Tent city

The 300 protesters camped outside St Paul's Cathedral in London seem rather confused. What exactly are they trying to achieve?

They're supposed to be taking a stand against nasty old capitalism and all its works, but all they seem to be doing at the moment is disrupting a place of worship which has more or less closed down because of the tent city.

St Paul's says it's losing about £20,000 in income a day, so maybe the protesters think they're taking a swipe at religious capitalists if not at capitalists proper.

But surely they should be joining the other encampment at Finsbury Square, which is heaving with blatant capitalist bastions like banks? Not that that protest is exactly rocking capitalism to its foundations either.

Just how are a few tents going to stop vast accumulations of wealth flowing into the coffers of a few greedy individuals and capitalists? All the refuseniks are doing right now is putting more cash into the bank accounts of tent manufacturers and primus stove suppliers.

It all seems astonishingly naive and historically ignorant. If anyone is going to challenge capitalism with any sort of clout, it's the trade unions who fight for a better deal for employees and restrain the wilder excesses of profit-grabbing companies.

They have at least forced a few millionaires and grasping shareholders to hand back some of their ill-gotten gains. Can the campaigning campers do any such thing before they get bored, pack up their tents and go back home?

Militant models

Many young girls aspire to be models, thinking they have luxurious, glamorous lives. The reality is so gruelling that a group of British models are joining a trade union to fight for better working conditions.

At the moment they're anonymous for fear of jeopardising their careers by speaking out openly. But they include some top household names who've had enough of being exploited.

They complain of long working hours without breaks, compulsory nude shoots, pressure to be ultra-thin, and much lower pay for male models.

They've been having talks with Equity, the union that usually represents actors and performers.

They get little sympathy from model agencies, who tell them if they don't do what's demanded of them, they won't get any more work and there are plenty more pretty bodies where they came from.

I think the idea of unionising models is long overdue. They often get badly treated because they're so keen to be famous faces they'll put up with extreme pressures rather than settle for a more humdrum job.

Some people sneer at them for wanting such an apparently vacuous existence in the first place, but what they do is no more vacuous than many other jobs. How about advertising, cosmetic surgery or car-valeting?

Anyone who works for a living is entitled to decent working conditions, and if they're not getting them that's exactly what trade unions are for - to confront employers and force them to treat their employees like human beings and not cash cows. Free the catwalks!

Update: The London Independent reports today (Dec 17) that trade unions are being deluged with applications from people in unusual jobs like members of the clergy, roadies, sex workers, reality TV stars and club doormen, and membership is rising steadily. Union membership worldwide has gone up by 20% in 20 years. Workers, particularly those not traditionally unionised, are getting increasingly intolerant of poor working conditions and are joining up.

Angry young man

Some cheeky 26 year old* has written to the London Independent blaming us oldies for all the social backward steps that are now blighting young people's lives.

Like tuition fees at universities. Like the reduced value of pensions. Like cuts in welfare benefits. Like fewer rights for employees.

Well, excuse me, but I never agreed with any of the changes and I had nothing to do with their introduction. I'm not one of those people who enjoy my privileges and then pull up the drawbridge so the next generation don't get them.

So please don't tar us all with the same brush. A lot of spineless, selfish individuals lined up behind Mrs Thatcher and said nothing as she chipped away at the welfare benefits hard won by centuries of trade union and political militancy. But I wasn't one of them. Not in my name, as they say.

I think it's outrageous that young graduates are saddled with huge debts they'll spend years repaying. All education should be free as it's the essential tool to create a better society and a higher quality of life.

But I could ask what exactly these angry twenty somethings are doing to reverse the measures they object to? I don't see many of them marching on the streets or joining political parties or trade unions - as so many of us oldies did in our youth. Don't complain to me, complain to the government ministers who have the power to restore more enlightened policies.

And it's not just your pensions that are going down the Swanee, it's mine as well. Believe me, I feel your pain. So if you want to protest, I'm right behind you. Just name the day....

* Sebastian Crankshaw. With a name like that, he just has to be an upper-class twit....

Challenge the bullies

I could have reacted in different ways to being bullied at school - getting my revenge by turning into a bully myself or doing my best to protect other victims.

It never occurred to me at all to put on the bully's hat and make someone else's life wretched, make them suffer the same way I had to. I don't know how people can harden themselves like that, freeze their emotions and become tormentors in turn.

No, in my case it bred a life-long sympathy for victims, not just of bullying but of any misery or hardship inflicted on the innocent by abusers of power everywhere. Knowing what it's like to be belittled and humiliated, knowing how much psychic damage that can do, I wanted to defend others in the same trap.

As a journalist in my younger days, I was always keen to write about people in rotten circumstances, neglected by officialdom or their own families. I exposed decrepit housing, health service cock-ups, lonely old people, unemployed youngsters, loan sharks. Hopefully I righted a few wrongs and freed a few people from anxiety and fear.

Later I took part in political campaigns to support women, homosexuals, council tenants and access to abortion. I joined in protests against the Vietnam War, poll tax and the National Front. It felt good to stand up and be counted, to be voicing my anger with hundreds of others rather than sitting at home shrugging my shoulders and saying "Well, that's the way of the world."

For five years I was a trade union rep, rallying my workmates when the management was up to something sneaky - trying to freeze wages, extend working hours or cut holiday leave. We'd dig our heels in and say a collective no to their relentless asset-sweating. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but I felt ecstatic those times when the bosses retreated.

If enough people stand up to the bullies, they can always be defeated. But it's easy to be intimidated by the sheer ruthlessness of those who regard treating other people badly as the natural order. If you're picked on time and again, it's hard to fight back, especially if you're left to flounder by those who could help. So don't be shy - throw someone a lifebelt.