@Plato As you descend that thread, the comments become still more direct:
"jesus christ HOW did this dippy, brainless amoeba become leader of the Labour Party?"
"The fact that the party hierarchy is considering severing the link with the organised labour that created it just shows what spineless pandering intellectual pygmies they truly are."
"ed you are cams bitch piss off too america with your brother and take balls with you the only time you have crawled out off your rathole is too have a go at the unions wish you where more vocal about bedroom tax 7 days before you can sign on tax dodgers 10 000 rise which is more than the min wage be proud you and your mates will destroy the labour party no wonder the unions want people who are not kissing tory arse"
"ed you are cams bitch piss off too america with your brother and take balls with you the only time you have crawled out off your rathole is too have a go at the unions wish you where more vocal about bedroom tax 7 days before you can sign on tax dodgers 10 000 rise which is more than the min wage be proud you and your mates will destroy the labour party no wonder the unions want people who are not kissing tory arse"
Erm,
That is the posting style of Wodger and redcliffe62. Which one could it be...?
Good article Mr Herdson - and gets to the nub of the issue. I used to be a member of the STE - a little union that was targeted at telecoms managers [most of which worked at BT]. They did a good job, were keen to work with the mgt to find solutions etc.
They were eventually eaten by a bigger one - I can't recall who, and ended up being more interested in picking fights/reps taking the mickey out of both sides.
Plumping large and disparate employee groups seems to be the wrong answer a lot of the time. Some may recall the BA Flight Crew union that were pretty militant, joined the Unite family and gave everyone a bad name for being bloody minded.
I joined Unison for a bit back in 2005 and it took them almost a year to process my request, then another 2yrs to work out I'd left because I really didn't see the point of it anymore. I had the distinct impression that they were as inefficient and 'get what you're given' as the public sector monopolies were back in the 80s.
Also taking a % of your dues to go to Labour without asking you and offering an alternative is sharp practice. Members need to know in advance that its going to happen, and not need to psychically know to ask for an opt-out form they didn't know existed when they joined.
I seem be alone in thinking this Unite business should be good for Labour. I know I said the same about Gordon but.......
....... Labour look like winners only because of the unpopularity of the Tories and the tactical ineptness of Clegg and the Dems. In the extremely unlikely event that they have a renaissance or the even more unlikely event that their concubines do then Labour are in difficulties.
This could remove even that possibility. An opportunity for Ed to not only show decisive leadership but also to show the Labour values of standing up for the oppressed against the vested interests of Maclusky and the juggernaught Union he runs. An irresistible combination.
....... Ed as the Marlon Brando character Terry in 'On The Waterfront'.
Unlikely Roger. Ed will bluster a bit about how he isn't a union man, but Unite are writing the cheques that keep Labour afloat so when the time comes, he will slink back down and bend over.
What this row shows is that Labour has lost its original purpose. Its' new purpose is apparently to promote the metropolitan, guardian reading, middle class who like to spend too much of other peoples' money on themselves and to create a dependency culture that can get them elected. No wonder the Unions want to have more MPs that are a bit more like them. No wonder this elite does not like it.
While it won't happen, it would be very amusing if Unite decided to switch its support to UKIP as, arguably, they have more to say to, and for, the working classes than modern Labour or the Tories.
I quoted this just the other day but it is such a good analogy for the modern Labour party:
"“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Is this really the point that Boxer (the union carthorse) gets sent off to the knackers yard? I think the anger we are seeing even in the Guardian suggests not. Ed has misjudged this.
Your allegations are based on a sentence in a piece you can't link to which the rest of the media hasn't repeated as the flaws in the piece were so obvious from the minute it was published, including allegations about constituencies that didn't exist and about Unite in constituencies before Unite was formed.
The allegations are on page 2 of today's Times and relate to one constituency, Chester. It's about concerns that contact details of Labour party members were passed to unite. It doesn't mention the name of any other constituencies let alone ones that don't exist. As far as I can remember Chester wasn't mentioned in the article you are erroneously referring to.
What this row shows is that Labour has lost its original purpose. Its' new purpose is apparently to promote the metropolitan, guardian reading, middle class who like to spend too much of other peoples' money on themselves and to create a dependency culture that can get them elected. No wonder the Unions want to have more MPs that are a bit more like them. No wonder this elite does not like it.
While it won't happen, it would be very amusing if Unite decided to switch its support to UKIP as, arguably, they have more to say to, and for, the working classes than modern Labour or the Tories.
Good point Charles (and DavidL). The unions might represent the working people (or at least those in unionised labour), but how on earth does it represent the retired, the self employed, etc?
The people in those categories (and they are probably the majority, when you add in stay at home mums, etc) should form their own decisions, and join or vote for tha party that they think best serves themselves, or the country, or whatever they put first.
"Labour sources said the review had found further evidence in addition to the material that led to the Falkirk constituency party being placed in “special measures” on June 25. They said that it was up to Scotland’s Procurator Fiscal to decide which, if any, offences had been committed, but suggested that forgery charges were more likely than those of electoral malpractice."
tim's new favourite tweeter makes the increasingly interesting point - where's Ed 2?
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges14m Problem for Ed M is the unions are one of those areas where left and old right see eye to eye. Anyone seen Ed Balls in the last 48 hours?
OT There can surely can't be many worse ways for the police to sully their already tainted reputation than this. Hundreds of dead children?
What were they thinking of?
"Police leaders are about to make an unprecedented national apology for the use of the names of hundreds of dead children to create false identities for undercover officers.
A continuing investigation into covert policing has been told that the so-called Day of The Jackal trick of adopting a dead infant’s identity was widespread and systematic.
