End of the line for Second Stage Transfer of Glasgow Housing Association
Sep 22 2007 12:50
After all the blood, tears, and squealing: "should we support SST, should we oppose SST" - even, curiously when no details were published and so none of us knew what SST actually meant beyond being a vague slogan - it turns out it is not now going to be proposed. And, looking back at the history of the authorities ducking and diving on SST, it looks suspicously like it was never going to be proposed even from the first, from before the transfer ballot itself.
I guess it suited some activists with agendas and egos to raise SST as some scary gotterdamerung that we all had to fight against. That was a lot more exciting than working for ordinary day to day housing improvements, at least if you're that way inclined - the Glasgow housing activist version of George Sorel's "energising myth". But really all it turned out to be was a trap to lead us astray from the immediate task by mirages of what might or not might be in the distant future, and, worse, to artificially divide the tenants movement to the great benefit of the authorities.
Although in yesterdays Scottish Parliament debate on this the new Government still want second stage transfer. Depends now on whether they want it enough to force the issue (which will mean taking direct control of Glasgow Housing Association).
Robert Brown MSP in that debate gives statistics of how GHAs overhead costs are so much higher than they should be: