Working Class Culture

Or: How Not to "Get" it.

I originally drafted this in 2017, as a response to a Labour politician's pontificating about working class culture. For some reason, I never finished or posted it, but in the light of this week's discourse about what consitutes a middle class/working class living room (with respect to Green candidate Hannah Spencer), it still seems relevant somehow.

This book belonged to my grandfather.

The son of a labourer, orphaned and abandoned in childhood, he served as a stoker in the Royal Navy, saw active service on minesweepers during the Great War and was a prison officer during WWII. I don't think he'd ever claim to be anything but working class, growing up in a world with no NHS or meaningful welfare state.

The few books he possessed and which have been passed down to me include volumes of poetry like this one (he was especially fond of Longfellow) and more Dickens than his university-educated granddaughter has read.

Somehow, I don't think he'd have gone much on (for example) Mrs Brown's Boys.

In terms of 'poverty of aspiration', there's nothing like a politician telling us we have to "get" Mrs Brown's Boys to really understand working class people and their concerns. I've never "got" opera... does that mean I can't hope to "connect" with the middle classes?

It's much the same argument with "people's legitimate concerns about immigration" - this should not simply mean capitulating to ill-informed xenophobia. 

If people's "legitimate concerns" are based on the misinformation they've been fed by a range of sources, they can and should be addressed; reasonable people will be open to discussion. If people are out-and-out-racists, nothing you can say will change their minds and it is fine to call them out for what they are.

Funny how many politicans (including Labour ones) equate "working class" with "low brow" and/or ignorant 

"Bless 'em. They're fundamentally a bit racist. you won't change them, so no point trying" is a terrible attitude but is sadly typical of much of our political class at the moment.

Eve of poll musings

“But Jill, you were a Labour member. You campaigned for them! Why are you now saying Vote Green?”

I grew up in the Home Counties in a Conservative household but several years of working for a Conservative council, along with the miners’ strike, drew me towards Labour in my twenties.

I voted Labour from the mid-1980s until 2024. I continued to vote for them throughout the New Labour years, despite being a socialist; despite Iraq (all senior politicians will embark on a war given half a chance); despite their increasingly authoritarian policies; in 2010, in the hope of keeping the Cameron’s posh boys out of office; in 2015, despite Labour’s godawful manifesto and campaign (we should have known the immigration mug merch was a sign of things to come); enthusiastically in 2017, on a manifesto which promised real hope; in 2019, despite knowing that Starmer’s People’s Vote shenanigans in an election which was entirely about Brexit had already holed Labour below the water.

After the 2010 defeat, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and joined the Labour Party (I am not a natural joiner of things, so this was a big step). I went along to my local branch meetings, expecting to be surrounded by like-minded individuals working to a common purpose. What I quickly discovered was that the CLP and local party was riven with factionalism, underhand tactics and outright cheating. Although I remained a member for ten years, my active involvement ceased after five, as I felt it was detrimental to my wellbeing to carry on (all that I witnessed and experienced was submitted to the Forde inquiry, and the resultant report indicated that I was by no means alone in my experience).

I was still a member when Keir Starmer was elected leader. I didn’t vote for him as I had no doubt that his much-vaunted ‘pledges’ weren’t worth the paper they were written on. I stuck it out for another few months, growing increasingly angry at his inability to challenge Johnson’s mismanagement of Covid or any other policy and finally resigned my membership in November 2020. The relief I felt was palpable, and I looked forward to being free again to say what I liked.

[When I had previously told my father I was applying for selection as a Labour council candidate, his response was “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” I was expecting a lecture on his vs my politics, but he continued, “You’re far too independent-minded to follow a party whip.” Good call, dad.]

I had been privileged to have Sir Gerald Kaufmann as my MP for many years. After his death, the Manchester Gorton seat remained safely Labour under Afzal Khan in 2017(possibly boosted by the Corbyn-era manifesto?) and even with the subsequent re-drawing of the boundaries to include part of Tameside, it remained comfortably Labour. Throughout the 2024 GE campaign, I (a now-floating left voter) was continually told that I *had* to vote Labour to keep the Tories out, after having previously been told in no uncertain terms to leave if I didn’t like Starmer’s party. In a marginal seat, I’d have maybe been torn but reckoning that Andrew Gwynne was a safe pair of hands (!) I voted Green for the first time ever in a general election. It wasn’t a ‘purity test’ vote – there is a distinct difference between not voting for a party because it doesn’t quite meet 100% of your values and not voting for them when they represent only about 2% of those values. I wouldn’t vote Reform (0%) on that basis so why would I vote Labour?

I have to admit to being wrong about Starmer’s Labour government. I was expecting disappointment, lack of ambition or vision, MPs with little actual politics other than ‘being in power’ but I wasn’t quite prepared for quite how inept and yet actively vindictive they would be. Whenever there was a good and honourable action, they chose the opposite; happy to hound the sick and disabled, gleeful in entrenching  transphobia in law, dismissive of worldwide suffering, beholden to lobbyists and big business donors rather than those who elected them. They are, to be blunt, dreadful, and yet still expect a loyal voter base that they do not deserve.

I hadn’t meant to get involved in campaigning again, but having joined the Green Party last summer, I signed up for a bit of leafleting once the Gorton & Denton by-election was called and over the last couple of weeks have canvassed, addressed envelopes and popped into the campaign HQ to pick up a couple of leafleting routes on a number of occasions. The difference in culture is astonishing. There is no hierarchy of ‘important’ people vs volunteers, people are respectful of each other and the voters. It’s collegiate, organisers are happy to learn from volunteer feedback, and – crucially – everyone is nice to everyone else. They don’t resent the influx of former Labour people as some have suggested they might. It’s been a thoroughly pleasant experience, no matter what the outcome is tomorrow.

All the indications are that it will be a very close race – depending on who you listen to, it’s either a dead heat 3-horse race, Greens slightly ahead of Reform or (according to Labour) a 2-horse Lab/Reform race that removes the Greens entirely from the equation, despite them being level pegging! Despite that, all the tactical voting sites are recommending a Green vote to keep Reform out.

I appreciate that some people will reluctantly be sticking with Labour for fear of a Reform win, but I’d urge those to consider voting Green, which has the double benefit of keeping Reform out AND giving Labour the vote of no confidence they so richly deserve.

So that’s it. I have a number of reasons for not voting Labour, a mix of personal  experience and current policy. They are actively causing harm to those I love and to wider society and I will not vote for that. For many of the same reasons, I will be voting for Hannah Spencer tomorrow, and I hoping you will too.

Adventures in Politics

This was originally posted in 2015, about the state of candidate selections, but the Labour Party are still up to their dirty tricks today.

“There are copies of candidate statements available. Can you return them at the end of the meeting, to save on copying for other meetings?” said the officiating party representative. There was no need – the pile remained untouched and un-read at the end of the meeting.

It was no surprise that others had ambitions for our ward – that became clear when the recently-victorious candidate failed to thank any of her campaign team at her victory party, but managed to name-check a couple of people from outside the ward.

