Sign of the Times
I’m likely to cover the role of the big public sector unions in the potential resurgence of the left a fair bit in the next few posts, so reports that UNITE may be taken over soon by ‘leftwing insurgents’ – a rather dramatic way for the Sunday Times Political Editor to describe the possibility of more people voting for two candidates than two other candidates - are pretty relevant.
But for this post, I’ll just focus on the way the said Political Editor reports it:
‘Westminster insiders believe that Unite, which has almost 2m members, is about to be taken over by left-wing insurgents who will sever the historic financial link with the Labour party.’
I’m sorry. Did I get that right? Westminster insiders are telling the journalist what’s going on in the grassroots of the trade union movement? How about checking stuff out with some trade union insiders?
In one fell swoop, we have revealed to us the shallowness of the mainstream political commentariat, as reflected by a Murdoch journo.
For the commentariat, nothing is of any validity or importance if it’s not told to us by people in the Westminster village – presumably over cocktails. And nothing is of political importance if it’s not about a political party’s immediate fortunes.
I’m glad there’s a chance of a challenge to the UNITE leadership. I’m not so glad, for reasons set out here, that this may result in loss of Labour party affiliation, and will argue against such a loss.
But most of all for the present I’m glad I can understand what politics actually is, much better than the political editor of the Times.
I’m in favour of disaffiliation if that disaffiliation is linked to moves to set up grassroots connections between local and regional Unite groups and local and regional Labour / other groups.
So long as the amendment withdrawing political support for the Labour Party denounces the leadership while establishing an easy mechanism whereby to select and fund other groups – the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Wales, the Socialist Party of Ireland, a combination of socialist and Labour Party groupings in England – then why not?
It’s surely better to spend the money in a low profile way on building socialist infrastructure than it is giving it away for the purpose of wholesale donation to Saatchi and Saatchi.
And wasn’t it ripped off Tribune reporter Rene Lavanchy’s blog anyhow?
http://renelavanchy.wordpress.com/
Heh. Close but not quite, Phil. See
here.
To unite or not to unite, that is the question, like New labour this Union is moving further and further to the right, it will more then likely end up donating to the Tories next
Dave @1: Yes, thanks for that refinement to what was a quickie, quickie pre-meeting post. I agree entirely, and in terms of action such ‘reaffiliation’ around shared local programmes of action should be high on the agenda of local Labour parties.
PhilCand Lastreporter @2&3: Ah yes, I empathise entirely. If it’s any consolation, it’s not just the Sunday Times. I had an analysis of the BBC deliberate anti-working class reporting plagiarised by a Guardian journo and re-published online around 3 hours later. See http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=462 and my original OP at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=461 Like you, I emailed, but a reply never came. Funny that. Perhaps we should start a plagiarisation scrapbook. Interesting though that they feel they can get away with stealing from Tribune. I’d have thought that while nicking stuff from a low readership site like my other one would be considered risk free, taking it from a real paper might cause some concern. As and when it happends to TCF, perhaps we should go on the offensive about it just to see what happens.
Robert @4: Yes, I acknowledge that UNITE is currently to the right, but my point was really about how the press look upon a possible move to the left.
Paul@5: Like the idea of a plagirisation scrapbook.
Perhaps, like the PCC’s list of papers which get admonished, we need a league table to see who the worst offenders are and who gets ripped off and skewed the most.