The battle of the banners

Political conversations are everywhere.

Not all elections are like this. The last election was marked by apathy and the sense that, when it was over, the New Labour regime would continue. I heard discussions of how to vote that were marked by a sense of guilt and despair – we hadn't stopped the war in Iraq and the war-mongers were about to claim their electoral victory as popular endorsement. Thatcher's dreadful phrase “There is no alternative” hung over us.

I assumed this election would be similarly despairing. After the chancellors' debate on TV, when Darling. Osborne and Cable agreed that, whoever got in, the cuts would be deeper and more painful than under Thatcher, I settled into the gloomy certainty that the next five years would mean the rapid unravelling of everything I value in the hard-won welfare state. Worries about my parents and my children broke into my sleep and woke me in the middle of the night.

I'm still worried. But there's a new thrill in the air. Many young people who never voted before seem to have infected the public debate with their excitement and conviction that change and hope are possible. They aren't agreeing with one another and many are still uncertain how to vote, but they want to listen to the arguments and join in the debates. The power of a single vote makes them feel like citizens.

I was in Leicester yesterday when Nick Clegg visited. I've seen visiting politicians before and remember how, when Tony Blair came to Leicester in 1997, everything was stage-managed and spun to ensure good camera angles. Blair's campaign team provided the crowds with flags to wave, played music (D-ream) interminably and swept dissenters aside.

Nick Clegg's visit wasn't like that. Students, enjoying the sunshine and their last day of term, came to join the crowds and see what Clegg had to say. Most banners were home-made though a couple of Labour supporters brought their own banners to wave. Plainly Clegg's team was taken aback by the hundreds of people. I heard them on mobile phones: “Yes, there really are that many.” Then the battle bus arrived.

A narrow pathway meant that Clegg could get through the crowd, preceded by photographers and cameramen who found it hard to get the pictures they wanted. Clegg stopped as he walked to answer questions – a socialist friend of mine who came at my suggestion managed to ask him about students and bankers. She got an answer though I couldn't hear it.

There was a speech with questions and applause but I was too far away to hear. Instead of trying to break into the crowds I started taking photographs of the posters. The pair produced by the Politics and Pints society cheered me, though Clegg didn't accept their invitation to the pub.

There were more banners today at Nottingham's all-purpose, leftish-to-revolutionary May Day march. The organisers couldn't afford the marches usual base near the castle so had booked Victoria Park instead, to remind locals of the recent closure of the Victoria Baths nearby. The weather forecast threatened rain and gloom and I packed a waterproof jacket. I didn't need it.

There were fewer people than in previous years. With only five days till the election, some of the regulars may have been out campaigning. But there was still a good range of stalls including one celebrating Nottingham's radical history in which a loaf on a stick, decorated with a black ribbon, had served as an incitement to riot. Of course, someone was carrying a loaf on a stick. I couldn't resist a badge with the words “TO THE CASTLE”, recalling the burning of Nottingham Castle in the 1831 riot in support of the Great Reform Bill. I hope no-one arrests me for incitement to violence. I'm still a Quaker and a pacifist – but I can't help wanting to celebrate Britain's radical past and the workers who demanded that their voice be heard.

Women dancers, energetic and costumed as if for an extravagantly-pagan Morris, led the march. Various factions of the left chanted their competing slogans without getting further than detailed debates. Home-made banners greeted the shoppers of Nottingham, mostly with thoughtful, witty and challenging slogans that might make people think. (I was a little uncertain about the demand for “revolutionary praxis now” - the word“praxis” is underused in most conversations I have.) A gorilla danced and handed out leaflets for Greenpeace. I wondered where to fit into the march and found a place with CND and near Friends of the Earth.

Behind me two socialists had a lengthy discussion about how to vote. One argued that a Labour defeat was the only hope for radical elements in the Labour Party. I didn't catch the response. I wondered whether competing groups urging people not to vote, on the grounds that direct action is needed, were debating the best way not to put a ballot paper in the ballot box.

We walked, sang, chanted and danced past the derelict wreck of a business which still proclaimed in large, wrought-iron letters "PALMER & SON LTD. BYRON WORKS." I thought we made a cheerful display and was pleased to see answering smiles from some of the shoppers. There were cheerful displays everywhere. Outside the glossy new pawnbrokers with its shiny blue fascia, smiling young women handed out white and blue balloons.

It wasn't a long walk to Nottingham's speaker's corner, by the Brian Clough statue. The Clarion Choir were there to greet us. So was Robin Hood in a home-made and decorated banner-gown. I stayed for a while to listen to the songs and speeches, marvelling at how harmonious and tolerant Nottingham radicals can be on such occasions. I'd have liked to go back to Victoria Park with the march but my back was hurting. I slipped away and decided to blog about the march instead.

