On Thursday February 13, Tony Cliff of International Socialism and Gerry Healey of the Socialist Labour League met in puble debate.
Tony Chi began. First, ne pointed out that the sEt nad no theoretical work to is credit — it had talled to analyse the changes in international capitalism, and it had failed to produce original work on the Soviet Union. He then pointed out various aberrations in Gerry Healey's political past - he had made a volte-face on Yugoslavia in 1940, nad worked win bessie braddock on socialst Outlook in the late 40s, and nad herpea sen Tribune in the middle fifties. His organisation permitted no internal debate. Thirdly, he said that in spite of all this the time had come for united action and he repeated the appeal made by IS over the last few months for a unted lett Gerry Healey did not care to reply to the detailed accusations about his political past, accusing Cliff of "peddling bits of gossip". "It is necessary to take up a firm class position this evening", he said. He attacked the IS for allowing anyone to enter their organisations provided they subseribed to a minimal four-point programme; the IS relied, he said, "on middle-class moods". In contrast, the SLL gave its members a political training in Marxism. Membership of an organisation had to be conditional. The IS position on the USSR, the theory of state capitalism, was, he said, totally false: it ignored the fundamental change in property relations brought about by the Russian revolution. He also defended his position on the unions and the Labour Party: they were the organisations of the working class although at present controlled by traitorous bureaucracies. He ended up with a virulent attack on tne appeal lor unity launched by IS. 1he only reason for wanting unity with the Is was to smash them. The left needed a Marxist party with a Marxist theory which was able to fight: "We are not in the unity-mongers list" he emphasised.
The contributions from the floor were short and mostly polemical. IS champions Chris Harman, John Palmer and Stephen Marks defended the position on state capitalism, on the IS position on the Americans in Korea, and on unity. Among SLL spokesmen were Mike Banda and Cyril Smith. Robin Blackburn attacked both groups political questions that are of general importance. Both must be criticised for the orientation they gave to the evening s discussion. Neitner discussed tne central poutical problems of the britis let to-day: the crisis or the Labour Party, the future of the left, the significance of the student movement, the possible forms of contact between students and workers, the relation between the proletarian and national liberation movements, racism Vietnam was ignored. In trying to establish their positions on the historically central issue raised by Trotsky -the nature of the Soviet Union and of the communist parties dependent on it - they failed to come to terms with the situation in which the left now finds itself: and bv leading their followers off into these areas they ard stifling a necessary discussion of new problems The nature of the Soviet Union and Marxist theory are of utmost relevance to the present struggle; but if they are not related to them, and if the question of the Soviet Union is put forward at the expense of the questions the left is now facing, they cease to be theoretical positions of a political nature and become fetishes. Both IS and SLL have published reams of material on the Soviet Union. What they have tended to ignore and what they. should have debated and discussed, are the problems of strategy that the left now faces. That is what they should nave debated, anyone wno wants to know what they tnink about kussia can read that up eiswhere This raises the more general problem of how far existing groups are capable of leading the left. Insofar as their whole orientation is defined by the debates of ten or more years ago they will be incapable of building the left that the present situation makes possible and requires: and the mistake made by many of their followers is that they devote more energy to spirited and ill-informed attacks on all other tendencies than on trying to apply Marxism creatively to the British and international crises we now face. Many people appeared to have gone al to the meeting in the hope of witnessing a joust, and of seeing their respective champion carry the day. A frivolous and fundamentally anti-political ambience that characterises so much of left discussion pervaded audience. This is part of the malaise of the British left - political differences have ceased to be political and to become fetisniseda
EDUCATION AND THE WORKING CLASS My family and 1 became homeless last June. We stered the L.B.G. reception centre, at 188 Shooters Hill. Three weeks later we were trinsferred to the Homeless Families Unit in Plumstead. On the ccommodation provided by the L.B.G. we were given to understand that it was temporary, and that, should we pay our rent regularly for weeks. should be considered favourably for re-housing by the L.B.G. Housing Department.
We have paid our rent and still have no prospect ol being re-noused.
The "temporary accommodation" theory has, after some seven months, been discarded by us The accommodation is not a "half way house" in the sense of being somewhere half way between one permanent address and another. It is more a kind of scrap yard for those who fall by the wayside in the rat race. Length of one's stay is determined by the whims of a faceless bureaucracy. The present record holders have been in "temporary accommodation" waiting to be re-housed for three years.
