FORMER environment secretary Michael Meacher MP will be the keynote speaker at the Stroud Constituency Labour Party Conference.

The free event is at the Space, Lansdown, from 9.30am to 5pm on Saturday, October 18.

Mr Meacher MP was first elected to parliament in 1970, representing Oldham West.

He was Minister of State for the Environment and a Privy Counsellor from May 1997 to June 2003, in Tony Blair’s government.

In February 2007 he stood for the Labour leadership, challenging Gordon Brown and John McDonnell.

In May of that year, after talks with Mr McDonnell, he announced he would stand aside in order to back Mr McDonnell as the “candidate of the left”.

The theme of the conference is “the state we’re in; the society we need”.

Please visit: stroudconfer ence.org.uk for further information on the conference.