One of the criticisms our opponents threw at us for years was that our candidates weren't local – that they didn't live in the ward and until selection had little or nothing to do with it. For the 2015 campaign, the branch had two strong potential candidates from within the ward. Both with experience in campaigning and local activism, who were (or had been) union reps, school governors, local authority workers; who knew the area, whose children were educated in the local state schools, who had demonstrated commitment to the branch and to the campaigns of previous candidates. The branch was newly-energised, with a core group of dedicated members who regularly attended branch meetings, strong distribution networks for leafleting and a mission to engage with all sections of the local community, in one of the most diverse wards in the city.

“Local Labour party members select their local candidates within the party’s rules and guidelines. Those wishing to become Labour councillors are interviewed by an independent assessment team.”

Selection is a two stage process: shortlisting enables branch members to decide who to invite for interview (based on their candidate statements), and the selection meeting interviews all those shortlisted before voting for a candidate.

The shortlisting meeting had been booked at a local community centre, and all branch members were invited to attend. They were reminded that membership cards would be required on the night, to establish eligibility to vote. The shortlisting meeting is often the first opportunity ordinary members get to assess the capabilities of prospective councillors.

When the regular members arrived, they found that the meeting had been moved to a larger room than the normal one used for branch meetings and the AGM, and a sea of unfamiliar faces were already seated some 20 minutes before the meeting was due to start. There were two party officials present as observers but it was felt, as the Chair and Secretary were both potential candidates, that one of those observers should chair the meeting instead.

The procedure for the meeting was explained, membership cards checked (although some people were 'vouched for', having not brought their membership cards, despite this being clearly requested in advance) and it was agreed that the two potential in-ward candidates present would leave the room once the nomination process was due to start.

At this point, someone from the floor asked that any shortlist be restricted to just two names. The chair explained that the size of any shortlist was something that could determined once all nominations had been received. The two local potential candidates then left the meeting.

A total of 5 nominations were made; the two local candidates and three from outside the ward. At this point the size of the shortlist would normally be determined before discussing the merits of the nominated candidates and voting to determine which should go forward to selection. The proposal for a two person shortlist was voted on and accepted (without, apparently, any discussion of the rationale behind it) and the meeting then proceeded to a secret ballot; no discussion of the candidates' merits, just the vote.

A few minutes later, the meeting broke up. Two out-of-area candidates had been selected for interview; one of them, the person who'd been “thanked” by our new councillor....

Regular, active members, those who had been out knocking on doors and delivering leaflets in all weathers, were visibly upset at the outcome. That with two good local candidates to choose from, they had again been landed with an outsider. The one big campaign issue that could have been neutralised immediately (“You don't live here!”) would now once again be a fight campaigners would have to have before even starting on policy differences.

And this had been done on the basis of the votes of people who had never involved themselves with the branch, had never joined in campaigns, but had simply turned up to vote one one occasion, without any discussion of alternative candidates and seemingly no wish to hear what the other 3 nominees might have to say to them at the selection meeting. Notably, few of them have been seen since.

For a branch without a sitting councillor (which was in itself contentious, as the incumbent was not included on the panel of candidates, effectively de-selected by the party without reference to the branch who originally selected him, and whose appeal to the NEC was still pending on the night of the meeting), it would not have been unreasonable to have interviewed all five nominated candidates. While no rules had actually been broken, the selection was conducted in an unethical (and yet clumsily obvious) way. Active members had been left in no doubt that their hard work and commitment counted for nothing, and they would simply be given a favoured candidate for whom they were expected to campaign.

Nor was this the first year in which this had happened. When selection took place for 2014 candidates, the branch again had two candidates from within the ward (both male), but it was declared an all women shortlist (not that there is anything wrong with those). The branch was also the very last to hold its selection meeting, so the shortlist voted on by the branch diminished as other candidates got selected until on the night, there was only one remaining candidate to be interviewed. When this was questioned from the floor, the response was that if the branch did not make a 'selection', a candidate would be imposed.

The two local candidates in this case (the branch Chair and Secretary, don't forget) were not, and have never been, formally notified of the outcome of the meeting. Not that they had failed to be shortlisted, nor the names of those who had. As branch members, they should have been invited back into the meeting to discuss the final agenda points (timing of speeches, questions to be asked of candidates, etc for the selection meeting next week) but they were not, and were left outside until the meeting broke up. No commiserations from the two councillors present, both of whose election campaigns had been reliant on these people's hard work and enthusiasm. A very shabby way to treat good people. And if they treat their own activists with such contempt, one has to query what they think of the local electorate?

The party 'machine' had been used before the shortlisting to try and preclude one of the in-ward candidates from standing, on the grounds that he had a substantive job within the local authority. It had to be pointed out to them that under the rules a) local authority employees were entitled to stand as long as they resigned at the point of nomination (this has also, on occasion, been extended to resigning if elected) and that b) the person in question had disclosed his employment status at the initial panel interview without it being questioned. The machine then cranked up a gear, with a story being circulated that the other in-ward candidate had stood down from the process prior to shortlisting, an (incorrect) fact that was happily passed around the party.

After the selection, relations between the elected councillors and the branch executive worsened considerably. Laughable appeals for 'unity' which appeared to mean the branch supporting councillors' actions without question, failure to respond to reasonable requests for information, while accusing branch officers of inaction (when the officer in question was on holiday) regarding councillor actions/activities, discussing a significant issue about a branch officer privately with another officer on a matter which affected the branch more widely, seemingly appointing a campaign manager without reference to the Executive Committee and arranging a campaign meeting at 24 hours' notice during August, when most of the EC were unable to attend. There was also a (hastily withdrawn) threat from the CLP to suspend the branch for questioning councillors' actions, with the accusation that the branch was “trying to impose its will” on the councillors. A formal complaint to the party about the conduct of one of those involved has not given any response some sixteen months after it was made.

The smears continued. The first branch meeting of the autumn was held at a new venue, but some people turning up at the old one were told that it had been cancelled as 'trouble' was expected. Only mischief-making possibly, but deeply unprofessional. The next leaflet omitted the sitting-but-deselected councillor (whose term of office did not run out until May 2015) from the 'team' contact list, effectively air-brushing him from the branch.

In the next few months, both the branch chair and secretary resigned; a branch fundraiser attracted only about 15 people; activists stopped going out on the doorstep. By the time of the AGM, it was felt necessary to put forward a motion declaring that the branch had “complete confidence in its councillors and candidate” which, in itself suggested there might be a problem.

This is not an isolated case. There are reports of similar things happening all over the country. The Labour Party has many fine, committed activists, but increasingly, they were not being given the chance to serve their communities. It is a profoundly worrying trend and will ultimately do harm to a party already accused of ignoring its core vote and parachuting candidates into seats with which they have no connection.

