Tory MP attacks Unite after receiving thousands from British Airways
It is hardly news that Tory MPs attack unions or pocket freebies from employers – it is in their nature to do so. But if I were a Tory MP who regularly enjoyed flight upgrades on his frequent Washington trips from British Airways, I’m not sure I would have the gall to attack union leaders for ‘hypocrisy’.
Mark Pritchard spoke out in Parliament on Tuesday to attack the Unite union:
“Does the Minister believe that the union leaders behind the BA strike should set an example and forgo some of their £150,000-a-year pay packets? Is not that another example of the arch hypocrisy at the very top of the Unite union?”
Most of the Labourites reading this just mentally yawned. Union leaders are not “behind” the BA strike; thanks to Tory legislation we now have not one but two polls reinforcing the extent to which BASSA members support a strike. Both established an easy majority with room to spare.
There’s also the fairly straightforward issue of Unite leaders criticising BA management’s salaries and bonuses – which have been paid despite the company facing significant losses of hundreds of millions of pounds. Unions aren’t seeking to pare down the wages of their employees to cover a hole in finances caused by management.
Certainly there’s a point to be made that Union leaders are too insulated from their members – I am a firm supporter of the idea of an “average skilled workers’ wage” for MPs and leaders of the labour movement. This is not the point Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP is going for and…oh, wait? What’s this?
In recent years Mark Pritchard has regularly enjoyed flight upgrades on his frequent Washington trips, up from economy plus to business class. On one occasion BA’s generosity extended to include Mr Pritchard’s wife, who was also granted an upgrade to business class. BA business class flights to Washington cost over £2,000 single. Unite estimates then, that in the past few years Mr Pritchard has benefited to the tune of £15,000 in flights – more than a cabin crew member at Gatwick earns in a year.
Now the source for this a press release from Unite, so the amount is probably less than £15,000 – all I could find in the member’s register of interests was a 2008 flight upgrade worth about £2000, but the point is the same. Still, if one is prepared to level accusations of hypocrisy, especially when the Tories have been making a song and dance about Union money in the Labour Party, one really should make sure one is whiter than white.
Mark Pritchard isn’t.
Would the actions of the Digital Economy Bill be tolerated “offline”?
There’s a race on, and no it’s not the Cheltenham festival. Should the election be held on the 6th of May as is expected then parliament will be duly dissolved around the 6th of April, which leaves only 10 days of parliamentary time to debate all the remaining laws trying to be passed. It is this reason that when the Lords finally passed the Digital Economy Bill on the 15th of March they spent a significant portion of time discussing the issue of the “wash-up”, or a (relatively) clandestine period of legislative discussion that occurs in the twilight between an announcement of an election being made, and parliament being closed down for the impending election.
The Government here has one hope and one set of plans, get the Digital Economy Bill through to the “wash-up” in such a way that they can add bits and pieces to an already illiberal piece of legislation without the proper scrutiny of parliament. Instead of our elected representatives ensuring that we are protected from bad law, it would come down to the front benches and the party political whims of the main parties. In short, representation takes the back foot in place of backroom dealing to pass the bills, even if they are slightly watered down in the process. It’s for this reason that we have to stand our ground and ask our MPs to ensure this controversial bill receives proper scrutiny. If they do not provide that scrutiny, if the law goes through on the nod, then the government will have every power to do what they wish, opposed only by the minority Lib Dem party and the Tory party who are surely not the best example of a party beholden to public democracy over business interests.
For those that are writing to your MPs, specifically point them to the areas of the bill that are problematic (and do so in your own words, it has more impact!):
continue reading… »
Tories offer state funding to schools linked to ‘occult society’
Liberal Conspiracy has obtained a set of notes taken at a recent seminar which show that the Conservative Party is pushing ahead with plans to provide state funding to a network of independent schools with close ties to a controversial occult society.
