Welfare Reform

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/welfarereform/raisingexpectations/

The Carers' Trade Union

The Carers Trade Union has now been established. If you support the union and are a carer yourself, then please consider joining. Please indicate your support by making a comment on this blog.

Discussion on the union is available on the Carer Watch site.

Elderly carers arise, you have nothing to lose but your chains

Old couples, who may have been together for many years, frequently want to remain together. Not surprising, but from this enduring attachment arises a despicable form of exploitation. The services required to keep an elderly couple in their own home are seldom remotely adequate. Specialist nursing services, for example, for Parkinson's patients, are almost as rare as hen's teeth. It is often the case that one partner is designated as the carer for the other. Perhaps it is a matter of who becomes seriously ill first. They can be placed in an impossible situation, caring for their partner when they themselves are old and sick. Who cares ?

Not, apparently the medical profession, who know about enormous numbers of these cases, but seemingly prefer to hide behind the remit of social service departments, who ostensibly are responsible for providing domestic support for carers. This is a medical matter as well as a social one. Social services don't have anything like the resources necessary to provide the needed services.

Make sure, when you are discharged from hospital, that there is a fit young person waiting at home to care for you.

It is a national disgrace. Couples expressing a human desire to remain together may be punished severely for their fidelity. Carer Watch, who campaigns for the rights of carers, is currently campaigning for elderly carers to be treated as human beings.

Too expensive ? Like constant wars, Trident, multi-million pound aircraft carriers, big bank bailouts, billionaire tax evasion, etc.

Carers up the creek

The concerns of carers are small beer compared to the present economic crisis. If they get the capitalist system to work again, there will still be the little matter a a major recession, possibly turning into a full depression, to deal with. The cost of bailing out the banks will be borne by the working class and those too sick and disabled to work, not by big business and its political allies in New Labour and the Tories. The Left have failed to make the obvious connection between Reagan-Thatcher-Blair-Brown and Casino Capitalism, sufficiently clear.

Meanwhile, back at the homestead, carers continue to struggle to cope with a demanding job for which they are not paid. Where is the campaign for a carers trade union ? Well, we are still struggling on at Carer Watch. Join us.http://carerwatchdotcom.myfineforum.org/sutra3564.php#3564

The government Green Paper on caring may become a White Paper one day and we need to do our best to influence it while we may. The Carer Watch group will shortly be producing their response to it and I can hardly contain my excitement ! For me, the salient issue is the proposal to move carers from the pathetic Carers' Allowance to the obnoxious Job Seekers' Allowance. This would apply to all carers, regardless of the hours they work, apart from the likes of me who are too ancient. What an absurdity and what an insult. So caring 24/7 is not a job already ? Those carers who are exhausted and made ill by all the hard work, the stress and depression, don't already have a job ?

All of this in a situation of rising unemployment where jobs are increasing hard to come by even for those who don't actually have one and are desperately seeking employment. It's all about social control. We may not have a job for you. You are obviously overwhelmed with work already, even to the point of desperation and despair, but the principle of you being not only being available for work but actively seeking it must be upheld. If you don't get paid a wage then you are not working already. If you are not employed then you don't get paid a wage. Carers can't win under the present set up.

It is important, I think, to campaign for carers to become public employees, because caring is a social responsibility. Using the individual budgets of carees to employ carers, potentially creates lots of problems. We clearly need a trade union to campaign for carers employment and other rights, so why haven't we got one ?

There are plenty of difficulties for sure, but carers could have their own trade union. It's about organisation. But it's not just about organisation. It's also about caring enough. Carers don't yet care enough about themselves and their situation to get themselves organised.

A journey through education 5

The city of Derry in 1978 was still at war. It was here that the Institute of Continuing Education was based at Magee University College, the oldest part of the University of Ulster. Whilst waiting for the time for my job interview, I took a walk around. A bomb exploded as I walked past a shop. Fortunately it was only an incendiary device, of the kind with which I had become familiar in London during WW2. Many shops were boarded up and this beautiful city looked sad and forlorn. I spoke to some of the British soldiers, I had once been one of them myself, in another foreign place. They asked me questions about what I was doing there and I deduced that this was a part of a low-level intelligence gathering procedure. I visited the Free Derry wall in the Bogside. Later I was to go there many times, to watch the Saturday afternoon riots.

