After some time relaxing in the sun and showcasing the cricketing skills of the young and not so young, we had a really interesting afternoon session looking at how we retain and develop support for Labour. Margaret Hayward, a Labour stalwart and former private secretary to Norman Kirk kicked things off by looking at how Labour had put its values in action over the decades. Her aside that Kirk not only felt people should have good health, housing and education but also “something to look forward to” captured those values. Clare Curran provided a detailed analysis of a number of voter groupings and the use of social media. We learned her star pupil is Trevor Mallard who has clocked up more than 2400 friends in just a few weeks on Facebook! Jordan Carter finished the panel contributions by highlighting the importance of continuing Labour’s ability to build coalitions of support among traditional and new constituencies. As we expect from Jordan he provided some provocative ideas of policies to do just that.
Great session, lively discussion, lots of ideas and a few good laughs.
Great
Good to know Trev is the King of cyberspace 
But what is the answer? Presumably, some conclusions were reached? Or perhaps it was in some argot that we crusties might not understand – though, looking at the names associated with the Summer School, ‘young’ Labour appears to be an admirably flexible notion.
I always thought Labors only constituency was workers (wage & Salary earners) and their families. The irony for me has been that all the support for society given by labor to the working class gets hijacked by the business class as low wages. Because there is not enough anger out there for strikes to raise wages to a livable level because the same people who fought for their food in the early 1900s now have enough thanks to govt support.
there must be over 50% of the voting public who are workers, is this not enough to form a government.
@ Robert. Nowadays Summer School is a very inclusive environment! Young Labour still do the organising but it is open to all members, even those of us who left our youth a wee while ago.
I did not go into detail, partly because the nature of discussions at summer school is very open, and I think it best to leave to others as to whether they want to put them out in the public arena. As you will have now seen Clare has done that.