[A group study orientated room. A large table is surrounded by chairs and the desk is strewn with various imposing look academic books as well as an empty water bottle, various pens and highlighters, note paper and the general paraphenalia of study.

Three young adults sit around the table, two females (Zara and Elizabeth) and one male (Jordan) Elizabeth stands.]

Elizabeth: That’s as much of that as I can deal with now, I’m going for coffee. Want anything?

[The others dismiss Elizabeth’s offer and she leaves the room, flashing the pair a cheery grin as she does. Jordan turns to Zara immediately]

Jordan: I need to talk to you

Zara: All right intense. Give me a minute to get all worked up too maybe?

Jordan: Very funny. Shut up.

[There is a pause which is longer than the urgency of Jordan’s tone warrants. Zara almost speaks once or twice but decides against it.]

Jordan: Elizabeth’s pregnant.

Zara: Right, isn’t it traditional for her to tell me that herself?

Jordan: It’s mine

Zara: Yours? What? Why?

Jordan: Well you see…

Zara: Oh shut up you know what I mean! When did this happen? How did you let this happen. I can’t believe… what’s she going to do? She’s getting rid of it right?

Jordan: What?!

Zara: Well she can’t keep it!

Jordan: Why not?

Zara: Jordan she is twenty years old. She’s still at uni for the love of God, you can’t expect her to ruin her life like that!

Jordan: Ruin her life? My child is going to ruin her life is it? Cheers Zar, I think we’re done here.

Zara: I just meant - well, it isn’t really what you do is it? Not at this age she can’t do a thing like that. She’s got a life! People don’t have children at uni, not people this young!

Jordan: Young mothers, that someone else’s domain is it?

Zara: Well yes!

Jordan: You know what Zara, that’s enough. I thought you’d be o.k. with this, I thought you were, well, I don’t know. She’s going to keep it. We’re having a baby. We’ll have graduated by then anyway, I don’t know what your problem is.

[Jordan storms from the room and Zara turns back to her books with limited enthusiasm for a few moments. Elizabeth returns.]

Zara: So Lizzy, I hear you have some exciting news for me…

O.K. so I didn’t post anything in March because I was writing my E20 script and it sort of took over my life a little.

I’ve not really written anything for April because essays have also taken over my life but there is a thing that has been an idea for a while and I think that I’m just going to post the barest bones of the notion because, to be fair, I have nothing else to do and some writing even bad writing is better than no writing.

This is what Gaiman teaches me

Working on a letter to my MP (Nigel Mills - Conservative Party) about the Health and Social Care Bill because if you hammer on a closed door someone will at least hear you. This bill is a big deal and there really should be a very big fuss to go with it.

You remember no doubt the incredibly marginal nature of your seat. I wonder if you also remember the demographic of your constituency, if you remember the feel of the streets in Alfreton, Heanor and Ripley; I wonder if you remember what you represent. The Health and Social Care Bill currently casting a chilling shadow over our country is the bill of a government that does not know these things.  The NHS was born from a community not dissimilar to urban centres of Amber Valley: Tredegar was an unremarkable mining town. From that unremarkable town came an idea carried, through an utterly remarkable man who was given the task of nationalising our health care and Britain as a nation is forever indebted to that man.  

As a man who ‘occasionally rebels’ against your party line in the words of theyworkforyou.com I would hope that you can see that this is the right thing to do now. Systems should improve as time moves on, the NHS cannot afford to take a step back, a step away from being able to care for everyone all of the time; the people of your constituency cannot afford a privatised system and your seat in parliament cannot afford this commercialisation of everyday life. Working within a generally unpopular government a Conservative such as yourself should surely strive to set themselves apart to stand any chance of re-election. Healthcare boils down to people’s lives and people’s hearts: this is not a partisan issue but one of simple human compassion. As a fellow human being I can only hope that you will do the right thing.

This is one of those direction but no purpose posts that I mentioned. I should point out that if you happen to be around me before this date I am likely to moan to you about this very issue. Sorry about that, it’s just the way I am.

“You love strikes!” I am erroneously and faux-humorously informed by friends of mine with somewhat untoward political ideas. Whilst this is most definitely untrue I do have very difficult and powerful emotions regarding picket lines, so I suppose that it isn’t all that different from love. The point is this: whilst I do not live my life by the Billy Bragg ‘Never Cross A Picket Line’ philosophy I do not cross them. This is because I live my life by the slightly less succinct ‘Never Cross A Picket Line If You Believe In Its Cause’ philosophy and generally I do believe in their causes. I’m a bit left wing you see -  it’s just the way I am.

What I don’t believe in though is such a thing as a student walk out. The Socialist Students etc. (who I tend to have issue with due to their turning up at other people’s events - people who are not socialists at all) have been handing me leaflets of late. They stand outside the Humanities building to do this, which is targeted marketing if you ask me, asking me to walk out of lectures on the 14th of March. This is supposedly to demonstrate unhappiness with ‘creeping privatisation’ of universities and the introduction of ‘hidden fees’. These are both serious issues don’t get me wrong but honestly, what is the point of walking out. When people go on strike and this includes the public sector workers that walked out on November the 30th (that was a picket line I didn’t cross) people lost out. Obviously everyone that walked out lost a day’s pay which is a bit rubbish for them but business lost out too, the government lost out. A figure for how much it did cost the nation is bizarrely somewhat elusive but there were various hyper-inflated claims circulating before the day that it would be £500 million pounds. This is nonsense, all the broadsheets agree, but the point stands there were repercussions for wider society, not just the people walking out.

This will not happen if students walk out. One of the lectures I have on the 14th of March will be given by a member of UCU who cancelled her lecture on N30 but she will not be cancelling her lecture on March 14th and the seminar I have on a Wednesday morning is led by a woman who gets us to sign attendance on a UCU notepad so I’m guessing she’s not adverse to industrial action. All that will happen if I do not go is this: I will not learn anything. I will have paid money that I don’t really have to not go into university. If I was abiding by the principles of a strike, this is a pseudo-strike after all I suppose, I would also not enter a university building on that day, not step off of the street onto a university pathway and being as a large part of my tuition fees basically allow me to use the library this is an inconvenience to me. I am the only person who will lose out here.

This day of ‘action’ is also on a Wednesday. If you happen to not be in the university know you will not be aware that Wednesday is a half day in terms of lectures etc. because Wednesday is the day of inter-university sport. So really this is only a half day walk-out, a powerful statement if ever I heard one.

There is also the final problem: universities are full of politically apathetic people who will jump at a ‘legitimate’ reason to skip lectures, people whose vague underlying political socialisation probably doesn’t even support these ideas, people who just want to be a bit risqué before they head off to Jack Wills for the afternoon, people that in this context really make no sense and the Socialist Students of course, appearing at everyone’s events.