tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066105055768088299.post5112198639680914814..comments2023-10-30T11:42:45.966+00:00Comments on Mary Honeyball MEP: PROGRESSIVE LONDON CONFERENCEMary Honeyballhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00981857726691650802noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066105055768088299.post-84815340343062456102009-01-28T21:10:00.000+00:002009-01-28T21:10:00.000+00:00Portable CRB checks? Like you I would not have exp...Portable CRB checks? Like you I would not have expect that too. Thank you for your comments Noel.Mary Honeyballhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00981857726691650802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7066105055768088299.post-52921731266639295692009-01-27T21:23:00.000+00:002009-01-27T21:23:00.000+00:00It seemed from the conference that there are alter...It seemed from the conference that there are alternative narratives - moving from the “what worked” under Ken (living wage, congestion charge, etc) to the “what matters” (fairness, care & solidarity) which…well really matters lot in how we frame our responses to the recession to Londoners out there who are really feeling the bite.<BR/><BR/>But is it enough to bring together politicians from across the “progressive spectrum” to show our solidarity on issues like Heathrow or the living wage which portray that alternative narrative to the government? Is it enough to congratulate ourselves on getting such a massive turnout at the conference? People will be fairly interested in a range of issues but there’ll be one issues that really drives them - whether it’s Gaza or civil liberties - these wedge issues were all represented…but there was no mechanism for people to take these forward from the grassroots…<BR/><BR/>It slightly astonished me when Ken talked about all the networking to get this conference off the ground, but surely this should be the start of something not just the ultimate hangover cure from the elections?<BR/><BR/>At our Compass Youth “young london” workshop, the room was packed out - with people but mainly with ideas - mentoring scheme for young people to get into green jobs, youth mayor for London with a capacity building budget, making CRB checks portable, a virtual youth club and cooperative schools. To be honest, with an hour an half and with four exciting speakers that we were keen to listen to as well, as well as competing against other heavweight sessions at the same time, we were scared that either no-one would turn up or not many people would want to put forward, let alone work out together what campaigns we should take forward for young Londoners.<BR/><BR/>To be even more honest, the winning idea, making CRB checks portable to enable more people (young or old!) to take part in volunteering, isn’t something that we may have thought of on our NEC, but we committed to campaign on idea that won most votes and that’s what we’ll do. In fact, we’ll support people who want to take forward the other campaigns put forward.<BR/><BR/>Why? Because if you give people an inch, they’ll give you a mile…oh, and because we enabled people to give us their email addresses so we can get in touch with them in doing this. It’s pretty basic, but if you ain’t got their contact details, how are you going to build a progressive coalition?noelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06368396871382750581noreply@blogger.com