Thursday 4 December 2014

Alone in Crowded Places

Maybe it's the bite of winter.  Or the fact that I'm on a cold dark railway platform listening to melancholy music. The train is late and I'm encased in the sound of Kate Nash singing The Nicest Thing. Lots of us are waiting and we all find our own ways of passing the time, staying safe in our bubbles of solitude. Eye contact is avoided by tapping at phones, reading papers on benches at which we sit, careful to place bags between us and the next person to make absolutely sure we don't touch. 

But perhaps my sadness is explained by living in a city in which a young woman has just taken her life and that of her newborn daughter.  A city through which she walked a considerable distance or perhaps took a cab or a bus.  I'll leave the speculation as to causes to others, as well as the handwringing and the downright triggering shock coverage to the gutter press.  What saddens me most of all is how alone many of us feel, despite living in densely populated places, with so many means of communication our heads spin with the constant connections. I wonder what I'd do, at the sight of a woman in slippers walking through the streets with a child in a blanket.  Unless she was in evident distress, I think I'd glance, worry and move on.  I'd be afraid of being seen as judgmental, or a middle class do-gooder.  How did our society get to a place where a term like do-gooder is used sneeringly and pejoratively. But imagine what might have happened if someone had reached out and asked if Charlotte Bevan was ok? Perhaps nothing.  Perhaps no one saw her.  But I find that hard to believe, in a city packed with CCTV cameras and busy with people socialising, leaving work, heading home or visiting friends.

There will be an inevitable inquiry and outrage that feckless NHS staff should have DONE SOMETHING.  We will read about it and roll our eyes, shaking our heads at the failure to protect this young woman and her child. But we're all to blame, you, me, and especially a society that is founded on keeping ourselves to ourselves, keeping the doors of family homes closed and keeping silent when we see bad things happening for fear it may be us next.  Self-reliance is fetishised whereas helping is at best undervalued and at worse, mocked. But needing help, of any kind places you at the bottom of the heap, an invisible person for others to step over.  It should make me angry. But tonight it just makes me sad. 


Monday 22 September 2014

#Lab14 Rant......

I know Party Conferences belong to a complete Otherworld of Unreality, supposedly about policy, (speeches, full of sound and fury signifying nothing), networking (drinking, gossip and sycophancy) and energising party members (why does everyone come home exhausted?) but in reality, they are a hugely expensive way of getting on the TV and grabbing headlines.  Last year, I thought the key message of energy price freezes was, well, quite good.  Thousands of people die due to the cold every year, while energy companies make vast profits. Yes, of course I'd have preferred re-nationalisation, actually wouldn't everyone? We will have a single energy provider, with costs controlled by us and any surpluses going to schools and hospitals - can anyone tell me why that's a bad idea? 

This year, an increase in the National Minimum Wage. To a level still below the Living Wage for London, but an increase - which is better than a freeze, right?  This morning - the headlines are: We will be tough on Child Benefit.  Right.  Tough, as in reversing the horrendous attack on families with children since 2010, as every fiscal study shows overwhelmingly that children in low income families suffered the most due to austerity?  Nope.  Tough as in freezing it or keeping the Tory set 1% cap.  That would be the cap Labour opposed? Yes.  And presumably by singling out Child Benefit, the message is what - we'll be tough on, erm, children?  Hey, what a shame there's not a Puppy benefit, you could be tough on that too.

Who thinks up these ideas? Clearly not Party Conference.  Almost certainly, some shiny haired bright young thing, destined for a safe seat somewhere.  Does anyone ever stop to wonder what real people think, or consider why the distrust and cynicism in the political class grows wider and deeper, while UKIP surge in places like Clapton and Rotherham.  And if so, do they do anything about it?  I think we know. 

Here are my entirely random ideas for headline grabbing. Am not shiny faced, bright young thing, but me and my focus group of two cats think they're better than Tough on Child Benefit. 

1. Give vote at 16, based on Scottish experience. I think it's already policy, but promise it from first day in office. 

2. Force every MP to hold quarterly Question Time sessions in their constituency, at which a full list of expenses claimed and votes cast, along with a report of all work carried out on their behalf.

3. Hold a referendum on the re nationalisation of energy, rail and water.

4. Write off student debt of every graduate who works in NHS for five years following graduation.  Or any public service.  Insist employers with skills gaps pay back a proportion too.  