The practice was initially thought to have been confined to secret police units such as Scotland Yard’s Special Demonstration Squad, which targeted “domestic extremism”. But undercover officers say that they were trained to use the identities of the dead as cover names and it became “standard practice” in Special Branch units in the Metropolitan Police and across the country..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3809786.ece
Plato, they'll probably try to hide it under the Quatada deportation tomorrow
I've my fingers crossed that I'll wake up tomorrow and he'll finally be gone - shame its been a decade to get to this point, but Mrs May lit fire under the right people.
Plato, I do hope he will be comfortable in Jordan, back among his own folk an all. Will his family be joining him, just so he can enjoy a family life, and saving a considerable amount of money for the hapless taxpayer
I used to be a member of the STE - a little union that was targeted at telecoms managers [most of which worked at BT]. They did a good job, were keen to work with the mgt to find solutions etc.
They were eventually eaten by a bigger one - I can't recall who, and ended up being more interested in picking fights/reps taking the mickey out of both sides.
You've imagined that, Plato. STE (which rebranded as Connect) didnt merge with a bigger union until long after you left (2010). And the union it merged with was also a fairly small one focused on managerial / engineering grades.
Any late sleepers that want to join in squirrel bingo the following are still available : "cost of free schools", " Boris offspring" and "Latvian homophibes".
Plato, they'll probably try to hide it under the Quatada deportation tomorrow
I've my fingers crossed that I'll wake up tomorrow and he'll finally be gone - shame its been a decade to get to this point, but Mrs May lit fire under the right people.
If the accounts are correct then he is flying from an RAF base. Given the situation in Syria and Lebanon I would not be surprised if he finds himself escorted by something shy of a Royal Marine platoon....
I don't see a problem with the "dead children" thing. Surely in constructing a false persona it helps to be able to base it on someone who once existed but never had bank accounts, a driving licence etc. Complaining about it is just mindless sentimentality.
On topic - the merger of trade unions shouldnt be seen through a political prism. It's primarily about whether it delivers results for members. David's view is that it doesnt while the elected reps and the members who vote for these mergers take the opposite view. I tend to think the latter are better positioned to judge these things. And Unite is only going to get bigger - it will almost certainly merge with the TSSA soon, talks about merging with PCS (which I dont think will happen in the end) dont seem to have gone away.
JL' Does anyone "OWN" a name, they can call themselves whoever they want, they did not steal their identities did they.I know several authors who go around graveyards noting names for the characters in their stories
Most organisations are usually founded by like-minded people to persue a common cause or purpose. Some grow to become quite large and on their way lose sight of that common purpose. They frequently end up by the organisation (or more often its executive) controlling its members with objectives which are to the benefit of the executive and not the membership. In this wake comes secrecy, rule books created by the self-interested and an authoritarian regime to which the membership has, by default, abdicated control.
Other orgaisations shine brightly for a while, but when their original energy is exhausted their flame goes out.
The danger comes when an organisation becomes powerful enough to control the thoughts or destiny of its members and becomes the ruling power over its members and often non-members.
Thus the power of the closed-shop had to be countered and we are seeing a fight for freedom of thought and practice in Egypt at present.
All organisations, if they are to remain viable, have to adapt to global and even certain cultural changes.
At present both Unite and Labour are on the road to failure because they have lost their original vision and have not found a new one. The LDs have lost theirs but am not sure whether they had one. The SNP and PC have a vision, but whether it is either practical or operating in the right time frame remains to be seen.
Mr. Thoughts, I had offered to use the space cannon to try and send him to Jordan, but apparently that's not a valid form of deportation.
Science, young sensa*: Deportation possible not when cannon-to-space partical-departation must. [Please revise the sermons of Master Patrick (c.f. expelling waste through the atmosphere)...!]
Mr. Thoughts, I could absolutely guarantee Qatada's arrival. Admittedly, he'd be reduced to a fine red mist of which only a few globules would reach Jordan.
Plans are afoot to develop the means to dip ammunition in liquid nitrogen/coat it in conductive metal. I do quite like the railgun idea of Mr. Jessop.
I don't see a problem with the "dead children" thing. Surely in constructing a false persona it helps to be able to base it on someone who once existed but never had bank accounts, a driving licence etc. Complaining about it is just mindless sentimentality.
I disagree - surely it isn't beyond the wit of the police or security services to create banks of personas that never existed at all and allocate them like unused phone numbers to the various bodies that need them. The Home Office or whatever could easily manage it since they control the central registers/issue birth certificates etc.
I gather this practice was stopped in 2002 - so they're managing it today in a different way already.
Any late sleepers that want to join in squirrel bingo the following are still available : "cost of free schools", " Boris offspring" and "Latvian homophibes".
At present both Unite and Labour are on the road to failure because they have lost their original vision and have not found a new one. The LDs have lost theirs but am not sure whether they had one. The SNP and PC have a vision, but whether it is either practical or operating in the right time frame remains to be seen.
There is a piece from Mr Parris in The Times where he advocates binning all Tory Assoc and having some CCHQ managed interweb branch system - I think its a terrible idea myself but the debate is at least underway.
Iain Martin@iainmartin1now In the middle of this Falkirk/Unite meltdown, Ed Miliband phoned Ken Livingstone (*Ken Livingstone*) to reassure him???????
Clearly a mis-dial.... Ken, Len, same difference. L for Livingstone, M for McCluskey please Bob
One remarkable fact from the election of Ed as the Labour Leader is that Unite "managed" to get the highest % of its members voting compared to the 4 largest Unions, even though it had the most union members to "persuade" to vote.
