Rolling out the red carpet for squatters

THE FRIDAY THING:

WE all face a new threat when we venture forth into the great outdoors.

There is not only the risk of being run down by a dumper truck or tractor in Oldham town centre or being mugged or cornered for a couple of hours by a charity collector.

Now when you nip to Asda, Tesco or the off-licence you might get back home to find the locks on the doors have all been changed and there is a family from foreign parts, or even worse, Liverpool, parked round your kitchen table enjoying a brew or tucked under your duvet and enjoying all the delights of their new-found home.

And don’t think the police, the press, the Army or even the law can help you any time soon. Judge Fiona Henderson recently said that squatters should be encouraged as they bring empty homes back into use.

Clearly Fiona and her judgely colleague, Cherie Blair — who recently freed a major drug dealer — both have promising careers in the European Court of Human Rights where such madness is not only witnessed on a daily basis but actively encouraged, especially if it can make life easier for the villains and ruffians and tougher for the law-abiding folk... particularly if they are unfortunate enough to be British.

And (this must be true because you simply could not make it up) there exists the Advisory Service for Squatters which actually hands out advice to would-be squatters on where there are homes deemed suitable for would-be squatters to occupy.

Oh, and I jest not, the advisory service also publishes an 83-page Squatters Handbook which includes information on how to disable any lock so that you could presumably take over the house or, if you had a mind to and didn’t much like the colour of the curtains, just steal the telly and the computer for when you find a house that has curtains you could live with.

So is anybody doing anything to stop us all becoming victims of the squatters? Well, Housing Minister Grant Shapps says that he is consulting on whether to make squatting a criminal offence!

Where do they get these people from? He should consult the victims of squatters (though I advise him to wear an armoured vest and a tin hat if he does so) and ask them if squatting is a criminal offence.

What, I wonder, would Mr Shapps think if his constituency home was squatted? The irony of squatters taking over Mr Shapps’ constituency home is so delicious I might do it myself.

Our best hope is that Mr Shapps will be one of the 50 MPs set to lose their jobs following the latest review of constituency boundaries. It does not sound as though he, like many others, will be much missed.



I MAKE no excuses for my admiration of Jim McMahon, the leader of Oldham Council, and can only hope that my support does not represent the kiss of death on a highly-promising political career.

Jim’s revelations on the work of the new administration, aided and abetted of course by Charlie Parker and his behind-the-scenes team, suggest that Oldham has enjoyed a significant number of benefits — 50 according to Jim — in the 100 days since he and his Labour group took control of the council, thanks to the surely never dubious will of the electorate. It has been an intensely busy 100 days and while some of the success claims have to be seen as something of a stretch until we learn quite how they turn out in the longer term, it is a record of which, thus far, Jim and his team can feel justifiably proud.

But what of the electorate? This is Oldham so there are dissenters on several fronts, not least yet another rescue act for Oldham Athletic and the failure to reduce the number of councillors to 40 from 60.

The 10 per cent reduction in councillors’ allowances (more popular outside the chamber than within) is viewed by some as a compromise that was watered-down to prevent a wholesale revolt on the benches. The council benches are not immune from being revolting.

Indeed, many of Jim’s claims of success are work in progress and just as those of us who have supported Metrolink all along hope that its virtue is the numbers of people it brings into Oldham rather than the number of Oldhamers it transports to do business elsewhere, there are many hopes and commitments in the 50-strong list that still have a long path to follow before proving their worth or otherwise.

But Jim and his team, along with the backroom council staff, have proved that they have a vision for Oldham that is not just pages in a fancy brochure or images in a slick presentation on a screen.

That has not always been the case and who would deny the improvements that will follow for the borough if the 50 items on Jim’s wish list deliver the dividend for his co-operative approach to local government.



FINAL WORD: The latest advice to come our way in blizzards from the do-gooders is that women who enjoy a drink or two every day will live healthy lives until they are in their seventies.

Observers of Yorkshire Street on a Friday and Saturday night might think that if alcohol holds the secret to a healthy long life today’s young women will live well into their hundreds unless of course they die of cold from not wearing enough clothes and covering that which should be covered as much in the interests of modesty as longevity.