Hackney Independent's Peter Sutton interviewed by "Inside Housing" Magazine

Inside Housing is the weekly magazine for housing workers. Its latest issues includes a 3 page feature on Hackney Council’s “test of opinion” on the Decent Homes Standard, focusing mainly on the Council’s use of Show Flats to convince us that everything will be rosy – if we sign all our rights away so they can privatise our homes. As the article points out, the Show Flats have all sorts of fixtures and fittings in them that we’ll never see in our homes.

A source involved with the initiative confirms in the article that the Council are seriously worried by the campaigns mounted by local people against their propaganda: “Better the devil you know is the phrase that’s repeated again and again. Many residents think Hackney is a bad council, but prefer that to whatever an ALMO would do.”

After all the Council-funded glossy posters and fun days, Barbara Barton (Hackney’s decent homes standard programme manager) has the nerve to have a go at leaflets produced by local people because the information in them “isn’t unbiased”! A career as a New Labour spin-doctor surely awaits you, Barbara.

Hackney Independent is committed to driving New Labour out of working class areas in Hackney, and to exposing their lies. In the article Hackney Independent member Peter Sutton is quoted as saying:

“The vote is a charade. They intend to bring in an ALMO – it doesn’t matter what people say. I think it’s misleading – they say the ALMO will bring extra money but it’s unlikely. The ALMO will cost £3 Million to £4 Million to set up, and they’ll only get extra money if they get a two star Audit Commission rating. If they told people that, I don’t think people would vote for it.”

Hackney only managed to get a one star rating in 2002 and the Audit Commission couldn’t say they thought it would get any better in the future – which is no news for those of us who live here.