed peoples today and in
particular I'm speaking as a member of
the African Heritage Community who is
seeking National self-determination here
in Britain and also as a key member of
the isar which is the international
social movement for African reparations
on Saturday just passed throughout
London we had a March from Windler
Square in bricksville to the houses of
Parliament and we had this march on the
1st of August which is Iman ation day
it's commemorated as emancipation day in
the British colonized or former
colonized Caribbean and other former
colonies of Britain in Africa now this
date commemorates the day
supposedly when enslaved peoples in the
Caribbean in the Americas and in Africa
were
emancipated and uh a piece of
legislation was passed the abolition of
slavery act in the British houses of
Parliament but some of you may have seen
a program a series of programs that was
on BBC to recently Britain's forgotten
slave owners and it talks about on the
abolition of enslavement that rather
than the ins slaved who had been
deprived not only of our wealth and our
labor but our sovereignty our humanity
and an attempt to Denice our dignity it
wasn't them that were compensated on
So-Cal abolition it was the enslavers
and that money went into building up
Britain and in fact London as well and
so even the uh beneficiaries of some of
that money are found in officers such as
even the prime minister of this country
whose family received compensation for
uh loss of human chattle in the enslave
that really introduces the context to
what the reparations movement means for
all of us in London and not for the
people of African descent this is a
movement that is really seeking to
educate The Wider population as well as
to what reparations are about why there
is a need for reparations and how we as
African peoples are articulating the
goals of the reparations movement and so
we recognize the United Nations
framework on a right to a remedy and
reparations which recognizes that
reparations includes five main measures
restitution
Rehabilitation compensation satisfaction
and guarantees of
non-repetition what the March that we
had on Saturday demonstrates and in fact
George was on the March uh is that there
is an independently organizing emerging
self-determined African Heritage
Community that speaks for itself has its
own leaders has its own structures and
it's these structures that we need you
to recognize whilst You are bidding to
become the mayor and especially if you
are successful why this is important is
because for a long time we have been
misrepresented we've had black officials
elected who have often been selected and
chosen for us and we're told that they
are our leaders what we have now and
this March demonstrates is that people
from the African Heritage Community are
organizing to assert our own voice
around the very issues that many of us
in this room will be concerned about
austerity is a key issue but for us
austerity is centuries old it's not a
new thing and we've never ever recovered
from that the migrant crisis that we
here talking about why is it many of our
brothers and sisters from our motherland
our continent of Africa are literally
dying to come to Europe it is because of
the ongoing effect of enslavement and
colonialism as they are impacting and
whereby our countries are becoming
unviable and states unviable and that's
having a KnockOn effect in terms of us
here in Europe so for those of us in
London we have to recognize London being
a financial center and capital and also
Al the fact that many of us of African
Heritage are part of this community that
is global that is now relinking again
and asserting ourselves as a people so
some of the key demands that we would
really have is that you first engage
with our autonomous structures that are
actually about building African agency
and autonomy around the political
direction that we see one such emerging
structure is the global African people's
Parliament
we do not Proclaim to represent all
African people but a specific group of
us who are saying that we are actually
need to assert ourselves as a community
that is Seeking a form of uh autonomy
cultural and political autonomy in
Britain we're not talking about uh uh
you know in terms of land because we
connect to our mother land but certainly
in terms of the institutions that we
require in order to repair heal and
restore ourselves and Tackle many of the
maladies and injustices that we're
facing today such as arobic racism and
other forms of
discrimination another key area that I
think would be important uh that we
would have your support on is uh
pledging your cause and pledging support
to the petition and the campaign that we
used as a mobilizing tool for the 1 of
August March and that is to stop the
mangi we charge genocide ecocide
petition what we were doing is we were
saying to the British State uh by way of
the petition that we are uh requesting
of this current government to cease and
desist from their acts in complicity in
actually continuing the mangamy and
mangi is a term that we use it's a key
swah term ter that means African Hela of
chattle colonial and neocolonial HS of
enslavement so the um it's important for
you to support that the third one and
you could sign our petition the third
one is that we are very much interested
in decolonization in Britain and in that
regard we are very much in support of
the emerging nationalist strug struggles
of the Scots and the Irish the Welsh as
well where we can find common cause we
would also ask you to support uh
national mangamia awareness month which
is the month of August and to give
recognition to our first of August uh
emancipation day March uh so those are
the key points that I think as an
African Heritage Community we would be
looking for your support and we would
want to have a dialogue actually about
how best you if you were to become may
could engage in actions uh that would be
repated so we are not really keen on a
museum of the slave trade because that's
not really what we want to show and so
we recognize the initiative however and
we invite you to continue that dialogue
with us around what measures would be
right for our community as well and we
finally we would ask you to support our
campaign to set up an all party
parliamentary Commission of inquiry for
truth and reparatory Justice which would
be a way of also involving the wider
British public in the dialogue on
