“NEXT week’s general election is not about a single person,” Unison assistant general secretary Roger McKenzie told the Merthyr Uprising festival at the weekend.

Speaking as a long-time friend and comrade of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, he insisted: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a movement for a real radical and fundamental shift in favour of working people.”

He empathised with the people of Manchester, home of his daughter, but added: “Our members are getting a little bit pissed off with being told continuously how good they are when an emergency comes yet can’t get given a decent bloody pay rise to put bread on the table.”

Mr McKenzie said the lesson of Merthyr is how to stand up as working people, how to rebel against those who think it’s all right to treat working people as they do.

“One thing we learn from history is that we get nothing unless we stand up and organise and fight,” he declared.