BUILD COUNCIL HOUSES
It is GMB strategy to seek to seek to shift Labour Party policy towards the interest of working class communities and families, and to make it clear that while GMB is as committed as ever to the Labour Party, this support is not unconditional. We expect to see benefits for our members in exchange.
As a result, in my capacity as branch secretary of GMB Wiltshire and Swindon W15, I have been in discussions with the local Labour Party, seeking to shape policy in exchange for our branch committing itself to support for Labour in the local elections. This has been quite a fruitful exercise, and in a number of policy areas the union is on the same wavelength as the Labour group.
However, the big idea we put to them was that we would really like to see a council house building programme proportionate to the scale of the waiting list - i.e. a sufficiently substantial prgrammme of council house building to make a real difference to people’s lives.
They said yes. This is a page from our next branch newsletter, currently at the printers. We print off 5000 copies, enough for every member, and some surplus for distributing around workplaces.
Around four years ago in Brighton, it was a Labour Council that tried to force council housing tenants to sell off their properties to housing associations. When this has happened, it has proved disastrous for tenants as almost in all cases the housing associations sell off the property to private landlords, resulting in massive rent increases. Millions of pounds were spent on fancy brochures and even dvds trying to convince tenants that they had no choice but to allow the property to be sold off.
It was only after a hard fought local campaign by activists from across the left were tenants informed they could in fact vote for a “fourth option”, which was to remain as council tenants.
I’m sure this was a similar experience to activists up and down the country, so I’m very wary of this sudden change in policy. As they are about to enter opposition, perhaps they feel they can shout what they like without fear of having to back it up?
Comment by Socialist V — 18 November, 2009 @ 12:23 pm
Wildcat strikes at HMP Liverpool have spread to HMP Ridley in Washington. 3 other prisons threatening to walk. Let’s have a separate thread about it please?
Comment by Anonymous — 18 November, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Oh for crying out loud!
Comment by Jim — 18 November, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
New Labour’s criminal neo-liberal agenda has already created huge debts,possessions,arears,cuts
and has merely continued the tory legacy of not building any councils since 1990.
The Cllr’s remarks and tone is to be expected: one of almost comical denial about Labour’s record
in this area. The tories started Right To Buy - Labour have merely carried on this scheme;no one has
questioned people’s right to rent at affordable prices (Germany) or why the existing stock is being
sold off and not extended. How long has this government been in power? I am familiar with the Brighton
example,neatly pointed to above, this has happened around the country. Perhaps the essence of this
incumbent government is how they’ve been allowed to ‘flip’ houses without any criminal comeback.
It really is obscene - anyone who votes for thesse pigs again or the other pigs who are about to get in is missing the bloody obvious - they are one and the same. Any bullshit they cook up now
is a poor excuse for the criminal neglect of working communities undertaken by this government.
Comment by indyholder@postmaster.co.uk — 18 November, 2009 @ 4:40 pm
i feel a left wash coming up too the GE
Comment by steelcityred — 18 November, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
#4 ‘Tis a nice post, but you would have to be of subnormal intelligence or a member of the Respect party to contemplate voting for New Labour.
Comment by Jim — 18 November, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
I’ve no doubt that once they are back in comfortable, responsibility free opposition the Labour party will be able to defend council housing speak out against some attacks on workers and our unions with all the outrage of an injured mother tiger… a tiger with amnesia… Who has already eaten one of her cubs and half suffocated the other.
Comment by S.O — 18 November, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
Yeah it’s a bit hard to take this seriously (the Labour Cllr’s words that is - I’m not talking about the GMB initiative which is clearly worthwhile). Actions (by Labour in government) speak louder than words…
Comment by christian h. — 18 November, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
When the national leadership comes out behind a major council housebuilding programme and encourages Labour groups in every authority to support such moves, then I’ll take it as a sign of social democratic influence on the party. Until then it’s all too easy for local Labour parties to mark out distinctive images, even opposed to the policy of their own government, simply by not having the responsibility of turning those ideas into substantive measures.
Comment by Manzil — 18 November, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Actually, under pressure, there has been moves - few details yet - by Labour to provide more social housing, nothing like enough, unclear yet as to whether it will include council housing.
The approach shouldn’t be cynicism and certainly not sectarian. If Labour Councillors are serious, let them campaign with those calling for social houses seriously.
Otherwise, what #9’s post says is exactly right.
Comment by Stuart Graham — 18 November, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
Down here in Neath and Port Talbot the ruling New Labour group of councillors is determined to transfer some 9300 council homes to a completely new private limited housing company called NPT Homes Ltd.
The plan has been met by stiff opposition from the Defend Council Housing Campaign which has distributed thousands of leaflets across the borough and has held 14 meetings with tenants so far. The ballot of tenants has already been postponed to next spring by the council because it is unsure it can win.