discourse and information around the
legacies of enslavement and how it's
impacting on African Heritage
communities and all communities in
London thank
you thank you very much Esther I think
uh in a week uh when the Prime Minister
actually described migrants as a swarm
coming into invade Britain I think it
shows that your points are still very
pertinent there's very much there's a
lot still to do when it comes to racial
relations in this country um our next
speaker see I don't think needs any
introduction he's he's our next mayor of
London basically ladies and gentlemen
George Galloway thank
you
Brothers brothers and sisters comrades
and friends thank you uh for that
welcome thank you for coming on this
very warm evening
indoors and thank you haa as a very
powerful and high achieving woman
yourself for assembling this platform of
powerful and high achieving women
uh I feel like a
minority uh in many respects uh on this
platform this evening I was explaining
to my sisters uh on the platform that
when I went to the reparations March uh
on Saturday I felt like a minority uh
just like they feel uh like a minority
most of the political events that they
attend it's good for me to be uh in this
situation I uh I'm
self-evidently not a woman neither am I
black neither African nor Asian though
the voice
newspaper 3 years ago elected me
appointed me as the best black leader in
Britain an Accolade of which I'm
extremely proud I was in fact in uh
Indonesia about to be married when I got
the Google alert uh about that I was
very uh proud of it though it was
probably as much to do uh with people's
attitude to some of the so-called black
leadership that uh I was up against in
the poll about whom one of whom at least
more later
um and I was described in Glasgow by a
Pakistani comrade of mine
thus George is a white man but he's got
a black
heart I think I know what he
meant and the best I can
claim as a
Scottish Catholic of Irish extraction
growing up in Scotland uh I have faced
as that Community has faced to some
extent still
faces bigotry and
discrimination in jobs and in many other
respects but my main reason for the
politics I have that brings me into the
closest possible contact with the
political forces represented here on the
platform is that as someone of Irish
immigrant background I really really
hate
colonialism I really really hate
Empire when I came home and told my
Irish grandfather when I was at school
that the teacher had said that Britain
had an Empire so vast that upon it the
Sun never set he answered that's because
God would never trust the British in the
dark and I never had cause to doubt that
neither then or
since so because I hate
colonialism because I hate
supremacism because I hate the idea that
any person or group of persons can
consider themselves Superior to others
and thus entitled to travel to their
countries kill them and steal their
things that brings me into the closest
possible connection with the people here
gathered in Tottenham this evening of
all colors and
backgrounds and I think that in a
political life now of more than 40 years
I can say without fear or favor that of
all the candidates running for mayor of
London I'm the one that has for
colonialism racism which of course is
the foundation of colonialism more than
any other certainly more
than the likely successful
candidates I mean no disrespect at least
not in this regard to the others who are
running but my opponents are virtually
certain to
be Dame Tessa jel
standing for
labor a
blairite who said that she would throw
herself under a bus for Tony
Blair as as
uh as K Livingston pointed out to me
well we've introduced a lot of new buses
in
London and I have been since Christmas
Eve
1973 a member of the transport and
general workers union now unite and
they've got a lot of members over there
with brand new buses so Tessa are still
time a supporter of War a protier for
War as the labor candidate imagine
imagine and my likely conservative
opponent the richest man ever to run for
political office in the whole history of
this country and that's saying something
Zack
Goldsmith these are my two principal
opponents almost certainly according to
all the pundits all the polls and all
the
bookmakers the latter point being the
most important
one so in a
race a three horse
race between me Dame Tessa and
billionaire
Zach I think my position is a fairly
clear one and people have a fairly clear
choice to make now a lot of people
criticized me and Esther just did from a
different standpoint for the statement I
made on Saturday at WRA Square via
Twitter that I felt there should be a
museum of the slave trade here in London
a lot of white people said why should
people who didn't commit
crimes pay money to people who didn't
suffer them well that's wrong on all
counts of course Esther I'm ready for
dialogue and if there is no
appetite for the museum I had in mind as
a down payment of reparations due of
course I'm ready to look at that
again but here's how the idea came to
me quite
rightly AB absolutely
rightly in many parts of the
world there are museums to the
Holocaust to which all visitors are
taken to which due reverence is paid no
wonder one of the greatest crimes in
human
history in which millions of
people
perished in a
genocidal fash fist exter
policy so why not a museum to the slave
trade which of
course itself arguably is an even bigger
crime certainly one that lasted far
longer and
affected
affected even more
people the
genocide of the
Holocaust of the 1930s and
40s is rightly
elevated to a very high level of public
Consciousness and the museums to the
Holocaust are an important part of
developing that
Consciousness but there is no such
Museum in
Britain to the Holocaust of slavery
and I feel that there should be I feel
that school children from all over
Britain should be brought to London to
visit a museum which tells them that it
isn't true that you didn't
benefit from
slavery the wealth of this
country in Glasgow in Bristol and most
importantly in
London was profoundly
developed because of the slave trade and
you need to know it you need to know all
of us who are not the
children of the slaves need to know that
we did benefit of course my grandparents
didn't benefit as much as David
Camerons but it isn't true that we
didn't benefit
because the national wealth of
Britain is
profoundly
built on a
trade which involved white people going
to countries full of black people and