5. Stop MPs taking on any outside work whilst in office.

There, five random ideas, none as radical as I'd personally like, but each headline grabbing in their own way and only likely to be controversial to those who probably are never going to vote Labour. Iwhy is it so hard?  Because, I believe, there's a consensus to keep the ship steady, forgetting that said ship is a centuries old vessel of privilege, inequality and oppression.  The sooner it hits the rocks the better.  What we want is an Opposition that does what it says on the tin, oppose the Government and not the working people of this country.  


Thursday 28 August 2014

The Great Big Patriarchal Shaped Elephant In The Room #RotherhamAbuse

As if to delight news channels across the country, August vomits up the moral panic of the inquiry into child exploitation and sexual abuse in Rotherham. 1400 children abused or exploited over 17 years by abusers, some of whom were Asian males. This is a news story with perfect components:

POLITICAL DRAMA!!!! Should Labour be blamed? After all it's a Labour Council isn't it, and its Social Services Department is probably staffed by bearded do gooders more likely to remove a child because their parents want to take her to Sunday School than challenge Asian people.  Labour grab this chance to score endless home goals by demanding the resignation of the Police Commissioner or else they will suspend him from the party! Oh yes, that'll show everyone.  And anyway, isn't this the Tories fault for introducing these Commissioners roles in the first place with their £120k salaries and then finding out no one can remove them.  All of these points may or may not be true, none of them have any relevance or any prospect of making things right for the victims. 

RACE AND MULTICULTURAL DRAMA!! Up pop UKIP, making sly digs about different cultural values and even sensible people mutter that this is what Islam is like, painting non Muslim White women as whores and this is where it all ends.  People who have never read the Qu'uran feel qualified to pronounce on religion, at least other people's religion, foreign religion that doesn't belong here. Nigel Farage must have wept with joy that a UKIP MEP in Yorkshire is Pakistani and could be wheeled out to condemn his own community.  Look, a Pakistani person thinks this is a race issue, so it must be right, just as it is when a woman condemns feminism. This makes it TRUE!

USELESS PUBLIC SERVICES DRAMA!!

Police, Councils, they're all the same. Sitting on their gold plated pensioned arses, doing sod all except soaking up taxpayers money. Sack 'em all!  Ok, sack quite a lot of them.  Well, please for the love of God can we sack some of them so that we can all convince ourselves that this is sorted and has gone away and will never happen again?  Can't we?  Isn't this how it works? 

Well, sadly no.  Sexual abuse of women and children isn't like a flu pandemic.  It happens every day in every city, town and village in every so-called civilised and not so civilised country.  It's perpetrated by black men, white men, religious men, atheist men, rich men and poor men.  Handsome men and ugly men, successful men and men who have failed in every other part of their lives. But you will see there is a common thread. It's men, abusing women and children over whom they have some power.  Or power imbalance.  Because while it can often be the power of the priest, the politician, the famous radio star or the children's entertainer which prevents their victims from speaking out or being believed if they do; sometimes it's the powerlessness of the victim, a Looked After* Child (*yes, I do use the term wryly) or so often simply the powerlessness of the child that depends on its father for a home and security.  

Sexual abuse exerts power and control, most of all by shrouding the victim in shame. It's easy to spot a bruise or a burn on a child - but how does any teacher spot the signs of sexual abuse.  The psychological impact is often profound or over sexualised behaviour can make the child stand out but to make the link to abuse is close to impossible unless the child speaks out.  And then, as we have seen all too well, so many men are capable of swaggering while protesting their innocence and damning their accusers and achieving a successful prosecution is beset with difficulties. And is that even what victims want?  Most of all they want it to stop, for it never to have happened in the first place and for the shame and guilt to be removed, feelings that overwhelm, like Lady Macbeth dabbing futilely at blood and only being amplified by having to recount every detail in court to a man in a wig determined to show you and your 12 year old self as a slut and a liar.  

The incidence of sexual abuse, shown by surveys of adults shows it is shockingly high and massively undiscovered.  1400 children in seventeen years in a town the size of Rotherham is the screaming headline figure. Why don't we poll towns of the same size over the same period and ask the questions we never ask and see how high those figures are?  Perhaps we might find out what we don't want to know - that sexual abuse is rife in every community, that it is entirely equality proofed in every way, except gender.  While we're asking awkward questions, could we also consider whether we want families to be less 'private', more subject to scrutiny without screaming Nanny State! While we're at it, do we want children to be able to talk freely about sexuality without shame from a very young age without having paroxysms of outrage? 

