UNISON London Labour Link Regional Forum 2024 - Vote Sadiq Khan & Labour in May

 

Brilliant picture of delegates to our 2024 regional forum, who are supporting the Labour Party "New Deal for Working People" campaign promise.

This was a hybrid meeting held in the National UNISON centre. 

Speakers included the UNISON London Regional Secretary, Jo Galloway; Current Assembly members Len Duvall & Sem Moema; Eddie from Labour Unions on New Deal; Mark Ferguson, our Labour Link national secretary. 

We also had contributions from new London Assembly Candidates, Marcela Benedetti & James Beckles. 

The forthcoming GLA and UNISON Member, Sadiq Khan, Mayoral elections in May, was our number one topic. 

We must not be complacent about apparent poll leads. The Tories have bent the rules to favour their appalling uber right wing candidate. They have doubled election expenses for candidates, banned proportional voting and imposed voter ID requirements on the million London voters who have none. 

Expect loads of Tory fibs and dog whistle politics in the next 42 days.

Dave Prentis - A personal message

This morning UNISON NEC members received this email from our General Secretary, Dave Prentis, announcing his retirement.

"Dear Colleague

I’ve been so proud to serve as your General Secretary for 20 years. It has been the honour and privilege of my life to be able to represent our incredible public service workers from across our four nations, and never more so than in the last few difficult months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today I have advised the President that I will retire on 31 December 2020 when my current period of office comes to an end. In order to comply with trade union law, our NEC Development and Organisation Committee will meet this week to discuss a timetable to elect my successor and full details will be published once that is agreed. But I wanted you, the leading members of our union, to hear the news directly from me.

We have been through some tough times together. We’ve brought our union through the long years of austerity where we saw our public services decimated with hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. But we stayed strong and we built the union.

We are now the largest union in the UK and the fastest-growing union in Europe. We have a vibrant lay democracy with activists like you in more than 50,000 workplaces. Our finances are strong and I hope we are now in a position to channel additional support and resources to our branches – where I truly believe that we organise and support our members best.

Every day for the past 47 years, I have been proud to serve this union and I have always been driven by a belief in fairness and justice for all our members. Never more so than in the past five months when I have seen our members and our public services rise to the challenge of the pandemic. In the worst of all circumstances, I have seen our union at its very best.

New members are joining our union faster than ever before because they value what a strong union can provide – support when they need it, strength to fight for change and a community that means that even in the most worrying times, you are never alone. Our enduring values of caring and solidarity will be more important than ever in the coming years.

As the health crisis turns to an economic crisis, we will face more challenges. I will be here to continue to lead this union until the end of this year – we still have a great deal of work to do together.

It has been my pleasure, my honour and an absolute privilege to lead our union, UNISON.

Thank you,

Dave Prentis

General Secretary

UNISON

(Above is my favourite picture of Dave taken on a very wet campaigning day in Chipping Barnet. Hat tip Miriam).

Chipping Barnet is dead heat between Labour & Tories

This afternoon I went to support Labour Candidate, Emma Whysall, in the most narrow Tory held marginal in London, Chipping Barnet. Emma lost by only 353 votes in 2017 to hard line Tory Minister, Theresa Villiers.

Fellow West Hammer, John Morris was there as was UNISON Labour Link national officer, Mark Ferguson (a local resident).

Emma gave activists a stirring speech before we went out to canvass. The latest polls are putting Labour and Tories head to head at 41% each. (usual warning about accuracy of polls)

I was a "board runner" today with a team of 3 other Labour Party activists. I don't mind doing the board (telling other members of the team which homes to call upon and recording the result) but I prefer knocking on doors and speaking to people.

We had some good results and were able to identify new Labour voters and reaffirm existing supporters who are still Labour. So lots of supporters to "knock up"on polling day and encourage to vote.

Check out future canvass events for "most marginal seat in London" Chipping Barnet here. I was really impressed how organised and friendly everyone was.   

Dave Prentis: "This election is the fight of our lives"

Hat tip UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis blog: "Election day is less than five weeks away – and this election is the fight of our lives. After a decade of Tory austerity, public service workers know better than anyone the terrible toll that austerity has had on our communities, the services you provide and on your own lives.

That’s why I’ve been getting out on the doorstep and campaigning for public services – and for a Labour government. So far I’ve been supporting Labour candidates, and UNISON members, Bambos Charalambous and Emma Whysall, and I’ll be out campaigning across the country in the weeks ahead. It really is vital that everyone who wants to see a Labour government gets out on the doorstep and campaigns for Labour – and tells their friends, family and colleagues why they’re voting Labour too. Whilst Boris Johnson may have the money and the media on his side, Labour has something stronger – people.

There’s something else Labour has though – common sense ideas that can changes our country – and the lives of UNISON members – for the better. So it was great to see Labour announcing plans to extend maternity leave, offer real help on childcare and rebuild vital sure start centres. The same goes for giving every family the chance to have a warm home and an affordable energy bill. We have the oldest and most poorly insulated houses in Europe and we need practical measures to address this. Again – this is just the sort of change our country needs.