literally stealing not just their things
but the people themselves chaining them
in the HS of ships sailing them across
the
seas and putting them to work in the
fields as human beasts of
burden and I
saw the
documentaries to which Esther has
referred and I I've got to tell you even
for
me it came as a
shock the
systemization the
Le I have X number of cows I have X
number of sheep I have X number of pigs
and I have X number of
slaves and the depreciation of the
slaves is clearly marked the arithmetic
is
there so and so the slave is been with
me for X years he has no
children he's getting on he's got a bit
of arthritis
therefore we'll mark them
down in terms of
asset to such and such a
price and the point is as Esther said
when this Abomination was abolished the
people who were
compensated were not the slaves but the
slave
owners the slave owners were
compensated for for giving
up an
abominable
satanic
practice of enslaving other human
beings
unashamedly unembarrassed
well I'm ashamed even though I was not
there and had no slaves I'm ashamed and
I believe our country has to make
reparation not to the slave owners in
fact let's take it back from the slave
owners and give it to the children of
the slaves of course how this reparation
is arranged to whom it is paid what is
the Quantum are all
matters Way Beyond the powers of the
mayor of
London but one of the most important
powers of the mayor of London especially
mean is that it is a
Pulpit it is a Pulpit to send messages
to London to Britain and to the world
and I believe that that's a message that
needs to be
sent
zeta's powerful
description of what Britain is today
like is a applicable of course as she
herself said to all
communities my friends are here from
Bradford I until you take a walk on the
Mean Streets of Bradford where
unemployment is 50% where unemployment
amongst young
people is the absolute
Norm where chicken and chips is $199
plus a can of
Coke where the only
economy in many of the
worlds is not an economy we would like
to highlight or
illuminate but it's the
same in Clyde
Bank where all the people are
white it's the same on the Walworth Road
I don't know if you saw the evening
standard yesterday about the 10 worst
places to live in Britain nine of them
are in
London one of the reasons Esther why I
can't go with you down the path of
Scottish
nationalism if you'll forgive
me is the idea that Scotland needs to be
free of London like London streets were
paved with gold like we were all Zach
goldsmiths actually there are are more
poor people within a 5 m radius of the
houses of
Parliament than there are in the Hall of
Scotland and in the Hall of Wales and in
the whole of the north of Ireland all
put
together it is a
liive that
londoners are
somehow living at
large was people in other parts of this
country are suffering as a result we are
all suffering nine out of 10 of the
worst places to live in Britain our
London
Brothers including this
one
so my message
is we need a London for all not just
those dripping in
Gold there are
some numerically there are many
as a proportion there are some londoners
living well but most
londoners are finding the cost of
housing of transport of living here in
London an increasingly crushing
burden so much
so that the workers are leaving the
city I meet them all the
time working workers East Enders cocky
real londoners whose families have been
here for hundreds of years and who now
come in here to visit to walk around the
London that they and their families
lived in because they can no longer
afford to live here and how could they
with the ey watering rats and house
prices that exist here
and for a variety of reasons many of
them
illicit
elicit one of the reasons why house
prices are as they are is because
hundreds of thousands of houses have
been built in London not to be lived in
but to be safety deposit
boxes for criminal
money dirty money money of which we are
the Dirty Money capital of the world
even Cameron and Johnson have now
acknowledged it though when I first
alleged it they said it wasn't
true but it is
true houses are bought off the Page by
people in
Kazakhstan people in Singapore in
Malaysia in China in Russia and many
other places money that they have
literally stolen from their own
countries they can't keep it in cash
under the bed cuz the police might find
it the price might expose it so what's
the best thing to do Buy in
London and that's why one of my most
important pledges is this if I'm the
mayor any house in London un lived in
for more than one year without
justifiable reason will be compulsorily
purchased by me as the mayor of London
and will be L to other
[Applause]
people social hous did you see the
diagram again in the evening stand of
this week of the building plan around B
SE power
station they were
obliged
to make some of the houses that they're
building there Malaysian company by the
way they were obliged to include some
affordable housing
though what I've seen of the rents I'm
not sure to whom they would be
affordable but in any case if you look
at the plan I mean talk about about
being on the wrong side of the
tracks there's the power
station there's all the lovely
facilities there's all the lovely
unaffordable
houses and like a kind of shanty town
attached at the very back are the tiny
7% proportion of soal affordable
houses this under a mayor who promised
that
25% of all housing developments in
London would be affordable
houses it's 7% at the batter SE site
it's 0% in many other
sites well if I'm the
mayor 50% one half of all new build in
London will be affordable houses and
affordable housing will be defined not
not as
80% of average rents but as 50% of
average rents and that's just two of the
ways that I intend to deal with London's
housing crisis um it's not just my
friends who are being told they're out
of time it's even
me so I'm going to just deal with one
other issue and in Q&A perhaps we'll
develop
more I want to deal with the question
which is of course
important here in
Tottenham even more than it is
elsewhere I don't know if the police
have anyone in the
room I see that they're outside and I'm
grateful for it and what I'm about to
say does not
mean that I have any animous at all
towards the Metropolitan Police I got to
tell you that in 35 years in London my
experiences with the Metropolitan Police
have been with one exception absolutely
first class the one exception being when
