The hidden sense

Walking out of the cold blue rain,
With ice lips and ice hair,
The man smiled in a new space
Of warmth and mist from bodies.
The music was strong, like the sea,
And its waves were far and near;
Drifting in and out of words -
Words that floated like gulls:
Bright miracles in a breeze.
The trick, as always, was to let
It happen: his hidden sense.

When he spoke, high waves slammed
A distant pier, and seals cried -
The echoes of leaving, and a red
Light, dim through the spray,
Warned of something he couldn’t say.
In words, there’s always a space
For those dreams you fear the most;
For a touch – craved, then lost.
Yet, music and company rarely show
That chasm, as it forms:
No one shouts; no one warns.

Walking out, disconnected
For months, he could never tell
When warmer raindrops fell -
A few at a time amongst the cold.
Was it glancing out at the blurred crowd
When watching a watch repairer mend?
Or, was it run-splashing in the groan
Of other trains, to the last one,
Enthralled by the pouring rain?
Or was it when one raindrop faintly kissed,
In the first touch of a foreign mist?

Fighting for a future

There is a word which is particularly apt to describe the welfare reform proposals being discussed in Parliament: monstrous. Yet, when you look in detail at their likely effect upon individual human beings, perhaps there is not a strong enough word. For these measures will kill some people, including some people who are already dying, and make the lives of millions of others very difficult. In short, a great deal of human suffering is being imposed upon millions of the poorest people by a small bunch of very rich people. The Sheriff of Nottingham, from the Robin Hood legend, would be proud.

The nature of the specific cuts is becoming clearer every day, as the Welfare Reform Bill is passed back and forward from Lords to Commons. Now, cancer patients and others will have their entitlement to contributions-based Employment Support Allowance (a benefit for sick and disabled people) limited to one year. Campaigners have rightly pointed out that this is a form of theft, as workers pay national insurance contributions for comprehensive cover if they fall ill or otherwise require care. Imagine if your entitlement to NHS care was similarly time-limited! And then there’s the plan to make some tenants on benefits pay for the ‘privilege’ of having one or more extra bedrooms in their house. So, for example, a single parent whose son leaves home may suddenly have to find around £13 a week from £67.50 benefits. It does not need an expert to see that will lead to extreme hardship, rent arrears and evictions. The proposed ‘capping’ of benefits to £500 a week will also lead to evictions – on a huge scale, rarely seen outside of a war zone. Yet, according to some opinion polls, this measure is supported by around 70% of the population. Influenced by government propaganda, many workers see this measure as ‘common sense’. The general argument runs: “I don’t earn £500 a week, so why should they get it.” It’s worth looking at the assumptions which lie beneath this kind of argument.

Firstly, most people forced to rely on benefits – through illness, disability or unemployment – receive nothing like £500 a week. The families who do are mainly larger families, hit by unemployment or sickness, and who then have to pay high rents, particularly in large cities like London, where landlords are making a killing from charging high amounts. So, it is not the individuals within the families who are getting the money, and there is no plan to cap the landlords profits. Instead, in bold headlines, newspapers scream about families living on thousands of pounds of benefits, ignoring the inconvenient fact that the families see little of the money, and landlords get most of it.

One of the worst attacks is an immediate threat not just to benefit claimants but to the entire working working class: workfare. Already, thousands of benefit claimants have been forced to work on benefits for companies like Tescos. The profits of these companies are further boosted by this slave labour: any costs are met from public funds. Trade unions like the GMB have called for companies to pull out of this scheme now. The whole trade union movement should support this demand. If companies get away with this, there’s nothing to stop them replacing waged workers with the unwaged. I doubt if we will see many newspaper headlines warning – ‘Multinational scrounger boosts profits with slave labour’ but that is precisely what’s happening. It’s not the first time this has been tried, and defeated. Under Thatcher, it was called the Job Training Scheme (JTS). I am proud to have played a small part in its demise – organising one of the first protest meetings of 100 people in Dundee, which led to Thatchers henchman Lord Young attacking Dundee unemployed centre as a hotbed of opposition to JTS, and I also drafted the resolution which led the STUC and later the TUC to successfully boycott the scheme.

