Them & Us

'Them and us' fishes, image by Suzanne Beishon

‘Them and us’ fishes, image by Suzanne Beishon   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

£500k house party…

New Year’s Eve for the exclusive ‘Chipping Norton set’ cost half a million quid.

Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of news emperor Rupert, hosted this year’s blowout. Her elite Cotswolds community includes axed axeman David Cameron, gutter-press queen Rebekah Brooks and playground bully Jeremy Clarkson.

Murdoch’s “theatrical set” house party “with revolving floors” apparently set her back £500,000, according to an Evening Standard diary piece. There were “cocktails on tap and roving graffiti artists spray-painting the toilets mid-party with guests’ names.”


… 50p for rent

Meanwhile, in Grimsby, 42 struggling families now have no more than 50p a week for rent.

The Tories’ new benefit cap came into force on 7 November, causing the dramatic fall in some claimants’ housing benefit. Never mind cocktails on tap – you can’t even get a space in a homeless hostel for 50p a week.

116,000 households with between one and four kids could suffer from the cap, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing.

And in London, 170,000 people are homeless. 47% of them are working, says housing charity Shelter. Some are even reduced to sleeping in a warehouse, dozens sharing a single toilet.

The Socialist has long campaigned for a national programme of council house building. Cap rents, not benefits.