I first became involved in the Labour (Trade Union) movement when I was 19 and quickly went from a Shop Steward within a local authority to a branch Youth Secretary with the GMB union.

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This catapulted me into the world of national conferences with the GMB, TUC and Labour.

The abolition of “Clause 4” was still rather fresh in the minds of many Labour voters, Privatisation (the selling off of the family Silver) and PfI contracts looked like the golden ticket to continued economic prosperity, not to mention selling most of the Gold reserves at historic low prices. Look at us now, Railtrack lasted just 8 years before being bought back into public hands and after 35 years of private ownership, a very wet winter and many healthy shareholders dividends you and I are effectively using our rivers and seas as toilets. Accountants use the term “sweat the assets” but the consequences of this go further than the financial year that is on their spreadsheet, I prefer an engineering standpoint.

Local authorities had been instructed to restrict rises in taxation to near zero and seek economies to balance the books which they duly did. Come the economic crisis of 2007 further economies had to be found and communities slowly but surely lost out more and more.

I have spent the intervening years in the building trade and then took a full time job that lead to a management position within a large corporate – valuable experience that has taught me that the bigger the organisation the more difficult it is to effect change, but put in the unseen hard work at an early stage and the fruit it eventually bears is all the more sweet.

When the chips were really down in 2022 as inflation ran riot many Local Authorities either went bankrupt or went into some kind of new lockdown with phone systems that send you round in circles, in the unlikely event you get through to someone they simply tell you that your issue is one for some other authority than theirs; this must change. I decided to put politics on the “back-burner” in 2008 and the fire was only reignited in March 2024 when I read of George Galloway’s historic landslide in the Rochdale by-election. I joined of his party within a heartbeat of reading the “Ten Points”, let alone reading the manifesto.

The “Labour Party” that continues to present itself as the party of the worker is very much a spent force that has lost all respect for its founding principles, Tory’s wearing red ties.

Standing for a young and relatively unknown party is not easy, but achieving seismic political change never has or will be; the labour movement can trace it roots back to a very hard won struggle.

To those that say they intend to support Labour simply because “they always have” I implore to do some homework to establish if Labour still actually support them. To those that intend to support Labour just because they think everyone else will I accuse of cowardice – there are other choices!

To those that feel the need to exercise their democratic right to vote but are still undecided I ask that they consider that they do so for myself and the Workers Party, whilst I clearly have some experience I haven’t spent my whole working life rising up through the political ranks and becoming indoctrinated into the system. The best way to change any system is from within but I cannot do it without your support.