There is plenty of evidence of the appalling effect of benefit cuts upon the lives of many people who have no other means of survival. This evidence is in various forms: serious studies of the effects of specific benefit cuts, such as the report ‘Incapacity Benefit Reform – the local, regional and national impact’ (November, 2011), from researchers at Sheffield Hallam University. It points out that: ‘Nearly 600,000 incapacity claimants will be pushed out of the benefits system entirely, either because they will fall foul of the time-limit on non means-tested entitlement, or because they fail to qualify for other means-tested benefits.’ And: ‘The loss of entitlement is entirely the result of new benefit rules. It does not necessarily indicate that the health problems or disabilities are anything other than genuine.’ And there are the testimonies of those at the bloody end of these cuts. Sometimes, their views appear briefly in the mainstream media when a campaigner is perhaps interviewed at a protest. More often, it is only in thousands of campaign groups and websites that they are visible. And then there are the tragic cases of those individuals who could not take it anymore: individuals who were struggling to survive, and woke up one morning to find a brown envelope in the post, announcing their housing benefit or incapacity was to be stopped. So, they killed themselves.

Whilst these cases must never be forgotten, and should make all anti-cuts protesters realise that we are involved in a war where crimes against humanity are involved, it is equally important to grasp the scale of the problem. We need to do this – not so that we can sit around and tell horror stories to each other, but so that we are better prepared to challenge lies about the poor. One useful source is the report mentioned above, and I’ll look at again in a future post.

If we contrast these terrible facts with the easy life of the mega-rich – the people this government represent – it becomes clear why the word ‘monstrous’ is insufficient to describe such vast unfairness and injustice. It is the same politicians who condemn benefit claimants as ‘scroungers’ who gave billions of pounds of public money to prop up banks which had squandered so much wealth on dodgy deals that they endangered their own economic system! The Royal Bank of Scotland alone is planning to give £500 million in bonuses to its directors and backers -subsidised by public money. At the same time as this colossal waste of money is enacted, the first families will be thrown on to the streets of London, victims of the ‘fair’ benefit cap.

The rich are even making millions directly out of imposing more suffering upon the poor – Atos healthcare is paid to test people on their illness or disability, to decide if they are entitled to any benefits. Often, they get it wrong. Yet, by the end of their first government contract in 2015 they will have made £1 billion.

With such huge injustices there is a need for a protest movement which has equally huge ambitions. Not only to defeat these attacks, and offer hope to those families and individuals on the front line, but to aim beyond the war for survival to a society where such terrors do not exist.In the building of a powerful anti-cuts movement, and in the creation of a new mass party of the working class, there will be a need for ideas on how to move forward. Socialist ideas, I believe, will be our guide. It may be that for a period, socialists and other progressive people, seem to be a scattered bunch – like the remnants of William Wallaces once mighty army. For us – it involves being scattered in different parties and sometimes in none, searching for the best way to band together and take the fight to the enemy. It is never a comfortable task to look at the problems we face: the cutbacks, the human victims, suffering on a 1930s scale. But we also live in a time of hope. Millions have during the last two years participated in protests against cuts. Trade unions have begun to awaken to the need to protect jobs, wages, pensions and services – through strikes and marches. And some who once backed Labour have grown tired of its leaders always following in the footsteps of the Tories. New trade union demos are planned, students are gearing up for further protests in March, and in every community hit by cuts there are people wanting to fight back. Let us educate each other about reality, to counter the lies, and to build a working class movement which can create a new, better world free from fear. A socialist world.

This little guy is my grandson Marcus

Weekends

When the weekend arrives, what do you do? Is it a time to relax, enjoy time with your family, or party like crazy? Do you go and watch your football team win, draw, or get slaughtered? Or, is it an opportunity to run, or race along trails on a mud-spattered mountain bike? Maybe you prefer to sit for hours watching tv or reading or playing computer games. Or, maybe, what you prefer is not the deciding factor: you lack the money to do lots of things you want to do, so you just try and find a bargain at a charity shop, or take a walk in a park with your partner: anything that can still make you feel relaxed for a little while, and doesn’t cost lots of money. And it may all depend on how well you feel, how alone you feel, how adventurous you feel. Or, what your children need.

