This is the text of a speech I plan to give at 4pm this afternoon. I hope it doesn't flop. Also, I might have gotten a little bit preachy. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for inviting me. The internet tells me that 1500 words is about right for 10 minutes, so I’ve written around 1200 and hope that I don’t annoy my timekeeper!

Firstly, I am an atheist, but grew up in the church, and recognise it’s goodness, community and energy.

Secondly, I speak for myself, not for Occupy. No-one can speak for such a diverse group.

Since this is a Christian audience, I ought to start with Christ. When I was writing this at 3am this morning, I was wondering what on earth I could say to a church audience. The occupy movement certainly isn’t identified with any particular faith, and in fact pissed off quite a few in the church by camping outside so many cathedrals.

But the church has long been a safe haven for those striving for justice. In my insomnia, I dug out my old confirmation bible, and was drawn to the beatitudes. Let me remind you of a couple:

Blessed are those who mourn...

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness...

There is much to mourn in our public life, and much that we can hunger and thirst to improve. Governments run by our rich elites all over the world are seeking to fix the latest crisis of capitalism on the backs of those who bear the least responsibility, but also can least afford to fix it.

Righteousness here is often translated as justice. Well, I hunger and thirst for justice, and across the world yesterday many who feel the same way were persecuted for fighting for justice.

I don’t want to stand up here and just mouth off about the police and the terrifying developments in policing that the occupy movement has highlighted, although that is both happening and terrifying.

Ordinary people are paying the price for greed and avarice.

Let’s start locally.

Crises don’t start all at once, and the roots of the current crisis go deep. It’s impossible to live in Sheffield without seeing the deep and socially painful shadow cast by the decline in manufacturing in this country. We are often told that this is unavoidable, and simply a consequence of market forces which have been in motion since before I was born. Economic experts and a succession of chancellors have told us that there is nothing they can do. The hard-won expertise in manufacturing in Britain just has to be allowed to die, because living costs here are too high.

If you want an at-length take-down of this argument, I can recommend a couple of books, but suffice it to say that this isn’t so. For a start, we are in urgent need of a green economy and alternatives to fossil fuels, all of which require advanced manufacturing techniques not yet available in less technologically advanced countries. Forgemasters makes a good case study for this. Some time ago, our elites decided to abandon the manufacturing working class of the UK.

We were told that we needed to move to an ‘information economy’ which no one quite seems to understand, but hey, we did what we were told, and trained hard. Throughout my school career, there were 4 years I did not face standardised national testing. The neoliberal government of 1997 under a Labour banner told us that it’s focus was on education, education, education, and we did what we were told – we learnt.

Has it helped?

Looking at my social circle, I don’t think it has. On an individual level, I will always be a fan of educating yourself and learning for the joy of learning. But that’s not the job of government. They should be looking ahead, planning and supporting future industry, and growing the workers of the future, in all fields and at all levels. A plumber has to be trained and supported no less than a doctor. And I’ve tried bricklaying – it’s surprisingly skilled work and I made a complete mess.

The student loan is an insidious beast, and has allowed a further abdication of responsibility on the part of successive governments. Now, rather than the state being responsible for working out training priorities for the country as a whole, and funding those places for those who are best qualified for them, the responsibility is now on the individual, at the age of 17 or 18, to not only decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but to take on a colossal burden of debt for themselves and often their families, in pursuit of dreams which, it turns out, were made of smoke.

I have many friends who went to university to pursue their dreams. I would say in my extended social circle I know over 100 graduates. At least 20% of them are currently unemployed. Most of those who are lucky enough to have jobs are overqualified for them – one is working as a cashier, another as a cleaner. My husband uses his art and philosophy to operate a photocopier. Many are working fewer hours than they want to. Maybe 5 have been able to follow their dreams and now earn a living doing what they love and indebted themselves to study.

And it is all an abdication of responsibility, a casting of student-as-customer that wasn’t there when my parents met at Cambridge in the late 70s. 

