Hurtling back to the Bad Old Days

                                            Blackfriars free breakfast, c. 1933, Daily Herald © 
                                            National Media Museum, Bradford / SSPL. Creative 
                                            Commons BY-NC-SA  *

I suppose many of us are already fed up with the 'yah boo-ing' of so many politicians on so many media programmes. Never mind, I can hear you say, four weeks today and we can put on the news programmes again, read the comments columns in the newspapers knowing that we are safe for another five years from electioneering.

Of course that may not be true. There may be - very probably will be - that interregnum where political deals are being made, coalitions are being forged and best political friends fall out whilst new, unlikely alliances look increasingly likely.

After what happened in the days following the last General Election, we should be ready for anything both ante and post May 7th. Increasingly shrill 'discussions' on TV programmes must make many voters despair. Shouts of 'not true' from political opponents only serve to confuse not enlighten. Last night's 'Question Time' was a prime example. The 'token journalist' was obviously not impartial and if not exactly toeing a party line seemed to be following a line laid down by editorial policy. The two lady politicians were complete contrasts one so shrill and incapable of answering a question that she made her very reasonable opponent appear even more reasonable, especially when she answered a question! The two male politicians also contrasted each other, one patronising especially when talking about the less fortunate sections of society, the other so capable and inclusive that at times I wanted to cheer. Notice I name no names or parties/newspaper because sadly this sort of make up happens each week and only the faces change.

So what are we to think and how do we decide to vote? Well I have taught history and I also have a family history of, shall we say, membership of the 'awkward squad'. I look at where we are now in society and who/which party is responsible for it. Sadly, so many of our current social conditions remind me of the 'Bad Old Days'

The zero hours contracts remind me of how my English greatgrandfathers used to wait at the docks to be picked for a day's work. Zero hour contracts have grown massively under the Coalition government and Ed Miliband has pledged to end this 'epidemic'. And don't forget Dirty Dave Cameron admitted he couldn't live on a zero hours contract.

Food banks remind me of soup kitchens. Many times in the past unfortunately the disadvantaged and dispossessed have had to resort to soup kitchens, free breakfast clubs etc when there has not been enough money coming into the family home to feed the individuals. In recent history, most scandalously, during the miners strike in the 1980s when the Conservative Government sequestered the Miner's Union funds and for some the only meal of the day was that provided by the soup kitchens or food given by the relief committees. In the depression era of the 1930s when so many were unemployed, soup kitchens etc fed many, the photograph* above is from an archive at the National Media Museum . But most of these previous incarnations were necessary in times before the Welfare state and in today's affluent society there should be no need for such 'charity'. If our society cannot support those who are sick, unemployed and disadvantaged it is a very harsh society. Especially when it rewards the very rich with income tax breaks. Ian Duncan Smith is very vocal about benefit cuts..... Do we trust his party as government again?

Demonization of immigrants reminds me of the ghettoization of Jews, Irish and Welsh and other Ethnic minorities in times gone by. So much racism is of economic basis as so many individuals have come to this country in search of work to enable them to send money home to their often starving families back in their home countries. My father came to England from Wales on one of the hunger marches in the 1930s and when looking for work and digs was often met by notices stating 'No Dogs, No Irish, No Welsh'. Nigel Farage does not seem to understand why others wish to live in our country and uses our facilities even thought his ancestors did just that albeit many, many years ago. He does not seem to recognize that when British citizens live in a EU country they are also entitled to use their facilities, despite being a MEP. When we lived in an EU country we used their health services extensively. So do we want such an ill informed man one of our MPs?

What looks like the prospective dismantling of the NHS reminds me of the stories of pre-1948 medical care in the UK. How one of my aunts died on the day the National Health came into being and the family story that they all wondered if she would have lived if it had come into being a year before. How it cost his mother 2/6d [13p] to have a bead removed from my father-in-law's nose in the 1920s when that amount of money would have provided the family's tea. How it was cheaper to have all their teeth removed rather than have a few fillings attended to. How individuals went blind due to cataracts or undiagnosed or untreated glaucoma. How women who needed hysterectomies bled and bled each month, suffered from anemia and often died too young as their immune systems weakened. I remember David Cameron's boast pre 2010 General Election 'We are the Party of the NHS'. What - the destruction of it? Do I want his government in power to destroy what is left?