In my lifetime, I’ve spent weekends doing some of the following: getting happily drunk, getting sadly drunk, dancing (I am taking huge liberties with this word), listening to music – recorded, live and dead (translation: karaoke), all of the activities in the first paragraph, torturing myself with several 3-hour long chess matches – where brilliant combinations of moves hang in the silence of big halls like mirages, only to vanish as you get close to them. And, for many years, I stood opposite Boots or Tescos in Dundee, gathering names on petitions, selling papers, and generally trying to convince people that socialism is a good idea and that I wasn’t a famous football referee who is 3 feet taller than me. From the same interest (the socialist bit, not the mistaken identity) I’ve also tramped a healthy number of miles on demonstrations: anti-war, anti-cuts, anti lots of other bad stuff. Sometimes, the speeches at the end, sweltering in the sun or shivering in a pouring rain, were inspirational, and made me want to keep marching and struggling to change society for as long as it took. At other times, the speeches were – to use the correct technical term – absolute pish. Then, you wondered why you had wasted a perfectly good, and precious weekend!

Writing has often been a part of my weekends. An article about the Timex strike after a week on the picket line, or a late philosophy essay when I was a student, or blogging. The first poem I got published was written one wet Saturday in a cafe in Broughty Ferry, after a bargain-hunt around charity shops. Sitting at a window watching rain ‘sparking like white fireworks’ off pavements and parked cars, I wrote a poem, which was later included in an anthology. (I’ll put it into the poems section of this blog later.) The unwinding effect of that particular weekend enabled me to see things I would not notice during the rush of an average week. Perhaps, that’s true for lots of people. When you see children with their parents on a Saturday, you may also see a special look pass between them, along with a smile or two: they are noticing each other; valuing their times together. It’s a great pity that can easily get disrupted, or sometimes lost altogether in the rampage to buy things in crowded shops. Still, when it is there, it’s wonderful to see.

Weekends can also be times of struggle: when thousands or millions march to demand an end to cuts, war or injustice. In Greece, as I write these words, many workers at the bloody end of cutbacks are protesting. The one fact which stands out for me from all others concerning those events is the cut in pay some workers are being told to accept: 20%! Imagine having a fifth of your income wiped out, when you are already struggling to budget on all of it! The idea that such a huge drop in income will assist a struggling economy is insane. Who will be left to buy anything in the shops? For all those workers, this weekend is no respite from the war against a corrupt system. I wish them all the best in their struggle, which is our struggle too.

Other weekends can be a strange mix of relaxation and vivid reminders of the need to support struggles. I had one like that, last weekend. My first problem was finding time to write this blog. I ended up cramming in writing time on a bus from Dundee to Glasgow, typing away frantically as fields and hills passed by in an unfamiliar green blur, and towns passed by in a more familiar grey blur. I was heading to a meeting of socialists to discuss elections, but my political head was taking a long time to screw back on. My mind was full of re-learning about benefit rules, welfare reform (cuts), and appeals – from my induction as a welfare rights officer. So, as I thought about all of that, and felt sorry for myself that I wasn’t spending a day relaxing with my partner Isobel, I tried to think of positive things to say about the May elections and the socialist challenge within them. And all the time my mind was pulled in these different directions, another concern was tugging at me like a small child demanding attention from his dad in a busy shop. This was also the day when I could speak to Tommy Sheridan about my book, for the first time since he had been released from prison.

I was late. Wandering around in circles in the rain, until I found the venue, a downstairs hall. I sat at the back. Tommy came across to me and said he had to leave for a while but he would be back for a chat. He looked fit and well, after his year of being locked up for taking on Murdoch’s empire of lies. So, I listened to Solidarity stalwarts discuss plans for elections, and it was heartening to hear that progress had been made in some areas, although no one was under any illusions how hard it will be to rebuild a powerful socialist force in Scotland. I made a few points myself about the need to recognise that the anti-cuts movement has organised millions of people to protest, and our job as socialists is to confidently inspire new activists with socialist ideas. I didn’t say ‘keep the flame alive’ – but that was the gist of it.