I know that in the days and weeks ahead, Labour can win this election where it counts – both on the streets, and by showing it has the best plans for working people. I promise you our union will be playing our part – and so will I".

The thoughts of Chairman John...on Blogging

Mary Honeyball MEP has posted the video of her fringe at Labour Party conference 2010.  You can see my contribution on some of the perils of blogging and a possible potential political benefit here.

The other speakers were Mark Ferguson (Labourlist), Jessica Asato and Kerry McCarthy MP (her video not yet posted).

The fringe I thought was an excellent conference event.  Well done to Mary and her team for putting it on.

(The Guilty Newham 4 - they know who they are will now have an opportunity to understand just what they have missed out on - LOL :)

Labour Party Conference 2010: Bloggers 4 Labour fringe

Last Monday I was a member of this panel at the conference fringe chaired by London Labour MEP, (and blogger) Mary Honeyball.  I was first to speak then Islington Councillor and head of David Miliband social media campaign, Jessica Asato; the popular website Labour List’s acting editor, Mark Ferguson (who despite a dare did not appear in the supposed atypical male blogging attire – boxer shorts and dressing gown) and Labour “Social Media Tsar”, Kerry McCarthy MP.

There were around 100 people present in the fringe.  Many of whom were furiously blogging, tweeting and facebooking as we spoke.  There was even a few die-hards writing notes with pen-and-paper!

I went first about the legal perils of blogging and how Alex Hilton, Dave Olser and I have lived in “interesting times” for the past 3 1/2 years.  Since my case and Alex is still “on-going” (although in its final stages hopefully) I was a little circumspect about what I could say. 

I did warn bloggers that they must be mindful that it only costs £75 for someone to make a claim (serve a writ) for libel no matter how seemingly ridiculous the claim.  If you are in receipt of certain benefits it is even free.  You could spend thousands of pounds in legal costs (and years of your life) trying to get such a case kicked out with no guarantee you would ever be able to reclaim any of your costs. 

There are a few things to safeguard yourself - such as if you make a somewhat controversial post or comment on something you see on a web site - then save a screen print of it.  If you allow comments then make sure you do indeed moderate them.  If you get a complaint - take down the post until you get advice. 

Some say that the best posts are written late on a Friday or Saturday night after a “few” drinkies – but it is best to post only in the cold harsh light of the following day.  No matter how brilliant you thought it was at the time.

It is not all doom and gloom.  There were a number of occasions of “high comedy”.  Such as when Dave Osler "Ex-punk. Ex-Trot. Unchanged attitude problem" (definitely not a New Labour Supporter)" had to stand up in chambers and respectfully address the bowler hat wearing and MCC tie judge as “Master”.

Check out top legal blog “Jack of Kent” for fuller details of case's.

Next, I spoke about my cunning plan to “drive a wedge in the Coalition by social media”.  Blogging is usually driven either by the top or the bottom.  There are a number of high profile national individual or party blogs with widespread readership and interest.  There are also a huge number of smaller local and personal blogs with a small number of readers.  There is a gap in the middle to exploit. 

I wanted to encourage a Labour movement family blog in every locality.  In London this could be on a borough or regional basis. Run jointly by the local Labour Party and the affiliated trade unions.  A campaigning and reporting blog which will primarily be aimed and used to demonstrate to the 3 million trade union affiliates (and others) that the responsibility for the massive cuts in services and benefits that we face are down to the CONDEMS – and no one else. 

(I did mention that this wasn’t probably the most sensitive time to mention the further political mobilisation of trade union members!).  

Next was Jessica who was able to tell us what it was like to run a national mass new media campaign.  She suggested that there should be a fund for bloggers who face legal action and we need to do something about vile misogynistic anonymous commenter’s (which Mary concurred)

Mark is in the best tradition of Labour bloggers – enthusiastic, knowledgeable, cynical yet amusing.  He will make a fine editor of Labour List as long as they do not run out of money.

Kerry is a total new media enthusiast who wants to use this medium as a new means to communicate our traditional Labour values to the real wider public.   

Mary noted that she “was very pleased by the number of serious bloggers in the audience Councillor Stephen Cowan, Jon Worth, Tracey Cheetham, Mark Nottingham, Colin Ellar and the increasingly well regarded Political Scrapbook”.

There was a very good Q&A from the audience and since no-one mentioned my grand design for local Labour movement blogging, I assume that everyone agreed that it was a wonderful idea - or were too polite to disagree. 

Mary gave all us panellists at the end a very lovely thank you card and a little pressie (see – bloggers do have manners!). 

My pressie was the DVD of “A Very British Coup”.  Which perhaps I ought to send on to our “Red Ed” to prepare him for what might happen when he does become PM!

Many thanks to Mary and her team for all their hard work for what was an enjoyable and instructive fringe.