a senior commander in the anti-terrorism
squad slept in my bed whilst I was out
of the country without my knowledge or
permission but that's another
matter he was in the bed with someone
but not someone in my
family but his DNA is
there but my
experience of the Metropolitan Police
has
been a good one but then I'm
wiped with blue eyes and for most of the
35 years I've been relatively well known
and for almost 30 years of it I've been
a member of parliament so if my
experience with them is not good what
would the rest of it what would everyone
else's experience be but my point is I
come at this not with any sense of
animals because we need the
police if we had a pro the reason
they're here tonight is because some
people threaten us with a problem if we
have a problem we need
them if our houses God forbid are broken
into tonight we'll need to call them
there's nobody else to
call I have no hatred at all for the
Metropolitan
Police if I'm the mayor I'll be in
charge of the Metropolitan Police they
will find
me in terms of their
resources in terms of
their ability to do their
job a
friend but I cannot tolerate
racism I'm for the police but I'm
Against
Racism and the racism that still exists
in the metropolitan police and indeed we
discover from a survey this
week even the Dorset
police in Dorset there are
2,200 black
people but those 2,200 black people are
17 times more likely to have been
stopped and
searched in the last 12 months inors
it so if you're black indors it you
might as well step out on the street
with your hands
up you might as well
say before I go any further do you want
to stop and search me indors
it
now we cannot have
this we cannot
have discriminatory policing
we have to police everybody the
same whatever color their skin is
whatever color their color
is because you
see the biggest criminals in London are
white people with white colors they're
called
Bankers they're called
Bankers
they if you want a charge sheet
well this
one is not just as long as your arm it's
as long as the square mile
itself one guy went to prison this week
but he was just a
Trader where us to
believe that this one guy decided
himself to fix the lior rate
illegally for his own profit and for the
profit of the bank
but nobody
knew those above him didn't
know they didn't
realize that their profits were booming
because their staff were
rigging a
market well I don't believe
that and we can have a situation where
the banks are too big to fail and the
bankers are too big to
jail I want to see
the heads of these Banks doing the per
walk I want to see them in
handcuffs because
until they do the P walk until they're
in the
handcuffs why would they
stop one
person since
2008 has gone to jail and that was this
week now as I put it of the city of
London
Police if you pick somebody's pocket in
Liverpool Street Station you'll be
picked up pretty damn quick and you'll
be behind bars but if you steal Millions
tens of
millions from the public cuz if the
banks are too big to fail all the theft
is from the public because the public
have to bail out the bank that's been
destroyed by the thieves yes
then your chances of going to jail were
until this week zero and are now
precisely one
so we can't have policing different in
the W Warth Road on Seven Sisters Road
and in thread needle
Street we can't have response times in
Hamstead through which I've just driven
a very beautiful it is two we can't have
different response times there than we
have in
totam because that's
discrimination and if it happens I want
to know from the commissioner who may or
may not still be Mr Hogan
how whoever he or she is they'll have to
answer to
me
about racist policing about incompetent
policing
about discriminatory
policing as I said they can count on me
when it comes to numbers when it comes
to
resources although I'm going to rent out
those water cannon that Boris Johnson
bought and I'm going to allow those that
rent them out to hunt Boris Johnson up
and down the streets of uh of
Mayfair and see if they can find him and
try and wash his uh mouth out I should
stop now because the person who's really
in charge is indicating ferociously that
I've spoken for too long I'm really
grateful that you all came I'm grateful
to my friends for sharing this platform
and I'm ready to answer any question
that you have thank you
[Applause]
very thank you very much George um
before I hand over to the floor uh these
are a couple of questions that were sent
to us so from viewers no doubt um so
this is a good one in light of recent
events there was a tube strike due to
Boris Johnson uh plan for 24-Hour tubes
how do you plan to deal with this well
as I said I've been a trade unionist
since Christmas Eve of 1973 that's a
long time ago I am a part of the Trade
union
movement I know the trade unions in a
way that Boris Johnson nor Zack
Goldsmith more frankly Dame Tess ever
could and I'll be a better person in
negotiating with them than any of the
others that's not to say everything the
trade unions ask for they'll get how
could that be because the mayor has to
represent everybody not just the
producers but the
consumers but the crime of Johnson whose
mayorship is petering out
in a rather pathetic
disarray is that he made the
announcement about the nighttime TR
without any consultation with the people
who have to work it now any fool knoweth
that that's asking for trouble it's
asking for trouble with any Workforce
let alone one that thank God is one of
the last trade unionized organized
workforces in the country
which leads me to believe that he did it
deliberately that he wanted to pick a
fight with the uh trade
unions because by now he thought he'd be
the leader of the
opposition the one person even more
unhappy than Ed Miland about the result
of the general election in May was Boris
Johnson who did all of this in order to
be back in Parliament and in po position
to be the leader of the conservative
party I'm glad to say all that's in
disarray now so I'm in favor of the
night so is the
rmt so is
a I wonder if they know even what these
initials
mean but there has to be negotiated
everything has to be negotiated and for
many changes in London for example no
trucks or heavy Vehicles will be allowed
in
London during the night uh during the
day if I'm the mayor they'll all have to
work and deliver during the night but
that has to be
negotiated because our air pollution our
road traffic accidents our
congestion and the number of cyclists