Of course, being English in Derry was a strange experience at that time, but, like others, I quickly became defined by my politics. This was a university setting and I was not constrained in the way I had been in the very different environment of Peterborough. The students were all mature and I had a great deal in common with them, whatever their politics.I made many friends. I could walk into the centre of the city, after a few years and would have to stop several times to chat to people I knew. I would go into a bar on my own and would shortly have friends coming over bearing drinks. I miss that.

On my interview day I asked a police person where the cathedral was. The Catholic or Protestant cathedral, he asked ? A divided city, but not divided equally. The nationalist community was, and is, in the large majority. Despite this the unionists ran the city for many years, because of gerrymandered ward boundaries. The old Church of Ireland cathedral was fascinating and full of history, but cold and unwelcoming somehow. The catholic cathedral was more modern, but glowing with warmth and candle light. Strange that I should feel more at home there, than in the cathedral which belonged to the communion into which I had been baptised. Not that I was tempted to convert. I had long since been an atheist. Now I think of myself more as an agnostic, whatever the disapproval of Dawkins may be. I feel that his stern rationalism leaves scant space for human emotionality.

Teaching in Derry was full of emotion and the political temperature was high. I had to decide at the beginning how to deal with my own political commitment. I adopted the simple expedient of explaining what my views were and telling students that they should make their own judgements. I would do my best to draw their attention to all the contending views in a debate. I was keen on heuristic learning and went in for some role playing. People were likely to find themselves in the situation of having to persuade their fellows of the validity of a political position opposed to their own. What fun.

I lived in residence for a while, before my family joined me. One day a detonator went off on campus, but the bomb itself failed to explode. Apparently there was a 'secret' RUC meeting taking place. The bomb disposal squad was called for, from my old corps, and we had to wait in the common room while the bomb was dismantled. The housekeeper, a stern Protestant woman whose cousin was a very senior RAF officer, played the piano and led us in a chorus of old wartime songs. Surreal or what ? Some years later when I was crossing the border at Strabane a bomb exploded in a shop, showering my car with glass. My young daughter was sitting in the back. Perhaps it was time to start thinking of returning home.

A registration system for carers ?

I believe that it is the informality of the family carer system which allows carers to be taken advantage of. If you are just looking after a close family member, no matter how much work is involved, then you are at best a deserving charity case, worthy of a small allowance, but still available for 'real' work. Hence the move to put carers on Job Seekers' Allowance.

Carers need to press for the establishment of a National Government Carers' Register. In the meantime, we should establish our own carers' register. Carers should be encouraged to submit an invoice to the government for the work they have done at the end of each month, deducting the allowances they have already received.

This would draw attention to the reality of carers' lives.

Carers deserve to be punished !

Some say good old Gordon................ At the Labour Party Conference this afternoon, New Labour Prime Gordon Brown paid a glowing tribute to carers. They do 'amazing work' he told the assembled delegates.

So why, if they are do such a good job, does Gordon propose to punish them? The government proposal, in their Green Paper, is to put carers onto Job Seekers Allowance. Doesn't doing 'amazing work' imply that full-time carers already have a job ? I mean, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but isn't caring very demanding, exhausting WORK ? I have to admit that I only have empirical evidence for this, discussing the experience of other carers with them, and being one myself. Don't carers save the exchequer large sums of money by doing this work ?

If you say, very publicly, that carers are doing 'amazing work' and then you deprive them of a decent living wage, what does that make you ? Just asking.

Carer assessments

All carers are entitled to an assessment of their needs, allegedly. Questions to carers about how satisfactory these assessments, carried out by social workers, are in establishing and meeting their needs, vary. This is not surprising. Circumstances and attitudes inevitably vary a great deal.

