As the grandson of Irish immigrants, having served one of Britain’s most diverse constituencies for 15 years, I know we won’t achieve anything unless we bring our region together. Britain today has rarely felt so divided. We need to bridge those divisions - across the wealth gap, between the generations, across our cities and towns - across the beautiful diversity of our region. And we know we can do it.
After all, it was here, in the West Midlands, within living memory, that Enoch Powell predicted 'rivers of blood'. He told us that the mere presence of Commonwealth migrants in our schools, working in our hospitals, factories and offices, could only end in ethnic hatred and civil war. He was proved wrong - because people stood up together.
The Labour party and trade unions campaigned for changes to outlaw racial discrimination, while the everyday contact in the classrooms, our workplaces and on the football terraces meant we got to know our neighbours.
We have come a long way. We don't just tolerate difference, we live together. But we need to do more - to take pride in our diversity, to work ever more closely on what we share in common, and to ensure that we are intolerant of those who seek to divide us.
My political hero is Clement Attlee. And Attlee once said; ‘we need to be not just dreamers for better days, but the doers to get there’.
Delivering these ideas in this draft manifesto would require us to become a trail blazer for the bold ideas in our last election manifesto. Mobilising our human, physical and financial resources by founding the National Education Service, creating a peoples’ bank, a municipal Green Development Corporation, and a bold plan to build council eco-homes.
Here in our region, we can show the country a ‘digital green socialism’. It’s a vision of the future that doesn’t need to be just a dream. It can be a reality.