The hiking of the pension age reminds me of way my English grandfather worked until he was nearly 70, in poor health [see above] and died, worn out and an old man aged 72. How my Welsh grandfather never even reached pension age and died aged 64 of 'the coal dust' [pneumoconiosis] on his lungs. No compensation then either. Leaving my Grandmother to be supported by her children. Do I want a government who will keep us all working beyond our capability whilst giving tax breaks to the very rich via tax havens and non-dom status?

So listen to the politicians, read the elections addresses. But listen also to the subtexts, read between the lines, look back to what their parties said last time and what they actually did. Go to meetings if you can, ask questions whether face to face or by letter or email. 

Do vote - many died, especially women, to get that privilege - don't waste it! 

Are we returning to the world of 'A Christmas Carol'?

• Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.       A Christmas Carol

Many of you know that I am a bit of a geek when it comes to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I have taught/lectured on it from both the English Literature and the Popular Culture 'angles'. I collect different editions of the book  and interesting ornaments/memorabilia. I have blogged on it and written political parodies on it. So when my latest acquisition - Marley's Ghost - arrived today, I was pretty excited.

As always, when reading/teaching 19thC literature, it is frightening how close we are to returning to the mores of Victorian society under this present government. The notion of the 'deserving and undeserving poor' [which had actually been around since Tudor times] played a big part in the distribution of charity in Victorian patriarchal hierarchy.

When Scrooge in A Christmas Carol early in Chapter One asks the two gentleman who are seeking charitable donations to help the poor: 

'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?''They are. Still,' returned the gentleman,  'I wish I could say they were not.''The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.'Both very busy, sir.''Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it.'

it is somewhat similar to Iain Duncan-Smith's shameful comment this week: 

'I am happy for people to visit food banks. I don't have a problem with them'. 

The story of Marley's Ghost is that he, the late partner of Scrooge, visits the latter on Christmas Eve to warn him that unless Scrooge changes his ways he is doomed to become a restless spirit like Marley:

'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'Scrooge trembled more and more.'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!'

Scrooge tries to argue that he is only doing what a good Victorian should be doing, making and reinvesting his profits - see the Protestant Work Ethic :

'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.'Business!'' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'

This is to me one of the most important statements in the book. It resembles the biblical quote, parallels of which can be found in all the great religions: 

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?      Mark 8:36

Another important statement occurs when the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the figures under his robe. This ornament of mine shows a sanitised pair, illustrations from the book show a more frightening pair:

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.'Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'exclaimed the Ghost.They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.'Spirit! are they yours?'Scrooge could say no more.'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!''Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'

 The John Leech original illustration

The last 'comparison' with the present day/Victorian times I will make is using the 'metaphor' of Tiny Tim. He is presented in the book as a fragile, sickly child who, although his father is in regular employment, it is not possible for the family to afford the good food and medical treatment that he needs for what is a curable condition without which he will die.

We have seen under this present government an erosion in both confidence and financial support for the NHS, despite David Cameron's electioneering promise that the Conservative Party was 'the Party of the NHS' [January 2010] We have learnt how many working people, including parents of course, cannot exist solely on their wages but have to rely on welfare benefits and/or food banks to feed themselves/ their families. When the cry goes up that we are in a period of austerity and cuts have to be made one remembers the quote of the late Tony Benn: 

If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.

In other words, no military campaign has ever been put aside because we are in a period of austerity......

Are we getting close to returning to the sort of society and times that Dickens wrote about in 1843? Please think about this and when listening to the pleas and excuses of the government in the forthcoming election campaign perhaps it will help to decide where we go next.