Coalition of Resistance | Dot Gibson - National Pensioners Convention |

AND PENSIONERS CONTINUE TO LEAD THE WAY!
The General Secretary of the National Pensioners' Convention advised those attending a meeting of the Coalition of Resistance not to underestimate the support pensioners can give to the campaign.  Yes, some may be slow moving, poor sighted and hard of hearing but they have enjoyed the benefits of the Welfare State and know what is at stake for the working class and lower middle class of this country.  


Their parents demanded, after the second World War, no return to the 1920's and 1930's lack of social care for working people.  The war had left Britain in a position of financial ruin much worse than today yet the newly elected Labour government was able to establish the National Health Service and all other sections of the Welfare State that became the envy of countries throughout the world.  And pensioners rightly ask, if it could be done then, then why not now?


(The difference is that in 1945 there was mass mobilisation of people demanding a better standard of living and social care and nobody was scared of using the word 'socialism')


This same question will be asked at the Monday 13th September meeting of the Barrow & Furness Pensioners' Association when a plan will be drawn up for conducting direct action in October.  


Clearly, the pensioners will rightly expect the local Trade Unions to support their action for two very obvious reasons: one, trade unionists will be pensioners themselves one day;  two, the protest is not just about pensions and care for the elderly, it is about resisting the most savage and wholesale attack on the standard of living of ordinary people this country has ever seen. 


If just a few local pensioners are left to engage in some form of civil disobedience to draw attention to the cuts programme this will be a huge condemnation of the apathy of the local population. Indeed, if the level of local support is the same as that given to the courageous pupils of Parkview School who stood alone in defence of their school against the proposed academy then protesting pensioners will be on their own.


When the well known comedian, Mike Harding, described Barrow in Furness as 'a medieval town (at the end of a 32 mile cul-de-sac)' he did not refer to the local architecture but to the peasant mentality of the local population (as he allegedly found it to be). And the word Barrow describes a mound in which the dead are housed.  Do the people here truly deserve this?  As it is said: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."