who are being killed and maed is such
that we can't have trucks and heavy
vehicles in London during the day
that's my policy but I recognize that I
will have to negotiate it with those who
have a stake in that as indeed the
companies who employ the workers who are
currently driving during the day will
have to negotiate with their staff about
it everything has to be consulted and
negotiated and I've been Consulting and
negotiating all of my
life and now if anyone a has a question
please be my guest please stand up and
and give it
a ask
mayor as
May prime minister
conserv thank you well I'll fight the
conservative prime
minister uh I'll fight
him as much as I can with the powers of
the maril
and I'll fight him with the power that
God gave me in my
voice and I think of all the candidates
that will be running for this office I
have the most powerful voice I have the
clearest uh intentions and I have the
clearest alternative program and if and
as we're in a
Church Catholic Church at that I pray
that Jeremy Corbin is elected as the
labor
leader I'll work with
him he on one side of the river and me
on the other side of the river we will
try to organize people into Mass
opposition to the crimes of the
conservative prime minister and
Chancellor one of which was committed
again this very week1 billion of public
money was stolen from us this week by
George Osborne for the benefit of the
hedge funds and the Tory donors in the
city selling our shares in the Royal
Bank of Scotland at a
loss if if the mayor of this bur did
that he'd be in
jail if any one of us did that with our
employer resources we'd be in jail
Osborne did it brazenly it's a crime
it's the theft of 1 billion 1.1 billion
of course he did take
advice from rth
child they were his
advisers well Zach is married to one of
the Rothchilds he could have given him
the advice for nothing but why get it
for nothing if you can pay big public
money for it Rothchild was paid to
advise the chancellor now's a good time
to lose 1.1 B million pounds of public
money of course there were other
advisers not just Roth Jones Goldman
Sachs also got paid for giving the same
advice these people are
criminals and if I'm the
mayor I'll use every breath that God
gives me to persuade londoners in their
millions of that
fact and if Jeremy is the leader of the
opposition
I think we'll have quite a concert party
don't
you the question I
like are
[Music]
you the mayor candidate that is pledging
support to the African Comm course of
reparations we take it that that is your
position you and the second uh Point
relating to some of the things you said
is also you will take it by your
position is going to be one of
dialogue with our communities on each
and every issue this is
critical because in relation to the the
issue about the museum it's not that you
know we are saying that a museum may not
be useful to us but the point about it
is that our communities don't want a
situation where people outside are
deciding for us what is good for us and
therefore it has to be a matter of
consultation and this for me also
relates to the issue of Scottish
independence that the right of every
people to selfdetermination has to be
respected and it's love how many poor
people are in London and how many poor
Scotland is about the fact that every
people must have the right to to
selfdetermination
including the right to be independent
and if that were to happen from the
perspective of our African Heritage
communities then the power of the
British Empire that we still feel will
will will begin to be divided and that
that is a critical point for us so so in
all of this it has to be recognized that
every people have their positions and we
should work through
consensus by dialogue is that your
position well the Scottish people
already have the right of
self-determination unlike the people of
the north of Ireland unlike the people
of Palestine unlike many other colonized
people the Scottish people have the
right of self-determination indeed just
last September they exercised it the
right of self-determination is the right
to decide whether to be an independent
state or whether to continue with other
nations in a multinational State and
that's what the Scottish people decided
that's
self-determination now I happen to agree
with the decision that they made last
September but they made it clearly
whether I agree with it or not and with
respect brother whether you agree with
it or not I can't speak for your people
you can't speak for mine mine already
spoke they already voted and they voted
no and I think they were right to do so
precisely because there are more poor
people in London than there are in
Scotland that it is a lie that the
reason for poverty in Scotland is
because of the people of England that's
just a
lie and I'm therefore glad that they
rejected that lie you're not in first
place to me on hatred of the British
Empire I hope I made that clear in quite
a long opening
address but I don't believe that the
role of Empire will be weakened by 5
million Scots leaving the British state
in fact far from being a colony Scotland
was a
colonizer as anyone from the Empire
knows the
Kil the bad pipes and the Scott flag
swirled over every killing field that
the British Empire was ever involved in
in fact Scotland founded colonies before
England
did ala was
colonized by Scotland 100 years before
the British State even came into
existence so I hate colonies I hate
Empire whether Scotland England America
Britain or any other power is the
colonizing
power and so in answer to your first
question as I said in my opening address
I want
dialogue and I'm ready to negotiate this
or any other
matter with the communities
affected but I must tell you that the
principle reason for the museum on
slavery is not for
you it's for people like me it's people
who look like me black people don't need
to know about slavery they were the
victims of it it's white people that
need to make school trips to a m Museum
on slavery because listen I'm a radio
host for seven years I had a talk show
on Friday and Saturday nights on talk
sport some of you will have listened and
between you and me next week I'm about
to start as a radio talk show host
again I've got to tell you n out of 10
white callers on this subject and I've
been raising on the radio for a decade n
out of 10 10 white colors are against my
policy of reparation which is a support
to your policy of
