Spitting, shouting and bursting Tory bubbles: Conservative party conference

Last week in Manchester the Tories staged their annual festival of self-congratulation, also known as the party conference. This time they have been trying to keep the swagger to a minimum after their surprise election victory in May. Whatever your view on whether or not austerity is the best solution to our economic problems, it is clear that the Tories have not governed for everyone during the five years of the coalition. There have been cuts to unemployment benefit, the introduction of the bedroom tax, rising homelessness and now low paid workers are losing their tax credits. All of these have disproportionately affected the poor, so not everyone was pleased to see the Tories back in government.

Inevitably this displeasure led to a protest outside the party conference, a protest attended by over 60,000 people. It was a large protest, but Manchester Police commented on Twitter (??? link) that it was a well organised, and well behaved, protest with only 4 people arrested. Despite this commitment to public order from the protestors, the right wing media still called them yobs and tried to make it look like Genghis Khan's hordes had tried to invade the Tory conference. Some journalists were spat it, which is completely unacceptable, but we should not judge a largely peaceful protests but its worst members.

There was an attempt from the Tory sympathetic sections of the press to portray this a far left lynch mob, prevented from murdering the Tory party membership by only be a thin line of police officers. We were told that these people were anarchists and socialists who want to destroy the government and capitalism. I do not think this is fair. I think that many of these people were not anarchists, socialists or even trade unionists or Labour party supporters. In fact, many probably did not think of themselves as left wing.

These were the people hurt by five years of the Tory led coalition and the people who will be hurt by five years of a Tory government. The people hit by the bedroom tax, the people who are about to lose their tax credits. This protest was simply about the Tories acknowledging that these people exist. It was about the Tories recognising that last five years have not been "mending the roof" as George Osbon put it, but bringing it down onto a lot of peoples' heads. It was about the fact that yes unemployment down and GDP is up but there has been a human cost to this, primarily born by one section of society. If the Tories are going to have a huge festival of self-congratulation then they have to walk past the people who they have hurt.

The worst thing about the Tories is that they deny the hurt they have done. They talk about sacrifice and tough decisions, as if all that is needed to fix the country’s economic problems is for a few people to go without quite so many take-aways and trips to the pub. The Tories praise themselves for making difficult decisions but they are never the ones who have to make sacrifices because of them. They deny the deaths caused by benefit sanctions and they refuse to acknowledge that what they are doing is destroying communities and lives.

The most intense anger of the protest, the spitting and the shouting, was brought about by the Tories trying to avoid the protesters or walk away without acknowledging them. The crowd grew more angry and aggressive to get attention.

From the Tory's point of view, they refuse to engage with anyone who presents their criticisms in what they see as an unreasonable manner. They will not engage with what they see as a mob baying for blood. From the point of view of someone at the protest (or the millions of people hurt by Tory policy that they represent) there is no reasonable way to bring their suffering to the attention of the Tory Party.

I assume that the Prime Minister did not go into politics to make poor people worse off. He just lives in a posh Tory bubble, where the only people he meets are Tories, even those from less well off backgrounds. Trying to pierce this bubble is almost impossible. The protesters have no means to make their objections known other than to shout loudly. The Tories ignore them for being unreasonable, which makes them get angrier, so they shout louder. The net result is that politics feels increasingly distant and alien to the protesters, while those in power are made to feel that these are people to be governed and not engaged with.

Make no mistake that a political divide is growing between the victims of austerity and those who have not been touched by it, and the Tories winning an election has not changed this. Anyone who wants to reach any kind of political consensus needs to make these two groups talk, which currently they are not.

The main event of the conference was Prime Minister David Cameron's speech, which he primarily used to attack the new Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn was also present in Manchester, but he was addressing the same protesters that the Tories refused to acknowledge. In many ways, Corbyn is the opposite of the protestors: quiet, impersonal, and from a mainstream political party.

Corbyn's election as Labour leader was because he engaged with this faction of society that the other mainstream politicians ignore, they flocked into the Labour Party to carry Corbyn into the leadership. Now Corbyn is trying to reasonably convoy the anger and hurt of these people to the establishment. However, the establishment are not listening to Corbyn either and would scare people by calling Corbyn a threat to national security.

When the angry try and engage with the political process in a constructive way, through political changes such as electing Corbyn, they told either that they are stupid, that their opinions are dangerous or that they are traitors. I am still not sure what the Tories believe is a reasonable way to object to their policies. Presumably it is as meekly as possible so that any objections can be ignored.

Questions remain of how well Corbyn will go down with the electorate as a whole, but so far he has done well at representing the views of this angry section of society that have been ignored for so long. Corbyn is trying to avoid a violent confrontation in the future by addressing the social problems of austerity. However the establishment do not want to listen to him.

If the Tories do not want to talk to the protesters about their objections then they can talk to Corbyn. If they do not want to talk to him either, then the divide will grow until something snaps and violence breaks out. The post-war consensus was supposed to the stop extreme politics of the left and right and the violent political uprisings that had dogged the first half the twenty century. If the Tories want to tear up the last remnants of the post-war consensus and silence any objection, then they invite a return to the extremes and violence of the past. This is what will happen if there is no constructive dialogue.

I would prefer engagement with the protesters through the established political channels as the best means to address the social problems of austerity. The choice of doing that directly, or through Corbyn, is left to the Tory party. The one thing which is certain is that pretending that no one is suffering under austerity and Cameron's leadership will not heal the growing social divide. Only constructive engagement can do this.

What is wrong with gentrification?

Last weekend a protest come street party descended on Brick Lane to protest against the gentrification of the area. Called the Fuck Parade and organised by anarchist group Class War, the crowd-funded protest turned its attention to the most obvious incarnation of the hipsterization of East London, the Cereal Killer. For those reading from outside London this is a cafe which only sells cereal.

