Peace: In The Hands of The Workers. (1914)

From the November 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow Members of the Working Class,—

To-day is being waged the greatest military struggle of all history. The flower and manhood of the five greatest races of this continent strive with all the resources which science has placed in their hands to slaughter their fellows. You are told by our masters’ Press that the German soldiers do not know what they are fighting about, or even who their enemies are—but do you know these things either ?

Many reasons for the war have been given, but only the Socialists have given the true reason.  It is this :

In every advanced country the improvements in machinery and methods enable the workers to produce far more wealth than is needed to maintain them in working efficiency. Of this wealth all beyond what Is essential for the upkeep of the workers’ efficiency is retained by the masters.

As machinery improves, this surplus grows greater, and presents to the masters this ever-increasing problem : Where can they find a market for it ?

Here we have the cause of the present struggle.  It is commercial rivalry and nothing else.

Fellow workers, 600 years ago the means for producing wealth were very crude, yet a man could produce enough to keep his family and himself for a whole year by twelve weeks labour. What vast strides have been made since then in the instruments of labour, and how many times has been doubled the fertility of our toil! Yet the late Campbell-Bannerman said that “about 30 per cent. of the population is living in the grip of perpetual poverty.”

What, then, has been the effect of this remarkable increase in the fertility of human labour, if it has not lifted those who labour above the pinch of poverty ?

The effect has been this: The workers have had to become the wage-slaves of those who own the machinery, factories and the like. What they produce, then, passes out of their hands. It belongs to their masters. They have lost control over the product of their toil, and it becomes their bitterest foe.

If the workers in the Middle Ages produced more than they required, they could store it for a niggard season, leave it to rot in the fields, or take things easy and produce less. It could not hurt them because it belonged to them, and they had full control over it. To-day, however, the wealth which the workers produce in excess of what is essential to enable them to go on working, belongs to their employers. It accumulates until the markets are glutted and the warehouses full, and then it throws its producers out of work because no buyers can be found for it. And not only this : it faces the masters with the problem of finding an outlet for it in the World Market, and so the workers from whom it has been stolen are called upon to shoulder rifles and go and shoot their fellow workers in other lands in order that this stolen wealth may be taken to, and realised or sold in, the markets of the world.

Centuries of progress in “the arts of peace,” generations of the march of science and the “conquest of the forces of nature,” while they have enabled our masters to heap up gigantic wealth, have brought only starvation and misery to the workers. The good things of life can be produced with ease and abundance, but under the present system they result only in murder and chaos.

The remedy is for the WORKING CLASS to take over the whole of the means of production and distribution, in order that what they produce may belong to them. They will then have control of the product of their hands and brains, and will use it for its logical purpose—to satisfy the needs of those who produce it.

When the workers have ceased to be plundered, there will no plunder for a class of plunderers to make war over, and peace will be the portion of humanity at last.

WORKERS, STUDY SOCIALISM !

THE EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE

SOCIALISM IS THE ONLY HOPE OF THE WORKERS!

Editorial: The First World Slaughter (2018)

Editorial from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The First World War was a classic ‘imperialist’ war. Although billed by one side as a war against ‘Prussian militarism’ and by the other as against ‘Russian barbarism’, it was basically a war for a re-division of the world amongst rival imperialist powers.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century Britain and France had consolidated colonial empires in Africa and Asia, providing them with protected sources of raw materials, markets and investment outlets. As a late-comer that had only become a unified state in 1870, Germany had to be content with bits and pieces here and there and wanted ‘a place in the sun’ commensurate with its industrial and trading strength – a place that could only be obtained at the expense of Britain and France.

In the Balkans, the Hapsburg and Tsarist dynastic empires had long been vying with each other for control and influence over the successor states to the crumbling Ottoman Empire. It was in fact an incident in this strategic rivalry that sparked off the war – the assassination on 28 June 1914 of the Austrian Crown Prince by a Serbian nationalist. Austria declared war on Serbia. Its ally, Germany, joined it. Within six weeks Germany and Austria were at war with Russia, France and Britain. So began over four years of mass slaughter and destruction in Europe on the altar of capitalist interests, with skirmishes in the Middle East and Africa.

