A Walk in the Park

We took a walk in the park on Saturday, along with about 500,000 other families, trade unionists, students, teachers, nurses, public servants and ordinary working folks. I am not a member of a union these days, but my sister walker is. We wanted to walk with our neighbours. Many carried placards decrying the brutal cutting of public services in the United Kingdom. Our communities are losing libraries, hospital services, policing, support for the poor and sick, and many other services. Many of the walkers will feel the pain of the cuts worse than we will. We are okay, actually, though our beloved local library will be closed and replaced with a skeleton service run by volunteers. That's bad enough but let's hope they don't want to run hospitals or police services like that. I wouldn't put it past them. The coalition government seems to think it is payback time. They want to turn services like hospitals and schools over to their corporate friends who have been supporting the Lib Dem and Conservative parties for a long time. I kid you not. They say we have too much debt. I say any debt is too much but if my family was in debt I wouldn't cut it all at once and starve the kids. Wouldn you? And they ignore the fact that much of the debt comes from stupid wars, unpaid taxes by the elite and big corporations and the banks, which set off the current spate of depressing economic woes. They call all these cuts and favours to business the Big Society. They say we are all in it together and everyone has to feel the pain. The shameless right-wing media in this country supports the big lie. We took a walk in the park on Saturday to remind them we know they are lying. They think we're done now, we've had our walk. They're wrong. Pay heed. The Big Society Library doors shut so Blackheath Village mourns the Big Society.