“We don't have to be unequal. It does not have to be unfair, poverty isn't inevitable. Things can, and they will change" Jeremy Corbyn, 12 September 2015. A momentous day in this country. Just had time to watch Jeremy elected leader of the Labour Party before joining 100,000 marching through central London in solidarity with refugees. Jeremy is my local MP and I have been helping out with his leadership campaign – archiving media reports. I hope his victory means I can stop this work! I have to get back to my book, 'Left Field' , and rewrite parts of the chapter about my politics. “Towards the end of the Grunwick strike in 1977”, I wrote in 'Ships at Sea' - the chapter on my political life, “I remember a speaker on the picket lines calling for a march on Parliament. This was booed and someone shouted out, ‘Don’t disturb the dead.’ I was not alone in my scorn for the ‘parliamentary road’.” I hope my readers will settle for this as a postscript: "September 2015: Despite not wishing to disturb the dead I supported the Jeremy Corbyn for Labour Party leader campaign. Perhaps this is because he is one of the few MPs who is not dead. One of the few who offer an alternative to austerity and war, an alternative to the estate agents of New Labour. As my constituency MP I have consistently voted for him for these reasons and not because he is Labour."
No comments:
Post a Comment