The media are now whipping us up to celebrate the ending of this mass slaughter in the glorious victory of the morally justified side – Britain and France, who not only retained their empires but extended them at the expense of the Ottoman empire and taking over Germany’s colonies. Germany lost everything and the Austro-Hungarian empire was broken up. But it didn’t settle the matter. Twenty years later capitalist Germany had a second, more desperate and aggressive go at trying to re-divide the world at the expense of capitalist Britain and France.

There are two lessons to be learned from this.

First, that capitalism is a war-prone economic and social system. Built into it are conflicts of capitalist interest over sources of raw materials, investment outlets, markets, trade routes and strategic areas and points to protect these. Hence the First World War, the Second World War, and all the lesser wars in between and since.

Second, those who did the fighting, killing and destroying, and died or were maimed, have been mere cannon-fodder in these wars. They were duped or conscripted to kill and destroy for interests other than their own.

Knowing what the war was really about – and having opposed it at the time – we in the Socialist Party are not taking part in the celebrations. We will however be remembering the millions who died or were maimed fighting for capitalist interests; the millions of civilians who died as a result of the privation and disease brought about by the war; and the buildings, infrastructure and historical sites destroyed. Capitalism has a lot to answer for.

Exhibition Review: Port Sunlight (2018)

Based on ‘The New Frock’ by William Powell Frith

Exhibition Review from the October 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a truism to say that art and commerce are closely related: under capitalism, artists have to earn enough to live, commercial galleries have to survive, and other galleries often need to attract sponsorship from companies. Rarely, though, is the relationship quite as close as that involving William Lever (1851–1925).

Lever was the son of a wholesale grocer, and he expanded the family business by having soap manufactured in pre-wrapped bars. Then he set up the firm of Lever Brothers, which made the soap itself, initially in Warrington but then at a larger purpose-built factory on the Wirral. He used the brand name Sunlight, and the area where the factory was situated was termed Port Sunlight. As his company expanded, both in Britain and overseas, employing 85,000 workers at its height, he became immensely rich.

His initial interest in art was to buy paintings that could be copied and have the word ‘Sunlight’ and an advertising slogan added, so that they could be used as posters. One of the best-known was based on the painting ‘The New Frock’ by William Powell Frith (who objected to the use of his art for commercial purposes). Later Lever acquired a taste for collecting, and built up a substantial collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture, textiles and porcelain. Much of this can be seen at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, which opened in 1922. There are many portraits, such as one of Emma Hamilton as a Bacchante, and a number of works by Pre-Raphaelites such as Rossetti and Burne-Jones (both associates of William Morris).

Many of Lever’s workers were housed in the specially-built Port Sunlight village. A few minutes’ walk from the art gallery are the Port Sunlight Museum and a worker’s cottage. It is often described as ‘an original garden village’, but it was run in a very authoritarian way: for instance, all the houses had gardens but tenants were not allowed to keep chickens in them, and there were strict rules on taking in lodgers. Houses were rented from Lever Brothers, and losing your job meant losing your home. The ideas behind the village were not just philanthropic, as Lever believed that children who lived in a slum would grow up to be ‘a danger and terror to the State’.

Lever Brothers became part of the giant Unilever company in 1930, and from 1979 houses in Port Sunlight were sold when they became vacant, as Lever’s paternalistic approach to housing his employees had long been unfashionable. The village now looks like a rather anachronistic settlement, though both art gallery and museum are well worth visiting.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Horse Voices (2011)

Insert picture of horse here.

The Action Replay column from the January 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

All is not well in the Sport of Kings. The owners and trainers want more money for 2011–12 from the bookmakers, via the levy or tax on their profits, but the bookies are unwilling to pay up. Consequently the government will have to make a decision, in the person of Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.

Of course there is a lot more to this than just a squabble about how much is paid over. Attendance at race meetings is more or less holding up, but otherwise racing is feeling the force of the recession. Trainers are going out of business regularly, and one prediction is that barely a quarter of the 85 who currently train at Newmarket will survive. The owners are in most cases wealthy individuals who see racing as a hobby that can sometimes make money but is mainly indulged in for fun. This hasn’t stopped them threatening to strike in order to get their way in this squabble, though. 

