"The reference to choping down like an old oak tree could be the tall chimmneys ..."

In the 'Essential Ewan MacColl Songbook', Oak, 2001, p.364 the words to this particulr verse are as follows:

"I'm going to make a good sharp axe,
Shining steel tempered in the fire,
We'll chop you down, like an old dead tree."

No mention of oak trees (those wankers 'The Pogues' probably added one of them).
As I understand it, the "good sharp axe" is socialism, which will be used to chop down the "dead tree" of capitalism and, by extension, one of the products of capitalism, the slums of Salford.

As for Poulson type property developers, I can report that they're still very much active in Salford, and other parts of the North West, and local authorities are now, more than ever, nothing more than their 'hand maidens' and 'rubber stampers'.