Thursday, February 07, 2008

Eating Fish ‘N’ Chips with Ken to help fight off Boris

Last night I went to a Labour Party fund raising “Meet Ken Livingstone and the Assembly candidates” event at the historic Old Town Hall in Stratford, London. At the balcony of this former “West Ham” town hall, in 1892 election, Keir Hardie the first ever elected “Independent Labour MP”, gave a victory speech to supporters gathered outside.

The main hall was full with about 300 people present. A number of trade unions and local CLP’s had adopted tables. We of course had a UNISON table. Apart from the “Fish ‘N’ Chips” and free pickled unions and wallies (aka as pickled gherkins) we had the usual Labour Party raffle and auction (prizes ranged from such as a free trip to the European parliament via Eurostar to “Tea at the House of Commons Terraces” with Harriet Harman. The mystery prize was a (new!) pair of boxer shots with a design of the London underground system upon them.

Ken’s speech was as usual very good. Apart from being generally engaging, and at times very funny he can also switch very quickly to being serious and sombre (BNP). He gave a 30 minute speech without any notes. I have already heard Ken speak several times this campaign in person and on the TV and he somehow is able to make it different, fresh and thought provoking each time.

This time what impressed me was his obvious personal outrage not only at the prospect of an ignorant right wing toff as the Mayor and a BNP assembly member representing his beloved London. But the chronic shortage of affordable housing in London brought about by 18 years of deliberate and ideologically Tory failure to build new affordable homes to rent for London. The housing problem for London is not immigrants coming into London but the decision to sell off homes and not build new ones.

Many existing Labour Assembly member were there drumming up support. We spoke to top Local City & East AM John Biggs, Leader of the Labour group Len Duvall (UNISON member), Lambeth & Southwark AM Valerie Shawcroft and London wide member Murad Qureshi, (UNISON member of the London Housing Association branch!), Bow East Cllr Alex Heslop (UNISON member) for Bromley and Bexley. Tower Hamlets Council leader, Denise Jones, joined us to eat her Fish ‘N’ Chips, listened to Ken before rushing off to another meeting.

We were able to lobby (pushing a very, very open door) London MEP Claude Moreas over equal rights for agency and temporary workers.

At the end there was a London Music Hall act who by co-incidence sang my favourite song of that era “The Lambeth Walk”.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keir Hardie!!!

John Gray said...

Ahhhhh!! (updated)

Anonymous said...

Boris is a toff?...that's strange I thought his grandparents were Turkish emmigres and he comes from a distinguished line of journalists..and he won a scholarship to Eton? Whats the people republic definition of a toff...someone who has a different accent and is a brilliant scholar? I wonder when the last time was he had 32 days annual paid leave (not including stats) and worked a 35 hour week? That's right...never! Can't you people try to aspire to something a bit higher instead of dragging us all down to the lowest common denominator? What are your achievements exactly compared to Boris?

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
“Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson” or 'BoJo' or 'Bozzer'. His great grandfather was a Turkish government minister.

However the family is very rich and very privileged. It is a bit unclear whether or not as a “Kings Scholar” at Eton his very wealthy family did not have to pay Eton fees. However, many major public schools scholarships (not all) which somehow end up with wealthy successful applicants.

Since he is a MP (Tory and all) he enjoys significantly more that 32 days per year leave (is it 3 months for the summer alone?).

My achievements – well, I’ll leave that for others to judge – but it won’t be for being a “a self-centered pompous twit”; calling people in Papua New Guinea “cannibals”; “push pies through the railings to fat kids”; conspiring to beat up journalists etc.

So what are my achievements? If I have achieved anything it would be I hope for standing up and defending people. Nothing more and nothing less.

Peter HIll said...

You might be interested to watch a TV programme on Boris. Go to youtube and search for Boris Johnson The investigation.

John Gray said...

interesting indeed Peter!