Well today was the big day. At about half past six this morning we had a phone call from the police. They were at the Community Centre, wanting to be let in so their sniffer dogs could check the place out. Jayne took us down there so she could let them in on her way to dropping me at the railway station.

I had a relaxing day at work (as relaxing as it gets considering the crap commute and everything else) but J didn’t stop all day. The Blairs arrived with Laura Moffat and Ruth Kelly and she welcomed them, showed them around the centre and generally kept going all morning. The Blairs signed the Centre’s guest book, which is quite an acheivement since we don’t have one… I think Julie, the Manager, knocked one up on the computer at the last minute, which is probably better than what the church did – they just used their book of condolences.

Despite the event not being publicised, there were plenty of people who turned up. Some would have been passing and were attracted by the crowds of press, the TV uplink vans, and the Labour battle bus, but that doesn’t explain the appearance of Arshad Khan (a local eccentric, which is putting it kindly) who turned up with anti-Blair placards. I think the police managed to remove him from the immediate area. That was not an example of free speech being stifled – Mr Khan has a history of pestering politicians locally (again that is putting it kindly) and has been warned by the police about using racist language and threatening behaviour so removing him was certainly a good idea.

Unfortunately the news of Rover going tits-up meant that TB had to go straight to Birmingham after leaving Broadfield, and the news was dominated by events at Longbridge so we didn’t get the coverage we would have had otherwise, although I did get to see Jayne leading Tony around and some views of the crowds. It was so strange seeing so many faces that I know on the BBC news!

This was supposed to be one of Jayne’s days off work, but she seems to have spent most of the two days and the time between her shifts on Wednesday at the community centre for one reason or another. To make it worse, she couldn’t even relax when I got home as she had to go to Haywards Heath to visit the police CCTV control centre as part of her voluntary work.

About the Rover business. Rather than making me doubt the government’s ability it made me realise how much we need to keep them in power. There are 6000 jobs going at the Rover factory, which is obviously not good, but I can remember when that was happening every week back in Thatcher’s time, and these were not businesses that were failing, but publicly-owned enterprises which were being forced to close by the Tories. The 6000 Rover workers will be getting advice in financial matters and career matters, including re-training opportunities for the other jobs which are available. Back in the 80s there was no training and no jobs to go to anyway for all the steel-workers, miners and ship-builders who the Tories dumped on. Lets face it, the only time the Tories showed any interest in helping people was when the Lloyds names found themselves on the wrong end of some dodgy deals.

Anyway, a lot of people were taking photos on digital cameras and said they would send Jayne the results. I shall get the best ones onto the BYCC web site as soon as they arrive.