MARCHERS on the Young Socialists March for Jobs were greeted as they set out from Bedford yesterday morning by former Luton IBC plant worker and AEU member John Smith.
John worked for 19 years at the plant until it was closed ten years ago.
‘I am here to wish you well on your way to London.’
Two miles down the road towards Luton, the march was joined for a short distance by Simon Roscoe-Blevins, who lives locally.
He signed up to join the Young Socialists.
‘I am taking a gap year now,’ he said, ‘and next year I’ll be going to Sheffield University. I think it’s ridiculous to impose £9,000 a year tuition fees.
‘It’s not going to work. It’s going to stop people from poorer backgrounds going to university.
‘Yet a number of years ago they were encouraging more and more people to go to universities.’
In Luton itself, Darrell Woodcroft, who was with his wife Carys and their baby son William, told the marchers: ‘I think the government are trying to make cuts in all the wrong places.
‘Their claims that they are trying to help people are doing the complete opposite.
‘They’re talking about helping people get jobs by stopping all their benefits for three years.
‘But at the same time they’re shutting down jobs and sacking people everywhere.
‘It’s the completely wrong way to go about it. I agree with you that the government should be brought down.’
On Wednesday night, the marchers got a fantastic reception in Bedford from hospital workers, members of Unison, in Bedford Hospital.
They welcomed all the marchers into the hospital canteen – which they fought to return from private control back into NHS hands over six years ago – and gave them the choice of any full meal on the menu of the day.
Unison Branch Secretary and porters’ shop steward, David Merry, told the marchers:
‘In my opinion, the youth of any nation are the wealth of that nation.’