East Midlands Trains and the duty of care

When I was growing up, I felt secure travelling by tube and train. It helped that my dad worked for London Underground, mending the trains. Books like The Railway Children helped too. (Somehow I skimmed over the end of The Last Battle, even though I was a C.S. Lewis fan.) We had - or rather, my brother had - a train that went on a track past platforms and grass and trees. It was a wonder, with scenery constructed by Dad from kits and papier-mache.

I wanted my children to travel by trains too. It helped that we lived near a station and that trains were the quickest and cheapest way to town. As the children grew older, I bought them their young person's railcards and was anxious when they made their first train journeys alone. Children need to learn to travel independently. Earlier this year my son, who is now 16, went to London by train on his own to meet friends. Last weekend he was booked into a Quaker event. I saw him off on the train and gave him written instructions about the underground train he needed and where he was to meet the others. While he was on his way, he rang to check he was going the right way - and he sent me a text to say he'd arrived safely.

When I was my son's age, I knew the important rule of travelling alone. My parents told me, "If you lose your ticket, tell the guard and give your name and address." Of course, things have changed now. They should be easier since the internet makes it possible to buy tickets on-line.

I bought my son's ticket on-line using the East Midlands Trains website. That let me collect his tickets and seat reservations at my usual station - and I checked they were safely tucked in the wallet with my son's railcard. After all, they cost nearly £34.

But on Monday evening my son rang. He'd got his seat reservation but somehow he'd lost the return half of his ticket that went with it. And the people at St Pancras wouldn't let him on the train. To make things worse, the battery on his mobile phone was dying.

My son doesn't look any older than 16. He'd said goodbye to the organisers of the event and was alone in London with his suitcase and guitar. He didn't know what to do.

That's when I rang East Midlands Trains. I asked if someone could let my son on the train, offering to get a train part-way and join the same train so that I could pay the excess to the train staff. No, I couldn't do that. I asked if I could pay his fare by credit card so that he could get the train. No. So what could I do, given that my teenage son was stranded in London? I could go to my local station and ask the ticket office to help. It was a bank holiday evening and, although trains were still running, the ticket office was shut. The man on the phone gave me another number that might help, but warned me I'd have to pay full fare plus a £10 penalty charge.

It had gone 7.00 and the last train back left London at 8.30. I found someone else to ring the number and buy the ticket, hoping that my son, now without a working mobile phone, had heard my last advice to stay by the ticket office. I headed by train to Leicester. I could perhaps get help there and, if nothing else worked, I could get a train to London and stay there with my son. By this time I was very anxious.

Apparently the new phone number was useless. Someone had to reach a mainline railway ticket office to organise a replacement ticket - and it cost £73.50. Luckily my son was by the ticket office at St Pancras as required (my advice was based on guesswork). He was able to take the ticket and run for the next train. Meanwhile I was in Leicester and, although I knew a ticket had eventually been bought, I didn't know which train my son had caught. The station manager at Leicester was helpful and sympathetic. He contacted St Pancras and even found out which train my son had boarded. I waited to meet him for the return journey.

Accidents happen. People lose tickets. Younger, less-experienced travellers are more likely to have problems. But they need to learn independence.

Under-18s don't have credit cards to pay for new tickets. They are unlikely to have much money with them. My son got back safely only because it was possible for someone to drive to a mainline station (I don't have a car) and pay a large sum of money on my behalf by credit card.

Not everyone has a car.

Not everyone has a credit card - or enough money to pay a huge excess fare.

What would have happened if my son had planned to catch a later train? It took more than two hours to arrange for his return journey.

The East Midlands Trains staff I spoke to by telephone had no helpful advice to offer. They reckoned it wasn't their problem if a 16-year-old, still at school, was stranded in London, 120 miles away. It was his problem - and mine.

What would have happened if it hadn't been possible to pay the £73.50 East Midlands Trains demanded for a one way fare? I suppose my son would have been left to beg, or hitch, or sleep rough at the station. I wonder how many young people are forced into this position.

I'm told that in other countries, people have a legal duty of care for one another. Here the only duty of care seems to be for company profits. Train tickets used to be checked by the train guard - a comforting name that suggested he looked after passengers as well as the train. These days the people checking tickets have different titles: they are train managers and revenue protection officers.


It's nearly a week since I e-mailed East Midlands Trains to complain. No-one has replied. I'm not surprised. I've e-mailed East Midlands Trains before. It can take months to hear from them - if they reply at all.