Gerald TaylorA Personal Manifesto

For the 2016 National Assembly elections

Ogmore and Cynon Valley selection

What is to be Done in Cynon Valley?

Introducing Gerald TaylorHello, my name is Gerald Taylor and I have lived in Abercynon with my wife and four children since 2001. I worked at the University of Glamorgan in Trefforest from 2000 until 2013 where I was a Researcher and then a Lecturer in Politics and Social Science.Before that I lectured at the University of Westminster, LSU College Southampton (which became the University of Southampton’s New College), and Solent University. I received a 1st Class Honours degree in Government and a PhD from the University of Essex. I am the first ever student to be awarded a Ruskin College Diploma after only one year of study. I have worked in local government in Teignbridge District Council and Exeter City Council, and for Bechtel (GB) Ltd in London, as well as having a six month stint as a bar/cellarman in a strip club in Shepherds Bush.I was born in Devon in 1958 and joined the Labour Party there, in my home town of Teignmouth, in 1981. I have Chaired three Constituency Labour Parties, in Devon, Colchester and Southampton and have stood for the Labour Party numerous times in Council elections. In 1987 I was the Labour Parliamentary Candidate in Torbay, where the Council were so anxious to be the first to declare I can honestly say I had my votes weighed. I have held a number of other Party offices, most frequently Press Officer, and our press campaign in Torbay in the 1987 election was so successful that, after complaints from the other candidates, my contributions were rationed by column inch.I first joined a Union in Devon in 1981 when I was employed by Exeter City Council. I held a number of posts in NALGO whilst in Devon but have seldom found time to be an active unionist since. I have been a member of UCU since the 1990s and am now a retired member.

I met my wife in London in the late 1980s and we lived for a while in Tottenham. We have four children who have all attended Abercynon Infant School, Carnetown Primary School and Mountain Ash Comprehensive. My family and the structural problems in the house I owner/occupy have been the key focus of my concerns over the past ten years or so.Now my eldest daughter is completing her degree in Art and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and my youngest daughter is commencing her degree in Psychology at Cardiff University. My two sons are undertaking GCSEs and A-Levels respectively, and I am immensely grateful that they have received their education in Wales away from the brutal and unforgiving regime that England has imposed on its children.Whilst I have not been as active as I would have liked since moving to Abercynon I have been active in the local branch, standing as a council candidate alongside Cllr Alby Davies until we found someone better. I have been a Governor of Carnetown Primary School and Mountain Ash Comprehensive. I was also The Abercynon Regeneration Community Association (TARCA) and joined Alby on a fund raising walk from Abercynon to Cardiff Bay.Since retiring I have attempted to set up an internet company which would have provided authoritative information on Welsh public life but was unable to secure the necessary funding for its development. I am currently advertising myself as a tutor and writing. I am completing a ‘dialogue’ between Alexander the Great and Diogenes of Sinope which I will self-publish on Amazon, I have started writing a work of fiction which seeks to span views of magic which appear in English literature with those which appear in manga and anime, and I will be working with Dr Steve Williams on a polemical work looking at the prospects for Welsh society. I am also writing a science fiction reworking of the classic Chinese legends translated by Pearl S Buck as All Men Are Brothers.These are something of a departure from my previous publications which have been academic works looking at the Labour Party, British politics, political thought and Canadian

politics. Apart from book length works I have written for Planet, Agenda, Contemporary Wales, and for academic works on Party politics and the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party. I am a member of The Bevan Foundation, The Institute for Welsh Affairs, The Political Studies Association and the British Sociological Association.I am also an avid reader, my Kindle is my most frequent companion and amongst books I am currently reading are: Charles Dickens American Notes, Kevin Jackson (ed) Oxford Book of Money, Susanna Clarke Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Julia E Sweig Cuba, and until recently Karl Marx’s Grundrisse, which I have had to abandon as the book fell apart on me. I enjoy TV and film, mostly on DVD. Currently watched TV includes Doctor Who, The Big Bang Theory, and a number of BBC documentaries. Recent films include the excellent Mr Holmes, Jurassic World, Terminator: Genesys, The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Shaun the Sheep: The Movie.My greatest recreation, though, is music, of which I am more of a passive consumer than an active participant. I feel enormously privileged to have lived through two great explosions of British music, as a child in the 1960s and 1970s, and then as a man with punk and its legacy in the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst living in London in 1978-80 I saw two or three live bands a week mainly at the Hammersmith Apollo. I recently took my son to see Steve Hackett play in Cardiff and remember seeing him on his first tour following his departure from Genesis in 1979.I enjoy watching sport, particularly football, but feel myself being alienated by sport’s increasing commercialism, with the exception of Formula 1 the farcical nature of which is just compelling viewing. I also enjoy simple computer games like Mahjongg and play far too much Football Manager.I am currently Secretary of Abercynon and Ynysybwl BLP and organised the recent consultation exercise which we held in Abercynon to discuss Labour policy for the Welsh Assembly elections which produced four documents of around 9000