Wow, if we were to have really difficult discussions, could we talk about patriarchy? Could we talk about how our male dominated society tells us sex is something men want and women give, that girls are sluts while boys are 'lads' and every day a national newspaper publishes pictures of women's breasts for a bit of fun and how all of that might, just might, determine how many men view all women? 
Could it be that if video games allow young men to rape prostitutes or kill them, it might be evidence of something really, really wrong?  We are told equality is a battle long won, look, we had a female Prime Minister.  Let's just forget that for every year she was in power it was lawful for Denis Thatcher to rape her, a law repealed in my adult lifetime.  

Actually, that's all a bit difficult isn't it.  Tell you what, let's get back to political mudslinging, baying for sackings and making dark assertions about race.  Sexual abuse happens to the others, not us and is perpetrated by evil monsters, not that nice chap next door.  Let's continue with our time-honoured hand wringing and say over and over "This must not happen again".  Except, it already is.  Right her, right now and will continue until we start to name the real problem. Patriarchy. Or just Power, if that's not as scary.  Either will do, but once again those in power choose Pretence. 

Saturday 7 June 2014

Feminism in a Patriarchal World - Cats vs Dogs

I was really lucky in being invited to speak at the Fair Play South West Women's Manifesto Event in Exeter yesterday. I was asked to talk about Women and Power - which I think is really fascinating.  I believe we have a squeamish relationship with power, principally because so often, the socially constructed version of power on offer is generally pre-constructed by patriarchy: from Parliament - 800 years of history and only during the last ten percent of that time, do women get to vote - to private companies, established on the post Industrial Revolution model that in addition to appropriating the surplus value of labour, capitalism also appropriates domestic labour. Nearly every large company or industry operates on a model of each worker having a wife, or paying for the equivalent.  And yet, we are supposed to be grateful for this inclusion, this begrudging offer of so called equality. 

But I had seventeen minutes!  How do you do justice to any topic of this breadth in this time.  For me, when I speak, my only aim is to make people think.  I don't want people to think how clever I am, but how clever we all can be, if we take off our socially constructed lenses and see the world how it really is.  Yesterday, I used the metaphor of inviting women to have equal access to Parliament, but staying the same, with all its traditions and rules developed over hundreds of years is like Crufts opening its doors to cats, but changing nothing else whatsoever.  I didn't have the time to do this justice yesterday, but here's what I mean.....

After years and years of canine dominance of the pet world, the Kennel Club eventually relent to pressure and open their doors to cats. It's not a decision that comes easily, cats have fought valiantly for their rights, while many in the dog community argued this was unnatural - what next, slugs?!!  But the decision is made and cats are invited into Crufts.

The first challenge is the preparation - many cats are horrified at the thought of being bathed and blow dried to look their best.  "I do my own washing," they say, backing nervously away from the sink.  But to succeed they need to look like the dogs, puffed up and fluffy.  For some cats, always used to lives of luxury, this comes easier; after all, they are pedigree cats, everyone gets washed, surely no one still actually bathes themselves?  But for the street cats, brought up in ordinary households, this is excruciating.  

It doesn't get better, next they must strut and trot into the ring for the judges, on a lead.  "The thing is," say the cats, "we don't really strut or trot.  We kind of, well, saunter". This is Crufts, comes the reply. You want to compete?  You trot and you look bloody happy to be there.  Many cats slink away at this point.  The dogs look at each other and nod.  They knew this would happen.  Cats, you see, don't really want to compete.  They're not cut out for it.  They're emotional and disorganised, not like dogs.  

But worst of all are the obedience tests. When first shown the tests, the cats stare in disbelief.  Surely, this is a joke.  What, you want us to run up ladders, jump through hoops and do all of this really quickly??!!! Holy Bastet, are you actually serious?  The dogs face them gravely. We are so proud of our traditions here at Crufts.  For hundreds of years, dogs have bravely run up and down ladders, leapt through hoops and now these Janey come lately felinist types want to change all that.  Because they're "cats", sneer the dogs, making quotation marks with their paws.  

Of course, it goes badly wrong.  The audience laugh at the cats and they are humiliated, although some bravely struggle through.  The cats representative body call a meeting with the dogs representative body. They prepare carefully.  Above all, they try to seem really reasonable.  The cats are all under instruction not to hiss or make that wonderful low growling sound that they make so well.  They want the dogs to take them seriously and not condemn them as typical cats, hissing, spitting and scratching.  This approach causes arguments amongst the cat ranks, but a common approach prevails.  

