Leicester's killer houses

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"BRING DOWN THE TORIES THIS WINTER' Saturday November 15 10.30 a.m. to 5.30 Open to all labour movement bodies Credential £1 (unwaged 50p) from G. Webster 169, Barclay Road, Smethwick, W. Midlands 200 angry tenants travelled to County Hall in Leicester last Monday evening after a mother and her three year old son died in a fire.

They occupied the building for 2½ hours until representatives from the Housing Department came to meet them.

Tenants are angry that this is the sixth fire in a year in steel built houses on the New Parks Estate.

In June after the fourth fire in three months tenants threatened a rent strike unless something was done immediately.

A year ago all the houses were re-wired by an outside contractor and many tenants complained that the work was cheap and shoddy, with wire sticking out of walls and sockets hanging off.

Labour-controlled Leicester City Council insist that the steel houses are safe-yet on each occasion the houses have burnt down in less than six minutes.

Feel richer this month?

British capitalist economywere in surplus on "our" payments last month to the tune of £444 million.

This, along with other (equally deceptive) pieces of information have been dutitully relayed by the press during the week in an effort to find a "bright side' to the gloom and recession unleashed by Tory economic policies.

The balance of payments surplus reflects a drop in the import of goods-which itself flows from falling demand in the recession-hit British market.

The import of cars, for instance, has dropped by 17% in volume in the last three months. Far from indicating the revival of the British car industry, it points to the fall in consumer spending as inflation and redundancies take their toll of working class living standards.

Imports overall slumped by 9% in September, and have fallen by 6% over the last three months.

But industry in Britain itself continues to decline. The weekly toll of sackings topped 14,000 again last week, and figures show that output in manufacturing industry has now tallen • to below the leveis of 1968.

Surprised

Output in August was 10.7% below the average level of last year-and even that includes the increased strength of North Sea oil production as a compensation to the decline of other sectors.

Even the Thatcher government seems to have been surprised by the extent of the slump they have helped to unleash.

Chemicals, textiles, engineering, food, drink and tobacco industries are among the hardest hit in a generalised pattern of crisis and closures.

The the job tenanttc was sup risk. TI Monday squeak.

firms.

After the fifth fire in August workmen were sent round to insulate the houses. Three holes were drilled in the outside wall and insulation was inserted.

The house which burnt down on Monday had been insulated. As one resident posited: "It hasn't made much difference to us but all the birds in the area have fire-proof nests"

workmen carrying out were horrified when a Id them the insulation posed to prevent a fire ley downed tools on in protest.

'No fault'

Both the council and the fire prevention officer have insisted that there is no fault in the wiring or in the structure of the houses-and claim that the accidents are due to people.

Yet at a public meeting which 500 attended on Wednesday evening, council spokesmen claimed that these houses up to October 1979 had "better than In this context the pathetic 0.4% drop in the retail price index hailed by the press and mass media last week can be seen more clearly for what it is: the fruits of mass unemployment and long term industrial devastation.

Thatcher declared that the drop in the rate of inflation indicates that "government policies are working"

Yet the fact is that retail prices in the private sector are being held down through the workings of cut-throat competition which is squeezing the profit margins of manufacturers and retailers until the pips Only so long as the slump continues and demand remains at rock bottom will prices be forced down in this way-at the expense of continual closures and bankruptcies of the weakest But at the slightest glimmer of an upturn in sales, shops and manufacturers rush to restore their sagging profits by a average fire record."-the average being one fire per 565 houses per year.

Yet of the 500 steel houses on the estate, no less than six have burned down in one single year.

Meanwhile in Hull, a tenants' action committee is stepping up the fight to force the council to renovate 150 steel houses.

The campaigners claim that Scunthorpe Council carried out such work on 500 houses-but despite a successful fight to stop the Hull Council from demolishing the hazardous buildings, they have not been successful in forcing them to carry out the renovation work-the cost of which is estimated at £6,500 per house.

It is estimated that there are some 40,000 of the steel houses in various areas of the country. They were built in 1943 with cheap materials-designed to last 15-17 years.

Now working class families ure paying the heavy price of uccessive governments refusal to provide adequate housing. tidal wave of price increases that could well dwarf previous inflationary crises.

The monetarist strategy clung to so tenaciously by the Thatcher government is one which can therefore succeed in its long term goal of restoring profitability to the strongest sections of capitalists only at he expense of monumental devastation throughout manufacturing industry.

Chancellor Howe is still refusing to offer even a token concession to his growing body of big business critics in the form of a cut in interest rates.

But last week he did point out that as they liquidate their investments in the crisis-torn British economy, British industrialists, bankers and speculators are stepping up their drive for investments overseas.

"Private sector capital outflows are growing", , he told a plump gathering of well-pleased bankers at their annual banquet.

Digbeth Hall, Birmingham Howe Angry tenants invade County Hall CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE LABOUR MOVEMENT Public meeting 'Kick out Callaghan's Gang' Friday 31 October 7.30 pm.

Len Fagg Hall

71 A St. Johns Rd Tunbridge Wells CAMPAIGN FOR DEMOCRACY IN THI LABOUR MOVEMEN Public meeting "Fighting the cuts in Wednesday 29 October 7.30 pm.

Friends House, Euston Rd Speakers include Sandra Plummer, delegate to the Labour Party conference (in personal capacity).

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PagE b SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 22 October 1980

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Well, maybe you hadn't noticed, but "we"-the