At the Albert Hall meeting on January 12th, the TUC decided to have as their main speaker Harold Wilson. This was just one part of a campaign by some T.U. leaders to convince us that most of our problems will be solved if a Labour Government is elected. In order to see just how little truth there is in this argument, it is worth considering just a few parts of the record of the last Labour Government At the same time, another wing of the Labour Party is up to different tricks. Sid Bidwell, writing in the Morning Star. attacks those people who go around mouthing "unrealistic", "revolutionary" sloguns. By examining the record of the last Labour Government, and the reasons for that record, we can show who is really "reasonable", the Red Mole or Mr. Bidwell, Housing The Labour Government's programme on housing was a pack of lies right from the beginning. It made great play during the 1964 election of the Tories' "Rachmanite" Rent Act. But when the Labour Government got round to repealing the Act, they did so in a virtually meaningless way. By filling to extend protection of tenure to furnished property, they created a situation where if a landlord stuck a few old chairs in a room, then he could claim that the property was furnished and therefore the tenant had virtually no security at all. All this was pointed out to Harold Wilson & Co. at the time but they somehow "forgot" to do anything about It.
Due to complete neglect by all govemments, the housing situation in Britain is appalling. Even In 1968 it was calculated that an additional three million houses were needed simply to replace those already slums or so old as not to be worth repairing- What is more, the oldest housing falls into those categories where there is least protection for the tenant. For example, 75% of all furnished accommodation is in houses built during or before the First World War.2 The facts on the housing situation were well known to the Labour Goverment. For example in 1967 an official report came out which found that 1,700,000 houses were unfit for human habitation. The report found that of these houses, 79 out of every 100 lacked a hand washbasin, 77 out of every 100 lacked an inside lavatory, and 72 out of every 100 had no proper bath.
The main speaker at the TUC, Harold Wibion, of course did nothing about the profiteering in human misery which these figures reflect. On the contrary, when it came to, for example, the cuts after devaluation, while absurd contracts like Concorde went ahead, the number of council houses to be built was cut by 15,000.
It is important to realise that despite the very large number of people living in council housing, almost the entire profit from housing goes into the hands of capitalists. To show this, onsider the main ways of getting a home 11 you are buying your own house, then you have got to get a mortgage. in that case, at least 100%E profit on the deal will be made by the firm lending the money. For example, if you bought a house at £4,000, you would pay back at least 18,000 on a normal mortgage. E4,000 to the money lender.
On council bousing, the vast majority of rent payments also goes to money lenders. For example, for the GLC in 1969-70 it was estimated that 18;3 out of every E1 income from rents will go to money lender.* Under the Labour Goverment, the proportion going this way went up steadily from 79% of all income from rents to 89% of all such income.
The biggest money making racket of all is in The Red Mole 16-28 Feb 1971 Page 6 JLA56D Capitalist ideology in a nutshell: the Economist trumpets "Who needs bus conductors? —only their union." It somehow forgets" the father more imoor lent olestion of who suoblius new iote for redundant bus conductor ?
privately rented housing. For a start off, private landlords charge the most, For example, on a house worth E3,750, the average rent charged by a private landlord is three times as much as that charged by a local authority and half as much again per week as it would cost the occupier to buy the house himself." The housing conditions themselves in privatelytented housing are also the worst, The official survey of 1967 found that 33% of all privatelyrented housing was unfit.® The Labour Government did nothing to sort out this situation. On the contrary, it saw housing as something it could cut back on. Thus for example, as we have seen, it cut 15,000 of the council house building scheme. The general effect of the Labour Government's policies can be seen in the housing records of the following boroughs:
No, of houses built in: 1968 1969 Tower Hamlets Barking Newham 1093 Southwark 3345 1317 Walisend Jarrow Worksop A fine record for the last full year of Labour government!
Unemployment It might appear obvious from the housing figures that terrible shortages exist. In the field of bousing, as in every other social service. an ebormous increase in production is necossary In a sensible economic system every single available person would be used to boost production in this and other areas. But such is the economic system of capitalism that at a time when a great increase in effort in these areas is needed, the government is systematically involved in putting people out of work. The Labour Party kicked up a big fuss when it was recently announced that unemployment in January 1971 was 690,00D. Quite rightly, they said that unemployment was unacceptable as an economic control. The trouble was that no one could take their objections seriously as the Labour Government itself accepted the dictates of the capitalist economic system and had always created unimployment as a way of controlling the economy when it was in office.
In the first five yeurs of the Labour Government alone, and dirgetiy due to the policies of that Government, the number of unemployed rose from 340,000 to a51,000. This increase in unemployment of over 200,000 represented a loss in production of oser 45 million working days a year. Yet by Oesober 1968 was Harold Wison denouncing the lost production wbich was caused by this deliberately created unem ploymeut? No; insteud be was talking of the "wrecking" activities of the seamen, and the "subversives" in the car industry who were causing losses in production. Never in the entire period Labour were in office did the number of days of production lost through strikes reach even one-tenth of that lost through unemployment. But we never heard anything about the "wreckers" and "subversives" in the goverument. Not surprising. If you acrept the capitalist system, then unemploy. ment is inevitable. After all, what does unemployment matter to the huge firms? Many large firms, for example GEC, AEL, ete., enjoy their greatest prosperity during periods of high unemployment. Their calculation is a simple one. High unemployment means that we can frighten our workers into accepting that there will be no real increase in pay. No increases in pay means higher profits. This particular game needs a front man in government to carry out the dirty work of creating the employment in Party were ideally sulted for that robe.
Apart from the general increase in unerployment, what made the situation far worse was that the duration of unemployment for ten out of work went up during this period. The number of men out of work for over a ye went up by nearly balf, and the number of me out of work for over eight weeks doubled.
A feature which was parlicularly severe about this increase in unemplogment was the way it was concentrated in certain areas. For example, in Northern Ireland unemployment esen by October 1968 had reached 8.67 and i Northern England it had reacbed 6.2% Low pay and inequality of wealth Before he came to power, Harold Wilson liked to give the line about how the Labour Party in general, and himself in particular, wete com pletely opposed to low pay and poverty, He sald that, "In the part of the world I come fro men are very ruggedly equal. The Yorkshim Socialist reacts from poverty not so much because it is a product of inefficiency and a badly run social system, but because it is a crime against God and man."* Yet it is probably in the field of low pay that the Labe Government's record was worst not to suy most dishonest.
It is now calculated that over one in six children now lives below the porerty line.? This figure is practically obsoone when compared to calculations that 156 of the populacio owns BL% of the Induscrial shanes.* The Labour Government did nothing about this situation. Of course they tried to conceal this. For example we were told at firsc that thi Incomes Policy was aimed at helping the worst off. This claim always was a fust one us the only people who really gained from the holdin down of wages wene the firms who hoped to make higher profits us a result. After a while even this most dishonest of governments was forced to admit this. Thes Harold Wulker, ther *our support and our appreciation of the firm kadership being shown. Th coustry has been very well begun indeed."- Tribune, 6th Nov. 1964