The cats meet with the dogs.  The cats have made a list of demands and they present these one by one

Change Crufts to Make It More Cat Friendly:  This is resisted firmly. If cats want to be taken seriously they need to be able to compete in the Crufts world. Surely they don't expect special treatment?  Because they either compete on the same terms as dogs or not at all.  This demand is refused.  

Provide Litter Trays and Scratching Posts:  Apparently the cats found it humiliating to defecate on the grass and have it packed away in bags.  One cat on the committee suggests they could use the Fox Hound Hunting Gallery as hunting with dogs is actually illegal, so how is this even still needed? "But it's our HISTORY!" growls the lead dog.  One litter tray is granted, in the basement.  

Change the Culture of Crufts: The cats are nervous about this.  They explain gently, that it is really hard, that whenever they enter the arena, dogs growl and raise their hackles in an aggressive and predatory way and they feel as if they may be chased or bitten at any moment. Some brave cats talk nervously about their own experiences of having to hide in high places, while dogs barked and snarled at them below.  Some were actually bitten, but they didn't want to make a fuss and didn't report it, but tried to get back in the arena and hold their heads and tails high.  But if they are to compete, this needs to stop.  Because for so many cats this is a day to day experience of being anxious out on the street, always listening for the next woof or growl, which may well be just day to day banter, but sometimes it does result in the heart stopping sudden chase and the terror of wondering if you can run fast enough to escape.

For the dogs, this is too far.  The Chair of the Dog Committee, barks out "Not all dogs do that!!!  I've never chased or bitten a cat - what do you think we are - animals?!! And anyway, what about these cats, walking along high fences with their noses in the air, what do they expect?  We're only dogs after all.  So what if dogs growl and bark when you walk past - many of them do it to dogs too.  This is the world you wanted and you're just going to have to dog up".  Some other dogs talk about the times they had their nose scratched by a cat and all the dogs and sadly, quite a few cats, nod sympathetically. 

So, despite winning hardly any demands, a small number of cats persist. Some, especially the pedigrees revel in succeeding in this canininocracy. "Look at me," they purr, "I'm here because I'm better and I never expect special treatment". Others carry on because they believe firmly they should be here and this was a hard-won right.  They practice their lead skills and ladder walking, endure the bathing and struggle to find time for the sleeping in the day or the lying out in the sun.  But they secretly feel that they sold out and wish they had done more to change things. 

But for many cats they think, Leave them to it.  It's not a life for me.  And I can't see any relevance to me in taking part."  Radical felinists dream of a world which is created by and for cats, but in which dogs will be happier too.  Some dogs support the cats, risking being called pussies by their fellow dogs, but they continue to argue for change.  Because some of them are tired of the need to be constantly loyal, chase sticks and always be so fucking excited at the prospect of a bloody walk.  Some dogs confess that they think they are actually cats and vice versa, but their lives become complicated and dangerous, especially as many cats feel angry at these interloper dogs coming over here and telling them how to meow.  

Saddest of all though, is that for most of the cats and dogs, Crufts doesn't work.  It only benefits a handful of pets, while the vast majority of pets worry about fleas and whether they will be on supermarket basic tinned food or if they will be able to be vaccinated this year.  The unspoken question is whether any cat or dog needs Crufts at all or whether something altogether new would serve everyone so much better. 



Friday 23 May 2014

Being our own heroes

Funny old day innit?  It must be maddening being a news reporter.  Is today a historic day or not?  Only time will tell.  Is UKIP a new dawn of fascism, populism, a seismic shift in politics or just some sad twats acting out a Knobheads Behaving Badly fantasy. 

I've thought about this a lot since waking up to find that Yvonne Clapp, a woman who spent her life working in a low paid job in the NHS and then stood for Labour in the local council lost out to UKIP.  The resulting ire of TUSC, telling me I knew nothing BECAUSE I WAS LABOUR, made me think even more. But best of all, the lovely Mark Everden, a thoughtful, dedicated organiser, asked me questions which made me go away and really reflect.

It seems to me, there are the following questions which arise from any UKIP surge in votes:

1. Is this a sign of Labour failing to provide a clear opposition?

2. Is this a sign of the electorate moving inevitably to the right, in an engineered campaign?

3.is this a protest vote, which will subside?

These are my thoughts on these questions. 

