las pointed out, the basic issue was the question of the redistribution of profits. Jack Mitchell, AEF district negotiator for Fords in the Dagenham area, reminded them of the fundamental opposition between the interest of Fords shareholders and Ford workers, and the danger of workers measuring themselves against better-paid wage-earners alone. "Don't let us start fighting about how much of the cake we're going to have amongst ourselves until we get the cake, or we'll end up with bugger all. On the nature of control over the job, one shop steward said that measured day work or not, "We're not going to have the Rootes company telling us when we're tired. Because we're Worpeople to know when we've done enough ORGANISATION The world doesn't change by talking about it: The parity campaign means hard work. Sid Harroway from Fords Dagenham stressed the ractical importance of propaganda. Speaker mphasised it couldn't be a passive campaigr It had to be backed up with rank and file action. It was no good just passing resolutions, you had to be organised to put them into effect. It was recognised too that militancy wasn't something that happened suddenly. "Spontaneous" action merely meant that it hadn't been noticed what people were thinking and feeling before. Consciousness developed slowly. It took time and a long process of pre paration before it erupted. A Halewood Ford steward said people had the impression that in Liverpool everyone was naturally militant. Well, they weren't. There had been big changes up north. "All the kids have shoes on their feet and jam butties in their hands. The empty belies aren't there any more." Unity was emph: ised and combine organisation and links bet ween shop stewards committees mentioned. Sid Harroway read messages of solidarity from Alfa Romeo workers translated from Italian wishing them success "in the common fight against management" and from Ford workers in Belgium: "Your claims are justifiable."
TRADE UNION LEADERS
There was some discussion on the relationship berween the rank and file and trade union officials. Some speakers praised Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones. But someone from Halewood maid Don Het s build these telers uD. What On Tuesday 21 October at 4 p.m. a group of about 35 people demonstrated outside Senate House, University of London, protesting about links between the University and University College, Rhodesia. They had intended to present their arguments to the University administration. The students found their way blocked by closed glass doors and a line of men in suits. Not only did these men refuse to allow any entry into the building, but they proceeded to drag into the building a number of students whom they knew by name and believed to have organised the demonstration. The crowd outside then witnessed an assault on the students who had been dragged inside. In addition to the violence being perpetrated on their fellow-students in the lobby, the demonstration was further provoked and intimidated by a photographer inside the building who was seen photographing the demonstrators. There were a series of unsuccessful attempts to go to the aid of the students inside. Richard Saville, a hospital treatment. their Special Branch colleagues, and five people were arrested. They were remanded in custody, two being released on bail of £250 each on 31 October. Three were kept in custody until 3 November. Serious charges have been made and are being added to.
The demonstration had been preceded by considerable research and agitation on the links between the University of London and racism. What followed the demonstration was a mobilisation in many London University colleges. People reacted against both the links with racism and the excessive violence used by the administration when faced with the demonstration. 800 students in University College alone voted for a demonstration to protest against the administration's actions. 2,000 students assembled outside Senate House on 27 October and ceed. They put forward the occupation of SOAS for twenty-four hours as a feasible action. RSSF suggested the setting up of a longterm campaign against racism. Groups took the opportunity to recommend various demonstrations due to be held. SOAS was reluctant to put forward an occupation to its students and recommended various long-term measures. The meeting decided to mobilise at all the colleges in favour of the LSE proposal. A RSSF AntiRacist Project was set up.
The occupation proposal was still-born because most activists did not intend to abide by the decision. The idea was never put to SOAS students after the Socialist Society dismissed the proposal. At LSE there was a large number of students who were prepared to take part in the action. The reaction at U.C. was encouraging, but amongst the militants there was little enthusiasm. In face of this to have continued with the idea would have been a mistake. As a last gesture the action committee dissolved itself. There was no ill-feeling, only recognition that that the vanguard elements of the student movement were unwilling to participate in mobilising for an action. It was obvious that a crucial debate was necessary before any mobilisation could be contemplated.
When seen in conjunction with the demonstrations against the Springbok tour, it is obvious that there is widespread interest in national terms in acting against racism, but what became clear from the efforts to mobilise over Senate House is that there is a considerable amount of work that needs to be done amonst the various activists themselves. There was a fatalistic conviction that it was impossible to mobilise for any action on a mass basis. This, combined with a lack of clear perspective of any direction in which the activists wanted the student move ment to move, made it impossible to provide a lead in the generally sympathetic meetings that took place in the various colleges. There was no lack of long-term ideas, such as the "Anti-Racis Racism Project proposed by the National RSSF. Given this atmosphere, SOAS ideas of a teach-in and more research perhaps constituted the only concrete measures that militants could pursue. In any case, Senate House adopted a "softer" attitude over their previous efforts to try to keep the arrested students in custody. and the large meetings that took place must
DWARF A recent review of property shares by City stockbrokers, Norris Oakley, confirmed an open secret in the City: despite restrictions, "prohibitive taxation" and other attempts on the part of the Government to curtail the inordinate amassing of wealth through speculation in property, the boom is detinitely on.
