My article on housing for this weeks socialist

This week I had a article in this weeks socialist. I republish it below. A recent report by the National Housing Federation (NHF) shows that over the last three years there has been an 86% rise in housing benefit claims by working families - that's 417,830 more households now receiving the payments. What's to blame? The NHF says that the cause is a 37% rise in private rents and house prices rising three times faster than wages since 2001. Pay freezes and a poverty minimum wage also contribute. This is another sign of an ever-deepening housing crisis in Britain that gives young people little chance of ever owning a property or being able to afford to rent. In my local area, Hertfordshire and Essex, private rents are rising faster than property prices, which could lead to some of the steepest increases nationwide in the next decade, says the NHF. The NHF says that years of not building enough homes will push charges in the area up by nearly two thirds (64%) in just ten years, compared to a 59% rise nationwide. In Herts, monthly rents are predicted to rise from £902 to £1,478. House prices in Herts could rise 52%, and the county's tenants have faced average private rents rising 4% while real incomes actually dropped by 2%. In Essex monthly rents are set to rise from £773 to £1,267 in the next decade. Claire Astbury, a regional manager for the NHF said: "One in 16 East of England families is currently on the waiting list for social housing and it looks like the situation is going to get far worse. "Successive governments have failed to tackle the under-supply of housing. Now time is running out... A whole generation are at risk of being priced out of renting a home, let alone buying one." The main cause of these problems is a huge shortage of genuinely affordable housing. We need rent caps introduced and properly enforced to make sure rents are always affordable to working class people. But the case for massive council house building is now overwhelming - if Labour councils won't oppose Cameron's diktats on public spending cuts, I'm sure the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition could show them how!

My take on Socialist party congress 2012

Having just returned home from socialist party congress 2012 I am completely shattered but more inspired and ready for the coming period than ever before. Having spent 3 solid long days in the sunny surroundings of Clacton on sea in Essex I can safely say I have experienced the most democratic political fighting conference I have ever been to.

This is no exaggeration attending my first congress I witnessed some amazing contributions from new and elder comrades. All contributed effectively and made a big difference to the discussions.

I arrived on the Friday night not really knowing what to expect but eager to find out. But come tonight I have been blown away with the sacrifice and dedication comrades show to the party and the fight for a transformation of society towards socialism.

Hearing some fantastic speeches was not the only thing that happened this weekend. Lots of fighting programmes and tactics discussed and debated and this effectively sets our perspectives for the coming year as a party.

Hearing such inspiration speakers warms your heart but also shows how much comrades do and are involved in. Hearing from comrades slogging it out in the trade unions keeping our presence strong in the left unions including PCS and RMT and the NUT to name just a few.

There was a terrific campaign for subs appeal for comrades to pledge further funds to the party to help us campaign producing leaflets banners and material for promoting our party and various struggles we are likely to need.

The difference with our party is we have no rich donors and union backing in terms of funds its all funded by the membership and every pound or penny we get is very appreciated and put straight back into campaigning for working people.
No comrade who takes a responsibility or a full time position in the party gains any financial reward for it. They don’t join the party for that reason and certainly don’t take on positions such as leadership to gain from it at all. The only benefit they do have is that they can make more sacrifice than others dedicating far more time and resources to the struggle.
The party building and organisational points and discussion over the weekend was excellent and further improvements to our paper – the Socialist will be happening with us hopefully going to a full 16 page colour edition very soon if we can continue improving our sales figures.
Much was made of the paper being the lifeline of the party our calling card on protests and street sales if you like. Many comrades do well selling the paper but we can always do more of course. But overall we are progressing well in terms of subs payments and fighting fund raising. It is some testament to the comrades that we are increasing our monthly subs yet many are seeing pay frozen, cut or loosing jobs or mixture of the lot. It shows that our comrades have confidence in our party and our ideas to invest further money in it and redoubling their efforts.
We had a international report from the CWI and its various 45 sections across the world where we are involved in big struggles in some very challenging environments too sometimes too i found this part especially fascinating given my interest in international matters affecting the world working class.

I myself did make a contribution on the second day getting up on stage in front of 200-300 comrades and visitors to speak on the growing region that is eastern region that we are in. I felt very good after I spoke and was so glad I got up to do it. Talking on my role in the party and how far I’ve com already in my political education and the fact I’ve been elected as Harlow branch secretary already I feel so proud to be given the opportunity to develop even further still.

The ideas of Marx, Lenin, Engel’s, Lenin and Trotsky have not gone away and our party looks to apply the ideas of Marxism to today’s struggles and provide a programme for workers to take up. We feel we have the right programme and our aim now is to convince new layers of the working class to sympathise with our ideas and hopefully one day join our party and help join and make a big contributions in helping changing society into a fairer equal socialist society that benefit the 99% using the wealth of the 1% and planning society based on needs of people.

Strike 30th of June

Civil servants, teachers and lecturers balloted to strike on 30 June against the Con-Dems' attacks on public sector pensions and public services. The National Union of Teachers has voted 92% in favour of the action, while the Association of Teachers and Lecturers has voted 83% in favour of its first ever strike. London underground drivers in the RMT union are also due to take strike action on that day against victimisation of trade union activists.
Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary of the PCS civil servants union, spoke in a personal capacity at the National Shop Stewards Network conference on 11 June. Here is an extract from his speech.
Someone once said the Tories never talk about class war because they're usually too busy practising it. This crisis, caused by nearly 30 years of a high octane deregulated capitalism, fuelled by an explosion of credit and reckless speculation, has become the excuse for an all-out assault on nearly all the major social gains won by working-class people in the post-war years.