words in total, with apologies to Martin Eaglestone. I also enjoy walking and have four blogs to which I sometimes add posts.

The PartyWhat we Need

In 1997 I published Labour’s Renewal? Which examined Labour’s policy review and subsequent developments under John Smith and Tony Blair. In it I argued that Labour had three inter-related problems: the Party’s ideological identity had become confused; the Party had no conception of the State and its proper role; and the Party was losing contact with its supporters and voters because of its reliance on media (particularly the press) to impart its message. I believe that these are still the Party’s problems today.What does this mean for Constituency activists? It means that we have lost a great deal of support and those who still vote Labour are not as secure in their affiliation as were voters in the past. The media will never be an effective conduit for us to attract support and persuade constituents. Our use of the media as our main method to contact our supporters has led to a distortion of our message and our policies. We need more direct contact. The internet provides the possibility of achieving this but is largely a mess with much which is apocryphal, or downright wrong, even on websites which are generally regarded as reliable sources and used as such.If I were selected and elected I would seek to build a more campaigning Party. Not just a Constituency which is well organised and mobilises the support it has but a Constituency which actively builds new support, reaches out and persuades voters and supporters, and those who are not supporters yet, of our message and our intentions. How would I do this?My Constituency Office

As AM I would establish a Constituency Office in a major population centre. The Office would be open in regular office hours and provide a centre for community engagement.

I would seek to work with the local MP and Councillors to coordinate work in three areas. These would be: dealing with casework and ensuring any issues referred to the office would be referred to the appropriate individual and followed up; creating a proactive campaigning centre encouraging a full understanding of issues and ideas in the local area and a basis for engaging local people in protest activity; a centre for media activity coordinating messages and information between the Assembly, Westminster, Europe and the local council and developing broad based media strategies. The Constituency Office would coordinate with support staff at the Assembly to ensure that Constituency issues were properly dealt with and that Assembly activity was properly reported to the Constituency.I would encourage staff at the two offices to be interchangeable. Where possible I would encourage Constituency Party activists to work with and in the Constituency Office allowing space for Party activity as well as Assembly activity. The Assembly salary increase has proved controversial and I would accept every penny of the new £64,000 salary. I would negotiate with the Constituency Party a proportion of my salary to be earmarked for local campaigning and promotional activities as a personal donation to Labour Party activity. This donation would be used to finance any Labour Party activity engaged in by the Office.It would also be used to develop and deliver a regular Party publication to every household in the Constituency. This would be used to ensure that constituents were kept up-to-date with issues in the Assembly and the Constituency and responses to them. The publication would be delivered every 3 or 4 months and, if feasible, would include a section for local councillors to allow them to report back to their ward.I would also develop a strong internet presence utilising both a dedicated website and a separate blog. I would publish, on a regular basis, details of my accounts and my office accounts in order to provide as much transparency as possible. I would ensure regular press releases and would seek to raise debate and encourage wider engagement through providing materials

for the IWA, the Bevan Foundation, Planet and similar organisations. I would actively seek to raise the issues which are of concern to our constituents in the Assembly, in the media and as debating issues across Wales.I would develop strong channels of information between the Assembly and grass roots members. I would develop email lists for activists who are involved in particular areas of community activity, for example as School Governors or members of regeneration organisations, and keep them regularly informed of developments in the Assembly or elsewhere. I would work with the MP, local Cllrs and our MEPs to ensure that they were enabled to use such channels for the same purpose.In short my office would become a centre of Constituency activity, coordinating work between the Assembly and the Constituency and broadcasting Assembly and Labour Group work as broadly as possible.I would also seek to build relationships with AMs and Party representatives in neighbouring constituencies to pursue issues of mutual interest. I would build wider relationships both within the Party and in society, particularly amongst NGOs, but also with business and other community interests.Working in the Constituency

