Really motoring

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Saturday, 24 January 2009, 04:37

It really has been a roller coaster of a few days, though fortunately most of it was spent in the upwards direction. The Bexley by-election result was certainly too close for comfort. Though the BNP was defeated it was only by eight votes and I’ve been told that during one recount they were actually counted ahead.

The campaign in the North West is really motoring. On Thursday evening I addressed a meeting in St Helens and I now hope a local group will emerge as a result. At the end of the meeting I was approached from a woman who asked if she could help set up a group in Warrington – eh, yes please!

Yesterday was spent split between Liverpool and Manchester. The TUC formally opened their new office so it was a good time to catch up with some old friends and meet plenty of new ones too. Our film man Gregg was up for the day doing a bit of shooting for our Union DVD that will be out shortly. We used the TUC event to interview TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, Unite Regional Secretary Kevin Coyne and FBU Regional Secretary Neil Thompson. We also grabbed a quick word with local MP Louise Ellman.

Then it was back to Manchester where we had a planning meeting to set up a Manchester HOPE not hate group. I’m really excited about this project as I think it is going to be really massive and with 36% of the North West electorate living in the Greater Manchester area this is what will be needed. In between all this I managed to do an interview with the Guardian about our link up with Blue State Digital, raise some money, read some hate mail (always fun!) and enjoy a post-work drink with some friends.

All in all, it’s not been a bad 48 hours.