WENDY’S LABOUR BACKING COUNCIL HOUSE SALES

by Ken Ferguson

THE Thatcher years saw several key moments in her war against the Left and the labour movement.
The mass mobilisation of state violence against the miners in the 1984 strike, the relentless privatisation of public assets and the Falklands War cry to ‘Rejoice’ amidst the war dead are such moments.
But above all else one policy has achieved outstanding success in its intention of destroying collective services : the right to buy council houses.
The so called ‘Right to Buy’ for council tenants saw tens of thousands of council houses sold off at cut prices to tenants and has, in Scotland, reduced the stock of homes for rent by almost half a million.
Along with the sale of shares in public firms such as gas and electricity this key policy aimed to turn workers into ‘stakeholders’ in capitalism and weaken support for unions and collective services.
It has to be said that the Tories made no secret of their intention.
In 1974 a Tory think tank wrote:
“Simply by visiting Glasgow, one can see life as it will be like throughout the country if the trend to council housing continues. Housing in industrial Scotland has much in common with that in many Iron Curtain countries housing has frozen class divisions.”
To counter this they drove the sell off policy through and after some initial resistance Labour surrendered and accepted it.
Thirty years on the proportion of people saddled with mortgage debt and facing soaring housing costs as the price of putting roof over their head has soared.
Every day the media talk of house prices, interest rates and possible house repossessions as the crisis deepens.
Thirty years on and there is a growing realisation that the huge rise in house prices allied to the growing difficulty in paying them means that rented homes are needed again.
In a welcome move in that direction last year the SNP government announced plans to restart modestly a council house building programme.
They have also restricted the right to buy yet when the issue came before the Scottish Parliament last month the supposed ‘socialists’ on the Labour benches voted, along with the Tories, to oppose it
Probably not since Holyrood opened for business has there been a clearer example of the total abandonment of principles which lie at the heart of New Labour.
They are now 110 per cent behind the idea of people merely as consumers who meet their needs in the market with those unable to do so left to make do with increasingly pressurised public services.
That’s why when Wendy rose to proclaim to Labour’s Aviemore conference that she was the ‘socialist’ alternative to Salmond her performance was about as convincing as Bernard Mathews endorsing vegetarianism.
This latest blunder further underlines the reality of New Labour as washed up and incapable of meeting the challenges posed by the current environmental and economic crisis.

BRITAIN LOCKED INTO IRAQ NIGHTMARE

by Ken Ferguson

LAUNCHED amidst a flood of high noon tough talk to the local militias demanding they surrender the Iraq army led assault on Basra has proved a disaster for every­body apart from the militias it was supposedly going to defeat.
Perhaps the operation was doomed from the moment that Bush praised it and described it as a “defining moment” in the war so far.
Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki flew to Basra along with 40,000 troops and police and, rather like some cowboy Sheriff, demanded that his opponents hand over their weapons in 72 hours.
In the teeth of stiff resistance which saw some Iraqi forces refus­ing to fight and some changing sides this deadline was first extended and them quietly shelved.
Days of fighting which effectively imprisoned the civilian population in their houses without basic serv­ices such as water and electricity and killed hundreds was simply a complete failure.
Its wider significance it that it brings into question a key part of the US version of Iraq, the idea that the Iraqi army is a unified disci­plined force capable of keeping order on the strife torn streets.
Nouri al-Maliki’s prestige has taken a dive and wider questions about the official tale of an Iraq calmed by the US troop surge returning to normal are now being asked.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the target of the assault, emerges from the crisis strengthened not only as a military figure but also as a political player in the elections due later this year.
Not only has this led the US front man General Petraeus to warn against a withdrawal of American forces at the end of the surge but it has cruelly exposed talk of a British withdrawal.
Far from packing their kit bags and getting on a flight home it is now clear that UK forces were active participants in the Basra debacle.
BBC news of course spoke of the Brits supplying food and ammuni­tion but it is also clear that Royal Artillery units were bombarding targets in support of the Iraqi army and that RAF planes launched air strikes.
Most significantly was the revela­tion that wavering Iraqi army units were ‘stiffened’ by the support of 150 Scots infantrymen from the Royal Borderers backed by armoured vehicles.
The relatively small number involved will be downplayed but in reality means that far from just training the Iraqi army to shoot straight and march in step the Brits are once again active participants in the war.
Only last autumn at the height of election speculation Gordon Brown stood among the tropical kitted troops and spoke of getting the Brits out of the desert.
That now seems about as real as a desert mirage and Brown must add the Iraqi quick sands to grow­ing list of disasters increasingly imperilling his government.