1. No.  Because, if an effective opposition was the aim, why haven't TUSC, the Greens or Respect seen a similar surge?  The Greens have an impressive political programme, actually so do TUSC and even Respect, but what's missing is any sense of actual reality or understanding about where workers actually are.

Thatcher changed things.  Never mind the TU laws.  She sold mortgages to people, meaning they could never take take strike action again because the bank, not the council would come for them.  She  convinced us life was all a shopping basket, that services were bought and sold, that value for money was everything, even if those nodding and voting were those who received poorer services each year.  She taught that choice was so important, in utilities, schools, telephones and housing, making us forget how wonderful it might be to have a home, a school and utilities which were of a given quality without having to deal with endless automated phone calls offering us a better choice.  Thatcher said her greatest achievement was Tony Blair. I think she might have been right.

2.  Possibly.  Think about the Thatcher years. Followed by Major, then Blair but towards the end of the Labour Govt, the Telegraph, anti EU, ultra right wing and embedded in the establishment begin their campaign about MPs expenses. And quite bloody right.  National outrage ensues.  Bloody politicians.  No one can trust them. They're all the same. Who can we trust?  No one, just no one.  Oh wait, along come these blokes. They like beer and smoking and they hate these bloody Poles. Just like we do.  After years of Thatcher slagging off the bloody unions, public sector workers and loony lefties, at last, a party for us.  All those petty prejudices which are blamed on our lack of education, but in fact spawned, fed and reared by a complex organised media - at last they have a name. Their name is UKIP.  

As a political activist in the 80s and 90s, (a communist since you ask, so stick that in your sneering TUSC pipe and smoke it) we had different views on what the opposition should be, but totally agreed on the solution. Get. The. Tories. Out. I thought a lot about Nazi Germany today and it's rise in austerity after the Wall Street Crash, it's engineered hatred of the SDP, the infighting amongst Ultra left and right wing splinter groups.  Can we ignore this?  No. 

3. Yep, it is probably a protest vote.  But so was the vote for the various incarnations of the National Socialists.  In a climate in which people felt downtrodden, their national pride stripped from them, the increasing sense someone else was controlling their future and no one speaking up for them.  

So, going back to 2, is the UKIP vote because Labour doesn't speak for them?  If it is, no one can criticise them for lack of trying.  Labour has had numerous attempts at querying universal benefits, free EU immigration and no one can accuse Blue Labour of not trying to to reach out to those prejudices. Every time they do, we boo them and rightly so.  But when those instincts run to UKIP, we blame them again.

What makes me so angry is that we run the risk of ignoring a real fascist threat, in order to snipe at Labour.  This is a distraction and luxury, encouraged and fanned by the Coalition and UKIP.  Keep on sniping and snarling while we decide which version of capitalism stays in charge.

In my highly personal view, we need to really grasp the nature of politics.  Passionate political beliefs are like religion.  Our faith and beliefs motivate and excite us.  There are themes that we strive for and actively seek - for me, it is the look in her eyes of a woman who thought she was nothing and then realised she could be everything; it is the sense of power of a group of workers who realise the strength of the word No, who grasp that in withdrawing their labour, from a strong density have a power no law can give them; of a black worker, a gay worker or disabled worker who looks their abuser in the eye and calls out their bigotry.  These are my water into wine.  

But others have these too.  For UKIP and the Tories, it is the rejection of public provision, the hatred of strangers, attitudes which only exist due to conjuring tricks and smokes and mirrors.  Oh, and a daily press that helps them attack the downtrodden (aka benefit claiming scroungers),the "different" (trannies, gay marriage and immigrants) and reminds us of the danger of changing our system. 

What is our strategy as a working class?  Because I am in no doubt whatsoever, that UKIP did not emerge from nowhere.  This is a carefully concerted plot.  And we can counter it by arguing about the right kind of socialist, environmentalist alternative.  Or we can turn nasty. We can unite, and link arms in a determined and proactive strategy to build the knowledge and understanding of workers to politicise them to reject the sorry arsed version of protest offered by uber-establishment UKIP and to demand power for ourselves. No one is doing that.  But trade unions can. To work, comrades, to work. 

Enemy of the People. Not

I went to bed last night a little sickened by BBC election coverage.  Apparently we are now a four party state, although you'd think we were in fact a one party state of UKIP.  Short of Dimbleby asking if he could sniff Farage's bottom, it couldn't have been more obsequious. 