In the last 24 hours, there have been news stories about muslim women being prevented from standing as candidates. Sadly, this is all too credible, despite the party's reassurances as to the robustness of the selection system. This system can be, and is, played to the advantage of the party machine. And it's not just muslim women, but all women (and some men) whose faces don't fit, for whatever reason.

Of course, there's a right of appeal. But when no actual rules are broken (just twisted to within an inch of snapping), what would be the point? As many of us have discovered, complaints disappear into a black hole. And, as we're always being told, party unity is important, so why would 'ordinary' members want to cause embarrassment?

Suggesting that other political parties don't have ways of influencing candidate selection would be naive. Other parties may  be "worse". But I expect better of the Labour Party. Members have had enough of 'keeping quiet' for the good of the party. This is wrong, and we shouldn't have been putting up with it. 

How Can I Help?

It's LGBTQ+ History Month and I've been mulling over how, and even whether, I should be blogging about it. I'm a 50-something straight, white, cisgender woman; young enough to have benefited from the actions of the feminists who came before me, old enough not to have been taken in by the post-feminsim of the 90s and noughties, when some  assumed all the battles had been won and that "feminist" was an embarrassing and archaic way to describe yourself. You could easily say "What's it got to do with her?"

On the other hand, homosexuality was only decriminalised within my lifetime and I was middle aged with children of my own before equal marriage was recognised in law. I was in my 20s when AIDS came to public attention, at university when Section 28 was introduced. It may not have affected me directly, but LGBT History was happening all around me.

Things did get better. Section 28 was repealed; civil partnerships and equal marriage; the Gender Recognition Act. A few years back, watching Great Manchester Police take part in the Pride parade, my partner and I commented that when we had come to the city as students, the force was led by James Anderton. For a good while it looked to the straight, white world as if attitudes had shifted permanently. The homophobia and racism of the 70s and 80s that we'd grown up with had been banished to the fringes of discourse, vocalised only by the very worst of people. 

What the last decade (and especially the last 5 years) has shown us, though, is that those attitudes did not go away; they merely went to ground for a while, until they were again given legitimacy by a small but influential group of the very worst people, given massive public platforms in the name of "balance."

The targets have shifted, but the aim is the same - to 'other', delegitimise and demonise a minority group. The current moral panic is about transgender people but the "debate" remains depressingly similar. So much of the transphobia of today is the re-heated homophobic prejudice of my youth.  What is different about today's transphobia is that it is led and spurred on by..... feminists.

It is unutterably depressing to watch women of my generation raging against trans people, shouting about their "sex-based rights" and aligning themselves with racists, far right politicians and extreme evangelical religious organisations. Women who spent their youth acting in solidarity with other marginalised groups are now pursuing an irrational vendetta against one of the most marginalised of those groups and siding with the very people they fought against for so long, putting forward the falsehood that granting others rights will diminish their own. As academic Alison Phipps says:

Of all the awful things about trans-exclusionary feminism, it’s the claims of victimhood I find most difficult. In my experience these women enjoy unprecedented institutional protection: trans people and their allies are silenced & scared. We are being gaslit & it’s so painful.

— Alison Phipps (@alisonphipps) September 14, 2019

I think what I am coming round to, in a convoluted way, is intersectionality. This is, to be fair, a concept which struggles when released into the wild, but is nonetheless fundamental to how we as human beings relate to each other. Our life experiences will overlap and sometimes contradict those of others and recognising both differences and similarities is vital. Life is messy, and we sometimes may feel aggrieved that someone appears to be ahead of us in the pecking order, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to support those who are more marginalised and oppressed than we are. 

I am heterosexual, so I cannot know what it's like to be gay or trans, but that does not mean that as a feminist I should ignore (and even oppose!) the fights and rights of others. The forces of reaction won't stop at the current marginalised group - if they succeed in taking away the rights of one group of people, they will move on to the next, and finally you will be the one being demonised.

For those of us who do have a fair amount of privilege, we should both acknowledge that privilege and not resent others' desire to have the same rights that we have. And we have a duty to act as the best allies we can be. That's not to say that we charge in and take control of the discourse (see - again - Alison Phipps' excellent book on the tendency for white feminism to do this) but to stand up to transphobes, to amplify trans voices and to do - well, the things feminists should always do!

I came to a position of trans allyship the hard way. 

I come, unashamedly, from a long line of "stroppy" women who did things their way. A child of the '60s and '70s, I reaped the benefits of the social mobility of the post-war era. I can't ever remember not being a feminist - my infant brain took issue with the whole Christian Garden of Eden thing, where banishment was on the basis of "She did it!" and I was one of a group of girls at my primary school who loudly voiced our objections when we were discriminated against. When the WWII air raid shelters below the boys' playground were about to be filled in, we were all promised a trip below ground. When we discovered the demolition had begun, and that the boys had been allowed down and we hadn't, we gave the headmaster the full "women's rights" treatment (as much as 10 year olds can).

I was very much a product of my age and background and I thought I knew my feminism. When my son came out as trans in 2015 it hit me like a brick. In part, I went into mourning for the fabulous, feminist woman he would have been but also I knew so little about trans issues - I'd heard of Stephen Whittle and Jan Morris, but that was about it - that I was very ill-prepared to deal with it. And, to be honest, I dealt with it badly. A friend pointed me in the direction of literature on ROGD and told me my son was "just a butch lesbian but hasn't realised it yet." Life got very difficult (especially as my partner had been far more accepting) and it threatened to wreck my relationship with my child. Over time, I tried hard to understand the issues and things got a little easier.

The turning point was the 2018 GoFundMe campaign by some Labour party members to challenge Labour's decision to allow trans women on all women shortlists, which stated clearly that "any leftover funds would be used to fight self-ID". Two women I considered friends and political allies had signed it. I was so upset  and angry that I blogged about it, as a result of which I have spoken to neither since. This saddened me, but ultimately it came to a choice between my political friends and my child. Like I said, life's messy.

Over the last few years, I have done my best to be a good ally. Followed and shared trans voices on social media. Got to know my son's friends (a universally lovely group). Sought out other cis het women who aren't prepared to have gender critical feminists purport to speak for us - the many cis women who have no problem with trans women sharing our spaces, who aren't threatened by trans women and who believe that feminism without inclusion is not feminism. 

So my relationship to LGBTQ+ History Month is one of allyship. I have no relevant  lived experience, but I can at least do my best to be an empathetic ally and if I can't do much to make things better at least not make them worse. Promoting  marginalised voices rather than speaking for them and challenging transphobia. 

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so this time I'm paying attention.

Let's not let dead cats decide this election.

The rest of the Tory election campaign will be headed up by Lynton Crosby - a very unpleasant, unelected Australian 'strategist' with some unanswered questions about his tax arrangements, who delights in using 'dead cat' tactics wherever he can and is very effective at making nasty and incompetent people (Cameron, anyone?) look good. 

Please don't be fooled - May will not deliver a good (or possibly any) Brexit deal but she will continue to hammer the poor, the disabled and anyone other than the wealthy, despite all her faux concern for "ordinary hardworking people". And the NHS will continue to be run into the ground to soften us up for a US-style insurance system (look up how many Tory politicians have a financial interest in private healthcare companies if you don't believe me). 

