Like many thousands of others in London, Glasgow and Belfast, I'll be joining the TUC March for a Future demonstrations tomorrow. I and other library workers and campaigners plan to meet at 11 on the Embankment opposite Middle Temple Lane, under the Speak Up for Libraries banner. Join us, if you can.
Everyone will have their own reasons for marching. I'm marching for libraries, of course, but also for education, health, housing, inudstry, full employment, everything that makes a modern civilisation. I have to confess, though, that I have some difficulty with the TUC's portrayal of this as a march against 'austerity'. What austerity? There have been times in our history, the war and its immediate aftermath being the most recent example, when austerity was practiced.
Looking round Britain under the coalition, or under the Blair-Brown government, I see no evidence of 'moral strictness, self-discipline, self-restraint', to quote the OED, whether I look at MPs' salaries and expenses, the gas companies' price hikes, the privatisation of the NHS or the costs of waging war in Afghanistan, to name but a few. Austerity is another example, like collateral damage, friendly fire, enhanced interrogation, of words being twisted to mean their opposite. When Cameron, Clegg and Osborne speak of austerity, they are abusing the language to hide the truth. We should not give it currency.