As Peter Watt pointed out at the time of the TUC conference, its influence is declining for a number of reasons: the concentration of power in the hands of the leaders of three super-unions, declining membership in general and a political shift to the left. Together, this seems to have led to a focus on… Continue reading Britain’s unions can be relevant again, but not by espousing fringe politics
Category: trade unions
Soothing factional politics within Labour: 9/10. Connecting with the public: 2/10
Durham Miners’ Gala – view of the platform I’ll let you into a guilty secret: I’m a sucker for brass bands. As a Yorkshireman who grew up about thirty miles from Durham, and a Labour activist with half my family from South Wales, I am still stirred by the solidarity thing. I probably have as… Continue reading Soothing factional politics within Labour: 9/10. Connecting with the public: 2/10
Labour approaches a tipping point
“The future is unwritten” said Joe Strummer. He was right. We really can change the future: really. Because politics is driven by people and events. That said, many of these people and events are in turn, whether we like it or not, driven by power. It’s significant that even the word tends to bring to… Continue reading Labour approaches a tipping point
Paranoia and Progress
It’s my last blog for a couple of weeks as the Centre Left is on holiday, but I thought I’d post a quick final thought about the attempts of the GMB and Unison to have the New Labour thinktank, Progress, ejected from the Labour Party. Nick Cohen writes brilliantly today in the Observer about the… Continue reading Paranoia and Progress
No time for foolishness
The sabre-rattling about cutting donations to Labour Party funds. The attack on those frightening people at Progress who seem hell-bent on doing unspeakable things, like building support in no-hope seats, helping local parties raise funds or debating ideas for getting the party elected. Ah, we must be coming into conference season. Now, to be fair,… Continue reading No time for foolishness
Stand firm, Ed
Unite’s Len McCluskey Let’s get a couple of things straight first. This is not a post arguing to somehow “break the link” between Labour and its affiliated unions (a thing, by the way, which no sane activist would want – the party would self-evidently collapse without it). So, whoa there, those standing ready to defend… Continue reading Stand firm, Ed
Anti-Semitism is the new black
My second piece for the New Statesman is here. It’s also the no. 2 post over the last couple of days appearing in the Most Popular section on the NS site.
The boy Miliband done good
So, Ed got boos and catcalls at the TUC – as it happens, catcalls which are, rightly or wrongly, likely to be very useful indeed for his standing in the country, as Jack McConnell points out, showing as it does that he is standing outside of what is likely to be a very unpopular and… Continue reading The boy Miliband done good
In the hands of the many, not the few
So, we are having a debate about the role of unions in the Party. Perhaps Ed, as my Uncut colleague Peter Watt suggests, is on a hiding to nothing: he is paddling against a strong current of realpolitik that dictates that this cannot change, at least whilst the party is taking ninety per cent of… Continue reading In the hands of the many, not the few
Cuts, pensions and the wrong side of the argument
As you read this, union leaders are meeting and discussing, moving seemingly inexorably towards industrial action over the summer. And you know what? It’s entirely understandable. After all, as Dan Hodges points out, what on earth do we expect them to do? If organisations largely representing public sector workers did not take some retaliatory action,… Continue reading Cuts, pensions and the wrong side of the argument