So waking up to hear that this revolution resulted in less than ninety council seats gained, compared to Labour's paltry 594, and counting, was a relief.  But then I checked on results where friends and colleagues were standing.  In Hengrove in Bristol, a staunchly working class, largely deprived ward, UKIP won.  Labour's candidate was Yvonne Clapp, a woman who spent her working life as a union rep in the NHS, defending members and services.  Despite losing her husband last year, Yvonne stood as a councillor and lost out to UKIP, marginally.  So marginally, that if the votes to TUSC and Respect had gone to Labour, Yvonne would have won.

This makes me fume.  So I do what any self respecting political activist does and I tweet about it.  Cue outrage from TUSC tweeters. Yep, at least six of them.  "How dare you?" asks one.  Yep, get me, woman with opinion, tweeting about it. How dare I disagree or even venture an alternative view.  Then predictable bile ensues that any UKIP victory is ALL LABOURS FAULT.  You'll recognise that line, beloved of Coalition defenders everywhere.  Followed by accusations that it may also be my fault, because I am Labour.  Yep, me.  Apparently I have no other identity than Labour.  No other job, no political beliefs, no views other than Labour. People who know me are aware this is nonsense.  My political views are quite complex, actually.  I firmly believe capitalism is the root of injustice, especially when compared with retired NHS union activists, there's no contest.  I am opposed to EU membership on socialist grounds, and think our faith in the EU for workers rights was borne from the battering we took under Thatcher where we lost confidence in our own power to win rights for workers.  And that somehow along the line, Thatcherite politics changed the ideology of the working class and our task is to change it back.  I want there to be a genuine socialist alternative, but I fail completely to see how it will ever be achieved by attacking Labour and placing the blame for, well, pretty much everything, at its door and attacking women like Yvonne and encouraging people to vote for a candidate that was never going to get in.  

I know my Marxism.  I got as far as Volume 3.  Yes, really - analysis of capitalism's mutation into finance and venture capitalism anyone? Nowhere, but nowhere, is it stated that the enemy is Labour or even anyone like them.  Ah yes, claim TUSC tweeters in their smug "talking to idiot" tone, which has won them so many friends, but if Labour presented a genuine Socialist Alternative....  But Labour have never presented themselves as anything other than a social democratic party; kicking them for not being revolutionary is like kicking a cat that never barks.  Pointless and spiteful.




Sunday 13 April 2014

New Script Please! Bored Now....

I spent last night at UNISON's Stomp Against Austerity event in Bristol.  Too often, protests involve trudging along a time-honoured route, like a sponsored walk with flags, stopping at the end to hear the preachers tell you the words of the gospel.  This was a social event. To meet, talk and plan, but also to sing and chat and remind ourselves that we're not alone.  

We started though, with a panel debate.  I was really pleased to be one of the panel, not least because I was at last well enough to take part, but also because I love talking.  And listening.  On the panel was Ken Loach, film director, Kit Leary from the TUC and Thangam Debonnaire, candidate for Labour in Bristol West.  I've done quite a few panel debates - it's one of the things we do a lot and I was at least heartened when Ken Loach said we needed to discuss what we were going to do, not just have another talking shop.  

You see, if I was writing the film script for this evening, it would go like this.  In the warmth of comradely debate, different groups would realise that even though they have different positions on capitalism, on austerity, on tactics - that we could still have those positions and still work together against common enemies.  The SWP could stand up and declare even though they were still wedded to permanent revolution, they realised the destructive impact of constantly attacking leaderships of any organisation from unions to the Labour Party wasn't actually that worthwhile, and perhaps even that they realised they had spent possibly a little too much time defending alleged rapists and hounding anyone who didn't cheer Hurrah For Rape Apology! People could have positive discussions about what we have in common and where we want to be as a movement and how we get there. We would go home full of ideas and new perspectives.  

But unfortunately, I wasn't writing the script. Because in too many people's minds, there already is a script.  A trade union puts on a debate and what ever we call it, they will see its theme as Come and Have a Whine about Why Labour Aren't Left Wing Enough.  Because in their world, this is The. Only. Answer. Working people are apparently craning their necks out of the window desperately searching for a revolutionary socialist alternative and once it arrives, they will flock from their houses, like the children of Hamelin following the piper, to vote for this New Dawn of Socialism.  

