Tory policy offers only the ‘freedom’ to undermine each other’s education, says Wigan MP Lisa Nandy
Archive for August, 2010
More daylight robbery from banks
By Tribune Editorial /Friday, August 6th, 2010They are back in the money. But the banks aren’t fuelling any recovery by lending out cash to businesses which want to borrow and keep people in jobs. Instead they are preparing to pay out billions again in bonuses and salary packages paid for by taxpayers. The chancers and gamblers who brought on the economic [...]
Cameron accused of dishonesty on social housing
By René Lavanchy /Friday, August 6th, 2010Unease grows about David Cameron’s policy on social tenancies
Fractured coalition as Hal goes forth
By Richard Woulfe /Thursday, August 5th, 2010Henry IV Parts One and Two
Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Sex, lies, videotape and Berlusconi
By Andrea Mammone /Thursday, August 5th, 2010Andrea Mammone describes the controversial Italian Prime Minister’s latest attempts to place himself above the law and limit press freedom
Attack on Iran is ‘inexorable’ says former Bush man
By Bernard Purcell /Thursday, August 5th, 2010There is more sabre-rattling from Washington – but this time the question being asked in many quarters is whether former American President George W Bush’s one-time director of the CIA Michael Hayden is genuinely speaking unilaterally when he says a strike by the United States on Iran is now “inexorable” or if he is being [...]
The enemy within the coalition
By Ian Hernon /Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Just three months into the new Government, Ian Hernon detects signs of it sowing the seeds of its own destruction
Is Ed Miliband about to get into bed with John McDonnell?
By René Lavanchy /Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Since the Labour leadership contest kicked off, the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaision Organisation, which goes between the party and its 15 affiliated unions has been sending questions to the candidates, including on industrial issues. Many of the answers have been, well, inconsequential in the wider context of the party’s future.
But not this time. Ed Miliband’s camp has (belatedly) responded to a question about the UK’s trade union laws, often called the strictest in Western Europe (including, as Ed Williams says in Tribune this week, by Tony Blair). The questioner asked: “What one restriction do you think most urgently needs lifting and why?”
Ed Miliband’s reply was received today, and in it he says:
“I am determined to make sure that the Trade Unions are able to fairly represent the interests of their members and the wider workforce. Of course industrial action is a last resort, but the right to strike is a fundamental human right which must be protected and I will make sure it is. The British Airways dispute showed that the rules governing strike ballots are in urgent need of reform.”
Brother David – the only other serious frontrunner, according to commentators and the Labour Uncut blog, has said no such thing, and merely comments on unions being a good thing.
Lefty Labour MP John McDonnell has a private member’s bill on this very subject, which seeks to extend legal protection for unions who have ballots for industrial aciton, in order to prevent more British Airways-style injunctions. So I asked his team if he intended to support the bill.
A spokesperson replied that he hasn’t seen the bill, but added: “I do know that he is indeed concerned with the rules governing strike ballots and that technicalities should not interfere with democratic balloting processes.”
Of the other candidates, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbott also says strike law should be looked at, and Ed Balls says unions should have better access to workers who want to join.
The real price of a British cuppa: poverty pay for thousands in India
By Keith Richmond /Wednesday, August 4th, 2010As David Cameron and his Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition team touched down in India to try and drum up more business between the two countries, anti-poverty campaigners released new research that reveals the true cost of a cuppa in Britain. The report, by War on Want, shows that workers on tea plantations in northern India earn [...]