16

Enter Stage Left: May 2015–September 2016

WHEN THE YOUNG people of today look back at the British political landscape of 2015, they will identify a group of politicians who changed our country, our mindset and our attitudes towards current affairs. They might debate the merits or otherwise of Cameron, Osborne, Sturgeon, Miliband, Clegg and Farage, but they were merely bit-part players, because the biggest impact of post-election 2015 came in the shape of a 66-year-old bearded vegan who had spent the previous 30 years in relative obscurity on the backbenches at Westminster.

Enter stage left: firmly left, Mr Jeremy Corbyn.

When this keen cyclist, allotment enthusiast and jam maker declared he would stand for the Labour leadership, his team’s ambition extended to getting him on the ballot paper. Accomplishing that would provoke a genuine debate within the Labour Party. The first goal was achieved due to the heroic efforts of his team, as well as a clever social media campaign designed to put pressure on MPs to nominate him. Ironically he wouldn’t have succeeded without the help of right wingers like Frank Field and ‘Blue Labour’ advocate Jon Cruddas. Mind you, their ‘crime’ would make them the target of abuse from New Labour ‘Ultras’.

Objective number two for Corbyn and his Scottish team was to avoid finishing last when votes were cast north of the border. Given the politics of the Scottish Labour Party – not traditionally the most radical or left wing of groups – dodging the ‘wooden spoon’ would be an achievement. In the end, Corbyn’s camp miscalculated the outcome on a grand scale, although not as grand as the Labour right.

I’d met Jeremy just a couple of times prior to the leadership election. He had been around left politics for many years and was active in the peace movement, where he played a leading role in opposing the Iraq war. Those meetings had left a favourable impression on me. He was someone completely without ego (a rare commodity in a politician); he was friendly to everyone he met, and came across as calm, authentic and gentle. He conducted himself well and always took time to chat to people, but more importantly to listen to their stories, their views and life experiences. He was very much like his great friend and mentor Tony Benn. I took to his style and manner immediately. He also clearly held an ideological position, which he has stuck to all his political life. Tony Benn described people like Jeremy as a signpost – someone with a clear direction, standing firm and showing others the way. The alternative, the weathervane, blows around in the wind, heading one way one minute, then the other the next. Jeremy was no weathervane, but his rise to prominence put the wind up a few on the Labour right.

8 MAY 2015: Ed Miliband’s election defeat has prompted his resignation and is the catalyst for a summer leadership battle. This will involve a number of candidates who will, in policy terms, be pretty much indistinguishable from one another. I expect Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Hilary Benn to come forward. There will be the usual attempt by my comrades on the left to try and get on the ballot but this won’t happen as there is almost no chance of any candidate such as John McDonnell securing the votes necessary to challenge. All very depressing.

10 MAY – 2 JUNE: Candidates start coming forward to declare themselves as potential leaders. First out the traps is Blairite-Ultra Liz Kendall, then Chuka Umunna (who withdraws a few days later) Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Mary Creagh. Others like Tristram Hunt flirt with the idea.

3 JUNE: Out of the blue, Jeremy Corbyn, the most unlikely candidate from the Labour left, announces he will run for leader. I expected McDonnell or Lavery, but Corbyn? Anyway, it’s game on so let’s do all we can to try and get him on the ballot. A day or so after the announcement I agreed to be his Scottish campaign manager.

3 JUNE – 15 JUNE: A clever – and massive – social media operation designed to lobby and put pressure on undeclared MPs sweeps into operation. This clever strategy starts to bear fruit. Corbyn receives nominations from the left – Skinner, Meacher, Abbot; from the centre – David Lammy, Sadiq Khan, Gordon Marsden, and from the right – Frank Field and Neil Coyle, but by decision day he is still one or two short. As the 12 o’clock deadline approaches, John McDonnell, his campaign manager, gets down on his knees and begs the last few undecided MPs to swing towards Jeremy. To everyone’s astonishment, they oblige. Jeremy is on the ballot. When news filtered through to my office, we all punched the air with delight. We could now have a full and proper debate on the future of the Labour Party.