After chatting away to a few comrades I had not seen during my months of writing and researching about the activities of private intelligence agencies and protest movements, I sat down in a corner with Tommy, and told him all about the book. He listened closely, asked a few questions, and told me that an investigative journalist who has advised me had already told Tommy some of the details. I handed over a typed summary, and was immediately introduced to a comrade who is now giving me advice about an approach to a publisher – an essential step I think I was stalling over because of getting a new job, and just being a big scaredy-cat! I felt that another important milestone had been reached.

Tommy told me something else that will always stay with me. As that particular weekend had got closer, he had grown a little bit anxious. The reason was that when he had been out before on phased release, he always had to go back at the weekend, so his system was conditioned to that happening: being removed again from Gail and Gabrielle. It was difficult to accept that was over. But it is. He is home. It was great to see that Tommy’s fighting spirit has not been crushed. He is looking forward to seeing Andy Coulson, ex spin doctor of PM David Cameron, getting grilled in a new court case. And the fight to clear Tommy’s name carries on.

After the meeting, before I headed back on the bus to Dundee, I spent a couple of hours in bookshops and a cafe in Glasgow. I thought about how vital it is that we use our time on this earth wisely, but it is never easy to do that. Years can pass by like a blur of towns and countryside outside a bus window before you know it. Perhaps, I’m acutely aware of this because of events in and around my own life in the last couple of years. Being made redundant fell on me like a sudden thunderstorm. My world shrank to trying to keep a few items to eat in half-empty cupboards, and also trying to stay positive: to keep fighting back when all I often wanted to do was hide. I made myself get up early every day, re-trained in a hospital, ran and wrote and tried to relax at weekends even if I didn’t have a bean. Then, like millions of other people, I joined the battle against cutbacks, and challenged Iain Duncan Smith to a debate. He bottled it, but even that was useful – a reminder that the rich and powerful who currently oppress us can also get scared, and run away from us! It will not be the last time they run, although they can seem so powerful when they arrogantly ignore cries of protest from cancer patients and other innocents who face new benefit cuts. Such crimes against humanity have a way of creating a backlash, and this government has committed many, many crimes.

Weekends are the same as any other free time we have. A time to relax, and to take full notice of the world and those we love. Time to make a hundred choices. Sometimes, to fight. And I hope that one great fighter is doing what he should have been free to do through one long year of injustice: be home. Happy weekend, Tommy!

Feelings matter

Working class males in Scotland are often very good at failing to say to anyone how we feel about things that matter a lot. It’s not unique to our gender, or nationality, or even our
class, but it’s a real phenomenon, and it’s what I want to write about in this post.

One problem about this subject is that a lot of the people most affected by it, if they (or I should say ‘we’) read the first sentence, we immediately run away from reading any further! “Middle-class pish!” Is one of the less severe comments I’ve heard when the subject is touched upon in a conversation. But looking at the subject of feelings, and the importance of talking to others about how you feel, doesn’t have to involve us all sitting down in a big circle, holding hands, and singing Kumbaya! (Well, unless you’re a scout. Or, a member of a hippy commune. On second thoughts, maybe it’s a good idea. No. Sorry. I digress.)

People in working class areas live considerably less long than those in wealthy areas – in the poorest areas, like the Hilltown in Dundee where I live, the gap can be a decade or more. There are different reasons for this: higher rates of cancer, heart diseases, and other serious conditions; the toxic effect of foods which are cheap but unhealthy; and the toll which a life of real work and struggle places upon mind and body. Stress from worrying about how to heat your home, or eat, or look after a family permeates the lives of millions. It is like a cold rain which never seems to go away. Cuts in wages and benefits, and rising living costs, add to the pressures.

