Don’t believe the naysayers – Labour Live was a huge success

Last Updated: June 17, 2018By

Jealousy is a terrible thing. It can cause terrible misjudgements.

I’m terribly jealous of all those who were able to attend and participate in the huge Labour Live festival this weekend.

I live right out in the wilds of Mid Wales and have to make up for this remoteness by helping run a cultural festival here: The Radnor Fringe Festival at the Rock Park, Llandrindod Wells from 6pm on Friday (June 22) until around 10pm on Sunday (June 24). It’s a very friendly event so if you can make it and you like to sample music from bands you haven’t heard before, new theatre, debate and discussion, community events and comedy, come on down.

But I know the Fringe won’t be anything like Labour Live, which attracted thousands to a mix of music and debate that had real appeal for young people – unlike the Tory attempt at such an event last year, which attracted very few attendees. Can anyone even remember what it was called?

Here are a few reactions from people who were there:

There were the inevitable naysayers, though. Apparently some of our friends in the mainstream media tried to pretend it wasn’t popular by suggesting the crowd was small at the start. Here’s Richard Burgon with the fact of the matter (which, as a festival organiser myself, I can confirm):

Inevitably, some commenters wanted to use the event to raise criticisms of Labour’s current policies – like Brexit:

https://twitter.com/brufatto_tom/status/1008077514525245440

It seems the Daily Mail even tried a bit of reverse psychology, praising Jeremy Corbyn as a hero of Brexit in order to try to turn his supporters against him:

But Mr Corbyn didn’t save Theresa May from a “calamitous defeat” – he just kept her on the straight and narrow road to a disaster for the Conservative Party when her attempt to impose a selfish Tory Brexit collapses, as we know it will.

And the critics can’t deny the obvious:


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2 Comments

  1. Growing Flame June 17, 2018 at 6:32 pm - Reply

    Useful report. It’s with this kind of situation that the online media score. Without this analysis(and others, I hope), I would be left with the papers and the TV/Radio for any details of the event. And I would be left with the impression they WANT to give ie that it was poorly attended and dreary.

    I knew they would take this line when the media seemed to forget that Clean Bandit were playing. One of the biggest headline acts in Britain today!!

    No wonder newspaper readership is plummeting. I used to be a daily Guardian reader, every morning on the train, for years. Now, why bother? Even the Guardian just can’t acknowledge the strength of the modern Labour Party. Corbyn’s Labour Party defends all the human Rights and Freedoms that the Guardian has perennially urged the world to protect. Yet, when an actual Party grows into a force for the kind of decency that the Guardian claims to represent, suddenly they start having doubts!! And the sneering starts…

  2. Florence June 18, 2018 at 10:00 am - Reply

    I would love to come and support your local festival, travelling many miles from even further west than Radnor, but we have a very important weekend of meetings I have to attend!

    Next year put out your festival details earlier and I will try and get our comrades in the west to visit.

    (Despite being so far away, we still cherish ambitions to get Corbyn to come and meet us. We would love to put on a mini Labour Live.)

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