Maggie Fricker, Southampton Socialist Party and TUSC candidate Shirley by-election
I’m a health worker and community activist standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in the Shirley ward by-election in Southampton on 10 October.
Someone asked me why I was standing. Well, this is where I live, it’s home. It has a really strong sense of community and people look out for each other. This was ably demonstrated when an old fella collapsed on the High Street on market day. So many people stopped and offered help, I phoned for an ambulance, a retired paramedic took his pulse and shop workers brought out water and a chair for his wife.
Our little precinct is where people stop and chat and where we have a campaign stall on market days. Passers-by stop to talk about our posters, the state of the health service, the winter fuel allowance and the world at large. No one is impressed with the new Labour government, and most are angry and feel let down.
Later, as we canvass the flats behind the shops, people tell it as it is – they are worried and frightened for the future and see politicians as all the same. I explain that I’m not a politician looking for a cushy job, but a campaigner and fighter for something better, and that if elected I’ll stand up in the council chamber against every cutback, job lost, and service destroyed.
People are not sure, they like the idea of a people’s budget to identify what’s needed in the area to reopen the youth centre, Sure Start and the minor injuries walk-in centre. They nod when you say we must come together to fight for this, but most are tired and don’t see a way out. The need for a new mass workers’ party is evident at every doorstep. Word has got around that the council has spent £9 million on a consultancy firm to tell it how it can make more cutbacks in our city. “They are leaving us stranded”, one old lady says. Others discuss with us what we could have spent that money on – free school meals for every child in the city, support pensioners hit by the winter fuel allowance cut and start to build decent well-maintained council housing again.
If we used the millions of reserves Southampton has, and its borrowing powers, we could make a people’s budget a reality. This could raise people’s sights to join in struggle to demand the resources from central government we need.