She is a weak PM (and was a rubbish Home Sec if you look back at her record) who crumbles and then hides at the first sign of adversity. And if Brexit is what you're worried about, look at her negotiating team - the dilettante Boris Johnson, the security risk Liam Fox and David Davis, who really doesn't seem to know what he's doing so far. Angela Merkel has already given up on us, seeing the UK as Trump's ally! If we have to have Brexit (and I voted Remain, so I'm less than happy about it) then we at least need a decent settlement, and we won't get that with this bunch. 

I'm old enough to remember when Tory governments had Big Beasts - you may have disagreed with them and not liked them but at least there was a level of competence. Instead we have people like First Strike Fallon, who can barely control a tv interview, let alone our national security. 

And then there is what they're not telling us. There should have been an announcement on the state pension age due out before the election, but they're holding it back until afterwards - from which we can probably deduce that it's going to be bad news for us and we'll all have to work even longer than the current 66/67/68. 

So yes, you may not like Corbyn (although it's funny how many people have changed their mind now they've seen more of him in action) but really - does the Conservative Party really strike you as Strong and Stable after the last few weeks? Compare that with the calm response Corbyn has shown over two years of vilification from a hostile press (and large chunks of the PLP). If there's one thing he doesn't do, it's panic when things go pear-shaped. Unlike May. 

And before anyone starts with that "magic money tree" bollocks, there is no Magic Money Tree; what there is is a costed manifesto - and that's something else that's missing from the Conservatives. 

So if you live in a marginal, get out and vote - preferably for Labour, but tactically if that works better where you are. The collapse of the UKIP and LibDem vote means this is the most 2-party fight in a generation, but there are some marginal Tory seats that can be overturned - in some cases by a few hundred votes. And if you live in a safe seat, vote to keep the vote share high (and start campaigning for voting reform!) 

If you're young, follow up on that phenomenal registration surge and actually turn up on the day. 

If you're older, consider what old age and frailty will be like with no NHS, and vote for a party that won't allow it to be taken away from us. 

If you're poor, unemployed, disabled vote to stop being demonised by your own government. 

If you're not poor, unemployed, disabled have a bit of compassion for your fellow citizens and vote to stop them being demonised by your government. 

If you have children, vote for a party that won't starve schools of funding to levels not seen in a generation while reintroducing unjustified and un-evidenced educational segregation through grammar schools. 

So in conclusion, vote. Obviously, I'd like you to vote Labour, but in reality vote for anyone who can get rid of this shower of unpleasant incompetents. And remember, what you see from them over the rest of the campaign will be Crosby, not May.

A year's unpaid leave, you say? How generous!

Twenty one years ago, my partner and I both worked in the public sector, in modest but secure jobs. Our parents were enjoying well-earned retirements and were, in the main, fit and healthy.

Nineteen years ago, our first child was born with a rare neurological condition which meant that much of her young life was taken up with medical appointments with a range of medical professionals. After 6 month's maternity leave (the maximum I was allowed or could afford), I went back to work full time, and my partner and I managed these appointments between us, thanks in part to decent terms and conditions (good annual leave entitlement and flexi time). Our daughter had a place at a council-run SureStart Centre, with exemplary support from qualified, experienced childcare workers.

From the day she started school, there were clearly problems with her behaviour and by Year 1 she already had a statement of Special Educational Needs and at one point had 200% 1:1 support in class. At 9, she was additionally diagnosed with autism, which helped inasmuch as school staff at last knew what they were dealing with, but didn't make it any easier to manage. We were no strangers to exclusions, and each of those meant one of us taking time off from work. We will be forever grateful to those managers who allowed us to work from home at short notice and even, on some occasions, allowed us to bring her to work with us!

In 2007, my professional life took a hit when the project I had been working on with the council was put out to national contract, and I was TUPE'd to the private sector (thanks, New Labour). Now, I was working in a culture where I dreaded having to ask for time off, for fear of it being seen as a sign of weakness. Much of the "please come and take her home" requests then fell to my partner, with such frequency that he came to dread the school's number coming up on his phone. 

The following year, my daughter suffered sudden and unexpected sight loss in one eye and needed emergency surgery over in Liverpool and at least a week's recovery time. For an 10 year old autistic child, who needed to remain still and calm during her recovery, I was given 3 days' compassionate leave. No "take what you need and we'll sort it out on your return" but the maximum (grudging) allowance with an instruction to work at home for the rest of the time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this decision was made with by a male manager with no children....

A year later, I was offered a voluntary severance package, which I accepted with almost indecent haste. My daughter was about to transfer to high school, and this gave me the opportunity to take a year out (as I thought) to get her settled in. My partner carried on working full time, and by living carefully, I made the severance money (about a year's salary) last a year and a half. At that point, we applied for DLA. Although she would probably have been entitled to it for some years, we both felt that we had been earning reasonable salaries and that we could absorb the 'additional costs of disability' that DLA covered. (We were earning substantially less than David Cameron, who did claim DLA for his son, but let's not go there).

We battled on. My daughter's behaviour continued to challenge and became more erratic as she entered the hormonally-challenging teenage years, resulting in more exclusions and eventually a spectacular crash out of mainstream schooling and a hellish (for both of us) 6 month spell at home while the local authority tried to find a place at the over-subscribed special school. My 'year out' didn't look like coming to an end any time soon, as although she eventually did get back into school (it took Sir Gerald Kaufman's intervention to get it resolved), I still needed to be on hand during the day. And then my partner fell foul of the local authority job cuts imposed on council's by Coalition austerity. He had to make a decision - take voluntary severance or hang in there and hope that the next round of cuts wouldn't include compulsory redundancy. We had a talk - I had been a full time carer for nearly five years, and the effects on my wellbeing and mental health weren't good. We decided to take a risk - he would take the severance package and I would look for work. 

Things were a bit ropey for a while (especially with the continued Coalition assault on social security benefits), but eventually I found a part time (well, 30 hpw, so almost full time) job. The salary wasn't great - about half what I'd been on before, but it was a route back into the workplace after a 5 year absence in my 40s - never a good time to lose skills and a track record!

By now, our household income was about a quarter what it had been in 2007, and we were held together by goodwill and tax credits. My partner now became our daughter's full time carer as she moved on from school to college. things should have been improving, but this was a troubled time for her (in part down to the college's actions) and it became clear that it would not be possible for him to find part time work to augment the massive £60 a week Carers Allowance he got for being permanently 'on call' for the next crisis (and there always is a next crisis). 

And then my parents became ill. My mother was 90, with the multiple ailments of old age and the beginnings of dementia, and my 86 year old father (not in the best physical health himself) was her carer. I had encouraged them to apply for Attendance Allowance and we were all (pleasantly) surprised when they were both awarded higher rate; indicating how much we just absorb caring into our daily lives without appreciating quite how bad things might be getting. In February of 2016, my father was given a terminal cancer diagnosis, with a suggestion from his GP that he should probably put his affairs in order.