And this isn’t even starting on the abandonment of trades and apprenticeships.

Elsewhere too, the implicit social contract has been broken. For decades, national insurance, social security and remortgages backed by the FSA have been shoring up the gaps left between ever-growing inflation and ever-stagnant wages for all but those at the top.  Out of work benefits are being cut ferociously to ‘make work pay’ with no regard for the fact that there is in most cases no work to be had.

It is worse if you are a woman. It is worse if you have a regional accent. It is worse if your skin is not white. It is worse if your health is unreliable or reliably bad. It is worse if you are old. It is worse if you are queer. It is worse if your family are poor. It is worse if you are young.

The most blessed and privileged of our country have for time immemorial been trying as hard as they can to extract our labour for their pleasure. After the second world war, under the influence of the singular genius of John Maynard Keynes and the blood-won victories of the working classes, the tide started to turn. We got a national health service. There was at least lip service paid to the idea of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’.

The occupy movement has shown that there is energy for change. But how can all this energy be directed? Can we bring together these disparate groups to fight for justice? And what part can or should the church play in this?

I wish I knew the answer. But unless we solve this, those of us who care for those who cannot care for themselves may well be just the 'stiff opposition' that historians write about from a corporate neoliberal future. One with no space for the old, the unproductive, the sick or the artist.

Thank you.

So, in a change from all the other days ending in 'y', the internet has been having a go at Laurie Penny.

Cards on the table, I'm a fan of Penny. She's smoked my tobacco. We've chatted about polyamory. And she's been, along with others, a big influence on my political development over the last 2 years or so.

So. There are vague rumours that Penny's been making stuff up or embellishing the facts to fit the narrative she wants for an article. However, when Brian Whelan looked into it, he decided not to publish. This is not Hari over again.

Here's the thing. I like my journalists with personality. Like Penny, I have read and enjoyed Transmetropolitan. Spider Jerusalem is a wonderful creation, but objective he ain't. And neither's Penny. I don't want my news produced by a machine, and would rather that the writer acknowledge and state their bias than pretent they don't have one.

Penny has set herself a large task. As far as I can work out, she is seeking to document, record and propagate the global war of the powerless against the powerful. That's no small task. And not an easy one.

That said, we need to have standards. But nothing is more likely to engender my trust that someone admitting a mistake and acknowledging a lesson learnt. I don't know the content of the conversations between Penny and Whelan, but if there are things she needs to fess up, now's the time.

I really hope we don't lose this powerful voice for the voiceless.

Okay, I have half an hour to blog. Let's see how fast I can type / think / edit!

I spent this weekend in London visiting friends and it was lovely. But getting around isn't quite so much fun.

Every time I visit, new things hit me about how impersonal London is, and how disconnected everyone is from their fellow Londoners. On the first tube I got onto on Friday evening, a man got on who was walking with a crutch. I was sitting in the priority seat, so obviously (I say obviously, I was in the furthest one from him and no-one else got up) I got up to let him have my seat. He didn't sit down. He delivered an impassioned plea to the carriage for people to help him. He had worked for 30+ years and paid income tax. He had been injured in an industrial accident which was why he couldn't work. He was homeless. He just wanted enough for a hot meal. And he was ignored. I was on quite a tight budget this weekend, so I couldn't help him with cash, but he said he could find a use for my squash, so he got that from me. But nothing from anyone else. How could someone so obviously in a desperate situation be ignored like that? I was shocked.

When I met up with my friends, they told me that this was quite common. Later that night I cried for the man whose name I wish I'd asked for.

This doesn't happen in Sheffield. I have a theory for why, and it's the oyster card.

As soon as I got back to Sheffield, I got on a tram to go home. Unlike the tube, there are buttons. You have to signal if you want the tram to stop, and press another button to open the doors.
As a passenger, you have more control over the journey. And trams have conductors. To get a ticket, you have to talk to someone. An interaction which requires a 'please' and 'thank you', and frequently involves comments about the weather, compliments for outfits (last night for a group of middle-aged women who had obviously made an effort and looked great got praise from the conductor and had a bit of a giggle together) and banter about how the Tories are rubbish.

