WIGAN COUNCIL HOUSE TENANTS PROTEST by R. Challinor
More than 3,000 angry Council house tenants besieged Wigen Town Hall, blocking all ronds in the vicinity snd delaying the start of this month's council meeting. The organisers of the demonstration, like everybody else, were tiken by surprise -- they expected = few hundred at the most, Instead they found themselves surrounded by a noisy crowd, chanting slogans and enrrying benners saying such things as "No Tory policies from e Labour Council", "Nationalise the main building industries", "Down w.th the Tories and rent increases," Most demonstrators were housewives -- blunt,angry and forthright.
Inside the Tewn Hall, a deputation from the tenants was meeting councillors. “I'm not concerned about the tenants," said one aldernan. "But they put you in," a member of the deputstion replied, Another prominent Council member refused to go out and meet the tenants, "It would be murder," he said. Wigan is not renowm for having the most enterprising, inaginitive or left-wing Lebour-controlled council in Britain. With the number of Conservatives in the town being only slightly greater than the local camel population, many people consider Labour councillors have had it too easy, too long.
A lot of the tenants used to live in the grin hovels described by George Orwell in his Road to Wigan Pier, Then, they paid a few shillings a week rent; now, in council houses on the outskirts of town, they pay higher rates, higher rents, higher bus fares, This represents a real drop in their disposal incone, and very considerable hardship in some cases.
The Sunday Times (April 12) reports that, with the County Council elections, 33,119,590 people live in Labour-controlled local authorities. This is 62.1% of the population of Britain. Obviously the Conservative Government can only hope to continue its monetary policy, the renl cause of high rates and rents, so long as it has the cooperation of Labour councils, Only a few «ouncils would have te stick out for the whole Tory policy to cone tumbling down. Is it pessible to popularise Poplar -- the George Lansbury example? In my opinion, the least that can be expected fron a Labour Council is that it should allow its housing revenue account t8° into the "red" till the autumn, when, with the return of a Labour Government, interest rates for housing should be much lower than at present. To adopt this policy would be sound from the business as well as socialist angle.