The Constituency would be my main focus of activity, both in terms of representing the Constituency to the wider world, thus raising its profile and identifying and illuminating our problems; and in terms of improving life within the Constituency.I would work with our elected representatives, particularly our Councillors, to improve community relations and to develop community facilities. I would seek to encourage and develop the provision of low maintenance public facilities which, if possible, can be maintained and managed by the community. This has already happened with a number of outdoor facilities such as paddling pools and I would seek to explore the feasibility of extending this to other areas.This might include outdoor fitness facilities such as circuit training equipment, or support for local walking and rambling

tracks through improving the availability of digital maps and information. It might also include the provision of 21st Century outdoor public performance spaces to allow the development of local creative talent.In addition I would encourage the provision of one stop shops for local business support which would be able to provide advice in key areas and introduce the self-employed and small business to facilities already provided locally through organisations like Business Wales, Business in Focus and Interlink, as well as a range of others. I would seek to make it easier for small business and the self-employed to survive and thrive.I would encourage current and new community groups. I would seek to enable local sporting groups, such as Rugby and Football clubs, to reach and engage with a wider audience. I would explore the possibility of providing stable and up-to-date digital platforms for community groups, to contact and engage with their local communities. I would encourage the development of new community activities and explore the possibility of developing new community groups and digital opportunities. For example I would explore the feasibility of creating bio-hacking groups in our communities, along the model found in the US, and would explore the possibility of creating similar groups in areas like Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Business Studies, Economics, Community Studies, History and so on. Where groups already exist I will engage with them to explore how we can make their activities more accessible and attractive for local people to engage with. I would also consider the possibility of making bio-brick software more widely available, not only in Schools and Colleges but in our communities. I would examine the possibility of developing other software applications in the sciences and other areas to encourage engagement and involvement.I would seek to make going out and being involved in the local community and with other community residents more attractive and worthwhile by seeking to alter the landscape of costs and opportunities involved. Through seeking low cost, low maintenance ways of making involvement in our community

more attractive and interesting, through developing existing and new activities and making people more aware of what exists and what is possible, by connecting people with the opportunities around them I would seek to revitalise and re-energise our local communities.More than this I would seek to ensure that existing powerful institutions in the area engaged more fully with the local communities. I have mentioned Councils but I would also seek to engage other public sector bodies and big business.I would support education by breaking down the barriers between educational institutions and our communities. I would encourage the organisation of homework clubs in all our communities so our school pupils can offer mutual support to each other and complete their school work in supervised conditions. I would support schools and colleges engaging with community groups which were involved with activities in academic areas such as the sciences, art, design, computing, engineering, the humanities and the social sciences. I would explore the possibility of researchers in the University of South Wales, Cardiff Met, Cardiff University and elsewhere engaging directly with the concerns of local communities and undertaking research projects involving local communities and where possible, suggested by them. I would support the digital availability of course information and lecture materials from University and College courses, and the provision of materials by our educational institutions directly aimed at engaging with local communities.One of my strongest memories of my early years is attending a village Christmas Party in the early 1960s. Up until then such parties for the poorer families in local communities were commonplace, often organised by the Labour Party itself. Economic inequality is now at a greater level than at any time for more than a century and we lack any organised events which link the poorest and most isolated in with their wider society. I would seek to re-establish Children’s Christmas Parties in all of our communities. I would seek to engage the whole community in such activities and I would seek support from the major supermarkets to provide either goods or finance

