Given recent developments following the election, I figured it was about time I posted this image that I took on Sunday 2nd May, less than a week before Britain went to the polls. I’d been invited down to take some shots for Chuka Umunna, Labour’s (eventually successful) PPC for Streatham, for what was a bit of a surprise visit – I had my suspicions, but they weren’t confirmed until I arrived at the New Testament Church of God in Brixton  and saw all the live transmission vans outside.

While I don’t want this blog to be about anything more than my photography (I have other places to discuss my opinions on other matters), I will say this: the Prime Minister, as he was then, gave a thoroughly impassioned speech about his core values. Referencing the parable of the Good Samaritan and other biblical stories, he made the case for not passing by on the other side when we should be doing all we can to help others less fortunate than ourselves in this world. The next day he gave his speech to Citizens UK, and it was that Gordon Brown that I saw in Brixton.

Plus, it was quite fun to be in there with the couple of press photographers, being ushered to the front by aides and being let into the inner circle of what’s going on. That, and hearing people afterwards making sure they’d got the radio mic off him as he left for the car…

(On a technical note, I shot this event at ISO 3200, and the shots look like they’re at about 200. I haven’t even applied noise reduction in Lightroom. The 5D mkII still amazes me, even after a two months now.)

Last week I went to another event organised by UCL Labour – this time a talk by Chuka Umunna, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Streatham.

Chuka is a fantastic speaker, and talked on a wide range of issues. I won’t pretend to remember everything he said (it was a few days ago now, and I didn’t take notes) – but he gave good answers to questions on MPs’ expenses (it had to come up!), and the challenges the Labour Party currently faces. He’s certainly one to watch when in the run up to the election.

He’s also incredibly expressive when talking – you can see a few more of his hand movements in this Flickr set. It makes for a difficult job in choosing just a few photos out of the ones I took to illustrate the talk, but I think I managed to pick four good ones – what do you think?

I took time out this evening from revision to pop along to Talking Politics with Eddie Izzard, where the infamous comedian talked for a short while about his own interest in politics – culminating in restating his intention to run for some political office, at least, in the next 10-15 years. Needless to say, the audience was behind him on this.

But the evening wasn’t about Eddie Izzard, for he was there to ask a few gentle questions of MPs Tessa Jowell and Ed Balls, both well-known Labour ministers. There was some talk about whether holding a costly Olympic Games amidst the recession is a good thing – resoundingly yes, Jowell said, when the Olympic site will have employed some 11,000 workers, and created hundreds of new apprenticeships – and also, at the very end, talk about twitter. Read the rest of this entry »