He was speaking in the debate on the pensions bill which will force us all, particularly women, to work longer for less, during which floundering ministers promised to look at “transitional” changes while leaving their agenda intact.
Within 24 hours, the Government dropped Ken Clarke’s proposals to allow criminals to serve just half their sentences if they plead guilty at an early stage. That followed confusion over the planned cap on welfare benefits, blunders over school sports and immigration, and U-turns over forestry sell-offs.
The trouble is that this mob only performs U-turns in response to headlines in Tory tabloids, not on the issues which really matter to hard-working and impoverished families. The pensions debacle is a prime example of that.
A generation who have paid their dues will see, at best, a year’s worth of pension entitlements stolen from them. And that, of course, is against a background of collapsed private pension pots, and the tearing up of public sector pension deals.
On the latter issue, we did hear some uncharactistically wise words from a Liberal Democrat coalition minister. Ed Davey, in charge of employment laws, rejected calls for further curbs on the right to strike ahead of this month’s planned walk-out by the PCSand some teaching unions.
He said: “We are asking public sector workers to take some very difficult decisions on pensions, including changes to contributions, a later retirement date and an end to final salary schemes. To rush to the statute books simply because they hold a strike ballot would be an over-reaction.”
That common sense attitude, however, is not shared by Number 10 or his boss, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith. The Tories would dearly love to raise the legal threshold for strike ballots and complete the work done by Margaret Thatcher, James Prior and Norman Tebbit in the 1980s and, shamefully, not undone during the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years. Anti-union sentiments are inherent in the Tory DNA and, increasingly, their junior coalition partners. Someone should tell Ed Davey.
Increasingly, the true Tory agenda is emerging behind the smiley facade, and this is the time to stand up for union rights rather than be fooled by coverage of, for example, Bob Crow’s expense account lunches. The scale of the cuts, the assault on pensions, the number of broken promises and the incompetence of the current administration means that public outrage is not, as some ministers claim, confined to Trots and 1970s throwbacks.
Add to the mix the abandonment of targets to end fuel poverty, the pressure on pensioner households from escalating heating costs and a £100 cut in the winter fuel allowance for the over-80s, and we have a recipe for genuine mass action. Someone should explain that to Ed Miliband, who was narrowly elected over his brother by union electoral college votes, but who does not understand the role of the unions in the labour movement. An example of that woeful ignorance was his decision not to attend next month’s Durham miners’ gala, – an event which symbolises working-class solidarity.
Although he was too timid to admit it, his reason was panic at the prospect of sharing a platform with Bob Crow. Like the coalition, he runs scared of Daily Mail leader writers. No wonder the Tory-led coalition is having such an easy time, despite all their U-turns, confusion and blunders.