My reading of the situation is that they tend to be unsatisfactory, for most people. I decided not to have one, because I have no confidence in the system. I think, for example, that there should be a simultaneous assessment of the needs of both carers and their carees. This ought to include a medical assessment of the fitness of the carer to meet the demands of the caring situation and to provide care of a sufficient quality to meet the needs of their caree.

I am aware that some carers are so devoted that they want to care, regardless of their own health. Admirable, but not necessarily wise. Of course, it is all too easy to point to the reality of the alternative to family care at home. The privatisation and lack of adequate regulation of nursing homes is a national disgrace. I would rather go directly to the graveyard myself.

The key question is, where are the resources for good quality caring ? There is a limited to the size of the public purse you know. How often have you heard that ? It was always hypocrisy and now it is manifestly so. A country which can afford vast sums of public money to bail out greedy irresponsible banks and speculating city spivs can surely afford to care for its most vulnerable citizens. Look at the national budget, if there still is such a thing. Look at where the money goes, on immoral wars, Trident and aircraft carriers. Where are our priorities, both here and throughout the world ? Surely another, better, world is possible.

Old, sick, carers

Caring for the old, caring for the sick and disabled, these are relatively common situations. However, some attitudes need challenging. What about a situation in which the carers themselves are sick and elderly ?

If a couple have been together for some considerable time, then it is not unlikely that, as they grow older, first one and and then the other will develop the ailments of old age. If one is substantially worse than the other, then what could seem more natural than that their partner becomes their carer ? It may appear to be natural, but is it really reasonable ? If someone is elderly and unwell, how are they supposed to care effectively for another person, whose needs may be very complex and demanding ? Apart from any lack of skills and aptitudes, they are already deemed to be beyond the age when they are fit to undertake full-time work. That is why they are retired. Caring for an old sick partner may take much longer than a 35 hour week and be much more demanding and stressful.

As our population ages, this is becoming an increasing problem. It needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Is caring for the frail and unwell elderly a social responsibility, or a responsibility for the extended family ? Extended families are less likely now to live in the vicinity of their family elders than ever before and this trend is likely to continue. Moreover, they may be unable or unwilling to provide this care. In some cases they may even be looking for support themselves from their family elders !

This care must surely be seen as essentially a social responsibility. At the moment this responsibility is, largely, not being discharged. There are, of course, more general issues of managing an ageing society to confront. As an elder myself, for example, I do not hesitate to ask if keeping people alive beyond the time when their quality of life makes it worthwhile continuing to live, is a good thing to do ? A civilised society ought to accept the responsibility of caring for all those who need it. To the extent that it doesn't, our society cannot be deemed to be civilised.

Towards Carers' Power

When the first article relating to carers appeared on Compass I was amazed at the response from carers. Compass had never seen anything like this invasion. Although a member of Compass myself, as well as the LRC, I have to say that their politics is well intentioned, at best. They had never seen anything like this group of angry carers before. I was impressed and the carers set a new record with the number of their postings. Of course, this was largely the activist core of the carers' movement.

I had already been an a 24/7 carer myself for some considerable time, when the carers' invasion took place. I had even joined a couple of carers' groups myself, in a desultory kind of way, but it was as a participating member of Compass that I received the marauding carers. You could say that this was their finest hour.

More generally, I have been less impressed by carers. The activist core is magnificent, with the odd exception. There are those who completely lack political nous, but most battle on selflessly and they have my complete respect and admiration. However, beyond the activists there is a a large group who are largely passive and do little to help themselves or their fellows.

Of course, this needs to be put into context. Carers and caring situations vary considerably and this has implications for the struggle for carers' rights. However, many carers are more concerned to make the powers that be feel sorry for them, than to assert themselves. It is true that we all want to be understood and loved. Me particularly. We all need also to understand that carers do a hard, often unrelenting, job of work which goes mainly unrecognised. Somebody has to pay for this work and at the moment it is carers themselves. Their dedication is rewarded, all too often, by poverty, exhaustion and their own ill health. Family carers are unwaged care workers in need of a trade union to represent them and negotiate for a living wage on their behalf.

