Glittery baubles

Date: 7:54am, 14 Nov 2011

How do you teach your children about politics? On Saturday we decided to give the girls a kind of A-Z of the economic crisis and political theory. We headed for St Paul’s. This was after extensive faffing around while they contemplated their outfits. Daughter three chose a pink pork pie hat, daughter two was in her rock chick drummer outfit and daughter one looked relatively normal.

We toured Tent City, including the university tent and the food tent. We passed the welfare tent, the inter-faith tent, the knitting tent and the tarot card reading tent. It all seemed very well organised. My partner said it was very similar to the Barcelona camp he visited last year. Daughter one wanted to join the camp immediately and was very struck by all the banners about injustice and inequality. Daughter two was worried by the police presence [left over from the Lord Mayor’s parade]. Daughters three wanted to go to KFC.

To complete their political education session we headed for the new Westfield shopping centre overlooking various Olympic landmarks. It was the polar opposite of Tent City, packedwith shimmery fripperie. You'd think that in these austere times it would be a bit of an anachronism, but it was heaving, possibly with many wealth tourists like ourselves just coming to have a look at what we can't afford.

All the kids were hungry, but the designers seem to have overlooked the demand for food and there was no way anyone was going to get to sit down for lunch in the rather underchaired eating area [remind me to avoid the entire area in 2012…]. We sat on the ground in the last remaining metre of space.

There didn’t seem to be many seats in the whole very expensive centre – at least not enough for the amount of people there - unless you count the champagne bar [which I don’t]. Not the kind of place you'd want to attempt while pregnant then - at least not on a Saturday. The shop windows all looked very glittery and high-priced. We had got some John Lewis vouchers for our wedding. We headed there. I have not been in John Lewis much. It’s a bit beyond our budget. There were cushions for £50. We got a good view of the Olympic stadia, though.

We emerged with nothing except a renewed respect for Ikea and passed various shops selling things like boots for £399. I mentioned to the girls that I had heard the RSPCA was getting double the number of pets being brought to them because of the economic crisis and people losing their homes.

I said at least the centre brought jobs to the area. Daughter one replied that they probably weren't very well paid. It's the symbolism that seems rather outrageous - Westfield seems like some huge designer bauble dangled in front of the people of East London, many of whom are on the breadline. It is surely the embodiment of what the Tent City protest is about - the gaping hole between rich and poor in this country. We went home, slightly more tired and slightly angrier than when we left. Daughter one headed to the shed to see whether our tent was still serviceable.

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