reparation Esther was on my television
show she educated me about the need for
reparation and how it could take
shape and that's my policy whether 100%
of all white people are against it or
not as Martin Luther King said some
people support things because they're
popular some people support things
because they're profitable I I support
things because they're right whether
they're popular or profitable and I
support reparations because it's right
and I'll defend it with my voice with my
pen with my heart anyway and I will be
doing it again from next week on the
radio but don't imagine that it's a
popular
policy it's a very unpopular policy I'm
pledging myself to here one of the
things one of the gifts that God gave me
is the
ability
consistently to make things that were
unpopular
popular when I started in
1975 popularizing the Palestinian cause
in Britain you could have fitted all the
supporters of the PLO in this room just
before we got
arrested but now we are millions and I
played a part in that
I'm quite good at persuading people and
whether I persuade them or not there's
the flag there's one of the one of the
Milli whether whether I persuade them or
not it won't stop me from saying what I
believe to be right and I hope to do it
as the mayor I'll tell you
frankly if I'm the mayor both of the
these women will be in important
positions in London because we need to
hear from them and they need to educate
us as both of them in their own way for
me already
[Applause]
have George um I'm also um Catholic of
virs descent um and I'm from tot Bor and
bra and I just completely overwhelmed
and so proud of the work you do for the
Palestinian um
[Applause]
calls do you think becoming may can Aid
the cause or would it give you anything
any more leeway to do anything think
about the pl of the
Palestinians well thank you uh first of
all for uh what you said um I'm not
running for mayor
for the Palestinians I've spent 40 years
uh in that cause uh I I've done my bit
and I'll continue to do my bit but the
the mayor of London is not the foreign
secretary it's not the pop he's not the
Prime Minister he's the mayor of London
and there are very clear limits to their
uh powers to the powers of the maral so
I will not be
uh trying to make London an Israel free
zone I will not I will not try to make
London and Israel free
zone but I will use the pull pit that I
have as the mayor to speak up for
justice in London in Britain and
everywhere in the world and of course
the Palestinian cause is a part uh of
that but everyone will be welcome in
London except
criminals and the uh communities all the
communities in London uh have an equal
and valid right to be respected and to
be represented uh by the mayor and
that's what I'll try to do cool thank
[Applause]
you I just like to know throughout the
80s um many will remember that there was
always always a protest outside South
Africa sometimes there 100 people
sometimes there five people uh but what
it indicated basically is that London
and its all diversity actually made uh A
Part South Africa feel unwelcome and I
think that even if George doesn't will
not make London an Israel free zone I
think londoners who are rejecting
Israeli policies will probably probably
make that felt um uh anyone else please
s you
oh
um stop in terms of stop and search it
seems like a lot of police don't seem to
understand the difference between what
is legal and lawful in in in terms of
stuff resarch so maybe um you can get to
a point where you where they can start
to be educated in terms of what that is
because they seem to be taking a lot of
Liberties through their ignorance and
also that point of um police by consent
maybe someone can Define that term of
what it really means yeah well the the
reality is that almost everybody who is
stopped in searge finds it an extremely
negative
experience and that alienates them from
the police which is precisely the
opposite of what a police force in a
democratic country needs to have
happening in a democratic country the
people need to feel that the police are
for them not an occupation force on them
and every time there is a stop and
search there is a further deepening
alienation and when it's abundantly
obvious that discrimination is at play
that someone like
me is 17 times less likely to be stopped
in search than someone who looks like
the brother there or other brothers and
sisters here that's a recipe for trouble
and I can't believe that the
commissioner doesn't know that but if he
does doesn't know it you'll know it
pretty quickly if I'm the M we have more
slavery in the world now we've ever had
plan
one you know they areed and yet they are
the Bigg
slavery from the
this on the issue of the katar royal
family uh they own far more even sir
than you Adam Bri oh they own The Shard
they own the Camden lock Market imagine
though I don't imagine many of them
would ever go
there uh they own 18% of London and
uh they twoo are welcome their
investment in London is welcome I can't
tell anybody that they can't come to
London and buy assets but I can insist
that those assets are productive and
that they are for the purposes as stated
so that for example
if the houses that are to be built on
the Chelsea barracks
are being bought not to be lived in but
merely to appreciate well the same will
go for them I see someone's filming this
maybe they're from the C royal family
let me let me choose my words
carefully if you're buying multi-million
pound Assets in London and you're not
living in them you're merely buying them
so that the asset will appreciate I will
compulsorily purchase you whether it's
number one nights Bridge or whether it's
the Chelsea Barracks or whether it's the
batter sea power station I'll use our
powers to compulsorily purchase your
property uh if you do not live in
it the katar royal
family is
responsible for slave labor in the
construction of World Cup facilities
the only mitigating thing I'd
say is that they are employing less
slave
labor than some of their
neighbors theq royal family is a
dictatorship the only thing I can see in
mitigation is it's less of a
dictatorship than some of its
neighbors I'm against all Kings all
emirs all dictators in all countries
[Music]
I'm right the may as if I know say
yeah and to them getting
jied well uh um first of all I'm very
happy to hear a fellow Scottish uh
accent uh which I could probably place
down to the exact street on the south
side of