TURNOUT Ballots distributed % dist voting for ed UNITE 10.50% 1,055,074 4.5% GMB 7.80% 554,130 3.3% UNISON 6.70% 419,142 2.3% USDAW 4.30% 352,645 0.5%
My take in sound-bite form - weather too good for any attempted magnum opus! Problem with Unite for Miliband and Labour is partly institutional (all the block vote stuff, funding etc), but in the real world of politics it's essentially about ideology.
McCluskey is a 1970s unreconstructed hard left-winger, probably not that far removed from his Militant fellow-travelling days (yes, I know his main opponent for re-election was a SWPite!) whereas Ed is more of a social democrat. But the uneasy de facto arrangement between the two, complicated by Unite's backing for Ed's leadership, was one of suspicious coexistence, neither overtly confronting the other. Perhaps, 'pragmatic' blind-eyes were turned, including on selections.
But what is not clear - and this is one for Andrea's legendary digging - is whether Unite's attempts at securing candidatures was not so much about the union per se, but the ideological convictions of those so selected. Are the successful Unite candidates mainly hard-left with the potential to change the composition of the PLP and thus a future Labour government. That is serious stuff...and presumably McCluskey's intentions. But have they been realized?
Put it another way, Ed would be in far less trouble if Unite were controlled by the likes of Eric Hammond or Frank Chapple. Kinnock and Blair were very fortunate in the late1980s and 1990s that the trade union leaderships then were predominantly mainstream and so supportive of the Parliamentary leadership.
Mr. Thoughts, I could absolutely guarantee Qatada's arrival. Admittedly, he'd be reduced to a fine red mist of which only a few globules would reach Jordan.
Plans are afoot to develop the means to dip ammunition in liquid nitrogen/coat it in conductive metal. I do quite like the railgun idea of Mr. Jessop.
The only problem I can see is e=mc^2. The best bet is not to shoot straight into the sun but use Newtonian-Law to extend the agony (and ensure a 'direct' hit): Only then will Balls understand the gravity [sic] of his sentence....
@JohnO I thought @Roger made the most interesting point FPT about Len and his money - where else is he going to spend it? If not on Labour - who else? Surely his members would be up in arms if he tried to suggest another established party and would they want to create a new one? I can't see either happening myself - then again other unions have unaffiliated themselves and where does their money go?
Maybe it is now possible, in the past more difficult to create a completely new persona
I'd have thought pre-interweb it'd be really easy to create a non-person - it'd be hard to check back if a paper only copy was made or a single entry on a database. I lost my birth cert and the only way to get a replacement was to know where I was born, and appear in person at the reg office in Gateshead to collect it with ID, no one could know what my dad had said his occupation was for exampe - nowadays I imagine its not that hard to find these details online somewhere.
Trying to lose your previous life nowadays is extremely hard given how many traces we leave on the net. To go off-grid is apparently a real last resort.
@JohnO I thought @Roger made the most interesting point FPT about Len and his money - where else is he going to spend it? If not on Labour - who else? Surely his members would be up in arms if he tried to suggest another established party and would they want to create a new one? I can't see either happening myself - then again other unions have unaffiliated themselves and where does their money go?
I think you may be overestimating Len's ideological purity.
Maybe. Bit I'd be (genuinely) interested in evidence that he is more pragmatic politically. Difficult to detect any even vaguely 'centrist' (in a Labour context) tendencies.
At present both Unite and Labour are on the road to failure because they have lost their original vision and have not found a new one. The LDs have lost theirs but am not sure whether they had one. The SNP and PC have a vision, but whether it is either practical or operating in the right time frame remains to be seen.
There is a piece from Mr Parris in The Times where he advocates binning all Tory Assoc and having some CCHQ managed interweb branch system - I think its a terrible idea myself but the debate is at least underway.
I agree, I feel very uncomfortable with the concept of the big fat spider sat at the centre of the web and controlling though the radial links all activity on the periphery of its web.
This can only move towards the elimination of new and independent thought - and all UK and most European political parties (old and new) are in desperate need of new (fresh) ideas and vision.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish" and we are seeing that in spades in Western Europe at present.
@JohnO I thought @Roger made the most interesting point FPT about Len and his money - where else is he going to spend it? If not on Labour - who else? Surely his members would be up in arms if he tried to suggest another established party and would they want to create a new one? I can't see either happening myself - then again other unions have unaffiliated themselves and where does their money go?
I'm not going to pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the British trade union movement but I'd imagine members who paid in expecting that the money would go to Labour being quite narked off about that.
It's difficult to point to actual evidence but look at the people he's working with. These battles are as ideological as the Blair V Brown ones were (ie not at all). That said Len has done very well at giving every impression of being genuinely left-wing, he managed to split quite a few socialists away from Hicks in the last GS election.
On topic - the merger of trade unions shouldnt be seen through a political prism. It's primarily about whether it delivers results for members. David's view is that it doesnt while the elected reps and the members who vote for these mergers take the opposite view. I tend to think the latter are better positioned to judge these things. And Unite is only going to get bigger - it will almost certainly merge with the TSSA soon, talks about merging with PCS (which I dont think will happen in the end) dont seem to have gone away.
Is it results for members, or results for senior managers? Company mergers seem to be driven by the self-interests of the senior management teams.
'The Times of London @thetimes 32m Abu Qatada expected to be deported overnight, after a decade-long battle that has cost at least £1.7m http://thetim.es/16UQGQ1
What a contrast after seven years of incompetent Labour Home Secretaries.
Am off for a while as am going to a bun-fight to mark the 150th Anniversary of the opening of a nearby village railway station - it has seen passenger growth of >5% per annum for the last five years.