I was not the only carer already posting on Compass when the invasion took place. We joined forces with the invaders and out of that alliance came Carer Watch.

Stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights.

Democratic centralism or socialist democracy.

With the Labour Party in serious trouble, there is increasing consideration being given to an alternative for the Left. Perhaps it is a choice of being marginalised within the Labour Party, or being marginalised outside! I had thought that the Green Party may have something to offer, particularly the Green Left, but they seem unable to relate to working class politics, as we saw in the Glasgow East by-election. Clearly, there is no easy way forward. The ideological domination of capital is such that many people just don't see a viable alternative. The leap of the imagination necessary to visualise a different kind of society, one based on production for use rather than profit, on co-operation rather than exploitation, is just too far in present circumstances. We need to concentrate on the achievement of an authentic social democracy for the immediate future.

This will be difficult enough to even begin to move towards, but any kind of Left alliance based on democratic centralist organisations is surely doomed to failure. We have to convince by the quality of our ideas and the relevance of them to the everyday lives of the common people. If you have what is intended to be a broad popular democratic alliance, it will not survive the sectarian feuding implicit in having democratic centralist organisations within its ranks. The idea may have some relevance for revolutionary organisations, in potentially revolutionary situations. If you have a so-called vanguard party which needs to maintain discipline, then deciding policy on a democratic basis and then maintaining this as the line for all members, might work if it does not degenerate into bureaucracy. However, revolutions are problematical. They are better comprehended in retrospect than in prospect. They cannot be accurately predicted, either in terms of their advent or their nature. Nor can their eventual political control. Socialists are as likely to end up opposing the regimes they produce, as supporting them. Certainly, feuding Trotskyist sects should in no way be part of our prospectus.

Rather, inside or outside the Labour Party, we should seek to eschew sectarianism and work toward a broadly-based alliance of the anti-capitalist forces in society, building alliances with all those in struggle for progressive causes along the way.

A democracy movement for carers ?

Carers are in particularly stressful situations. It is not surprising that the various charity forums and independent carer-led groups in which they participate are sometimes disputatious, full of anxiety and anger. And yet we do have things to talk about together.

I would like to suggest that carers would benefit from learning the discipline of democracy. A carers movement, free and independent, in which, following widespread discussion, there was a procedure for taking democratic decisions to formulate policy, would be a big advance.

I am arguing for a charter of carers' rights, a campaign for a carers' trade union and a recognition of carers as unwaged care workers, deserving a living wage. 

Towards a carers' trade union.

I believe that carers need a trade union to represent their interests. Not all carers agree with this approach, I am aware of that. It does depend on how you see caring and carers.

Whatever the nature of the emotional bond between carer and caree, however much carers feel a duty of obligation towards their caree, the fact is that part-time or full-time, they are doing a job of work. If they didn't do this, often demanding and arduous, work, the state would have to provide it in some other way, probably at great expense.

Family carers are actually unwaged care workers. The hours they work, frequently much longer than normal employment, may consume a life-time of 24/7 care for some, and can be destructive of the carers own health. Carers ought to have social rights. In my view, we need a trade union to campaign for those rights, to negotiate on behalf of carers and to fight for a wage for currently unwaged care workers.

The discussion about the need for a trade union for carers, which has already taken place on the Carer Watch Forum and elsewhere, suggests that some carers are unable to get away from traditional views of family caring as a vocation, supported financially only by the miserable Carers' Allowance. They prefer to work for marginal improvements, largely in concert with the carers' charities. This doctrine of gradualism has not worked, does not work and will not work in the future. It is a doctrine of despair.

