Shock of the old: re-visiting Polly Toynbee's 'Hard Work'

Today, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers are taking industrial action against the coalition government's attack on their pensions. The majority of those people striking are on modest incomes and the changes proposed will increase their pension contributions whilst diminishing their eventual pension pay-out. It's timely then, that I wanted to take a moment to give my thoughts on Polly Toynbee's 'Hard Work', her well-regarded 2003 account of the working lives of those living on low pay.

Focussing on her journey from rich columnist in leafy Clapham to a minimum-wage earning council-flat dweller a scant ten minutes walk away, she offers a stark portrait of the realities of life struggling on minimum wage. In a Kafka-esque sequence, she illustrates how state support remains painfully inadequate in either allowing someone to transition out of poverty or to take part in mainstream modern Britain. She porters in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, works as a dinner lady, in call centres and cleaning in the early hours. In light of the criticisms that argue the Coalition Government's austerity agenda is felt more keenly by women, it is particularly striking that the lowest paid (invariably part-time and casualised) jobs are disproportionately held by women (and in larger cities, ethnic minority workers).

As someone who lived almost exactly around the corner from the estate from the book, I felt there was something alien and unsettling in reading of these parallel lives running alongside our own. The Britain painted in this books feels every bit the product of the New Labour era, but the messages it contains remain more frighteningly relevant than ever before. The modest safeguards Toynbee lambasts for their bureaucrat insufficiency are the very ones being swept away even faster than ever before in 2011. Labour succeeded only in halting the advance of inequality with the introduction of a modest minimum wage, but the coalition cuts - wage-freezes, deteriorating pensions and benefit cuts are targeted at the poorest first and foremost.

Escaping the poverty trap described here takes political will and a significant re-balancing in favour of those some would call the "deserving poor": those working hard in the margins without employment protection and on virtually slave wages. With all three of the other main parties remaining advocates of "flexibility" (another word for privatisation and marketisation of public services), it is left for the Green Party to turn up the volume and articulate more passionately and coherently for social justice. We need a movement challenging rising inequality and the dangers it poses for the whole of society.

Available now for less than a fiver, I would sincerely recommend this book to anybody genuinely concerned or curious about the hidden realities of modern Britain, tucked away and not represented on television. I'm used to peppering my politics with positivity, but this frightening book has filled me with a righteous anger.

Why building the Good Society offers much more to Greens than the Big Society

Over the weekend, I travelled up to London with some fellow Green activists and attended the annual Compass conference "Building the Good Society". Because Compass has traditionally been a Labour thinktank and only just voted to allow in members of other parties this year, it was a fascinating political environment to explore. Whilst there was a notable contingent of other Greens present, I did have some misgivings about entering the lion's den!

I shouldn't have worried. Whilst there was a lingering sense of uncertainty amongst the crowd about who was or wasn't a Labour party member, it felt like an engaging space to be part of. Listening to the speakers and the reception they received from participants, I was encouraged to see such a consensus around a raft of crucial issues facing the UK - rising inequality, tax evasion, sexism, political disengagement and climate change that chimed with my own core green values and priorities. It became clear that the aim of the "good society" is about more than changing the environment around us, but about changing ourselves.

I thought it would be interesting to share some of my personal highlights:

• Two speakers from UK Uncut told the story of how their campaign grew. It was disheartening to hear how they felt politicians had failed to reflect their views, but their ambition, use of new technologies to mobilise people, as well as their use of humour and creativity in their campaigns left me inspired and re-energised. As they argued, if they can affect change in tax evasion policy with few human resources and no money, what could (or should) political parties be achieving?
  



• Kat Banyard from UK Feminista gave a blistering account of how feminist activism is forcing itself back on the agenda. She argued that the economic effects of the coalition cuts agenda are hitting women especially hard and that the lack of female representation amongst the political elite is reflected in the gender blindness inherent in governmental policy making. She also attacked the international sex industry, illustrating how they have been adept in co-opting feminist arguments around female sexual autonomy, making it harder for feminists to marshall their arguments against the pornification of sexuality. Girls are being taught not to view their sexuality as something to explore for themselves, but as a performance for others. She ended by challenging men to take roles in tackling sexism - because solutions won't happen unless men own their part in changing the status quo. Although I've always considered myself a feminist, I felt it was a stark call to question my own compacency. This was probably my highlight of the day and I'll be following their work more closely as a result..
  



• Whilst unable to attend himself, Ed Miliband provided a video message, which whilst greeted with some groans and laughter, did show that away from the media scrutiny, he is a thoughtful politician. He threw down a gauntlet to Labour, which I would like the Green Party to consider too: build a political party truly accountable to it's members - but ensure that the members remain equally accountable to their local communities. It's a model of action that I would like us to consider more thoroughly over the next few years.
  



