When Brown went Green.

I don't wish to be dramatic but I'm dying. Sort of. I have been for a while, on and off. Well on. Sometimes. Now, for example.

If that sounds glibly, insensitively flippant, let me explain - to myself as much as anyone.

August 2008, I was told I had cancer. I was told it was called Myeloma, that it was rare and that is was incurable.

Ah. Ok! Shit. Cancer! Incurable!
So, how long then?
Oh no! No no no. It's not like that. It's incurable, yes, but....well...it's manageable. We can treat it. It's now more like....like a chronic thing. Try not to worry. You're a fit, healthy young man! (quote)
Hm...okay doc. Chronic you say! (first job: look up 'chronic')

I did, and so it's been. Chronic. Which, as far as I've worked out, in my case means waiting a while till someone qualified looks at a blood result or a scan and says, forlornly, "Terminal!". Nobody's said that yet (though they will, someday - any day) and so we still say chronic and that's definitely much better.

So I should be - and I suppose I am - grateful. Grateful that it's 'chronic', not grateful I have cancer. Cancer's shit. I'd much rather not have it, but I do and wasting limited emotional resources and time wondering why and riling against the actuality of where I'm at gets me nowhere. 'Chronic' isn't an unaccompanied qualifier. I've become very acquainted with chronic's argumentative bedfellows, 'Relapse' and 'Remission', not to mention 'Treatment'.

Remission's my favourite; Relapse is a bit of a shit. Following a brief, difficult affair with 'Treatment', I enjoyed a nice, positive relationship with Remission. It went well. We did a lot. We changed our view of life. We reset our priorities as best we could. What always hung over the relationship was the certain knowledge that it couldn't last forever.

Four good years and without warning (well, in hindsight: sore hip, sore back, sore ribs, abject lethargy, frothy pee) Remission was gone. Relapse took its place. We didn't get along. I longed for Remission. Treatment helped, sort of. Remission came back - slowly, and has done its best to be a decent friend. It's not been easy, Relapse left its mark; took away some stuff. My running shoes, for one - a trusted lifelong friend gone there. Climbing. Mountaineering. Break-dancing. But hey-ho, I can still ride my bike. Mustn't complain. Just a pity the old engine doesn't quite fire like it once did, but then I'm nae any younger.

Now. Some with cancer - very often the 'chronic' group - will tell you it comes with odd benefits. Others strongly resent that suggestion. I fully respect the views of the latter but tend towards the former. I guess it depends how you choose to view and deal with your cancer. Don't get me wrong, I hate it. Take me back, make it a choice and I'd respectfully decline. But I had no choice and I've existed with it now for almost 8 years. It is part of who I am and has more often than not been a decisive factor in the choices I've made and for that I am sometimes, oddly thankful. Among them, I tapered down my hectic, stressful business until it was no more. With the ever unpredictable arrival of 'Terminal', I figured I didn't want to spend what remained of my life busting a gut and loosing limited hair. With more spare time and a spare room, my wife and I decided to foster. It's been great. Stressful, but ultimately rewarding. We've had the pleasure of the company of one exceptional young lass (now a pride-inducing young woman) for the past 5 years. She has claimed us - we have claimed her. She's bright and kind and beautiful in every way, which all in all allows me to ignore the disgusting state of her bedroom.

 I also started some voluntary work - as a "General adviser", specialising in benefits claims and crisis grants. Whilst I loved being an Engineer (former profession) I truly love my role as an Adviser. It is a privilege to be able to directly help people. To meet, one-to-one, with individuals and families, often vulnerable, often voiceless and often in dire situations and genuinely make a difference to their life is by far the most rewarding and worthwhile thing I've ever done. In the words of Blur, "It gives me an enormous sense of well-being". It's important work. It matters. But it's frustrating too. I took on the role because I wanted to understand what lay at the grimy heart of our benefits system. I wanted to know first hand, how bad things really are. Are folk just "at it!"; work-shy layabouts? Do the lefty-left exaggerate the harshness of the sanctions regime? Are foodbanks really essential or inhabited by unabashed scroungers? I quickly found my answers. They are: Some, but very few; No, it's worse - much worse; Disgustingly essential and under-utilised by a great many more, too proud to use them.

