What's the point in voting?

5/6/2015

A day to go and I still don't know.
Is there any point in voting in Merthyr, where Labour will stroll in as ever?
Our MP retired : Dai Havard the 'Member for Baghdad', spent more time in Afghanistan than here ; often seen on telly in a flak jacket ; now the troops have been withdrawn he's lost his purpose!
I received a leaflet from his heir Gerald Jones in English only and emailed him in Welsh asking why and also his views on 'glo brig' (opencast). He eventually replied saying that his party always tries to support the Welsh language and the Assembly was responsible for opencast decisions.
Not true apparently and he sounds like a Ted Rowlands type, with a foot in both camps : Rowlands was against opencast on western slopes, but in favour on the eastern side of the valley!
You'd hardly know there was an election happening in Merthyr, home of the great Rising.
All the usual suspects have posters and placards in their houses and a local Labourite regularly buys the 'Daily Mail'!
UKIP posters adorn the fences which surround Trago Mills' decade-long wasteland, surely a symbol of their rubble of policies from outright denial of global warming to 'respectable' racism .
But if Labour will sleep-walk in, then UKIP will come second ,I fear.
There are enough people around who point the finger at immigrants from Europe rather than the real culprits : the banks, the Government and Labour at Assembly and Council levels, who have failed miserably to create any alternatives.
So what will I choose?
In this presidential style election it's very much about the performance of leaders on the media. Yet, we are crying out for less leaders and more people taking power into their own hands.
Reformist parties will, as ever, make minimal changes to our unjust society.
I'd like to see a country based largely on nationalised industries and co-operatives, with Council housing once again being built, but this time designed by communities and with the freedom to improve.
I'd like to see schools become democracies not run by yes-men Heads, with our fanatical testing replaced forever by learning for sheer enjoyment and courses created together by teachers and pupils.
I'd like to see people trained in hi-tech and sustainable industries , so they wouldn't have to leave the remoter and abandoned parts of Cymru : every home made 'green' and smaller industries using local materials and the talent available.
I'd like to see the Arts at the very core of our country, not increasingly pushed to the periphery by cuts and forced to scrape around for private sponsorship.
Some of these ideas are touched upon by the reformist parties, I realise.
The Greens actually talk about co-operation in education and getting rid of the stultifying examination culture.
The Commies and TUSC are strong on the need to nationalise , bringing energy, water and transport companies into public ownership to ensure decent prices and services.
Plaid Cymru are obviously the party which come closest to my own vision of a Welsh, socialist republic, though they are aiming for the spurious half-way house of Home Rule.
These are all parties who claim to be anti-austerity, though we shall see if they get any power, what they deliver.
Without a PR system which can make an impact, I do feel the futility of this election.
I recently travelled to Ceredigion and witnessed the sheer exhilaration of a genuine battle between Liberal Dems, Labour and Plaid Cymru.
By contrast, Merthyr seems as empty and broken down as the huge Hoover factory.
I wonder if we could state our preferences - from 1-5, or whatever - whether a lot more people would be involved?
I would feel a greater motivation to vote if I could choose between Plaid, Green and Communists ( though they do need to change their name!) for an order of preference.
There are plenty of people who appeared on the Channel 4 series 'Skint' about Merthyr who probably see voting as pointless.
Though, with their highly individualistic life-style, I doubt the solidarity needed for a revolution would appeal to them either.
I only watched the final programme and not because I was shown on it, haranguing Carlo with a megaphone poem.
The subtitles were unnecessary and downright patronising. There were also mistranslations like 'potch around' as 'potter around'.
However, it was more sympathetic than I'd expected, illustrating how poverty can drive lively and interesting characters to crime.
'Skint' is just one perspective on Merthyr. It was definitely more realistic than the 'Real Merthyr' relayed on walesonline website,a touristy vision of daffs and rock-climbing.
Yet I know those living on benefits who are highly intelligent and creative people, with immense talents which are wasted and views which do advocate a revolution.
To show them would've been just too complicated though, wouldn't it? These people are nowhere near the inevitable tendency towards stereotype.
You could do a series of three programmes about the amazing cultural resurgence in this town, from the artwork of Gus Payne to singer-songwriters Kizzy Crawford, Jamie Bevan and Delyth McLean, to bands like Pretty Vicious and the Moonbirds.....You could do, but it won't be done.
A positive message doesn't bring in the viewers and culture challenges with its own small revolution.