Also to have fun by publicly asking my local MP (LD) some searching questions. He usually crosses to the other side of the street when he sees me coming, but today will have to talk to me as I am one of the "guests" of this occasion.
@Neil - Don't quite follow you. McCluskey has been vociferously opposed to both Eds economic pronouncements, so demonstrably there is an ideological basis and a profound one between them (agree 100% about Blair/Brown).
In the 1970s Alex 'Kremlin' Kitson had to 'work with' Callaghan and Healey on intra party matters: that's inevitable but doesn't mean much in practice.
It's far too early for a drink here. Who do you think I am, Fluffy?
I think most readers are trying to work out which kind of comedy you think you prevail. I think your comedy is distant, very distant....
E.T.A. The nearest shop [from Tongelre] that I have found chilled-beers on sale was in Brussels (albeit I did not walk to it). Warm-beers are available at Jan-Linders and Jumbo (hence the need for refridgerator capacity in one's dwellings)....
While obviously making noises about his members' interests I dont think Len would be interested in forcing Labour to adopt any line other than one judged to give them the best chance of winning the next GE.
@Neil - Agreed but McCluskey presumably believes that sharp moves leftwards would be that winning route: I'm not casting doubts or aspersions on his sincerity. It's just that these are not shared by the leadership!
but McCluskey presumably believes that sharp moves leftwards would be that winning route
I'm not sure that's the case. He may be genuinely more leftwing than the Eds but if a more moderate line was needed to win the GE I dont think he'd have a problem towing it. (Even if in public he continues to say what he really wants for his members.)
Is Unite the union responsible for train fares in the UK being extortionate thanks to drivers being paid ridiculously large salaries in comparison to other jobs like nursing for example?
@Neil....OK...to be continued over the 8th cocktail! Meanwhile, I trust Andrea is ferreting about for all the political dirt on those new Unite candidates!
Crikey - Wee Dougie was up for defenestration?! I suppose as one of few Blairites left the target was on his back.
"The Guardian pads around the topic rather sensitively but the truth is that the target was Douglas Alexander, with Tom Watson and Len McCluskey giving the green light for the Unite operation in Scotland to take out the shadow foreign secretary.
Although he has a safe seat in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, under the terms of the boundary review, Douglas Alexander’s constituency was to be merged with Jim Sheridan’s seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire North. This was the opportunity. Unite’s troops swung into action, accelerating recruitment in Paisley to pack the new constituency and rig the impending selection contest.
The strategy to target Alexander was discussed regularly at the highest levels in Unite and even minuted. At a meeting of the union’s governing council, Unite’s leaders talked openly and approvingly about their activity in Falkirk and how it was first piloted in Paisley and Garston
“Last but very much not least, is the exemplary Falkirk. A seat where a candidate selection, to replace the disgraced Eric Joyce, is reasonably imminent…Using similar methods to Garston and Paisley, but at a much more intense level, led by the potential candidate, and very much supported by the local activist base, especially at Ineos [local employer] we have recruited well over 100 Unite members to the party in a constituency with less than 200 members.”
Recruitment in Paisley and Garston was only scaled back when it became clear that the boundary review was not going to be passed. The report from Unite’s council confirms two critical points about the union’s activities over the past two years.
First, Unite were engaged in an orchestrated attempt to remove the most senior members of the parliamentary Labour party, who happened to be from a different wing of the party. This wasn’t about working class representation, it was about political control and bending the PLP to Unite’s will. If the shadow foreign secretary wasn’t safe, who was?
Second, the disaster in Falkirk wasn’t an aberration. It wasn’t a case of “one bad apple,” as Labour spokespeople seemed to be saying yesterday. Unite have been engaged in a systematic strategy to pack key constituencies across the country with their members, using the techniques that have caused such a meltdown in Falkirk.
Unless Ed Miliband addresses both points, how on his watch his shadow foreign secretary could have been targeted for deselection in this manner, and how his biggest donor could be allowed to pack constituencies to swing selections without question, then Labour will not be able to move on from this appalling affair..." http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2013/07/06/how-unite-tried-to-deselect-douglas-alexander/
"Ed Miliband’s late-night phone call to Ken Livingstone is similarly revealing. It shows how vulnerable he feels politically, not just about this issue but his position in the party generally. And it again shows – as I wrote this morning – that Miliband has a gaping hole in his political management. If you’re running a serious political operation you don’t get the leader scrabbling around firefighting stories like a junior press officer.
Ed Miliband is showing great political courage in confronting Len McCLuskey, but courage is not enough. You also need political skill.
This morning, Miliband is looking isolated. Over the past 24 hours, supporters of the Ed Balls have been roaming the media, putting down not-so-subtle markers against confronting the unions too robustly. Their line is that events in Falkirk were basically just the fault of a few rotten apples. The issue should be compartmentalised , and everyone should move on. Meanwhile Balls himself has been conspicuous by his absence, as have most of the shadow cabinet.
I think as the unions got Miliband elected and the Labour Party now depends on them for funds the headline should actually be 'unions break link with Ed Miliband' if he ever threatened to end ties with them!
' This was the opportunity. Unite’s troops swung into action, accelerating recruitment in Paisley to pack the new constituency and rig the impending selection contest.'
Multiply that across 41 constituencies and that's lots of new members.
And Tim was telling us the increase in Labour party membership was due to Ed's charisma,statesmanship & policies.
Whatever you think of his views - this is spot on and very funny.
"Those who have not been following Labour’s Falkirk implosion should have in their mind one of those South American afternoon soaps. Labour MP Eric Joyce resigns after a punch-up in a House of Commons bar.
