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Tory Strategy to Trump Fantastic Manchester Protest

Sat_Nav | 02.10.2011 19:21 | Public sector cuts | Workers' Movements

The Conservative Party were relying on there being a poor turn-out for the Anti-Cuts protest in Manchester today. Unfortunately for the Tories, 35,000 people showed-up. David Cameron's response was to play the Tory trump card - by announcing an immediate return to Margaret Thatcher's most divisive, effective and populist strategy. The Tories are going to sell more cut-price Council Housing...



The Conservative Party were relying on there being a poor turn-out for the TUC Anti-Cuts protest in Manchester today. Unfortunately for the Tories, 35,000 people showed-up, very noisy and very angry, placing the Anti-Cuts agenda firmly back at the centre of the headlines. Even worse, from the Tory point-of-view, no-one was arrested, meaning media coverage for once had to concentrate on the actual issues.

Conservative chairman David Cameron's response was to deploy "Plan B" and play the Tory trump card - by announcing an immediate return to Margaret Thatcher's most divisive, effective and populist strategy. The Tories are going to try to buy the compliance of working-class people, by selling-off more cut-price Council Housing, in my opinion totally vindicating the analysis put forward in this post (if you've not seen this post already, please it read carefully, click on the link)...

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/485338.html

Any opportunity to buy property at knock-down prices is an offer few working-class people can afford to refuse, even though selling Council Houses back to the people whose taxes paid for them is effectively Conservative theft from the public purse. As discussed in the earlier post, this policy was designed to encourage Council tenants to self-identify as middle-class, and in doing so to re-structure the political landscape and out-manouvre the oppositional tactics that the Tories knew they could rely on the traditionalist left to try and employ against them.

Sat_Nav

Comments

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Sale?

02.10.2011 20:14

How many council houses are there left to sell off? Nearly all local authorities have passed on their properties to housing associations. I can see the housing associations raising huge objections to being forced to sell their housing to tenants, a lot of them would end up with too few properties to be viable as organsations.

pinkolady
- Homepage: htp://carol-laidlaw.blogspot.com


SWP poem

02.10.2011 21:21

its ok to wear a burqa
would you like a copy of
socialist worker?

labour/tory same old story
george galloway, he;s ok
he has no links with saddam
and he doesn't eat ham

if it moves, recruit it
if it doesn't, poster it
chris bambery used to say
before he went on his way

dont stay in the background and be a lurker
would you like to join socialist worker?

red ed


Not so much transferred

03.10.2011 18:05

Pinkolady isn't quite right. Some councils have transferred some or all of their stock to housing associations. There is generally no right to buy HA places. What's more common, and may have caused the confusion, is that nearly all council housing in now managed by "Arms Length Management Organisations" (ALMOs).

These may technically be housing associations and are certainly RSLs (Registered Social Landlords), but they haven't had the housing transferred to them and don't own it. They're just managing agents and the councils still own the housing. ALMOs can be sacked and either replaced by another ALMO or the council could just take the management of its housing back "in house". Some councils want to do that as ALMOs are proving an expensive extra layer of bureaucracy. When they fuck things up, it's the council which has to answer for it in court and pay up, because the ALMOs are just managing agents and the council is responsible for what they do or fail to do.

There are so many ALMOs because that's what tenants usually voted for as the least bad option in forced votes between that and transfer to a housing association. The council continuing to manage its housing was not an option you could vote for.

Stroppyoldgit