I was in the main UNISON component near the front of the march, going to and fro from my Housing Association branch banner to the London regional one. In picture collage below you see UNISON comrades, my local Labour MP Lyn Brown with West Ham CLP; Newham folk gathering at Stratford Station, UNISON Regional Convener Gloria Hanson, Deputy Convener Conroy Lawrence, Regional Publicity Officer Lynn Bentley and NEC member Kim Silver. See also Labour Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Reeves.
We all booed Starbucks and Vodafone shops we passed by as being tax cheats and thieves.
I heard that the selfish idiots who shamed our movement at the end of the march last year with their pointless yobbery tried to infiltrate our march this year wearing masks and were told in no uncertain terms by rank and file activists “Oi, take your masks off your cowardly b*****ds” and the 0.001%ers were “persuaded” to go forth and multiply elsewhere.
The Rally at Hyde Park was better organised than last year. Great speeches from Ed Miliband and Dave Prentice. Afterwards London region UNISON retired to the ‘spoons at Marble Arch to celebrate the March. The pub was packed out with marchers and you could not move around without finding people to argue and debate about putting the world to rights. Some made more sense than others but this is really why we were all there.
We did not march for marching sake but to make the case for an alternative economic policy. Austerity does not work. Our National debt is growing and our economy is still tanking. We need a different way to run our country.
(I'll post more pictures of the march on Facebook tomorrow).
3 comments:
Great stuff, John. While I couldn't be there it was heartening reading all the live tweets and watching bits of it in the glimpses the BBC allowed us.
It is also very good to see CLP banners making a come back on demonstrations. It reminds me I really need to start tracking ours down ...
yet again only Unison can muster troops, the turn out from unite was very very poor, thay are a swp front that seem to be driving rank and file members further and further away from them, they sulked to get themselves to the front of the march, then let everybody down with a show of about 500 members there dying on there arse,,, come back tony s ! 5
Hi AVPS
Well you were fighting the good fight elsewhere.
The branch bought a harness for £60and it was worth every penny.
Hi Anon
Agreed that Unison did deliver :)
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