Thursday, April 15, 2010

General election day four Thursday

Down to London for the clause Five meeting. This is where the NEC, Cabinet, National Policy Forum reps and Trade Unions come together to agree the Manifesto. Ed Miliband and the policy staff have been consulting widely to arrive at a draft and today was our first sight of it.

The meeting was held at Church House, at the back of Westminster Abbey. When you arrive party staff give you a secrecy declaration to sign swearing that you wont leak any details of the manifesto before its launch on Monday( a bit late as the papers all had details yesterday).

I was then given a numbered copy of the draft-to be handed in at the end of the meeting.

I had arrived an hour and a half early to study the document and there are some strong proposals in it which will really benefit working people-thats probably as far as I can go without breaching my oath of silence and being struck down by lightning!

Gordon Brown introduced the discussion and various cabinet ministers answered questions about their sections. The whole thing lasted 2 hours and then it was a quick couple of pints and then back home.

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