While Labour Party orators readily remember the 1980s for Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's free-booting variety of entrepreneurial meritocracy, what gets forgotten is that Thatcher also gave the heave-ho to the old establishment's notion of merit - good breeding, a posh school, and so on.
I was brought up and raised in Britain as a Labour man, and that quickly changed. And I find there are more working-class people in the Conservative Party than the Labour party.
Well, I feel that everybody in the country knows me. I think people know who I am, and that I'm deputy leader of the Labour party, and that I'm out there talking about their big choice for the future.
I've been a member of the Labour Party sixty five years, and I remain in it, but I think it's all about campaigning for justice and peace, and if you do that, you get a lot of support.
We are all in the Labour party because we want the Labour party to be a vehicle for social change. There is a thirst for debate in the party, and all those who have joined haven't joined without a purpose.
What I've said in the past is that I want the Labour Party to approach this matter on the basis of unity.