25 JUNE: In agreeing to take on the role of Scottish campaign chair, I was keen and upbeat but realistic about our chances. They’re not high. We appointed Martyn Cook as Scottish organiser, and the team included Vince Mills, Pauline Bryan, Denise Christie, Jackson Cullinane, Stephen Low, Lesley Brennan, Elaine Smith MSP and Tommy Kane. We were up and running pretty quickly with the contribution of the Scottish Labour Young Socialists outstanding. This group had come together two years previously to help in my campaign for leader, and it didn’t take much for them to self-organise for this campaign.

Jeremy’s first leadership visit to Scotland coincided with the last day of our parliamentary term. He met the MSP group in the Serenity Café and then the Edinburgh Council Labour group. Walking from Holyrood to the council chambers normally takes around 15–20 minutes but in the height of the tourist season the route was packed with people. During the walk only one person recognised Jeremy and stopped him for a chat.

15 JULY: Acting Labour leader Harriet Harman insists Labour won’t fight plans to cut child tax credits. All leadership candidates follow the party line, except Jeremy, who loudly resists and says he will vote against the Tory plans. Good on him.

21 JULY: Jeremy’s series of rallies around the UK are commanding huge crowds: news channels, papers and pundits sit up and take notice. A YouGov poll rocks the party establishment by putting him 17 points ahead: something big is happening. His odds have fallen from 100/1 to 4/1.

22 JULY: Commentators initially treat Jeremy as a joke figure but every time another Labour grandee or media outlet warns against a Corbyn victory, his popularity rises. Today, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair warned he could not support a Corbyn-led Labour Government and said people who ‘vote Corbyn with their hearts should get a transplant’. How stupid can intelligent people be? As a result, Jeremy’s popularity rises – again. I’m reminded of Dennis Skinner’s great line about Boris Johnson having been ‘educated beyond his intelligence’.

1 AUGUST: One of the most significant events of the campaign is a rally in Liverpool where 5,000 folk turn up, many of them young people. Hundreds are turned away as the venue is packed to capacity.

Neither Burnham, Cooper nor Kendall are capable of drumming up anywhere near that kind of support, news coverage or interest. People are joining Labour in droves or taking up registered supporter status for £3 to ensure their vote. As Corbyn tours the country, his mantra of ‘straight talking, honest politics’ and a ‘gentler, kinder politics’, is gaining huge traction. On issues such as nationalisation of the railways, ending tax avoidance, housing for all, no privatisation etc, he is talking real Labour language that many in the party have been waiting decades to hear. His agenda sounds new and fresh and he is appealing to young and old alike. The other candidates don’t have a clue what to do to stop it. It is invigorating and inspirational.

2 AUGUST: 2,500 pack out Camden Town Hall and Jeremy is forced to go out and speak to 500 more who are locked out from the roof of an old fire engine provided by the local Fire Brigade Union.

5 AUGUST: Andy Burnham – who I like a lot (he passes the ‘pint test’ with ease) and had worked with during my time as Shadow Health spokesman – started his campaign by trying to appeal to the New Labour right with tough talk about financial responsibility and tighter immigration controls. Today, though, he has swung to the left and is talking renationalisation of the railways. A clear indication that Jeremy is in a strong position and is picking up votes.

9 AUGUST: The Scottish Labour leadership battle is also underway following Jim Murphy’s demise. Ken McIntosh secures the nominations needed, but is way behind Kez. Neither candidate is on the left, and I am close to neither personally nor politically, but have no hesitation in backing Kez. I had previously arranged for her to meet key people on the left to discuss how she could take the party forward respecting all views. It is clear she is going to win and win handsomely, so you can imagine my frustration when I read comments attributed to her in the papers two days before Jeremy arrives in Scotland, saying a Corbyn victory would leave Labour ‘carping from the sidelines’. I told her it wasn’t the cleverest of moves since it looked like they would both win and have to work together! Within 12 hours of our exchange she had registered for the Corbyn event in Edinburgh.

