...and "Happy 60th Birthday NHS".
Once again, apologies for not posting sooner. The 2nd day of the conference started with a Closed/Private session on “Funding the
Equal Pay challenge”. I spoke during the session but assume since it was “closed” for members only I suppose I’d better not report on it.
After this our guest speaker was the footballer, Leory Rosenior, who spoke for the Presidents choice of charity “
Show Racism the Red Card”, which campaigns against racism in football and society. He is a brilliant speaker. He described the awful experience that black footballers of his generation had from racist supporters. Then important debates on opposing the far right and defending multiculturalism.
In the afternoon there was a big debate on Public services and celebrating the 60th Birthday of the NHS.
I’ll just have another little dig at delegates who will remain unnamed who “Grandstand”. This is when speakers come to the platform to supposedly speak on a motion or amendment. They barely mention the actual motion but use their time to rant and shout how awful the Labour Government is and how there should be revolution now etc. It is of course perfectly legitimate to attack the government if it is relevant to the motion. But given the same individuals the opportunity to go on and on, time after time, is just wrong.
I think it is off-putting to delegates and gives our enemies ammunition to attack us as dinosaurs and further marginalise us. The only positive thing is that the speakers themselves do not realise how foolish and outdated they look and how harmful it is to their cause.
I think we need to look at the rule book and see if this can be stopped.
