Monday, March 30, 2009

UNISON London Labour Link (APF) Forum


I’m playing “catch up” tonight but a quick report on last week’s Forum meeting at the House of Commons.

It is really lovely to have a meeting in this venue, even if was in committee room 9, the “Peel Room” named in honour of 19th century Tory Prime Minister, Robert Peel. No doubt the forces of darkness will see in this some sort of scary conspiracy but such is life.

We had as our keynote speaker, Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, who gave what I thought was a feisty and pugnacious speech reminding everyone what the Government had achieved especially in the NHS. Good stuff! I think it is gradually dawning on some people that actually Labour hasn’t been “all that bad” and that it would be an absolute complete disaster for working people if the Conservatives are elected. Better late than never I suppose.

The debates went pretty well, despite the representative of the bosses’ class from Islington making his usual weird and wonderful comments on a daft rule amendment proposal. I think he threatened to report me to Private Eye or something for exposing last year the practice of SWP branch officers voting for their mates in Labour Link elections. Yeah, well - make my day.

The rule amendment for all elections to take place at the annual forum rather than postal ballot (and thus disenfranchise those who cannot attend) was kicked out pretty convincingly. The motion about supporting the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) was passed and will be one of the two motions we will sent to National Labour Link Forum. I’ll post on this important motion another time.

The Parliamentary report was by Tooting MP, Sadiq Khan, who has done really good work in supporting UNISON in local hospitals in his CLP. National Labour Link vice Chair Rachel Voller gave a succinct update on the review of the UNISON political funds.

I'll post as soon as I know the results of the 2009 London Labour link elections.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sadiq is an excellent local MP