The formation of carers' trade union would mark the beginning of a new consciousness for carers of the reality of their situation, as unpaid care workers. It could be the beginning of a long process of emancipation for carers. It would not be about pleading for the recognition of carers' rights, but the beginning of a long process of struggle in which the awareness of the plight of carers' would be raised among the general population. Much more importantly the consciousness of carers themselves as unwaged workers would be raised. The moral blackmail which keeps carers in a situation of exploitation, would be undermined and exposed as the hypocrisy it really is. I believe that carees would greatly benefit from having carers whose worth was recognised and who are paid a proper living wage for the work they do. Let us work together in dignity and mutual respect.

Towards a carers trade union.

A journey through education 4

The principal of Ruskin College had developed a rather elitist practice over the years, lovely man though Bill Hughes was. He had made an arrangement with some of the Oxford colleges to take on one of his mature students, either regularly, or occasionally. At the end of my two years study at Ruskin, I found myself among those informally selected to be interviewed by one or more of the colleges for consideration. I was accepted by Worcester College as a senior student and it was there that I matriculated the following Autumn. It was a strange experience for the education reject from south London.

In retrospect, I have come to believe that my time at Worcester and the following three years as a research assistant at Nuffield College was a mistake. My life had taken a turn from which I found myself unable to retreat. Regrets in old age are commonplace and I feel that I have more than my fair share of them.

I had seriously considered continuing my delayed education at a less elitist university.I thought that I would feel more comfortable among people from a broader background. There was a scholarship to  an American mature students' college available and I thought of applying for that. Many ex-Ruskin students have gone on to the University of Hull, over the years, because of an informal connection, so that was a possibility too. However, I really liked the look of a course at the University of Nottingham, so I applied for that, as an option to staying on at Oxford.

Rather unusually, my interview at Nottingham was on a Saturday. I was told, when I arrived, that there had been a mistake. I had applied for politics with economics, but the interviews scheduled for that day were for economics with politics. Different people were involved in interviewing, the man told me. He then said that he would phone the head of politics at his home, on my behalf. If I was somewhat bemused by this time I was to become even more so. The head of politics invited me to his house for a chat. He explained that he was an avid Welsh rugby union fan and intended to watch the match against England being shown on TV shortly. He would be delighted to have the company of a discomfited English man. I just love the eccentricity of academics. They are, mostly, marvellous people. I explained to him that where I came from rugby union was associated with grammar schools and the middle-class. No working class activist could support it, we were strictly soccer supporters. My love affair with Peterborough United had not yet begun at that time. Despite having had the opportunity of watching both Manchester teams, it is Peterborough which remains engraved on my heart. However, I suspended disbelief and we watched the rugby together. Afterwards he said that he would be pleased to welcome me to Nottingham, if that was my choice. We parted with a handshake, never to coincide again. I left reflecting on the rigour of university selection procedure. I decided to continue at Oxford. I have made so many bad choices in my life that I have lost count of them. This was one of my very worst. But I have my excuses readily available.

I only had two years of grant money still available to me. As a senior student this was sufficient for Oxford, but not for Nottingham. At Nuffield, later, I received a stipend, if that is the right word, of £18 pw rising to £23 by the time I left for my adventures in Peterborough. There were three of us by then, so it wasn't easy.

My uneasy relationship with Oxford in the sixties led me back into political activism. The psychology is not difficult to understand. Wherever I am and what ever I am doing, I am still the kid in the elementary school playground. Fighting, in one form or another, is how I relate to the world. I became involved in the Oxford Centre for Socialist Education and was its convenor for a while. The majority of its members were International Socialists, at that time members of the Labour Party. I left the Labour Party myself, after a while and joined the Independent Labour Party, to return to mainstream Labour in Peterborough. It is the ILP, with all its ambiguities, which really defines my politics.

After Nuffield I needed a job and my small family needed me to get one. I joined the adult education service in Peterborough and went on to become the Principal of Peterborough College of Adult Education. This is an unlikely story I know, however, I can't avoid the fact that it is true. In Peterborough I became engaged in battles about what the priorities in adult education should be. I had time-out to take another degree at Essex University and then joined the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Ulster. My time in Peterborough, punctuated by shouts of 'Come on Posh', takes only a short time to tell, but it was eleven years of my life, which ended thirty years ago. So, there is yet more to tell.

