The Big Meeting, Indeed

The biggest Durham Miners' Gala ever. Yes, ever. Including in the days when coal was king, rather than 21 years after this county's last deep mine was closed. Not by Thatcher. But by Major and Heseltine.

At least 150,000 people. But apparently not news to the "national" media. Not even with all four Labour Leadership candidates in attendance, but with the added frisson that only Jeremy Corbyn had been allowed on the platform.

Liz Kendall got away with being there because no one knew who she was, and Yvette Cooper was serving teas in the Labour Party tea tent. I am not making up either part of that last sentence.

Tom Watson was the only Deputy Leadership candidate present, and, although he could not stay for the platform speeches, he was on the balcony. Point well and truly taken.

I have never heard the Gala cheer the way it did for Corbyn before he had even said a word.

He called for rail renationalisation and he denounced TTIP, neither of which is exactly a Hard Left position per se, and then he delivered a passage worthy of the Pope as he upheld the equal value of all children against George Osborne's spiteful restriction of financial provision.

Chris Keates of NASUWT told us how teachers were now supporting poor children out of their own pockets on a day to day basis, and how teenagers were now picking subjects based purely on whether or not their parents could afford the books and the equipment.

Tosh McDonald of ASLEF well and truly stormed the barn, setting out how the three preferred bidders for Northern Rail were the French state railway, the German state railway and the Dutch state railway, with no British state bid permitted, and with practically limitless fares in Britain used to subsidise cheap fares in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

He also explained the relationship between the SNP and its bankroller, Brian Souter, as well as how Souter hid behind his partnership with the apparently cuddlier Richard Branson. Far more people ought to know about both of those things.

Matt Wrack of the FBU gave us the very human Spanish origins of the slogan, "We rescue people, not banks." The Venezuelan cultural attaché gave a highly competent speech while looking exactly like my mother's cousin. Seriously, he was his double.

Through an interpreter, a white doctor and government official from Cuba said exactly what you would expect, while the black miner standing next to him never said a word. I am just telling you what happened.

Len McCluskey warned that if the Government insisted on criminalising trade unionism, then it would just have to live with the consequences. Keates had already detailed how the international bodies that monitored workers' rights now listed Britain, on those issues, in the same category as Russia and Iran.

And Owen Jones gave it the full Owen Jones. I had been speaking to him just before, and I blame him for a most peculiar incident.

I am an obscure scribbler who will be appreciated only in death. Sensitive youths with make pilgrimages to my all but unmarked grave.

I am therefore at a loss as to why Jeremy Corbyn, whom I had never previously met, went out of his way to shake my hand and ask how my work was progressing.

My guess was that he thought that I was someone else. For the understandable reason that I was talking to Owen. But who? For whom might I have been mistaken, and why?

Although he did not speak this year, Kevin Maguire was on the platform. Keep that in mind as MPs in these parts consider retirement.

I laughed out loud when talking to the Wobblies (if you need to, then look them up), since hanging immediately behind their stall was an old NUM banner that depicted Jesus walking on water, with the noted Marxist-anarchist slogan, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" More to Methodism than to Marx, indeed.

Like the Revolutionary Communist Group at the next stall, the IWW lads had Tyneside accents. Not any of the several varieties of County Durham accent. Still, it was a day out for them. Like visiting an entirely foreign country.

The sun shone brilliantly. There was a very noticeable presence on the part of young families. The whole Movement was in immensely good heart.

Even She never killed this extraordinary event, and the communities and principles behind it. Cameron and Osborne stand no chance. We saw Her out, and we shall see them out, too.