Acid Rabbi welcomes Grant Shapps

Deciding to have a rare look at our e-mail inbox (acidrabbi@yahoo.co.uk, if you were wondering where to send the offers of money/first-born/death threats) reveals that we have our first Parliamentary follower on Twitter: Grant Shapps (pictured right), Conservative representative for Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire. Mr. Shapps, we would like to add, evidently thinks that the 20 or so miles between his constituency and London is a sufficiently short distance for him to travel to work, and as such he doesn't have a second home even though he'd be entitled to one under Parliamentary rules.

Anyone who has read this blog in any depth will be well aware that we are no fans of the Tories (nor any other party, for that matter) but a quick look at what Wikipedia has to say about the man reveals his efforts to help Britain's homeless - he even went so far as to sleep rough on Christmas Eve 2007 to highlight the fact that there are 130,000 homeless children in England. With that in mind, we are pleased to welcome him whatever his political persuasion.

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Ann and Alan Keen may lose home

Ann and Alan Keen, the married couple who are both Labour MPs, may lose their Brentford house following demands from Hounslow Council that they explain why it is unoccupied.

Ann Keen, MP for Brentford and Isleworth.

The Brentford property, according to the council, has boarded-up windows and paint splashed over the inside of the upstairs windows. Certainly sounds uninhabited to me - and a source from the council says it's been that way for seven months, according to the BBC, who also say that the couple have thus far declined to comment. Either that or they're using it as a crack den.

Alan Keen, MP for Feltham and Heston.

Interestingly, this is the house the couple have declared to be their main residence, which entitles them to claim expenses to cover the costs of maintaining another property that they have designated as their official second home, closer to Parliament. The Keens were amongst the first people to be named in the controversy surrounding the expenses scandal due to the fact that their main residence is just ten miles from the Commons, yet as it falls outside of the area deemed by Parliament to be close enough to Westminster to make a second home unecessary, they are nevertheless entitled to claim for its upkeep; this being used to demonstrate that even those MPs who have not broken the rules may still not have acted morally. If they are shown to indeed not be spending any time at the Brentford house, this could well be one of the most blatant examples of expenses abuse so far.

Darren, keen on getting a roof over his head before the winter.

The council says that it has written to them and explained that urgent action is required in explaining their circumstances, but it is believed that they have not yet responded. If they continue not to do so, the property may become subject to the Empty Dwelling Management Order law, by which it can be repossessed and put to a better use.

How many homeless people do you think are going to be sleeping on London's streets tonight? It seems obvious that the Keens don't care, or they wouldn't let a house go to waste.

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£400k house demolished

A £400,000 house in North Yorkshire is being demolished after it was built without planning permission. The property - built by Peter Howell but later owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland following the liquidation of Mr. Howell's business - was deemed not in keeping with the character of Ingleby Arncliffe and has been subject to a demolition order since 2005.

Outline planning permission - which gives the go ahead for land to be developed - was granted to the site in 2004, but Mr. Howell began construction without detailed permission, which governs what type of building can be erected. The five-bedroomed building was found unsatisfactory due to its being "dominant and visually intrusive by virtue of its height, bulk and colour."

A homeless person sleeping in Covent Garden, London. Five people could have been given safe, warm beds in the house currently being demolished. Copyright-free image from Wikipedia.

You can see a video of it being demolished on the Yorkshire Post website. Have a little laugh at a rich man who thought the rules we all have to live by didn't apply to him - but while you're cackling away, think to yourself what an absolute f*cking waste this is. At least 75,000 young people were homeless in the United Kingdom in 2006-7. Add all those people who don't fall into the same age category and all the "invisible homeless" - those who are sleeping on friend's floors and those others who fall into one of the various different designations that the Government uses in order to pretend the problem is smaller than it is - and the figure must be well into the hundreds of thousands.

Five human lives could have been vastly improved had five homeless people been allowed to make use of Mr. Howell's house while they got themselves back on track. Once again: what an absolute f*cking waste.

Donate to Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.