for such evets. I would work with local food banks to coordinate support for their work from supermarkets, takeaways and restaurants to ensure that viable food is not composted but provides for need. I would encourage our major supermarkets to minimise waste earlier in the food chains created by their position as monopoly purchasers. I would seek fairer treatment for local farmers and that food grown and rejected by supermarkets was made available through food banks or other outlets.I would encourage and support local credit unions and locally based financial services. Too much of the money which comes into our communities at present is sucked straight back out into London and internationally based financial institutions. I would fight for fair benefits and fair pay to support and enable individuals and families to get back on their feet and be able to contribute fully to their societies. I would challenge banks to guarantee that reasonable banking facilities are available in easy travelling distance of all of my constituents.I would work with the local Police and Crime Commissioner to try and improve and develop the profile and engagement of the police in our communities. I would help publicise the work of our policing authorities and to ensure the accountability of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s office. I would seek to ensure that the police have the resources and the support to maintain and support a peaceful and orderly society.Unwanted calls, emails and snail mail have increased exponentially in recent years. The scale of unwanted, bullying and aggressive communications in our society is damaging our economy. The weak and the vulnerable, or those who are simply distracted at the time of contact, find themselves paying out for goods and services they do not want, or do not receive. I will work with telephone, internet and physical mail service providers to minimise and ultimately eliminate this blight. I will explore good practice in other countries and seek to raise the profile of this insidious activity.I will work with our local council and with others to seek to ensure the adequate provision and good quality of local

housing and of environmental design. I will support the council in any way I can to make sure that waste land is brought back into community use, and that we can remain proud of our built environment. I will work with local housing groups and our elected representatives to anticipate local need and to endeavour to ensure that needs are met.Our health service is confusing and sometimes forbidding. We need to make it more open, inviting and accessible. I will work with local health providers, including GPs and Health Centres to improve communications with our local constituents. I will seek to make access to primary care services clearer and more transparent. I will work with Doctors and health professionals, and their trade unions, to seek to improve their working lives and experiences, and to make our constituency a more attractive place for them to live and work.

PolicyAn Idea of the Kind of Policies I would Promote as an Assembly MemberEconomic Policy

The Welsh economy has been dependant on extraction and basic industries for its past successes, but that industrial base is now gone. The development of service industries, such as tourism, to replace our old industrial base has been patchy and is insufficient to fully compensate for the loss. We need to develop a stronger economic base. Supporting big businesses or existing institutions to create or preserve jobs in mature industries can only provide a temporary solutions. Our workforce do not have the skills and as a society we demand higher standards and higher pay then is true of most other countries working in mature industries.If we are to create meaningful, lasting jobs with high standards and decent pay rates then we need to look for innovative industries and services. In addition big businesses are able to move their work and their employment easily around the world depending on changes in relative economic advantage.

Supporting Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the self-employed will make it more likely that the economic benefits of this activity will stay in Wales.The Welsh Labour Party have identified life sciences and the creative arts as areas of potential development. We can help such areas by encouraging the creation of open and accessible forms of engagement, performance spaces and biohacking clubs for instance. We also need to use resources to encourage and support new and innovative business. Inevitably new business is inherently more risky than established businesses, but the potential benefits in terms of returns to the business and society can be far greater.Our society and our economy needs investment. The Bevan Foundation have identified the potential for the levying of specific taxes in Wales. We should examine this work carefully but we should only levy new taxes if we can show that the revenue from them will be invested in developing our economy. We also need to ensure that existing resources, such as the funding provided by the EU structural funds, is better targeted to small and innovative institutions with the potential to create new business opportunities and attract new revenue streams.We should attempt to coordinate and develop support for SMEs and the self-employed. There are already many support organisations around and we should ensure that these are readily available to our valleys entrepreneurs. We need to show that we are open for innovation and business development, not just big businesses using market power to force the market to operate in their favour.We also need to support the development of skills in the community through encouraging community activities and links between communities and local educational institutions. We need to become better at promoting Welsh entrepreneurship, Welsh products and Welsh services. We also need to work with businesses pursuing cutting edge projects, for example we could encourage Google to help us develop state-of-the-art support for walking and footpaths in Wales, and work with them on the development of driverless cars.

