Any Questions (I’ve had a busy weekend – “black tie and gowns; hoods to be worn between courses”...) featured one Phil Hope, apparently a Labour MP and clearly of the usual nondescript, came-from-nowhere New Labour stamp. Yet at one point he informed us that he had trained trade union officials in negotiating skills!
With up to 10 trade union officials expected to be given suddenly ennobled old troopers’ safe seats in the run-up to the next Election in return for continuing trade union funding of New Labour (with Jack Dromey top of the list, to take Ken Purchase’s seat), will this constitute the marked improvement for which one might hope? Or will they have learned all that they know from Phil Hope?
There'll be a lot more than ten. Brown really needs to suck up to the unions in order to persuade them to accept a cap on donations, and the change to signing into instead of out of the political levy.
ReplyDeleteI've no doubt that you are right. But what will the Tories offer Ashcroft in return for the quid pro quo (so to speak) of spending limits even outside election periods?
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