What did you do this weekend? Well the Young Fabians did something people don’t usually expect. We had an event outside of London.
I know, you’re shocked!
In fact our Manchester members said that they wanted to organize an event and we agreed to help, so a number of Exec members jumped at the chance go to Manchester for the day. Thanks goes to@sambaconsam whose brainchild it was. Thankfully the Greater Manchester Fabian Society were having their annual conference, so there was a perfect excuse to organize a social after all the serious policy debate!
It was good to see Young Fabians and young people in general being an active part of the debate. One of the main points that was hammered home at the conference was that to win a General Election Labour needs to show off its core values not just in its policy making but in its campaigning too. This is especially important given that there is going to be a whole generation of new voters who don’t see Britain today as a product Thatcher/Major but of Blair/Brown, they need a persuasive reason for picking Labour on May 6th.
In fact the need to go out and engage with voters old and new was a reoccurring theme. Dan Whittle (a former YF exec member) was compelling in setting out the lessons that need to be learned from Obama campaign, in particular the importance of engaging in dialogue with voters. (As Young Fabians who went out to campaign for Obama in 2008 discovered for themselves.)
NB- no fireworks were set off at the Young Fabian event...
Engagement definitely summed up the YF post-conference Manchester social. We were lucky enough to have a real eclectic mix of attendees: YF members, politically interested friends, students and people just curious about the Young Fabians. Again and again people spoke of the importance of finding new ways of getting people involved and staying involved. [Poor James Purnell, people regularly asked him whether he was sad to leave politics, as if being an MP was the apogee of being political and everything else immaterial!]
What was really interesting from our point of view was the number of people interested in politics but not working in politics who came to the event. Too often Westminster can seem like an insiders’ game but there are people who jobs are a million miles away from ‘Politics’ and yet have a genuine interest in the issue we talk about.
We even managed to entice a couple of floating voters to join us! Listening to them talk about what this election will mean for them reiterated the need for Labour to make a persuasive case on why the best choice at the ballot box is with them.
So with Manchester being such a success (look out for Labour conference 2010!) we were left wondering…where’s next?
Sara Ibrahim and Vincenzo Rampulla really enjoyed Saturday’s event as did Shamik Das and Preth Rao who were also there!
If you think there’s a Young Fabian event itching to happen in your area let us know! You can contact vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk for an initial chat.
Tags: Fabian conference, James Purnell, Manchester, political challenge