I have come to the conclusion that sleeping rough on the
streets is a good way of reconnecting with the realities of life. Now this I know sounds a bit extreme but it
is what I experienced recently during The Mass Sleep Out which took place in
major cities and towns across the UK.
I have believed for a long time that it is women who endure
poverty the most mainly because it is them who try to keep it together for
their families. This does not mean that
men don’t do the same, but is my own personal experience growing up and since I
became elected, that I have observed how women worry and fret and find ways to
stretch meagre budgets as they make sure they can feed and clothe their
families and keep a roof over their heads.
I have done it myself.
Until I was 9 my Mother was left to bring up me and my
brother alone. I never knew my father who had abandoned us all when I was a
baby. She really struggled to ensure
that we were fed, had clothes to wear and a roof over our heads.
When she re-married our circumstances did not initially change much for the
better and as I grew up I became painfully aware of the choices she made every
week with the family budget. She wrote
all the finances down in a big book. This book was where her decisions were
made about what we were going to eat that week or who got a pair of shoes. I know how much she worried about how we were
making ends meet and her stress and her sleepless nights. When my new Father was on strike from the steelworks the stress and worry was even worse.She nevertheless managed it although I know there was probably a great deal of personal sacrifice along the way. In modern times and as a local councillor I
have recognised the same degree of worry and stress from mothers bringing up
their kids or carers helping to support close relatives
I have taken part in demonstrations / protests and the like
for years but I have until now not taken that commitment onto the pavements of
my home town and slept rough in order to highlight concerns over the cruelty
and unfairness of the Coalition Governments so called ‘Bedroom Tax’. It has re - taught me a few things about people
and how they are dealing with austerity in modern Britain following the
outrageous behaviour of Bankers and the
sub prime markets.
Yes before I go on it is necessary to remind ourselves and
others that there is a root cause of the austerity and unfairness and that we
now have a Government that instead of addressing the economic crisis has
decided instead to force the cost of banking failures globally onto the
shoulders of all of us with the result that the poorest now shoulder the
biggest share of the burden. It was interesting that people on the street protesting talked about the Mansion Tax and Bankers.
Labour needs to find its voice and I agree with Andy Burnham
that it does need to shout louder and it needs to keep it up. The reason I say
this is that it is far too easy to believe that the majority of the public will
turn out in sufficient numbers to ensure a Labour victory. The reality may be that many people will
not vote at all because many people are simply turned off by the mainstream
parties.
This is what I learned during the night of the 24th
of August and into the dawn of the next day as I and hundreds of other people
took part in The Mass Sleep Out against the ‘Bedroom Tax’.. The banter and chatter on the streets during
that long cold night confirmed to me
what I sometimes hear on the doorstep. Except that in the circumstances we were
in, and with the comraderie which brought a diverse group of people together in
common cause I learned that to be truly in it together we have to listen more
carefully and we need to be honest about our own failings as a party and we have to offer some solutions.
There were a group of young men with us. They ought to be in the Labour Party. Instead they have joined Anonymous and blame
the Labour Party for the mess we are in as well as the current Govt. Other people on the protest are labour voters
who have felt let down and either failed to vote or cast a protest vote. One
person told everyone that he had voted Liberal Democrat and had felt even more
let down. One person is a former Labour
Party member who left over Iraq and joined the Green Party. One woman protester told us of her struggle to keep going and how last winter she could not pay for fuel bills so went without heating. People stopping by
on the streets who are Labour voters, or were, felt that Labour had got us into
the mess or were not shouting up for them. There were continual references to
some of our policies they were not happy with and that included Labours ‘tax’ on people living in private accommodation
which they feel gave the Tories the idea in the first place. The myths continue and we need to redress that. There was of course support and respect for those of us who were taking part in the protest regardless of who we were. We need to make sure as a party that people really feel we understand what they are going through and we need to tell them.
As we sat out in public view there were dozens and dozens of
people passing by enjoying a Bank Holiday night out in the town. There was hardly anyone who did not stop and
speak to us and asked us what we were doing.
They all agreed with the protest.
I think in the entire night only one person said he believed that the
bedroom tax and cuts to welfare was the right thing to do. . However the story that long night for me
belonged to the women. I was struck by the number of young women who told us that they held more than one job in order to make ends meet. The grandmothers who talked about the troubles their grand daughters were having finding somewhere to live or in paying larger rents They were the most vocal and willingly shared their
stories. The most heart-breaking was
from a young woman with four young children who is near to eviction because she
cannot pay her rent and who cannot find another place to live.
The protestors became an instant street surgery offering
advice and I made sure we took names and addresses so that I could get local
councillors to follow issues up. I
became painfully aware that many of these people would not go and vote for
Labour because they do not think we are going to do enough for them. We need to take the campaign for a Labour
majority down to the streets. We need to
engage once again and more sincerely with the people who once saw us as their
champions. They need their voices to be
heard long and hard and strong in the corridors of power, in the Palace of
Westminster, in Brussels, in the Town Halls, in the workplace and in our CLP’s. We must once
more become the voice of the people and be their automatic choice at election time.
I know that there are many Labour activists out there who
campaign tirelessly however we are increasingly targeting the people who bother
to vote rather than giving people who do not vote a reason to do so. We must go back to
the streets and the doorsteps and workplace and listen to what people are
saying and then take their message out
to the nation and shout harder and longer for them. For me this also means engaging with women and listening to their voices and experiences. Regaining trust is a hard and long road but it is a journey that is worth taking and we must surely make it.
The people who do not vote are the ones who most need us.
The Labour Party must show some leadership and give people a reason to vote for them not once but enduringly. Let our policies reflect
what they the people believe to be right and fair. We are the Peoples champions
after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment