I joined the Labour party 50 years ago. Back then, as a young man, I was proud that I was becoming part of a movement motivated by the highest ideals. I felt I was joining a group of like-minded people who wanted to change the world for the better and that, whatever setbacks might occur, we were on the right side of history.
I devoted my life to securing the election of Labour governments that would transform our society. I was a working-class kid, born in the slums of Liverpool to a father who was a docker and a mother who was a cleaner, and I gained all the benefits of Labour’s policies: the security of a Parker Morris-standard council house and the care of the NHS when I was sick. As a trade union branch secretary, my dad and his fellow members exercised their rights and their solidarity to secure the wage levels that lifted the families of workers out of poverty.
