Govanhill Says - Time For A Rethink
At a Scottish Anti-Poverty Movement (SAPM) community conference ‘Competitive Cuts’ in Holyrood Secondary School, Saturday 18th April 2009, latest in a series of community conferences people from Govanhill and even Aughenshoogle were asked to consider local issues such as the current school closures, the state of local housing, discrimination and social justice.
Chairing, Iain MacInnes, Crosshill and Govanhill Community Council Secretary opened saying: “We need to increase understanding of the stories behind the headlines and the jargon.” and ”There is nothing liberal or tolerant about the policies of neo-liberalism which is about amoral competitive, deregulated greed for the few and the devil take the hindmost. Neo means new and the only thing new about neoliberalism is that ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’ has become the dominant norm, from the City of London to the City Chambers.”
The pillars of neoliberalism were championed in the mid 1970s by ideological economist Milton Friedman, acted on in the 1980s by the Thatcher Government and embraced by New Labour who are just as keen to privatise and cut public expenditure on social services. Now the Scottish National Party in government is charging ahead with the arguably ill-thought out deregulation of planning and has the catchphrase ‘regulation with a light touch’ for landlords and property developers which could end up in the future as no regulation at all. All this is in a country where discredited bankers influence the writing of government policy.
Dr. Chick Collins of University of the West of Scotland imparted that in the early stages of this depression, the banker David Freud, has been contracted by the government to ‘get Britain’ back to work’. Freud assumes, that 2m of the 2.5m people in the UK people on disability benefits should not be on it, and that his target is to get 1 million off it within 2 years. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) research shows that in Glasgow’s Calton district life expectancy is 54 years while in leafy Lenzie it is 82 years..
Freud’s Report has called for large sections of the welfare state
to be privatised.Tony Blair’s legacy or a Brown production? “Under
his system the market will decide who should receive benefit and who should
go out to work.”(The Telegraph, 4/2/09) The market has been described
as morally neutral so where is the social justice here.David Freud is the
banker who described banking as a “pioneering piratical industry where
we made up the rules”.
The situation has been described by the WHO as “A toxic combination
of bad economics, bad politics and bad social conditions“.
A recent OXFAM report says, that the truth is that the under the new regime
“The DWP is intent on driving people back to work whether it is good
for them or not ...”.
Tommy Morrison, of Clydebank Trades Council, believes that, in order to
fight for real jobs with decent wages and to resist official harassment
by a neo-liberal administration towards vulnerable people who are on disability
benefits or who are lone parents; “the link between the trades unions
and community is key to a bottom up movement.”
What does the crisis in housing neoliberalism mean for housing?
Housing Expert - Dr Sarah Glynn, highlighted the economic and social arguments for a crash programme of public sector housing building in Scotland, the writing off of council housing debts and the allocation of adequate funds to restore the remaining council housing stock. Although Govanhill does not now have council housing perhaps that is where a rethink would be a good idea considering the current acute situation and the dangers ahead to community cohesion from absentee owners and letting agencies.
She said that that it was the real housing crisis that needed sorting not the sick housing market. “We need to campaign for a system in which housing is regarded primarily as homes and there is less incentive to use it as an investment .” “If we are to succeed in campaigning for a very different sort of housing policy, we need independent organisations that can overcome .... divisions.”
Elinor Mckenzie Chair of the Scottish Pensioners’ Forum reminded us that is was a hundred years ago this year since the Old Age Pension was first introduced in the UK. The ideas of a cradle to the grave welfare care and compassion are under serious attack from the neoliberal outlook which suggests that there is not enough cash in the kitty for future generations to provide a decent state pension as a right. She said, “There is no funding crisis as the pensioners’ fund has recently gone up from £47bn to £102bn. To say that the state pension should be tied to the number of people in working and paying contributions misses the point
This is one of the rich countries of Europe, so what we need is a progressive taxation system so that pensioners do not have to live below the government’s own poverty line. So before the neoliberals abandon that measurement altogether in favour of a return to a ‘modernised’ Poor Law, social justice requires a system that can be changed to a progressive taxation system, with adjustments to tax bands changes to tax exemption rules, tax avoidance and tax evasion by the rich. So an end to harassing the less well-off. It is time to share the great wealth of society more equitably to allow more people to have ripe active and where needed cared for old age free from lack of funds.
Liz McCafferty and friend Iris Adam, Govanhill representatives of the Glasgow School’s Campaign described the consequences for communities of the closure of Govanhill’s Victoria Primary & Nursery school. Liz said that the City Council’s decision amounted to a “suicide note to themselves”. The decision on Thursday 23rd April, 2009, to close 11 primary and 9 nursery schools was a bid to save money. So much for education. They even tried to tell us that bigger class sizes were better!
We shall not forget. “ There are children wandering the streets so
to shut a school in Govanhill defies logic it is likely to give rise to
more campaigning. “
One contributor said, “We need a bit of balance to combat the PR machine
that comes before the wrecking ball.”
A hotfoot ‘messenger’, Andrew Frazer, reported the huge scale of community support for the two week long sit-ins at schools in North Glasgow which ended with a rally around lunch time on Saturday 18th April.
The main theme running through this conference was that, the core of a
compassionate civilized society is under concerted attack by the current
market mania which is far from normal. It does not appear to have considered
the impacts on communities as shown by the recent decisions of Glasgow City
Council on school closures and compounded by the stated intention to do
more of the same.
Source: Forwarded Report from the conference