The Socialist 8 December 2021

Unite to fight for pay and NHS we deserve

Unite to fight for pay and NHS we deserve

Government social care plans: Where is the money?

Uni staff and students must unite to end marketisation and for free education

Covid news in brief

Workers' politics needed to exploit Tory scandal and splits

Building People's Budgets: An alternative to Tory and Labour cuts

Chile presidential election - stop the far-right candidate

Unprecedented floods in British Columbia

Wider working-class and union struggle needed to win St Vincent nurses' strike

Defending abortion rights in the US

Universities strike - build the action and stand united to win

Thousands of Tesco warehouse workers to strike

Sandwell bin workers beat Serco and win pay rise

Panasonic workers break company pay freeze

Clarks strikers defeat 'fire and rehire'

Organise to win the NEU's 8% pay demand

Yorkshire Stagecoach bus workers' week-long strike

Worksop Wincanton logistics workers on strike

Newham Sixth Form College begins strike against academisation

Sheffield Just East couriers picket and march for pay rise

Napo ballots for trade dispute

Affordable housing for all

Challenge cutters and evictors in Waltham Forest Council

Remembering Tony Davison

Fighting Fund: Help us reach over £50,000

Defying unjust laws - a rich history of struggle

Mail attacks tube strikers by stealing socialist's image

Film review: The Harder They Fall

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Affordable housing for all

Councils must offer a socialist solution to the housing crisis

photo JB (Click to enlarge)

Reece Wilson, Basingstoke Socialist Party

The cost of living is going up - you can feel it. Your food bill, your gas bill and electricity bill go up each month. Your biggest expense is almost certainly rent, which is also rising rapidly. Are your wages?

Average private rents are up 4.6% on last year according to Zoopla, and if you're in the south west, rent increased a staggering 9%!

The 'living' wage is set to rise to just about cover inflation. But what about the millions who have faced sub-inflationary pay rises at best, if even that? This is not to mention those in precarious work, whose payslips vary from one month to the next, or those who no longer have their job after the ending of furlough and have been forced onto unemployment benefits.

On the other hand, profits for companies continue to rise, dividends increase, and the bosses get richer. Housing companies have increased their profits significantly this year, and have done so building extortionate low-standard housing that is out of reach for many working-class families.

We say the top-ten home builders must be nationalised, with compensation paid only to small investors and shareholders in genuine need. But this will not happen under the Tories, who received £891,000 in donations from property developers in the first quarter of 2021.

Rent control

We need rent control and a massive building programme of publicly owned housing, on an environmentally sustainable basis, to provide good quality homes with low rents. Councils have the power to take these measures; London councils alone have increased their reserves by more than £1 billion since 2018. The money is there, what rainy day are they saving it for?

Labour-run councils have shown they are not prepared to take the steps needed to provide genuinely affordable homes for working-class people. Therefore, we need our own workers' party that will fight for our interests and elect councillors who are prepared to set needs budgets and take on the Tories to demand the funds.

The Socialist Party, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), is helping to develop those needs budgets in our communities, and preparing to stand in the local elections in May (see pages 8-9).

Now is the time to join us, to help build a new mass workers' party that defends our interests and fights for a socialist solution to capitalism's housing crisis.

In this issue

News

Unite to fight for pay and NHS we deserve