But what does a better life mean?

By Denise Scott-McDonald

Last Monday, in front of a room full of south London community activists at the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, Ed Miliband delivered his “Responsibility in 21st Century Britain” speech. In the midst of his speech he asked the question:

“What does a better life mean?” he went on to say, “Better in terms of jobs, housing and the material things that matter? Of course. But better for me, and indeed I think all of us, is not just about the material – not just about earning money and owning things. Because that doesn’t tell us anything about the feel, fabric and character of our country – or about the most important thing in life, which is about our relationships with each other.”

The Labour leader is right, life is more than just bricks and mortar, and things that we can feel, touch or buy; it’s also about relationships with each other. And it is a message that many in the party need to understand and actively engage in if we want to create a society which takes greater responsibility. And although it takes time, it is easy to do, if you start doing it one-by-one and at the local level.

In Greenwich & Woolwich Labour members have started acting on this. The constituency recently had a visit from Maurice Glasman to its GC meeting. At a meeting, that was standing room only, the Labour peer shared his story and spoke passionately about why it was important for us to interact more earnestly with our community and the people around us. At the meeting, he even got members to meet one new person that night. Upon his instructions, members scrambled over tightly packed chairs and marched to the other side of the room to have one-to-one sessions with someone they had never met before.

A few weeks ago, Movement for Change held a Saturday workshop in Greenwich. The workshop was attended by all sorts of people including councillors, community activists, and new people to the party, both young and old. People like Ramesh Beharry-Bhudial, a long time party member and chairman of Walpole Estate Management Association was there. When the Walpole Estate was threatened with closure in the 90’s because of the problems that had begun to seep into the area, Ramesh, along with a team of volunteers, began to organise to ensure it wasn’t shut down and demolished. It worked. But more than that, they now play an active part in the maintenance and day-to-day running of the estate which is now cleaner, safer and runs schemes such as healthy eating classes, football clubs and chess clubs. Examples like this are exactly what Ed Miliband was talking about; relationships leading to stronger communities and greater responsibility. Ramesh said he came to the workshop because he wanted to see what all the young people were doing and to be a part of them engaging in community politics. Also in attendance was Miranda, a local councillor who wanted ideas about how we can begin having real conversations with each other, not just sitting in meetings talking at each other.

The workshop was a combination of one-on-one sessions, lecture-style and Q&A-type workshops. It received a lot of good feedback and some members have started to change the way they do some party business. Roy Preston, chair and Jo van den Broek, secretary of Blackheath/Westcombe BLP, who both attended the session, decided to change the way they began their next branch meeting. Instead of going straight into the usual meeting business, they had everyone introduce themselves and got each person to talk for about one minute about something in politics that got their attention. This helped to change the flavour of the meeting and got everyone talking to each other.

These are small and simple steps that people like Ramesh, Jo and Roy are doing in places like Greenwich & Woolwich to develop better relationships with one another. These types of steps are needed if we want to create a society that takes greater responsibility. We in Greenwich and Woolwich Labour party hope to use this new enthusiasm for building more relationships to engage young people, new members and reengage long time party members too. We plan to feed it into constituency-wide campaigns that include a fight to stop the closure of Nationwide branches in South East London, the London mayoral race and other local campaigns.

By putting the time into developing these relationships, we think the Labour Party can be an even better local institution; rooted in and in relationship with the wider community.