Jayaben Desai

Ever tried to shut the New Labour Treasurer up?

It was an heroic female called Jayaben Desai who led her low-paid fellow workers in a brutal, two-year fight for decent pay, treatment and conditions at the Grunwick film processing plant 30 years ago, but the commemorating audience in Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre today could be excused for thinking that the champion of that hour, and most since, was Jack Dromey, New Labour Party Treasurer, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, husband of Blair/Brownite Labour minister Harriet Harman and - as is, alas, becoming too, too clear - a man who believes that an audience will best enjoy an historical narrative if it is appraised, in detail, of his own contribution to it.