The ends and means that direct our political activity Part 2

The Ends and Means that direct our Political Activity Part 2 The first of my political acts that I can remember was to persuade my Mam and Dad to put up a window bill for the Labour Candidate in the 1945 Election.I well remember the joy and enthusiasm that greeted the victory of the Labour Party at that election. There is now a great deal of criticism of that Government, of the things they did and of the things that they failed to do. Let me remind you of some of the achievements made by the working class at that time. The 1945 Education Act was not actually one of those achievements although that Labour Government brought it into practice. It was only a partial measure, providing for three levels of pupils, the Grammar Schools to provide for the ruling elite, technical schools to provide the engineers and supervisors, and the secondary modern schools to ensure that the general workforce had the education that industry and commerce needed them to have. It was not until the White Paper 10/66 setting out the intention to have a fully Comprehensive structure of Education that the need for a child centred education became a possibility. Further changes to Curricula and Examinations, led by the teachers directly involved, provided further steps towards an education system designed to meet the needs of the pupils rather than the economic needs of the ruling class. The Open University was a further progressive step towards universal education. Sadly, all of these advances have been put into reverse. School pupils are alienated from school structures, examinations are strictly aimed at selection for the needs of the economy, and students are crippled by debt, Universities are starved of funds and are being forced to close departments which could add to and enlarge the understanding and spread of knowledge. I need not spend much time on the National Health Service. There was a revolution in health provision with the introduction of the NHS. For the first time working people could receive the health service they needed, when they needed it, without having to pay directly for it. Payment came from National Insurance (paid by both Worker and employer) and taxation (which everyone paid either directly or indirectly). Taxation could be graduated to reflect ability to pay. Even so taxation fell most heavily on those least able to pay. In my last year at Grammar School, after exams had been completed, our Chemistry Master took us on a visit to a Coal Mine in Leicestershire. The Overman who showed us round took great pride in the fact that the Coal Mines were now publicly owned. An ambition that miners had held for over 50 years had finally been achieved. Nationalisation of the mines was not perfect. In power, the Labour Government made the decision to nationalise, but they had not considered what type organisation was needed. They took as their template the structure of the leading Chemical Company (ICI) at the time. Thus, as with education, they took the commercial route rather than the workers route. Nevertheless, the miners were proud of what had been achieved. Early in my married life, we went to live in a town on the outskirts of Coventry. It had a small District Council which was dominated by Labour Councillors. The old stagers, who had served in the Council in the post war years were proud of what they had achieved. They had restored pride in their town. Their policy on housing had created mixed estates, providing small accommodation for single people, family homes for parents and children, homes for people to move into when they grew old and retired. They had created communities. This type of achievement is even more clearly seen in the estate close to where I now live. This estate, built in the fifties, has everything one could desire in a housing estate. The houses are well laid out, giving a variety of different types and size of homes. There are schools, a shopping centre with a library, medical centres, churches, chapels, pubs and clubs. There are numerous play areas with playground equipment. Above all there are several areas of green space, small in some places, quite large in others. The design of the estate has focussed on meeting the needs of the people living in the area. It is not surprising that the area is becoming ‘gentrified’. Many houses sold off under Thatcher’s Right to Buy, have been sold by those who bought them, and are now available to rent, but not now from the Council but from commercially driven owners. The housing crisis that the Council solved in such a positive way post War has now returned and is a major problem for working people and also politically as parties, like Reform, seek to exploit the misery that people face by seeking to create racial division where non exists. When I walk around this estate, I remember how, at one time, Council Estates were given a bad reputation, which they certainly did not deserve, as the ‘Powers that Be’ sought to undermine the many achievements that members of the Working Class could claim to have made. I will continue my thoughts on the ways and means of our political activity in my next article. I will close this one with some thoughts from Antonio Gramsci “That is why the Communist Party is not abstaining from the elections. Because it wants the experiment carried out with full effectiveness and educative force. Because the Communist Party is the party not just of the proletarian vanguard, but of the great popular masses — even the most backward and benighted. It wants to reach and defeat the democratic socialist illusion even in its deepest lair. Will the elections, staged as they are in the environment of freedom and equality which is specific to bourgeois democracy, give the working class even just one deputy? This single one will then represent the whole oppressed class. His voice will be heard by the whole class. A slogan proclaimed by this single deputy, under the mandate of the proletarian party, will be accepted and put into practice by the whole class. Such a situation will inexorable provoke the explosion of new representative institutions, which will,counterpose themselves to, Parliament and replace it: no popular layer will regret it or fight for it” Gramsci: Political Writings 1921 - 1926 At present we do not have such a Party, but we do have a working class that is being forced to pay for the multiple crises created by the ruling class and its economic system of Capitalism. United we can come together into such a party and prove the wisdom of Gramsci’s words. Sribar 14.4.25