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Housing: how the Tories carefully erased working-class London
NICK WRIGHT argues that the transformation of once-radical boroughs like Battersea into desirable locations for the well-paid few sums up the story of how housing can be used as a political weapon — by the right and the left
(L to R): Balfron Tower in Tower Hamlets, and the building's architect Erno Goldfinger (left) on the balcony of his flat in the building, where he studied the impact of his design [Richard Parmiter / Creative Commons]

THIS YEAR, Labour took control of the council in the London boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster. Nearly five decades of Tory control has made these places almost unaffordable for working people on a normal wage.   

People today know the Wandsworth Tory council leader from these early times — Christopher “Chopper” Chope — as the “Jurassic era” MP who, more recently, blocked the passage of a private member’s Bill that would have made upskirting a specific offence.   

But Chope had another vision — of a gentrified area denuded of Labour voters and the working class in general by a social-cleansing process built around the privatisation of the housing stock.   

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