{"id":16590,"date":"2018-10-29T17:02:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T17:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=16590"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:57:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:57:54","slug":"labour-dan-carden-ragged-trousered-philanthropists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=16590","title":{"rendered":"Real alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (October 29) \u00e2\u20ac\u0098trick or treat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Autumn Budget has failed to give hope to ordinary people struggling to make ends meet in an economy dominated by low wages and insecure work.<\/p>\n

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Against this backdrop of average households’\u00c2\u00a0heightened frustration and suffering, Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Liverpool Walton MP Dan Carden is hosting a stage play adapted from Robert Tressell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s classic novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists <\/em>to be shown in Parliament on Nov 1.<\/p>\n

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The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists<\/em> is a semi-autobiographical story reflecting Tressell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience as a painter and decorator struggling to make ends meet. The protagonist, Frank Owen, tries to convince his work colleagues that it is capitalism that is causing their problems at work.<\/p>\n

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One key chapter, called the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Great Money Trick\u00e2\u20ac\u0165, sees Owen demonstrate to his colleagues how the capitalist system works against them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c he uses bread to represent raw materials and knives to represent machinery. Owen puts them to \u00e2\u20ac\u0098work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 slicing bread with knives and highlights that while their employer doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, he becomes rich, while the people who work are constantly swapping coins for food and wages while not being materially any better off.<\/p>\n

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The book is considered a classic socialist text and has inspired a wide range of people who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve praised the book, including author George Orwell and more recently actor, comedian and trade unionist Ricky Tomlinson, MPs Tom Watson and Dennis Skinner, and Unite general secretary Len McCluskey.<\/p>\n

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Carden explains why he was inspired to bring in a stage production of the book \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by Townsend Productions and actor Neil Gore \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to be performed for MPs, parliamentary staff and other guests on Thursday, November 1.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bRobert Noonan, better known as Robert Tressell, is buried in a pauper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grave in Rice Lane City Farm in Walton, and I like to count him as one of my constituents,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAfter my Constituency Labour Party hosted two performances of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists<\/em> earlier this month, I was inspired to bring this fantastic production to Parliament on Budget week.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWith the drive towards an increasingly low-paid, insecure, zero-hours jobs market under this Tory Government, Robert Tressell’s classic, and the lessons it teaches us, remain all-too relevant more than a century after it was first published,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe \u00e2\u20ac\u0098money trick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 shows us that it is the system, not the people, that is failing. This week my colleagues and I will be holding the Chancellor to account for his own money tricks to cover up the systemic flaws in our economy, which have been exacerbated by the ideologically-driven disaster of austerity.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAgainst the backdrop of soaring inequality and record levels of in-work poverty, it is clearer than ever that we need a real alternative. It is not enough to merely tinker around the edges of a rigged system. I hope this performance will inspire us to redouble our efforts to bring about that change.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has called The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists<\/em> “one of the great books everyone should read if they want to know about the world of work.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnyone I meet, I urge them to read it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said in a documentary<\/a> celebrating 100 years since the book was written.<\/p>\n

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Of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Autumn Budget, McCluskey said,\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAusterity was always a political choice, and the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 choice was to make the people pay for the greed of the banking elite. It is high time they took their tired, failing ideas and moved out of the way.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe need a government that will actually invest in decent homes, jobs, wages and public services, one that can create a hopeful vision for the UK after Brexit and where the chronic under-funding of our schools, hospitals and police will cease.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bToday we needed a budget for the many. Instead we got one for the few.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (October 29) \u00e2\u20ac\u0098trick or treat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Autumn Budget has failed to give hope to ordinary people struggling to make ends meet in an economy dominated by low wages and insecure work.   Against this backdrop of average households’\u00c2\u00a0heightened frustration and suffering, Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Liverpool Walton MP Dan Carden is hosting a stage play adapted from Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1050,227,1049],"wps_subtitle":"Labour MP brings Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists to Parliament ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25755,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16590\/revisions\/25755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}