When comedian Karen Dunbar was asked on BBC Scotland’s Debate Night how we can tackle poverty, her answer was frank, forceful and sincere. “It’s back to what the system problem is: the pursuit of greed”, she said. “Until we actually start to look at how to look after each other holistically there’s nae point in just trying to answer a section of that question”.
In healthcare provision, ‘holistic’ is generally used to describe services that meet the needs of the ‘whole person’, individually. What if we made ‘holistic’ mean the whole system, bigger than one person, and including the communities of care that enable free and joyful lives, and the kinds of institutions that can sustain that vision of a socialised care service?
Not, in other words, like our current state. Today, disconnected and disintegrating services compound the challenges of life for people disabled and excluded by the barriers they face. At a recent meeting of the Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP), one claimant described the trap whereby the DWP’s instruction that she remains in Edinburgh was preventing her from travelling to the highlands to care for a parent who is approaching the end of life. Another comrade with serious mental health issues is a carer for their parent, but is denied a carer’s allowance alongside their limited independence payments.
Under Starmer, it is getting worse. UK Government ministers are on the prowl, portraying Britain’s workforce as feckless to justify a so-called ‘anti-fraud’ Bill, which claimants are bracing to resist. Meanwhile, Scottish Government ministers have scrapped plans for a National Care Service, shelving one of Nicola Sturgeon’s key promises and discarding the efforts of the Disabled People’s Movement, unions and others to develop a system that would give everybody dignity and decent care.
This issue takes stock of the setbacks, but it also points out the opportunities to regroup and reground the struggle for welfare and care in a more collective vision. Arianna Introna recalls the time ten years ago when Scotland was abuzz with aspirations for a better welfare state. Jen Bell explains why the demand for a Minimum Income Guarantee is the kind of radical demand that could give the Scottish Government a route towards making the DWP redundant or unworkable in Scotland. The next four articles present a set of fresh perspectives on the National Care Service from Disabled People’s Organisations, trade unions, activists, and academics who have watched the promises diminish then dissolve.
As these articles point out, the model of national care that was promised, unlike the original vision of the NHS as a publicly run service, did not set out to cleanse the care sector of the pursuit of profit and greed. Care would still have been a commodity to be sold on the market. Against the slogan of the disabled people’s movement, ‘nothing about us without us’, the private care industry held up watchwords of their own: ‘no patient without profit’. Yet while plans for the care service were no socialist White Paper, they did promise a more holistic model for looking after everyone. In any case, the dream is over, and thousands of people will remain reliant on erratic council provision, and left to their own communities and collective devices to look after one another.
Within the cracks in the welfare and care system, however, beautiful things can grow. Perhaps the failure of reform in Scottish care, and the reactionary moves of British welfare, will give rise to more creative forms of mutual support, akin to the kind of support offered by Technical Services Agency, an organisation set up in the eighties by community organisations, housing rights groups, and technical experts who put their skills at the disposal of those who needed services, and whose history is told by Colin Porteous.
The work of the TSA was part of the spirit of mutual service and solidarity that helped Glaswegians live better lives. Those ways of organising life are one of the many sides of the city captured in The Tenemental’s album about the historic radicalism and collective life of the city. The band’s political intention is explored by Robert Rae in his interview with songsmith and singer David Archibald. In Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Amber Ward finds more creative ways of raiding tombs and interpreting what’s disinterred in the light of our own times.
Since our last issue, we have lived through the historic development of a ceasefire and relief from the genocidal barrage of Palestine by Israel. Many on the left argue that more opportunities are now open up for solidarity and support as Palestinians rebuild and restore. We dedicate the second half of this edition to exploring the campaigns, alliances, attitudes and approaches that must guide this ongoing work.
Sofiah MacLeod lays out the strategy behind Zionists’ ongoing efforts to spread anti-Palestinian racism, while Henry Maitles explores the patterns of recent Zionist and anti-Zionist tendencies among Jewish people. Kate Nevans makes an argument that pro-Palestine people should not support the Houthis in Yemen. Daire Ní Chnáimh brings together evidence about the F- 35s that is forming the basis of a global campaign to take them from the skies. Finally, Phil Chetwynd and Vince Mills return to Scotland and to the ways that the lives of those living here have been shaped by the strength and sumud of Palestine
