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Published: 10 September, 2010
by TOM FOOT

THE author of the internationally acclaimed book The Spirit Level has warned the Town Hall’s Fairness Commission it must mobilise an “un­precedented social and political movement” if it is to succeed in its aims.

Professor Richard Wilkinson told a packed meeting on the Andover estate in Holloway on Tuesday night that the council must fight back against the “obscenity” of public sector cuts.

The commission – a panel of 15 representatives from the council, NHS, academics and community champions – aims to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

The meeting heard a range of cost-cutting suggestions from the public, but Professor Wilkinson warned that simply searching for ways of making savings “around the edges” would lead to failure.

He said: “It’s very clear that what we’re thinking about here are little tiny improvements around the edges. It’s like endlessly patching up a boat. You need a new boat.”

“We know the problem of cuts comes from the rich, from the bankers, from the mistakes they made – and we know who’s paying for it. We are all discussing it in that framework. 

“We’re totally unequal to it. While thinking what little bits we can improve around the edges, we must not forget the overall picture. It demands a much bigger response to the obscenity of what we are having to talk about – the kind of services that have to be cut to keep paying bonuses to these people.

“But this won’t be changed, fundamentally, until there is a massive social and political movement addressing this problem.”

Labour councillor Andy Hull, the commission’s co-chairman, was “keen not just to manage these cuts but also to campaign against them”. He added: “We do mean it – we want to be held to account.” He has told the Tribune the commission could launch campaigns against companies that fail to pay the London Living Wage.

At Tuesday’s meeting, presentations were given on child poverty and under-occupancy of council homes. 

Martin Baillie, from the council’s child poverty department, said: “It is not unfair to talk about child poverty as a crisis in our borough. 

“We are talking about a phenomenon of lone parents living in our social housing – they are our responsibility in a number of ways.”

But Homes for Islington resident director Theresa Coyle told the meeting: “There is something trendy about getting pregnant and the services and support on offer make it even trendier. We all know that if you have a child you move up the housing ladder.”

One parent replied: “I take umbrage with that – I have clambered and fought with those attitudes to get where I am. It turns parents off going to services. You cannot go voicing those arguments if you are on the Fairness Commission.”

Panel member Professor Anne Power – a London School of Economics academic – said: “Training lone-parent mothers makes such a difference.”

The meeting was told the council housing waiting list could be cleared if all the under-occupied rooms were filled.

Labour housing chief Councillor James Murray added: “That is quite a profound statistic when you think about it.”

Pensioners’ spokesman John Worker warned of a “blitz on the welfare state” and raised concerns over council “double charging” – where tenants pay twice for services such as recycling or rubbish collection. 

Labour councillor Claudia Webbe said: “There are huge concerns about energy charges that people pay for communal heating systems in addition to the energy charging of gas and lighting. There is an apparent feeling that people are faring differently to those who control their own energy costs. We must ensure that energy charges are fair.”

The meeting was warned that cuts could bite soon. Labour councillor Richard Watts said: “There ain’t an awful lot [of cash] left in the council. I think we will very quickly start making frontline cuts.”

The next meeting of the commission is at the headquarters of international law firm Slaughter and May in Clerkenwell on November 2.

COMMENT

Mind the gap: Fairness Commision means business

ONE of the most extraordinary pieces of sociological research is being carried in an equally extraordinary step taken by Islington Council – to set up an inquiry into how and why Islington suffers more than most parts of Britain or Europe from inequalities of wealth.

Having assembled all the facts, the council, through its Fairness Commission, hopes to be able to do something to help across the divide.

It has a big job ahead. Child poverty in Islington is the second worst in Britain, if not in  Europe.

A glance at a map of poverty clusters in the borough put before a public meeting of the Commission on Tuesday shows the scale of the gigantic problem facing the council.

How much can a local authority do? Something, no doubt, but basically there has to be a sea-change in government policy.  

And this does not look likely in the coming years.

Unless there is a such a swell of angry public opinion, that forces the government to back down.

By holding its second meeting on a council estate, the Commission shows it means business, saying to ordinary people: Tell us what’s wrong!

But Professor Richard Wilkinson is right.  

Simply highlighting problems here and there – as speakers did at the meeting – is not enough.  

It is only nibbling away at the edges. Little will change unless the public recognises that the government’s present policy will only widen the inequality gap even more.

For many people, the Commission may act as a wake-up call. 

Is it possible it will help to set off a band wagon of social protest? 
THE EDITOR