£4000 GOAL REACHED FOR HOSPICE

Last night I was at the Trades Club quiz night where a generous band of quizzers collected £95 to take us over the £4000 target for the Overgate Hospice in Elland. Thanks to all.
Tonight is the launch of the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival which I'll be enthusiastically supporting. Last night I also fitted in a peeting of the Halifax Friends Of Palestine with a talk by Kevin McGrother of the FBU who was part of a trade union delegation to Palestine a year ago. Kevin goes out on the stump to meetings large and small and people like him are the reason many of us remain committed to the labour movement. They are a sharp contrast to politicians who seem determined to milk as much money as they can from the system.
I just wanted also to say a word or two about my meeting with Lord Morris (Alf Morris former Labour MP) the other day in the House Of Lords, At 81, Alf is still campaigning for the causes he believes in. The latest being justice for the haemophiliac victimes of contaminated blood products- justice currently being denied by the Government.
One of eight children brought up in poverty in Ancoats, Alf was an MP for 33 years. When he submitted his ground-breaking Private Members' Bill in 1969 he was told the then Government could not support it on grounds of cost. He went ahead anyway and 40 years we have come a long way on rights for the disabled. But, without a new generation of MPs who are prepared to stand up for what is right, not expedient, I wonder where we will be. People like him were/are the heart and soul of the Labour Party. How sad it is there are not more.