Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Gordon and Cabinet listen to Bermondsey Voices

Another more recent picture of Gordon (see last post).

Coincidentally, last night I received a call from a Newham contact who asked me if I could attend an important consultation “meeting” today in Bermondsey, South East London. I asked him who was attending and he gave me the usual cryptic answer that he could not tell me for security purposes (or of course he would have to shoot me).

Fair enough I thought. This morning I was texted the address “Beormund Community Centre, Abbey Street, SE1”. At the community centre we were directed into what appeared to be the sports hall which had a number of round tables and chairs. It was pretty full of people and press/media.

Beormund is a pucker inner city community centre. While queuing to get in you could see “tea dances” taking place in a far hall. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

After booking in with my passport I was directed to a table in the corner of the sports hall. In another coincidence I was seated next to friendly Tower Hamlets people. Also on our table was a local housing c0-op member and representatives of a number of local and national organisations.

The official purpose of the meeting was to consult on the Government’s draft legislative programme 2008/9 (Your Voice). The Prime Minister and a number of cabinet ministers including Harriet Harman, Jackie Smith, Alan Johnson, Ed Balls and Hazel Blears turned up and were allocated tables in the room to chair meetings on the legislative programme.

We had Hazel on our table. She was as usual “on form” and led a lively discussion on the 10 most important issues that our table thought important. Many of us around that table had strong views on government policy and legislation however we were kept well in line by Hazel.

Gordon was supposed to sit on our table to discuss things but was waylaid on route. Shame.

At the end Gordon gave a pretty powerful speech to us all. While I didn’t agree with everything (diversity in NHS supply being a good thing?), most of his stuff was very positive. Excellent news on fairness for agency workers

Neither he nor his cabinet ministers seemed down or beaten. Business as usual I think. But I hope that the Bermondsey voices will still be heard.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good morning John.

I was wondering if you've seen the UNISON video on the environment? It's at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDlMBT0BUyQ

Any chance you could link to it from your blog?

Thank you

Dave Kitson

John Gray said...

Hi Dave
Will post on it soon.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!
Dave

paul mc said...

Hi john. i now live in essex but my heart and soul is still in bermondsey as they say in se16 :no one likes us we don't care: see you monday

John Gray said...

The old dears I spoke to seems to like us? It was a proper working class venue. I felt at home.

See you Monday Paul.