I had a bit of a jaunt into East Hull Sunday.
The city is not that big but there has always an east, west divide with North Hull sitting somewhere in-between. My destination was Hull Kingston Rovers Rugby Stadium but I was not attending a sport's event unless you want to describe a Labour party event as a blood sport. It was an Owen Smith leadership question and answer session organised by East Hull MP Karl Turner. We arrived at the stadium where one solitary protester holding a placard referring to the EU referendum was politely waving said placard. So I was somewhat surprised to see a police presence as we drove into the car park. I half laughed and smiled in confusion as we passed the handful of officers and their van and a couple kindly reciprocated and smiled and laughed back. A little past them was a BBC van. It seems the event was going to be televised, or was it? It was held on the second floor in a stadium lounge. As we puffed our way up the stairs rather than wait for the occupied lift to return BBC North news presented Tim Iredale raced past as he descended the four flights of stairs. We made our way in having a joke with the cute looking young boy who was acting as steward, directing people to the toilets and so on. I asked him if this was slave Labour working a child and on a Sunday and he laughed back my Dad is inside. So we moved on to Dad who was ticking people attending into the event. It was a ticketed event, you just had to apply online for a free ticket. The big room was familiar to me though looked a little smaller. I have been to this venue once before; that was last year when Andy Burnham MP was on the Labour Party leadership campaign trail. The room seemed bigger last year and I wondered if the free-standing partitions had been moved forward for whatever reason. It could have course just been my memory playing tricks on me. Last year I went to the event with my 85-year-old neighbour and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; so much so we both voted for Burnham and were initially disappointed when he was not elected. But you see for both of us it was his age we saw as a problem. We are both called Eileen, and as I said she is now 85 and I am 64 so we were not being disrespectful. Jeremy Corbyn the incumbent party leader may be a sectogenarian but he has proved the has the dynamism and energy of a much younger person. He has won we two Eileens over this year and some. We have both already cast our vote for Jeremy Corbyn 2016. So why go to the Owen Smith event? A mixture of many things led me to east Hull Sunday. If Owen Smith does win the Labour leadership election this year Labour Party members who stick around will be faced with him leading the party but we know little about the man. So I listened, quite intently at times, as I tried to draw some conclusions. But first we all had to sit and wait, and wait, and wait, for Owen Smith to arrive. Most people had got there fairly early and there was a refreshment bar selling alcohol, soft drinks and tea and coffee. Myself and my companion settled down and began to chat a little. It was not Eileen neighbour but it was another Corbyn voter. We talked softly at first surrounded by Mr Smith supporters. I have far from a quiet voice and I suspect the jig was soon up but hey ho it was an open event. Around 45 minutes after the session was due to kick off it finally began. Owen had been delayed and it was due to a train though not traingate. That created some early laughter whether it was true or not. It probably was what had happened but he had made time for photos etc. before arriving perhaps with the BBC man mentioned earlier. Not one person organising the event apologised or explained what was happening but left us all sat like a bunch of lemons for more than 45 minutes. So the session began and it began with a young Labour member I do not always remember names but I do faces. I had spotted this young lady as we were waiting for Owen to arrive. She was busying herself at the front, I thought maybe stewarding. Last year she was at the Andy Burnham event. She seemed a nice enough gal and we followed each other on twitter for a time. We parted company, or rather I did, when I noticed her making scurrilous tweets and re-tweets about Corbyn. Still we all poke a little fun at each other at times. Last year around the same time she claimed that she was impassioned by the Burnham event and wanting to get into politics and Karl Turner seemed happy to give her a helping hand. Great I thought as politics needs young people for us to pass the baton to. But the fact that she was the speaker introducing Smith seemed odd. Perhaps that is just me? She is something in Hull young Labour these days. Her speech was long and from well written notes and she talked Labour politics as if she had been involved for decades and personally experienced Labour's highs and lows. She said she was pleased when Mr Corbyn was elected and brought a breath of fresh air to the party but that is not true. Like me she supported Burnham last year and looking at her social media timeline post September 12, 2015, did not make me think she was impressed with Corbyn at all. But what Leanne if that was her name did was introduce Mr Corbyn into the session and that continued throughout the afternoon. Mr Smith arrived and in truth his voice grated on me less than it does on TV but he did not win me over. He talks a good talk but he has yet to prove to me he can and will walk the walk. The q and a began and to be fair it was not all plain sailing. One man wearing an NHS T Shirt got to his feet, politely greeted Owen, but then asked a rather long, awkward question. The men sat on the row behind me all said Corbynite as one. He did get a little engrossed and was asked to sit down; in fact at one point a few shouted sit down and they almost reminded me of those rude members of the PLP who treat Corbyn in a similar fashion in the House of Commons. One man who asked about Trident and was obviously against its renewal was also assessed as a Corbynite. I gave the event my full attention, the surroundings, the other people and:
The event ended and Smith and Turner applauded the standing ovation in the room. They were all applauding each other in true Jeremy Corbyn style. I did not stand or applaud. My mission was done and I try to be WYSIWYG I could not resist turning round to the row of men standing behind applauding and saying spot the Corbynite sitting down ME and we shared a laugh. As a few people chatted with others we realised there were a few Corbyn supporters in the room. One thing that was touched upon but remained unanswered was what next? If Jeremy Corbyn wins what will the PLP do? One angry man, also deemed Corbynite, physically pointed at Alan Johnson's back at Owen Smith and at Karl Turner and said but will you, and will you and will you support him? The answer was vague but and there is a big but. Essentially the Owen Smith reply was if he has integrity so do I; I will go to back benches. But I did not get the impression they are intending to lose this one. The Labour purge is on; members are being ousted from the party in my opinion in the hope Owen can win. Please do not tell me it is for any other reason. The timing of the purge as voting papers began being sent out said it all. As for unity in the party forget that. Owen Smith may be touting himself as the unity candidate if he wins but he did not share how he can unite the party. The truth is he can't. [A much needed glass of red wine made tonight's blog a slow process; by the time I hit twitter there are other images etc out there. But the MSM are complaining they were not allowed in to the event, though Karl Turner has denied that to local reporter Angus Young. I have tweeted them my citizen blog and would ask you please do the same thanks]
Georgina Harrison
28/8/2016 11:30:15 pm
Thank you for your fab report Eileen and thank you for going that extra mile to give us a flavour of Smith's rally. I did think about going as you know but I just couldn't put myself through it. I have nothing personally against Owen Smith; Imo he comes across as insincere with no robust substance though of course I haven't seen him in the flesh.
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Eileen
28/8/2016 11:45:48 pm
Thank you Georgie. As you know I try to be accurate. So as one of Owen's team had a hissy fit on Twitter that my only image showed an empty seat I have amended the comment. He had plenty of images but when I challenged him on whether he was filming us all and why he said it was just an image hmmm They of course had names and email addresses of everyone as we had to use them to apply for the event
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Eileen
28/8/2016 11:50:56 pm
Well said Georgie.
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Penny Ballinger
29/8/2016 09:45:32 am
This is all so disappointing, money pouring into the Smith campaign and purging members for spurious reasons. I am bombarded with letters and emails from the Smith campaign- more than from the Corbyn campaign. Have taken to marking return to sender unsolicited mail, but wonder whether just doing this will 'list' me too, and I will get one of those unwanted in the party letters....
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John McPartland
29/8/2016 11:28:47 pm
Thanks, Eileen. I enjoyed you report and thought it much fairer than I could possibly have given if I had been there. Smith grates on me and I find his constant reference to "Jeremy this, Jeremy that" incredibly irritating. I'm glad you related the numbers present. Comparatively, they are very small. It reminds me of standing room only, though in a telephone box. When Jeremy Corbyn has his second victory ratified, there is certain to be a split, led by the self servers from within PROGRESS. They are the parasitical element, biting, though living off Labour. Once again, Eileen, well written.
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