Five of the most exciting years of my life (88-93) were spent in Hong Kong – that vaunted enclave of the “triumph of untrammelled capitalism”. Yes, there was a flat tax rate and a blind-eye attitude towards business.

There was also the small matter of Hong Kong’s position - a British colony with a strong rule of law as entrepôt to a huge, semi-closed market (China). But in addition, the Territory enjoyed fantastic public infrastructure, including miles and miles of public housing.

 

A sizable proportion of the population dwelled in social housing – built by the state and rented at low prices. Not luxury flats (few in Hong Kong were. Most housing was cramped and dense) but while wages were rock-bottom and society pretty unequal (sound familiar?) housing for all was guaranteed.

And my point?

In London, where incomes of the poorest are falling and the richest are getting richer*, cheap social housing is vanishing fast. Is it sheer coincidence that the housing market has gone loopy? Rents and house-prices have skyrocketed.

Anyone losing their social housing (unable to pay their bedroom tax, or being ‘decanted’ from ‘regenerated’ council estates) cannot begin to afford to buy or to rent on the open market. Any agent would laugh them out of the shop. So they are excluded from this, the most unregulated property market in Europe. (Hence the occupations we are experiencing here in Chipping Barnet - both Sweets Way and Dollis Valley are sites of that most dedicated form of resistance: Occupation of spaces full-time and opening them as spaces for the community.)

Meanwhile we are being encouraged to question why ‘these people’ are being given housing when we ‘have to work hard’ to keep a roof over our heads?

Lets run through some of the answers shall we?

  • The simple impulse to help those in need. Is that allowed?
  • A recognition that we make a cruel, war-like world where having done nothing wrong, you can no longer live at home.
  • Erm, it’s good for business. It wasn’t pure paternalism that persuaded the colonial government to bless Hong Kong – mostly made up of migrants from China - with cheap housing. It was business-friendly. Property developers benefited (nice for them). And when people have somewhere to live, they can work. And if the housing is reasonably priced, they can work for less! Yay.

The social cleansing experiment we are running in London, decanting our poor and building for the rich so that we can claim the title of money laundering centre of the world (reluctantly relinquished by Dubai) may yet come to bite neoliberalism on the bum. But in the end - it’s the suffering of the people involved that sickens me!

(*Yesterday's article in the Financial section of the Guardian isn't available online. "Britain's better off - but are its people? The data says no" was published p26, 1 April 2015)