The battle to replace the MP involves the biggest union in the Labour movement attempting to pack the constituency to impose their favoured candidate. That candidate is a close friend of the union’s leader. Who also happens to be a former flatmate of the senior shadow cabinet member with the most influence over selections. Who also happens to be the boss of the person who is the union’s preferred candidate.
Warren Gatland currently looks as if he's going to have a particularly personally satisfying day today.
That is a very big call. The Lions let the Aussies back into the first two tests and the last 10 minutes of the first half today indicate they may well do it again. Our forwards are dominant, but our backs seem to lack any penetration; and we keep making silly mistakes when in good positions. We need to get some control in their half now or we are going to lose.
Of course, in any other organisation, private sector or public sector such as an NHS Trust, if potential illegality had been uncovered at a low level you would expect it to be escalated to a suitable level. If this did not happen, then the senior management would still be seen as culpable, in that they run an organisation where such activities are effectively condoned and covered up.
' This was the opportunity. Unite’s troops swung into action, accelerating recruitment in Paisley to pack the new constituency and rig the impending selection contest.'
Multiply that across 41 constituencies and that's lots of new members.
And Tim was telling us the increase in Labour party membership was due to Ed's charisma,statesmanship & policies.
I had no idea that 200 new members had been signed up in Falkirk in two weeks. I thought it was about 30 - the numbers/contradictory accounts are mind-bending.
I just saw an Argus article where EdM is sortof claiming that he sacked Tom Watson - yet Tom claims he begged him to stay - and the PMQ notes seem to back his side of the story. I assume that's why they were left in the HoC Gents...
Neil, I was referring to tims real day job, working in an offie, then making sure the farm is ok, then writing endlessly on PB..perish the thought that you would drink so early in the day, unlike the majority of Europeans
O/T..Another 30 innocents slaughtered today in a school in Nigeria.At the hands of the Islamic nutjobs, there seems to be an endless supply of them, and their schoolkid victims. When will they begin to extract themselves from the middle ages
Crikey - Wee Dougie was up for defenestration?! I suppose as one of few Blairites left the target was on his back.
"The Guardian pads around the topic rather sensitively but the truth is that the target was Douglas Alexander, with Tom Watson and Len McCluskey giving the green light for the Unite operation in Scotland to take out the shadow foreign secretary.
The funniest part of that story is the Illiberal Undemocrats, who thought they were voting against boundary changes to foil evil Tories, were actually foiling an evil Labour coup.
Maybe OGH was right after all. Ed Miliband, swiftly and decisively phoning Ken Livingstone, begging to be allowed to keep his lunch money, is a sign of a true leader
Sunday papers should have a field day with all this.
rEd looks short of pals - the big beasts in the shad cab have gone awol.
I've seen reports but no names that a couple of other union bosses are annoyed with Len for bringing the movement into disrepute - that seems perfectly understandable. However, they're all keeping schtum as are all the Unite sponsored MPs who are torn between their funder and their party leader...
I assume they're all hoping this will go away - I suspect not, the media are terribly short of stories and this one is just too juicy and packed with the disgruntled eager to complain about their pet issue.
If I were in CCHQ - I'd just sit back with a Pimms and watch.
Neil, I was referring to tims real day job, working in an offie, then making sure the farm is ok, then writing endlessly on PB..perish the thought that you would drink so early in the day, unlike the majority of Europeans
"There is ‘nothing sinister’ about the fact that Leeds Labour district party has been suspended, said the party leader. Leeds Labour party leader, councillor Keith Wakefield, admitted that his group had been temporarily shelved.
But he quashed speculation this had been triggered by any irregularity or misadventure, and said it was because of a planned change of constitution. However, a spokesman for the Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party, who actioned the suspension, disagreed.
While he said it was true that all UK Labour district parties are to being replaced by Labour community forums, in this instance the decision came after in-fighting threatened the party’s chance to win seats at the local elections.
The YEP was told that Leeds party members had failed to agree on a candidate list for the upcoming 2013/14 elections. And there had been an ‘impasse’ over the interpretation of selection guidelines. The ongoing disagreements were delaying the process, he said..."
Crikey - Wee Dougie was up for defenestration?! I suppose as one of few Blairites left the target was on his back.
"The Guardian pads around the topic rather sensitively but the truth is that the target was Douglas Alexander, with Tom Watson and Len McCluskey giving the green light for the Unite operation in Scotland to take out the shadow foreign secretary.
The funniest part of that story is the Illiberal Undemocrats, who thought they were voting against boundary changes to foil evil Tories, were actually foiling an evil Labour coup.
I wonder how many of them are happy about that?
LOL - if ever there was a 'be careful what you wish for' ...
The Times leader is pretty evenhanded re union vs leader.
"...The decision to refer the process in Falkirk to the police rather smacks of managing the process. It is a rare event that political fixing and malpractice actually involve any law-breaking. The police may well return the files and press no charges. Calling in the police therefore has all the appearance of taking the problem seriously but, in all likelihood, none of the substance. The root of the problem in the Labour Party is not criminal activity, it is poverty.
The Labour Party would not survive were it not for the cheques that come in from Unite, and Mr Miliband is in no position to renounce them. The best way of minimising the influence of Unite would be to find more money from other sources...But Mr Miliband also has to act decisively to change his own party’s workings. It is not plausible to say, as some people speaking for Labour have, that Falkirk is an isolated incident. The first thing Mr Miliband needs to do is to take seriously the stories he is hearing of other constituencies where Unite is trying to pull the tricks that have been discovered in Falkirk. It would be damaging for him if other instances creep out.
