Why we must Unite

Hope you're all enjoying your Bank Holiday Monday, though this won't be a day of rest for the thousands of Labour activists knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes and canvassing voters.

Our Prescott Express Tour enters its penultimate day today. We're off to Cleethorpes then back home to cover the three Hull seats.

By the time we finish tomorrow in Eltham, we'll have covered 71 seats, made more than 140 speeches, attended more than 20 rallies and travelled 5,000 miles in our Ford Transit - that's the equivalent of travelling to John O Groats to Land's End SIX TIMES.

Most of those rallies have been with Unite's Joint General Secretary Derek Simpson. In the last 13 year we may have not seen eye to eye on all the issues but Derek and his union are fighting tooth and nail to secure a Labour victory

They've invested a lot of money setting up Unite4Labour, a virtual phone bank where Unite members can call others Unite members to convince them to vote Labour.

This peer-to-peer approach has proved to be far more effective than having a party activist calling them. It's proved pivitol in by-elections such as Glenrothes and is being used to target the 100 plus marginal seats that will decide the General Election.

And we wouldn't have been able to do this Prescott Express tour if we didn't received the sponsorship and backing in Unite.

So just watch this clip. This is Derek's impassioned case for why trade union members should back Labour on May 6.

He made his case at Derby's Silk Mill Rally outside the very gates where the mill's owners locked-out workers 176 years ago for daring to join a union.