13 AUGUST: Jeremy is in Scotland and more than 300 people turn up at Aberdeen Arts Centre for a Friday lunchtime event on the warmest day of the year (not a spectacular claim as anything over 12 degrees qualifies for the warmest day of the year in the Granite City!). Dexter Govan of the University Labour Club, Tommy Campbell and Katy Clark spoke while I chaired the event. The reception was as warm as the weather and encouraging. Many people remained behind afterwards for a chat and photos.

That night, we are at Dundee University for a rally, and I’m anxious about this more than any other. Dundee was a big ‘Yes’ voting city with activists reporting a lot of anti-Labour hostility from hard-line nationalists. If any event was going to kick off, this was the most likely. The place is rammed to the door with 400 people and another 200 in an overspill room watching on a live feed. Jeremy speaks for half an hour covering a wide range of issues from austerity to public services, war and peace and how to create a fairer, more equal society. The crowd lap it up. Jeremy is not a natural orator; his style is not structured or heavy on flowing rhetoric or imagery. As someone who has spoken at thousands of public meetings over the years, he hasn’t been used to doing set piece crafted speeches. His style is more ‘write a few words on a scrap of paper as prompts’ and then off he goes. But the audience loved it. As with all public meetings it’s the Q&A session which flashes up warning signs and none more so than in post-referendum Scotland. But Jeremy handles each question well and respectfully and gives serious answers.

Only one moment gives cause for concern. A particularly aggressive nationalist, who is well known to Labour activists in Dundee, shouts and jabs his finger wanting to know if Jeremy supports a second independence referendum. As Corbyn says no and explains why, the guy starts shouting and heckling at which point I think, ‘Here we go!’ But he only manages a few words before the crowd turn on him and he’s told to shut up. Because of that, the incident was over in a flash. The rest of the evening went fantastically well and again ended with photos and friendly chat. We enjoyed a few drinks afterwards to celebrate. Just one red wine for Jeremy, though.

14 AUGUST: Edinburgh is busy with people visiting the world famous International Arts Festival, but the weather was awful, with rain bouncing off the cobbled High Street. The original plan was to walk through the town to the Conference Centre, as we had time to spare, but just as we set off, Jeremy remembered he had to write his Morning Star column. I was flabbergasted. ‘Can’t someone else do it?’ We are in the middle of a leadership election, traipsing round the country on public transport, and he announces he has a weekly column to write! We settled on a quick visit to the Arts Café, behind Waverley Station and he huddled in a corner and began typing. He didn’t get very far. Soon, there was a steady trail of folk keen to chat, get a selfie, or simply wanting to say hello and wish him good luck. Fair play to Jeremy as he stopped typing whenever someone approached, and picked it up again straight away. One hour later, we were on route to the centre, where 600 folk were waiting patiently. It was a fantastic attendance, considering we were competing with thousands of festival shows. TV footage showed a guy in the audience moved to tears as he said he had waited 30 years to see the Labour Party return to its socialist roots.

Before the event, Kez texted to ask if she could meet Jeremy, so when we finished I asked everyone to vacate the backstage room and left her and Jeremy alone to chat. Both agreed it had been an excellent meeting and regardless of what is written in the media, they maintain good personal relations to this day. I would like to think that initial meeting helped a lot.Apparently Liz Kendall was also in Scotland today, although no one really noticed!

Later that night, we travelled through to Glasgow for an event at the Old Fruitmarket – and this was on a different level from the rest. Around 1,200 people were there and the atmosphere was electric. Speeches from Owen Jones, Sam Ritchie, Denise Christie, Katy Clark and I preceded Jeremy, and he rose to the occasion. Socialist songs from the great Arthur Johnstone, Stephen Wright and the greatest ‘moothy’ player I have ever heard, Fraser Speirs, brought a fantastic event to a close. The place was bouncing. One of the best Labour events in decades.

Observing Jeremy at such close quarters for a couple of days, I was amazed at how anyone can put up with such constant pressure but he carries it off without an apparent care in the world. It was my responsibility to make sure the tour went well, while working with the rest of the team to manage the campaign. Martyn Cook did a tremendous amount of work in the day-to-day running of the campaign, while I was more involved in the political side, but it was a great team effort.