SOFA SURFIN

Ee've kicked me out
it woz a stewpid argument
'bout a juke-box
'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' -
I fuckin sayd 'No way! '
( shame no Beef'eart).

Ee've kicked me out
without even a key
t get all I owned,
a sleepin-bag ; my phone
woz dead as my life become.

Ee wuz the final one.
Ever tried it mun?
Ever tried balancin
on a fuckin sofa
when yewer ands shake
like it's always winter?

Ever tried ridin the waves
of forms an offices,
find an answer in impossible paper?
Ever tried goin under,
I mean drownin alive
below all yewer memrees?

Coz I'm talkin 'bout the breakers
ewger than any sea's -
divorce an booze, gettin sacked an speed.
Ow I stood on-a board
f moments before bein dragged down
t the subway, like an underwater tunnel
where I could ardly breathe.

1 Comment

Padi Phillips

5/9/2015 09:27:27 am

Hi Mike. Great post, and yes, I was as equally surprised at how sympathetic 'Skint' was to the people of Merthyr as I had expected a 'Benefits Street' style assasination too, which seems to be the line taken by the plethora of Channel 5 'documentaries' supposedly about social exclusion, but are in reality freak shows designed to underpin the Daily Mail castigation of the poor/the unemployed/the disabled.

The question remains, how do we change things for the better? I don't think that any of the organisations you have mentioned (Greens, Commies or Plaid Cymru) are vehicles for the very real changes we need. The Greens in Wales seem to me to be still looking upon Wales as a kind of lebensraum and the Commies, though I believe very sincere, are even more out of touch than the Tories, seemingly stuck in a 1950s (or perhaps even 1930s) timewarp. That leaves Plaid, who sadly, despite having a half decent leader, are hardly going for Labour's jugular, which we all know is very exposed and vulnerable. Plaid could have made more of an effort, and perhaps if they had then maybe UKIP wouldn't have gained so much support.Maybe things will be different in next year's Assembly elections, but I'm not holding my breath.

I agree with you about the need for common ownership, but I tend to think in terms of syndicalism these days more than state ownership. At least with syndicalism the workers do actually own and control the industries they work in, rather than a state that is subject to the whims of whichever political party is in power, and who, crucially is in control of the police and the army who they won't hesitate to use if the workers step out of line.

For the past couple of years I've been involved in the Cymru branch of the IWW. (industrial Workers of the World)

http://walesiww.org.uk/

We now have 60 members (out of just over 1000 members UK-wide) in good standing right across Wales, but we are mainly active in the Cardiff area at the moment, but with promising signs that we could become active in the Wrecsam and Swansea areas soon.

We are finding that increasingly workers in precarious employment situations are turning to us. At the moment it's still more of a steady trickle than a flood, but that will probably change now that Cameron & Crew are now back in Downing Street, (though only perhaps a little worse than New Labour Mk 2 would have been) and increasingly workers realise that mainstream unions are part of the problem, and that it is industrial unions like the IWW and SolFed (IWA) that can reflect workers's interests, because they are run directly by workers - neither has a paid bureaucracy. I don't know too much about the IWA, but they are more avowedly syndicalist and overtly political, wheras the IWW isn't avowedly syndicalist, (though IWW policies read like syndicalism!) and it's got a strict leave-your-politics-and-your-religion-at-the-door policy in order to support it being 'The Union for All Workers'. However, in practice the small print excludes those who would undermine any worker's rights, so racists and fascists would immediately be excluded. Only those who can hire and fire are directly excluded, but I think it would be almost impossible for prison guards, or G4S goons to join, as they are used to repress workers.

Long story short, though we are relatively new on the scene in Wales, (the branch received it's Charter in November 2013, but had been effectively a branch since late 2012), we are always on the look out for opportunities to expand, Though it's primarily concerned with workers rights in the workplace, the union's aim to 'abolish the wages system' indicates a wider social ambition. At the moment we are active in trying to expose Workfare exploiters, and have recently set up a Claimant's Union where we aim to help anyone with their issues with the Jobcentre and the DWP in general, accompanying people to interviews and providing advice that can be used to prevent benefits being unlawfully sanctioned.

Would there be scope for IWW activity in Merthyr? Initially there would be support from us here in Cardiff and the Wales Regional Organiser, but eventually any branch would be expected to be automnous, provided of course it operated within the values of the IWW.

What's the point in voting?

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