GET INVOLVED. GET INVOLVED! DON'T PAY UK:

GET INVOLVED. GET INVOLVED!

DON'T PAY UK:

 

The direct debit fuel bill for my one bedroom flat has gone up from £26.54 a month to, I got the email yesterday, £110.00. I don't have that kind of flexibility in my income.

IN 2003 I made strenuous effort to have my then pub, The Sun and Doves in Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, London SE5 retrofitted so that it would run without any dependence on fossil fuel - that is 19 years ago. Getting IT Done was dependent on a match funded* £110K grant from The Carbon Trust - an organisation set up by UKGovPlc to make sure that the UK population would take up mass behaviour change and switch to renewables and habits that were radically less carbon and energy intensive than we had become used to - like installing insulation, turning down the heating and changing light bulbs to low energy ones (!) - and switching to companies like Good Energy and Ecotricity for their energy supply. The application was rejected because, The Carbon Trust said, the proposal to turn a gas guzzling multi award winning high profile public house with a catchment of 60k customers all of whom would be interested to know HOW the pub was so comfortably warm and not belching carbon the way their homes do, was not 'innovative'.

 
Perhaps, anyone reading this, can imagine how FUCKED OFF, sorry, UPSET I AM.
I've been a full time carer for 5 years. My dad died in April. I've applied for Universal Credit. I've got barely any income, I have no savings, no pension, no assets. I'm BROKE but I NEVER complain because I STILL regard myself as privileged to be resilient and well informed and switched on to what's happening to me, and us all, politically ... and because of this I'm getting involved in Don't Pay UK because I CAN'T PAY THE BILLS anyway.

 
Many times here and elsewhere on social media I've encouraged people to read CITIZENS the outstanding book by Jon Alexander - because it is pertinent to everyone living on Earth right now. The thrust of the thesis is that WE ALL NEED, URGENTLY, to stop being CONSUMERS and we HAVE to become active, engaged - joyfully engaged - CITIZENS if we are to change everything because our politcal classes are not doing anything about climate breakdown on our behalf.

 

By joining Don't Pay UK you aren't committing to NOT paying your bills, if you feel really bad about standing up for what is right when you're being bullied into sucking up huge price rises at exactly the same time as the energy companies supplying you are making MASSIVE bumper profits then do carry on paying - but do join Don't Pay UK anyway - it's free membership - and instead share and encourage others to join and support the campaign too.

 
We can't change everything if we don't collectively DO something - start here and now - non violent direct action - by signing up to stay better informed.

* Match funding is where the grant applicant has raised the amount needed from the grant givers already - to prove the project they need funding has done due diligence with other financial contributors. I raised £110K in principle/promisory notes, the biggest were Lambeth Borough Council and King's College Hospital**) that getting the Carbon Trust money would have released to make a combined total of £220K that would have covered the costs of radically changing the pub's environmental impact forever)
** King's apart from committing to invest in the project King's facilities department promised to buy excess heat and electricity generated by the Combined Heat and Power plant and Ground Source Heat that were to be installed as part of the suite of technologies that would have made the pub generate its own power... had we got the grant