• One discussion during the day that resonated particularly with the direction I have stressed in my bid to become the next GPEX Equalities & Co-ordinator was when Labour MP Chuka Umunna challenged Caroline Lucas directly to reach low income families and those voters with families overseas (such as Nigeria) with a more compelling case why climate justice is so important. He is right that all parties have failed to make much traction on this issue outside the core middle class vote and something I would like us to actively pursue in the next couple of years.

Overall, I would recommend progressive activists and Green members consider joining Compass too. Feeling such solidarity with nearly a thousand people pulling in (generally) the same direction has left me more open to cross-party campaigning on some of our core issues. It was also telling that Caroline Lucas got the most enthusiastic reception from a predominately Labour crowd. It is a testament to the movement of our policies to the political mainstream and that even amongst our opponents, we are now seen as a serious proposition more than ever before.

The dangerous vacuum at the heart of Cameron's international LGBT strategy

Yesterday, David Cameron held his second reception at Downing St for the LGBT community, inviting many well-known faces working to promote equality, as well as thanking a number of volunteers and activists for their tireless work. In his speech, the biggest headlines sprang from his commitment to do more in using his position to apply moral pressure to foreign governments (notably African) to improve their records on LGBT rights. He specifically held up his commitment to retaining the 0.7% GDP spent on international aid as a concrete sign of his engagement.

In his favour, this is a positive move for someone who had a patchy record on LGBT issues before the election. I'm pleased to see he has a strategy moving forward, but I remain to be convinced by how robust this will prove to be beyond an encouraging speech. In recent years, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has built a strong record on promoting and monitoring LGBT rights in-country and even under the new coalition government, continues to improve it's support for LGBT communities.

However, the Department for International Development (DFID), whilst doing some amazing work generally, has a long way to go before it matches this record. The new Secretary of State, Andrew Mitchell, has shifted much of their focus to explicitly support development outcomes amongst women and girls. In itself, this isn't a terrible thing, but it results in making LGBT people almost as invisible as heterosexual men in their work and boxes women into a particular conception of femininity. Funding for explicitly-LGBT human rights work is exceptionally rare in DFID's funding portfolio.

So, DFID needs to improve it's record on LGBT rights through the provision of aid and the conditions attached upon it. Yet we also need to remember that withholding aid to countries criminalising LGBT people gives credence to the view being pushed by our opponents in those countries that gay rights is imported cultural imperialism. We have to tread a very thin line here. Even amongst LGBT activists in western countries, in the past there has been a danger in publicly denouncing the behaviour of foreign governments in a manner that can aggravate the danger LGBT people experience in those countries. For our opponents, this strident approach is as offensive as the strategy used by fundamentalist US christian groups when they visit Africa and finance anti-gay campaigns.

More than ever before, we have to give voice to southern activists in these situations to decide their own country-specific strategies. The British Government (and LGBT activists) need to be listening and learning from their particular political contexts and letting that determine what assistance we can give. Cameron's promise to use his moral authority is one useful element in our armoury in this, but I'm concerned that he needs to back this up with concrete resources from DFID for those struggling civil society groups on the ground. Because in the end, it is authentic voices located in grass-roots communities that will create real change, not a Downing Street speech. He needs to put his 0.7% GDP where his mouth is.

Announcing my candidacy for the Green Party Executive elections

After taking some time to discuss it with trusted friends within the Green Party, I have decided to stand for election in this year’s Green Party Executive (GPEX) elections. I am hoping to contest the Equalities and Diversity Co-ordinator role, which regular readers will realise is an area passionately close to my heart and a position where I think I have the professional skills to offer something new.

I’ve thought very carefully about what I might be able to achieve in the role. I believe that if we are to truly break through as a mainstream party, we need to broaden our appeal to all parts of society. This means building a party that is open, accessible and representative. It means giving voice to fresh perspectives and bringing them to the heart of our policy making. We need someone to make this role more visible than it has been recently, to argue the case (as I wrote earlier this month) for why equality and diversity remain important values for the Greens and seriously set about improving and measuring our performance in this area.

Once my nomination is formally accepted, I intend to use this blog to talk in detail about my policy plans for office and respond to any questions that members may have for me. I will make myself available by telephone, by email and in person, if local parties would like the opportunity to hear from me. I also intend to use the Members website to post my responses to questions there too. I’m hoping this election campaign will give me the chance to talk to many of the members whose ideas I want to draw into this work over the next two years. If you want to assist in my campaign, please drop me a line at (stephen_a_wood@yahoo.co.uk). I'd love to hear from you!

I really hope that those of you who are Green Party members will consider voting for me in the coming weeks. I want the opportunity to bring my constructive, forward-looking and inclusive outlook to the Executive, at a time when listening to the membership is as essential as ever for the future of this party. Watch this space for further news!