Glasgow I'm joking I'm
joking um I've been way too long to but
I want I want good
um the last speech I gave in Parliament
as a member of parliament I was a member
for almost 28 years elected six times
the last speech I gave in fact I gave 12
speeches in the same night 12
interventions was on the subject of the
disposal of Transport for London
property at Earl's Court where social
housing was being destroyed in order to
allow tfl to sell valuable public land
for private
development and it's already now
underway and I'm only too aware that in
Tottenham and in many other parts uh of
of London this valuable public land
which could and should be used for
social housing never mind affordable
rents I'm in favor of affordable rents
but I'm more in favor of social Housing
Council housing what's wrong with
Council
housing the London B should be freed to
borrow money to build houses for the
people that desperately need them here
that'll put building workers to work
will provide roofs for people families
who need them and keep communities that
are here here and not driven ever
further uh to the edge
so I don't have
power to force the government to relax
the
rules on the borrowers about their
ability to borrow and build but I will
endlessly prosze I will endlessly I'll
make the government ministers lives a
misery until that social housing is
being built in London and workingclass
people are being moved back into the
city instead of out of the city you know
that 30,000 families in London have been
shipped out as far as Stoke by London
bars who can't afford to home to house
them and have given the money to go and
live in Stoke I mean have you seen
stoke
the the ethnic cleansing or social
cleansing of London is underway
and we have to reverse it now I lived in
a slum when I was born with an outside
toilet the seat was always warm we
shared it with five other families I
lived in an attic in fact and when I was
5 years
old the utterly transformative act took
place the our slum was knocked down and
a brand spanking new Council house with
an inside toilet and a bath and a Garden
was provided to us it was utterly
lifechanging not just for us but for a
whole generation of hundreds of
thousands of people were involved in the
postwar slum clearance and Council house
building in Britain what's wrong with
that why would we not want to do
that even under the touris under H
McMillan Britain was building 300,000
count houses a
year do you know how many Council houses
were built in London last year in the
whole of London a city of 8 million
people 70
70
70 that's that's enough for us here in
this room in the Hall of London in the
Hall of last year that's the real
Scandal I was almost imprisoned in dumi
in
1980 for refusing to allow our Council
in dande to sell Council houses they
sent three High Court judges to hold an
inquiry on pain of imprisonment of me as
the labor organizer in the city
forbidding our counselors to sell our
houses and I said then
what 35 years later everyone surely must
AC said that these Council houses are
public property you
cannot cut a price in half and sell it
to an individual who happens to be the
tenant at this particular time
particularly when you're not going to
allow the council even to use the money
to build new Council houses to replace
the stock that you're selling off the
Tories under thater committed many
crimes but one of the most
significant was the sale of council
houses it has led to the mass problem of
overcrowding of homelessness of private
rack renting many of whom are MPS by the
way 25% of Tor MPS are private landlords
no wonder there's so much in favor of
the private rented sector yes we are
spending 20
times the the money on the public
subsidy of private
landlords through housing benefit than
we are on building social houses 20
times in London 20 times more we give to
private landlords than we do on building
social housing that's what needs to
change now the mayor can change that all
of that even any of that on his own or
her
own but as I hope you're already getting
the
message I'm quite a good campaigner I'm
quite a strong voice and me and Jeremy
Corbin my goodness we'll have them
shaking in their
shoes and that um
justly I was born
in I was born
in
and since then just after 2010 I've seen
social and you know
what nurseries areas it's like a two
tier system open in the capital and the
rich are getting richer and the poor
getting poor and it's only a matter of
time before no more Working Class People
are going to be L and working inside of
London and we need to GP that back and
get it back and get it working again
London is for
everybody apologize it's the lady before
you as well just wanted to ask I
missed what is your
strategy mention
AAL we
have people education
train do you have a
particular
forur um and then the last question for
the
gentleman um
housing is going to be probably your
biggest issue yeah and it's continually
arising and it's what the guy was saying
about the cleansing what you're saying
about cleansing
um L is like it's one private private
sector
rent there's nothing
else
and social housing is the solution to
bringing back some kind of legality
here uh we need Council houses or some
kind of low rent social healthy uh we
also need some kind of uh some kind of
project uh that you have to tell us
exactly how you going to build those
houses what exactly are you going to do
to create some kind of council housing
low cost rental project I mean how's it
going how you going to achieve it
okay and this is this is to me for me
you have any chance of making a against
the OD which up up every
um
hoping housing issue and if you don't
come up to a ro solid housing proposal
which you say I'm going to be mayor and
this is what I'm going to
do and I and this is going to be my
primary
uh it's got to be some kind it has to be
some it's got to be in stone basically
well yeah it won't be in a headstone
like Ed millan's uh headone something
like that uh but uh I I appreciate what
you said and the Spirit uh in which you
offer it unfortunately the mayor can't
build
houses that power lies with the
BS incidentally I think there's far too
many burs but that's another matter I'm
not sure we need 32 burs I'm not sure we
need 32 Chief Executives not sure we
need 32 Council headquarters but that's
another matter the mayor has the
power to compulsory
purchase the mayor has the power to
Grant planning
permission all I can do is say to
