John Hutton reportedly “warns” the unions that they should not take for granted their links to the Labour Party. As Hutton almost certainly does not know, over half of the unions affiliated to the TUC have never been affiliated to the Labour Party. He might know that membership of the TUC’s General Council has always been a bar to membership of Labour’s National Executive Committee. And he undoubtedly knows that there has been a spate of disaffiliations in recent years.
The unions have done particularly badly (and that is saying quite something) out of Gordon Brown’s move to a National Government. No union figure has been raised to the peerage in order to be given so much as an advisory position, never mind a ministerial one. Meanwhile, numerous union-sponsored MPs have been pointedly passed over in favour of Lib Dems, Tories, non-political figures, and the former Director-General of the CBI. (Comrade Digby is on record as having voted both Tory and Lib Dem in his time, but never having voted Labour. He still has a vote in local and European elections. How is he going to cast it, and why?)
The unions should tell their insolent dependents such as Hutton and Brown to sling their hooks. They should instead come up with ten dream policies and offer ten per cent funding to any parliamentary candidate (regardless of party, if any) who signed up to each of them, minus ten per cent for failure to rule out each of ten nightmare policies. Would there be the Private “Finance” Initiative, or Public-Private “Partnerships”, or real terms pay cuts for public servants, if this were the system in operation? Well, there you are, then.
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blackmail...yes, that's true democratic politics. Your vision for Britain is truley inspiring.
ReplyDeleteTerrified, aren't you? The unions might stop funding the political wing of the CBI, and then where will you be?
ReplyDelete"Would there be the Private “Finance” Initiative, or Public-Private “Partnerships”, or real terms pay cuts for public servants, if this were the system in operation?"
ReplyDeleteYes, probably.
Why?
ReplyDelete"Would there be the Private “Finance” Initiative, or Public-Private “Partnerships”, or real terms pay cuts for public servants, if this were the system in operation?"
ReplyDeleteAs anonymous said before, yes, probably.
Why? Well, several reasons:
1. Because we already have union sponsored MPs at the moment, and we have these things.
2. Because the nature of the party system and the rules on spending in individual seats means that - unlike in the US - money plays a very limited role in any Parliamentary seat, so union funding wouldn't be that attractive to many prospective MPs, and would be unlikely to sway a result in many seats anyway.
3. Because even if an MP did get elected on a union platform, their influence - again, unlike the US - would be minimal because of the way that Parliament works.
4. Because no one really cares about what the trade unions think any more. So a union campaigning MP wouldn't be listened to by the senior figures in any party.
So, "Would there be the Private “Finance” Initiative, or Public-Private “Partnerships”, or real terms pay cuts for public servants, if this were the system in operation?"
Yes.
"Well, there you are, then"
Indeed.
1. Then they should have their union sponsorship taken away and given to deserving cnadidates of any party or none;
ReplyDelete2. We'd see about that if the funding ever went away;
3. It only "works" like that because MPs let it, so change the MPs;
4. So we need a new party.
This has happened before, you know...