And there are differences on buses too. In London, you don't need to talk to the driver - just do the oyster thing (no-one I saw this weekend even said thank you to the driver except me). In Sheffield, you have to buy your ticket with words, and to not say thank you when getting off? Well - you'd better have a good reason.

Also, it's a small thing, but accents are important. In London, all transport announcements are in received pronouciation. In Sheffield, you hear the local accent. It's just more personal. It reminds you that the people around you are people, not just bodies.

Last night there was a very interesting meeting in Sheffield on lobbying, run by Unlock Democracy and various others. I heard about it from the wonderful @stavvers.

The evening introduced me to the wonderful Spinwatch, gave me a new respect for Paul Blomfield MP (Lab), and an opportunity to let of some steam at a Lib Dem.

After the inital speakers spoke, I wanted to make some points. I did (mostly) but also told the Lib Dem that he and his party were the quisling facilitators to an evil empire. This meant that my points were kinda mostly lost in the 'OMG look at the ranty woman' reaction.

Here are my points re lobbying:

1. There was some discussion and some points made in the initial speeches around what organisations should be included in these proposals, and whether charities should be exempt. (There's also an article about this in today's Guardian.) I think this is a red herring. There are plenty of reasons to have a definition of lobbying that doesn't go near whether or not an organisation is a charity. For a start, although we can all see the wisdom of finding out when and how often Big Pharma Inc. has met with the health minister, would it also not be interesting to see how well and effectively your trade union is using it's funds, and what sort of splash it's making? (See Dave Prentis, head of my union, who appears to be in it for stomach rubs from George Osborne. Twat.)
2. The first point that I brought up was one of the ones I made a few posts back about people who are elected to a national position not being able to earn future income. Over the course of the evening this was discussed a bit, and the feeling of the room appeared to be that rigorous regulation of the jobs that senior civil servants and former elected representatives hold, and preventing them from lobbying for 5 years after they leave office, would be a good thing and something to aspire to.
3. I also raised the point that transparancy around money in lobbying and tax transparance have a nice synergy, and that current public anger could be funnelled (with, or course, willing politicians - any volunteers?) into making big changes in what is demanded from organisations spending money on Westminster, and can feed into the whole tax justice thing as well.
4. Tony Kennick, a person I don't know nearly as well as I'd like, was also at the event and was advocating that all data that isn't covered under the data protection act be published. I kinda like this idea, and it would certainly open things up. On the other hand, there was a lady who was asking for information to be presented in simple formats and to be easy to understand, and if Tony had his way, he and his fellow geeks would have to help out with interpreting this flood of information for those less willing / able to wade through piles of data.

That said, it was very satisfying to let a LD know exactly what I think of what his party has done with my vote.

A while back, I watched the film 'In Time' (because I have an embarrassing crush on both Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried). A central premise of the film is that there is only so much time (which in this fictional universe is also money and life) to be had, and the only way that it is created is when people turn 25, when they get a single year. Time must be earnt and spent. There is a fixed amount of time in existance. In order to get more time, you must somehow take it from other people, although as with our financial system, this is often done very indirectly. Vincent Kartheiser's character in the film is one of the winners from this system, and says the quote in the title. 

Our current economic system may not be so blunt (or, indeed, so predictable once the premise and basics of the plot are outlined, but hey, at least the film was pretty, and was good to knit along to), but the same principles apply. For a few to live in unspeakable luxury, many must suffer.

I dream of the day when we live in a post-scarcity society. If we were smarter about power generation we could be there with energy already. We are mostly there with information and learning through the internet, although access to qualifications is still tightly controlled. It's fairly well understood that the housing supply in the UK would be less overstretched if some elements of the housing stock weren't kept empty for financial reasons. Food supplies are stretched in many places across the world.

