Owen Jones, The Independent columnist, political commentator and author of Chavs:The Demonization of the Working Class, presented the Fourth Frow Lecture, organised by the Working Class Movement Library, on 4 May 2013.
The Old Fire Station, Salford.
Arriving early for Owen Jones.
Owen Jones, brought up in nearby Stockport, an Oxford history graduate and now Hackney resident has a polemical style and engaging wit. Jones famously caused Iain Duncan Smith to lose his temper on Question Time when he raised the issue of disabled benefits claimants who had died after being passed fit to work. Unfortunately, the programme came to an abrupt end before Jones could continue his argument. There is more time today, the hall has been full and overflowing since the doors opened, so the lecture begins 15 minutes early in front of, one suspects, an audience of like-minded souls from the political left who are eager to find inspiration, and hope.
Jones first reminded the audience about the historical struggles against injustice: the peasants’ revolt against the poll tax; the Levellers and Diggers demand for democracy and common land during the civil wars; the martyrs of Peterloo and Tolpuddle; the Chartists; the suffragettes and those who, more recently, struggled and sacrificed for the LGBT and anti-racism movements. ‘Those who are aware of the injustices inflicted on this country have a responsibility to fight back,’ Jones declared. I seem to recall that many of the Chartist orators had links to the non-conformist churches. Injustice is the main theme today, but guilt and duty are also on the agenda.
‘They are air-brushing out of existence the injustices that have been suffered.’
Turning to the present day, Jones said that the Tories have hi-jacked the financial crisis and turned it into a crisis of public spending. They have used the crisis to push politics that they would never have got away with – the privatisation of the NHS; the assault on education; the dismantling of the welfare state. The current crisis grew out of the unregulated financial sector in the 1980s.‘We keep being told “we are all in this together”, but it remains boom-time for the people at the top.’
The Tories are cleverly deflecting anger from those who caused the crisis. They are turning communities against each other, neighbour against neighbour. The low paid worker against the unemployed; British-born against immigrant – they are scapegoating immigrants – but it was not the Indian doctors or the Polish cleaners who brought us into this. It was the bankers. It’s the age-old politics of divide and rule.
The right have lots of out-riders who are not necessarily affiliated to the Tories but are continually pushing right-wing polices, creating more political space for their agendas. The traditional media is dominated by journalists with a narrow background, it’s a closed shop for the middle class. The rise of social media -‘citizen’s journalism’- especially Twitter, is the biggest counter to the mass media.
The average Briton is facing the biggest squeeze in living standards since the 1920s. They have a right to be furious. The surge of UKIP is showing the huge potential for anger people have at the political establishment.
There is a shortage of housing because of the failure to replace the housing stock which was sold under the Right to Buy legislation. 760,000 households will be hit by the “bedroom tax” and required to pay an extra £80 a month. Two-thirds of these homes are occupied by people with disabilities. They are the most vulnerable people, often isolated and unlikely to be in a trade union. There are few one bedroom flats to downsize to. They will be forced into a private sector where rents are higher and the benefits bill will increase.
But the one thing missing is hope. Unless people have hope their anger will be directed at their neighbour. The task facing any movement taking on austerity is to provide hope and an alternative. The coherent alternative is to build social housing to stimulate the economy and give people homes – not foot the bill for expensive private rents; to provide a living wage and reduce the billions spent on tax credits and to develop an industrial strategy as Germany has done to reduce unemployment, not wait for market forces.
The limits of tyrants
Quoting former slave and celebrated American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue til they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress”.
Jones advocated the need to link up individual struggles and build momentum in the broad anti-austerity movement which is being led by the People’s Assembly and up the fight for justice and equality.
Owen Jones is a speaker at a meeting of the People’s Assembly Rally in Manchester on 21 May 2013.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2013 Lynn Steinson
