Our monthly Policy and Ideas meetings are an opportunity for members to contribute to and discuss local party strategy and to understand and inform policies. Each month we will select two or three topics to give each one enough space to have a detailed discussion and to make real progress.
This month we are delighted to have Samir Jeraj teach us all about Freedom of Information requests.. what they are for and how best to make one. An essential tool for all activists and campaigners.
Samir is NCTJ-qualified freelance journalist based in London. He specialises in housing, social affairs, politics, development and local government. His articles have appeared in the Guardian, The Independent, Inside Housing, the New Statesman, the BBC, Channel 4 News, the New Internationalist, and OpenDemocracy. In 2016 he published The Rent Trap with Rosie Walker. The book was built on years of journalism, campaigning and policy, it set out to expose the desperate situation facing private renters, how it came about through deregulation, privatisiation and commercialisation, and what the alternatives are.