15 AUGUST: Today is deadline day to register to vote, and the other candidates have issued a warning for people to vote anyone but Corbyn! They are clearly panicking.

With the Scottish tour behind him, work continued apace in the leadership battle and returns from phone banks in Scotland are encouraging. Constituency parties are starting to nominate for leader, and we are picking up nominations we couldn’t have dreamed of, particularly in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. Our hope and optimism is growing.

18 AUGUST: During the leadership election it was my job to secure positive media opportunities in Scotland. I had discussions with several newspapers and had hoped get at least a fair hearing from them. The ground work paid off as the Daily Record, one of Scotland’s biggest papers, endorsed Jeremy for leader – a major coup. Apparently ‘Team Corbyn HQ’ went into a frenzy when the front page appeared on their social media feed!

9 SEPTEMBER: Ballot closes amid all sorts of claims of infiltration of the membership by candidates who know there are losing. It all looks a bit desperate as they seem afraid of a party that now has over 600,000 people contributing to its leadership election. The fact we are now the biggest political party in Western Europe should in itself be cause for celebration.

10 SEPTEMBER: After First Minster’s Questions at Holyrood, I rushed to Edinburgh Airport and flew to London to attend Jeremy’s final campaign rally in the Grand Rock Tower Gospel Church in Islington. It was packed to the rafters, and outside it seemed as though every window in the borough was displaying a poster saying ‘Vote Corbyn’. Jeremy’s local branch now has a staggering 3,000 members! The speakers resembled a Who’s Who of left-wing politics: Len McCluskey, Owen Jones, Rebecca Long Bailey MP, Clive Lewis MP, Richard Burgon MP etc. It was inspirational stuff and the atmosphere was electric. I was proud to contribute my two minutes’ worth on behalf of the Scottish team but the moment the meeting finished, I had to dive along to the station to get the sleeper train up the road.

11 SEPTEMBER: I did my Friday constituency work before attending a charity event in the Fauldhouse Miners Welfare, and later that night I was back on the sleeper to London for the result the following day.

12 SEPTEMBER: I felt no tiredness as I rolled up at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, near Westminster. The crowds outside were remarkable and the reception for Jeremy was like a football crowd. In the main hall I stood at the side near the media prior to the big announcement, close to a large group of MPs, and their faces spoke a thousand words. They looked so crestfallen I knew we had won. When the announcement came, Jeremy secured a remarkable 59 per cent of the vote with the closest challenger Andy Burnham on 19. It was a landslide. Tom Watson, who I had voted for, won the deputy leadership pretty comfortably.

And then it began. Jamie Reid, a Blairite-ultra MP, announced his resignation from the front bench. This was, of course, all pre-planned: designed to undermine Corbyn, just 10 minutes after the result had been declared.

The moment the announcement was made, I grabbed Kezia Dugdale and hauled her through a frenzied media scrum to a back room where Corbyn had just come off stage, and we got a photograph taken of the pair for the Scottish media the following day. Team Corbyn then celebrated all afternoon and evening in a pub near the conference centre and when Jeremy appeared, after his media duties, the place erupted. He gave a speech and announced that his first act as leader would be to go up to Parliament Square to a rally in support of Syrian refugees. Typical of the man, thinking of others during his big moment.

2 DECEMBER: Jeremy has always tried to work towards peace, and doesn’t believe that raining more bombs on top of people achieves that aim. When Miliband was leader, the Commons had voted to oppose military action in Syria, which was seen as a great coup for Labour. Today, there was a second call for military action and some elements of the Parliamentary Labour Party were all for it, saying the time was now right, but when they couldn’t get everyone to agree they decided to have a free vote on the subject culminating in Jeremy speaking against military action, while Hilary Benn, his Shadow Foreign Secretary, made a theatrical speech in Parliament calling for the immediate bombing of Syria by UK forces. The speech was aimed at undermining Jeremy and creating division. At the end of his speech we had the sickening sight of Tory MPs giving Benn a standing ovation – enough to make a pig vomit.

