Getting off the ropes
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It’s the Labour conference again. Traditionally, it’s time for some ministerial rope-a-dope on the fourth option for council housing. But will it all be different this year?
Rope-a-dope was the boxing tactic used by Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle, the famous world title fight with George Foreman in Zaire in 1974. Ali won by staying on the ropes in a defensive stance and letting Foreman hit him. Foreman wore himself out and Ali knocked him out in Round 8.
Over the last few years whoever is housing minister has played Ali, while Labour conference delegates are Foreman. They get the minister on the ropes, hit them again and again during the debate and pass a resolution demanding the fourth option. Then they get ignored, get palmed off with the vague offer of a working group and lose the fight.
Last year the leadership avoided defeat - by changing the rules to abolish votes on controversial resolutions - and party policy slowly began to move towards the fourth option. In August housing minister Caroline Flint promised a ‘level playing field’ for investment and that councils would be able to bid for social housing grant to build homes from next year. And the review of council housing finance continues.
The lobby group Defend Council Housing [download its conference briefing here] has welcomed the move on social housing grant as ‘a real step forward’. But it remains suspicious that initiatives such as the creation of local housing companies and breaking up the housing revenue account could re-open the door to what it criticises as privatisation.
In normal times, the stage might be set for some modest moves to level the playing field on investment in the existing stock for councils that still have it and limited new freedoms for local authorities to build again.
But these are not normal times. As the crisis in the financial and housing markets deepens, one by one the old market orthodoxies have come crashing down. The government’s target of 3m homes by 2020 looks further away than ever. As the Lib Dems mooted last week, might one solution be an expansion of local authority borrowing - or even a reform of the rules that restrict that borrowing?
If ministers can get off the ropes for long enough and take a look around, they might just see that the fourth option for council housing could be about an awful lot more than avoiding another beating at the party conference.
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Readers' comments (1)
Alan Savage | 26/09/2008 9:35 am
It’s not often I watch party conferences but this year the Labour Party Conference caught my eye. Not -I may add -because I think that there is anything spectacular to write home about when it comes to politics, but more a case that their slick style of presentation struck me as being particularly polished. Speakers oozed confidence and revelled in the trappings and omnipotence conferences bring. They were absolutely loving it. This however got me thinking if this lust for being in the limelight and desire for praise is perhaps where politicians are going wrong when falling out of favour with the ordinary person on the street. Conferences, committees and decision-making processes make politicians feel all-important, however, in comparison; the little things that need fixing in our streets perhaps go unaddressed because dealing with them doesn’t give the same buzz. In becoming accustomed to fine wines have politicians now realised how awful lesser wines taste. The fable of the Oak and the Reed has a ring of similar truism in it: ON the bank of a river grew a tall Oak Tree. It stood with its roots firm in the ground, and its head high in the air, and said to itself: "How strong I am! Nothing shall make me bow. I look down upon all the other trees." But one day there was a storm. The terrible unseen wind came and struck the proud Oak. Crash! went the trunk, down came all the beautiful branches, and the Tree fell into the river. As the water carried it away, it passed by a Reed that grew on the bank. The little Reed stood up tall and slender and looked at the poor broken Tree. "O Reed," said the Tree, "how did it happen that you were not broken down and spoiled when the wind came? You are so little and weak, and I was so strong and proud." "Ah! poor Tree," said the Reed, "that is just the reason that the wind did not hurt me. I bent low until it had gone by, but you stood stiff, and tried to stop it on its way. No one can stop the wind. It must go where it is sent, but it will not hurt those who are not proud and stubborn."
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