Owners of office properties in central London who granted eases? vears ago with no rent reviews (something that would be unheard of now: I have heard leading developers talk in terms of annua rent reviews) are current y deciding on future rentals which will be 600 per cent up on what thet were in 1948.
Meaningless legislation, introduced by the Labour Government to cut down the vast, disproportionate profits on land development has тао схаспу т oppose спест- ony two vecks ago, in the City, it was possible for Gabriel Harrison, property tycoon par excellence, to announce that he had £10 million worth of development in hand which "when completed will be able to show an immediate surplus of £3,250,000 over cost"
But to understand the complex situation in property today, it is necessary to explore the history of the racket. The property market as we know it was established after the last war: widespread destruction of existing premises, coupled with the unprecedented expansion of service, marketing, accounting and research departments as opposed to industrial and productive aspects of industry, created an alarming demand for office space.
Stringest Government levies of up to 100 per cent and a system or owneng ncences successfully prevented any real money being made before the Conservatives won the 1951 election.
Macmillan came to power waving the flag of private enterprise, and one of his first acts was to unleash the sluice gates for a furore of capitalist indulgence, which it has proved virtually impossible to control ever since. In a dramatic speech in the House of Commons in 1952, he abolished all taxation and levy on development: sight. In 1944 it was worth £19,000, now it has assets of roughly £330,000,000 - the largest property company in the world), Walter Flack and Jack Cotton.
Only one developer emerged in the subsequent decade who rivalled their greed and success: Harry Hyams, notorious for Centre Point, whose company, Oldham Estates was worth a mere £22,000 in 1959, and now tops the £50,000,000 mark (see B.D. No. 12)
Only a minimum of intelligence and knowledge was required to become a property-specu lator: all that was absolutely necessary was a telephone.
The formula was as follows: the developer cast his rapacious eye on a possible site. He rang up a bank, told it what he was going to do, and persuaded it to lend him the money. This was not too difficult as the banks knew he would have to be a fool to lose. An architect was employed "on credit" to design a building to yield the maximum floor space on the land available.
Next, a building contractor was engaged to put up the building, also "on credit". If we sup pose that the building cost £10,000 "all in" to build, its market value on completion could be worth anything up to £20,000 - which, as it was a capital gain and not income, was the developer's, free, gratis and for nothing. (Capital gains were not taxed at all until 1962.
The developer next had a choice: he could either sell the building and clear out with the £10,000 in his pocket or he could hold on for even greater rewards: if he held on, he could let the office to a company (who prefer to lease, rather than to own land, as then their rent can -be set off against tax). From this, he would Which he could pay off the original loan, plus which he could pay ‹ interest, in six or seven years, and be left with an entirely free building, whose capital value was escalating almost daily, and which he could sell at any time he chose.
This squalid little equation, with various refined ramifications, meant that just about anyone could become a property developer and heap up vast, tax-free profits in a way which had only previously been possible through crime.
Subsequent property legislation has been directed at the suppression of these profits, but property developers are second only to roulette operators in their ability to evade legitimate In 1962 the Conservative government introduced short term capital gains tax.
This meant that if a developer sold off his building too quickly, he would have to give approximately 40 per cent of the protits to the Government.
Developers retaliated by simply not selling off their buildings, but using the second, more profitable method outlined above.
With the Labour government back in power, and the very roots of social democracy challenged by the property scandal, George Brown introduced the total ban on office development of 1964.
This was the first of the great farces, which left property developers laughing. Since 1962, they had all been devotedly holding on to their properties, and, of course, by banning further developments, George Brown played.right into leir hands. The value of existing premise ›ared overnight, rents rocketed (from f4 : square foot per annum in the City for the best blocks to the present rate of around £12 a sq. ft.). The only difference after the ban was that developers did not even have to work for their rewards: they just sat back and enjoyed vastly increased income and capital growth.
One can see just how it worked by taking a specific example: if you go to Paternoster Square, you will see a vast complex of offices, close to St. Paul's Cathedral, which were In came the office ban, up went the value of existing space and the remaining 50,000 sq. ft. were let by the consortium for 84s. 6d. a square foot.
The gross value of these offices would have been £30 million, if they had been let at the rate prevailing after the ban, but was only about about £3 million when they were left for 24s. 6d. This is because the gross value of a building is dependent on its yield - or what can be got out of it.
ch Commissioners made an untortunate mistake, which cost them a lot of money, but there were many developers who did not. The speed with which the value of offices went up was almost unbelievable. The majority of property developers saw their assets at least doubled in twelve months.
Peeved by this inept attempt, Callaghan slapped in a penal budget in 1965, which taxed long-term capital gains. This was a 30 per cent tax, but as will readily be seen, it was merely skimming the cream off the kind of wealth created by the ban.
