Categories: durham
Date: 10 July 2010 14:48:23
I write this entry with the sound of Brass Bands coming in through the windows of the uni building. I have popped in to check the e-mail and escape the people for a moment. The streets are thronged with people who are drinking every sort of drink imaginable, and every so often you catch sight of a beautiful trade union banner aswell as the brassbands.
The racecourse has a range of tents on there, a fun fare, the greatest display of the banners and people chilling in the humid conditions. Earlier we listened to some speeches. The local mayor was inaudible, the PCS guy was inspiring as was Jeremy Corbyn MP. Ken Livingstone is back to spouting the type of rhetoric Red Ken was also famous for, but somehow he is now about as convincing as John Lydon was as Jonny Rotten in the Sex Pistols reunion tour. It's so obviously spin and performance now with Ken, and whilst there is v. obviously something of the original principle underneath there is a very noticeable difference between him and Corbyn. There was also a Palistinian Durham post-grad student from the occupied territories who was v.g.
The main thrust of the speeches was how we need to unite against the public spending cuts. There needs to be a unified attempt to put pressure on the government to seek to expand income through chasing up tax avoiders, (note there is a difference between tax avoidence and tax evasion - tax avoidence is legal!). Christian Aid have explained some of the issues around tax avoidence on their site, and have a campaign against us but the figures we are talking are awful. Compass, a left wing think tank has some stuff about the domestic impact and implications of it.
I liked the Durham Miners Gala, or big meeting as it is called. It was a celebration of the left and of trade unionism and a reminder of why it still matters. In a town where the local paper has revealed that 46% of the population are employed within the public sector (the third highest proportion in Britain) the wait to hear where the axe will fall next scares people. We are talking about people who know about government policies taking their jobs, who know about the effects of Tory government policies disproportionately effecting the poor in Labour heartlands and who also know about being sold out by politicians based down south. Today wasn't just a celebration of the past, it was a real call to defend themselves in the present.