The news in brief...

I've struggled to keep up to date with the blog since I got back from Glastonbury so here's a quick whistle stop tour of the past 7 days.

Glastonbury was fantastic - no trench foot and I even came back with a voice this year. Vampire Weekend were superb, Amy Winehouse awful and Manu Chao outstanding.

But the real reason I was there was to help promote the trade union cause at Glastonbury and social justice campaigns. You can see what i got up to here


Back on the Monday and straight to a meeting with John McDonnell to talk about our Parliamentary work. On the Tuesday I went to the TUC Press and PR awards where The Journalist won in the photographic category for Alan Wylie's piture of Alan Johnston enjoying the taste of freedom in Glasgow.

On Wednesday I met with staff and secondees in the broadcasting sector and on Thursday attended the Foreign Office Freedom of Expression panel at which I was able to raise the case of Mohamed Omar. I had meetings with staff in the afternoon.

On Friday I attended the Federation of Entertainment Unions meeting and then met with BECTU and property specialists to talk about our possible building share and then went to the TUC's National Minimum Wage Working Group to push our concerns about the abuse of work experience and non-payment of the NMW.

Then back to Headland House for the result of the union's Deputy General Secretary election.

Saturday I went to Cardiff to speak on the trade union agenda at the Wales Labour Grassroots meeting and on Sunday spoke with Dave Crouch on the media and war at Marxism 2008 - the annual 3-day series of political debate and discussion.

I'll try to keep things more up to date this week!