4156 days ago
Am I missing something from afar? I read that the Unite Union gives Labour vast amounts of money and now stands accused of trying to rig selection meetings in safe seats so that crony candidates who believe in thinks like workers’ rights and all those terribly passé concepts of the 1970s get picked. Heck so what is the news?
We always knew that Labour was bankrolled by the Trades Unions. It must have been a bit galling for the Unions to pony up only to see a bunch of Middle Class privileged young men ignore a vast amount of what they were promised. And so the Unions now want to ensure that MPs they bankroll can be relied upon to do the right thing. I.e. the wrong thing.
It is almost amusing to see Ed Milliband reporting his biggest backer to the Old Bill. But these are squabbles among the political classes. During the past thirty years Union membership has fallen off a cliff – outside the public sector they are pretty irrelevant. Political party membership and voter turnout has fallen off a cliff too.
I spotted the other day a CV of a contemporary of mine from Oxford.
4327 days ago
Jo Swinson is a Lib Dem Business Minister who is also an equalities minister. Unlike most politicians she has actually worked in the private sector – as a PR person for a local radio station before becoming an MP at the age of 25. Based on that vast experience of the needs of business she has come up with a cunning wheeze to make life ever more miserable for employers with yet more red tape. Just what the company doctor ordered. And it seems that this is coalition policy. Were the leader of the Conservative Party someone whose Dad ran a corner store and whose husband ran a series of companies rather than a pampered suit who did a brief stint in PR before becoming a professional politician, Swinson would be told where to stick her daft plans but that was before Call Me Dave made his party a “nice” party.
If Swinson gets her way, from next year all employees (not just those with kids) will be able to request the right to work flexible hours and cannot be denied unless the employer can show a clear business need. The silly woman