Job satisfaction and the 24/7 elderly carer

I'm not talking about a minority of carers here, we actually are the majority.

I have a long interest in the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity. It is the basis of my dialectical thinking, so much out of fashion these days. Objectively, all caring situations are different. Of course, elderly 24/7 lone carers all have some things in common, as their collective description indicates. Moreover, they are likely, because of their age, to have certain age-related disabilities. Beyond that, there are a wide variety of circumstances. These will certainly have some influence on how carers relate to their situation. 

Subjectively, much will depend on their personality and their relationship with that all important person, their caree. I was a voluntary counsellor for some years, but I am not claiming that this has been useful in my caring role. I wasn't just a casual counsellor, but trained intensively. I just never got paid for the work I did. That seems to be a bad habit of mine ! I trained at the Swarthmore Centre, Leeds, Craven College, Skipton, the University of Leeds at Bretton Hall and with Relate. I have heard a lot of people's stories, but caring has taught me things I never could have imagined.

Some of us will have more nurturing personalities than others and derive great personal satisfaction from the caring role. There may be some difference between female and male carers, but I am not able to say anything definitive about that. Some of us may not be natural carers, but more  inclined to relate to our fellow human beings in rationalistic ways, without necessarily entirely lacking in empathy.

We are not  entirely alike, however much we may have in common. It is the interaction between objective and subjective factors which interests me. If we are at all political, we may note the power-play involved in caring, between carer and caree and between both and all aspects of the outside world, from immediate family to extended family, from the NHS to social services and politicians, etc. The extent to which we are able bring our emotions into awareness is important, as is the relationship between feeling and thinking, another dialectic which frequently lacks any kind of synthesis.

It may seem odd to think of caring providing job satisfaction. It isn't a job in the normal sense of the term, just a form of labour, largely unpaid labour ! Yet I have heard carers express some satisfaction in the work they do, even a great deal of satisfaction. But it ain't necessarily so. This needs to be remembered. What for some may be a labour of love, for others is hell on earth. Where have I heard that before ?

What do you think ?

Another kind of democracy

Just how democratic is this society ? In my constituency it doesn't matter who I vote for, the Tory still wins. Every time ! The first past the post system is iniquitous. It is easily possible for a government to be elected with a relatively small minority of the electorate voting for it. What kind of legitimacy does this give it ?

Therefore, I support the introduction of what I believe to be a much more democratic system, the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies.

Moreover, There is very little policy choice available to the electorate. This is partly due to the tendency of fptp to produce a situation in which predominantly only two parties have a serious prospect of power. The major parties therefore incline towards what they perceive to be the centre ground, to try to pick up undecided voters . The so called centre ground may, and currently is, moving to the Right. In some societies an ostensibly plural party system has functioned to support the status quo.In this situation, having a limited range of choice means very little substantial choice. It's heads they win, tails we lose.

It may also be that certain things are taken as given. In an alleged communist society, for example, the social system itself may not be an issue in an election. This seems also to be the case in a capitalist society. The idea that an election can actually change the fundamental nature of a society, is largely notional, in many instances. 

The key issues for me are, to what extent may a socialist society be said to be an open society ? Is capitalism a closed society, because its market basis is fundamentally regarded as given ? Is the ideological domination of the 'market society' produced by a largely dominated media, including commercial advertising, which covertly proposes not just a particular product, but also a particular lifestyle, an indication of a largely closed society, albeit it one in which overt oppression is somewhat muted ? I leave these as an open questions, for others to consider, although my own views are clearly inclined to the affirmative.

The crucial issue is, is there a genuine socialist alternative to a market dominated society ? Many societies which have claimed to be socialist,, have been accused of being totalitarian dictatorships. This may an unfair accusation, to some extent, but I certainly don't want to support any form of dicatatorship. It is time to reject any idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat. The views of Marx have all too often been distorted to fit the ambitions of a self-appointed 'revolutionary elite'. Likewise, we should reject any notion of 'democratic centralism' or 'vanguardism'. Socialists need to be constantly in the eyes and ears of the electorate. Not huddled together in some dark plotting corner.

