Capitalism

There are two statements that I’m able to make about myself that I feel proud to hear myself say; firstly, I have a 16 year old son called Ben and secondly I am the UCU Branch Secretary for the College where I’m a lecturer. Parent and union activist; two difficult, responsible but ultimately incredibly rewarding callings. It isn’t often I can combine them, but this October half term, I managed just that.

Cameron’s vile, deceitful, rapacious coalition Government, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to fund double-digit pay rises for their cronies in big business and the banking sector by hammering the Teachers’ Pension scheme. Instead of 6% contributions, we’re now expected to stump up 9% for a scheme that will not be based on final earnings, but average career earnings, which could cost anyone starting off in the scheme anything up to about £250k over a lifetime. The scheme is not short of a bob or two currently; this change has simply been mooted to enable financiers to bathe in money while upwards of a million education professionals are faced with penury in their declining years. It’s a scandal and a disgrace. Well, UCU along with many other education unions aren’t having it. We were out on strike on March 23^rd then June 30^th and we’ll be out with about 3 million other public sector workers on November 30^th. Before then, a representative of each UCU Branch was charged with the responsibility of lobbying Parliament on Wednesday 26^th October, in half term week to avoid disrupting the education of our students as we are professionals above all else. The task each of us were given was to talk to the MP for the constituency in which the College sits rather than where the union official lives. Hence, instead of contacting Nick Brown, MP for Newcastle East, I made an appointment to see Mary Glindon who represents North Tyneside on the Wednesday at 12.45.

This arranged, I decided to take Ben with me, as we’d had such a great time in Euskadi in the summer. Obviously, he’d require more than just politics to keep him interested, so I looked for a game to watch. Firstly there were the choices of Brentford v Stevenage in League 1 and Barnet v Southend in League 2, but I’d done both of those grounds and baulked at the idea of each of us paying £19 and £17 respectively. Instead, the Carling Cup came to my rescue. Following Percy Main’s dire recent form I’ve joked that I’m falling out of love with the amateur game and in love with the Premiership, so it was handy that Arsenal were drawn at home to Bolton Wanderers, especially as tickets were only £10 a pop.

I booked cheap train tickets and a room in the Best Western on Seven Sisters Road, which was The Bates Motel, meets Mind Your Language, boasting a brilliant view of Finsbury Park and clean enough to be well worth £55 a night. It also had the benefit of being within walking distance of the Emirates, which meant we could take a stroll down past Highbury in the early evening and amuse ourselves with an informal tour of the new ground, which is incredibly impressive and its environs, which were remarkably clean and orderly, considering the size of the audience (well Gooners are renowned for their mute passivity). Indeed the 56k crowd who turned up proved Arsenal to be a very different beast to Newcastle United; the support consisted of every nationality imaginable, all co-existing in perfect harmony. I think Newcastle’s crowd would be improved if we had more young Muslim women taking in the games, but that’s for my next Newcastle blog.

Outside the ground, food vendors sold everything from cous cous to jerk chicken and the discarded drinks containers were as likely to be Stowells mini wine bottles as they were fiery ginger beer. Bottles of dog were conspicuous in their absence from the N5 pre match palate. From a distance, the ground resembles a conference centre or airport terminal, but the clean, wide walkways and tasteful design made it feel welcoming and impressive at the same time. I was particularly impressed with the integral historical references that ensure Arsenal are a club who know football existed before the Emirates, before Wenger and well before the Premiership. To be fair, their hard core support know this as well; though the camera clicking day-trippers (ourselves excluded) may struggle to recognise names such as Charlie George and Liam Brady, never mind Cliff Bastin and Eddy Hapgood.

In the ground, we took our seats in the East Lower, only 2 rows from the front, but it was an excellent view. Around us fans of many different nationalities spectated in semi excited silence; it was like an outdoor pantomime in many ways. The fact that everyone in the immediate vicinity bar us changed seats at some point in the evening added to the sense of it being more of a family outing than a serious game of football. However, it was a bloody good second half and it was blessed with 3 great goals. Firstly the impressive Kakuta set up Mouamba for an unexpected Bolton opener, before Ashavin and then Park scored beauties to win it for the Gunners, despite an exciting late Bolton flurry.

As I don’t do away games, I’m unlikely ever to be at the Emirates again, but I’m delighted I went. Ben had initially been a little intimidated by the intense nature of Finsbury Park, but he relaxed and enjoyed the evening once we’d left Seven Sisters Road behind, so I took him for a traditional night out in those parts. I had thought of the notorious Silver Bullet, but opted instead for a few quiet pints in the famous Arsenal boozer, the Twelve Pins. Lousy Guinness mind.

Next morning we had our “continental breakfast” (self-assembly ham and cheese toasted sandwiches and yoghurts), before heading to Covent Garden so Ben could buy some overpriced stuff from Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green shop, staffed by a couple of talking clothes horses with Hoxton fins that Nathan Barley would find parodic. Nice array of shirts on display, but I wasn’t allowed to buy any; Ben got a long sleeved Polo and a blouson jacket, with £5 change from a tom and a half. From here, we went to Parliament.

Queuing for entry, we were stood at the statue of Oliver Cromwell, which you’re unlikely to see at Hunky Dorys Park. I mused how history is told by the victor; to the English, he’s the father of democracy. To the Irish, he was a notorious butcher and mass murderer, who performed genocide on the Irish people. Ironically, the office where he signed Charles I’s death warrant is now occupied by the Labour MP Brian Donohoe, whose ethnic origins are fairly evident.

Passing through Westminster Central Hall to the Central Lobby, we were met by Mary Glindon, for what was the real purpose of the visit. Without being indiscreet, the former governor and student of the College, who had been a North Tyneside councillor for the ward in which I work, was a great supporter of our cause and gave UCU’s campaign her unequivocal backing. Even better, she took us for a tour of the Palace. We sat in the public gallery, received copies of the day’s order papers, took coffee on the next table to John Prescott (I didn’t see if he had 3 tins of Carnation Milk with his) and went out on to the terrace.

At that point I met someone who has been one of my heros for upwards of 35 years; Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover. At almost 80 years of age, he was as intellectually sharp as a tack and he gave a firm handshake, before launching in to an impromptu denouncement of the government’s policies and a call to Milliband to “realise that extra parliamentary protests are telling the party exactly what we should all realise; the fight doesn’t end on November 30^th, it starts then.” Inspirational stuff and even more important when he responded to my simpering and gushing by saying “we should always avoid the cult of personality.” It was an honour.

Having been shown to the tiny broom cupboard where Emily Davison, the suffragette who threw herself under the King’s horse in the 1913 Derby, had secreted herself, in order to fill in the 1911 census with the Palace of Westminster as her address, we took our leave of Mary. Frankly, this tour was the real highlight of our trip and I was both honoured and humbled to be shown around.

Anyway, from there we took the tube to Notting Hill Gate, took a trip down Portobello Road as the neighbourhood got progressively scruffier and scruffier, before stopping off in Rough Trade records, to get the new one from Veronica Falls and for Ben to purchase “Nevermind” by Nirvana. From there, we wandered up to Ladbroke Grove, which continues to be as intense as it was 25 years ago. Ben was clearly nervous in such surroundings, which are admittedly a far cry from the mean streets of High Heaton, so instead we got out of there to Euston Square and wandered down to Bloomsbury for a rather acceptable very late lunch / extremely early dinner at a little Italian place, before grabbing the train back. All in all, a great trip, spoiled only by Blackburn beating Newcastle after extra time but, as I said earlier, that’s for my next blog.