Coming out in favour of ...

The Labour leadership contest has been significantly lack lustre to date but today Andy Burnham's battle bus rolled into town at the Earl Spencer White Water Rafting Centre and raised the game significantly with a message of "Big Ideas" such as a National Care Service and a central core of the need to fight for the principle of social justice in our country and across the world.

As part of the ethos of his campaign much was stated about the Labour Party needing to reclaim its ground as the Peoples party and taking back the party from a political elite.
With the likes of Pete Jenner acknowledging Andy's potential in his comments about the Labour Party needing to stop spinning and start inspiring, Andy really seems to be the passion in this contest with his feet firmly on the ground.

I'm encouraging people to back Andy as the one that can

• really relate to people on the street
  
• define the priorities that bring Labour back home to where it belongs on the side of the vulnerable and the voiceless
• demonstrate that he has the ethics that have the values of social justice at his heart
• have the courage to state the "bleedin' obvious" in respect of his sense of right and wrong

With many thinking that one or other of the Millibands has got it in the bag ... Andy gives Labour Party members a chance to vote for real change so sign up to support his campaign here.

Getting the change we need

It certainly has been eventful since the election in May and still can't quite work out what's going to change next. News comes this morning of proposals to cut milk for children. Something that takes many of us back decades in terms of campaigning against cuts in public services.

In Northamptonshire, first proposals about cuts in transport to over 16's with learning difficulties and then news that the County Council is reconsidering it's decision following Special Need Involving Parents (SNIP) higlighted the potential of the decision being discrimination against young people with disabilities and their carers.

It does seem for those of us that want to challenge the reduction in spending on public services we do need to know who are friends are and how to work together with others so we do not get services picked off one by one. Certainly the strategy of using Equality Impact Assessment maybe one that will disappear as legislation changes.

So all the more welcome are plans for a one day workshop hosted by Northampton Quakers under the banner of Turning the Tide. The workshop seeks to bring together active campaigners from a variety of organisations to share information and resources for effective campaigning.

It will be held on Saturday 13th November between 10am and 4pm at the Freinds Meeting House, Wellington Street, Northampton NN1 3AS (opposite Marks and Spencers side entrance). To register for the limited spaces at this event, contact Julia Bush on julia.bush@northampton.ac.uk.