An audacious definition of socialism would be that it is full democracy, in which the principle of equality is applied throughout society. The owners of the means of producing, and reproducing, wealth, based on their ability to exploit the labour of the majority, can't support democracy in any meaningful way. It is not in their interests to do so.

In the society in which we live, this is currently an aspiration for some of us. However, the politics of here and now need to be informed by this aspiration. A social democracy which rejects the idea of compromise and gradualism, should be dynamic in its determination to go beyond what appears to be achievable in the short run. The dream is a motivational force, utopian only in the best sense of the term. Its application to politics is immediate. The practice of democracy, could be the practice of socialism. Social democracy and socialism are not alternatives. One is an expression of the desire to achieve the other, in hostile circumstances.

A journey through education 3

The heat and dust of the Suez Canal Zone had to be endured. It could hardly be enjoyed. We were serving a sentence for a crime we had not committed. I have two diaries, one for each of the two years I was incarcerated there. They are empty except for the counting down of the days until my release. We all had an interview with some officer or other. Mine asked me if I would like to sign on as a regular soldier. I looked at him with a combination of pity and incredulity. Sometimes I encounter young people who are planning to become career soldiers. I wish them good luck and then give them the very short talk I have prepared for such situations.

Soldiers not infrequently have adjustment problems when they return home after overseas service and so it was with me. I went back to my old job in the East End, employers were obliged to take us back, but I could not settle. I got a job nearer home, and had what was then known as a 'nervous breakdown'. I was referred to a hospital doctor who, under intensive interrogation from me, admitted, shamefacedly, that he was a psychiatrist.

Contact with the local Labour Party led me to contact with the local Labour Party Young Socialists, as they were known by then, and they pointed our that, despite my veteran status, I was still well within their age range. I shouldn't worry too much about politics they told me, they were mainly about having fun. And they were and plenty of fun was had in their company over the next few years. However, politics was in my blood and even the Labour Party could not contain it. My part-time political education resumed, whilst I earned a living as an insurance agent, first with the Pru and then with the Co-op. The stories I could tell.

I remember an NCLC tutor name Karl Westwood. He taught public speaking at Mitcham Labour Hall.. Those were the days when public election meetings were not rigidly controlled. It was possible to go into a Tory meeting wearing a Labour rosette and heckle from the back of the hall. Karl was a marvellous public performer and motivator. I also took a course simply called 'Socialism' with the NCLC. I had imagined that I already knew all about it, but was quickly disabused of that idea. I told the Chair of the local Labour Party that I was doing this course and he told me that I was wasting my time. I ought to concentrate on advancing my career. New Labour already in the 1950s ! What a loss to the Labour Movement the demise of the NCLC has been.

I had met people in the Labour Party and elsewhere, over the years, who had studied at the long-term full-time adult education residential college, which had strong historic associations with the trade unions. Ruskin College was based in Oxford and its qualifications were, for the most part, validated by Oxford University. Admission was on the basis of a record of social and political activity, a long essay and an interview. Many of the students who went there, some significantly older than me, had been active in politics for years. Some had no academic qualifications at all, unlike me. I was able to flourish my Army Certificate of Education-Third Class when I decided, five years after the completion of National Service, to apply for a place.

At the beginning of the first term a wide range of working class people arrived at Ruskin to commence their academic studies. There were miners and engineers, postmen and milkmen and even the odd insurance agent. At the beginning of the second term they had transmogrified into students complete with scarves and attachments, like beards.

John Prescott had not been heard of at that time. He was to arrive at Ruskin some years later. However, I do believe that my influence on the place had a delayed effect on him. I initiated a particular style of talking, which became endemic in the college. I still consider it to be my greatest achievement.

The conscious carer

People who find themselves looking after a member of their family don't necessarily come to regard themselves as carers, certainly not automatically. They are just looking after a member of their family who needs care. What could be more natural than that ?