And so our lives shifted again. Our daughter was still struggling with college, but I had to leave my partner to deal with that (and our other child doing GCSEs) while I went to work and then did a 500 mile round trip every fortnight to my parents' house. Trips to the hospital, a weekend where my sister and I turned their dining room into a downstairs bedroom, setting up care plans, talking to the hospice staff, making sure their bills got paid and, as dad got weaker, discussing mum's inevitable need for residential care (something neither of them wanted). I called them nightly from home during the week and the calls become less and less coherent as dad's morphine levels rose. Luckily, we had excellent care workers coming in four times a day for each of them, but towards the end I was getting panicky phone calls as their grip on time deserted them. My sister lived closer, so was able to call in on them, but her ongoing health condition meant that she was physically and mentally exhausted and was limited in what support she could offer without making herself worse. And even though I worked in the field of adult social care, it was still really hard work navigating the many and various departments and people involved in their care, from the excellent carers to the unhelpful social worker; hospital OTs, community OTs, hospice staff, district nurses, pharmacists, the GP, the local authority ASC department. It was a full time job, but at least I had the income from my day job, all £16,000 a year of it, to hold the family together back home.

One Friday in mid-June, mum was taken into hospital, and I got a call at work from my sister to say that mum wasn't expected to come out again, so maybe I had better come down straight away (I had been planning to go down that evening anyway). On the same day, dad was admitted to a different hospital with chest and urinary infections which had made him very poorly. I did the 5 hour drive and arrived very late at night (the M6/M5 traffic on a Friday could mean journey times of up to 6 hours). The hospital(s) hadn't phoned to tell us of any deterioration so we got some sleep and intended to go and see mum as soon as visiting time came round. As it happened, we were on our way there when the hospital rang to say she had taken a turn for the worse, and by the time we arrived she had already died. 

We then had to go to dad and break the news to him. To be honest, we both thought, looking at him, that he was about to join her that day, so I called my partner and suggested he and my son (who had just finished his last GCSE) come down by train. The following day, we were all together as a family, and dad held court from his bed - a hospice bed within the local community hospital - and said his goodbyes. Physically frail and in pain, his mind (now the urinary infection was being treated) as sharp as ever, and he was lucid and funny. We said our goodbyes, thinking this might be the last time we saw him.

On the Monday, I phoned work and explained the situation and was told to take whatever time I needed. In fact, dad lived another ten days after mum's death, and I spent a week sleeping on my sister's sofa and visiting him as often as possible (save for a quick, 24 hour round trip to vote in the referendum, having not had time to arrange a postal or proxy vote). As I was packing my bags to go home at the weekend, the hospital phoned to say he'd taken a turn for the worse, so another panicked call to work who (bless them) told me not to worry about it and to take the time I needed. In the end, dad died peacefully and pain-free on 28th June. My sister and I spent the rest of that week making arrangements for a joint funeral and initiating the legal processes as their executors, and I then returned home for a well-earned rest at work before travelling down again for the funeral.

There followed another few months of estate-sorting and house-clearing, involving more weekend trips and, finally, a large  rental van to bring stuff back home to sort and we finally closed the door on their home of 23 years in October.

In the meantime, we had managed to find our daughter another college place and get our son into sixth form college (he passed his GCSEs, if you were wondering). We are still caring for our daughter (we probably always will be, given the nature of her disability) and now my mother in law is showing the first signs of dementia, so it looks like the cycle is about to start again.

All of which goes to demonstrate that a new "worker's right" to twelve months' unpaid care leave is utterly useless - most of us cannot afford to do without pay for a year, even if our jobs are held open for us, and so we mostly just juggle our caring responsibilities as best we can. The best employers already make accommodations for their workforce; the worst don't now and will do their best not to in the future (and to be fair to them, why should employers subsidise the care industry by effectively seconding their employees to it for a year?). My partner and I have both, at various times, given up work in order to care for a relative, but it was a decision forced on us by other circumstances and we did at least have the paltry £60 a week the government deems sufficient to pay carers. Neither of us could really "afford" to give up work and it's been damned hard work coping on that much of an income reduction.

In reality, those who can afford to take up the generous offer of unpaid leave will, by and large, have parents with savings of their own; in other words, the already-comfortable middle classes. In essence, this policy will end up (by accident or design) being more about preserving inheritances than truly solving the care crisis.

And since when did the Conservatives ever really care about Workers' Rights?

Mad About the Buoy...

I went for my regular Sunday morning swim today. We have a lovely new leisure centre, which is well-used and inviting, with two pools (something of a luxury in this day and age). Today, owing to some staffing issues, the swimming lessons which usually take place in the second pool had been moved into the main one, with half of it roped off for general use. This made lane swimming a bit tricky for the Desperate Old Codgers like myself - I can keep up a slow and steady pace, but am easily sunk by an over-eager youngster suddenly lurching in front of me or splashing me unexpectedly. Still, no-one begrudges children their swimming lessons - it's a vital skill which will become ever more important as ocean levels rise....

As I was plodding along like an out of condition dugong I started to reminisce about my own swimming lessons. As I recall, my primary school took us every week, on foot, to the local municipal pool. Initially, this was the old Maidstone Baths, apparently the first municipal baths in the country (we also had the first municipal theatre, which as the theatre manager once said was ironic, as "the town has never been known for either its cleanliness or its culture"). 

I can't remember how young we were when lessons started, but it was certainly pre-decimalisation, because I recall taking a threepenny bit with me every week. Later, we moved to the brand new pool built in the early 1970s, which had a main pool, learners' pool and diving pool. A council-built and -run facility. A Tory council, no less. These lessons continued every week up to the end of what is now Year 6. 

Every week. For six years.

Now, our kids get one year's school swimming, to which they're bussed (a sizeable chunk out of the school budget). So if you're not fortunate enough to become a strong swimmer in the course of the year you probably won't get any better.

The only alternative is for your parents to fork out for lessons from the company that runs the leisure centre for the council - "from £16.50 a month" isn't easily found when money's tight, so inevitably, the poorest and "just about managing" will lose out again.

To be fair, Manchester City Council offers free swimming to the under 16s during school holidays but it's still no substitute for regular supervised tuition over a number of years to produce strong, safe swimmers.

Increasingly I'm feeling that if I wasn't fortunate enough to be part of the baby boomer generation at least I benefited from a childhood where the welfare state and civic provision was embedded in our post-war culture and made us a progressive nation. All that has now been stripped away by the cult of individualism that has marked the last 35 years. I grew up in an era when even Tory governments saw the merit in public provision. Successive governments since 1979 have outsourced everything of value to us as communities and then we wonder why communities have given up on politics.

I wonder what on earth we could do to start rectifying that....on June 8th?

Sometimes it's Hard to be a Woman...

Well, it is in the Labour Party, at any rate.

