Author: gaillem

A packed meeting of local members has selected three excellent candidates to stand in next year’s local elections.

Ahead of May 2018’s elections for Local Councillors in Bromley, the Penge and Cator Labour party has selected three candidates for the three ward councillors. Congratulations to Kathy Bance, Kevin Brooks and Simon Jeal. Next May will be also be time to say a grateful farewell to  Peter Fookes as local Councillor, as he has decided not to stand again after over 30years.

A full meeting room of local Labour party members heard from an excellent shortlist of 6 candidates for the three seats. Each candidate spoke briefly about why they want to be a Councillors and then answered members’ questions, covering local campaigning, community work, casework, Bromley’s outsourcing policy and Labour leadership.

There was clear, strong support to re-select the current two Councillors, Kathy and Kevin, as candidates again given the excellent work they have done for Penge and Cator over the last four years.

However, members were split between the remaining candidates for the final seat, but selected Simon as the preferred candidate. This was a testament to both the high quality of all the shortlisted candidates and huge contribution Simon has already made to the local Labour party.

You’ll be hear a lot more from all three in the coming months!

For more about current councillors, visit the Councillors’ Page.

OPEN TO ALL – a talk on the political life of Alice Bacon MP by Rachel Reeves MP

Tuesday 24th October, 7:30 start
Melvin Hall, Penge SE20 8EU
Tickets are FREE but places are limited – BOOK NOW!

We invite you to join us to hear current Labour MP for Leeds West, Rachel Reeves talk about Alice’s journey, narrating her extraordinary progression from the coalfields to the
Commons and some of the key moments in Labour history she influenced along the way.

Elected in 1945, Alice Bacon was Leeds’ first female Member of Parliament. A school teacher and daughter of a miner famed in her home town for her unlikely love of sports cars, Alice was a much-respected, no-nonsense, hard-working representative for her beloved Yorkshire home in Westminster.

As an NEC member, Home Office and Education Minister in the 1964-70 Labour government, she played an integral part in some of the most significant social, educational and political changes which the country has ever witnessed, including the abolition of the death penalty, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the legalisation of abortion.

This event is FREE to attend – refreshments will be available for a suggested donation. Copies of Rachel’s book will also be available for sale at a special discounted price.

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

 

Local member Martin Spence is just back from four frantic days at Labour Party Conference in Brighton (just as a visitor, not a delegate). Here he shares his impressions of the event:

Hello from Penge East!

I arrived in the conference hall some time on Sunday afternoon to find a strangely familiar face up on the big screen. It was Mick, our very own ticket-office guy at Penge East Station, part of the TSSA union delegation, speaking from the rostrum. How nice to be greeted by a familiar Penge face.

A bit mad…

How to describe the overall Conference atmosphere? Friendly; somewhere on the spectrum between over-excited and chaotic; a bit mad. All of which is understandable given the Party’s extraordinary come-back in the Election. In addition to being a policy-making Conference this was, in effect, a slightly delayed four-day-long celebration party.

The febrile atmosphere was also fed by the decision to minimise set-piece speeches from MPs and maximise contributions from delegates. This led to an energetic bidding-war between rival delegates desperate to catch the Chair’s eye and have their moment of glory. Having a gimmick helped. One bloke got himself called up by waving a police helmet: he turned out to be the Police Commissioner for Nottingham. Others resorted to cuddly toys. “I’ll take you with the Red Lion!” called the Chair. Then: “Oh sorry, I’ve just been told it’s a Red Dragon”.

A decent bunch

I got along to a fair few fringe meetings, which varied in quality. More interesting at a personal level was a focus group which I’d been invited to attend, to talk about fundraising and Labour Party finances. I didn’t know any of the other participants, but they were all lovely people, and for an hour and a half we had a really good, practical discussion. We all agreed, for instance, that too many emails, begging for money, quickly become counter-productive. But no-one was moaning, and the mood in the room was positive and generous. I went away thinking what a decent bunch of people the Labour Party is. It cheered me up for the rest of the day.

Speeches, speeches

Back in the Conference hall, the speechifying inevitably ranged from the inspirational to the delusional. There were speeches which were passionate and well-crafted, and speeches which were frankly embarrassing. And there were some which were genuinely very funny.

For instance: Carwyn Jones, Labour’s First Minister in the Welsh Assembly, did a great riff on Teresa May’s Brexit speech in Florence, the city of Dante (seriously: how many Tories would know that?). Having made this connection, off Carwyn went, casting Brexit as a ghastly re-enactment of the Divine Comedy, with preliminary Article 50 negotiations as the First Circle of Hell, from which May and her buddies seem unable to escape.

