Trotsky said that the working class uses its union branches in much the same way that it uses its doctors’ surgeries, only visiting when there’s a problem. He could have said the same thing about the residents’ associations on its estates. When not pontificating about the mistakes of Nepali Maoists and that sort of thing I chair the residents’ association on this estate.

It had been moribund for years until the council tried to hand the estate over to a housing association. That kicked the thing back into life. We eventually defeated the transfer proposal by a three to one majority following a terrific campaign with lots of meetings, leaflets and canvassing. For a few months we carried on having regular meetings with a fairly good but diminishing attendance. They sort of fizzled out after one meeting that only five people turned up to.

A couple of weeks ago one of the blocks was without water or electricity for the whole weekend. To my astonishment one of the Labour councillors organised a meeting to which he brought the head of housing and another senior council official. It goes without saying that I still consider him to be a social imperialist running dog of Bush and Blair but I was impressed. The council people apologised for being ill prepared and useless and promised to do better next time. The audience were understandably cheesed off and gave them a rough ride but they handled it well.

Scenting that the moment had come I announced that we’d have another meeting last night. I stuck up forty posters and got a crowd of 25-30, which isn’t too bad. We’ve come up with a list of demands ranging from a refund of two weeks’ rent to tenants in the affected blocks to a list of repairs to asking the police to harass the drug dealers. How much of this we’ll get is an open question. Older residents say that the estate has become progressively shabbier over the last thirty years and the council officers plead poverty as the reason for not maintaining and repairing to a suitable standard.

But it was an impressive bit of self-organisation. People offered to put up posters for the next meeting and collect signatures for a letter to the council. It gives a little glimpse of what working class democracy looks like.