Any individual facing these pressures will feel stress. This post is specifically about men, so I’ll focus on them, but I should say it is women who also face horrendous pressures because of cuts and poverty. The problem men face is that often we can make things worse for ourselves, through not talking about how we feel. We’ll talk about everything else, including some of the issues above. It’s not unusual for workers to express anger at the way they are treated at work, whether it’s petty rules or a wage cut, and it is healthy to express anger at these attacks. Whilst it’s only a trade union struggle which is likely to resolve the cause of their stress, talking about it helps relieve stress whilst you organise and fight back. Likewise, I’ve sat with a large group of unemployed workers and listened to their frustrations at benefit delays, the indignity of going to a supermarket only to find they’ve run out of the cheap cheese you rely on and you can’t afford the dearer stuff. Again, this doesn’t get rid of the problem but it helps you to share it. So, I’m not arguing that working class men never say how they feel. However, it’s almost as if there’s an unspoken list of what you can talk about and what you may never talk about.

Here’s a short list of some scenarios to illustrate what I mean. A young man, twenty years old, lives in a large housing estate in Glasgow. He is unemployed, no qualifications. Spends most of each day with a group of mates. He loves the banter they have together, and joins in with all the stories and jokes, even the ones where gays are spoken of with some contempt. Yet, this young man is gay. Will he discuss it: will he say how he feels? Things are different now than they were 20 or 30 years ago – there’s more awareness of how wrong discrimination is, generally. But that doesn’t help this guy right away. Maybe, he’ll be lucky and find someone to talk to. But every year which goes by when he can’t say how he feels will take it’s toll on his mental health. It need not lead to suicide, but it could. Not talking about it will only add to his stress, but that’s not his fault. He lives in a society where he is largely forgotten about.

A few years ago, when I worked with young people in Dundee who had behavioural problems, I ran sessions where we’d discuss different social issues. So, we looked at drug misuse, bullying, and lots of other issues. We got some great discussions going. One young guy who made a few racist comments, at first, was surprised when it was pointed out to him that all the black rap singers he admired would think he was “a muppet” if they heard him spouting racism. He just hadn’t seen it. Through talking about irrational, racist feelings he had, and being challenged, he was able to change. What if he’d never had that opportunity, and racist feelings were allowed to fester? If I was back at University, I’m sure some lecturer would quibble with me and say: “there’s a difference between beliefs and feelings”. But in the streets of our cities, the two are often bound closely together. When there is support for young people, they can be encouraged to talk about how they feel about themselves and the world around them. For young men at risk of depression, which was a factor in a wave of 7 youth suicides in Dundee in 2010, having a chance to talk is literally a matter of life and death. Sadly, with cuts across the country in youth services and in education, too many young people return to a dangerous, unhealthy condition. Silence.

My last example is a middle-aged man, a former sergeant in the army, who fought in the Falklands war. Thrown in there by Thatcher, he saw things no young person should see. And the responsibility he felt caused post-traumatic stress which was not diagnosed until decades after the event. He received no counseling, no help trying to readjust to life in Scotland. For years he relived horrendous scenes of carnage, leading to problems with keeping a job, and relationship problems. He bottled up the way he was feeling, the way he had been made to feel by events outwith his control, and it almost destroyed him. From the very start of his ordeal, he was torn apart by the feeling that his illness was proof of weakness. It took him several years to see it was his natural horror at what was being done to other human beings which hurt him so badly. The way he felt was never something to be ashamed of.

The fire which this government has set to the benefits and services which millions of people rely upon threatens to damage and destroy lives, on a scale rarely seen outwith a war. The working class has no choice but to fight back with all our capacities to organise and struggle. Concretely, trade unions and others opposed to cuts should begin to discuss building for large protest marches in Scotland, in London, and throughout these islands, against welfare cuts. And whilst we do this important work, we also need to talk about our fears, hopes and worries. It is no weakness to do this. It is an essential part of building a powerful, confident anti-cuts movement.

What we need

When Douglas Alexander was a boy, he played bugle for a salvation army band. Now, as a top Labour Party politician, he plays bugle for a much dodgier group of people: a party which once had many working class people and socialists in its ranks, but has for several years been marching to a very different tune. Not so much: The Red Flag, more ‘I want to be a billionaire’. For this is a party full of careerists like Tony Blair, selling his services to banks and other companies and making millions out of it. And Douglas Alexander is made of the same stuff. As the gap between rich and poor grows, he puts the boot into the poor, supports cuts and pay freezes for public sector workers. Why? Because he hopes that’ll encourage the mega-rich, and their media like The Sun, to say nice things about Labour.

