Dear Colleagues,

This is the first time you have been asked to choose a new leader for our great union in eight years, and the first time in the new century. We face challenges quite different from those of just ten years ago, never mind those which faced the men and women who created and built the Transport and General Workers' Union.

These new times demand new ideas and fresh thinking from everyone concerned that trade unionism should flourish in the years ahead. But the only programme for the future that will thrive are those which are rooted in and nourished by our traditions and the finest achievements of our past.

I am standing for election as your General Secretary to offer that new approach consistent with the T&G's democracy, its progressive politics and its tradition of campaigning and struggle for a better life for working men and women.

Last year, I asked for your support in the election for Deputy General Secretary, and I was proud that you responded by giving me an impressive mandate to start the process of transition to a new approach for the T&G.

I stood on a platform of "Vote for change and make a difference". As deputy I aspired to make the changes so vital to you all-members, officers and staff alike - as General Secretary I will implement those changes, I will re-focus our time, money and effort on the people who pay our wages - the members. We're going to re-claim our culture, once again becoming a fighting for the members, a campaigning union, a growing, but above all a united and tolerant union where fear plays no part. I promise you if elected - I will make that difference. Yours sincerely

Today, I ask for your vote once more. The election of General Secretary is the most important single post in the union. With your support and energy behind me, I believe that I can help restore the T&G to the front rank of the British labour movement, extend our industrial and political influence and make real gains at work and in the community for our members and their families.

Make no mistake, if elected I intend to lead from the front. In this manifesto I outline my beliefs, my policies on the most pressing questions. I hope I answer most of the questions you may have about what I would intend to do as general secretary of the T&G.

But I ask you to take nothing on trust. My record as a shop steward, as a district secretary, as a national official in the challenging motor industry and as deputy general secretary testifies, I hope, to my unswerving commitment to win for the membership. I have not shirked difficult decisions, nor refused to face up to unpleasant truths.

Yet I have also achieved a great deal as an activist and an officer, always working as a team with officer colleagues and the lay membership. As general secretary, I will seek to be the co-ordinator of the strongest team of all - the whole membership of the T&G.I will seek to rebuild and restore morale amongst officers and staff. I will protect and extend our democratic traditions, and seek to involve ever larger numbers of our members in the running of our union.

Tackling all the industrial, organisational and political challenges that we face demands a different and more dynamic response from the T&G. I make this point not to criticise those who have led our union hitherto, but to emphasise that I am standing as the candidate of change, as the candidate who recognises that continuing as we are ultimately means managing decline.

Our members - indeed, the rich heritage of our past - demands a better future than that. I want every member of the T&G to join in starting to build that better future. Some things will take time. However, I would like to set out straight away six key commitments, six pledges that I ask to be judged by: