In recent years there has been a massive increase in the numbers of rich Yuppies and others at the top of the ‘property ladder’ moving into areas of the country that have been recently ‘re-developed’. A typical example is Brighton as well as other smaller towns in the South East, such as Lewes.
Consequently, other people, who may have lived in those same areas for years, or even generations, are moving out. This is because the cost of either buying or renting a place to live in ‘re-developed areas’ goes up dramatically, to reflect the incomes of those moving in.
This kind of ‘re-development’ seems to be aimed at catering for the wealthy, not for those who most need a home to rent or who are first-time buyers on lower incomes. Higher property prices get even higher and so does the price of rented accomodation.
Despite all the talk of ‘Social Housing’, there is a real shortage of long-term and affordable accomodation for those who most need it and Council Housing Stock, for example, is being rapidly depleted and run down.
Instead of Social Housing, is this not in fact a kind of ‘Social Cleansing’, to make certain urban areas in major towns and cities more desirable, and therefore sellable, to the wealthy Nouveaux Riche or is it just business as usual, an inevitable consequence of modern capitalism as it continues to develop?
I would suggest it is part of a deliberate policy to make the middle classes and especially the welthier property-owning class even more predominant in today’s society than they have ever been since the Victorian times.
The fact that many local government politicians and officials seem happy to take back-handers from eager property developers, in exchange for planning permission, only helps to facilitate this process.
Divide and RuleThere is also an attempt at ‘buying off’ large sections of today’s working class through a kind of bourgeoisification of the jobs that people work in.
For example, workers in Tesco and other corporations are being given the chance to buy shares in the business they work for and encouraged to become ‘shareholders’. Many people feel that in the long-term they will benefit from this, yet the reality for many is that they work on temporary or short-term contracts and have no choice other than to move from job to job, often in between short or long spells on the dole, never mind become shareholders in any corporation or business. Also, in the event of shares collapsing it is the small shareholders who will lose everything while the main shareholders, the big captains of industry, will be relatively unscathed.
With such a contrast in the situation between different people who are working in the same jobs, it is an easy and convenient way for employers to divide workers against each other.
Using Terrorism - Exploiting the international situationTo top it all, we now have the most vicious and blatant attack on civil liberties, in Britain more so than anywhere else in Europe, in living memory. While terrorism provides the pretext and the excuse for new draconian legislation to curtail human rights the basic right to protest and criticize, it is a terrorism that the western powers, principally Britain and America, have created themselves. They have cynically manipulated the international situation to produce a reaction from within the Islamic world against the West, it’s culture, and all who live here. Again, it is a question of divide and rule, this time on a global scale. The removal of basic civil liberties here makes it easier to prevent people from opposing bad laws or criticizing bad policies of the government, not just the ‘War on Terror’ but everything from international policy to rights at work and anti-trade union legislation.
Our AlternativeHousing is a basic right, and there is plenty of redevelopment that needs to be done, but not on the terms that we are being told to accept by today’s status quo and their rich friends. We want to maintain a basic level of Council Housing stock and it should be good quality housing too. We want the renovation of existing homes and properties with a long-term view to building communities that are worth living in for everyone, not just those at the top of the property ladder.
We want an end to the complete casualisation of work, the repeal of all anti-trade union legislation and the restoration of basic human rights for everyone, whether it be rights at work or the right to protest against inhumane and downright dangerous government policies. This should include the right to read, publish and distribute literature which is critical of the hypocritical policies of western governments and regimes. Further, we are for the withdrawal of British and American troops from Iraq and an end to our country’s involvement in unjust wars everywhere.
There is everything to fight for and certainly not much left to lose!