How I bloody wish.  I really do.  Because if that was the case, we would now be ruled by a TUSC/Respect Coalition and while Galloway makes me want to stick needles in my eyes, at least he wouldn't be scrapping benefits and slashing services.  But it isn't the case.  We're not even close.  But recognising that is hard.  And a little scary.  Every year I read a survey of our union members views. What paper do most read?  The Mail or the Sun.  Are they all reading this and simultaneously thinking "I only read this shit due to the absence of a revolutionary vanguard advocating the seizure of state power and workers control of production, but until they arrive I'll keep up to date on Kate's battle against post baby weight or read about how feminism causes cancer."?  Are they?  Really?  Well according to many people last night, that's exactly how it is.  If only Labour would commit to a full socialist programme far in excess of anything seen in 1945, that would be enough to see them returned to power, in final scenes consisting of them being carried aloft by horny handed sons of toil, into Westminster palace, while those not fortunate enough to carry the new leaders throw their cloth caps into the air.  

Sorry Ken, sorry people from various factions last night who think that life is like a film.  Actually, I'm not sorry, because if your version of deciding what we do about it means repeated whinging about Labour and jeering and hectoring a black woman who decided to fight for the right to represent her own community in Parliament, then I don't want to be in your film, not even as an extra.  Thangam described the process of having spoken to 6000 people across her constituency about what life was like and yet her views and theirs didn't count because they didn't fit your script, did they?  You had no interest in listening and learning because that might have meant you didn't get up to have your little rant about Labour and how much better your views were to theirs.  And the thing is, I agree with many of your views about the need for an alternative, but the problem is a lack of demand, not supply.  Anyone seeking a socialist alternative can find several parties, many long standing with proud traditions, such as the CPB, many less so (see also SWP, rape apology).  What is missing is thehuge generational political education programme that we need to deliver not just the supply of an alternative, but the demand for one.  A massive task and a really difficult one.  How much easier it is to stick to the script we already have, go out, blame Labour, shout at a woman trying to do the right thing then go home feeling smug.  But I'm bored with this approach, I've seen it a million times and it always ends the same way - in acrimony, self absorption and too many workers being treated as expendable extras on someone else's movie.  

Friday 14 March 2014

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 ?

Tuesday 4 February 2014

I Believe Her

So, here we go again.  An older, famous, successful man is accused of child abuse.  By his adopted daughter.  An investigation takes place, but there is no 'proof'.  Of course there isn't.  There never is.  That's the trouble with seven year olds.  If they were properly abused, they'd secretly film it, take a semen swab or call the police immediately.  But no, they keep quiet and then years later blab about being abused.  They're so "me, me, me".  

The Did he, Didn't He furore over Dylan Farrow's repeated claim that she was abused is no more than a We Love Woody Allen/We Hate Woody Allen, We Believe Women/We Think Women Lie To Attack Men tribal warfare.  None of us will ever really know.  But here's what I do know:

Writing about being sexually assaulted at a young age while playing with toy trains or any other toys, risks being shamed publicly.  Of being forever seen as the girl who was 'interfered with', at best an object of pity, at worse, someone asking for it.  There are so many ways of wreaking revenge - who would choose one that also shames you too?  

I have sat and listened to those telling stories of sexual abuse.  Only once did someone lie.  A woman who claimed another woman touched her breast.  It was a lie that would always be found out and yes, it was created from jealously and hatred, against a woman who had learning disabilities, but had passed an exam her accuser hadn't and needed to be put in her place.

I have sat and listened to the account of those accused of abuse.  One man in particular stands out.  He was accused of child abuse by his two children, something he claimed was a revenge plot engineered by his ex-wife.  As a result he lost his career in social work, even though no prosecutions were brought.  He protested his innocence and I knew my inner voice was shouting loudly and sceptically.  His current wife sat next to him and patted his hand.  He told me how he had caught his ex wife sleeping around and of course she would be the person to encourage his children to do this.  The voice shouted louder.  But we took the case to remove him from the register and half way through, I had a call from the lawyer presenting the case.  The opposing side had presented evidence of a further allegation, this time from the daughter of his current wife, the quiet hand-patter.  His response was to state she didn't like him and was out to get him.  I didn't exclaim in horror at the revelation.  I knew all along.  I just knew.  And the others I heard.  All proved to be true, while those accused argued different versions of consent or provocation.