Having discarded the first official theory one moves on to the next. This official theory is the theory of rehabilitation. Any family coming into the Homeless Families Unit is considered a "problem family" - as distinct from a family with simply a housing problem. A problem Family needs robe sheltered to methere nee outside world. it needs trained social/psychiatric social workers to prevent it from breaking up. Once this is done then the social workers. with the help of a secure supporting environment, can help the family become a responsible, self governing, cohesive unit in society once more.
Once rehabilitated the family can return once more to the world "outside"
My own neory. Dom out by constant observation and experience, differs somewhat from the officia version. _ believe that the inflict punishment for social deviation.
To substantiate my punishment theory I should like first to outline how one enters the Homeless Families Unit "inside" and finally to look at some of the crimes that bring a family to the hostel at Plumstead.
THE PRISON To get into "temporary accommodation" as Assistance Act, 1948, a family has literally to De on une sucCE Becoming homeless is a traumatic experience, particularly for young children and their mothers. causes complete bewilderment for the child to see bits and pieces of furniture that are so familiar get dumped on the roadside with their own toys and bundles of clothes. The small amount of security that is possible in an insecure world has B01C The "Welfare Department" of the London Borough of Greenwich will not, however, make arrangements in advance to take in families who are to become homeless: arrangements can only be made when the family is on the street.
reform bill the great middle class woke keep it in.
strange had got inside what they saw as met.
La shape and become the Horrors.
Somehow the working class had itself into the constitution. precautionary measures might change the rules.
IT????
it, integrate it.
Tame it, train it, teach it to speak nice. And grew up With a good scrub you could even take it and passed out out to tea.
Educate it. Send it to school. Teach it confused, Make sure it doesn't learn about its own.
Enoland and how the "... To leave the accommodation when called upon to do so by the Council's representative.
This rule is further emphasised in the final paragraph of the document:*... To leave the "Temporary accommodation" at ANY time."
In many instances a home collected over many years is lost in one day. Rule 1. states:"Not to bring any large furniture into the unit SHOCK THERAPY - MAIN BLOCK STYLE.
All families are supposed to spend at least three weeks in the Main Block, though many spend years there. In this block, as in the other two blocks, all but the largest families have only one room in which to eat, sleep, and sit. They share a kitchen with 3 or 4 other families. A toilet with as many as six other families. There are also baths shared by many. In one case some 50 men women and children share one bath. To add to the chronic overcrowding inevitably high noise level, there have been plagues of cockroaches as well as of rats and of Once accepted into "temporary the insecurity is by no mean over. The head of the family has before being to sign an entitled "Conditions of Residence", rule 11 o which compels him PENTHOUSE ACCOMMODATION The two remaining blocks, namely the S.E. Block and the Annexe, have conditions a little better tnan tnose or une mam DocK. bacr family has its own bathroom/toilet and kitchen.
However the majority of the walls consist of one thickness of plaster board or chip board. The usual one room is smaller than in the Main Block. These factors make the noise level and the overcrowding in these blocks intolerable.
One woman has an extra room in which she has to cram three sons of 16, 14 & 6 years and a daughter of twelve years. In this tiny room all four youngsters are supposed to spend their function of the Homeless Families Unit is to leisure time and do their homework. Despite accommodation by the council, problems such as power tailures leaving tamies in tota darkenss sometimes all night and the constant failure of the central heating system, are shared with those living in the Main Block. (There is no official provision should the central heating break down as part of rule 1 prohibits any kind of electric, gas or oil heater being brought into the premises. There are no grates for coal fires.)
These conditions provide the secure stable environment which the social workers consider so necessary to "rehagilitation".
This is the theory. In practice, within a short time, many stable families start to break up.
Formerly stable people make suicide attempts. rat woodnouse nas trea twice in one day, mIsu with sleeping pills and then with a razor blade across the wrists. Only the timely intervention of her husband, Kevin, saved her. Pat is one of many. Mothers who before becoming homeless were patient and understanding with their children get enraged at the least provocation.
Bright, intelligent children become nervous, Nora Sheaf committed a crime. She spent money that should have payed the rent on In 1867 with the passing of the second So they built red brick fortifications to up and trembled to its toes. Something. And filled them with passages that never politics. The something might grow into They labelled the entrances BOYS or government. GIRLS And tried to make sure that they never got met.
Unless were taken it And the boys went into the boys doorway and the girls went into the giris WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT And they all went up and up through the grades higher and higher learning more Domesticate it, defumigate it, dehydrate names for things and how to talk proper and left.
