A lot of public sector people are in politically restricted posts. But they, among others, can still register to vote for Labour's Leader and Deputy Leader. You can do that here.
A lot of people who will be doing so, will be deciding, based on the result, whether or not to join the Labour Party. How is that legitimate, which it is, but not the adoption of the same approach to continued affiliation on the part of a trade union?
And why, as the BBC absolutely insists, are elected trade union leaders "barons", when no such term is used to describe big business figures, or media moguls, or even actual members of the House of Lords? There is an absolute taboo in British journalism against asking who funds the Conservative Party, by what means, and what they get in return.
Someone might also consider telling the BBC that both trade union block votes and the trade union sponsorship of MPs ceased to exist decades ago. The BBC boys were taught not to mention those facts at the Keith Joseph Memorial Madrassa during the university vacations, while the BBC girls were never taught them, or very much else at all, at the Jolly Hockey Sticks Finishing School.
Products of the former are also making a fuss about the fact that all five Labour Leadership candidates went to Oxbridge, claiming that that makes them "scions of privilege". No, it does not. It just means that they went to Oxbridge. Four of them from state schools, two of them from comprehensive schools, and in Yvette Cooper's case from a local Sixth Form college because her comp only went up to 16.
Only Tristram Hunt is any kind of scion of privilege, and even then only of the "posh end of the Labour Party" variety. The rest are tributes to state education in general, and for the most part to comprehensivisation in particular.
Including, in the cases of Andy Burnham and Mary Creagh, to the role of the Catholic Church in the provision of life-transforming comprehensive education to the children of the old industrial working class. Tristram Hunt, look and learn. You, and a good many others.
I agree absolutely with Frank Field-Labour is the party of "vested interests" while it continues to be dominated by trade unions.
ReplyDeleteWe should implement Peter Hitchens' proposal-no trade union or business is allowed to donate to Labour or the Conservatives without at least 40% of their members or shareholders voting to do so in a ballot.
And we should end the Broadcasting Rules and Short Money that guarantee the same two political parties airtime and taxpayer funding.
That would sort out this mess instantly.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3087075/Stop-taking-bullying-union-cash-Labour-told-Former-minister-Frank-Field-says-new-leader-reject-money-voters-no-longer-vested-interests.html
Labour has not been "dominated by trade unions" in decades, if ever. The persistence of Frank Field in Parliament is testimony to that.
DeleteApart from his worthy attempt to subject companies to the same laws as unions, Peter Hitchens's wish list is precisely that.
Field has no influence. None whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteAs shown by the fact he was sacked by Gordon Brown for trying to stop people cheating the welfare system, and the complete refusal of the Labour leadership to even consider his and Nick Boles longstanding call for an end to mass immigration and a referendum on leaving the European Union.
Frank Field should have left a long time ago.
What does his party now stand for? Lining up with Deutschebank to oppose an EU referendum and keep Britain under German rule, and imposing compulsory sex education on schools?
I've no idea what Field has in common with his party any more.
No...
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