I warn you not to be vocal

I warn you not to be working class

I warn you not to rock the boat


I'm beginning to think the Labour Party (and wider movement) really isn't a good place for women. For all its window dressing about equality, it's sadly lacking in a lot of respects. From the low-grade stuff (referring to two middle-aged women Vice Chairs of a branch as "the Vice Girls"; the routine lack of eye contact and engagement from some groups) to outright rudeness and intimidation. And then there's the tolerance of sexual impropriety (see previous blog) which, in the light of serious CSE cases, is very worrying indeed. 

From the young turks who think they know it all to the "creepy*" older hands, there's always an opportunity to be looked down on, marginalised and (in extreme cases) smeared. Challenge this, though, and you are labelled a troublemaker.

Of course, there are the proper channels to go through if you are in dispute. You can put in a formal complaint. You can wait a year and have no response. Your enquiries can go unanswered. Democracy in (in)Action.

And then there's the Women's Groups. Eternal forums for discussion but essentially just divisive and separatist.

Loyalty, it seems, is only a one way street, with members (especially women members) expected to shut up and do as they're told. 

It seems to me that "inclusion" in the Labour Party is about as meaningless as it is in education - in reality, it is integration - you do it our way or not at all - rather than true inclusion.

The fact that your least worst option in British politics is this sorry state of affairs is profoundly depressing.





*not my description, but it says a lot about perceptions of new members

A Menopausal Malcontent Sounds Off.

This may turn out to be several posts in one. I think I've just had enough.

For the Good of the Party 

All those years the Left kept quiet in the name of party unity. How rash of us to believe that the same would apply now that the Right (sorry, "Moderate") wing of the party is no longer in the ascendant. 

It was fine during the leadership campaign - voice whatever opinion you like in support of your candidate (up to and including "That Corbyn bloke will be a disaster" and so on) but we have a result now - a decisive one, with the biggest democratic mandate in the history of the party - and the fact that you don't like the result does not give you the right to spout off about the leader and brand those of us who supported/voted for him as "a rabble", Trots, and a whole lot worse. 

And yet we have MPs and front benchers who spend their days slagging off the leadership, and are then astonished to get the sack. Rentaquote "feisty" types who "won't shut up" or others who whinge incessantly and then flounce out of the party. Yesterday's men (the same ones who drove so many from the party over the last 25 years) pontificating ad nauseam in the press to any journalist who'll listen (and that's most of them - easier than seeking out alternative narratives beyond London and the South East).

And then there are local councillors who see their assured future careers as MPs (via the Progress finishing school) suddenly receding into the distance, and have spent the last few months snarking about the leadership like the group of self-declared "cool kids" in the playground, and who then suddenly turn up with their own pressure group, Open Labour, which arrived in a blaze of glory a few weeks ago and then....... 

As social media groups like 50+Corbyn Supporters show, "Corbynistas" aren't all young, naive or SWP entryists; they are ordinary folk who are old enough to remember what life was like in the 80s/90s under the last lot of Tories and, more importantly, what life was like before that - when we had the Britain of Compassion and Public Ownership. You remember? The one where we weren't "intensely relaxed" about inequality, and where we didn't believe that outsourcing public services to large private BPO companies was the answer to everything. These are the people who are flocking back to Labour, along with the young who have never had the fortune to experience life without triangulating consensus of Thatcherism and New Labour.

And yet some of the PLP and some councillors, far from being chastened by the rejection of their uniformly lacklustre leadership candidates, have seen fit to try and trash both the leader and the 59.5% of party members who voted for him. Not for them acceptance of a democratic mandate. Not for them keeping their opinions to themselves for the good of the party.No. They are Important People and their opinions MUST BE HEARD. In public. All the time.

For years it was those of us on the Left who were urged to keep our misgivings to ourselves, to "not wash our dirty linen in public", etc, etc. We did. And do you know what? It allowed all kinds of unacceptable behaviour to continue which should have been challenged openly. 

The manipulation of candidate selection to ensure preferred candidates were selected over the wishes of local members, branches and CLPs, resulting in candidates being foisted on members and activists, and whispering campaigns to undermine those who had the temerity to object. The disdain with which the party hierarchy treats its members is quite staggering in some places. 

The reluctance to challenge wrongdoing for fear of causing cultural offence has led to powerful blocs within the Labour Party whose values run counter to those the majority of members hold.

Silencing voice of the membership within the party in the name of electability (which continued long after that electability faded) resulted in focus-group/ opinion poll/core vote strategies which took no notice of what was happening in real life (and which activists could have told them if they'd bothered to ask). For a Democratic Socialist party, we became pretty undemocratic and not the least bit socialist, defending policies of which we should have been ashamed.

My Enemy's Enemy (isn't Necessarily my Friend)

Sadly, bad behaviour is endemic. It's not just the so-called Moderates, either, although their sense of entitlement is almost as breathtaking as the Tories. To be honest, though, elements of the Left are just as bad. The upsurge of support, activism and enthusiasm which made Corbyn's election campaign so exciting has rapidly descended into nasty little power games. Just as much of the PLP sees members and activists as unimportant foot soldiers, so a few self-appointed "leaders" of Corbyn-supporting groups are busy carving out niches for themselves, ignoring the voices of the thousands who signed up in the summer. And the dirty tricks have started; goading (I won't call it bullying - yet), undermining other groups, tampering with social media accounts. More like the SWP than the Labour Party. Some of the comrades are being decidedly un-comradely at the moment.

Which brings me on to....

Rum, Misogyny and the Lash

Labour has a woman problem. Not just whether or not they hold the highest "offices of state" or whether they make up 50% of the shadow cabinet (which they now do), but the way in which the party treats women. Yes, we have All-Women Shortlists, but these can also be used to manipulate candidate selection to exclude good local male candidates when it suits. Low level misogyny is never very far from the surface, and attitudes among some male members of the party are pretty neanderthal. When a number of women members go through the correct procedure (independently) to complain about the same party official, their case drags on for over a year and their polite enquiries as to progress are not even acknowledged. Similarly, there were a distressing number of male party members who were unconcerned about Simon Danczuk's actions simply because the girl concerned was over the age of consent. Again, more like the SWP than the Labour Party.

This is not to say that all the men in the Labour Party behave poorly; there are some fine, honourable comrades with whom I'm proud to be associated. There are also, however, a sizeable number who appear to think that women's voices don't count for much ("who are these people?") and they certainly don't like women who stand up to them! I thought we'd moved on from Stokely Carmichael's view about the place of women in political movements, but there you go. 

I've stayed very quiet about a number of things which make me unhappy about the Labour Party at the moment. Yes, the right of the party and their reluctance to accept that life and the British people have moved on from the heady days of New Labour is infuriating, but I had so much hope that things would be different under Corbyn. He still has the right message, but he needs to stop listening to the siren call of those who see his leadership as their shortcut to greatness. As with Ed, when Corbyn is being his own man he is engaging, intelligent and with all the right messages. He just has to put the party in order. Sadly, though, there is a group of men/boys lurking in the shadows of the broad church, playing silly games while Britons suffer.

