AH Vignette: Rise and Shine

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Chelmsford Civic Theatre had never held a left-wing rally before. At least, nobody in attendance could remember such an event taking place there nor the journalists and their teams of researchers. It made no matter, however, as both groups flooded through the doors to be greeted with smiling activists wearing their ‘RISE AND SHINE’ t-shirts and luminous Unison safety vests. Robert Peston and a cohort of lesser-known names from the British press were shuffled off to the left, thus trapped in the corner of the foyer with one of the more stern-faced aides. She gave them instructions and cautions, carefully suggesting that overwhelming the firebrand leadership candidate would mean automatic dismissal from the event. The rest – the true believers and the hopeful hundreds that had turned out to see the man they would make leader – queued up patiently to have their names ticked off the attendee list and be shown into the main theatre.

It was a ram-packed house that afternoon. Five-hundred seats were there for the taking and two thirds were occupied with the backsides of excitable fans, their chests adorned with the face of the man they believed would be the next Labour leader and the word ‘HOPE’ written boldly beneath. On the stage, the banners of local trade union branches intermingled with the hanging banners of red emblazoned with ‘RISE AND SHINE’ and ‘TIME TO WAKE UP’ in stark, white letters. Anticipation was ever-rising at these events, where praise upon their candidate was shared between the aisles and rumours about Iain Duncan Smith “running scared” because of him were shared. What the Prime Minister’s attitude to Labour’s internal politics mattered little, however, once the light dimmed around the theatre and the brightness of the stage drew all the attention.

A long table stretched across the middle third of the stage, affronted by the podium at which a balding man in thick-rimmed glasses made the opening speech of the rally. He spoke of socialism, of the nurses and the shelf-stackers, the teachers and the ex-miners, and all the people he expected were out there listening to the message his candidate championed so righteously. Cheers went up with applause, the candidate’s name was cried out, and the man at the podium announced that the man they all came to see was running slightly late.

“It’s no worry, though,” he said as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, “because we’ve got some excellent speakers to join us before we get to the man himself.”

They loved it. Every man, woman and child there clapped furiously as the first speaker walked on and articulated her many reasons for being there. Beginning with slamming the Barronites and the IDS “regime”, she then turned her rhetoric to the young that had been so inspired by the leadership campaign, or so the journalists said. She recounted her tales of meetings with student union leaders across the country, with only exhaustive praise to heap upon her desired leader and many such leaders having been apparently turned to Labour to vote him in. It all sounded so wonderful – almost too good to be true. The crowds continued to cheer and clap and call out their prospective leader’s name.

The leader himself had just arrived, nervously pacing up and down backstage and fiddling about with his tie. The man he would make Shadow Chancellor caught him in the act and pointed to his own open collar.

“Just drop the damn thing. You’re a leader, not a schoolteacher.” The candidate looked down and nodded, pulling his deep red tie off carefully before discarding it on a costume rack beside himself. “

“Not long now, eh? When do you go on?” he asked as he watched his second-in-command staring intently at his wristwatch and stroking his beard.

“Once she’s done. They want you, though. I’ll be quick, I promise,” the grey-haired Scot replied.

The final cheers went up and the apologies for tardiness came fast from the next Shadow Chancellor’s mouth. At the front of the podium, the letters ‘A’ and ‘M’ stood out bright as snow on crimson red. The penultimate speech did not take long to wrap up before the man himself arrived on stage. He paced up and down faster and faster, as if he’d never been to such an event before or addressed so many crowds. He’d done so against the Iranian invasion, against the privatisations and NHS reforms of Barron and Flint, and against the IDS government as if he was master of all rallies and all fiery political speeches. Knowing he’d done all that, however, left him yet concerned with one thing: last impressions.

It was the final event of the campaign, the campaign that had the power to change his life and the Labour Party. The polls didn’t know what was true and what was not, putting the original favourite McNicol ahead one moment and then the no-hoper Reeves coming a close second, but the people who turned out to hear the firebrand speak knew in their hearts that the polls meant little. To them, their man was the one to win outright with barely a need for a second round. Many scoffed, but the fans pushed on as adamant as ever. They still urged him on to win, no matter whether he fumbled his lines or blindly ignored a hectoring journalist. They didn’t care about his Marxism, his circle of friends or the sniping of the Barronites over his “unelectable” platform. Just so long as they heard him articulate their fears and hopes and dreams, speaking plainly in his Durham accent and wearing his heart upon his sleeve, they felt nothing but pride. That was the impression they were left with, just as they always were.

He would not let them down; he would never dare shirk his responsibility to them.

As he watched Alistair Darling sit down with the young NUS woman they’d invited at the back of the brightly lit stage, he felt the chants course through him. The worries and the doubts melted away as they called for him.

“Milburn!” they shouted, standing and raising their fists in socialist salute.

“Milburn! Milburn! Milburn!”​
 
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