Is this madness some kind of winning hearts and minds initiative? Do they think they will impress jihadis into becoming good Labour voters by coddling Abu Hamza and his family? “Jailed hate preacher Abu Hamza’s home has a £40,000 makeover… paid by taxpayers,” by Tom Kelly And Eleanor Harding for the Daily Mail, November 13 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
Hate preacher Abu Hamza’s family home is having a £40,000 makeover paid for by taxÂpayers, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Workmen from at least three construction firms have already spent two months doing up the £700,000, five-bedroom council property in an exclusive West London street.
Astonishingly, it is the second time in only five years that council bosses have approved expensive renovations on the property where the hook-handed cleric’s wife and eight children live supported by benefits worth nearly £700 a week.
Officially, the latest work is to underpin the property’s foundations after an engineer warned of subsidence.
But as this photograph, taken last week, shows, the property has also had an extensive makeover.
The front has been painted an elegant cream and white to match neighbouring properties and parts of the interior have also been touched up.
Workmen have cleared the drainpipes, cleaned windows, restored the window fittings and installed loft insulation.
Builders have injected concrete to the foundations and mended cracks in the walls to secure the property.
Hamza’s family live in the only council property in the street in Shepherd’s Bush, an area popular with bankers and City lawyers.
Former Cabinet Minister John Hutton lived next door to the cleric’s family before putting his property on the market for £1million in June 2007.
The full cost of the work on Hamza’s house has yet to be calculated, but the bill for underpinning homes of that size can be £30,000. The extra work adds around £10,000.
It follows a taxpayer-funded £25,000 refurbishment of the home in 2005 which included a new bathroom and kitchen.
One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: Â’People who abuse the system shouldn’t be able to keep their benefits. If you’ve been Âconvicted of crimes, you shouldn’t be subsidised by hard-working people.’
One would think.