'Outraged OAP' or what?

To the editor, South Wales Evening Post
Thank you for drawing attention to our picket at Barclays Bank in Swansea (June 27-July 2). But what matters is not the ‘outrage’ or otherwise of one Swansea OAP. It is the facts that count, and what we do about them. What my age and pension give me is free time for what I tried to do in my job as foreign correspondent years ago: to get at the facts and bring them home to people they concern.

I'm not just on about arms, or bosses bonuses as such. Today, after teachers and others have stopped work in protest over government cuts, it's important to remember that it was the folly of big banks that prompted the cuts. And that they are now back to business as usual: the pay-package of one Barclays bank-trader, at £40+ million a year, could employ 1,800 teachers, nurses, police – or junior bank staff (Barclays recently closed one Swansea branch). The same money could pay 6,000 pensions like my own, or 3,000 carers to look after us when we become incapable. This grotesque inequality comes to roost with us in Swansea, where people in the poorest parts of town die 13 years younger than people in richer neighbourhoods.

That is why I’m picketing Barclays, as leader among piggy banks. With my wife I have made a Golden Pig Bad Bank Award, for presentation at mid-day on Saturday. The plaque on the plinth reads ‘for contributions to warfare, greed, inequality and pillage of the global village.’

Greg Wilkinson