New leadership of the party does not change the nature of the housing crisis or the solution members voted for: … MoreRead more…
The Labour leadership should be accountable to the Party members
The letter which David Evans, Labour Party General Secretary has sent to CLPs shows the anti-democratic intent of the current … MoreRead more…
Peter Beinart, Israel and the Labour Party
“It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish-Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality.” … MoreRead more…
No return to austerity – cancel local authority debt
A campaign initiated by the Labour Campaign for Council Housing calls for the government to cancel local authority debt held … MoreRead more…
Cancelling debt not unrealistic after all
This is an article published on the Inside Housing website under a different heading.. Swindon Tenants Campaign Group raised the … MoreRead more…
Needless deaths
The announcement by the government that they are writing off £13.4 million debt is welcome. However, this so-called debt is … MoreRead more…
The case for cancelling local authority debt
Rob Whiteman the Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has warned of councils facing “a … MoreRead more…
Ban all evictions now
The government has reneged on its commitment to ban all evictions during coronavirus crisis The government announced that “as a … MoreRead more…
Cancel local authority debt
To provide councils with resources which are desperately needed for this unprecedented crisis, cancel the debt owed to the Public … MoreRead more…
The government must guarantee the means of life for those without the means
Great events make change possible, sometime inevitable. Johnson was elected with a working majority, Britain was going to leave the … MoreRead more…
The government is making “a deadly mistake”
“Our message to countries continues to be: you must take a comprehensive approach. Not testing alone. Not contact tracing alone. … MoreRead more…
2020 Budget: where’s the grant for council house building?
The 2020 budget indicates that the new Affordable Homes Programme starting in 2021 would have £12.2 billion funding. This is … MoreRead more…
Only 5% of new homes funded by Homes England grant are ‘social rent’
“Affordable rent is a new funding model, which involves three main changes: housing providers can charge higher rents for affordable … MoreRead more…
Councils need some serious funding if they are to return to large-scale housebuilding
This is an article for Inside Housing magazine A week after the General Election Swindon Council leader David Renard wrote … MoreRead more…
A lesson in the ruthlessness of the British ruling class
Whilst there will be no shortage of efforts to apportion blame for the electoral defeat of Labour an indisputable factor … MoreRead more…
Labour should reject the McCarthyite 10 Pledges – defend freedom of speech on Israeli
In a video of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, an ecstatic Joe Glassman, drunk on his ‘victory’ in the General Election, … MoreRead more…
War and democracy in the Middle East
Martin Luther King famously said that “The Vietnamese must look upon us strange liberators.” So must the Iranians in the … MoreRead more…
Rent increase: tenants should not pay the cost of government underfunding of council housing
Swindon council will argue that their proposed above inflation 2.7% rent increase for council tenants in 2020-21 is acceptable because … MoreRead more…
2019 General Election – what happened?
Hasty conclusions on the scale of Labour’s general election defeat and preordained ‘solutions’ are worthless. Sweeping generalisations are being substituted … MoreRead more…
Swindon as dormitory town?
According to government statistics not a single ‘social rent’ home was added to Swindon’s housing stock over the last five … MoreRead more…