Originally posted for Oxford Save Our Services, a group of public services users standing up for public services. Oxford Save Our Services is one of the first anti-cuts groups to have organised over the summer of 2010. Please do follow on twitter @oxsos.
It seems like I have been consistently struggling with the Government over the past years of my life. In fact, I have been going on marches and protests since I was 17, first against Labour’s introduction of tuition fees, then for climate change policies, then for the NHS and then … there was always another injustice to fight.
Like many young people I know, what gripped me is the sheer and utter lack of fairness about how policies that have been passed over the past decades have been majorly at our detriment: young people, students, workers, the unemployed, pensioners.
I am glad that the TUC have organised for something that ties in together my beliefs of what society should be.
Our society says that the rich remains well off, and that the poor are able to step up the ladder and get richer. It says that when young people get education, they get the very best of it. It says that those who are weak, vulnerable and disabled are part of our society. And that they are being given in their views – the right care and opportunities in life. It says that when we go to the doctor and the nurses we’re well treated by well paid, supported and trained staff. It says that teachers and all should be well paid, secured and be happy in the jobs they are in.
It is my belief that this is not achieved through privatising our beloved publicly funded services. That our public services remain accountable to us and that their profits do not go into the pockets of a minority shareholders and executives.
It is fair that when our economic system crashes, the poor, the young, the weak and the old don’t pay for it, but those – whose fault it is pay for it.
It is true that there are alternatives and that this is probably the most important march I will ever go on to in my life.
Because it is about how our society should be and should work. It is about good government. It is about my mum who’s a nurse and that her old age pension is secure. It is about my niece and nephew’s future being secure. It’s is about my disabled neighbour and so many other people affected.
It is about how my life will be directed. It is about how YOUR life will change.
About the fact that we should not put corporate greed over people’s need but do the opposite. Corporations should be working for us. They should not have more influence over our elected Govt than we do.
A fair, honest and accountable society is what we should fight for. A society where everyone is treated not equally, but to what their needs are to be where they should be.
So let’s unite and work together: for an alternative future, so unlike what is being forced down our throats.