Education

An education system which relies on punitive management and a workforce in fear will not provide effective results. Wales has managed to avoid the worst effects of the introduction of fear into the English education system through monitoring and public approbation of perceived ‘failing’ teachers and institutions. Our aspiration to create a learning society will not be achieved without due respect and appreciation for those involved in the education process. Education institutions and providers are not responsible for all of society’s ills, nor can they be held responsible for curing them. It is our duty as socialists to seek to ensure that every individual in our society is enabled to contribute what they can to our communities, and is able to receive the support and assistance they need when they need it. This means preparing children for social lives and to contribute to society, it does not mean preparing productive work units to make profit for others. Indeed by focusing relentlessly on the world of work we narrow education to providing skills for the work available now when we should be providing the skills and confidence to build new opportunities and create the world of the future. In fact our insistence that education focuses narrowly on work skills, on ‘vocational’ issues, employers themselves have recognised that graduates do not have the life skills that they also need to work well with others.We need to broaden and expand the horizons of education to preparing ‘future proof’ citizens, people who can create a new society for themselves. We also need to expand education into society, we need to encourage and develop civic learning, clubs and societies which develop knowledge, understanding and skills under the control of the individuals involved. The bio-hacking clubs which exist in the USA are one means of doing this, but we should look to expand such initiatives to cover more areas and attract more people. We need to use the resources we have, in our history, in our music and performing arts, to combine with educational opportunities. I would also explore the possibility of setting up homework clubs throughout the constituency to support pupils in their learning at home.

Education is not solely about formal qualifications and we should not see qualifications as the sole benchmark of knowledge and skills. We need to encourage lifelong learning for self-improvement as well as economic benefit. By developing a cultured and educated society we all benefit and our ability to attract highly skilled, well-educated individuals to work in and contribute to our societies increases. Alongside this we provide richer opportunities for the development of our children and their ability to build a better future for themselves.I would encourage educational institutions to work more closely with local communities and the creation of more varied and supportive pathways into and through educational opportunities. Our local colleges and Universities are aspirational organisations in their own right and our people need greater connection to them.Health

The most important advances in health are the result of environmental changes. Better housing, built environment design, support for those in need, education, and health and safety at work have done more to promote healthy lives and to lessen the impact of ill-health than any health initiative. Now we have a plethora of problems faced by our beleaguered health service. Obesity, alcoholism, drug and gambling addiction, stress, the impact of global warming, the failure to provide adequate housing of a suitable standard, and the fragmentation of our communities, may lead to our children being the first generation in history who have a life-expectancy shorter than their parents. In addition we have created new health problems. The rise of iatrogenic illnesses such as c-difficile, and the possible creation of fully antibacterial resistant bacteria are the result of poor practices in health services and in agriculture around the world. The full burden of these social problems has been thrown back onto the NHS at the same time as the organisation is being increasingly broken up and bits hived off to make profit for the Westminster Government’s public school mates.

We need to encourage good health, a policy which the Assembly has being moving towards since its creation, and we need to create a health service more capable of supporting and responding to individuals. The structure and organisation of the NHS is complex and lacks transparency. This has led to confusion and disillusion amongst those served by the NHS. We need to ensure that people are aware of the primary care services available to them and where they can obtain help as they need it. We need to work with GPs to ensure their contact with the public is open, accessible and welcoming. We need to attack the problems within society which contribute to the illnesses and not believe that all health problems can be solved by a golden pill.We need to provide health staff who are more confident and less stressed. Poor working practices and management focused on costs rather than care has led to a decline in service in our NHS. We believe that nursing staff are better if they have a degree, meaning that they can perform some of the medical tasks previously undertaken by Doctors, rather than that they care for their patients. It is not good enough that patients in need of care are frequently met with neglect and disdain because they are ‘demanding’. Nor is it any comfort that this neglect happens more often in England than in Wales.We need to encourage more active lifestyles through making activity more accessible and more socially rewarding, supporting civic organisations which support and encourage physical activity. we must challenge our supermarkets on the effects of their policies on processed food and alcohol pricing, we must build and create more engaged and involved communities, active and supporting one another. We must tackle inequality. It is not acceptable in the 21st Century that someone born and brought up in Cardiff may live up to 20 years longer than someone born and brought up in Merthyr Tydfil. We have known since the 1970s and the Black Report that poverty and ill health are positively correlated, that the poorer you are the more ill you will be, and since then inequality has increased and ill-health with it.

