You attend a fundraising dinner for your CLP at the community centre in your ward. You pay what would, if we were a small leftish newspaper, be called a “solidarity price” to hear Peter Hain speak and eat (delicious) curry from Cafe Spice. You get fleeced for another fiver in Cllr Tanner’s raffle, and win a small green candle. And still they expect you to do the washing up!

Oh, you wanted to hear about Peter Hain’s speech, given that he’s another deputy candidate? Well, bearing in mind that my comments are mediated through a prism of gratefulness to him for being kind enough to come to a snowy Oxford on a Thursday night to help us raise money for the fighting fund, I thought he spoke well. As always, his backstory is compelling, and he treated us to a a rundown of his battles as an anti-apartheid campaigner, remembering an Oxford anecdote about a rugby match that had to be switched to Twickenham following protests from students and Cowley workers. As a good pol, he picked up on the local characters, the most recent by-election winner and the importance of thanking the members from non-Labour Oxfordshire constituencies.

In terms of substance, there was nothing new or startling. He’s got a line on a sort of libertarian socialism that appeals to the civil liberties/constitutional types - electing the Lords, condemning arrests for heckling ministers at Labour conference and wearing Bollocks to Blair t-shirts. He was strong on opposing Cameron (”we want a progressive government, not a contracted-out government!” “If you were planning a tax cut of £4billion, would you give it to the tiny minority who take part in share transactions or to the millions of hard working families?”), weak on the Lib Dems (saying we need a new way of dealing with them, but then failing to outline what it should be), and concilatory on Iraq. The best part of his speech was about the work he’s doing in Northern Ireland, telling a story about rival graffiti in republican and unionist areas that reads “Sinn Hain” and “Hain’s Insane” as evidence that he must be doing something right, and outlining his hopes for elections and a renewed devolved government.

I enjoyed his speech immensely and was very impressed with him personally, though it hasn’t changed my mind about who I’ll be voting for.