The notes were taken at a recent seminar organised by the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF), an offshoot of the Anthroposophical Society, which exists to promote the occult philosophies of the German mystic Rudolf Steiner, and also suggest that a newly registered educational charity with close ties to the Conservative Party may be actively engaged in the promotion of Conservative education policy in such a way as to breach the Charity Commission’s regulations on charity involvement in political activity.
The meeting, which took place last November, was described as a ‘pre-election seminar about possible developments in the state funding opportunity for Steiner Schools’ and included seminars with Sam Freedman, the head of Policy Exchange’s education unit and a current advisor to Shadow Education Minister, Michael Gove, and Rachel Wolf, the Founder/Director of the New Schools Network and former education advisor to the Conservative Party. continue reading… »
Settlements are unsustainable, and Netanyahu knows it
Israel’s announcement of plans for 1,600 new settler housing units in illegally occupied Palestinian territory has triggered both stern condemnation from Washington and rioting on the streets of East Jerusalem. And just to highlight their heartfelt regret over these adverse reactions, the Israeli authorities have today confirmed their desire to build 300 more.
It is difficult to interpret such intractable obstinacy as anything other than deliberate provocation, and not just in respect of the timing. As Netanyahu is well aware, substantial withdrawal is the sine qua non for the two-state policy increasingly pressed on his government by the rest of the world.
Yet his evident determination to scupper this outcome is so deep that he is willing quite literally to try and build his way out of his impasse. Not only can he not be allowed to succeed; he cannot succeed, even within his own terms.
Netanyahu’s hardline position puts him directly at odds with majority opinion in his own country. Most Israelis do not regard preservation of settlements in Palestinian territory as a fundamental objective of the state, and do not believe that the interests of settlers take priority over those of the population in general.
The illogical heart of the European Union
Today the European Commission release their (Reuters-leaked) report under the ‘excessive deficit procedure’ warning the UK that it needs to get its deficit down towards 3% of GDP quicker than the government is currently planning.
Stephanie Flanders has a good article setting out the way in which the Tories have been talking a good game about all of this, while actually being a lot less specific about how they’ll do it than Labour have.
Here, though, I’ll focus on why the European Commission is producing this report, and what this tells us about the European Union as a whole. continue reading… »
Now the Poles are nicking our abortions
It’s a matter of common knowledge that the Daily Express has long since scraped right through the bottom of the barrel and is now busily digging its way to Australia.
Nevertheless, the latest entry in it ongoing ‘thieving foreigners’ series really takes the biscuit:
NOW POLES GET FREE ABORTIONS ON NHS
POSTERS advising Polish women to fly to Britain for free abortions on the NHS sparked outrage yesterday.
They urge women to take advantage of EU rules allowing Poles free medical care in the UK.
And it tells them it is cheaper to fly to the UK to end an unwanted pregnancy than to pay for an illegal backstreet termination in Poland.
The advert – which borrows tastelessly from a famous “Priceless” credit card campaign – is promoted by a Polish feminist group. It was condemned last night for encouraging “abortion tourism”, and piling pressure on the hard-pressed NHS.
Poland has the fourth, or maybe fifth, most restrictive abortion laws in Europe behind the Vatican City, Malta, Andorra, the Irish Republic and, sad to say, Northern Ireland, and that makes thing kind of thing both inevitable and the clearest possible demonstration of the utter futility of placing draconian restrictions on access to abortion services. continue reading… »
Prosecute teenagers who have sex, says top Tory
He eventually touches upon a rather explosive, hitherto hidden, line of Tory thinking: criminalising the young for having sex.
“We need a message that actually it is not a very good idea to become a single mum at 14. [It is] against the law to get pregnant at 14. How many kids get prosecuted for having underage sex? Virtually none. Where are the consequences of breaking the law and having irresponsible underage sex? There aren’t any.”
So should there be prosecutions? “We need to be tougher. Without sounding horribly judgmental, it is not a good idea to be a mum at 14. You are too young, throwing away your childhood and prospects of developing a career.”
