Keep the faith...

I recently celebrated 28 years as a member of the Labour Party.

I joined just before the 1983 General Election after finishing my first year at university and was immediately thrown in at the deep end by our then election agent, the legendary Mary McEwan (now Thomas), knocking doors in my home town of Port Glasgow. 28 years on we are back knocking doors in Port Glasgow in support of our candidate Iain McKenzie following the untimely death of our colleague David Cairns.

The years have not diminished my passion for politics or my belief that the Labour Party is a force for good in our society. I still retain the same Christian Socialist values and the desire to serve my community that brought me into politics in the first place.

As was the case in 1983, this is not an easy time to be a member of the Labour Party. It is important however that we keep the faith. Our time will come again. We can win the battle of ideas if we remember the founding principles of our great Party.

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect."