‘Labour isn’t changing relationship with unions’

by Sunny Hundal    
June 27, 2011 at 5:21 pm

Over the weekend, both the Observer and the Independent reported that the Labour party is to overhaul its relationship with the unions.

This was extrapolated from a fairly middle-of-the-road speech Ed Miliband gave, on how the party needs to do more to listen, with no mentions of the unions whatsoever.

Michael Crick at the BBC is taking this further, claiming:

I am told on high authority that it was meant as a warning to the unions that Miliband wants to cut back their block vote at the party conference.

Except that a source close to Ed Miliband today told me Ed does not expect any changes to the Labour party’s relationship with the unions “in the near future”.

Update: My mistake, I confused Labour’s traditional link with the unions (which will remain unaffected according to senior sources) with what happens at Labour conference (which is now subject to overhaul).

Apologies for the error.

Boris aide highest paid in local govt, at £450k

by Sunny Hundal    
June 27, 2011 at 4:27 pm

For all the huffing and puffing communities minister Eric Pickles does at councils over paying outrageous salaries at the top, he says little about his own backyard.

Who is the highest paid person in local government? It’s Boris Johnson’s recently appointed aide to Transport for London – Peter Hendy, on around £450,000 a year.

Andrew Gilligan at the Telegraph today (who has actually done some research for once), says:

As for Mr Pickles’s despised “£230,000 chief executives”, there are several in that income bracket in Tory council-land, too: the chief executive of Conservative Essex, Joanna Killian, on £237,000, plus pension contributions of £47,000; Kent’s Peter Gilroy, with a salary and bonus of £225,000, plus a pension of £56,000; Suffolk’s Andrea Hill (£218,000, plus £49,000 pension), and many others.

Mrs Hill has now been suspended amid questions about her fondness for luxury hotels at council taxpayers’ expense. But perhaps the most egregious sleepover of all was by Mike Whitby, the Conservative leader of Birmingham City Council, who took a £750-a-night suite at the Hyatt hotel during the 2008 Conservative Party conference, which was in Birmingham that year. The Hyatt is three miles from Cllr Whitby’s home.

Yet when was the last time you saw Eric Pickles attack Tories for such profligate excesses?

I’ve said before that Ken Livingstone should focus on how much money Boris keeps wasting. Boris is also wasting £50,000 on Olyympics bunting – this should add more fuel to that fire.

Our choice is to treat people with dignity or go back to the 1930s

by Sue Marsh    
June 27, 2011 at 3:15 pm

I was interrupted this morning by a doctor’s appointment, where, yet again, I have been sent home to bed, my laptop is to be confiscated and I have to rest on pain of a hospital admission on Thursday if I don’t improve.

I’ve had 7 weeks now of a crohn’s flare that screwed up my immune system, which led to a virus, which turned into a chest infection. If I don’t get better, pneumonia is just a blink away.

And all I really wanted to say before I am exiled to a world without even my cyber friends is this. The last few months have taught me that welfare is the murkiest department of all.
continue reading… »

Is the traditional (Compass) conference format outdated?

by Guest    
June 27, 2011 at 11:10 am

contribution by Sean Gittins

On Saturday June 25th, I attended Compass’s annual conference. There were over 90 speakers and a vast range of different organisations from the broad to the narrow left.

The plenary session and panel discussion is the de facto format of most conferences. In my view such a format is outdated and badly in need of alteration, especially for conferences on the left.

This was the main reason I was disappointed by the conference. It wasn’t the issues covered so much, as the way those issues were discussed and presented that I felt to be problematic.
continue reading… »

UK Muslims prouder of gay rights than others

by Sunny Hundal    
June 27, 2011 at 10:30 am

A poll for the think-tank Demos found that fewer than 1 in 4 British Muslims disagreed with the statement “I am proud of how Britain treats gay people”. Almost half (47%) agreed with the statement.

They were also more likely to strongly agree with this statement than secular Britons (15% compared to 8%).

The poll marks a sharp contrast to findings by Gallup in 2009 that 0% of British Muslims were tolerant towards homosexuality. But the two results are not contradictory: Muslims can agree that Islam does not tolerate homosexuality, while celebrating gay rights enshrined in the law.

Here is the break-down

The poll also found that:
· Over 4 in 5 British Muslims say they are ‘proud to be a British citizen’
· Only 1 in 5 British Muslims are not proud of ‘Britain’s role in the world’
· Two-thirds of British Muslims say they are ‘proud of British culture’
· British Muslims were more positive about Britain’s future than secularists or Anglicans

The polling was carried out by YouGov for a forthcoming Demos essay collection on Conservative attitudes to race and ethnicity in modern Britain.

Max Wind-Cowie, Head of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos, said:

British Muslims are far more enlightened and proud of our liberal values than they are often given credit for. Despite recent headlines about the anti-gay sticker campaign in East London there is a much larger group of British Muslims who support gay rights. A strong sign of this was the East London Mosque banning homophobic preachers.