The council has employed 2 consultancy firms and a so called Independent Tenant Advisers team which is spending over 5 million pounds of public money to promote stock transfer.The VOTE NO campaign has spent about £400 raised through small donations. The battle is hotting up and a fortune is being spent on taxis, expensive hotels, dvds, a mass of glossy literature and the usual propaganda roadshow.Despite the David and Goliath scenario the DCH campaigners are giving a good account of themselves. The shame is we cannot find a single New Labour cllr who will break ranks and speak out in defence of council housing!
Hugo
Comment by hugo — 18 November, 2009 @ 9:24 pm
# 10
‘Actually, under pressure, there has been moves - few details yet - by Labour to provide more social housing, nothing like enough, unclear yet as to whether it will include council housing…’
Stuart, don’t you get it? With the greatest respect, the tone of your comments
point to the extremely dubious ground on which this tortured government now shakily stand. It’s all empty promises - they had the opportunity to create a real difference
by building more council houses and manage an affordable housing stock,not let the market grossly inflate. They did not and have never intended to do build new stock.
Please do not say that any acknowledgement of this is cynical or sectarian.
That smacks of the old lefty tautology and Bush-like zeal that declared ‘you’re either with us or agianst us’. Is that where you are?
The so-called cynicism is a rational response to a party that has a neoliberal
agenda that completely undercut any notion of social justice. The extreme and damaging
cuts currently being carried out in the public sector will of course affect the housing plans so cynically mentioned above,regarding new building. The vast majority of new housing plans centres around private initiatives that pay lip service to a tiny percentage of stock being marked up as Right to Buy.
The lies this government are peddling are perhaps only proprtional to the billions
they have allowed the city to steal from the public purse. Were the lies proprtional
to council houses being built, we would have had the beginnings of a decent stock.
Also, had this housing plan been responsibly managed, the left of the party would have at least some grounding on which to justify further support for more progressive policies. They do not have this grounding. Continued support for this second tory party
- I won’t even begin to mention the PFIs,Private Equity and Pensions and how the public purse is again being ransacked long-term,while short term private profits are being enjoyed by a few - is in my view the essence of cynicism. Who else would support a
party based on a few future promises when its whole recent history undermines this.
Fantasies,like PFI initiatives, place a terrible burden on the future of many.
Only the few fantasists benefit while the rest of us pick up the reality tab.
Keep taking your New Labour pills.
Comment by bob hope — 20 November, 2009 @ 9:00 am
#11 Hugo
This is EXACTLY what happened in the Brighton Whitehawk area four years ago. We were faced with a determined opposition that could out spent us on an insane level and kept changing the ballot date, thinking that we would just run out of steam and give up.
The moral is though: we won, with around 70% (I think)of the tenants voting for the fourth option to remain as part of the Council. Ordinary tenants know the real dangers of being moved to private landlords and it doesn’t take much to expose the lies their propaganda machine pumps out, no matter how glossary it is.
Keep up the good work hugo. This is a battle that has been won elsewhere and no doubt that you will win too.
Comment by Socialist V — 20 November, 2009 @ 10:31 am
To Socialist v
Thanks for the words of encouragement!Our spirits are high and morale is good but we need all the words of encouragement we can get!
I should also add that the national Defend Council Housing ‘office’ has been very supportive in so many ways and anyone needing information or help should check out their website and get in touch with them.
Later this week the so called ‘Independent Tenants Advisers’ will be holding a one day conference to boost stock transfer and has promised ‘reasonable expenses’ to those attending!Thet are bringing in a tenant from Wrexham to speak and there can be no prizes for guessing if this tenant will be for or against stock transfer [Wrexham voted no in 2004]!
Incidentally the Independent Tenants Advisers company is called Tact@Dome and we are seeking information about its activities elsewhere in the country especially its role in Bath and London.
Hu
Comment by Hugo — 22 November, 2009 @ 9:53 am
I left school in 1966 I joined labour three years before that being given free membership for spending four years as a kid cleaning up after meetings and the washing up moving chairs, putting leaflets through doors.
I then joined labour the day I left school and joined a Union at the time UCATT then the GMB. I like many fought tooth and nail to get labour elected in 1997 and then I stood back and Blair attacked me. I had an accident in 1990 which has left me Paraplegic, I even had a phone call from the Labour party office telling me I had a duty to find a job, I was told I could be out standing for labour if I got off my back side and worked, at the time I was in a hospital bed with my my body in serious pain as they pulled my spine back in line.
Guess what New labour then told me I was a scrounger I wrote to my Unions saying hold on this is not right to be told that the TUC and the Unions had to agree with labour and nobody should get anything for nothing. But i had worked from 1966 to 1990 without taking a holiday, I did not take time off and was expected to work all my holidays fixing the dam railways or fixing some bridge .
My Union stated it’s time for change and the sick and the disabled have a price to pay it was called work, so I left labour in 2005, but as yet have stayed with my Union, well they said they stick me in the ground for free.
But as for new labour we might as well have the real Tory party in power then this copy
Comment by Robert — 24 December, 2009 @ 8:32 am