I attended as an elected London delegate but came early as member of the National Labour Link committee for a pre forum planning meeting. In the morning I went for a run along the Clyde which took longer than expected due to getting just a little lost.
Forum started in that evening with delegation meetings and then a reception addressed by my former UNISON NEC colleague and now MP, Katrina Murray. Afterwards the London delegates had a meal in an Italian restaurant in Argyle Street.
Forum started and finished the next day with a mixture of reports, motions, keynote speakers and panel debates.
Former UNISON national officer (and London lay activist) Deirdre Costigan gave a well received speech to forum on the 1st year of a Labour Government and gave an honest and considered response to sometimes robust questions in the Q&A.
The highlight to me, was the panel debate on "Tackling the rise of Reform" with guest speaker Nick Lowles from "Hope not Hate", who gave a fascinating account of recent research on who supports Reform, why they support such a right wing, anti worker Party and what we should all be thinking of doing to win back disillusioned voters. I asked the panel about the importance of social economic class inequality in this debate, which pretty much all the panel agreed was a key issue.
Forum finished on time, with all the annual reports agreed and all the tabled motions debated. Looking forward to next year's Forum.
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