3 DECEMBER: Oldham and West Royton by-election caused by the death of Corbyn ally Michael Meacher. Despite warnings from Corbyn critics that we were facing defeat, Labour held the seat and secured a 10,000 majority.

5 MAY 2016: I didn’t keep a detailed diary of the 2016 Scottish Election – I was far too immersed in it as a constituency candidate to have time – but this is my entry from the day after:

After months of campaigning, door knocking, 100,000 leaflets delivered – and a dog bite when delivering the very last leaflet of the campaign to my neighbour’s house – the Scottish Parliament election was held today against a backdrop of increasing turmoil within the Labour Party, and the polarisation of Scottish politics between two forms of flag-waving nationalisms. Despite its most radical Scottish manifesto in decades, Labour was badly squeezed at the polls. A resurgent Scottish Tory party led by Ruth Davidson pushed Labour into third place. The SNP failed to secure a majority and was forced to govern as a minority Government albeit bailed out by their unofficial backbenchers in the Scottish Green Party.

On a personal level we put in a huge effort to try and win the Almond Valley seat from the SNP’s Angela Constance. We worked extensively on local health issues and policy areas relevant to constituents and enjoyed a lot of help and support from members on the left as well as the trade unions. Without doubt people were prepared to give us a fairer hearing than in 2015 but the legacy of the independence referendum still hangs heavy in the air. In the end we lost 13 seats and our constituency share of the vote was down over nine per cent. This was a historic low for the party. Locally, I lost by over 8000 votes but retained my seat via the regional list. As parliament reconvened with a smaller group of Labour MSPs, there was much head scratching, tough talking and analysis required.

I declined the opportunity to serve on our front bench, preferring instead to focus on my campaigning work and chairing the Parliament’s health committee, whilst simultaneously working across the broad left of the Labour movement to support and promote the Corbyn agenda.

As I have always been convinced that Labour’s fortunes in Scotland hang on two things – a radical and coherent, socialist programme and a constitutional settlement that people can enthusiastically buy into – I knew the Corbyn team was in for a rough ride, but things were to come to a head sooner than I expected.

24 JUNE, 2016: Those scheming against Jeremy got up to some awful things, but one of the worst has to be the leaking of regular reports to the press on the weekly Parliamentary Labour Party meetings. These are private meetings to discuss the parliamentary agenda, tactics and developments; an opportunity for people to speak freely and frankly in private. However, almost every word and criticism was being relayed to journalists outside or tweeted on social media. It was a disgrace and a betrayal of hard-working party members. Many on Corbyn’s side would be first to admit they have made mistakes, so if the criticism coming from those orchestrating the coup had been legitimate then fine, but it was poisonous. And it would go on for the best part of a year until the schemers saw the European referendum as an opportunity to go in for the kill. The referendum itself was awful. That ham actor Boris Johnson, along with the little squirt Michael Gove, teamed up with Nigel Farage and his bunch of UKIP loonies to push a racist campaign full of lies and deception. The biggest lie of all being that with a leave vote £350 million extra would go into the NHS every week. My limited vocabulary can only describe this claim as utter bollocks! As a long time sceptic of the EU, Corbyn is in a difficult position. His critique of the EU is similar to mine – it is a remote, undemocratic institution that pursues neo-liberal economic policies that have caused havoc in countries like Greece, Spain and Italy. It has been a major contributory factor in the crisis of capitalism following the financial crash and promoted competition and privatisation. But despite this the Parliamentary Labour Party, and party in general, are pro-EU, so Corbyn took a pro-EU position and spoke at meetings and events arguing for Remain. But none of this was enough for his critics. The UK voted Leave by 51 per cent to 48 per cent, and PM David Cameron resigned.

26 JUNE: Hilary Benn is outed by a newspaper as one of the chief plotters against Corbyn and was rightly sacked late last night. MPs Margaret Hodge and Anne Coffey have laid a motion of no confidence in Jeremy, which will be voted upon if enough MPs support it. Then, out of the traps springs none other than Scotland’s only Labour MP, Ian Murray, resigning live on television. How gracious of him! How to inflict maximum damage. Here we had David Cameron resigning after being defeated in the referendum, the Tory party are on the ropes and we should be kicking them up and down the corridors of Westminster, but those behind the coup decide it is far more important to seize the moment to get rid of a decent and honourable man. It is like being on the verge of winning the Champions League and turning round and blootering the ball into your own net. Complete lunacy, and party members were wondering what the hell was going on!

