A little bit of hope and inspiration on a wet November day… Todmorden Town Hall, fine building that it is, was packed full of people on Tuesday Nov 26th and all because politics really does matter.

John McDonnell, Labour’s choice for Chancellor of the Exchequer, had made the journey to the Calder valley to lend his weight to Josh’s campaign. John has done more than anyone to demonstrate that there is a sensible, alternative, way to run our economy to the way that it’s being run at the moment. Labour’s manifesto has detailed proposals for ways that industry and the economy can be transformed so that the wealth which gets generated by all our efforts doesn’t just end up in the pockets of the few.

But before John McDonnell was give his chance to speak, two young people – one aged 12, the other 13 –  from one of the local comprehensive schools were given the platform.   Both have been active in the schools strike movement against climate change, and – although they are deemed by the adult world to be too young to vote – both spoke fluently and passionately about the need for action now to stop the runaway increase in global temperatures.

Their message on climate change was one picked up by John McDonnell. Yes, there is a climate emergency, he told the audience.  Yes, he said, this has to be the priority for a new Labour government.  And yes, he added, we have the proposals the country needs.  He talked about Labour’s Green New Deal, and the way that jobs can be created in new technologies which get away from our reliance on fossil fuels. He talked too of the potential of generating energy from alternative, renewable, sources – from the wind, the tides, and the sun itself.

John McDonnell also talked more generally of the problems facing our area. As he pointed out, ten years of austerity have taken a terrible toll. Funding for public services, such as our health service and education service, has been pared and pared again. There’s an urgent need for change.

We asked one of the those in the audience, a Labour Party member from Hebden Bridge, for their impressions: “I went along not sure if there’d only be half a dozen of us in the hall, but the place was heaving. There were people standing at the back, too.   So much of the national media is so hostile to Labour that it was  good to be reminded that Labour’s got a set of really well-worked out proposals to build a different and better sort of Britain.”