THE “housing crisis” continues to feature in your pages (August 8). We live in the present, and we cannot work for a better future unless we understand the past.
City councillors – even portfolio holders – have very little actual power, but your front page story shows the reach of the media and highlights how one individual can have some positive influence.
In our so-called democracy, votes and council initiatives make little real difference.
For every “rogue landlord” prosecuted a few more get away with it, and others find ways around it.
Organisations like Oxford Tenants Union have different ways of fighting this injustice.
Derrick Holt’s letter makes excellent historical sense, and like Mike Rowley he advocates abolishing the right to buy.
Nye Bevan did not enable councils to build future slums, but empowered them to provide homes for their constituents sustaining the local community.
The Tories called for any cowboy to build at market value and bizarrely won an election leading to “rachmanism” ie more “rogue landlords”.
On Saturday, September 3, Unison Health will be leading a demonstration with the slogan “make Oxford affordable”.
The following Monday Unite Community will have a stall at Carfax and a meeting open to all Unite members.
As part of a regional day of action on Saturday, October 1, we aim to co-ordinate various activities with other unions and local campaigns.
We all have an interest in the momentum around Jeremy Corbyn and some of us work for it to become a genuine eco-socialist movement.
ANDY GIBBONS
Unite Community Activist Weyland Road, Oxford
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