Remember The ALMO!! posted by Richard Seymour

The first rule of democracy is you never ask for permission. If you offer a referendum on something you want to do anyway, you’re only inviting trouble. So it was when residents of Camden defied government bank-rolled propaganda, wave upon wave of leaflets offering the prospect of new money and renovations for homes if only they would allow their homes to be run by private contractors, and voted the proposals down by 77% . A thumping victory like that won’t replicate itself in Westminster, because Westminster Council has already imposed ALMOs on its residents, sans scrutin. The reason for the difference may be partially due to Westminster Council being a Tory council ideologically in favour of such moves, and Camden Council being a corrupt Labour borough with a rubber spine, only in favour of ALMOs because the government says so.

The government plans to privatise all council housing by the year 2010. Confluently, it has set councils the goal of meeting all recommended renovation and repair targets by 2010. And by another happy coincidence, it has told councils involved that they may only have new government money to cover these repairs if it adopts the ALMO scheme. Such are the Mafia-like intrigues of this government, (in all probability, though, concocted by some cunning civil servants), that councils are floating on a surfeit of offers they may not refuse. This device was first deployed to force recalcitrant councils to accept PFI deals for their schools and hospitals. The only show in town was the hasty introduction of private capital to public services, which would be augmented by wads of government cash if implemented. Otherwise, nada, zilch, zero-sum, bugger all and buggered sideways.

George Monbiot describes the results in his famous treatise on late capitalist democratic degeneration, Captive State. In Coventry, it transpires, two hospitals were made one. The central one, also the easiest to get to, was closed and adjoined instead to the hospital situated on the outskirts of the city. Companies were brought in to do the work of building and also to finance the works in the short run. The agreement was that they would be paid back by the council in part sums over a period of thirty years.

However, the cost of that scheme over thirty years would be £135 million. If the council had simply undertaken the repairs itself, it would have cost £30 million. Furthermore, there would have been no need to close down one of the hospitals at a loss of staff and beds. As Monbiot explains:

"Just as the problems surrounding the plans for the new hospital on the Walsgrave site in Coventry result not from a terrible mistake but from the inevitable unfolding of the Private Finance Initiative, so the impending reduction of beds and staff nationwide is an unavoidable consequence of taking private money. Like the Walsgrave scheme, the price of all the new projects has been massively inflated in order to make them what the NHS calls 'PFI-able': attractive in other words, to private investors."

The general rule with such projects is "every £200 million spent on PFI schemes means 1,000 fewer nurses and doctors."

Taxpayers are being ripped off, end users are being ripped off, NHS workers are being ripped off. No one benefits from this apart from capital.

Back to the ALMO. The £283 million which the government promised if ALMO was adopted is now being demanded by residents, unconditionally, without strings, for the repair of their homes. This part of the battle is crucial. For one thing, there are a host of other councils eager to convince local residents to accept ALMOs and not force them into the same maligned ranks as Birmingham and Camden. Newcastle, for instance - if you live in Newcastle, you may have received a leaflet from the council telling you that failure to support the ALMO would lead to:

"Failure to hit the Government‘s Decent Homes Target by 2010. Reduced standards for windows, doors, kitchens and bathrooms. No more spending on non-Decent Homes issues such as security and environmental improvements."

They reassure tenants that the ALMO leaves the home in council hands, and that they will remain council tenants - perhaps with even more rights than before. One must assume that this is a nationally conducted campaign, since I've seen virtually the same information given to Camden residents (complete with glossy pictures of delighted residents receiving their brand new kitchens). The information is, of course, incorrect:


"In April 2002 Westminster was one of the first councils to set up an ALMO, called CityWest Homes. Now the council wants to hand ownership of three tower blocks from the ALMO to a private housing company, Stadium Housing Association.

Stadium's assistant chief executive Tim Holden boasted, "This is the first of its kind. We're testing the water to see how far we can go.""

ALMOs are supposed to be the more politically acceptable face of "stock transfers", an idea which suffered an immense defeat in Birmingham when the vote was finally taken. Stock transfers sell homes to Housing Associations, and were Labour's chief way of accelerating Tory privatisations, which is one good reason why Camden Council took great pains to emphasise that ALMOs were not like stock transfers or privatisation .

The interesting thing about all these various ploys and attempts is that, yet again, we find it costing a fortune and helping absolutely noone except capital. "The government has recently admitted that it plans to spend £800 million in 2003/4 subsidising privatisation by writing off 'overhanging debt'. This is just less than the £840 million available as housing investment for all 2.7 million council homes in England & Wales. They could almost double direct investment in council housing if they stopped privatisation."

Why? Why should this government waste billions of pounds in tax money on unpopular measures sure to have a negative impact on services? Is it a conspiracy? Are they truly the conscious servants of big business? No.

I'm not just being contrary in answering negatively, but it so happens that this is the most misunderstood government in years. Misunderstood by both its supporters and opponents as a "pragmatic", "non-ideological" government which has "taken the politics out of politics". On the contrary, this is the most ideological extremist neo-liberal government we have yet had. It truly believes that if only we increase the role of private enterprise in running public services, we will invigorate those services with "the rigour of the marketplace" as the new Clause Four says.

So, when you come to vote, remember the ALMO. Remember PFI and PPP. Remember all the money wasted and the beds and jobs lost. Remember that these were ideologically driven decisions, not pragmatic concessions to the middle class. Remember that the government are deeply unpopular in this regard, as in most others, but remain convinced of their virtue and wisdom. There has to be an alternative.

We must, in truth, you and I form an alternative to this weak and nasty government:

Declaration and call for a National Convention to found an alternative to New Labour