Backing Labour

Have rejoined the Labour Party, to support  care and fairness rather than to support the eccentricities of the present leader. I was last a member in Middlesbrough, a town strongly labour with a massive and vocal support base that ended up so vitriolic against any disagreement that it drove me out for 40 years. But I have taken the risk, and returned to the fold.

My first meeting this morning. This meeting was gentle, caring, well led, and thoughtful calmness. One person came late - the representative for women's issues - appologising that her child was playing up this morning. He'd had his first day at school this week, and for a dare had opened a drain and jumped in with both feet. His shoes were black with oozing slimey mud, so she'd put them in the washing machine. "Luckily they were Clarkes," she said, "they came out again quite OK".

Someone raised the looming problems of Brexit and the possibility of shortages of food and drugs, and wondered what should be done. The chairperson (I am becoming conscientiously PC these days, so I won't specify chairwoman) immediately pulled the meeting back to the local issues.

"No one knows what will happen, and I can't get a position from the Central Party about the attitude we should take towards a second referendum. The important things for this branch are to build support for the struggling food banks, to publicise the increasing number of impoverished children, when the prime-minister promised to eliminated child poverty by 2010, and to pressurise for more support for the school bus service, because the poorest children are forced to use schools they can walk to rather than schools of their choice, as the parents can't afford the bus fares." All, I thought, very worthy issues. I must go again.