27 JUNE: The coup is in full swing and all day Shadow Cabinet members have been resigning at half hourly intervals in an attempt to create maximum damage. All carefully coordinated and TV stations lap it up. Now, a lesser person might have said, ‘bollocks to this, I’m off’, but not Jeremy, and you have to admire the courage of the man in saying: ‘I was elected on a massive mandate. Members are behind me so I’m not going anywhere.’ A new Shadow team was appointed and he dug in.

10 JULY: Angela Eagle announces she will be the latest from the Labour right to stand against Jeremy. The coup has been a mess from start to finish. I mean, when the Tories do coups, they do them right. They don’t knife you in the back. They go straight in through the heart. Look what they did to Gove and Johnson. They absolutely annihilated them and had their election over in a week with a new Prime Minister in place before you can even blink. The new Labourites are bungling amateurs by comparison.

12 JULY: Angela Eagle claims her office windows have been smashed by Corbyn supporters. It later transpires her office was in a communal building and it was the window in the stairwell of the building that was smashed, and not her office window. Far from it being a politically motivated act, it looked more like the work of vandals. She then delivered the campaign launch from hell, with folk comparing it to the unveiling of a new perfume!

13 JULY: Next! Owen Smith declares he is to stand for Labour leadership saying ‘he believes in Corbyn’s policies but doesn’t believe Jeremy can win an election.’

20 JULY: Angela Eagle withdraws from the contest. I actually feel sorry for her because she probably didn’t want to stand in the first place. She comes across as a decent human being and I believe she was put up to it by people who would never normally have supported her.

29 JULY: As the plotters realise Corbyn is going nowhere, they do what they do when they lose a political argument – try to manipulate the rules to get their way, but today the courts rule Corbyn was entitled to a place on the ballot. Great news!

25 AUGUST: While all this was going on I was astonished at how Corbyn was able to continue. It showed his genuine qualities; his calm self-belief, a clear set of principles and impressive steely resilience. God knows how I would have coped with such a situation. I wouldn’t have slept a wink. In hindsight, if anyone was going to handle that type of pressure, it was going to be him.

At one point, I sent a text to him and John McDonnell saying ‘whatever happens in all of this, look after your health and your family – everything else is secondary.’ People tend to overlook the fact that these prominent politicians are human like the rest of us and have lives and families. Okay, they are in the public eye, but they still have feelings and human frailties like everyone else. They need to have time for themselves and their loved ones.

The Labour Party need a second leadership election like a hole in the head. Mind you, what tends to be overlooked is the massive increase in membership just after Corbyn took charge. When Tony Blair was in charge, party membership had dipped below 200,000. Just after the second leadership battle, we were hovering around the 600,000 mark. Corbyn has helped make Labour the biggest political party in Western Europe. For many, the party has become something worthwhile, something to believe in again. We have regained some of the credibility lost over Iraq. Corbyn was consistent in his views throughout the Iraq crisis and in his claims that it would be a disaster, and one of the best things he did as leader was to apologise to the families of the soldiers who died during the war. The day after the Chilcott Inquiry had reported, he went into a room full of families and said, ‘On behalf of the Labour Party, I want to apologise to you all,’ and he left to a standing ovation. It was very moving and typically humble. The families responded to his message: but he only did what Tony Blair should’ve done.

But we are now in the grip of a second leadership battle. To be honest, it isn’t long after the previous one so we know exactly what needs to be done in Scotland. We get the organisation back up and running and bring in Joe Cullinane as chief organiser. Again we have a great social media campaign, phone banks, donations, etc.