Cond is of then mained be wildered.
three R's. Let it learn about OUR great became narrow, bitter, disenchanted.
Let it recite the rivers of But most of them were tamed - on And education became feeding and clothing her five children. Her family had been tenants of their house in Rochester WayS.E.3. for some twenty years. Her husband had been the tenant for twelve years since her father died. For the first time in all those years they were behind with the rent. The Labour controlled authority made example of them. They were evicted. The cost of the furniture that they lost far exceeds the amount of the arrears. The cost of the suffering: is inestimable.
Nora and her family have served one year of their sentence. There seems little prospect of their release for some considerable time.
Kevin and Pat Woodhouse, both intelligent sensitive young people, were living in a flat for a little over two years before they were evicted. Their crime was that Pat became pregnant.
They have served 20 months of their sentence. They may be released in the next three months.
Anne Woods has served three years. Her crime was that she was separated from her husband. She had to walk the streets with two young children. She now has a fourth child on the way. She is a diabetic. Her marriage has been patched up several times since living in the hostel. It has soon broken up again. The "Welfare" say that they have done all they can for Anne. Recently she found that she could not cope. Her daughter Pauline six years old was sent to her sister in law in Edinburgh. Julie, 19 months, went into care. She kept Gary, aged three, with her. Recently, she found that with a Beat deal of too she could cope one .
workers encouragement to their "client" who was trying so hard? No. She was refused a travel warrant by the powers that be. Five trucks and one cold snowy night later she arrived in Edinburgh to retrieve her young daughter.
There are many families im homeless hostels whose only crime is that one of their members has a severe mental or physical disability. To add to their other mistortunes they become incarcerated in slums called "Welfare" accommodation.
JAIL BREAK Within the last month some of the inmates have formed a residents' association. The purpose of this association is: To fight. To take back from "them" what they have taken trom Homelessness decisions.
to be enthusiasm.
opinionated, If taunted worry, that the SUCCESS.
synonomous The Black Dwarf 28th Feb 1969 Page This we have started to do. Since forming associaBon we have been able to resist t evictions from the hostel. Both families hai mother who was crippled, in the first instar through a disease of the legs, in the seco through a disease of the spine. Eviction l an been threatened because they would not acce re-housing in accommodation which would injurious to their health. (From the hostel"y have only one choice of dwelling when be re-housed. Therefore the more vulnera families get put into slums owned by the L.B "Normal" people "outside" the hostel have t choices.) Both evictions RESISTED. One family has now bi re-housed to their satisfaction. The other fam will be re-housed in the near future.
There have also been promising developme amongst those inmates who have not joined association to date. In their usual bureaucra way the council staff decided that it would better for Nancy Simmons, a widow with i children, to be transferred back to reception at Shooters Hill. Nancy was n The other woman along the landing where s has her one overcrowded room joined wi Nancy and prevented her removal. She is si with us. She is going to STAY.
We are fighting to improve the sanita conditions in the hostel. We are also fighting i a second choice, and we are going to speed the machinery by which families are re-house WE ARE GOING TO HAVE THE CHOICE O AT LEAST TWO DWELLINGS WHEN BEINI RE-HOUSED. NO ONE IS GOING TO BE I THE HOSTEL FOR MORE THAN THRE MONTHS. NO ONE IS GOING TO B FORCED BY INTIMIDATION INTI COUNCIL OWNED SLUMS. WE ARE GOINI TO CONTROL OUR OWN ENVIRONMEN WHILST IN THE HOSTEL.
Finally we are making solid links with th London Squatters, the Tenants and Own! Occupiers, Union and sociali students. We shall be linking up with homele hostels in London and throughout the country We extend our hands to all those who al fighting on the housing front.
It is a quality of youth to be receptive, warm-hearted, to glow with It is characteristic of age to become dictatorial, slow to adapt oneself to the changing times.
about your youth don't the future of the world belong to the youth of the world, and it is from the young men and not from the old fire of life will warm & enlighten the world.
Go forth & achieve TOM MANN DIED IN 1941 AGED 85 HIS LAST WORDS WERE:
Tell the comrades to have good courage.
Go on with the work There will be set-backs, partial succes and final The young people will have a lot to go through, but they will succeed in the end
The Black Dwarf 28th Feb 1967
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ON BEING HOMELESS THE PRISONERS