Take the comment, for example about welfare benefit caps: “This is a difficult but necessary step but we support the principle, with the important caveat that it should not render people homeless.” Rarely, even in the field of lying modern politics, has so much been hidden behind so few words.

He says it’s a ‘difficult’ step – to put a cap on how much a family can receive for essential living costs through capping benefits at a fixed figure: say £26,000 per family as the government wants. Certainly, this will be difficult for those families with large families forced to pay most of their benefits to profiteering landlords. In fact, it will not just be ‘difficult’ for these families to make up a shortfall in rent from such a cap. It will be impossible. They will go into arrears and be evicted – tens of thousands of families, particularly in London, but elsewhere too. We know this, and Douglas Alexander knows it too, as it was the fear of mass unrest which caused the government to back off a year ago. It was only a postponement. Now, the wolves are back – howling at the doors of thousands of families.

So, what does Douglas Alexander mean by saying it is ‘difficult’? Well, he isn’t really talking about the victims of such an act of mass brutality. He means it will be difficult for the Labour Party to support such measures. And even here, we need to dissect further into his words to cut free their real meaning and expose it to the light of day. Because what he really means is: “Look chaps, this will be a hard thing for us to sell to some of our voters. They may get upset at seeing families in their streets thrown into the gutter. They may even know some of these people.” So, his statement is to steady the nerves of his fellow careerists. He is saying: “We can do this and win votes.”

He also says it is a “necessary step”. That has been the constant mantra of the government, and Labour’s only alternative was to promise at first slightly less cuts if they were elected, spread out over a few more years. Now, they accept all the cuts and say nothing will fundamentally change under their rule! But on what possible justification does this ‘necessary’ brutality rely? Only that the nation cannot afford welfare. It costs too much, they say, waving around figures designed to scare and confuse voters: huge sums of money. What is never mentioned by Douglas and his pals are the vastly larger figures for wealth wasted by their rich mates: the billions traded every day in speculative deals, the profits made by workers internationally but then stolen and never reinvested in society but hoarded by capitalists and their cronies. So, whilst Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, and all their chums grow richer, and their economic system stumbles from crisis to crisis, the poorest pay the cost. This is obscenely what Douglas Alexander means by ‘necessary’. In Orwells 1984, Alexander would have made an excellent official in the Ministry of Truth, which was responsible for the regime’s lies.

The notion that there can be fair cuts, humane cuts which do not cause homelessness or other suffering is another lie. All politicians know that welfare recipients live on very low incomes. To cut what little they have means to cause suffering. One of the other cuts planned illustrates this reality: the proposal to make any unemployed tenant with a spare room pay around £13 a week for the privilege! £13 a week from £67.50 will inevitably lead to more arrears, more evictions. And none of this is ‘necessary’.

Anger at these crimes against humanity grows every day throughout society. The acceptance of all the cuts by Ed Miliband has led some trade union leaders who previously were slow to criticise Labour, to wonder publicly: why are we paying these chancers to attack us? Why indeed? In Scotland, Alex Salmond has claimed that an independent Scotland led by the SNP is the answer and would be a beacon of progressive values. Many workers facing cuts from Holyrood or from SNP councils will raise their eyebrows even further than Alex can at that one. Would the cuts really stop, would welfare and NHS be protected by any government married to capitalism? Millions of people have protested agains the cuts, and will do so again and again, and want more from politicians than excuses. The referendum vote will hopefully provide one opportunity for socialists to raise ideas about an independent socialist Scotland, breaking from capitalism and maintaining an unbreakable bond with the working class of all countries, including millions of our brothers and sisters throughout these islands.

I believe that the protests of millions against cuts will lead to the creation of a new political party which will articulate, and fight for policies to end the cuts and serve the interests of the working class. Socialist ideas will inform and inspire it. In future posts, I want to look at ways in which such a party may be created out of struggle, solidarity and socialism.