Dr Rob Berkeley, Director of the Runnymede Trust said:

This poll highlights that negative stereotyping of the views of Muslims in the UK distorts our political debate. A growing recognition from all parts of our society that our diversity can be a strength is a welcome development, that should inform government as it develops its policies to tackle violent extremism and protect all citizens from discrimination.

The report is being funded by the Runnymede Trust, and will feature essays from Ray Lewis, Gavin Barwell MP, Andrew Boff AM and Max Wind-Cowie amongst others. It will be published in August.

Gove warns teachers, but went on strike too

by Sunny Hundal    
June 27, 2011 at 9:10 am

Education Secretary Michael Gove “warned” teachers over the weekend that taking part in Thursday’s strikes would “lose them respect”.

The BBC reported:

But Mr Gove said he had been concerned for some time that teachers were not held in the same high esteem that they were in other countries – and although that had been changing in recent years, he said taking part in strikes could mean that respect is “taken back a little bit”.

But why shouldn’t teachers go on strike when it is their right to do so, in defence of their pensions? And some of these are unions who haven’t been on strike for over a hundred years.

Michael Gove seems so dead set against the idea of strikes that he doesn’t admit he went on strike himself.

On graduating from university, Gove took on a job as a trainee journalist at The Press and Journal in Aberdeen.

There he went on a strike for as long as four months, after his employers de-recognised the National Union of Journalists and made scapegoats of union leaders. Most of his colleagues too were opposed to the newspaper’s actions.

The New Statesman reported a few years ago that Michael Gove was, “an active striker, willingly taking his turn on picket duty and going on a small delegation to Strasbourg to press the union’s case”.

Maybe Gove does know why workers strike when they get pushed too far by employers, but just won’t admit it.

Maybe someone should ask why Gove thinks its wrong for others to strike when he happy to do so himself.

Update: A picture surfaces!

(hat-tip @marmite_)

Ed Miliband should get rid of Labour’s Clause I

by Paul Cotterill    
June 27, 2011 at 8:55 am

I am quite taken with Sunny’s recent notion that Ed Miliband need more ‘stunts’ to raise his profile:

Ed Milband says he hates stunts – he’s just not that kind. I agree. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way – he needs to avoid looking too invisible. And a flurry of speeches alone won’t do the job – he needs symbolism.

Miliband seems to be trying precisely that with his Shadow Cabinet election-removal controversy thing, but that just makes him seem inward-looking; no-one beyond the Westminster Village really cares. So here’s something else to rival Blair’s Clause IV moment. It’s Miliband’s Clause I moment.
continue reading… »

Eric Pickles uses his department to push rubbish, media ignores it

by Paul Cotterill    
June 26, 2011 at 4:08 pm

Ben Goldacre uncovered a massive scandal the other day, but as far as I can see no-one has picked up on its political importance (as opposed to Ben’s media slant).

It concerns a press release from Pickles’ Department, which announces:

New, cutting edge analysis of council spending data by procurement experts Opera Solutions has revealed that greater transparency coupled with improved analysis is the key to unlocking massive savings by driving down costs.

The report gives the highest estimate yet of potential savings that could be achieved if councils secure better value for the £50 billion of public money they spend on procurement every year. The £10 billion figure is equal to £452 per household every year and equivalent to the salaries of almost half a million bin men or 650,000 dinner ladies.

continue reading… »

Daily Star also falls for Lady Gaga, Zizek stunt

by Sunny Hundal    
June 26, 2011 at 3:37 pm

Under the headline: On Your Marx, Go For Lady Gaga, the Daily Star today reports breathlessly:

LADY Gaga has taken a turn to the left – after forming a bizarre friendship with a bearded, 62-year-old Marxist philosopher.

Pals fear the pop babe’s head is being filled with extremist ideas by Slovenia-born egghead Slavoj Zizek, who describes himself as a “post-modern theorist”.

He did? Wow!

The story comes after the New York Post also reported that the, ‘Marxist Muse’ had befriended Lady Gaga.

And what could be wrong with such a friendship? That it didn’t happen.

The story started doing the rounds after a bunch of UCL students set up an event on Facebook for the UCU strikes. It was titled: ‘UCU Strike Teach Out with ZIZEK and LADY GAGA‘.
(hat-tip @jbardrosenberg)

From there the story grew and spread across the world, even though various US media outlets debunked it.

The Daily Star becomes the latest newspaper to fall for the stunt without doing any fact-checking.

It adds:

[Zizek] declared: “There is a certain performance of theory in her costumes, videos…and even some of her music.”

And he described her infamous meat dress as “a reference to the consistent linking in the oppressive imagery of the patriarchy of the female body and meat, of animality and the feminine”.

No one knows where those quotes came from.
The Star didn’t bother checking whether Zizek actually said that.

Meet the woman who organised anti-austerity protests in Portugal

by Sunny Hundal    
June 26, 2011 at 11:00 am

Paula Gil @PaulMGil was one of the four people who organised the mass anti-austerity protests in Portugal.

From 30th June she and others are re-launching a Europe-wide campaign enquiry into why Portugal and others are facing such strong austerity measures and what caused the crash.

I caught up with her in Minneapolis last week at Netroots Nation and recorded this short video. She explains why things are going to get worse in Portugal.

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