Then there are the bookies, who maintain that horse racing is becoming less and less important as a source of income for them, with it now contributing less than one quarter of the money they get from punters. Moreover, racing paraphernalia take up a lot of space in betting shops, and TV coverage has increased in price. But in particular it’s on-line betting that has caused the problems. If people can bet on roulette, bingo and football over the Internet (including while a football match is being played), there is less left over for the gee-gees. The traditional bookmakers have in some cases moved their operations offshore to avoid paying the levy.

One bookie said, in a nice phrase, that the top owners and trainers, were ‘shooting themselves in both fetlocks’. But really it’s a typical row between groups of rich individuals that will see many workers in the racing industry suffer as the powers-that-be argue among themselves and the whole industry struggles to cope with economic and technological changes.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Cue for a Change (2011)

Sexing up snooker.

The Action Replay column from the February 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s not uncommon for sports to change their rules in order to become more popular with the public, or at least with broadcasters and advertisers. Cricket is the most obvious example, with various limited-over versions and now Twenty20, with its limited duration, having become very well attended.

The latest sport to see a change in format is snooker, with the Power Snooker concept. There are fewer red balls and some innovations to scoring but, more importantly, there is a set time span of thirty minutes per match. This is intended to avoid some of the supposed problems with traditional snooker, where some frames take a lot longer than others and some are just unexciting (however skilful) with lots of safety play. A more or less standard length for matches is of course much more attractive for television.

Moreover, spectators are encouraged to interact with players, rather than just sit in respectful silence, and the players can wear a live microphone if they wish. And, to cater for the laddish element among spectators, both referees are women. Each has her own website (something not thought to be common among football referees, for instance).

The staid world of ‘ordinary’ snooker is fighting back, with a one-frame knockout tournament (maximum ten minutes per frame) in Blackpool at the end of January. ‘Blackpool Beauties’ will walk victorious players out of the arena, while ‘two bouncers with character’ will ‘escort players through the “walk of shame” as they exit’ (www.worldsnooker.com).

All this appears to have little if anything to do with sporting prowess and everything to do with getting the punters in, and especially the sponsors and the TV companies. Hence the glitz and glamour and the time limits. And it’s hardly surprising to learn that the rich guys behind Power Snooker have worked previously in the entertainment industry rather than sport.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Supplying the Grid (2011)

Clint Dempsey and some bloke in a helmet.

The Action Replay column from the March 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

You might think that Premiership football manager is the shortest-lived career in sport. But being an American (gridiron) football player probably holds the title, for on average a player will manage less than four seasons before injuries take their toll. Notwithstanding this, the employers want to increase the number of competitive games played per season, from 16 to 18, with likely consequences for players’ well-being. The owners also want to cut wages and bring existing contracts to an end, two years earlier than is laid down.

As a result, the players threatened a strike, with the next season, due to start in September, under threat. The top players may be millionaires, but there plenty of other players who are far less well-off and who need the free post-career healthcare that is provided after three years of playing. And the team owners are mostly billionaires, with franchises that have grown massively in value over the last decade. Moreover, they have apparently got television contracts that guarantee payment to them even if no games take place.

The climax of the American football season is the Super Bowl, held this year in Texas at the start of February. Advertising slots during TV coverage came in at three million dollars for a half-minute commercial, and plenty of companies have been prepared to pay this, far more than last year. This has been seen by many as a signal that the US economy is recovering from the recession. If next year’s Super Bowl is cancelled, then there will not just be a lot of disappointed sports fans, but disappointed TV executives too.

The players’ and owners’ representatives have now resumed negotiations, but it is still not clear if there is a real chance of a settlement. Even celebrity workers sometimes have to be prepared to withdraw their labour power in order to defend their working conditions.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Chips With Everything (2011)

Peter Swan (Sheffield Wednesday)

The Action Replay column from the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where there is gambling, there is likely to be corruption or cheating, and where there is sport there is likely to be gambling. From betting on prize fights and horse-racing sweepstakes to football pools and the current enormous betting industry, sport and gambling have always been closely allied. But recent complaints and sporting scandals surrounding corruption allegedly caused by gambling have moved to a new level.