Today's Tories: Generation Not-a-Clue

Cameron's going to turn us into Generation Buy, is he?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-much-you-need-earn-6587292

When I was young and foolish (20), I took out my first mortgage - £11,000 for a studio flat. Two years later, we sold it for £15,000, and thought we'd done pretty well. A few years later, the late 80's Yuppie boom saw the same flats going for around £40,000 (they were close to the railway line to London). Quite a price for a 12' x 24' room with a kitchenette in one corner and a bathroom.

(They now go for £70-80,000)

When we took out our current £47,500 mortgage in 1993, I was a Scale 4 Admin Officer and my partner was a Clerical Officer, both working for a city council. Our combined income would probably have been in the mid-£20,000s at most. It was a bit of a stretch financially, but it was still cheaper than renting, thanks to MIRAS, etc. Of course, tax subsidies for mortgage payments were phased out, but we could still just about keep our heads above water.

Just before the crash in 2007 we had, through the "hard work" that Cameron and his ilk set so much store by, reached the heady heights of Senior/Principal Officer level, with a household income of around £52,000. Yippee!

Except that in that time, house price inflation had boosted the value of our house to around £250,000, so we couldn't have afforded to buy the house we were already living in, despite decent salaries.

Then came my outsourcing (a combination of New Labour government and council actions) and subsequent severance (from Capita - a merciful release), followed by my partner's departure from MCC thanks to coalition cuts. I'm now back at work (on a little under £16,000 a year), and he's surviving on £60 a week Carers Allowance (with no time off or outside support), and our house is now worth around £180,000. Again, we could not afford to buy the house we live in. And in today's inflated market, renting would also be beyond us.

So, Mr Cameron:

1) Do you realise how little most people actually earn in this country? The "average" of £26,500 is a pipe dream for most of us (I only earned at or above that for about 4 of my 22 years' local government service)

2) Do you remember the Blessed Margaret's devotion to home ownership, which resulted in profligate lending and rampant price-inflation? Boosted by that wheeze of selling off council houses as loss-leaders that brought the whole thing crashing down in the early 90's (which was how we picked up a decent 3 bedroom house for £50,000). If it was unsustainable when prices still bore some relation to reality, how's it going to work this time?

You can only be "Generation Buy" if you have secure employment and sufficient income to meet your lovely new mortgage. Nothing your government has done in 5 years has made anyone's employment more secure, and despite what we're told by the media, I know no-one who's had a salary increase in years.

Oh, and if you're under 25, forget home ownership - you're simply "not productive enough" to earn enough to take out a mortgage!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/06/matthew-hancock-living-minimum-wage_n_8252008.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Don't Risk Your Future with Labour? It's Not Much of a Risk, Dave.

Here's a thing. Listening to Chicken "Pumped Up" Dave the other day warning me how much worse off I'd be entrusting the economy and my livelihood to Labour, it occurred to me that I'm not, and never have been, better off under the Tories.

I left school in 1981, in the middle of a recession. It took months to find a job, despite my dad nagging me every day about going to the Job Centre. I got lucky in the November of that year - I landed a temporary job as a Library Assistant (Scale1) on the massive salary of £3,945 per annum!

Unfortunately for me, after 6 months, the woman whose maternity leave I was covering returned to work, so I faced a return to the dole queue. Fortunately, the Kent County Library Service seemed to like me, and were able to offer me another temporary post in another library, along with another girl whose fiance was in the Falklands. At the end of our 6 month contract, they had to let one of us go, and chose the other girl (even though she and I knew she was off to wherever the fiance was going to be posted on his return from the South Atlantic). So, back to the Job Centre...

Then, a couple of weeks later, they contacted me to say Jane had left, and would I consider coming back? I asked mum what I should do (I was only 19!). Her advice was "if you say yes, they'll always just kick you around whenever they feel like it" so I turned them down. A few months later I was again working for the Library Service, this time as a Cataloguing Assistant, repairing and processing books, and then, a couple of weeks short of my 20th birthday I got a proper, permanent job as a Scale 1 Clerical Assistant with the local education office.

From this point on, local government became my career (apart from the 4 year break I took to go back into full time education to get the degree I had no interest in at 18). By this time, I had managed to work my way up to the heady heights of a Scale 3 Admin Assistant, and a lot of people thought I was mad to give up a steady job to go to uni. But with no ties, it seemed like the best chance I would have, and I was right. I loved my course, I spent a year studying overseas, I met my partner, I made good friends who are now my kids' godparents - it was all good stuff.

I graduated in 1991.... in the middle of another Tory recession! Jobs were scarce, so instead of the graduate-level job I'd been hoping for, I settled for a Scale 4 Admin Officer post with Manchester City Council, working with the Advisory/Training team for the new National Curriculum. The work was interesting, and the team were great, but in terms of career progression it was stagnation. The body clock kicked in and in 1998, our first child was born. Despite her diagnosis of Sturge Weber Syndrome and epilepsy, I was able to return to full time work after my 6 months' maternity leave, and almost immediately found that there was finally an opportunity for promotion. Some advised against going for it, thinking it would be too much to cope with in addition to a new baby (and a disabled one at that!), but with the stunning support of my bosses, together with a brilliant, council-run nursery (later part of the Sure Start programme), I was able to "have it all" as the Daily Mail loves to put it.

So I found myself in a Senior Officer post (don't get too excited, it was still well short of the Average National Salary). A couple of years, and another child, later, I was redeployed into a team working on the development of the Adult Learning Grant, part of the last Labour government's Skills Strategy (A 'strategy'! When was the last time a government had one of those, eh?). I started out as a operational team leader, moving on to become Deputy and then (Acting) Scheme Leader. And then it all went a bit pear-shaped...

This, remember, was New Labour whose belief in outsourcing was every bit as evangelical as the Coalition's. In their infinite wisdom, they decided to group ALG with EMA and a bunch of other grants into a massive Learner Support contract. This meant that it was too big a scheme for the council to bid for, so the entire team (some 50 people) ended up TUPE'd to the private sector. For a while I carried on as before, but when the inevitable 'restructure' came, I was demoted and de-skilled and thoroughly miserable, as the project I'd spent 4 years of my life developing was changed beyond all recognition. Eventually, the contractor and I parted company by mutual agreement (they didn't need me and I hated working for them!), and I received a reasonable severance package which allowed me to take a year off (as I thought) to settle my daughter into her (mainstream) high school. And so I became a full-time carer. Paid around £3000 a year for a more-than-full-time, high stress 'job', caring for a traumatised autistic teenager. (see other blog posts for more details). Our household income halved, but my partner had been quietly plugging away at a local government career, too. Nothing flashy, but he was hard-working, conscientious and damned good at his job. so we managed. Money was tight, but we were OK - just. 

