THE annual Durham Miners’ Gala has for many decades been the labour movement’s biggest event of the year.Its powerful messages of solidarity and of pride in our past is always uplifting. It often feels like a massive family reunion, a family in which the Labour Party was always an integral member, that is until 1997 when relationship became a bit strained, to say the least.The Labour Party was founded by the trade unions to give the working class a political voice and to fight for workers to have a fairer share of power and wealth.