“I want to tell the truth about the crime of austerity”


Nancy Taaffe, TUSC’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Walthamstow, spoke to the Socialist.

Why are you standing?

I’m a socialist and a Socialist Party member who has fought every cut and privatisation in my home borough of Waltham Forest for nearly 30 years. I stood for parliament in 2005 against then Labour MP Neil Gerrard who debated with me and said that PFI privatisation at our local hospital was “the only show in town”. That ‘show’ has led to our stroke unit being closed and moved miles away.

I had my two children in the local hospital Whipps Cross and they went to local schools. I worked for Waltham Forest libraries for 12 years before my job was deleted in 2012 due to cuts. So I have been both a user of public services and a provider of them.

I loved my job in the library – serving local school children and the elderly who were housebound. I shall never forgive those who elevated their salaries and expenses and gladly cut jobs and services for the Tories and their mates in the city.

This is part of the reason why I am standing, I want to whistleblow in the most public arena, an election. I want to tell the truth about the crime of austerity being perpetrated against working class communities and their families.

What are your plans for the campaign?

We are outsiders who are fighting to be noticed, so we’ll be as lively and imaginative as we can. We think it’s important to have a campaigning routine so we have decided to make Monday morning ‘TUSC morning’.

We have our trusty TUSC trolley and our banner (erected with some bungee ropes and hiking sticks!) and we set up in key sites around the borough and hand out our bright pink leaflets. These activities are designed to make a splash, make some noise and raise some cash.

We produce a regular e-newsletter called Nancy Newsflash Newsletter, sent to around 200 people. Then it goes on our blog and round social media. I have nearly 3,000 followers on Twitter and regularly get retweeted by various groups from within the borough.

I’m speaking soon at the London region of the firefighters union FBU and I intend to speak at a trades council and college hustings.

We want to visit as many primary schools in the constituency as possible. Young families are particularly open to bold socialist ideas and we think that many of our 5,500 votes in the local elections last May came from this section of people. This was particularly because we focussed our campaign on the demand for rent control, which we will still be talking loudly about this time round.

Why is housing such a key issue for TUSC?

Many (particularly young) people feel that the basic right to housing is being denied. Council homes are almost impossible to get, buying is out of the question for most and in January this year the average rent in London was £1,418 a month – and it’s rising all the time.

We held various meetings and started to raise the demand of rent control. We’ve initiated a rent control petition, hoping to force a council discussion on the issue and we have been campaigning on the streets and outside the colleges.

I participated in the organising committee of the March for Homes in January and spoke at the start of the east London leg. In the capital many groups have been leading really inspiring campaigns for decent housing – the New Era estate and E15 mums are probably the most well-known. TUSC has supported all of these and thinks that they need to be linked up and to have a political voice.


TUSC

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an electoral alliance that stands candidates against all cuts and privatisation. It involves the RMT transport workers’ union, leading members of other trade unions including the PCS, NUT and POA, as well as the Socialist Party and other left and anti-cuts groups and individuals.

www.tusc.org.uk