Over the decades there have been a number of celebrated betting scandals. In 1919, players in the Chicago White Sox team threw the baseball World Series, so some gamblers could make a fortune betting on their opponents; as a result, eight players were banned for life. In a scandal in the Football League in 1962, three players were imprisoned and banned after betting on their team to lose a match; as one of them, Peter Swan, said, ‘Where there’s money there will always be a fiddle.’ In each case the players benefitted relatively little but paid a big price.

More recently, three Pakistan cricketers have been banned for fixing a Test match against England. They did not conspire to lose but, it’s alleged, to do things such as bowl no-balls at particular points, since that’s the kind of specific event that you can now bet on. They are facing criminal charges too.

The International Olympic Committee is setting up a taskforce to combat not just match-fixing but also illegal betting, an industry worth several hundred billion pounds. Jacques Rogge, IOC President, has said that ‘illegal betting…threatens the credibility of sport’. But the credibility and reputation of professional sport are already undermined, from horse doping to fixed boxing matches to dubious games of snooker or cricket. Swan, it seems, had it half-right: the profit motive leads to fiddles and cheating, where the swindled punters or the corrupted athletes are the real losers.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Circuit Training (2011)

A fascinating 'sport'.

The Action Replay column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ah for the old days of motor racing, the days of Stirling Moss and co, when the driver’s skill was what really counted and overtaking was central. Drivers still need to be skilled and fit and have quick reactions, but their central role is sidelined in favour of large organisation and behind-the-scenes work. As overtaking has become harder and technology has taken over, spectator interest has declined. At the Barcelona track, the last ten grand prix winners have started in pole position on the grid and stayed there, so it’s become particularly boring.

With Formula One races becoming essentially processions, some weird ideas to retain public interest have emerged, such as random watering of the track to make things more exciting. Tyres are being developed that will degrade more quickly, thus potentially leading to more unpredictable racing and an increase in the number of pit stops. This season the cars have a movable flap in their rear wing, which the driver can use in specific circumstances, again to give more opportunity for overtaking (but there are worries that it may make overtaking too easy and so undervalued).

From the late 1990s, private teams such as Ligier and Jordan ceased to operate in F1 as the emphasis switched to the big car manufacturers such as Ferrari and Renault. The telecom capitalist, Carlos Slim (the world’s richest man, according to some) is now backing one of the newer drivers. This is appropriate since, of course, it’s money that guides the F1 world.  Melbourne has lost £147m over fourteen years of staging the Australian Grand Prix, but the track in Shanghai was built at a cost of £280m, in the hope of attracting big crowds and TV money. And for some, F1 really is a cash cow: Bernie Ecclestone, the boss of the whole business, is the twenty-fourth richest person in the UK, with a tidy bank balance of nearly £1.5billion.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Short Changed (2011)

The Action Replay column from the June 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The laws of football don’t say much about what players can or must wear. Shirt and shorts, no jewellery (on safety grounds), no undershirts that contain advertising (though of course in the professional game the shirts themselves have the sponsor’s name or logo prominently displayed). But in some sports the players’ clothing is a controversial issue – the clothing of women players, we mean.

It was recently decreed that women in badminton tournaments above a certain level must wear skirts, supposedly ‘to ensure attractive presentation of badminton’, which presumably involves making the players look more comely and so enticing more spectators and TV coverage. The ruling means skirts as opposed to shorts, though in fact the new regulations do allow skirts over shorts or tracksuit bottoms, so it’s not clear how effective they will really be.

A picture of a female badminton player which is not from 2011.

Naturally there have been objections, some on religious grounds. Others are not against shorts, just against making them compulsory. It’s probably no great surprise to learn that the whole idea came from a sports marketing firm.

The sport with the most controversial clothing regulations has to be beach volleyball. In 1999 it was decided that both men and women had to wear swimsuits, with women players usually wearing skimpy bikinis. In Olympic events women’s bikini briefs have a maximum side width of 7 centimetres and must be ‘a close fit’. What next? That the players have to be blonde with a bust over a certain size?

In cricket, the Indian Premier League has been featuring cheerleaders in short skirts and with provocative routines. One team recently tried to replace these with traditional dancers wearing saris, but many supporters thought the sari was ‘not sexy enough’.

