We gathered on the grass and assembled into a line for marching. Thank you very much to the people who marshalled! A really important job in order for the march to go ahead! Some people expressed that they felt uncomfortable marching with others who they would normally dissociate with. I understand this is a new thing for some people to be confronted with and whilst it often causes some raised eyebrows and discomfort I am very keen to include everybody who is willing to make positive contributions to the anti-cuts campaign. I would always ask that people give this way of working a chance since I am very keen to get away from our group being taken over by what some might call "the usual suspects" and I believe being able to attract and maintain interest from broadly differing groups will and has strengthened us. We cannot be dismissed as easily if we have people from all walks of life included and on principle it is not my personal belief that anyone should be excluded based on their other associations. We all have our own political beliefs and we may disagree very strongly but what matters is where we DO agree and that we are willing to work together positively. The group does not expect that all contributors agree on everything or that they feel as though they are represented by the other people on the march. Each person speaks for themselves and I am not going to allow others to censor any of our contributors for this reason. We are apolitical in our organisation but feel it is important to allow others to maintain their own beliefs and campaigns - I believe a more difficult, but ultimately more productive path.
Many thanks also go to Steve Jowett who you can see holding the other side of our banner in this picture. He has tirelessly been adding quiet but vitally important contributions to our group (including the loud hailer) and other groups such as Gemma Brannan's Children's Centres Campaign. Steve is standing for Labour in the local council elections in May in Ainsdale ward and is much too kind to promote himself! I can assure you he is the most humble, kind and tirelessly hard working man I have ever come across, he absolutely fundamentally believes in social justice and does all he can, whenever he can, to contribute to improving things for other people as anyone who has met him will attest! But that is enough sycophancy! ;)
We then marched down the Promenade. Thanks very much to Peter Raymond of "Peter Raymond photography" who took all these pictures!
The march was attended by individuals concerned about cuts, Labour party members, UKIP parliamentary candidate Terry Durrance, Green Party members, Unite, the TUC, the West Lancs Pensioners Forum, Doctors from the hospital, PCT employees, mums with children, people concerned about New Directions, a wonderful lady called Susan England (who I will write more about later), Cynthia from Compass and many more, a pleasingly broad spectrum of people!
As we marched we chanted! "No return to the 80's! Defend the NHS!", "No ifs! No buts! No public sector cuts!", "They say cut back! We say fight back!"
We held up traffic when crossing at the pedestrian crossing and Steve and I used the banner to shield everyone from any oncoming traffic as we crossed! If you were the bikers we held up, thanks very much for waiting so patiently!
As we turned onto Lord street some shoppers were mildy irritated at having to mind out of the way but many cars beeped their horns in support and our chants grew stronger with the support!
We held up cars again to cross Lord street! Again, thanks for your patience!
We gathered outside the Town Hall and we had speakers on the stairs.
This is Cynthia speaking about Compass.
Me waffling about things and hoping I am making sense!
This is Susan England. She is an American with dual citizenship and has worked as a nurse in a few different states in America. She spoke absolutely wonderfully in support of our NHS and her emotion very well expressed her (and many of our) fears and sadness about the American system of healthcare. She spoke about what many of us are absolutely fearful of - that if you are wealthy you can get healthcare but if you are poor or vulnerable you die. She spoke, through tears, about patients who are afraid to call an ambulance because they aren't sure their insurance will pay for it. Absolutely heartbreaking. I can't thank her enough for being brave and strong enough to fight back her tears and speak so passionately about something so important!
This is a lady from West Lancs Pensioner's Forum. She spoke with frustration about why the Government was spending money on overseas aid when they are saying they are not able to look after their own people. This isn't my first worry since I think it is very important to try and fight global inequality in order to maintain and promote the human rights of all people, here and abroad but as I said at the time, it does illustrate an important point about the difference between what the Coalition say and what they do. In the same week they announced a cap on benefits of £20k per year, they, a cabinet 18 out of 23 who are millionaires, it was reported in the papers, spent £20k of public money on transporting and hanging artwork in their offices. We have plenty of money for: the bid for the world cup - a tournament that would have cost much for us to hold, the pope's visit despite the vatican having billions in wealth, we are paying for an extravagant wedding of two aristocrats, we have money to fight wars in afghanistan, iraq and libya, we have £1.2bn to completely re-organise the NHS, we are able to cut corporation tax. They say we have no money to support the welfare state, to adequately fund the NHS, to reorganise HMRC so we can have fair taxation and collect the billions unpaid illegally every year. I think it is very important to look at what they do not at what they say. They want you to believe TINA (there is no alternative) and that cuts have to be made to public services. Public spending is only one side of the deficit, the other is tax. David Willets on newsnight (the squeezed middle) says they know the tax system is not fit for purpose but that a reorganisation to make it capable and fair would cost money they didn't have. How can you sort a deficit (an imbalance between tax incomes and spending) if you have a tax system which is acknowledged to be inadequate? They are incompetent, I would argue, in spending money reorganising the NHS when it is a policy which is opposed by many and unnecessary. The money would be better spent funding HMRC who are suffering austerity cuts and job losses and already fail to adequately collect owed taxes see NFA's document on fraud here - http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/nfa/GuidetoInformation/Documents/NFA_fraud_indicator.pdf
Here is Terry's placard that provoked controversy! I welcome his support and am pleased he came to march (and marshal too!). He is happy to march alongside everyone and he shouldn't be hassled for trying to offer support to the cause that everybody feels is important! He isn't expecting everyone to agree with him or be converted and he was told, along with everyone else, to bring his own placard for his own cause.
This is Laurence from Sefton Green Party speaking.
We finished the rally by having a chant and then we dispersed! I am stupid for not knowing when our next meeting was! It is on 11/4/11. The Socialist Health Association meeting is on 14/4/11. Please have a look at the Upcoming events section for more information as you have to book for this meeting (it is free but they need to know numbers).
No comments:
Post a Comment