Let's take the first case. Currently, there genuinely isn't enough power being generated to supply everyone with as much as they want. There is currently a scarcity of energy. If we were smart about energy production (and people were less concerned with what wind turbines look like, or actually investigated current nuclear power generation rather than getting scared over 1950s horror stories) we might not be able to supply all our energy wants, but we'd be a lot closer. And without fossil fuels, too. 

How about information and learning? This is more complex. The internet has fundamentally changed the availability of information. Sites like Wikipedia and the Khan Academy make information easy to access. I taught myself to knit from being a beginner to a very advanced level entirely through YouTube videos. (Incidentally, this is where my internet handle comes from. I am fearless knitter in that I am never intimidate by a pattern. I'm plenty fearful in other areas, although I try to combat this instinct.) But not all information is free. Ben Goldacre and George Monbiot have done some good work on the availability of academic research. And when you start getting onto accreditation for learning, qualifications are getting more and more expensive. So what is really scarce here? The learning, the knowledge, or the prestige? And why?

On to housing. Housing prices and rents in the UK are historically and internationally high. There are many reasons and theories about why this is the case, and whether there actually is a shortage of housing, or if it's just unevenly distributed. 

And then food. There is a fair amount of evidence that there is, at least for the moment, enough food for everyone on the planet. There is no need for anyone to go hungry.

However, here's the big 'but'.

The amount of food in finite. In the language of economics, this makes it a scarce resource. In fact, looked at right, oxygen is a scarce resource. And the more one person or group of people has of a scarce resource, the less there is for everyone else.

All of which makes me kinda hate people who say, 'don't be jealous just because I have stuff. If you work hard, you could have stuff too!' Because that ain't the case. If there is a finite amount of a certain kind of stuff, there may be enough for everyone, but the more inequitable the distribution of that stuff, the more likely it is that there will be people who don't have enough.

That's the heart of socialism, right there, and the basis of all criticism of capitalism. It's not hard to understand. If there is a limited amount of stuff (money, food, shelter etc) then the more that is taken by those at the top, the less there is available for those at the bottom. Some people think that's okay, and that you should just develop sharp elbows to make sure you're not at the bottom of the heap. I am not okay with that. I think we're better than that. 

We all know, now, three years after the release of The Spirit Level, that inequality causes suffering in so many ways. We live it every day. We know things need to change. 

Our parliament would like us to believe that we can choose our way out of this. That we can make 'informed choices' as 'empowered consumers'. But some of us know, and many more of us suspect, that this is a false choice. Reading Richard Murphy's recent book The Couragous State helped me understand this, and I recommend it unreservedly.

So how do we fix it?

I think the time is right for a new political party. And here are some things I think it should do:

• Rather than pushing the responsibility for education onto the individual, it should acknowledge the state's role to grow the workers of the future, in all fields and at all levels, on the public purse, for the good of us all. 
• Rather than asking the markets to magically and inexplicably innovate for the good of mankind, it should acknowledge the state's responsibility to fund research and incubate good ideas into viable industries.
• Stop fiddling around the edges of the climate change challenge and work wholeheartedly for a zero-carbon energy solution.
• Require residency and full tax reporting and compliance for all companies wishing to do business in the UK. No pussy-footing, no fines - if they don't comply, they can't trade here.
• Acknowledge our role and history in the continuing humanitarian crisis across the developing world, and work with (not dictate to) them and their governments to make the world fairer and to help the human race move beyond collonialism and slavery.
• Make politics a vocation, not a job. If you are elected to central government, you can never hold another job or receive any other income from any source, ever, from the day you are elected. This would cost us in pensions for politicians who have lost their seats, but would effectively make it impossible to bribe those who are meant to be our servants. 
• Acknowledge that a person's worth is not limited to their financial income. Some people cannot earn a wage. That doesn't make them worthless. As fellow human beings, we have a duty to support them. 
• Support the NHS as a national, state-funded institution providing restorative and preventative care to all, free at the point of need. It is one of the best things this country has ever built. (If you truly believe that nationalised healthcare is a bad idea, I'm not really sure I want you in my species.)
• Make use of new technology (much of which has transitioned to a post-scarcity state) to improve democracy and political responsiveness.