Sadly the sexism of those who run these sports is often reflected in the attitudes of the paying public.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Ring-Fenced (2011)

The Action Replay column from the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

No doubt we shall be returning to the Olympics in this column before the whole jamboree kicks off next July. For now we can just comment on a couple of aspects of the build-up.

Back in March there was an undignified spat between the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG). BOA gets 20 percent of the profit from the Games, and argued that this should be calculated on the basis of the Olympics only, and so exclude any losses from staging the Paralympics. But the International Olympic Committee ruled against this idea, thus reducing the cut received by the BOA and increasing the amount kept by LOCOG.

And LOCOG and others won’t be making money just from this decision. For next door to the tube and train stations at Stratford is Westfield Stratford City, a huge shopping mall, in fact the largest urban shopping centre in Europe, due to open this September. The expectation (or hope) is that 70 percent of Olympic visitors will arrive at Stratford station, where they will walk to the Olympic park via Westfield. This will mean hundreds of thousands of visitors (and potential shoppers) each day the Olympics run.

After the Olympics, this mega-mall will still offer 300 shops, 50 food outlets, three hotels, a multi-screen cinema and a casino. It will also contain a ‘24-hour lifestyle street’, whatever that is. If all goes well for the company that owns it, it will become one of the country’s top ten shopping destinations. So there will be gold in them there tills, not just at medal ceremonies.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Nice Little Earners (2011)

Ryan Giggs in happier times.

The Action Replay column from the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Being a successful athlete can make you rich, very rich. Footballers, for instance, may get contracts involving staggering sums of money, often with bonuses for winning trophies. In many cases the actual sporting income is only a small part: tennis-player Maria Sharapova ‘earns’ around £15m a year, but well under a million of this is from prize money. The rest comes from advertising and endorsements, everything from rackets to handbags and cars. She is supposedly the third-richest athlete in the world.

Lewis Hamilton’s racing driver outfit is covered with the names of companies he endorses: banks, mobile phones, whisky. Of course the sports stars need to have positive associations such as success, glamour and honesty. Advertisers will swiftly drop anyone who compromises these supposed standards, as shown by the consequences of the extra-marital escapades of golfer Tiger Woods.

The most recent example is Ryan Giggs, the role model footballer who committed the sin of having an affair and getting  found out. Simon Barnes (writing in the Times, 27 May, in the wake of the Giggs revelations) castigated the humbug of the whole ‘good guy’ brand, where the appearance of virtue matters far more than the reality. But advertising, after all, is about stretching the truth, and is an industry built around humbug, so it’s a bit much to complain about the sporting link specifically.

We must leave the last word to the American baseball pitcher, Dizzy Dean: “Sure I eat what I advertise. Sure I eat Wheaties for breakfast. A good bowl of Wheaties with bourbon can’t be beat.”

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: World of Sport (2011)

The Action Replay column from the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

It takes a Professor of Leisure Studies to write an atlas of sport. Alan Tomlinson’s World Atlas of Sport was published recently by Myriad Editions and New Internationalist. It contains sections on specific sports, on individual countries and, of course, on sports politics and economics.

One point that emerges is the way that globalisation has affected sport just as it has permeated many other aspects of life. This is not just a matter of the global dominance of football but of the undermining of more local sports, though of course many of these survive, such as pétanque in France and Gaelic football on Ireland. In other cases, changes can only be welcomed: pato in Argentina is no longer played using a live duck rather than a ball.

As European nations extended their power to new parts of the planet, they introduced their own sports. Polo is very popular in Argentina, while cricket is primarily played in Britain and former British colonies: it has been described as an Indian game accidentally discovered in England.

Some sports can be played by almost anyone with a minimum level of fitness, while others require a  lot more investment in financial terms. Skiing was once the preserve of the idle rich, though cheap travel and carefully-prepared snow areas have now widened its appeal to some extent. But polo remains the  sport of an elite, often an aristocratic one, while horse racing, as far as the owners are concerned, is still the sport of kings, capitalists and sheiks.

