It is a great shame that a thread such as this concentrates on one person in the Labour party when the wider Labour movement is about much more than any one single person.
I am this week tutoring/mentoring on an industrial safety course organized the Unite trade union. For the students involved in this for the full week, it will be a culmination of tuition which began in September last year. They have been encouraged in that by their union and in some cases the companies they work for to have studied throughout the winter while at home, in their workplaces, and on four full time weeklong courses with tests and examination at the conclusion of each.
Of the sixty eight who began studying last Autumn, we are now down to eighteen who will (if successful) Qualify for an NVQ stage five and in that will be allowed to become members of The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Britains formost industrial safety body.
Although almost all of the sixty eight who started out on what for many of them was a difficult journey have ended up with NVQs at various levels, it is those which pass out here on Friday which will go on to be at the very forefront of industrial safety in the future.
I find all the foregoing a huge tribute to the United Kingdom's trade union movement and have personally always found it an honour to be involved. In that, to me and all of us involved in these courses each year, this is the Labour movement, and in that the Labour movement at its irreplaceable very best. That movement is not about Jeremy Corbyn or some members and MPs who feel their noses have been pushed out it is about better working conditions, better workplace health safety, better housing for those workers better wages and salaries in a more equal society.
In the above, let us not forget that Conservative governments since the 1980s have continuously attempted to destroy the trade unions with legislation, and Tony Blair and his cohorts did nothing to reverse that while holding office. However, through the commitment of the leadership and grassroots activists the trade unions have survived and continue to do the great work we are witnessing here this week.
And long may that continue.
