I won't
uh I won't speak from
notes because you're not allowed to
speak from notes in the House of
Commons I know that because I spent
nearly 30 years there I was elected six
times to
Parliament four times as a labor Member
of Parliament twice on my own and I say
that the consolation prize when I beat
people they usually end up in the House
of Lords also so get your out my
road I'm not a stranger here despite
what some people say on the
doorsteps my youngest child was born
here exactly two weeks ago
two of my other children live in
Manchester I'm living in charlon my
headquarters is in
Le and if I'm the Member of Parliament
everybody will know about it the one
thing I did agree with a previous
speaker was this if labor win this seat
at the general election on June the 8th
absolutely nothing will change
absolutely
nothing will
change as Jess said at the
beginning and let me put numbers on
according to the save the children
fund 43% of the children in this
constituency are officially living in
child
poverty even more
staggering
74% of the families in this constituency
are of officially classed as lwi income
families and I say to the labor friends
here that's an absolute disgrace
Manchester is great but gon is being
left
behind gerd cofman was my friend for 33
years and trust me Abel you may call him
your friend he never called you his he
used to say to me Abel
Over My Dead Body that's what he used to
say Over My Dead Body and I'm deter that
that will not come true I'm determined
that that will not come true I'm
determined I'm determined that this
constituency will have someone who will
make a difference who make everyone sit
up and take notice because if that
doesn't happen those statistics that I
have given you will not alter one
job Peter is right we're a
Crossroads we're are Crossroads in our
country and we're at Crossroads in
international Affairs this is a
dangerous and unstable time and
Parliament needs someone who understands
what's going on
well first of all I don't believe for
one minute that Marine Leen will be
elected president of France the great
people of France will unite against her
whoever is the candidate in the second
round and I hope that that candidate
will be my friend for 20 years Mr Mel
who is the radical candidate who is
currently at the heels of the
establishment parties offering the same
kind of radical political alternative
that I'm offering in this constituency
and to some extent Jeremy Corbin is
offering as leader of the labor party I
think that he has a very good chance of
being the candidate against the in the
second round but Peter is absolutely
correct when he says
that this is a crisis of the
establishment political parties all over
the world in the United States in France
in Greece in France the labor
party will score something like 10% of
the vote the president of France Holland
had to leave the contest when his
personal opinion poll ratings reached
4% the labor party in Greece is now
extinct eclipsed by the rise of el
respects but this is a crisis of the
establishment the people of France
suffering in the same kind of austerity
as our country has been made to suffer
don't consider any of the establishment
alternatives to be the answer to their
problem
and some of them in some countries break
to the left some of them in some
countries break to the right but the
beauty of the French system is that
there has to be a second R I believe
that thean will get the highest vote
tomorrow in the first round of voting
but I don't believe that her vote will
rise in the second round and so the
nightmare scenario of the question up I
believe will not
GE Jackie that would have had a bit more
credibility if you hadn't spent 5 years
propping up the
Tories
supporting tripl
University all for the seat in the back
of a ministerial
monteo Nick PL Nick PL pled in blood
that he would scrap student tuition fees
and then he tripled them so for you to
have the goal to talk about austerity
and the impact that he had on this
community when there would never have
been a t government if you have't put it
into Power you haven't kept it in power
for five long
years the reality is this what you're
voting on is an
opposition the Tories are going to win
this election not by nearly as much as
they think they will but they're going
to win it the question therefore is who
is best to oppose them to defend you
against them who's got the best voice
the clearest voice who's got the
clearest ideas to stand up against them
who doesn't need to bring notes and read
from them at his first hustings in a
general election
[Applause]
campaign I'm not stuck in
1997
198
1977 I have a million followers on
social media
and many of them are watching this on my
social media dece so I actually have a
lot of sympathy with the points that
you're making about direct democracy
though I just mentioned to you that not
everybody's on the internet not
everybody's got a smartphone not
everybody is on Twitter or Facebook of
course increasingly more and more are I
have a lot of sympathy for that point
but we mustn't confuse form with content
the content of this election is not
about direct democracy or representative
democracy it's about who's going to be
the MP here to help oppose an almost
certainly reelected conservative
government there is nobody in here in
their hearts who believes that labor is
going to win an majority at this
election but what might happen is that
there will be a collection of people a
kind of rainbow of people people who
might be able to at least minimize the
conservatives Victory and might even be
able to block the return of trees made
to damage and I'm certainly in favor of
that it's not it's not either or Peter I
left school at 17 and went to work in
Mitchell and ties I made z x radial ties
most NPS can't even change a to none of
my
make and I joined the transport General
Workers Union on Christmas Eve 1973 and
I'm still a member now of unit I support
workers all workers who stand up for
their rights who oppose the bosses
attempts to cut their wages and
conditions in real terms it's not either
or it's not syndicalism or politics it's
politics and Trade union power it's
Parliament and Council it's local
community organizations like this one
and all kinds of uh Civic organizations
acting through the internet and outside
of the internet we've got to build in
this country a coalition of people who
say that £10 an hour is the minimum
living wage in this country and we
demand it and we're going to fight for
the a million Council houses must be
built to solve the house housing crisis
that we will not accept austerity in the
way that labor did by the way somebody
said ear I think it was Jackie the
pathway to many of the wicked things
that have been done over the last few
years was paved by Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown they
introduced many of the things including
fees I oppos the introduction of tuition
fees goldon Brown said to me it's only
,000 I said it's the principle and one
day that £1,000 will be
£1,000 and he laughed oh how he laughed
well it's nearly £10,000 no would bet
against it being 10,000 so these are no
either or questions and you shouldn't be
seduced into imagining that they are
[Applause]
on this I believe that we can win we can
put together a white enough Coalition
