Jonathan Rothwell

The work of the public sector is critically important, and the Government, with its programme of hastened mauls to public spending, is pissing on the good work these people do every day.

I therefore support the motives of people on strike today in principle. I particularly support my own lecturers, who are having their pensions ransacked whilst wealth-creation numbnuts sugar-daddies rake in millions in the City. I also support, and would protect with my life, their right to strike.

However, I shall not be joining anyone on the picket line today. I shall be crossing it later (albeit having returned from a food shopping trip.) Critically, I shall not be supporting this set of strikes in principle.

Of course, I shall defend the UCU’s right to strike, but that doesn’t mean I don’t consider it pointless. I am no political expert, and I’m not gifted with visions of the future, but at a guess, I would expect the outcomes of today’s strikes to be:

Minor inconvenience to users of the schools, libraries et cetera which have closed;
A far-from-trivial cost to the economy from the lost man-hours that result from the strikes;
A nominal increase in global temperature due to increased amounts hot air being pumped into the atmosphere;
An increased resentment towards unions and strikers.

The last time direct action genuinely worked on such a large scale was in the 1974 miners’ strikes. Ten years later, the same striking miners were soundly thrashed into submission by the Iron Dominatrix herself, Mrs Thatcher.

How can the UCU, Unison and the TUC genuinely expect this set of strikes to achieve anything?

Many people of the Christian faith, when moving to a new area, will spend a good amount of time “browsing” various churches. They may go to different services, visit the buildings, chat with the vicar and take coffee with the church community afterwards. Only when they find a church with services and people that they like will they usually regularly attend that particular church.

My relationship with churches is complicated, but suffice to say that these days I’m a fire-breathing none-of-your-business secularist who doesn’t believe in god. On the other hand, there are some convenient parallels with an institution I have never fallen out of love with: libraries.

Let me get this clear: I bloody love libraries. I use them all the time. This is despite making plenty of impulse purchases at brick-and-mortar bookshops, and also owning, and loving, a Kindle. I am, always have been, and always will be an unashamed library geek. Therefore, it was only fitting that within eight minutes of it opening, I found myself in the brand new Canada Water library yesterday morning.

An unusual building on the outside...

Canada Water Library interior, with three levels and spiral "drum" staircase

...leads to an equally unusual library on the inside.

The building itself is brilliant, dramatic yet understated in its architecture. The design is logical and has clearly been considered carefully. The staff are lovely. The views, out to the Canada Water basin and the surrounding areas, provide a pleasant backdrop.

Most importantly, though, this is a library. It’s a brand new library that the people of Canada Water and Surrey Quays can be proud of (with the probable exception of the wi-fi, which is awful.) Unlike certain other local authorities, Southwark Council has not seen fit to dress this library up as an “idea store” or similar: the signs on the door simply say “Canada Water Library.”

This new library is not ashamed to be a library, perhaps because Southwark Council’s busybodying blue-sky-thinkers are busy rebranding something else to seem less traditionally fusty, but probably because the council understands that libraries are probably the most important public services in operation today, bar the emergency services and the NHS.

The fact that anyone, regardless of any facet of their person, can walk into a library and have access to a mountain of books, videos, audio, games and Internet access, free of charge, is the thing that makes the very idea of a public library so brilliant. To go back to the analogy of churches, and at the risk of sounding like a trite and pretentious pillock, libraries are temples for information, education and entertainment.

So, Canada Water’s library is a lovely building that is, essentially, unashamedly, a library. Southwark Council’s safeguarding of all its libraries is a noble thing in these times of economic hardship. Other councils should bear that in mind when closing smaller community libraries, and withdrawing mobile libraries on wheels (both acts that, in my view, are tantamount to taking out a mortgage in the form of cultural vandalism.) Libraries are exceptionally important to our future, and it’s a real shame that most councils will look to them as a way to make cuts.

In the meantime, though, I shall be delighted to call Canada Water my new favourite library, for three main reasons:

As a library, it is superb. The building is lovely, the stock is wide-ranging and the library’s users really are spoiled for choice.
It’s within easy access of Queen Mary college, thanks to the East London line and London’s excellent bus network.
The café provides rather excellent coffee.