We must improve our physical, social, mental and environmental environment to improve our health and lower the pressures on the NHS, and we must challenge our major institutions to become partners in achieving these objectives.Communities

Public services are expensive and those costs are a burden on hard-working families. Spending on the NHS, welfare services, social support, and benefits is a waste because it means that our society has failed to provide properly for its citizens, that people have been let down by the nature of and opportunities within our society. When society is failing to provide for its people and public services are needed cutting expenditure on them makes the problems worse, not better. It deprives society of ways of recompensing those in need and providing them with opportunities to develop and improve in the future. Cutting public services now is creating greater and more intractable problems for our children and their children. Generations who are deprived of educational opportunity, of proper health support, of hope, self-belief and opportunity. Is that what we want for the children of Wales?If we want to cut the costs of public services we need to create healthy, vibrant, active, cohesive and supportive communities. That is a project for our children to get their teeth into, but we must show them where to start. Adequate and good quality housing is a standard everybody should aspire to, and one with which society can help. We must examine everyway in which we can provide and support the social housing that we need, and where obstacles exist preventing us achieving our objectives then we should protest and campaign and highlight the problems which exist and demonstrate how they can be removed.Safety and security are also basic services provided by Government. The cuts in our public services proposed by the Westminster Government are so fundamental they threaten even the basic functions of a night-watchman state, policing and defence. We have a national shortage not only in health professionals and teachers, but also in our armed forces. The

privatised recruitment services being paid richly to recruit to our armed forces are failing, in addition our armed forces are being reduced to levels where military action, such as that proposed in Syria, will soon no longer be viable. Whilst we are prepared to invest in a new generation of seaborne nuclear weapons we may soon not have enough submariners to operate the vehicles from which they can be launched. Meanwhile policing cuts mean that the focus is increasingly on obtaining convictions rather than maintaining law and order. Crime prevention and general policing, to promote and encourage public order, are increasingly becoming unaffordable for most police forces. In addition the creation of a new bureaucracy, the Police and Crime Commissioners, has entirely failed to produce greater accountability and transparency. Of course crime figures may continue to fall as people struggle to find police officers to report crimes to.The spread of homelessness and street sleeping, particularly involving young people who should be the mainstay of their communities, is blighting our urban societies in particular. A new community of dispossessed, disconnected from society and from those around them, more susceptible to mental and physical illness, less and less able to relate to and engage with society, are being created. In India during the Raj British residents used to step over the bodies of the dead and dispossessed Indians to get to their balls and parties. How long before we are doing the same on the streets of Cardiff?The weakest and most vulnerable are those who are most attacked and vilified in our communities. Increasingly public and social abuse is being handed out not only to ethnic minorities or ‘migrants’ but to the disabled. Two thousand disabled people have died after being assessed ‘fit for work’ under the Government’s privately run assessment scheme. Meanwhile those who emerge from social ‘care’ having been orphaned or taken from their families as children find themselves marginalised and incapable of taking up any opportunities available for them, and those who provide ‘care’ for others in their homes and families are similarly isolated and

unable to engage with the world in which they live. Those who need our support are instead abandoned.Even within our own homes we are not safe. Nuisance calls intimidate and exploit those least able to defend themselves, and our children are groomed and abused in their own bedrooms. Whilst the state pursues ‘historic’ sexual abuse, current human trafficking, slavery and abuse is increasing. These are issues which we need to engage in directly. Creating ‘ombudsman’ and ‘tsars’ may highlight the issues we face but only by creating communities which care and support can we really address these problems.I hope this gives you a taste of the kind of policies I believe in and the policies I would pursue as an Assembly Member. In this outline I have only scratched the surface of my concerns and interests, but if you have read this far then I am grateful.Who Supports Gerald Taylor?I am pleased and grateful that grassroots activists in community work and in the Labour Party have expressed their support for my candidacy. Here are what some of them have said about me standing:‘Having known Gerald for a number of years I feel he would make an outstanding Assembly Member. His passion for politics, care for the rights of everyday people and drive to make positive change make him an ideal candidate who is worthy of the support of the public of Wales,’ Catherine Davies, valleys Dental Nurse.‘My professional and personal experience of Gerald’s dedication and work ethic leaves me in no doubt he would make a fine constituency Assembly Member. His ability to weigh up complex issues and find meaningful resolutions to both broad and individual problems ensures he is a real champion for local businesses and residents alike,’ Tom Foreman, public sector manager and USW postgrad student.'I have known Gerry since our days at Ruskin College, and no better debater and fighter for the rights of the dispossessed and economically disadvantaged will you find,' Terry Oldham,

public sector solicitor, Unison local organiser, and Labour Party member