It was only mildly embarrassing to sit on a platform (speaking, not railway) with employment Minister Jim Knight the day after I been less than entirely respectful in the Daily Mirror about his Government’s recent performance on jobs.
The political collision was unavoidable, because the biggest-ever rise in monthly unemployment figures occurring under a Labour Prime Minister wasn’t something you could ignore, not even with a war going on in some far-off country in Central Asia.
I need not have worried about such a minor car crash. Knight was affability itself and seemed more concerned about getting the Mirror’s colour cartoon of himself than giving me a hard time. Such is the amiable nature of the Westminster village – or the power of the press, just as you wish.
This was probably Jim’s first big outing since he took over the previous month from Tony McNulty, who stood down after revelations about expenses for a second home a bike ride from his primary residence.
My point in the Mirror was that employment used to be a really important job under Labour. Ernie Bevin, the wartime holder of the post, was a big figure in every sense of the word. When I started in this game, Ray Gunter called the job “a bed of nails”, although he was happy enough resting on it. Barbara Castle renamed it the Department of Employment and Productivity, beginning its steady decline into an arm of business, enterprise and Peter Mandelson-style reform.
Since John Major abolished the department, its function has been passed round Whitehall like a tray of cakes. Jim Knight is a minister of state in Yvette Cooper’s Department for Work and Pensions. He attends Cabinet meetings and sits at the back, speaking only when he’s spoken to. And, contradictorily, he doesn’t have “skills” in his portfolio. They stayed with Ed Balls, Yvette’s husband, who is in charge of schools. Rum things, these ministerial reshuffles.
Anyway, there we both were on the rickety wooden platform of the Unions 21 fringe meeting at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Rally. Dorset is quite a vertical county. The stage sloped sharply downhill – emphatically not an illusion after 10 minutes in the beer tent. I’ve always liked the Tolpuddle event. It brings together the unions and the whackier side of life. A tent village springs up overnight by the TUC Memorial Cottages, folk music is a constant backdrop and is that smoke more than tobacco?
Our event was held in a marquee impressively hung with trade union banners, including one from the Yorkshire miners showing Arthur Scargill being arrested at Orgreave. We were there to talk about “Crunch Time for the Unions”, Unions 21’s chosen topic. Jim, a former actor (he appeared as a child in the West End production of Oliver!) and a member of Unite and the GMB, found his feet with an old number, “Unity Is Strength”.
Insisting that: “There is no bigger priority for this Government” than unemployment”, he promised: “I will be making announcements.” So we should look for a pledge to ring-fence money from the £1.5 billion Future Jobs Fund to find work for 100,000 young people. In total, 150,000 should be helped into jobs.
These are ambitious targets. I hope they are met, because I feel another Tory “Labour isn’t working” general election campaign coming on. The first one was back in 1979, when the Thatcher-Saatchi axis of influence was conquering all before it.
For my contribution, I drew on a memory of that year, when a young man in the TUC press office (indeed, he was the press office) coined what I thought was a brilliant slogan to counter the anti-union venom of Maggie’s first wave of labour legislation. It ran, simply: “Look after yourself, look after your union”.
This motto seems to me as relevant today as it was 30 years ago and I am glad to report that the young man is still with us. Indeed, there is a great deal more of him today than there was then, because he’s the amply-
upholstered general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber.
I’m sure he’ll still be in his present job when the faithful gather once again in Tolpuddle next year. Will we be able to say the same thing about Jim Knight? His constituency of Dorset South lay all about us as he spoke. It is number 35 on the Tories’ list of 100 target seats, with a notional Labour majority of 1,812 and vulnerable to a swing of just 1.85 per cent.
But if anyone can stem David Cameron’s Conservative tide, it’s him. Knight took a scythe to the massive Tory majority in 1997, coming from third place to within 77 votes of winning. With the aid of a tactical voting campaign run by singer Billy Bragg (who moved down there), he succeeded in 2001 and actually increased his majority in 2005.
If only his tenacity were matched by some of the faint-hearts now quitting much safer seats – not least up ’ere in the north.