Then Mr Miliband needs to demonstrate that he is running his own show. The electoral college that settles the Labour leadership is an absurdly complex hangover from the internal battles of the 1980s. It divides the vote up between the party members, the MPs and the trade unions. The weight given to trade unions is far too great and Mr Miliband should move his party towards a genuine version of one member, one vote. A crisis is often an opportunity in disguise. Mr Miliband should recognise that and act decisively..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3809613.ece
Comments
"jesus christ HOW did this dippy, brainless amoeba become leader of the Labour Party?"
"The fact that the party hierarchy is considering severing the link with the organised labour that created it just shows what spineless pandering intellectual pygmies they truly are."
"ed you are cams bitch piss off too america with your brother and take balls with you the only time you have crawled out off your rathole is too have a go at the unions wish you where more vocal about bedroom tax 7 days before you can sign on tax dodgers 10 000 rise which is more than the min wage be proud you and your mates will destroy the labour party no wonder the unions want people who are not kissing tory arse"
That is the posting style of Wodger and redcliffe62. Which one could it be...?
They were eventually eaten by a bigger one - I can't recall who, and ended up being more interested in picking fights/reps taking the mickey out of both sides.
Plumping large and disparate employee groups seems to be the wrong answer a lot of the time. Some may recall the BA Flight Crew union that were pretty militant, joined the Unite family and gave everyone a bad name for being bloody minded.
I joined Unison for a bit back in 2005 and it took them almost a year to process my request, then another 2yrs to work out I'd left because I really didn't see the point of it anymore. I had the distinct impression that they were as inefficient and 'get what you're given' as the public sector monopolies were back in the 80s.
Also taking a % of your dues to go to Labour without asking you and offering an alternative is sharp practice. Members need to know in advance that its going to happen, and not need to psychically know to ask for an opt-out form they didn't know existed when they joined.
http://www.ourunion.org.uk/PoliticalFundExemption.pdf
"“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Is this really the point that Boxer (the union carthorse) gets sent off to the knackers yard? I think the anger we are seeing even in the Guardian suggests not. Ed has misjudged this.
"....... Ed as the Marlon Brando character Terry in 'On The Waterfront'."
I can see the Photoshop of that now...
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3809772.ece
The people in those categories (and they are probably the majority, when you add in stay at home mums, etc) should form their own decisions, and join or vote for tha party that they think best serves themselves, or the country, or whatever they put first.
"Labour sources said the review had found further evidence in addition to the material that led to the Falkirk constituency party being placed in “special measures” on June 25. They said that it was up to Scotland’s Procurator Fiscal to decide which, if any, offences had been committed, but suggested that forgery charges were more likely than those of electoral malpractice."
Forgery?!
Summinck we can all* get behind and praise:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23207205
Yes, even me and Sven. A strange, small world in which we inhabit....
* Wee-Timmy and the terminators may disagree but we are talking about human emotions here....
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges14m
Problem for Ed M is the unions are one of those areas where left and old right see eye to eye. Anyone seen Ed Balls in the last 48 hours?
Ladbrokes Politics@LadPolitics38m
It's 16/1 that Ed Miliband is replaced as Labour leader this year. http://bit.ly/16THqfj
What were they thinking of?
"Police leaders are about to make an unprecedented national apology for the use of the names of hundreds of dead children to create false identities for undercover officers.
A continuing investigation into covert policing has been told that the so-called Day of The Jackal trick of adopting a dead infant’s identity was widespread and systematic.
The practice was initially thought to have been confined to secret police units such as Scotland Yard’s Special Demonstration Squad, which targeted “domestic extremism”. But undercover officers say that they were trained to use the identities of the dead as cover names and it became “standard practice” in Special Branch units in the Metropolitan Police and across the country..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3809786.ece
Will his family be joining him, just so he can enjoy a family life, and saving a considerable amount of money for the hapless taxpayer
Other orgaisations shine brightly for a while, but when their original energy is exhausted their flame goes out.
The danger comes when an organisation becomes powerful enough to control the thoughts or destiny of its members and becomes the ruling power over its members and often non-members.
Thus the power of the closed-shop had to be countered and we are seeing a fight for freedom of thought and practice in Egypt at present.
All organisations, if they are to remain viable, have to adapt to global and even certain cultural changes.
At present both Unite and Labour are on the road to failure because they have lost their original vision and have not found a new one. The LDs have lost theirs but am not sure whether they had one. The SNP and PC have a vision, but whether it is either practical or operating in the right time frame remains to be seen.
Herumph...!
* No clue how to spell it, but....
Plans are afoot to develop the means to dip ammunition in liquid nitrogen/coat it in conductive metal. I do quite like the railgun idea of Mr. Jessop.
I gather this practice was stopped in 2002 - so they're managing it today in a different way already.
Bingo!
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges12m
Ed Miliband phoned Ken Livingstone last night ro reassure him he wouldn't move to break the union link.
In the middle of this Falkirk/Unite meltdown, Ed Miliband phoned Ken Livingstone (*Ken Livingstone*) to reassure him???????
Clearly a mis-dial.... Ken, Len, same difference. L for Livingstone, M for McCluskey please Bob
- so many letters, so close to each other.
TURNOUT Ballots distributed % dist voting for ed
UNITE 10.50% 1,055,074 4.5%
GMB 7.80% 554,130 3.3%
UNISON 6.70% 419,142 2.3%
USDAW 4.30% 352,645 0.5%
All figs taken from Guardian download.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/26/labour-leadership-results-election#data
Clearly better at GOTV?
What time do offies open in the UK?