Walking through Dudhope Park

The start of something

So that’s it then. Just over 2 years after being made redundant, from my job as an advice worker, I’m back in full-time work. As an advice worker. The shock is like waking up and finding Bob Dylan in the room, singing “The times they are a-changin’ .” I’m so shocked, I have a strong desire to shout out the customary words for such an apparition: “What the ****?”

For 2 years, I was officially ‘unemployed’, although I never felt it was an accurate description of me, as I was always so busy. ‘Unpaid worker’ would be more accurate. The pathetic savings I had soon dried up, as I invested all of my energies into campaigning against benefit cuts, and then becoming a fledgling investigative reporter. I got up the nose of Iain Duncan Smith at one point, and found a great subject to write a book about: anti-democratic spies. I intend to keep on campaigning, and complete the book: The Enemies of Freedom by this summer.

I’ve had a few object lessons in coping with poverty in my life, but this time had a special character of its own. Struggling to survive on a low income is hard in itself, especially in the cold winter months, but it’s made much harder by the constant threat of benefit cuts. Like everyone else, I watched a government of Tory and Liberal casuals rampaging through society, kicking in the heads of any public service they could find, and leaving behind their calling card: “You have been Cameroned!” So, alongside many others, I marched against cuts, whilst wondering how I’d get through the week on a pocket full of nothing.

Trying to research and write a book is a tad difficult on a budget of zero. However, decades of trade union and community campaigns gave me a way of turning nothing into everything I needed. Friends donated computers, contacts gave me interviews and advice, and I used the time I had to research facts, solve enigmas, and write. I was often reminded of a quote from Robert Stroud, the ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ – “I have never served time, I have always made time serve me.” Unemployment can seem like a prison sentence – it is important to refuse to let it define you. Or, to use a better-known saying: Never let the bastards grind you down.

Socialists like me often talk about the growing gap between rich and poor. It is right to do so. Yet, stronger than any rant or statistic about this divide, is the actual experience, when you are at the bottom. Things which have no meaning to anyone not living in poverty become the taste and heart of your life. For me, one of these things was 17p 2-litre bottles of diet cola! I could never have fuelled myself through a year of writing without this cheap source of caffeine. I first became addicted to caffeine in fizzy drinks when I worked for 3 years in Halleys textile factory in Dundee, dragging myself through zombifying 10 hour shifts. I can still hear the colossal clatter of 20 looms all going at once, like a herd of combine harvesters. It’s just as well I didn’t get addicted to cigarettes then, or some other drug, as I could not have afforded it when I was made redundant. When you’re forced to live on £67.50 a week, you desperately hope to be able to buy everything you need for next to nothing. Bargain shelves in supermarkets, charity shops, and jumble sales become lifelines.

The last time I was an advice worker, part of my job was speaking to groups of long-term unemployed workers in training centres. I was there to offer help with money queries and problems. Sometimes, they eyed me warily, as if I was a Mormon they had accidentally invited in. I always began by saying I know how it feels to have no money but be chased for payments – for gas, electricity, or some other debt. I’d say – I know that lots of people face multiple demands on their tiny budgets, and everyone seems to want to be paid NOW; but all you can do is pay what you can afford to. We all have a right to survive, to eat, have a home, clothes, heating. One young man said: “So, advice workers, they’re like a sort of union that’ll fight for you, even if you’ve no got a job?” I said that was a good way of putting it.

That was more than two years ago. Then, I helped people with Disability Living Allowance forms. Winning that benefit could make a huge impact on a persons life. Yet, this and other benefits are now being abolished. Then, I helped to prevent evictions. Now, the terrible spectre of evictions looms more widely as housing benefit cuts are pushed. I learned how to listen and how to put forward cases from people with decades of experience. Now, I know that there is a sense that the lives of millions of the poorest people are entering a kind of year zero. Instead of the safety net of the past (which was never perfect but was important in keeping people who needed help alive) there is a very uncertain future.

I’ll end this post by saying a big thank you to all those people who have helped me in the last two years, especially my partner Isobel. When I thought I was a failure, you reminded me that I am not. And because you kept me on my feet, you gave me the strength to fight. The fight goes on.

Sometimes, I seem to live in a library

In memory of a very fine socialist

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