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Bedroom tax fight hits Lib Dem meet

Conference hall set for shock as thousands descend on Glasgow

More than a thousand demonstrators are set to descend on the Lib Dems' Glasgow conference this Saturday in a bid to beat back the bedroom tax.

Leader Nick Clegg is expected to regale delegates with a speech describing "a fairer society enabling everybody to get on in life" - in one of Britain's poorest cities.

But campaigners gathering outside the Scottish Exhibition Centre plan to remind delegates of their MPs' collusion in the coalition's widely reviled bedroom tax.

The policy cuts social tenants' housing benefits by up to a quarter if officials deem their homes "underoccupied."

But this week it was harshly criticised by a United Nations special rapporteur and has been directly linked to dozens of suicides.

More than 660,000 of the poorest households in Britain are expected to fall into arrears under the coalition policy, with charities warning that around two-thirds are home to someone with a disability.

With a median gross income of £209 a week these households face eviction unless they can pay an average £728 a year in arrears - the equivalent of six weeks' rent.

Protesters are expected to hit the Glasgow streets in advance of the rally at 1pm despite a public ban on a planned march from Glasgow Green.

The Bin The Bedroom Tax Coalition behind the event comprises the Scottish Trades Union Congress, several grass-roots campaigns and dozens of housing associations from across the west of Scotland.

The No 2 Bedroom Tax campaign's Alan Wylie said today he was "still in shock" that the Labour-led Glasgow City Council had denied them a permit for the march.

"This is an outrage," he said.

"They've said no to the march, but I'll be marching. I'll be marching from my home in Foxton, Paisley, to the SECC 10 miles away."

Mr Wylie said other campaign members and local councillor David McDonald had agreed to join him on the walk and call the city council's bluff on the ban.

In August the Morning Star revealed Lib Dem delegates had dropped more dosh on hotel rooms for the conference than some bedroom tax victims' monthly budgets, with rooms at the cushy Crowne Plaza hotel starting at £117 a night.

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