Ashcroft and the unions
The acute observer may have noted that, whenever the scandal of multi-millionaire non-dom top party donor Lord Ashcroft is brought up, the Tories’ default reaction is “yeah but the Unions too, they bankroll Labour”.
Let’s leave aside the long list of differences (technical, fiscal, substantial, ethical, practical, etc) between the two types of “donations”. Let’s leave aside “solemn and binding” promises.
The best way to gauge weight and influence as carried by Lord Ashcroft vs the Unions is to check the relationship between donors and political parties.
Not a single senior Tory has publicly said a bad thing against the Belize-based tycoon. They said a lot of things, but nothing bad. And how could they, given that the Baron has pumped around £5m into Tory coffers?
continue reading… »
Notting Hill Housing Association strike
Notting Hill Housing Association recently announced plans to get rid of carers leave, flexi-time and reduce basic terms and conditions of staff. They are refusing to go to ACAS and are refusing to allow the union to even speak to its Board members. This prompted Unison members to go on strike, backed by 93.5% of members in the strike ballot. The savings from getting rid of Carers leave for staff with young sick children or disabled dependants will save £30,000 per year, or a bit less than 1/5th of the Chief Executive’s annual salary.
John Gray reports on the first day of the strike:
Today was the first 24 hour period of strike action in Notting Hill Housing Trust. There was a fantastic picket and lots of active support for the Strike. We estimate that over 100 members came to join the protest outside Notting Hill headquarters alone.
Interestingly, the vast majority of the strikers were women who of course will tend to have by far the most to lose if these anti-family policies are scrapped.
Shame about the Notting Hill CMT member who tried to deliberately provoke the pickets by declaring loudly he was “very happy to cross the picket line!” with a big smirk on his face. No wonder the organisation is in such a mess with folk like him in charge!
There was plenty of press interest and messages of support from various trade unions and encouragement from other UNISON branches and trade councils. We were next to a busy street and spent a lot of time encouraging passing motorists to “toot” their horn in support. There was a very good atmosphere amongst the pickets. This being “Notting Hill” we even had a portable CD player blasting out Bob Marley songs.
This was a good first day and hopefully management will come to their senses and start to negotiate. If not – we will be back.
Check out “All Together Worse” for further information and pictures.
Guns versus butter
William Hague’s recent remarks in an FT interview, and in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute give us some idea of the purposes and shape of Conservative foreign policy, in the aftermath of a Tory election win. In short, it is exactly the same sort of interventionist twaddle spouted by New Labour, overlaid with the same veneer of humanitarian concern that Blair liked to bathe in.
All the recent talk about whether or not British troops have been given the equipment they need reflects a fundamental problem in British politics: all of the main parties accept Britain’s intervention in Afghanistan, and, to a lesser extent, Iraq. William Hague’s speech gives every indication that a Tory government will continue, and risk expanding, Britain’s military presence abroad.
Hague, unsurprisingly, also repeats the meme about Britain’s credit rating being a worry, citing the ‘recent’ Fitch warning about the loss of the triple-A rating. I say ‘recent’ because Fitch has been carping about this since last year, so a new press release about it is hardly serious news. What makes this interesting is that Hague is all about the deficit reduction…and yet continuously talks up “Britain’s role” abroad.
With what equipment, in this Tory-led deficit-free utopia? Spitballs and paper aeroplanes? continue reading… »
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» Do older people really need more NHS healthcare?
» There are alternatives to the reckless ‘Plan A’
» On Beecroft: it is already quite easy to sack people
» Why Cameron’s claim of 600,000 jobs created is plainly wrong
» By using age to allocate NHS funding, Lansley rewards Tory voters
» The rise in domestic violence deaths is not an “isolated” problem
» Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
» The US is now a model for the Eurozone to save itself
» The IMF plan to revive the economy doesn’t go far enough
» The Boris brand is weaker than his friends think
» Nine things you can do to halt Lansley’s destruction of our NHS
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