Jeremy Corbyn's 10th time as Islington North elected MP declaration speech in full

I am posting this to help highlight the human decency of the man.

Due to the competitive nature of election campaigning, policy emphases and tribal allegiances, such matters tend to distract from what we have in common.

Enough said by me at present on this matter.

Alan Wheatley

From Islington Tribune newspaper

Read Jeremy Corbyn’s declaration speech in full

Source:  http://camdennewjournal.com/article/jeremy-corbyns-declaration-speech-in-full

Labour leader of four years announces plans to step down

13 December, 2019

Jeremy Corbyn arriving at the count. Photo: Islington Tribune

(Islington Tribune is the sibling paper of Camden New Journal.)

ISLINGTON North MP’s full speech after announcement he had retained his seat.

Could I start by saying a huge thank you to the returning officer and all the staff and the police that have ensured a fair and democratic election has taken place today.

And also to congratulate and thank my fellow candidates for their participation in this election. And also a very heartfelt thanks to the people of Islington North for electing me again for the 10th time to represent Islington North in Parliament.

I’m very, very proud to do so and I’ve learned so much from the people of Islington North and it’s my pride and my pleasure to continue to be their representative in Parliament.

I also want to thanks Ruth Hayes our agent for this election, and all of the wonderful friends, comrades and supporters in Islington North Labour Party for the huge effort they put in in this election campaign and they put in all the time to carry a message of hope and justice, all over our constituency and through me, I hope to a wider world.

The pressure on those surrounding politicians is often very, very high indeed. The media intrusion on people’s lives is very high indeed. And the attacks that take place against family and loved ones of politicians continue and they are disgraceful and frankly, they are disgusting.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my family, my close friends, and those that have been close by and been very supportive during this and every other election campaign. I want to thank my three sons for the huge support they give me and I thank my wife, Laura Alvarez for all which she puts up with because of the way in which the media behave towards me, towards her and indeed, towards my party during this election campaign.

This is obviously a very disappointing night for the Labour Party with the results that we’ve got. But I want to say this, in the election campaign, we put forward a manifesto of hope, a manifesto of unity and a manifesto that would help to right the wrongs and the injustices and inequalities that exists in this country. For those who need housing, those who need an effective health service that will deliver for them. And those children that need a school that is properly funded, and they’re not being taught in oversized classes. And a manifesto that gave hope in dealing with the environmental crisis the world faces, by investing for the future through a green industrial revolution.

All of those policies were extremely popular during the election campaign and remain policies that have huge popular support all across this country. However, Brexit has so polarised and divided debate in this country, it is overridden so much of a normal political debate. And I recognise that has contributed to the result that the Labour Party has received this evening all across this country. The issues of social justice and the issues of needs of people will not go away. Just because Brexit is dealt with in the way in which Boris Johnson presumably plans to deal with at the moment, all those issues will come back centre stage in the debate.

And the fundamental Labour message about justice and equality within our society is going to be one that is there for all time because it’s the very core of what my party believes in and what I will always advocate on behalf of my constituency, and on behalf of my party.

I want to also make it clear that I will not lead the party in any future general election campaign. I will discuss with our party to ensure there is a process now of reflection on this result. And on the policies that the party will take going forward. And I will lead the party during that period to ensure that discussion takes place and we move on into the future.

I’m very proud of the trust that our half million members put in me to lead this party. And I’m very proud of the way that we fought this election campaign. We did not descend into the gutter, we did not undertake personal abuse, we undertook the task of getting a message of hope and justice to every part of this country.

And I’m very grateful to the Labour Party in Islington North for being very tolerant to the fact that I didn’t spend as much time in this election campaign in Islington as obviously I would want to do because I’ve been traveling around the whole country to ensure that Labour message is put there.

But I want to say this, I will remain the MP for Islington North and I’m proud to represent the people of Islington North, and I’m proud in Parliament and outside, that we will forever continue the cause for socialism for social justice, and for a society based on the needs of all rather than the greed of a few.

That is what makes our party what it is. And I’m very proud of the achievements of our party and the development of its manifesto and its ideas.

And I tell you what, those ideas and those principles are eternal, and they will be there for all time. I thank the people of Islington North once again, for putting their faith and trust in me. I will work as I always have to represent and defend the people of my constituency, because they’re very special and I owe them so much and they have all taught me so much. Thank you very much.

The apartheid of wealth state we're in

The apartheid of wealth State we're in

Preface by Alan Wheatley

Frank Dobson lived among the voters who elected him their MP election after election

I originally published this re-publishing of a Community Care magazine Social Care Experts blog post, at the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group Web Log that I used to administer. In a way, my yet republishing it again here is a tribute to the example set by the late Frank Dobson MP in living among the people he represented, though that was much despised by right wing tabloid newspapers.

