I don’t know about you, but the sight of the Conservative Party holding their National Conference in Manchester has turned my stomach.
Millionaires (many who inherited their wealth), standing under ‘For Hardworking People’ posters and spouting off about not getting something for nothing!
Irony not only lives, but is running around, shirt over it’s head, like a striker who has just scored a goal!
‘Conservative Party’ and ‘striker’ in the first 100 words!
The irony and stomach churning goes on however. The venue in Manchester, that is hosting the Conservative Party Conference, used to be a huge railway shed. It is called Manchester Central now in honour of its past.
It was built in 1880 by really hardworking people. People that the Tories and their ilk looked down upon (and still do). Disraeli had just given way to Gladstone as Prime Minister. You couldn’t describe either of them as a laugh a minute leader!
To say times for ordinary working people were tough would be putting it mildly. Working conditions were atrocious. Poverty, hunger and premature death were daily companions. Companions only to the hardworking people of course.
It wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that while this poverty, hunger and premature death was haunting the workers, the grandfathers and forefathers of the present Tory Cabinet were making their millions off the very backs of those hardworking people. Millions that would be passed on (for nothing)!
Something for nothing!
Another irony of course is that Manchester is the home of the first ever Trade Union Congress (TUC). This was held in 1868 at The Mechanics’ Institute.
There is no doubt that the workers that built Manchester Central were part of Trade Unions that were formed to defend and protect working people from the greed and ruthlessness of people like the current Tory Cabinet.
Those early pioneers of the TUC would have been proud to see over 55,000 Trade Unionists marching through the streets of Manchester, and past the conference venue, last Sunday (29/09/13) to oppose what the Conservative led Government is doing to the National Health Service in particular, and the Public Sector in general.
Hardworking people, giving up their own time, to show solidarity with the hardworking people of the past, the present, and the future.
The last irony that I will mention is perhaps the most poignant of all.
The Conservative Party held their conference a stone’s throw away from where the Peterloo Massacre took place on the 16th August 1819.
A demonstration, just like ours (but with 80,000), of ordinary hardworking people, marched through the streets and gathered at St Peter’s Fields (as I said not far from Manchester Central) to hear speakers oppose the poverty, the hunger, the greed of the rich and, at that time, a lack of universal suffrage.
This was the ‘austerity’ of the day. The rich getting richer - the poor getting poorer.
The local Cavalry (The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry)Â was sent in to disperse the crowd. They rode in with sabres drawn.
Nineteen men, women and children were murdered that day. Cut to ribbons at the end of Cavalry sabres, that a few years earlier, had been used at the Battle of Waterloo by the same troops.
Troops who had fought on the fields of Waterloo, under Wellington, and against armed French troops, were now cutting down innocent unarmed workers and their families on St Peter’s Field, under the instruction of the local magistrate.
Hence the name: Peterloo.
Anyway, all this irony brings me round to the point I was going to make at the start (but it would have made this blog very short if I had! (and less interesting I hear you say!))
The Trade Union movement has had a long, and sometimes painful, history. We will not go away.
What happens, and is said, in Manchester, has a direct impact within the London Ambulance Service.Â
When Tory ministers stand up inside a railway shed in Manchester to attack, misrepresent, smear and demonise us from behind a wall of steel and police on the outside, some managers and others think that they can do the same.
I say to them: take your blinkers off and think again. Don’t be used as the modern day Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry.
History is on our side.
By the way, Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt, the main speaker at St Peter’s Fields (never actually got to speak) was jailed for two and a half years for holding an illegal meeting.
In 1830 he was elected to parliament and led a march of 16,000 people from Preston to Manchester to hold a meeting on…………you’ve guessed it! St Peter’s Fields.
I do like a nice ending!
PS. London Ambulance Service headquarters are at Waterloo. Our Ex Chief Executive was called Peter.
There are no plans to change the name of the building!
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Eric Roberts
Branch Secretary.