One year turned into two, three... she never really settled in mainstream and crashed out fairly spectacularly in Year 9, with six months out of school while a suitable place was found (it took an intervention by Sir Gerald Kaufman to get that sorted, so guess where my vote's going?). 

And then the killer.... the bloody Coalition and its Austerity-for-Some meant some of the harshest cuts in the country for Manchester. He avoided the first round of redundancies, but when the second round came up, he took voluntary severance (on the not unreasonable grounds that next time it might be compulsory, with a much worse financial deal). So that was it. 37 years' combined service, and both our careers over before we hit 50. 

I had been looking for a job since we realised our only income was under threat. Despite my experience there was very little about. I got interviews, but no success ("You have lots of experience, but it's more 'management' than this post needs" was one bit of feedback!). Finally, I got one! Almost full-time (30hpw); an Admin Officer. On a fte rate which was pretty much where I had left off when I went to university nearly 30 years ago. In the first 9 months I didn't earn enough to start paying tax (I'm supposed to thank Nick Clegg for that, right?). Don't get me wrong - I love the work; it's worthwhile, and I'm working with awe-inspiring people who are really knowledgeable, empathetic and effective, but the fact remains I have pretty much nothing to show for a nearly-30 year career. 

Resentful? You bet! And I'm not the only one. I know so many people in the same position. "Working People", "Hard-Working Families", whatever they're being called this week. Except many of them either aren't working because of the Coalition's public sector cuts, or are finding themselves in severely reduced circumstances (and we're not taking Daily Mail-style 'reduced circumstances, where Jacinta has had to give up her second pony and they've had to send the kids to a STATE SCHOOL!!!!). In all my years working for a local authority, I only earned at or above the average salary for about three years. 

So all in all, you can see why I'm not taken in by the Bullingdon Boys and their scare stories. Any government which has to promise to legislate so that it can't break its own taxation pledges really doesn't deserve our vote.

Labour isn't perfect (I'm still worried about their stance on social security and immigration), but faced with the alternative - a dog-eat-dog future with no civil society - I know where my vote's going in the General Election.

Here's a handy graph showing what my income has done over the course of my working life. Note the years where there was a Conservative government, and where a Labour one....

Thoughts on the Hustings...

My first thought is: "Great! We have hustings, and they're well-attended."

One of the great things about Levenshulme is how engaged its residents are. We might disagree, squabble, snark and sneer, but ultimately we all love where we live, are proud of it and will defend it when outsiders look down on us. We go out on the streets, we campaign loudly and effectively and we speak up when we think something's wrong. So where other areas fail to engage voters in the electoral process (especially at local level), we have hustings, organised by the Levenshulme Community Association, which packed out one of the few secular meeting spaces in the area (that, in itself, is an issue) on a warm spring night when people could have simply stayed at home enjoying the weather. Thanks are due to the LCA for organising it, and to the Klondyke for being excellent hosts.

Many of us already knew each other socially; others, I suspect, will have been putting faces to names from social media pages. Some of us are overtly political, others defiantly non-aligned. The evening was designed to allow us to get to know the candidates who seek to represent us on Manchester City Council from next month, with written questions and some from the floor, addressed to all candidates in turn. We have five candidates, UKIP perhaps wisely recognising that they stand little chance in an inclusive multicultural area such as ours. 

The Conservative candidate was a no-show - pretty disgraceful, as the (admittedly few) Tory voters in the area deserve to be represented, just as the other parties were. To be fair, he did have a bit further to travel, I suppose - from a street just over the border in the Gorton South ward.  It seems that like their leader, though, Conservative candidates don't feel the need to turn up to debates.

The LibDem candidate was the veteran former councillor John Commons, eager to distance himself from his party, and emphasising his credentials as a longstanding Leve resident and activist. He gave a barnstorming performance (aided by knowing pretty much everyone in the room, residents and 'visitors'), and it will remain to be seen whether he can distance himself from his party sufficiently to win back the seat he lost a few years back.

The Trades Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidate was Fiona Higgins, a Leve resident and care worker who spoke with passion and integrity from a position of having experienced the effects of austerity cuts and zero hours contracts in the care sector. 

The Labour Party's candidate was Basat Sheikh, the owner of a care company (the only candidate present not to live in the ward). He was loudly supported by (as John Commons pointed out) a sizable number of Labour councillors and assorted supporters, who were both very vocal and combatative (one criticised the chairing of the meeting, another heckled and interrupted while others were speaking). The enthusiasm for Mr Sheikh appeared to be confined to this section of the room, though, and it begs a question as to why it was felt he needed so much partisan support, including a question from the floor from his campaign manager? 

Things got particularly tetchy around the issue of zero hours contracts (the widespread use of which the Labour Party has committed to ban), when he was tackled on whether his care company does (or did) offer such contracts to staff. He stated that he does not, and has never done so, a statement which was queried by several of those present, including one voter who had a copy of a letter which seemed to indicate otherwise.

The final candidate was Dick Venes of the Green Party, who also stood in 2014. Sadly, although I recently scored 97% Green on one of those 'Which party are you most aligned with?" quizzes (a bit embarrassing for a Labour Party member and former branch official*), I find, 24 hours on, that I can't recall any of his answers in any detail. I have the same problem with the Foo Fighters...

There were a range of questions on local issues, and most of the candidates acquitted themselves well on them. I'm sorry to say that 'my' candidate was severely underwhelming. Not having even an estimated completion date for the new leisure centre (possibly the biggest issue in the area over the last year or so), suggesting an Eric Pickles-style 'grace period' for those parking on yellow lines, telling us that he wants to make Leve "the kind of place you move to because you want to, rather than because you can't afford Chorlton or Didsbury" (which was met with a concerted response that many of us already ARE here because we want to be, and have no desire to live in Chorlton or Didsbury). He then compounded this by telling us that it really doesn't matter if the candidate lives in the ward (Yes, it does!) and telling us that "Sir Gerald Kaufman doesn't live in Levenshulme." It had to be pointed out to him that Sir G. might not live in Leve, but does live in the constituency he serves! So, factually irrelevant and very disrespectful to a much-admired MP who has served this community with great distinction for 45 years. It was not a high point.

All in all, it was a good evening but I have to say that, with a few notable exceptions, the clacque of Labour politicians present was a bit of an embarrassment. Do they consider their candidate so weak that he needs the support of so many councillors from other wards? Where were the Levenshulme Labour members who selected him for the candidacy**?

As I've said, Leve residents are intelligent, committed and engaged. We don't take well to being talked down to by someone who'd barely set foot in the ward before last year, or being told our area is a second choice stepping-stone to Hipsterville. We want to know who our candidates are and what their values are, which is why we turned out in pleasing numbers last night.

I will be voting again for Sir Gerald Kaufman on 7 May, but the local elections are another matter.



*that's a whole other blogpost....
** and that's another....

[Full disclosure: I was one of the unsuccessful nominees for the Levenshulme candidacy. If anyone would like to see my candidate statement, I'll happily post it and folk can judge for themselves whether the best man won.]