developers and I'm saying it now on
camera don't bother coming to me for
planning
permission unless 50% of your homes are
affordable homes you will not be given
permission now they say the rightwing
say Zach Goldsmith says well the
developers will simply not build I don't
believe that but if that's the case that
will merely make stronger
my case your case that actually social
housing is what's necessary not private
development even with 50% affordable
homes uh within them all I can do is
find allies in the Bas on the opposition
benches in the media and amongst the
public to build an Unstoppable case for
social housing which is
underway even Jeremy Corbin's right-wing
opposition are now saying we need social
housing BS need to be given the power to
borrow to build social housing well
they'll need to say it a bit
louder and they'll need to do something
about it but that's what is necessary
that's the only solution because what
the friend from uh Tyrone pointed out
very better than I could have expressed
I'm not going to repeat it it is what I
said earlier but he said it more
succinctly that workingclass people
black and white young and old are being
driven out of
London by the scale of house prices and
rents and that equates to Social and
ethnic
cleansing and the
gentrification even of to
imagine sorry no disrespect
yeah the
gentrification of one part of London
after
another is
actually even robbing those parts of the
reason why people moved into them in the
first place my friend there with the
sling car from Bo used to be a regular
color on talk sport when I had a show
there was a comrade of mine when I was
the MP there she's one of the main
campaigners in London for social housing
against the transfer of social housing
to these so-called arms length
management organizations the Almos and
the privatization of public housing uh
stock she's from Tower hamlets she'll
tell you the reason people wanted to
live in and around Brick
Lane in and around Beth green was
because of the character of bricklane
and Beth green but the more you gentrify
it the less of that character it has
until eventually the only people living
there are the
Gentry living amongst each
other and living in what is
effectively a Living Museum and that's
happened already in Brooklyn and it's
happening in many other parts of London
so we have to stop it the mayor has
planning Powers strategic planning
powers and I'll use them and I'll use
the pullit that the mayor would give me
to try to build the Coalition that is
necessary to ensure either that this
government or the next one which I hope
will be led by Jeremy Corbin will
unleash a wave of social house building
at least as good as the Tory prime
minister how MC used to be I mean how
revolutionary can you get my aspiration
is to build as many Council houses as
Harold McMillan used to build how's that
for shrunken
ambition it's now the most revolutionary
demand that you can uh
make the first of the three questions
was I've now
forgotten you youth so the youth
services are being decimated in in
London and that's before the current
round of cuts make their way through the
local Authority system that's just on
the cuts already being implemented I
don't know the situation here in this
bar but I know it in other parts of the
country and I know it in East London
very
well I'm going to argue that we need to
restore the EMA that Zeta talked about
the mayor doesn't have power to restore
it but the mayor plus the barus plus the
universities universities have big funds
for ensuring
plurality uh ethnic and class plurality
well the best way to ensure ethnic and
class plurality coming through into the
universities is to make sure that kids
are able to stay on a school in order to
go to the university and education
maintenance allowance is a key part of
that on that I think I'll have some
success I'll encourage the
BS not to come I mean it's so
self-evidently
counterproductive to in a
recession in periods of Economic
retrenchment and
austerity to be turning more and more
young people out on the street where the
devil can find work for their Idle Hands
it's not
even simple policing and economic
sense a stitch in time saves nine the
absence of that Stitch is going to be
far more
expensive than the Stitch itself would
have
been or you don't need to be Einstein to
work out that if young people have no
proper jobs no proper
Services no youth facilities knowwhere
to go then trouble can be the
only logical result so Youth Services is
the last thing you should be
cutting there is one thing I can do that
might be able to provide substantial
resources it's a bit late in the evening
to go into it in detail now but let me
sketch it
quickly I'm going to put the 17 billion
a year mayor's budget onto something
called the
blockchain which is the mayor's
blockchain you can go uh onto the web
and check it
out what that means essentially is that
that 17 billion will be available in
real time to anyone who wishes to
observe
it that's is to say if I take Zeta and
Esther which I want out three times a
week for a Chinese
Takeaway to thank them for the advice
that they're giving me you'll know about
it just as soon as my card has cleared
in the Chinese
Takeaway and you'll be able to say in
real time that's the third time this
week you've taken that a Chinese takeway
is it not about Time youed Restaurant
not about TR to somewhere
better but serious L that
system will
be transparent to you on much more
important things than Chinese Takeaway
bills you'll be able to see who I'm
spending millions of pounds with and
you'll be able to say why are you
spending that millions of pounds with
them you'd get far better value for
money with them I'm suspicious of that
transaction why did you make it we'll
have an entire unit responding to the
public daily hourly in fact I think it's
I think it's refreshed every three
minutes three
minutes you'll be able to transparently
observe exactly how that 17 billion
budget is spent and it's our estimation
based on excellent young people in the
financial technology sector which we
have uh around in sh ditch and elsewhere
in London
who are developing this for
me we think we'll
save almost 1 billion pounds a year from
that blockchain technology through
public scrutiny and suggestion at least
900 million we think we will save and
we'll put that 900 million to use
principally for services towards young
people that's it thank you very much