Most people will instantly roll their eyes at the words "street party", "crowd-funding" and "anarchist group", then they will go back to eating their scrambled eggs with chorizo with all the superiority of a middle-class centrist. The more thoughtful individual will say that they may find the idea of a cafe that sells cereal for £4.40 a bowl slightly decadent but wider socio-economic problems cannot be blamed one group of people trying to earn a living. Protesting outside a small business a few streets away from the headquarters of RBS is choosing the wrong enemy if your goal really is "class war".

All this misses the point, which is that gentrification has done enormous damage to the communities of East London and the process shows no signs of stopping. You may disagree with the form the protest has taken but you cannot disagree with people wanting to express their anger at the way their communities have been hollowed out to make way for places which sell pulled pork and ever increasing numbers of luxury flats.

The process of gentrification drives people out of their homes by raising the rents in formerly affordable postcodes to astronomical levels. Through the same process, gentrification closes down small businesses. Just look at what has happened with the Brixton railway arches

Gentrification affects the poorest people in society. People who rent and cannot afford to get on the property ladder. These people are most affected by the rise in rents, especially at times when income has remained stagnant. Some of these people live in social housing, which mitigates some of the effect, but the depletion of the social housing stock has forced many of them into the private renting sector. Forced to move from affordable location to affordable location, the rising rents with gentrification means these people are running out of affordable places to live. These poor people have almost no one to speak for them and no means to signal their opposition to being priced out of their own homes.

Most of us see gentrification as positive thing. We say that this area used to be filled with betting shops and takeaways and now it has coffee shops and bars that sell craft lager from local breweries. There is an element of class snobbishness in this, it’s more middle class therefore it must be better. However is it what the people who live in the area there want? No one ever stops to ask them when the character of an area changes.

I live in Walthamstow where this process is thoroughly underway. In the three years I have lived here the places has changed almost beyond recognition. I admit that I am part of the problem, I was not born here and I like pulled pork and craft lager as much as the next iPhone owning middle-class lefty, but I can see another way of looking at gentrification. This area used to be filled with business local people could afford to use; now it is not. Pretty soon these people will leave because they cannot afford their rent and the middle-class colonisation of East London will march on.

What will happen when all the cleaners, carers and shop staff cannot afford to live anywhere in London? Do we want to send them all to Luton and then bus them in when needed? Is this the future for the poor people who need the jobs in London but cannot afford to live there? The problem of London's rising property prices is already spreading to the commuter belt. The future looks bleak for the urban poor in the South East.

So if gentrification is such a problem, why is nothing being done about it? For those who hold the majority of political power (the middle and upper classes), gentrification is seen as desirable. The more middle class an area becomes, the better it is. Capitalism will liberate the poor from their vulgar, misguided desires and deliver them to a more sophisticated world. It is just an unfortunate byproduct that this process also drives poor people of their homes.

Gentrification is also seen as desirable by the people who own property in an area. Again, generally these are the people who have more of a say in the political process. To challenge gentrification we need to challenge the idea that homes are financial assets and remind everyone that a home is a place to live. Economic security for the many is preferable than generating more wealth for the few.

We need to challenge the prevailing opinion that creating more wealth at the expense of communities and people's lives is a good thing. This cuts to the heart of how we see economics. Our society is becoming materially richer but emotionally poorer as all that has emotional value is swept away in favour what makes money. This is seen as a natural process, something we cannot control. Standing up to capitalism is like willing the Earth to stop turning.

Economic process are not inevitable and neither are they natural forces. They are the behaviour of people, and peoples’ behaviour has changed in the past and it will change in the future. This view, that forms and flows of capitalism is inevitable and beyond control is an ideological argument in favour of the status quo. It is an argument that benefits the people who already have wealth, who own property and who benefit from the constantly expanding reach of capitalism. Markets can be controlled, the process is not inevitable. To say otherwise is to support those who prosper from the process of gentrification at the expense of others.

Tackling the problems of gentrification cuts to the heart of how we see capitalism and society. What is seen as good in our society, or inevitable, is often what benefits the middle classes who hold all the political power. These assumptions need to be challenged if we are to stop the damage done to communities by gentrification.

Over the last few years economic growth has returned on the back of growing consumer debt and rapidly rising house prices. At the same time, the majority of people have had falling real wages, less stability in employment and rising costs of living. We have failed to build enough houses for sale and enough social housing, this has forced too many people into an overheated private rented sector and led to a housing crisis, which has affected the poorest the most. We could unlock brownfield land, build more houses, build taller to create more housing units, passes laws against land banking, tax under-occupied properties, pass laws to prevent the depletion of the social housing stock, build more social housing or taken any other number of steps to tackle the problems of gentrification, but there is no political will to do this.

There has been many polite requests to tackle the social problems of gentrification, from the poor and the middle class, this has led to nothing. The process marches invetiably on, people are still being driven from their homes by rising rents and local business are forced out in favour of places like Cereal Killer. This trend is not the fault of Cereal Killer’s owners nor is it the fault of those who sell pulled pork or craft lager, however society is sending clear message to the poor. “These things are wanted, you are not wanted here. Leave now. Any attempts to resist the invasion of our community will be severely dealt with.” No wonder people are angry.

Only the most selfish person would think that anarchist led riots are a sign of society functioning properly. Clearly there are problems of gentrification that need to be addressed, however, all forms of polite protest have been met with a shrug of the shoulder. So people have taken to the streets.

The problems of gentrification still damage people's lives and the process continues. Violence will follow unless we face the problem of the housing crisis and people being driven out of their community. It is not enough to dismiss this as inevitable or argue that it is desirable. We cannot allow the problem of gentrification to continue unchecked or else the form of protest that comes in the future will be much more destructive.