Others had a more earnest style. Keir Starmer – in great demand at the countless Brexit-related fringe meetings – is positively Cromwellian in his demeanour. But I think that’s what we need from the bloke who is leading for us on such a crucial question. Brexit is by far the biggest issue facing the country, and was the biggest issue faced by Conference, and the gutless decision to deny Conference a vote on Brexit could have done us real damage. But with Starmer there as a voice of cool reason, that damage was minimised.

Oooooh Jeremy Corrr-byn!!

It’s a long time since I was at school, so a long time since I ‘broke up’ at the end of term, but Wednesday, the final day of Conference, had that sort of feeling. There was really only substantial piece of business: Jeremy’s Speech.

As a visitor, I had to go into a ballot months ago if I wanted a seat at this particular show, so I did, and (along with several thousand others) I won! I got there early to claim my prize and grabbed a prime front-row place in the balcony. I started chatting to my neighbour, only to find she was from Lewisham Deptford, just up the road, so we spent a happy hour comparing notes on everything from Croydon (better than it’s cracked up to be) to choirs (one of humanity’s great creations). This last was inspired by the Rainbow Choir who entertained us while we were waiting for Jeremy; and by the distribution of song-sheets for the roof-lifting rendition of ‘The Red Flag’ and ‘Jerusalem’ with which the Conference ended. Bloody great.

But before we got to the singing, we had Jeremy, greeted of course by the now compulsory Glastonbury Chant: Oooooh Jeremy Corrr-byn! It was a good performance, and he was clearly enjoying every moment, as he was entitled to do. I won’t try to summarise his speech – it’s already been done to death by the journalists. Let’s just say it was classic Corbyn: strong socialist stuff, offering endless hostages to fortune, because that’s the man’s style. He didn’t get where he is today by playing a cautious percentage game. And where is he today? Well, he thinks he’s Prime Minister in waiting, and I think he may be right.

Martin Spence

 

Labour member Sam shares his experience of the campaign

In the seven years that I have lived in Penge, the one thing that has amazed and inspired me again and again is the real sense of community that exists in our town. Over the past three months, our community has united to defend our local nursery from a cynical attack by our Tory led Council.

The bombshell hit at the end of June, when parents at Community Vision nursery received a letter from Bromley Council. The nurseries were operating at a loss, the letter said. The Council were looking at options for the future. Jacking up the fees or selling the nursery off were two options, but they might not work. Closure was being seriously considered. Parents were asked whether they’d prefer an April or July closure.

There was no warning that this was coming. Our local Councillors were not informed that the letter was coming. The staff were sworn to silence but the sadness around the nursery was clear to everyone. Parents began to panic – where would their children go in less than 12 months? The Council offered a 4 week “consultation” which fell into the Summer holiday period, stopping many people from responding.

But the Tory leadership didn’t count on the resolve and togetherness of our community. Penge fought back.

Within 24 hours, well over 100 people were supporting the campaign group I set up on social media. After a week, we had a campaign committee and had made the front page in the local newspapers. A local meeting was held in Melvin Hall, a petition was set up and a rally was held in Crystal Palace Park.

Within a fortnight, over 150 Penge people were committed to our campaign.

And this is where the local community really came together. From the local Councillors, to the Penge Tourist Board and the Penge Forum, everyone helped to spread the word and our campaign grew and grew.

Our consultation response was detailed and challenged the financial, ethical and social assumptions made by the Council. We were particularly concerned about looked after children, who the Council have a legal responsibility to care for, as well as whether space existed elsewhere in Penge for the displaced children.

Through the Summer we prepared searching questions for the meeting of Full Council this week, where we heard the amazing news that the nursery would remain open after all. When announcing the news, Cllr Peter Fortune (newly installed as Deputy Leader) accused our campaign of scaremongering and suggesting that all the Council had ever wanted was to gauge opinion from parents. In my experience, the ultimate compliment to a campaign is to pretend that it made no difference.

But it did. We came together when our local nursery needed us most. When the most vulnerable in our community were threatened, Penge stood up for them.

I’ve never been prouder to be part of this amazing community that truly does look out for each other.

Sam Russell,
Penge & Cator Branch Co-Secretary

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We’ve started a Facebook page for the Penge and Cator Labour Party – this will have all the public information about what the branch and Councillors are up to on it … including letting you know when new blogs are posted here!

Remember, local party members can also join our closed group for details of branch meetings and events and to discuss the issues with other local Labour activists. Join the group.  

Not on Facebook? No problem! You also follow us on Twitter @PengeLabour or simply check back on this website. Members get contact by email as well, of course!

 

 

We’re delighted we’ve now got a space to share all the news about our local activism, as well as information about our local Labour councillors.

Follow this blog for the latest about what has been happening, as well as what is coming up and how you can get involved!

You can also follow us on Twitter @pengelabour and (members only) can join our Facebook group.