Perhaps the most callous elements of the cuts are reflected in the abolition of EMA student payments, the Sure Start children centre closures, the cuts in benefits to the disabled.

This is a government that is working to dilute 2,000 separate pieces of legislation, even the equality act that only came on the statute book in April. Everything is up for grabs.

But trade unions remain the major obstacle to the Tory-Liberal plans. It's why big business politicians introduced the anti-union laws. It's why the media attacks trade unions. It's why the employers pick out our activists and reps. It's why Vince Cable - supposed to be a restraining influence on the Tories - is already talking about even more limits on the right to strike.

This is a government that is fearful of the trade union movement. There is a massive and growing anger against the bailout to the bankers and the financial institutions and the attempt to make the working class pay the price for a crisis not of our making. The evidence was shown in the student protests, shown in the magnificent turnout on 26 March, shown by the action that we plan to take on 30 June, as the first wave of coordinated action.

If you're a worker in any other part of the public sector you will be asking the question: 'why are we not taking action with our brothers and sisters in the civil service and education institutions?'

The PCS will continue to press the Trades Union Congress for coordinated strike action and to build direct support with individual unions. We expect to be joined by millions of public sector workers in the autumn in the second wave of the sustained strike action that will be needed to challenge this government.

This is an enormous opportunity to reach out to the ranks of the most exploited sections of the workforce, the millions who aren't in unions, the millions who are unorganised. PCS has found that when the union is prepared to speak and act for its membership, that's when people are prepared to join, that's when they're prepared to get involved, that's when people are prepared to come forward and become reps in their own trade union.

We can start to challenge the dictatorship of the international markets, which are dictating the policy of individual governments. We can show that international worker's solidarity is not some utopian idea, it is the most powerful antidote to the neoliberal consensus, pursued by European governments, by mainstream political parties, by the Murdoch press, and by international bond and equity markets. We can raise the question of what sort of society we want to live in and start to pose a real socialist alternative.


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In this issue


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Fighting the cuts

Strike 30 June

Workers tur

Socialist party candidate recieves 12 % in recent by-election

As socialists we are fielding some of our own candidates in this coming council elections and well even though we dont expect to win many seats that is not the real objective i might add the article below i have found in our paper - the socialist represents a real anger and fightback from ordinary working class people that they will look to other alternatives after finding the main 3 parties with the same policies and results.

If you would like to read more where this article came from please visit www.socialistparty.org.uk

"Socialist Party member and former councillor Ian Page received 12% of the vote in last weeks byelection in the Bellingham ward in Lewisham, south London. This support for Ian is a warning to Labour councils that are making cuts. Working people are growing tired of their excuses! "

Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham Socialist Party

Lewisham Council is making £88 million of cuts over the next four years, slashing jobs and services. Labour councillors want to put all the blame on the Con-Dems.

In Bellingham, for now at least the anger against this government of millionaires has given Labour a victory - but for how much longer?

Lewisham Socialist Party, standing on a joint ticket with Lewisham People Before Profit, understood that many voters would want to punish the Tories and Lib Dems. But our message was clear - that you can't trust Labour to resist their attacks.

Voting for Ian Page, our anti-cuts candidate, was the best way to send a message to all the main parties that a working-class area like Bellingham needs councillors who will fight for their community and against all cuts.

In a few weeks, we secured a real base of support in a ward where we had not previously campaigned. We could point to Ian's campaigning record as a socialist councillor in Telegraph Hill ward, but Bellingham is at the other end of the borough.

After this result, the other parties will have to recognise that we are a force to be reckoned with right across Lewisham. On the doorsteps and the street stalls there was growing support from local people for our anti-cuts message.

Hatred for the government was mixed with anger at Labour councillors who are carrying out the Tories' dirty work - slashing jobs, closing libraries and privatising children's centres.

The low byelection turnout (22%) reflected a mood amongst many that they couldn't trust anyone to defend them. But our 12% vote - close behind both Tories and Lib Dems - shows that we persuaded many others not to stay angrily indoors on election day but to vote for a real alternative.

While both the Lib Dems and Labour tried to present Ian as an 'outsider', it was the Labour canvassers in suits that looked most out of place in Bellingham.

One Labour councillor was so lost that she had to come up to our stall for directions. 'I'm meant to be meeting the Labour team outside the Housing Office' she explained. 'Yes, but you closed it', came our reply - pointing to the boarded up office behind us!

When Ian finally finished knocking on people's doors, he realised he had dropped the keys to his scooter. A group of lads came out of one of the houses to say they had found them and taken them safely indoors. When they realised it was Ian, they said that their family had voted for him. That's working-class solidarity!

At the town hall election count, Labour looked relieved but we were smiling. Lewisham's Labour councillors know that trade unionists and the community are already organising against their cuts.

Now they will have to start looking over their left shoulders for a socialist challenge at the ballot box as well.

Labour 1100 51%
Tory 340 16%
Lib Dem 334 16%
Ian Page SP/LPBP 264 12%
Greens 100 5%
Turnout 22%

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i personally feel these results although labour won this seat here shows that people are not totally satisfied with them and will come out and vote for a rael left alternative who is fighting for a socialist alternative. I think this shows the anger not just at the tories but also labour too on a local level who are continuing to cut public servicesa nd ringing their hands and saying they have no choice. Of course they have a choice they can say no and build a mass campaign with local support which will surely follow. Much like what the Labour party did in Lambeth and Liverpool in the 80's