Council estate serfs
Sir: Geoffrey Smith's examination of the Tory Party in Scotland (28 May) was right in explaining that the vast proportion of council houses renders a huge section of the population impenetrable to the Conservative campaigner.
Each city is surrounded by miles of Scottish Sowetos where the people are held in serfdom by the housing department. These brutal, gaunt and humiliating concentration camps, although funded by Conservative governments, gained, no political reward other than to the Labour Party. But these miserable ghettoes now offer a great chance to the party to revive its prospects by offering all council houses on the market. There are endless variations on the theme of selling or giving away housing stock but Mr' Taylor will work wonders for his colleagues if he can capture the imagination of Scot
land's tenants. By the magic of the market houses that were burdens on ratepayers, and blighted for occupants, come alive again when property rights are restored. If the Scottish Tories can convince that they will effect a real change in council housing they will bounce back dramatically.
Parallel to the liberation of Scotland's ghettoes (the same is true for the rest of Britain of course), if the Tories could commit themselves to some tangible scheme for parental power in the choice and nature of schooling the Labour burghers would be totally outflanked.
What a pitiable existence it is to be born and live on a council estate, to be sent to a series of compulsory detention centres called schools then to drift into unemployment. Radical libertarian prescriptions could change all of this. Far better the Tories campaign for more choice and freedom than try to peddle an enfeebled version of the SNP's idea. Mr Buchanan-Smith proposes a Scottish Assembly with the powers of a Bantustan. That would only add another layer to the sorrow of a Scotland sunk in the mediocrity of municipal enterprise.
Peter Clarke
Powrie Castle, Powrie, Angus
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