Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords, defends hereditary peers. I sympathise: he is defending the interests of his class, as we did during the miners' strike in 1984

Midnight in a narrow backstreet in the East End of London. Two cars slowly pass one another and then pull up, boot to boot. The drivers emerge and furtively transfer a score of large boxes from one vehicle to the other. The boxes contain videos, but you'd have to be really perverted to get a thrill from what was on these tapes, mate. They describe, in graphic detail, a cunning plan to reform the House of Lords.

Lords reform has been a hobby of mine for several years now, and, frustrated by the lack of progress, I decided late last year to make a short (three-minute) film outlining a form of indirect election called the secondary mandate. This simply distributes seats in the second chamber in direct proportion to all of the votes cast in the general election. Encouraged by the inclusion of Lords reform for discussion in Labour's "Big Conversation", I resolved to send a copy of the video to constituency Labour parties: this is an issue that is taken more seriously at grass-roots level.

My accomplice in this escapade is Paul Stinchcombe, Labour MP for Wellingborough and a member of the Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform. It is into his Mark III Jag that we loaded the 450 videos. Parking the car somewhere unobtrusive, we slope off to watch the snooker finals on TV.

The next morning, in search of a full English fry-up, we pick up the Monday papers to find - to our surprise - that Peter Hain has spoken at the weekend in favour of the secondary mandate and that Lord Falconer had said that a reformed House of Lords could be indirectly elected, to reflect the results of the general election.

Encouraged by this news and fortified by breakfast, we drive into Westminster in a Jag full of dodgy videos. It takes us a good half-hour to manhandle our cargo up the stairs of the old Scotland Yard buildings and into Paul's office, where one of his local party activists is waiting to help us stuff envelopes. Our plan is to send copies of the film to every Labour MP, with instructions to pass the video on to constituency members. The package also contains a DVD of the film for the MP and a letter of endorsement signed by Paul, Andy Burnham MP and one of his colleagues from the joint committee, Janet Anderson MP.

No sooner have we begun the process of stuffing envelopes than the phone rings. It's an invitation from The World at One. I dash across to the BBC's Millbank studio to take part in a discussion about our idea. Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords, finds himself on a rather sticky wicket, having to speak in favour of hereditary peers. I have some sympathy with him. He is only defending the interests of his class, just as we did during the miners' strike in 1984.

By early evening, having despatched our packages, we go off in search of sustenance. We end up in the Strangers' Bar of the House of Commons, singing an impromptu version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" at the bar with Peter Kilfoyle. While we are there, members shout to one another: "Kerry has won!" Before I have a chance to contemplate what this might mean for Howard Dean, I realise that it is Mrs McFadden they are screaming about. She has just been crowned "Queen of the Jungle". Honest Kerry, who showed her emotions and didn't tell porkies behind anyone's back. The people trusted her and she won. Could there be a moral for our politicians in that?

I will be appearing at a number of commemorative events to mark the 20th anniversary of the strike. It will be a chance to meet old friends and play the old songs. I shall have to dust off my seminal folk-punk chart topper, "Between the Wars". I retired it from the

set a few years ago, worried that audiences

had stopped singing it with defiance and begun to look at it with a sense of nostalgia for the struggles of the 1980s.

Those of us whose politics were shaped by that tumultuous decade have much to thank the miners for. Friends that I made back then are still there, whether in the Left Field at Glastonbury, on the Stop the War marches, or down at Tolpuddle every July. But as we commemorate the strike, we would do well to recall the words of Joe Hill, the great union songwriter sentenced to death by the copper bosses in Salt Lake City almost a century ago: "Don't mourn, organise."

I have spent the past year organising the road crew who work with us at gigs up and down the country. Due to the nature of their work, these men have had difficulty in enforcing health and safety regulations within the industry; and because they don't have long-term contracts, they often find it difficult to get mortgages and loans. (Just imagine the trouble they encounter trying to get life insurance.) Over the past 12 months, my crew members and I have been talking to the GMB about bringing the road crew under the union's wing. On 3 January, we held the inaugural meeting of the Roadcrew Provident Syndicate, a stand-alone branch of the GMB, open to everyone who works in the production of rock concerts, from the T-shirt sellers to the caterers. I am proud to say that we have the coolest T-shirt in the labour movement. Steve Earle took my last one straight off my back.

You can find out more about Billy Bragg's plans for Lords reform at www.secondarymandate.org

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