Day.

through that is why this place is full tonight and I know that all of you are grieving I know there are many people that aren't even here that are grieving and they deeply feel what has happened but I need to ask something of all of you as someone who represents the family as their member of parliament and I ask it gently it was just over 48 hours ago that a family lost their son their brother Not a professor, not a headline, not a symbol.

Jason, he was the one that sat at their table, the one whose laugh they knew before the world knew his name.

And we cannot pretend that we did not see what came before.

For weeks, weeks, Jason faced a media onslaught, relentless, merciless.

He was a man that was picked apart in the public while those who loved him watched and warned and were not heard.

They were so vicious that they attempted, and this is how wicked that onslaught was, they attempted to isolate him from his colleagues, trying to remove support for him.

So over to Belle.

Not sure how that went down particularly well, but it was true.

Do you know what always gets me about when policies are announced that are clearly about very key social interventions that are going to make people's lives better? We instantly start nitpicking at them.

He's made the announcement.

Well, it's not nitpicking to ask where the money's coming from.

He's going to find the money.

If we were going to war, no one would ask where the money was coming from.

When we're spending money on fighter jets and things such as that, and again, this isn't an anti-defense argument.

But if Andy Burnham said, right, actually, we're going to release all of those now, because we need to free up the places for longer sentences for violent criminals, I think the electorate would buy that, wouldn't they? I mean, not just release them, but find alternative ways of punishing them.

Yeah.

Um, they are the ones, um, that decide.

You know, MPs may want to consult their members on how they should nominate.

And also, we have to remember that in the past few years, they've actually increased the threshold for the number of nominations, um, that somebody might need to get on the ballot paper, just above the number of the number of Socialist Campaign Group MPs than there are in the Parliamentary Labour Party.And, uh, not to forget that there are currently seven, um, or- or eight, uh, of my colleagues who are unable to participate, uh, in this deputy leadership contest because they have had the whip removed and that, uh, they've had the whip removed for reasons-

... kind of undermined yourself by saying that.

No.

No, not necessarily because as I said, this is about the party.

This is about asserting influence, uh, asserting members' influence, being a voice for the members as a member of Parliament who would be a deputy, uh, leader, who would be on the National Executive Committee, who would have, um, you know, the ear of- of- of- of- of the- of the Prime Minister and- and the Cabinet on the basis that they are, uh, directly elected by the members of the party.

Mm-hmm.

... what they do is that if a family member has to receive blood, they actually ask them, uh, to send a message around their family, uh, to say that they've received blood for a condition and ask if family members, friends would come in and help replenish that.

The, the problem is people don't think of it as being as much an issue, um, unless, uh, they have to ex- they, they, they or their family member have experienced it themselves.

And actually on top of that, there are a number of reasons why people can't give blood, so quite a few people are restricted, uh, for a number of different reasons and you find that there are a lot of restrictions perhaps amongst those who might be most willing.

Uh, so those who are more likely to be i- in receipt of blood or receipt of blood at one point in time because of a particular condition are those who are most likely not to be able to give, uh, said blood for one reason, um, o- or, or another.

And that, and that creates difficulty.

But generally, I just don't think that people are thinking about how, how urgent the situation is.

But if- if you are from a rare blood group, um, doing this really can be a lifesaver for somebody else.