But there are implications of being in this situation which become increasingly obvious, over time. They vary, of course, from case to case. It may be that changes have to be made to the carers' work pattern, even to the extent of having to give up employment completely and, consequently, live on a very small income. There may be implications for the carers' own health, or for their life-style and so on. Overwhelmingly, these are adverse changes brought about by becoming, sometimes in an involuntary way, a family carer.

The realisation that one is in a particular situation frequently leads to looking for help and support, advice and information, and so to contact with other carers. This may be through a carers' charity of some kind, which provides much of what carers need in the short term and strengthens their self-identification as one of a number of people in similar circumstances. 

Some carers may never get to this stage and continue to remain isolated. Others may remain at this stage and never develop beyond it. Some may be happy that they found the carer charities, but develop some sense of unease. After all, valuable though the service they give may be, they are not run by carers for carers. Their role is limited and circumscribed by the fact that they are charities. They obtain their funding, probably, partly from government sources. Their campaigning role is limited by virtue of the fact that they are charities.

Carer-led groups are the inevitable consequence of this reality and there are a number of them now in existence. However, my experience is that only a minority of their members are activists and also that they tend to be dominated by rather egocentric personalities. Perhaps this is inevitable, to some degree.

Those of us who want to see carer-led organisations become larger, with a more extensive activist base, and democratically controlled are up against a serious problem.

All movements are likely to find themselves dominated by some kind of elite caucus, if they allow it to happen. Political parties are notorious for this. However, it is possible to achieve more accountable forms of organisation. If carers want to develop a movement which can represent them and negotiate on their behalf, like a trade union, then they should consider democratic practice to be an essential part of what they stand for.

In the present circumstances it is inevitable that a small minority of activists will seek to represent carers to the government and its agencies, usually in competition with each other. However, in my view, that is no way to raise the awareness of carers to the reality of their situation. I suggest that that rather than dissipate our very limited energy on making representations to those who are determined not to hear us, we would be better advised to seek to contact and communicate with the large number of carers who are presently beyond our reach. Consciousness raising should surely be our priority.

With a Labour Party like this who needs the Tories ?

That's what Gordon Brown is hoping you will think.

James Purnell, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is the new New Labour attack dog. At a time of rising unemployment he is getting his teeth firmly into the work shy. He has blatantly stolen the Tories policy on workfare, which they, of course, had stolen from the Americans. Is there no limit to the excesses of right-wing populism ? I mean do we really give a damn if a few poor people get away with cheating the system ?

After all, the very rich do it all the time. Far more of them get away with it and on a much greater scale. I hope you sleep easy at night Purnell, as some benefit claimants lay awake worrying about how to get through the coming winter, with inflated fuel and food prices. Don't forget to submit your John Lewis order in plenty of time.

Charity as political control ?

How many charities for carers are there ? I don't just mean the large national ones, but the local ones and specialist ones too. How much funding do they receive ? How much from public sources and how much from other sources ? Does anyone know ? Obviously they are supposed to provide support for carers in their caring role, but they work within an agenda ultimately determined by government. 

The relationship between carers and government is, to a large extent, mediated by carers' charities. Supposing one day, like tomorrow, carers collectively decided that we would like to present our own unmediated views to government and we would like to have some funding to facilitate this ? Who should we ask ?

Of course, carers have their own carer-led organisations. Several of them. They are, however, dependent upon a relatively small group of activists. There is, inevitably, in carer-led groups, a great deal of emphasis placed upon the immediate alleviation of the day to day stress of caring and upon information and advice giving. Those carer groups which place a greater emphasis on campaigning, like Carer Watch, don't have the human and financial resources to do what is necessary to combat the insidious propaganda emanating from government sources. Carer charities are too inclined to keep on the good side of government to be entirely reliable.

It is my view that much work needs to be done on consciousness raising among carers. We need more carer activists and greater awareness of the issues around caring that we most need to concentrate on. This all requires resources. What independent, no strings attached, resources could we access ?