Well I've seen similar things down yer in Bude, where the local Labour Party is currently tearing itself to bits (and it isn't exactly over-populated...). Once it becomes ashes maybe I'll supply the phoenix, but at the moment I really can't be arsed with it. Folk music seems at times to be the same sort of magnet... But my mum and dad, rest 'em now, were both Labour Party people and even as an early teen I was out there taking numbers for the canvassers at the polling station and having tea and butties at the party HQ (a terraced house in Wolseley Street). My dad and his mate were Labour councillors in our home town. It was unthinkable to not be in a trade union. Labour may not be in a good place but at least I'm in the tent pissing out and not outside pissing in. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to...

Just remembered...Phoenix....That was the name of the special school (as we called 'em then) at Mile End where Blair Peach worked. The kids there all loved Blair to bits, and they came to his funeral, along with 22000 others... we all sang the Internationale...