Further, since I republished the below blog posting by Bob Holman at a Web Log that I administered, it has been apparently deleted from the Community Care website.

The blog posting below is originally from Community Care magazine and the days of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister. The matters of geographical social inequality raised in that piece have become more urgent as a consequence of the social cleansing that has arisen since the 2010 General Election brought in a cabinet of millionaires with no real electoral mandate for the policies that they and their successors attempted to excuse with the backdrop of the crash of 2008 that really stemmed from the perils of investment bankers being rescued by the State.

The pull quote in the Bob Holman article is:

"The affluent elite tell the government about poverty. Those who endure it are shoved aside." 

These days, that shoving of poor people aside gives rise to the sharp rise in out-of-London-dispersal of poor people. While the definition of 'affordable housing' laid down by investment banker-turned 'ennobled'-welfare reform minister David Freud and his ilk have made a mockery of social housing, the debt induced by linking definition of 'affordable' to "80% of [a deregulated housing market] rate" results in a steep rise in homelessness and out-of-London housing dispersals.

Yet with property developers and Central Government pulling Camden Council by the purse strings, we are in for further segregation of wealthy and poor people as this paragraph from a recent Camden New Journal item highlights:

The so-called “affordable” section of the development appears not to have the same entrance, amenity areas and roof terraces as the rest of the building. Even rubbish disposal seems to be segregated; tenants of the affordable flats are expected to take their own rubbish to the bins while the other flats will be provided with a rubbish chute. Moreover it seems that this section, together with the community space, will be directly over one of the most polluted and noisy traffic junctions in Camden. 

It can, ideally, be instructive for people to be 'up close and personal' with what they emit. I close this preface with a link to an item from 2011 about Jeremy Clarkson's sad discovery about such matters.

Poor must meet Gordon

Photo of Bob Holman taken from 2016 obituary in The Guardian
"Bob Holman gave up a comfortable life as a university professor
to follow his religious convictions to live and work on deprived housing estates."
Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The GuardianVisit The Guardian obituary page for Bob Holman

by Bob Holman

Originally posted in Community Care magazine, 20 February 2008

Many of those committed to reducing poverty make the time to lobby the rich but have little contact with those at the sharp end Papers recently released show that Tony Blair had regular meetings with the ultra-rich. They lobbied the prime minister on tax breaks and pensions for themselves and their companies. No doubt they now meet Gordon Brown.

If a lobby for the rich meets in Downing Street why not one for the poor? I do not mean the leaders of national charities who have regular meetings with ministers. Odd that those on salaries of more than £100,000 a year, which help reinforce the idea of inequality, should take it upon themselves to be the poverty lobby.

Bob Holman: "The affluent elite tell the government about poverty.
Those who endure it are shoved aside."

Anyone who lives in a deprived area knows that many people on low incomes are intelligent and articulate about their plight. In 1998, I encouraged some residents in Easterhouse, Glasgow to write. They did not need to be taught to think or analyse. They did need help in finding a publisher. When the book came out as Faith in the Poor, it soon ran to a second edition.

One problem is that people in poverty are segregated from the powerful. When I joined the Labour Party in the 1960s, some MPs still lived in council estates, cheap housing areas and pit towns. Not now. As the research of Danny Dorling, professor at Sheffield University, shows, Britain is an increasingly segregated society.

Poverty lobby

The affluent – MPs, leaders of think tanks, government advisers, other senior public figures and all who make up the chattering classes – are geographically and socially distanced from those who struggle to survive. Consequently, it is almost impossible for them to have close friendships with and to act jointly with those who experience inequality. It is the powerful, affluent elite who tell the government and the media about poverty while those who endure it are shoved aside.

The poverty lobby should now campaign on the issue: “listen to poor people rather than us”. If the government agrees to breakfast with those on low incomes, how could it be organised? I don’t know. I do know that organisations such as ATD Fourth World run community and service user groups made up of single parents, pensioners, those on disability benefit, asylum seekers and many more.

Their representatives would be a start.

The agenda? That is for them to decide. I do believe that they would demonstrate to politicians that poverty is not because of an underclass or fecklessness or defective personalities but is something imposed by the powerful – the kind of people who make up the ultra rich lobby.

Bob Holman is an author and voluntary neighbourhood worker in Glasgow

- See more at: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-experts-blog/2008/02/poor-must-meet-gordon/#sthash.fOdghxsF.dpuf


Alan notes: The reason the above 'See more at' link no longer works and in fact leads to a 'page not found' cartoon, is that Community Care magazine has moved from being "the voice of social care," to being a publication that does not wish to interfere with the marketisation of social care, and/or offend potential advertisers. Deletion or re-routing of pages on a website is often a cause of what is called 'page rot'.
See also

Planning White Paper ignores accessible housing, Disability News Service reports