John Clayden"A people without knowledge of its past is like a tree without roots". Marcus Garvey This was on a banner in Catford Market with Bob Marley playing in the background, where I was canvassing for the Lewisham mayoral candidate John Hamilton recently. The same sentiment naturally applies to the working class: the working class must … Continue reading A Brief Glimpse at the Seventies Squatting Movement
Catherine Dunlop A book called ‘The Asset Society’ claims that what defines class now is not the relationship between employer and employee (labour), but the relationship of the person to assets. The claim is that although there are vast differences in the quantity of assets held (one house or thousands of acres), any asset owner is … Continue reading The price of houses—How everyone speculates on house price inflation
The problem of housing the less-affluent working class. By Eamon Dyas We have now arrived at the point where the second Labour minority government took power in 1929. In terms of housing policy the most significant difference between this second Labour administration and its predecessor was the absence of John Wheatley, from Ramsay MacDonald’s 1929 … Continue reading LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 14.
The funding of social housing provision (cont.): Neville Chamberlain and John Wheatley (The image above shows John Wheatley) By Eamon Dyas In parts 11 and 12 we examined the issue of the funding of social housing provision from 1851 to Chamberlain’s Housing Act of 1923 just before the advent of the first Labour Government. The … Continue reading LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 13
Housing in Red Vienna and the question of reform v. revolution Eamon Dyas Although the phenomenon that is usually referred to as “Red Vienna” began with the election of the Social Democrats to the City Council in May 1919 the legacy of that phenomenon can be dated to the imposition of the taxation system introduced … Continue reading Red Vienna
The funding of social housing provision (cont.): from 1890 to the first Labour Government By Eamon Dyas The Local Government Act of 1888 established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect in 1889 and with it the emergence of the London County Council. This 1888 Act was viewed … Continue reading Labour and Housing — Part 12
BBC Radio 4 series: Rental Health — Vienna The first in the series on rented accommodation(27/03/23), presented by Kirsty Lang, was a eulogy of Vienna’s social housing, which was very inspiring. This is what she explained. Vienna has had a radical housing policy going back over a century, it is the largest property owner in Europe, 60% … Continue reading Vienna Social Housing
Labour and Housing – Part 11. The funding of housing provision: from 1851 to 1890 By Eamon Dyas The relationship of housing provision to land and land value was examined in parts nine and ten of this investigation. What is proposed at this stage is to look at the history of local authority funding in … Continue reading Labour and Housing
LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 10. Politics, the State and the Market in Land By Eamon Dyas A core component of the post-war political delineation between Labour and Conservative policies was formed around the question of the relationship of the State to the market. Ever since the foundation of the Labour Party this had been … Continue reading Politics, the State and the Market in Land
LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 9. The struggle for publicly-owned land (cont.) By Eamon Dyas [In the Seventies Labour endeavoured to stop profits from property speculation and development exceeding profits from industry.] The previous part of this exploration into the history of the relationship between private landowning and public need ended with an explanation of the … Continue reading The Struggle for Publicly Owned Land
Public rights and private land By Eamon Dyas In the previous instalment of this series I looked at the way in which the policies of the Thatcher government on housing revealed an ambition to go beyond the “Right to Buy” arrangements initiated in 1979. It was apparent from the context of those policies that Tory … Continue reading Labour and Housing, Part 8
Read in this issue of Labour Affairs a speech by Winston Churchill in 1909, on taxing empty property: not only does the speech use arguments the Labour Party could deploy, but it is also a model of plain speaking (as well as witty), in the days when politicians called a spade a spade. [Tax on Capital … Continue reading Political speaking before lies and propaganda
Winston Churchill and the 1909 Land Tax proposals Herbert Asquith became Prime Minister on 5 April 1908. In becoming Prime Minister at this time Asquith had not been elected but rather inherited the position in mid-term due to the ill-health of Campbell-Bannerman who in fact died just over two weeks later. On 30 April 1908, … Continue reading Churchill arguing for a land tax
Why making good policy requires careful thinking and plenty of time. Britain has just begun to face what will prove to be a long drawn-out cost of living crisis. In part this is caused by labour and supply chain shortages resulting from the Covid pandemic, but a more fundamental issue is the cost of energy, … Continue reading Insulation Rebellion — Editorial
LABOUR AND HOUSING – Part 7. The destruction of local authorities as housing providers. By Eamon Dyas Determining the economic discourse. The previous article in this series showed how building societies and banks were incapable of supplying mortgages on the scale required by the Tory Government’s 1979 Right to Buy scheme. It explained how local councils … Continue reading The Destruction of Local Authorities as Housing Providers
Labour and Housing – Part 6. The financial implications of the Right to Buy scheme By Eamon Dyas The Thatcher legacy that began as practical policies in 1979 and which continues to permeate British politics was based on a strategy consisting of three components. Firstly, the oft-repeated mantra of the need to roll back the … Continue reading Labour and Housing
Council House Sales – the Financial Dilemma By Eamon Dyas It is generally accepted that the 1980 Housing Act represented the greatest shift in public housing policy since the Second World War. Michael Heseltine, the environment minister in the Conservative Government at the time, described it as a social revolution. In the sense that it … Continue reading Labour and the Housing Crisis – Part 5
Opposition to the Tory attack on council housing By Eamon Dyas The Right to Buy policy instigated by legislation in 1980 became the foundation on which the housing policies of successive governments over the past 40-odd years have evolved. But it is important to understand that this did not happen because of any organic evolution … Continue reading Labour and the housing crisis – Part 4.
Labour Affairs 