Not to mention those who flaunt their wealth in sailing – the have-yachts. In his introduction, Tomlinson remarks that sports matter because they express the hopes of billions. But, as he says in his section on merchandising, ‘Sports sell’. Even for a humble kickaround in your local park with jumpers for goalposts what are the odds that players will be wearing logo-covered gear?

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Keepie Uppie (2011)

Celtic winning the European Cup in 1967.

The Action Replay column from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the one who has, as the man said, more will be given. Nowhere in sport is this so clearly seen as in the upper echelons of European club football, where the UEFA Champions League has been arranged so that the most successful and wealthy clubs are all but guaranteed a sizeable income from the competition.

As the European Cup, this was originally structured as a knock-out tournament for the teams that had won the league competition in each country. Before money called the tune in national leagues, this opened the way for teams such as Nottingham Forest to win the final. But the bigger clubs disliked often being shunted into less prestigious Europe-wide competitions and the chance of being knocked out after just two games.

The ‘solution’ was to introduce the Champions League, with more clubs from the biggest countries, a league format which ensured a minimum of six matches and a seeding system that was intended to keep the top clubs apart till the later stages. Massive sponsorship from the likes of MasterCard and Ford, combined with television rights (and global audiences of over 100 million for the final) mean a club can make up to £20m or more from a successful campaign.

One (possibly intended) result of this, combined with the generally increasing power of wealthy clubs and countries, has been to drastically reduce the pool of likely winners. Barcelona has won three times since 2006, and over that period only teams from England, Germany, Italy and Spain have appeared in the final. It’s scarcely conceivable that teams like Ajax or Porto (winners in 1995 and 2004, respectively) could win nowadays. Whatever else may be said, football at such rarefied heights is certainly not on a level playing field.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Grounds for Appeal (2011)

John Terry being John Terry.

The Action Replay column from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A football stadium used to be a place where, apart from watching the match, you bought a meat pie and a plastic cup of lukewarm tea. But now stadiums are like shopping malls, intended to get the captives (sorry, spectators) spending as much as possible and so make lots of money for the owners.

Recently the super-rich owner of Chelsea Football Club tried and failed to buy the land occupied by the club’s Stamford Bridge ground. This was so he could sell the stadium and move to a larger one on a different site. Ironically, the freehold of the land was owned by supporters who bought £100 shares back in 1993, in a move designed to protect the ground from being snapped up by developers.

Stadiums and their grandstands are often quite out of place among terraced houses and corner shops. But rarely is the contrast quite so stark as at the new motor racing circuit for the Indian Grand Prix, which took place for the first time at the end of October. The circuit cost £130 million to build, amid wasteland and poverty-stricken villages. The workers who built it were not even paid the pittance they were promised and were forced to live in makeshift tents with no sanitation.

Among those who came to watch the grand prix were some of India’s growing capitalist class. As one local hotelier noted, ‘there are lots of billionaires, not just millionaires’. So there were plenty of people able to pay the inflated prices, even while those who did the work were barely able to eat. And that’s just an extreme form of capitalism, not something totally alien to it.

Paul Bennett

Action Replay: Flat Out (2011)

The Action Replay column from the November 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Back in July we commented on the build-up to next year’s London Olympics, in particular the new giant shopping mall that lies between Stratford station and the Olympic Park.

But that’s not the only way in which capitalist companies hope to make a profit from the Games. For instance, spectators will only be allowed to take in with them drinks in small containers, as a way of encouraging them to buy refreshments inside the venues – at inflated prices, no doubt.

Property developers, too, have seen a chance to make a killing in what has always been one of the poorest areas of London. New blocks of flats are being built in anticipation of an ‘Olympic legacy’ that will attract young professionals who can afford prices such as £350,000 for a two-bedroom flat. Not many of those who live in the area at the moment will be buying at prices like these, even as their local shops and houses are demolished or converted.

While the Games are on there will be an enormous demand for accommodation, especially in the surrounding area. So, many homeowners are planning to move out for a month or so and rent their homes to others for the duration at several thousand pounds a week. And “an increasing number of landlords are asking for clauses to be written into their rental contracts allowing them to kick out their tenants for a convenient ‘holiday let’ during the Games” (Guardian 8 October). Who said the housing industry existed to meet human need?

Paul Bennett