May Day Greetings

Reading: Some pages of Robert Goddard's "Past Caring", Morning Star, Chesterfield May Day Programme, Wikipedia Pages on May Day, various web pages on last month's 75th Anniversary of the Second Spanish Republic.
Listening: Local radio.
Viewing: ITV news, The Matrix.

Greetings on May Day!
I attended the Chesterfield May Day celebrations with my family. It was blustery and windy, but the sun broke through and the mood was cheerful, helped on by Rhythms of Resistance from Sheffield and the Dronfield Brass Band. Unlike in Nottingham there was good representation of a range of unions and campaigns. The Labour Party were much in evidence, with their platform speaker, the North East Derbyshire MP Natascha Engel listing Labour's achievements in the programme and saying how wonderful the Warwick agreement with the union bosses was! The leaflet they distributed likewise trumpeted their "achievements" but it was a case of "Don't mention the war!" and "Don't mention civil liberties". Constantly repeating the crumbs thrown in the first term and the amounts of public money that have gone into expensive PFIs, PPPs and the like since is wearing a bit thin. Still, some of their activists did have some amusing new jokes centred around the Deputy Prime Minister!

Perhaps it is time to remember the origins and real traditions of the workers' May Day........


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot

Hope springs eternal, and as the song says "The dawn brings in a brighter day"