Most of these ideas are not mine. I can't do this on my own, and if it was just me, then that would be proof that it was the wrong thing to do. I think this is a good set of ideas. A good starting point. What do you think? 

Why is it that despite widespread anger and opposition to the government in the UK, and the neoliberal power worldwide, that we cannot oppose this sufficiently?

What is our problem?

We are divided. Leaderless. We are so keen on being right, and not stamping on the beliefs of others, that all our beliefs get stamped on. 

There are so many groups on the left. The Labour Party doesn't really count anymore, and the Lib Dems - well, let's not get started.

But there are so many little groups with small memberships. Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_left#Other_groups There are so many socialist groups. Marxist groups. Democratic groups. And then there are the single issue campaigns. And Occupy and it's hangers on.

How can all this energy be directed? Can it be directed? Is it possible to unite the left without destroying its essence? Can we bring together these disparate groups to fight against the current neoliberal consensus, against the false narrative of 'there is no alternative' without those groups losing the diversity and originality that draws in many of their members?

I wish I knew the answer. But unless we solve this, we may well be just the 'stiff opposition' that historians write about from a corporate neoliberal future, one with no space for the old, the unproductive, the sick or the artist.

I've had a couple of really interesting discussions over the last couple of days, and I wanted to get some initial thoughts down in writing before they fly out of my head.

Firstly, I had an interesting discussion with an older Quaker about the effect of internet connections on perceptions of equality among those who have never been adults in a world in without the internet. His theory was that this has a profound effect on the assumption of and desire for equality. That if you know and relate to people online, then distinctions of social class, style of dress, gender, bought infuence and so many other things cease to matter. 

The second was a discussion this evening at dinner with some fellow left wingers in Sheffield, on the current preoccupation with process over position. One of the other guests made the point that there is a lot of focus at the moment on the way decisions are made, and that this seems almost more important than the decisions made through that process.

So I got to thinking. And had a thought. It might be a good one. 

I want to record this thought, but would like to stress I've no idea yet if it's any good. :)

I think that the zeitgeist is obsessed with process because of a desire for equality. The current consensus of those in power is in many cases incomprehensible. For the social circles, online and off, that I move in, many of the views and actions that are followed seem incoherent. But no matter how hard people try to challenge those views and actions, nothing seems to change. 

And so people try to change what they can. Since changing majority opinion seems impossible, we try to change the way that decisions are made in the groups we are a part of. We try to come up with a perfect, more equal system. We try to convince ourselves that if we come up with a perfect system, everyone will suddenly see that this is the way to do it, and everything will change. 

We are a generation obsessed with power, because we have so little. 

I am lucky. I choose not to go to university, so I have no student debt. I was eventually lucky in the job market, so currently have a job I enjoy that pays me a living wage. Many of my university-educated friends are not so lucky, and scores of them are temping or on JSA, desperately trying to avoid sickness or sanctions and stay off the streets. 

So many of us have so little to lose, and so little to bargain with. So why not run thought experiments where you try to change the world and come up with a perfect system? It's just as likely as getting a well-paid job that you enjoy and achieving personal stability.

Sub-thought: If this is how disenfranchised white middle class university educated young people in Sheffield are, is it any surprise that there were riots last summer?

I have many books I haven't finished. I'm just putting this list here so I know where to start:

BOOKS I'VE NOT YET STARTED:

• Jack London, White Fang
• Edwin A Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
• D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (might as well see what all the fuss was about)
• Aristotle, Politics: A Treatise on Government (for some reason I keep putting this one off...)
• Bram Stoker, Dracula
• Daniel Dorling, Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists
• William Morris, News from Nowhere
• The Communist Manifesto (Oh man, I've been meaning to read this for ages...)
• Emma Goldman, Marriage and Love
• Paul Mason, Live Working or Die Fighting
• Voltairine de Cleyre, Sex Slavery
• Elizabeth C Mock, Shatter (The Children of Man)
• Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