McCluskey is a 1970s unreconstructed hard left-winger, probably not that far removed from his Militant fellow-travelling days (yes, I know his main opponent for re-election was a SWPite!) whereas Ed is more of a social democrat. But the uneasy de facto arrangement between the two, complicated by Unite's backing for Ed's leadership, was one of suspicious coexistence, neither overtly confronting the other. Perhaps, 'pragmatic' blind-eyes were turned, including on selections.
But what is not clear - and this is one for Andrea's legendary digging - is whether Unite's attempts at securing candidatures was not so much about the union per se, but the ideological convictions of those so selected. Are the successful Unite candidates mainly hard-left with the potential to change the composition of the PLP and thus a future Labour government. That is serious stuff...and presumably McCluskey's intentions. But have they been realized?
Put it another way, Ed would be in far less trouble if Unite were controlled by the likes of Eric Hammond or Frank Chapple. Kinnock and Blair were very fortunate in the late1980s and 1990s that the trade union leaderships then were predominantly mainstream and so supportive of the Parliamentary leadership.
Maybe it is now possible, in the past more difficult to create a completely new persona
I thought @Roger made the most interesting point FPT about Len and his money - where else is he going to spend it? If not on Labour - who else?
Surely his members would be up in arms if he tried to suggest another established party and would they want to create a new one?
I can't see either happening myself - then again other unions have unaffiliated themselves and where does their money go?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TUSC
I think you may be overestimating Len's ideological purity.
Trying to lose your previous life nowadays is extremely hard given how many traces we leave on the net. To go off-grid is apparently a real last resort.
There's another I might back as well.
I agree, I feel very uncomfortable with the concept of the big fat spider sat at the centre of the web and controlling though the radial links all activity on the periphery of its web.
This can only move towards the elimination of new and independent thought - and all UK and most European political parties (old and new) are in desperate need of new (fresh) ideas and vision.
"Where there is no vision, the people perish" and we are seeing that in spades in Western Europe at present.
It's difficult to point to actual evidence but look at the people he's working with. These battles are as ideological as the Blair V Brown ones were (ie not at all). That said Len has done very well at giving every impression of being genuinely left-wing, he managed to split quite a few socialists away from Hicks in the last GS election.
'The Times of London @thetimes 32m
Abu Qatada expected to be deported overnight, after a decade-long battle that has cost at least £1.7m http://thetim.es/16UQGQ1
What a contrast after seven years of incompetent Labour Home Secretaries.
Also to have fun by publicly asking my local MP (LD) some searching questions. He usually crosses to the other side of the street when he sees me coming, but today will have to talk to me as I am one of the "guests" of this occasion.
In the 1970s Alex 'Kremlin' Kitson had to 'work with' Callaghan and Healey on intra party matters: that's inevitable but doesn't mean much in practice.
E.T.A. The nearest shop [from Tongelre] that I have found chilled-beers on sale was in Brussels (albeit I did not walk to it). Warm-beers are available at Jan-Linders and Jumbo (hence the need for refridgerator capacity in one's dwellings)....
Betting PostBacked Vettel, without hedge, at 2.03 for pole.
I've also laid Hamilton to be top 3 in qualifying at 1.64, hedged at 5.
More details in my pre-qualifying piece here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/germany-pre-qualifying.html
While obviously making noises about his members' interests I dont think Len would be interested in forcing Labour to adopt any line other than one judged to give them the best chance of winning the next GE.
Think how far ahead they'd be if O'Driscoll was playing!
"The Guardian pads around the topic rather sensitively but the truth is that the target was Douglas Alexander, with Tom Watson and Len McCluskey giving the green light for the Unite operation in Scotland to take out the shadow foreign secretary.
Although he has a safe seat in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, under the terms of the boundary review, Douglas Alexander’s constituency was to be merged with Jim Sheridan’s seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire North. This was the opportunity. Unite’s troops swung into action, accelerating recruitment in Paisley to pack the new constituency and rig the impending selection contest.
The strategy to target Alexander was discussed regularly at the highest levels in Unite and even minuted. At a meeting of the union’s governing council, Unite’s leaders talked openly and approvingly about their activity in Falkirk and how it was first piloted in Paisley and Garston
“Last but very much not least, is the exemplary Falkirk. A seat where a candidate selection, to replace the disgraced Eric Joyce, is reasonably imminent…Using similar methods to Garston and Paisley, but at a much more intense level, led by the potential candidate, and very much supported by the local activist base, especially at Ineos [local employer] we have recruited well over 100 Unite members to the party in a constituency with less than 200 members.”
Recruitment in Paisley and Garston was only scaled back when it became clear that the boundary review was not going to be passed. The report from Unite’s council confirms two critical points about the union’s activities over the past two years.
First, Unite were engaged in an orchestrated attempt to remove the most senior members of the parliamentary Labour party, who happened to be from a different wing of the party. This wasn’t about working class representation, it was about political control and bending the PLP to Unite’s will. If the shadow foreign secretary wasn’t safe, who was?
Second, the disaster in Falkirk wasn’t an aberration. It wasn’t a case of “one bad apple,” as Labour spokespeople seemed to be saying yesterday. Unite have been engaged in a systematic strategy to pack key constituencies across the country with their members, using the techniques that have caused such a meltdown in Falkirk.
