Made glorious summer by this son of Cat. Well, we hope that the glorious summer will come, but like the winter of 44 years ago, we have plenty to face before then.
I have sympathy with those on strike or looking to strike. The Royal Mail staff who deliver the legally mandated universal postal service despite appalling management who have diverted almost £2 billion to shareholders since privatisation.
The lecturers at University of Cumbria, who are not just striking over pay but because they have been forced to take on more and more work and now have little time for delivering the true ethos of higher education, working with students and do so on precarious, temporary contracts and where pay inequality continues to raise concerns with the most recent report showing an increase in the hourly paid gap.
The train drivers who have been expected to work overtime every week because without it the train operators just cannot deliver a service. Where was the foresight to recruit? Was there even an incentive to recruit with the ridiculous rail franchising system? And now, faced with a major accident, it appears Northern Rail cannot run a bus or rail service!
While the person on the ‘anywhere in Cumbria’ omnibus may be blamed for Brexit despite the lies that was peddled at the time, they did not invade Ukraine. They did not ask for sloppy hygiene and animal husbandry failures in China which led to a pandemic. No one, making fortunes selling them cheap, shoddy, clothing, told them about sweatshops in Leicester, let alone Bangladesh, or the damage to the oceans by single use plastic.
No, as part of the social contract, they expected governments to plan for such eventualities, to have sufficient stockpiles of PPE without having to waste billions on playing catch up and lining the pockets of the ‘connected’ ones. They expected the government to ensure adequate supplies of energy with forward planning for renewables and nuclear not having to fall back on gas or oil. They expected government to set high but achievable environmental standards not cut back on inspections of sewage outflows.
People expected government to support agriculture to ensure, as far as is possible, a secure food supply, not pandering to those who insist on having avocados from Mexico on the table at Christmas or making deals with countries who treat their animals far worse than our laws allow. They certainly don’t want valuable farm land turned over to forestry so rich people can write off their carbon deficit.
People expected government to ensure that those services we rely on day in, day out, are available to us at a cost we can afford. Railways that have sufficient staff to run a service, a true commitment to a universal postal service, six days a week and 24/7 energy we can afford.
We also want to stay true to a National Health Service that rewards its staff for their commitment beyond standing on doorsteps clapping. We do not want those who want to enter the profession to pay for their learning and we want them, once qualified, to receive a wage commensurate to their responsibility. And we want a health service fit for purpose, not one sold to the highest American buyer.
Because of the failures of government, and not just this one, but over the past 70 years, where doctrine and dogma have replaced thoughtful governance, today we face 11 per cent inflation, energy restrictions, charity foodbanks that simply cannot keep up with demand and a health service that cannot attract sufficient staff to replace those voting with their feet.
Because of all this, nurses, for the first time in their history are planning to strike. Train drivers, schoolteachers, university lecturers, bus and drivers, the postie, civil servants and even some beer makers, are all on strike or are planning to do so.
Twelve years of having under inflation pay rises – if they received any pay rise at all – and they are saying in their hundreds of thousands, “we have had enough”.
In a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, until government eats a large dollop of humble pie and recognises that this is not an ‘us and them’ situation and that we are all in this together, there cannot be a meaningful dialogue with people struggling to feed their families or heat their homes.
The strikers may have to compromise on their demands but so too must government and they must do it now or the sun may be dimmed in 2023 for us all.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, from 2023, will be back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.