Jessie Jackson 70th Birthday Party in UNISON HQ

Last night UNISON hosted a 70th Birthday Party in honour of Rev Jessie Jackson at the UNISON Centre in Euston, London. Our President Eleanor Smith introduced Rev Jackson and Keith Vas MP. Labour Leader Ed Miliband was the keynote speaker.  This fantastic song was sung live by the Rev Jackson's daughter Santita. In the video background are my fellow London UNISON Regional Council colleagues Gloria, Monica and Conroy (and a few other UNISON faces).

Update: if you have trouble opening video check youtube

David Miliband speaks to meeting at Stratford Town Hall

This college is from last night's meeting with David Miliband held at the Old Town Hall in Stratford, E15.  This was chaired by Ahmed Noor who I believe is the son of the first Asian shopkeeper in Green Street and my old mucker Terry Paul, who is a local ward member for Stratford and fellow "newbie" Newham Councillor.  Labour MP Keith Vaz introduced everyone to the audience.

David was the guest of the Pakistani Association of Newham.

He gave his usual impressive and polished speech and dealt with pretty well with a wide ranging Q&A.

I managed to ask him a question about what he thought the role of modern trade unions should be if became Prime minister and he was let us say pretty positive without being particularly prescriptive. 

I think he is a very good candidate, but his brother Ed - has the edge - and I think has the better chance of appearing different from the evil twins, Cameron and Clegg, and defeating them at the next election (sorry Steve and Terry)

Rev. Jessie Jackson – A London trade union reception.

I’m still playing catch up with last week. A highlight of which was attending a reception in the Washington Hotel in Mayfair for the American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, the Rev Jessie Jackson.

It was pretty informal but crowded with people eager to see Rev Jackson. Labour Party MP Keith Vaz chaired the reception with his usual eloquent good humour. UNISON General Secretary Dave Prentis welcomed Rev. Jackson and spoke about the successful UNISON campaign “Show Racism the Red Card”.

The Rev. Jackson himself was very impressive with the traditional grand and formal US church style of oratory which us Brits tend to be very sniffy towards. Frankly, in person he knocks spots off the vast majority of our public speakers.

He was very, very supportive of the importance of joining trade unions and collective action to fight for fairness. He also reminded everyone while there may be far less direct and overt racism nowadays (thankfully) you still need to concentrate how many young black people go to college and become doctors, school teachers, professors or senior business executives.

I was with the newly re-elected London UNISON Convenor Gloria Hanson, Deputy Convenor, Conroy Lawrence and Publicity officer Lynn Bentley. There were also a number of other leading UNISON activists present.

Conroy (bottom left) works as an electrician for a NHS Hospital Trust. He is standing in next month’s UNISON National Executive Council (NEC) elections for the “sensible left”.