Mon 27 Apr 2020, 04:46 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Tom Smith, Newport West Labour member
I am sitting at the doorstep drinking tea and smoking a cigarette. A few people go by and I try my best to strike up conversations about how they are getting on. One says to me, he needs to get home, wash his hands and keep five thousand miles from others to avoid death.
However, there was the one who said to me this. “All the attention is now of getting back to work. All the press are baying for it, all the TV channels are speculating about it and I see pressure from Tory paymasters is self-evident.” I might add that I am using the politest language, because this worker did express his views in X- rated terms.
“Well”, he said, “stuff them”. (Once again polite language). “If I return to work on whose terms. I am well aware that this government did nothing in January or February to plan a response to the outbreak. We have a prime minister who took a couple weeks off on holiday, missed key meetings and shoved us into a lock down. We have those briefings that huffed and puffed about how well the government was doing whilst nurses, doctors and other key workers were dying because of the lack of proper safety gear.”
By this time he was in rage, before finally calming down.
The thing is that nothing works without us. It is not the government who organises food parcels and visits those who have nothing in isolated conditions. How about our leaders coming out with demands that will benefit us if we go back to work? How about every worker get a decent hourly rate for a start?
I see MPs getting ten thousand pounds for working at home, in safety. The nurses and doctors are getting nothing and are risking their lives. How about sick pay, holiday pay, free education and a proper NHS for all?
Careful, I said, that fellow Raab thinks we are the laziest workers in Europe. The Tories want to privatise the NHS and scrap a pile of health and safety laws. They want the young to have loans instead of job-seekers allowance.
“Oh well” he said, “at least they do not grovel before Trump on everything. They are not insisting we glug down a pint of drain cleaner”.
