Rents, rates, prices rise all round

OUR HOUSING CORRESPONDEN1 MILLIONS OF COUNCIL tenants will get this April, in addition to the second round Tories Housing Finance Act. Manchester cor rise will be a staggering 50 per cent, whil Britain is from 30 to 40 per cent.

This savage burden on most working-class tenants will be made heavier by quite separate 50p increases under the 'fair rents' Act—most will have to pay a £l total to the rent man from April 1.

The last revaluation took place in 1962. Taking account of inflation, the new assessments have pushed council housing from the bottom to near the top of the list of rateable values. Rate increases are also needed to cover the extra £100m local authorities have to fork out under the Housing Finance Act itself.

In Clay Cross, Derbyshire, where councillors are appealing against surcharges and disqualification for refusing to implement the Act, tenants are fighting back. It is estimated that up to 90 per cent have signed a petition backing the councillors' stand and are withholding all their rent.

Meanwhile, the great Tory prices hike goes on. Today, chicken bought at Fine Fare, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, costs 2p a pound more -with government permission. For the housewife, it means the average Slb bird will go up viciously by something like 10p.

And firms like Tesco say the housewives have forced up the prices themselves by switching to chicken from beef!

Poultry feed goes up £7.50 a ton— also from today. Within six weeks, this will be reflected in even higher chicken prices. In chorus the big food firms have put these rises down to "world scarcity'.

And the Tories, to no one's surprise, after 'due consultation' have also given permission for rises in the prices of holidays abroad, leather goods and copper alloy castings. IRELAND IS ONE THE IRISH PEOPLE ARE massive rate increases of rent rises under the poration leaders say the e the range throughout orce the 1 UL 77YT(1 Tories on their on