[thread] With a few local exceptions, the media / political establishment have never quite understood this: the @DurhamGala isn’t a just a nice day out, or a celebration of the NE & it’s heritage - or even a community festival. It’s a celebration of the labour movement. (1/6)
Coming from Durham, you naturally understand this. That is not to say everyone sees it as a ‘political’ event in the strict sense, but most do understand the culture behind it: that awareness of what the miners & the community endured & pride in what they built in response. (2/6)
To really understand the Big Meeting though, you have to know it’s history, forged in bitter struggles against ideological enemies: from brutal mine owners to PMs who called the miners’ ‘the Enemy Within’. The idea that it could be politically neutral is a joke & an insult. (3/6)
So, when you hear the Miners Hymn - Gresford - on Elvet Bridge; when you watch the banners being marched past the County Hotel & listen to the fiery speeches from the platform, part of the emotion you feel is the weight of that history - that story of solidarity & survival. (4/6)
In short, you have to respect the Durham Miners’ Gala. And no matter how you dress it up, you cannot do that if you are a representative of a party that has attacked & undermined the labour movement throughout its history. That fact remains, irrespective of elections. (5/6)
Honestly, I don’t really care if Tory MPs turn up on the day. They’re an irrelevance to the @DurhamGala. But what I cannot abide is the arrogance of thinking that they can use the Big Meeting for their own self-publicity & in so doing, define what it means. Never, ever. (6/6)