Unless Ed Miliband addresses both points, how on his watch his shadow foreign secretary could have been targeted for deselection in this manner, and how his biggest donor could be allowed to pack constituencies to swing selections without question, then Labour will not be able to move on from this appalling affair..." http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2013/07/06/how-unite-tried-to-deselect-douglas-alexander/
"Ed Miliband’s late-night phone call to Ken Livingstone is similarly revealing. It shows how vulnerable he feels politically, not just about this issue but his position in the party generally. And it again shows – as I wrote this morning – that Miliband has a gaping hole in his political management. If you’re running a serious political operation you don’t get the leader scrabbling around firefighting stories like a junior press officer.
Ed Miliband is showing great political courage in confronting Len McCLuskey, but courage is not enough. You also need political skill.
This morning, Miliband is looking isolated. Over the past 24 hours, supporters of the Ed Balls have been roaming the media, putting down not-so-subtle markers against confronting the unions too robustly. Their line is that events in Falkirk were basically just the fault of a few rotten apples. The issue should be compartmentalised , and everyone should move on. Meanwhile Balls himself has been conspicuous by his absence, as have most of the shadow cabinet.
Forget the ins and outs of who did what in Falkirk. This issue is indeed about who runs the Labour party. And Ed Miliband needs to show it isn’t Ken Livingstone." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100225144/ed-miliband-rings-ken-livingstone-to-reassure-him-then-texts-to-disown-guardian-story-is-he-labour-leader-or-a-junior-press-officer/
Everything to play for in the second half.
' This was the opportunity. Unite’s troops swung into action, accelerating recruitment in Paisley to pack the new constituency and rig the impending selection contest.'
Multiply that across 41 constituencies and that's lots of new members.
And Tim was telling us the increase in Labour party membership was due to Ed's charisma,statesmanship & policies.
"Those who have not been following Labour’s Falkirk implosion should have in their mind one of those South American afternoon soaps. Labour MP Eric Joyce resigns after a punch-up in a House of Commons bar.
The battle to replace the MP involves the biggest union in the Labour movement attempting to pack the constituency to impose their favoured candidate. That candidate is a close friend of the union’s leader. Who also happens to be a former flatmate of the senior shadow cabinet member with the most influence over selections. Who also happens to be the boss of the person who is the union’s preferred candidate.
There are accusations of intimidation, cover-ups and stitch‑ups. A national scandal ensues and the police are called in. All that’s missing is a handsome priest, a sultry nurse and some disputed land just south of Chihuahua. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10162301/Tom-Watson-my-part-in-his-downfall.html
Of course, in any other organisation, private sector or public sector such as an NHS Trust, if potential illegality had been uncovered at a low level you would expect it to be escalated to a suitable level. If this did not happen, then the senior management would still be seen as culpable, in that they run an organisation where such activities are effectively condoned and covered up.
I just saw an Argus article where EdM is sortof claiming that he sacked Tom Watson - yet Tom claims he begged him to stay - and the PMQ notes seem to back his side of the story. I assume that's why they were left in the HoC Gents...
rEd looks short of pals - the big beasts in the shad cab have gone awol.
I'm afraid I had a pint with my breakfast about 10am. But only one.
When will they begin to extract themselves from the middle ages
Dont worry, it was lunchtime in Russia!
I wonder how many of them are happy about that?
EdM's leadership is in crisis. So who you gonna call? Ken Livingstone is the *wrong answer*
@alexmassie Trading in DUEMA shares suspended, exec committee meeting in emergency session, filing for (intellectual) bankruptcy, again.
:nothing-to-see-here-folks:
I assume they're all hoping this will go away - I suspect not, the media are terribly short of stories and this one is just too juicy and packed with the disgruntled eager to complain about their pet issue.
If I were in CCHQ - I'd just sit back with a Pimms and watch.
"There is ‘nothing sinister’ about the fact that Leeds Labour district party has been suspended, said the party leader. Leeds Labour party leader, councillor Keith Wakefield, admitted that his group had been temporarily shelved.
But he quashed speculation this had been triggered by any irregularity or misadventure, and said it was because of a planned change of constitution. However, a spokesman for the Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party, who actioned the suspension, disagreed.
While he said it was true that all UK Labour district parties are to being replaced by Labour community forums, in this instance the decision came after in-fighting threatened the party’s chance to win seats at the local elections.
The YEP was told that Leeds party members had failed to agree on a candidate list for the upcoming 2013/14 elections. And there had been an ‘impasse’ over the interpretation of selection guidelines. The ongoing disagreements were delaying the process, he said..."
"...The decision to refer the process in Falkirk to the police rather smacks of managing the process. It is a rare event that political fixing and malpractice actually involve any law-breaking. The police may well return the files and press no charges. Calling in the police therefore has all the appearance of taking the problem seriously but, in all likelihood, none of the substance. The root of the problem in the Labour Party is not criminal activity, it is poverty.
The Labour Party would not survive were it not for the cheques that come in from Unite, and Mr Miliband is in no position to renounce them. The best way of minimising the influence of Unite would be to find more money from other sources...But Mr Miliband also has to act decisively to change his own party’s workings. It is not plausible to say, as some people speaking for Labour have, that Falkirk is an isolated incident. The first thing Mr Miliband needs to do is to take seriously the stories he is hearing of other constituencies where Unite is trying to pull the tricks that have been discovered in Falkirk. It would be damaging for him if other instances creep out.
Then Mr Miliband needs to demonstrate that he is running his own show. The electoral college that settles the Labour leadership is an absurdly complex hangover from the internal battles of the 1980s. It divides the vote up between the party members, the MPs and the trade unions. The weight given to trade unions is far too great and Mr Miliband should move his party towards a genuine version of one member, one vote. A crisis is often an opportunity in disguise. Mr Miliband should recognise that and act decisively..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3809613.ece
Although if there were fewer Welshmen playing today we'd have scored a century.
Ed the Australian pack