Powerful enough to stop the descent into
the Americanization of the British
National Health Service when I entered
Parliament exactly 30 years ago uh next
month Mrs thater was well into the
course that we have followed ever since
which is the increase use of of the
private sector in what is supposed to be
a publicly funded free at the point of
need National Health Service and Jeremy
Corbin and I opposed it then and we
opposed it as Rebel labor MPS when Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown continued us down
that path and Jackie is right that one
of the major reasons for the financial
crisis in the National Health Service is
the cost of of the payments being made
to the private sector and to the owners
of NHS facilities under the bogus PPP
and PFI initiatives it's vitally
important that we defend the finest
achievement in this country of the 20th
century it is something that most people
in Britain are ready to defend but the
reason why the green party couldn't get
the support that they deserved when car
and Lucas introduced that bill is that
labor was fatally compromised by the
fact that they would be condemning
things that they themselves had
initiated so if I'm the MP I'll be
sitting behind jery
Corbin and I'll be one of the few that
doesn't have a knife in my hand ready to
stab up in the
back and I'll support this campaign for
the
nationalization the rationalization of
the National Health Service properly
funded National in character and forever
free other point of
[Applause]
view record
with and I'll direct my comments I'll
direct my sorry
I'll direct my comment to Jackie because
she
implied uh more than implied that this
was not a question for her but it is you
see Tim far has ruled
out going into Coalition with the labor
party in this general election but
refused to rule out going back into
Coalition with the conservative party so
if you vote for Jackie in this general
election you're voting for a party that
is ruling out being in Coalition with
Jeremy Corbin but refusing to rule out
keeping Theresa May in power so you
should know that you should go in to
this election with your eyes wide open
on that Jeremy Corbin has been my friend
for almost 40 years I sat next to him
literally for uh on most days in the
house of commment for almost 30 years
he's a good and honest
man he's by far and way the best person
running to be prime minister in this
country and when I have the chance to do
so I will always defend him and support
him now it's true that
172 labor MPS have spent the best part
of the last 2 years stabbing Jeremy
Corbin in the
back and most
AB have been in you on your Twitter feed
campaigning for you in this election
that's the truth of the matter most of
them have been here Tom Watson and a
whole R bag of others if I'm elected I
will support Jeremy Corbin until my last
bread
[Music]
[Applause]
well I have four children under 10 and
so the issue that's raised is of vital
importance to me because the danger
especially for children of being hit by
cars at 30 mph or more is a real and
critical problem for people with
children and people without children I
support a 20 mph our speed limit
throughout Manchester I don't believe
that any car needs to go faster than
that in this
city and on the subject of
vots half of Manchester City council's
highways committee are counselors from
this constituency and you only have to
go outside to see how poor a job they've
done I have never seen so many portoles
in any place in this country that I have
seen in the Manchester Gorton
constituency I watched with my own eyes
on high road a a motorcyclist coming off
his bike hitting a PO hole potholes and
poverty and uncollected rubbish are the
legacy of Labor in mancher
[Applause]
I'm glad you planted trees Jackie but I
don't know how many trees have being cut
down for all your refs in
this I've never seen so many pieces
of saying the
same so many do I fully
support the friends of box Bill campaign
I trly supporter I agree with Jess uh Dr
Mark said the under capitalism all that
is sacred will be profaned and all that
is solid will melt into air the economic
and political system the rules almost
all of the globe is des spoiling
destroying the uh atmosphere destroying
the Earth itself on the subject of
pollution there's uh an article in
today's newspaper that shows that 80% of
people in Britain are living in areas
with dangerously High pollution rates
and we have to do something about that
or all these other political discussions
will be or lastly I made this point it's
slight digression but not really we're
living at a moment when nuclear
confrontation is is more likely than at
any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis
of
1963 and that that's the ultimate
environmental disaster that's why I'm
opposed to the Trident nuclear program
is why I've opposed nuclear weapons all
of my life because they are the ultimate
destroyer of the
[Applause]
[Music]
earth um it would have been a better
question the last one if you'd ask them
what their parties support on trient
because although everybody here said
they were personally themselves against
it several of the candidates are
standing for parties that are in favor
of the renewal of Tri on the issue of
the oppression of gay people I stand
against it you don't have to take my
award for it you can look at my record
in Parliament over nearly 30 years I
absolutely uh oppose and find abhorent
the reports that are emerging from Chia
I'm against discrimination against
anyone on the basis uh of who or what
they are and I will maintain uh three
decades of opposition to Prejudice and
patry if I be elected to Parliament
[Applause]
so it's unfortunate that you yourself
raised the fact that you were the
chairman of children's
services because when you became the
chair of children's services in
Manchester ofed reported that child
protection was merely
adequate During the period that you were
the chair of children's services often
reported that your services were
inadequate
from adequate to
inadequate inadequate in Contex and
quoting from off inadequate what do you
mean it's not true are you saying it's
not true on camera yes offet I have the
paper off found your department under
your leadership to be providing an
inadequate level of child protection
that is that is the
fact
inadequate Child Protection in
Manchester imagine
43% of the children in Manchester Gorton
living in child poverty imagine in the
Second City of the fifth richest country
on the earth almost one in two of our
children are living in child poverty
shame on you
[Applause]
uh well there's there's no revolution
around the corner neither is there
direct democracy uh around the corner
and I'd like to thank the leum Community
Association for Organizing this terrific
event it's remarkable that so many
people have stayed so long to discuss
politics and Jackie I have to again say
there's no point in standing up and
making a radical rallying call because
you will forever be remembered as the
people that put David Cameron in
power
point belly aching about
brexit because David Cameron would never
have been the prime minister of Brit it
haven't been for you that's the reality
there's two kinds of labor on offer in
this election from Mr Khan and from
myself he's Tom Watson's man and Jeremy
Corbin's man
[Applause]