The Labour government now had a problem. Although they steadily increased capital gains tax paid by companies to its present level of 45 per cent, they wanted to get at the inordinate profits reaped by developers before hey were turned into cash In other words, they wanted to tax a deve loper on the value of the wealth he created by developing land with offices, whether or not he sold those offices to raise money As soon as he had put his building up, the developer would have to pay a lump sum, "Bet- about how the behaviour of whites had been terment Levy". When he sold it, he would be hit again by capital gains tax - and profits would be reduced.
In came "The Land Commission" in March 1967. Purpose: to raise "Betterment Levy" on all developments, large and small. By March 1968 it had only raised considerably less than €½ million. It employed a staff of 2,000 and it cost almost £1½ million to operate for the The Land Commission had made the mistake of exempting land from "Betterment Levy" on which work had begun before it came into force force.
Backed by limitless resources, the developers simply bought up every piece of land which they could lay their hands on, dug trenches across it, had photographs of the land, complete with workers digging trenches, fowarded to the Commission, and now possess enough exempt land to last them for many years to come. The man who discovered this loop-hole in the law was Desmond Heap, the City Comptroller and Solicitor.
And so it goes on - whatever the Government does, the land speculator wins. As long as une capitalst structure continues. the tvcoon will come out on top: ALPO, the Association of Land and Property Owners, last year had 200 members, owning £2,000 million worth of land.
If the Conservative government wins, it is pledged to make things easier for the developer. It it does not, the Labour government is totally unable to do anything about it, as long as land remain Ownership of urban land is linked directly to the exercise of political power: a fact which the City Architect, Mr. E. Chandler, does not want • are deeply attached to him as the man who not known, and has withheld from publication is that since the 1964 "total office ban", the City Corporation, which is itself one of the coun try's largest land-owners, has been building at a faster rate than ever before. It is currently trying to play down the development of Guildhall, -with new streamlined office blocks, "because we don't want other local authorities to be jealous" — but it knows it has Parliament where it wants it. Percy Ingrams THE RISE OF ENOCH POWELL by Paul Foot The Black Dwarf 26th November 1969 Page 4 decent white stock, their claim to equal citizenship was a shocking impertinence. Suddenly the florid rhetoric about the 'open door' turns into equally florid rhetoric about the desecration of "England's green and pleasant land'."
Medium-focus: " ... Powell's speech on the Royal Titles Bill represented the first public demonstration of his most consistent abilitv. te construct out of reactionary prejudice (in this case, a love of Empire) an empty pyramid of formalistic logic, and to identify the whole with a Higher Destiny.
Narrow-focus: Foot takes a quote from a 1964 article in which Powell claimed that Britain had an "inescapable obligation of humanity" to admit the dependents of immigrants already here. Foot takes the phrase "inescapable obligation" and sticks it, irremovably, up Powell's arse. This is the pay-off: "The words "inescapable obligation' tend to give the impression of an obligation which cannot be escaped. The words of politicians, however, must not always be taken glibly at face value. 'Inescapable obligation', in modern politicians language, can be taken, m nonal cu cumstances, to mean: an obligation to humanity which cannot be escaped unless there are a large number of votes to be gained by escaping it. From now on, demonstrators at Powell meetings are under an inescapable obligation to chant "Inescapable Obligation". It's got a good swing Two things I missed from the book. One, the argument would have been more graphic if Foot had collected statements from immigrants altered by Powell's Birmingham speech. My impression is that racialism became far more open. (e.g. A group of men, in their thirties, wearing suits, not really drunk, at the corner of one of Manchester's most respectable streets, at ten in the evening, singing to the tune of "Pick A Bale of Cotton' - "We're gonna jump down, turn around, kill a Pakistani/ Gonna jump down, turn around, kill a wog a day./ Me and my buddy gonna kill a Pakistani ... - singing their filth proudly. Barring fascist meetings and riots, that kind of defiant and deliberately public racialism has spread ince the British National Party and Union Movement's line was taken up by Powell.)
Two, I wish Foot had gone through Powell's recent speeches on race, underlined every word and phrase which carried connotations of fear and listed them — not as an academic exercise in linguistics, but to expose even more clearly how Powell manipulates the terrors and superstitions of the ignorant and how Powell, to the extent that he believes his own vivid words, is. • very scared man indeed Towards the end of the book Foot points out the contradictions of Powell in his new-found role as a "populist" politician. There's a difference in kind between the support which Wilson and Heath obtain in public opinion polls and those who give Powell his fluctuating rating rating. Wilson and Heath's supporters are comparatively impersonal, their loyalty is usually the straight class ticket (which is bent) and the plump for whoever's king of the friendliestseeming party. And there's no embarrassment in telling the liberal-looking girl from Gallup that you prefer Humpty to bloody Dumpty.
Powell's a different matter. His supporters only expressed their racial terrors but who also made race hatred respectable in Britain. Around the country, including all-white areas like the Yorkshire Dales, you'll see painted slogans saying "Four Cheers for Enoch". Nobody ever bothered to paint up even two cheers for Wilson or Heath. Granted that the bugger's popularity isn't always widespread. But it goes deep.
Powell's next move may well be based on Nixon's "Law and Order" campaign. In an increasingly restless Britain, that could bring