Ensuring A Bright Future For Our Working Men's Clubs

Congratulations to Mick McGlasham, who has just been elected the General Secretary of the Club and Institute Union, representing Working Men's Clubs in the North East and nationwide.

I think the Working Men's Clubs organisation is one of the most important organisations in our area. It provides an important glue to help hold our towns and villages together. Working Men's Clubs provide great community facilities, an excellent social setting, great banter and excellent value drinks. Importantly, for a darts enthusiast such as myself, at the same time as other pubs are ripping their dartboards and pool tables out, the CIU constitution ensures that each club must have a board and a pool table. Ever since my Dad took me to some of the Working Men's Clubs around the Consett and Stanley area for a pint or two, I have been a massive fan of the Working Men's Club movement.

However, I am sad to see that clubs have recently seen a declining number of people both joining and choosing to drink in them. I will stand up for these great working class institutions, even though Labour politicians refuse to stand up for them.

As the new General Secretary of the CIU says, "there's no doubt that the Labour Party let us down badly." As I have said many times, this Labour Party no longer stands for the working class. Instead, it speaks for an absurd middle class puritanism that is damaging the CIU movement. The annual increases in beer tax that this Government have introduced have hit the working men's club movement and the working class the most. The smoking ban was introduced completely ignoring the views of the CIU - as the new General Secretary says the 'no compromise' approach adopted by the Labour Government has left elderly and infirm CIU members standing outside in the cold. Surely we can reach a compromise where working men's clubs are enabled to have 'smoking rooms' if their members desire.

I'm proud of my CIU membership. At a time when Labour politicians have abandoned the working class and working class institutions, I am proud to stand up for the Working Men's Clubs that form an integral part of our communities.