A sunny day out in Barking & Dagenham...

Amazing day today in Barking & Dagenham. There were 530 volunteers at last count posting 82,000 Hope not Hate special newspapers through every door in the Borough. The papers were made in conjunction with the Daily Mirror, and featured some of the paper's best known columnists like Fiona Phillips and Oliver Holt.

Local boy and Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg, was amongst those leafleting the area, along with Jon Cruddas MP. Out on the doorstep, Billy had a frank exchange of views with Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's only London Assembly member.

Otherwise, the sun shone and there were lots of families, a perfect day for Hope. Then, all 500 people came back to HQ for a curry lunch and impromptu gig.

As well as a local gospel choir who'd signed up to Hope not Hate after getting eggs thrown at them on the way into church, Billy Bragg sang a tribute to his own personal Route66 - the less glamorous A13 - one of the only songs to feature rhymes with Wapping and Shoeburyness. He also sang Half English, and his favourite Woody Guthrie song, All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose.

"There are worse things than the BNP being elected in Barking," Billy told the crowd. "The worst thing would be if the rest of the country turned its back on Barking and decided it was full of racists. Because it's not."

Mirror