Margaret Hodge under fire over immigration

It appears that Margaret Hodge is under attack from romantic trots in the Labour and Liberal Democrat party over her remarks on social housing and immigrants.

Firstly when Margaret (and indeed I) are talking about immigrants we are talking about recent arrivals not people who have either been here for years or generations.

Now we have these comments from an article in the Guardian (bastion of romantic Trotskyism) today.

But the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell, who tried to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership last week, said: "This is a deeply reactionary and dangerous statement to make. The issue, however, is not the allocation of housing, but the chancellor's failure to allow affordable house building over the last 10 years - resulting in the present housing crisis."

Well, John does rightly identify the fact that this government has built less social housing than the Conservative government before it. However there are many causes of the current housing crisis and one of those is the increase in number of households, a situation exacerbated by immigration.

Jon Cruddas, MP for Mrs Hodge's neighbour seat of Dagenham, and a deputy leadership candidate, said: "We're in danger of racialising arguments over housing allocation rather than concentrating on the need for greater social housing provision."

The problem here is Jon Cruddas can't see the wood for the trees. This is not a question of race. Poor Jewish families who have been here for generations along with black, Pakistani as well as white are facing similar problems. They can't get housing yet someone who has just arrived in the country can. Race does not play a part in this debate unless someone is trying to close it down.

The Liberal Democrat local government spokesman, Andrew Stunell, said: "There are one-and-a-half million families on the council housing waiting list and the Labour government keeps selling houses off. The first thing to do is start building social housing again, not to blame immigrants for the catastrophic government failure to tackle the issue."

I see. Blame it all on the right to buy. One of the policies which many in Labour including Roy Hattersley now regret ever opposing because they can see the very positive benefits on the ground. The right to buy has transformed many council housing estates and brought hope to them as well as aspiration. It makes me laugh that it is the romantic trots in the Liberal Democrats
have not caught up with the reality that Labour for the most part has.

They do also blame the lack of building social housing under this government which is lower than under the previous Conservative one.

On the bright side from this BBC report, it is clear that Simon Hughes listens to his constituents and despite being a Liberal Democrat is not so much of a romantic old trot that he can't see what is going on. He says:

Lib Dem president, Simon Hughes, whose south-east London constituency recognised that housing allocation was among the biggest causes of racism.

"The worst cause of racial strife and antagonism is when new property is built, social property, and when people who appear to have no link with the community move into it, when other people who may be desperately needing to move, can't get a move",

I have to say I agree. His comments echo mine, and apply equally to some one coming from another part of the country as well as another part of the world. Local people do expect to be higher up the pecking order.

Incedently Hazel Blears also recognises the problem, as you will see from this article in the Times today.