A week fraught with activity

Well, I’ve had a busy week.

Started it off in Warwickshire, talks with MPs from all the legislatures of the British Isles.

Rather fraught as you can imagine, with Brexit (or lack of ) high on the agenda, as well as abortion in NI, crossborder smuggling on the island of Ireland, and great concerns from all about the confusing messages from the UK Government.

Despite all the Brexit angst, this week in East Kilbride has been uplifting for me – as always when I am able to get out and about and meet so many great people in the town.

I managed along to East Kilbride Citizens’Advice Bureau AGM for the first time in a few years. What a resource they are – staff and volunteers – working hard for the community, delivering advice and support services.

The figures they reported though are worrying, with consumer debt and benefit cases increasing, and accounting for 75 per cent of the overall workload of the bureau.

Over the year the CAB team of eight staff and 17 volunteers have dealt with nearly 9000 issues, and they reckon to have assisted clients to the tune of over £750,000 worth of what they refer to as Client Financial Gains. Crucial work. I know from my own caseload that the reform of the benefits system and general austerity is causing real hardship for many. Thank goodness for the commitment and expertise of CAB, working from their town centre office and in Hairmyres, Greenhills and Strathaven.

More good work of volunteers was apparent too when I called up to Calderglen High School for the Clyde Wind Ensemble Concert. They were fantastic, as was the Calderglen High School Ceilidh Group.

Ten years since the ensemble was formed and they’ve gone from strength to strength. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, I am sure, when they finished their concert with a grand rendition of Highland Cathedral, complete with piper.

There was a piper leading the way too when I was honoured and privileged to be part of the opening ceremony to unveil‘Bob’s Engine’, sited at South Lanarkshire College.

For those who know the story of Nae Pasaran, this engine is the original from Pinochet’s Chile that Bob Fulton and his workmates in Rolls Royce refused to work on. It was found in Chile, returned to Scotland and represents

There are still concerns over what government are saying...

the solidarity of workers across continents.

Bob Fulton and workmates Robert Somerville, John Keenan and Stuart Barrie, the heroes of the Nae Pasaran film made by Felipe Bustos Sierra, are typically reticent about the achievement of themselves and their Rolls Royce colleagues back in the 1970s.

What a legacy they have created though – proof that when people stick to their principles and do the right thing, although it may not seem that it makes a difference at the time, it absolutely can and does.

The Nae Pasaran story is poignant currently when we see such unrest across the world; in Syria where the Kurdish population has been sold out by the USA, in Hong Kong, Catalonia and indeed Chile itself again where people are fighting for their democratic rights.

Community action is a crucial element of any democratic society. The right to protest is precious and we should never ever take it for granted.