Reposted with permission from the Kilburn Unemployed Workers highly recommended blog LINK
By Dude Swheatie of
Kwug
Paul K of the KUWG
and I attended last night's Brent Fightback public meeting against Brent
Council's further erosion of public services.
Platform speakers included writer and
broadcaster Owen Jones, along with Anne O'Neil (Brent Mencap), Anne Drinkell
(Defend London's NHS), Moses from Stonebridge Adventure Playground, Jasmin from Our West Hendon.
- Anne O'Neil said that under the
proposed budget cuts, daycentre services would be substantially reduced if
not completely destroyed, limiting support for people wanting help in
applying for ESA. These matters should be referred to at General Election
hustings and in any contacts with parliamentary candidates, she said. She
also said that care workers' contact time with the vulnerable adults they
support would be halved from 30 minutest to 15 minutes.
Something she did not say about that that I know from previous painful
2005-2006 experience is that care workers do not get paid for the time
taken in getting from one shift to the next, nor the travel expenses
involved. That will make the plight of care workers untenable under
Universal Credit, where people in paid employment would be liable to
sanction of all their benefits for allegedly not trying hard enought to
become financially independent of income-top-up payments!
- Anne Drinkell reported that older
people have been largely scapegoated as a drain on A&E services; GP
services are being largely privatised and the Health & Social Care Act
should be scrapped; the Harmoni out of hours medical advice service has
been taken over by the infamous CareUK; and hospital closures lead to a
bonanza for property speculators. She too stressed the importance of
General Election campaigning as an opportunity to put pressure on
politicians.
- Moses from Stonebridge
Adventure Playground said that Stonebridge has actually been a
borough-wide service and its fiscal eradication would be a crime against
the community. Stonebridge Adventure Playground allowed kids a safe place
for recreation and a badly needed break for hard-pressed parents. Closure
of such safe places would put kids more prone to mischief. Adventure
playgrounds had given the speaker — an ethnic minority member — advantages
for advancement in life that he would not otherwise have had access to.
- Jasmin, The Our West Hendon speaker told
of the incremental displacement of social tenancies to make way for
privatisation of housing, and also said that the tenants had become a
force to be reckoned with collectively while their tenancy rights had
become eroded over time.
- Owen Jones said that Brent
Fightback had acquired a well-earned reputation for fighting back against
public services cuts and people should make maximum use of the General
Election 2015 for redressing the damage caused by 5 years of cuts in
public services. He also referred to the benfit sanctions fiasco and the
way victims of cuts had been maligned, and Ukip's attacks on migrant
workers as yet another example of scapegoating. Instead of Cameron and
Osborne enlisting the services of tax-dodger Sir Philip Green to advise
Government on how to cut costs, it would be much better for public
services funding in this country if Government squeezed the tax dodgers
and reduced the influence of the big four accountancy firms and Google etc
that find all the loop holes they can to preserve the wealthy's advantages
at the cost of thhe public purse.
Several floor
speakers followed, with about two minutes per speaker. I was first of the floor
speakers and had already been photographed by Kilburn Times phoographer outside
the venue with placard.
In my short floor
speech I emphasised our motto 'Never Attend Anywhere Official Alone' and
corrected Owen Jones' statement that we had had 5 years of cuts by saying that
disabled people had experienced cuts in services for several years previous and
that the big difference for the past five years was that cuts in public
services had become more mainstream. The situation for disabled people as
disadvantaged people was similar to that Martin Luther King referred to in his
1963 'I Have a Dream Speech' where he said that where it came to equality of
opportunity for American blacks it was as if a checque had been returned to themmarked 'insufficient funds'. It's
important to ask why people are disadvantaged, I emphasised. Eg, Q: why are
there so many Polish migrant workers in this country? A: Because capitalism
fucked up the Polish economy after the collapse of the Iron Curtain. [More
specifically, as Naomi Klein reports "the fact that [Poland]
accepted [the] radical prescription of free market economic shock therapy"
led to a situation in which the restoration of capitalism in Poland has "created a social wasteland."]
Several other floor
speakers followed, including a rep from Advice 4 Renters saying that she would
welcome listening to people's stories of renting. I had great difficulties
hearing most of the floor speakers, but there was a Trade Union & Socialist
Coalition (TUSC) speaker as well as Marie Lynam. There was even a Ukip
parliamentary candidate, whose contribution was generally unwelcome. For me,
the best of the floor speakers was our friend and comrade Sarah Cox. She
denounced the racism of Ukip and scapegoating as means of bringing in an
anti-social agenda, and emphasised the forthcoming demonstrations outside
Conservative and Lib Dem offices set for the afternoon of Saturday 21
February.
Brent Fightback will
also protest outside the Council budget setting meeing on 2 March, she said.
Brent Council's
current budget proposals for the next few years seem to pre-empt the result of
General Election 2015, I recall her saying, and we should make the most of the
General Election campaign to say 'no' to further cuts and privatisation in
public services.
|
Saturday 21 February 2pm protest
outside offices of Brent Central MP Sarah Teather, Walm Lane, Willesen Green, and at 3pm outside Brent
Conservatives' offices, Preston Road, Wembley
|
And our friend Ben Samuel
as Green Party parliamentary candidate for Hendon learned the hard way the
value of getting up early to speak from the floor, as his potential
contribution was timed out.
In platform speakers'
follow-through Anne Drinkell said that the Ukip speaker should be ashamed of
the way his party maligns migrant workers who are a mainstay of the NHS. And
Owen Jones emphasised the difference between most Ukip members' desire for a
free at point of delivery NHS and renationalisation of our railways with the plans
of the Ukip leadership for privatisation of public services.
After the meeting, I
noticed the presence of Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt who had apparently
remained silent during the meeting. I wonder whether he 'got the message' that
those present did not welcome his budget proposals?