BOOKS I'VE STARTED AND INTEND TO FINISH:

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
• Violet Blue, Fetish Sex
• Ben Goldacre, Bad Science
• Scott Bakker, The White Luck Warrior
• Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level
• Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans
• Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays
• Jeff Carlson, Long Eyes (recently discovered this dude, he's AWESOME! Srsly, if you like sci fi, find and read this dude's stuff. Well worth it. Also, another recent sci fi discovery - Christian Cantrell, start with Containment. Both highly recommended.)

BOOKS I'VE STARTED AND AM UNLIKELY TO FINISH:

• Tony Blair, A Journey (I heard about the Awful Scene and it kinda put me off reading any further.)
• John Lanchester, Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay
• David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital

I should really look at this list before buying any more books. (Can ya tell I'm ADD? Yeah, it's pretty obvious from this...)

Big ol' trigger warning for rape.

I am a member of a club that no one wants to join: my first sexual experience was not consensual.  I know and know of way too many people for whom this is also true, and it's got me thinking about the language that we use around virginity. 

Most of the time, when you talk about that awesome time you got together with your sweety and did 'it' for the first time, you call that 'losing your virginity'. I think it would make far more sense to talk about 'giving your virginity'. 

Okay, some background to how I came to this conclusion. I was raped when I was 13 and oh so very very innocent. I had no idea what was happening. I didn't even know the right names for the bits of me that were being violated. I knew that my parents were very keen on me marrying as a virgin, so I didn't even tell them it had happened because I couldn't face them knowing that not only had I been brutally assaulted, which was by then over and they couldn't change, but that also I had had my virginity taken from me, and I figured they were better off not knowing. I also repressed the whole thing to deal with later. Which turned out to be about the age of 20.

I had my first consensual sexual experience a few months before I turned 19, but I didn't at that point think that I was losing my virginity - I thought I'd already lost that. I thought I was spoilt goods in that sense - I could be 'good', but I would never be best, and could never marry in white. 

When I did get around to dealing with the whole rape thing (my subconcious figured I was ready to deal, so dumped it all in my lap - fun times) one of the things I had to think through was the virginity thing. Was it time to re-think my earlier assumptions? I knew that from a technical point of view my hymen was no more. But I hadn't bled during the rape, so I figure that it had been broken before that through heavy exercise, which is possible, and, to be fair, likely given the amount of running, irish dancing, climbing, lacross and general other activity I was into at the time. So what had actually changed?

I came to the conclusion that the only change was in my memory. I hadn't undergone some mystical transformation from 'pure' to 'sullied'. And I came to the conclusion that virginity cannot be taken unless it is first given. 

(Incidentally, this also made me retrospectively regret the time I actually gave my virginity, as, had I been thinking about it differently, I would have valued it more, and not given the experience to such a total fucking loser, whilst drunk, when I had only known them 6 hours. Me, I'm classy.)

This subtle shift in language can have big consequences. Consider this exchange:

Spotty Teen 1: 'So, did you guys do it?'

Spotty Teen 2: 'Yeah, I totally took their virginity!'

Spotty Teen 1: 'Way to go!'

And how it would differ with new language:

Spotty Teen 1: 'So, did you guys do it?'

Spotty Teen 2: 'Yeah, they totally gave me their virginity!'

Spotty Teen 1: 'Way to go!'

There's not that much difference in the actual words, but the tone is completely different. 

Also, putting aside the heartache that would be saved by the unwilling members of my club by the removal of the doubt about virginity, think of the change in attitudes this could induce. If virginity is something that is given rather than taken, then that subtly shifts sex from being something that one person does to another, to something that two people do together. All in a mode of speech. That, if widely used by teachers in sex ed classes, should only take 15 - 20 years or so to become the accepted and expected way to discuss this.

So, you! Start now! Language evolves through usage. And usage can be conciously changed for positive social progress. Get to it!