Prior to Jeremy’s return to Scotland a few of us went to London to brief his team on the impending trip, and the main issues. One of the issues we wanted to nail was the talk of a ‘progressive alliance’ between Labour and the SNP. Some on the English left believe we should be teaming up in an anti-Tory alliance with the Nationalists and Green Party, but we were dead against it. If people believed they could get a Labour Government by voting SNP then why vote Labour in Scotland? And you can only be in a ‘progressive’ alliance with parties that are progressive. The SNP have cut 70,000 council jobs, are slashing local government budgets more than Osborne, have cut 130,000 college places and do nothing on the redistribution of wealth or power. How can we have a progressive alliance with such a party? Nationalism and socialism are two completely different ideologies: we can have no truck with free market conservatism nor divisive nationalism. We want to ensure this is dead in the water before it has a chance to grow arms and legs, and to that end we have put out a series of articles to rule it out before Corbyn even sets foot across the border.

26 AUGUST: As we leave Euston Station for Glasgow, the furore over a video showing Corbyn sitting on the floor of a Virgin train after failing to get a seat is in full flow. I knew that when we arrived at Euston there would be media watching our every move. They would know we were heading to Scotland, and that Jeremy didn’t like flying, so they would be hanging around the station – and we weren’t disappointed. But we managed to get on the train without too much hassle, just a few folk wanting photographs, which was fine. Oh, and it was a Virgin train!

There were six or seven of us and I was keeping a wee eye out for the hacks. Around 90 minutes into the journey, Jeremy was writing the obituary of one of his constituents for the local paper when the guard told us about a reporter and photographer at the end of the carriage ‘asking questions’. I kept an eye on them for a while, but a further half hour into the journey the photographer walked straight up and started clicking away. I got up and told him to move, but the reporter started shouting, ‘I want to ask Mr Corbyn why he wants to steal Richard Branson’s railway from him,’ and on and on he went. I asked them again to move, and the reporter was insistent he wanted to ask questions. I said to him, ‘there are families and children in this carriage and you’re disturbing them, so would you please sit down and we will speak to you in an hour. Jeremy is writing an obituary at the moment.’ I then reported the pair of them to the guard for hassling us and the other passengers. A few minutes later, the guard warned the newspaper folk that any more nonsense and they would be off the train. It transpired they were from the Daily Mail. They were fuming, but had just gone about it the wrong way. They didn’t come near us again, but when we arrived in Glasgow I knew ‘all bets were off’. It would be rammed with journos and snappers but we decided to throw a ring of steel around Jeremy to protect him from the Daily Mail hack as he was a right obnoxious git. We got off the train and sure enough, he was straight up screaming and shouting. We kept him at bay, but when we got up to the gate there was an absolute sea of media. TV cameras, radio, snappers, reporters. It was unbelievable, and easily the worst I have ever experienced. It was like a rugby scrum. I don’t know who it was, perhaps Virgin, but someone had called the police and three officers showed up to help, and we were very grateful. Thankfully, Ian Davidson was waiting nearby with his car and we bundled Jeremy in and they got away okay, but it was just awful.

Jeremy was in Glasgow for a rally at the Crown Plaza Hotel with trade union speakers and activists, and he was on good form. We then headed to the SECC for a hustings with Owen Smith. It was dreadful, because while Jeremy stuck to policy, hope and vision, Smith sadly focused on more personal attacks.

27 AUGUST: We were in Edinburgh for an event hosted by comedian Susan Morrison. Jeremy launched his new arts policy amongst a group of musicians, producers, comedians and directors, all in town for the Festival. Many said it was the first time they’d heard any political leader speak so positively about the arts, and arts funding, music and literature.

It was then over to Lochgelly, in Fife, to meet Alex Rowley and Mary Lockhart, who had won a council seat for Labour the night before. Mary is a big Corbyn supporter so we had some nice photographs taken. Afterwards, we travelled to Dundee for the final rally in the Caird Hall, which completed a tough couple of days, although everything had gone well.

24 SEPTEMBER: We were at the Liverpool Conference Centre for the result of the second leadership contest, where Jeremy secured a huge mandate to again lead the Labour Party. The coup had failed miserably and Corbyn had both strengthened his position and humiliated his detractors. Make no mistake, this was a huge moment in the history of the Labour Party and I was proud to play my part.