Knowing our Place

It's been a tough few weeks.  After thirty years of suffering from depression, I always forget how much it hoovers up every crumb of your personality.  I go from being a force of nature (thank you @SWDrake, one of my favourite tweets) to an old woman who struggles up stairs.  And every rational fibre of my being yells "It's a brain disorder!  Her legs are bloody fine!!"  But the brain controls everything.  And when your brain has gone into a darkened room, lain under a duvet and answers every command with "Whaaatt? Really?" And performs begrudgingly and achingly slowly, well, you get the picture.  

But this week, something changed.  Despite avoiding a new viral infection (four in six weeks and counting) my back 'went'; I felt old and finished.  Then Bob Crow died.  Just like that.  Was on iPad, checking email when BBC News sent a push notification.  Boom. Normally BBC news notifications tell me something about an energy minister or Michael Schumacher.  Not this time.  I almost expect a pre-warning.  Telling me I might want to sit down.  But no. Just Bob Crow.  Dead. 52.  I wander (ok, ok, hobble) down to my partner in a daze. It is unreal, as if the TUC is discovered to only exist in Narnia.  A part of our lives we took for granted. But now gone. Apart from sharing a platform with him, where he genuinely impressed me with his intelligence and insight, Bob was a myth and legend, but at the same time, intensely real.

And today, Tony Benn. We all knew it was a day coming.  I imagine his family knew more than most.  When caring for the seriously ill, the question "Is it today?" hovers over each day.   But for us, it was a rude awakening.  Kate Rusby once wrote a song after losing someone close, asking Who Will Sing Us To Sleep? But, more and more I think, Who will call us to wakefulness?  Who will urge working people to open their eyes and see the war that is being waged on them and fight back?  Who will teach people that a sense of entitlement is not a label of shame but a state of preparedness to fight for the things our mothers and fathers fought for: education, free healthcare, housing and help when workless or poor are things which are basic rights and symbols of civilisation.  They are not fripperies, no longer affordable, while we ignore bankers telephone figures bonuses, second homes and a tax system that passes the burden further and further down.  

Where are the politicians that tell people their role is in the vanguard?  Where are the politicians that tell us a sense of entitlement is the least we deserve, having sacrificed workers to one world war after another, having built industries to see them sold off, we can at least claim this country and its assets as our own.  There are none.  Even, and especially for Galloway, it's all about showing working people that this land is a ship in which they must stay below deck, at the oars, forever, while their leaders stand atop shouting out orders, some more lenient than others, but all essentially the same: You Are The Led. We Are The Leaders.  The crumbs from the table might be bigger under certain leaders, but we are all clear about whose table it is.  When did we become so passive?  When I spoke on a platform with Bob Crow last year, he told the story of his father who returned from war, determined to tell the foreman he could no longer push him around - he had risked his life for his country, for the fight against fascism and no one, but no one would treat him like that again. 

In the next twelve months, politicians will tell us our place is in the ballot box, voting for them, whoever they might be.  And they may well be right.  But for workers, our place is so much more than that.  It should be in the forefront of industry and services, dictating how trains are driven, how the NHS is run, how policing is governed, how social care is delivered and what education we give our children.  We need a renewed sense of entitlement but above all, a sense of responsibilty to lead.  Not to tut and roll eyes at leaders, but to lead ourselves.  Who is offering us that?  No one.  But more importantly, why aren't we demanding it ?