I also found other aspects of our welfare system that really trouble me. The transition from DLA to PIP, for example. Most of my work just now involves completing "Personal Independence Payment" applications for those with health conditions and/or disabilities. Many of those have previously been on DLA and now are being transferred to the new PIP scheme. The process is a blunt, dehumanising, unsophisticated instrument. Walk no more than the length of yourself and score 4 points. Piss yourself on a frequent basis and score 4 more. Sounds reasonable enough. Just turn up at your local, charity-run advice agency, sit down for and hour and a half with a total stranger - usually a volunteer - and explain, in agonising detail, every intimate aspect of your condition and a whole bunch of other stuff unrelated to your condition (because we can't have empty boxes on the form). That nice stranger will sensitively ask the questions and delicately transcribe the answers, employing their comprehensive knowledge of the magic words and phrases that may just unlock enough points for you to earn the benefit - "you're quite sure you can wash all of yourself?". About 3 months after completing your form, you'll be asked in for a face to face assessment with someone appointed by the government to check you're every bit as afflicted as you say you are.

If I'm totally honest, in some cases, it's a reasonable enough system. We've tried to move away from awarding the benefit (DLA) based on simply having a condition to a system that pays based on how that condition actually impacts a person's life. I get that. But the system used to determine this is, as I said, blunt, dehumanising, catch all and far from good enough with many conditions such as mental health problems. As an example, I had a 66 year old woman, very badly affected by progressive MS. She could hardly walk, stand and even struggled to sit for more than 15 minutes (the form takes about an hour and a half, our seating isn't great). Her vision was poor. She had incontinence. As I walked from my office to meet her in the waiting area and she attempted to stand, it was instantly clear she would "earn enough points" in the first few questions. There was absolutely no need to subject her to 90 minutes of questioning by a strange ex-engineer, followed, 3 months later, by something similar from a government paid rep on a target-driven quest to cut the benefits bill. She qualified - end of. Take a look at her! Ask her Doctor! Send a 10 second video of her getting out of a chair. Do something better.

I think I handled that interview well. I hope I preserved as much of her fragmented dignity as the process allowed. But I wept that night, of course. Partly due to my emotional hair trigger, partly red wine, largely the utter, wasteful unreasonableness of it all. We can do better. We should do better.

I joined the Scottish Greens about a year ago, during the Westminster campaign in May 2015. Post referendum, I'd considered for some time joining the SNP, supporting independence and thinking that they generally had done an okay job of governing Scotland. Coming from a 1970s Labour rooted family, growing up where I did and feeling as I did, I was also very strongly inclined towards a more equal, fairer Scotland and greater social justice and opportunities for all. I detest poverty and the poverty of opportunity. As much as I admired the SNPs progress and was grateful to them for delivering the referendum, a lot of what they said on a lot of issues rankled. They don't go far enough. In particular, I was unconvinced that the SNP cared enough about environmental justice and they seemed too slavishly reverential towards the oil and gas sector. Tuition fees aside, I don't think they've done enough to support young people and their cutting of college places is regrettable. I'd long ago concluded that the Scottish Labour party had completely lost its way and had comprehensively abandoned the people of Scotland and the Lib Dems.....well.....bless. It would, of course, be a cold, dark day in hell before I ever put an 'X' next to a Tory's name.

 But post referendum and in particular, during the Westminster Campaign, I came to realise just how comprehensively the policies and ethos of the Scottish Greens meshed tightly with my own beliefs and values. I'd always respected their stance on environmental justice, but had never seriously considered in depth their broader approach to questions of social justice, equality and real transformational change in Scotland. Their ideas were bold, yet sensible; broad, yet deep. They were thought out. They understood the interconnectedness of it all. How land ownership and housing as a commodity leads to inequality and wealth disparity. How community empowerment and stronger local democracy are essential to unlocking the power in communities and how that strengthens society at large. That we simply need to tax higher earners more and lower earners less. To me, it almost sounded like the Labour party of old, only smarter, fresher, better. I joined.

Since joining, I've become involved. Recently, heavily involved. Currently, I'm working hard with others in the North East Region to help the Scottish Greens return their largest and most credible ever cohort of Green MSPs. It feels like important work. It feels like it's going well. For me. it feels like the right decision and a good use of my time. And time, right now, is a precious commodity. When the backing track to your life is a clock that ticks 'Chronic' until it one day strikes 'Terminal', you apportion time carefully. Right now, my ribs hurt a wee bit more each day and my pee's a wee bit frothier (proteinuria - bad sign). Blood results are a little less stable and I suspect me and Remission shall once more part company. I hope we'll meet again. Meantime, May the 5th 2016 approaches. There's work to do. We need a bolder Holyrood and a better Scotland. We need strong, Green voices in our parliament. I'll spend my time fighting for that.