Young people who want to attack older people can find a whole plethora of ways.  From apple pie beds, to stealing from their wallet, from reporting them to the benefits office to calling the police and claiming they are drug dealers, there are endless possibilities.  Who would choose a route in which you would have to describe intimate sexual acts, which may have happened to you while still reading Topsy and Tim. Which will involve you being asked why you didn't tell?  Are you sure you didn't enjoy it?  Just a little?  I have been closer than I want to admit here to situations like this, and I have witnessed the shame, the humiliation involved in reporting or describing acts of abuse.  Perhaps there are those who, because they haven't experienced abuse, feel fine about making it up.  But on balance, I think the vast and overwhelming majority are telling the truth.  And when we call them liars, view them as vengeful, manipulative attention seekers, we might be their next worse nightmare.  Because dismissing the accounts of those who have been abused, is just another torture.  The trials of famous men, both concluded and ongoing, doubtlessly include assaults on the integrity of the complainants and accusations of malice and amorality.  Is that a path you would choose?  Is it a path you think anyone you know would choose?  If not, then the only place to start is in believing those who have the strength to speak out.  

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Deciding to Come Out. If that's OK.

So, I'm taking a deep breath.  There are some things that are tough to say, because it's not what people expect.  We have an image of how people should be.  Often our own images of how WE should be is even more powerful,  and the more multi layered our lives, the greater the expectations.  The constant tug to be good at your job and be a good mother.  Looking at a watch and thinking if I leave this meeting now because somewhere a five year old is pressing their nose to the after school club window and hoping their mum won't be late again, will people tut and think "Lightweight"?  If I'm a feminist, but sometimes I just want to paint my nails and click about in heels, will people think I'm a sell out? 

I am in an 'important' job.  It pays more than either of my parents could ever have imagined earning.  It has a positional power wholly independent of me, like an invisible chain of office.  I do this job and most of the time I think I do it well.  But here is a confession.  I suffer from depression and mild obsessive compulsive behaviours.  I have always suffered from the former, since being a teenager.  My brain works differently from most people's brains.  It doesn't produce enough of the chemical serotonin.  And when your brain doesn't work, strange things happen.  If you have Tourette's you yell insults at people, some of which make sense. So, if Eric Pickles mum had Tourette's she might yell Fat Fucker! at him.  She'd be horrified at this, but a weird circuit in her brain would flash and she wouldn't be able to help herself.  Oliver James wrote about a man who thought his wife was a hat.  He didn't really think his wife was a hat.  But in our brains there is a tiny filing clerk who sits with the camera that our eyes operate and labels the object viewed from the memory files stored and sends the name to our mouths.   Except in this man's case, the filing clerk is drunk and on a mission to be sacked.  It takes the files, throws them into the air and picks one up at random.  That's what happens when your brain doesn't work like every other brain.  

So, my brain doesn't produce enough serotonin.  That means my ability to be happy or positive is restricted.  But, I don't live in a vacuum, so I have learned to act in a way people expect.  I know what normal looks like and I do a great job in exhibiting those characteristics. I smile, I talk to people and most of the time it isn't an act.  I'd like to thank the filing clerk who stored the images of what I am like at my best so I can replay them when I least feel like it.  

But in reality, this is what happens.  There is a voice in my head that tells me I am useless, hopeless, a failure, that relays images of disaster and horror to my head, that keeps talking even when I am asleep and makes me think things that I know aren't true and yet I really believe.  I think everyone hates me or they just feel sorry for me.  I feel like getting out of bed is too painful to contemplate.  I dream of wrapping myself up in a blanket and hiding forever.  At present I am over-medicated, making extreme emotion hard and adding a shield to life.  Experiencing life on anti depressants feels like watching from a glass mask, my senses and sounds dulled.  

If another organ of mine didn't work, I would be fine in sharing this with people.  If I had asthma and smoke or cat hair triggered an attack, I would feel comfortable in sharing this. No one would tell me to breathe harder or pull my lungs together.  If I was diabetic, no one would think I was injecting myself for attention. Yet I feel trepidation in admitting that my life is affected by depression. Because part of me doesn't want to feel like that.  Actually, I'm quite funny, and being a depression sufferer doesn't sound a barrel of laughs. And I want to say, Yes, I suffer from depression, but I can still be good at my job. But I hold back. 

I'm done with holding back though. I can't stand up for people with disabilities and demand society changes, and then deny I have any such "weakness".  I wrote elsewhere, in an anonymous blog, that I couldn't speak up for Spartacus, yet deny being Spartacus.  I have a depressive illness, which I manage.  I still am able to do a good job and contribute to a great organisation. These facts are not mutually exclusive. I am coming out. I am Spartacus. I feel ok about that.  I hope you do too.