Goodness me, is it April 1st already? How time flies!

Miliband needs to act decisively

And that’s your problem, right there in 5 words.
he won’t scare the horses, nor upset the cosy, established neo-liberal consensus (red,blue and orange brands of the same product). I like your ideas, but consider that they’ve got less chance of happening than snow in August.
And

a very small top slice for absolutely essential national administrative functions

will be insufficient for the machinery to churn out moe PPE>>Spad>>drone/identikit on-message MPs, so won’t happen.

Second, and closely related to the first radical step, the NEC should commence work with trade unions to encourage them to disaffiliate from Labour nationally and to re-affiliate to local parties [and to take to conference a motion making this a Labour party rule].

I’ve some sympathy with this as I believe in decentralising power, but it would mean local parties in areas with low union membership will go bust; and the temptation on the government to gerimander elections by giving incentives to employers to transfer offices or factories to areas where their union members’ funds would be wasted would be great.

I never understood why people don’t realise the trade union are completely different to rich Tory backers. We should nail this tory propaganda once and all:

A significant minority of Tory funds come from large donations from a very small group of very wealthy individuals. This is wrong because it’s clearly undemocratic for party funding to determine party policy.

A huge majority of Labours funds come from extremely large donations from a very small group of large trade unions. This is fine and not undemocratic, because clearly… err…..UNISON leaders are nice chaps and err….care about the interests of the nation, unlike business people, who all want to destroy the nation.

Yep, that is going to work. Send out Sunny on the twitter to pass on the good wordl

How about changing the situation so that union members have to actively opt in to the political levy to the Labour party (or to sending it to any other party for that matter) instead of having to opt out?

Its such a non story and I don`t think Union backing is corrupt its just that the Unions are only one interest group and as they entirely fund Labour then the rest of us can draw our own conclusions
As for rich people courting /ennobling and the rest of it .. oh get off it .

George Potter,

Are you that naive or merely just that simple to presume that shareholders vote for the corporate donations made to political parties? The opt out mechanism in trade union donations allows a far more democratic option than is currently available in business donations. However, that being said, it comes as no surprise that as a Libdem lackey to your Tory masters that you are short of suggestions for reform in that area

To be honest, I think Unions are more likely to be corrupted by associating with Labour than vise-versa.

@7 Thats a bit harsh after all Potter is principled and belives in integrity . Like being a member of a Party that lies to the general public!

Shatterface @3: Useful points. This is just broad brush and there’d need to be balancing safeguards around minimum CLP income while retaining the incentives to grow (somewhat like the business rates growth being kept local under the new scheme in force from 2013). The possibility of gerrymandering is an interesting one. – if it went further we’d need to do some electoral/union m’ship maths to work out how realistic this might be, and what effect it might have, but on the other hand it would create incentives to open up union membership outside larger, already unionised workplaces.

btw. This is something of a “Sunnyedit”. The proper piece with links to more detail etc is at Though Cowards Flinch.

@7 and @9

Insult me all you like but I have a clean conscience and have always stood by my principles.

On top of that, I’ve probably put more effort into helping the sick and the vulnerable in the last year (you know, the people Labour claim to be on the side of) than either of you ever have.

Or, to put what I’m saying at your level: up yours f***wits.

Have a nice day

@4
“I never understood why people don’t realise the trade union are completely different to rich Tory backers.”

You actually answer your own question here:

“This is wrong because it’s clearly undemocratic for party funding to determine party policy.”

Whilst unions used to have a significant impact on Labour party policy, it’s quite clear from comparing Labour policy to what the Unions are saying that, in reality, they have sod all influence on Labour policy.

And, for the record, I have opted out of my union’s political fund because I don’t want my money to fund the Labour party.

@12

“in reality, they have sod all influence on Labour policy.”

You are joking arn’t you?!

Even the very person running the Labour party at the moment was chosen by the Unions.

Potter,

Lose the self righteous bullshit. If you look to your blog and your apologetic defence of the Granny Tax, it is very clear that you can tell the difference between the 5% inflation indexing already in place, which has no bearing on the budget announcements, and the Tory led coalition budget changes. Yet you choose to employ this pre budget increase, as your Tory masters have, to deflect criticism from a policy which will harm a great number of the vulnerable people you reference in your reply.

Your contention as defender of the disadvantaged is bollocks. I see very little evidence of principle, good conscience or integrity in this sot of hypocrisy.

I am sure you sleep well nonetheless.

Is Paul Cotterill really saying that Labour should finally cut the bankers adrift after all they have been through together? Won’t that upset Blair and the Blairites?

A huge majority of Labours funds come from extremely large donations from a very small group of large trade unions

Wrong. You haven’t followed all the transactions through.

The Union donations are funded by millions of individual donations from Union members themselves.

There is even an opt out. More – many Unions aren’t even affiliated to the Labour Party.

Your argument is totally blown out the water.

16. BenM

A huge majority of Labours funds come from extremely large donations from a very small group of large trade unions

Wrong. You haven’t followed all the transactions through.

The Union donations are funded by millions of individual donations from Union members themselves.

There is even an opt out. More – many Unions aren’t even affiliated to the Labour Party.

Your argument is totally blown out the water.

BenM is wrong and @4 Tory is right. The individual donations are made, not to Labour, but to a Union Political fund. The union bosses make the decisions as to what to do with it (fund their own political campaigning or donate to Labour), how much to give to Labour and when. The individual union members have little or no say in the matter. Now if the system was changed to make the payment directly it would be a different matter.

@7 how big a role do corporate donations play in party funding these days? Surely the lions share of Tory funding comes from individuals? Some very rich, but mostly not.

@9 A party that lies to the general public? Really? Is there any other kind?

Surely the real reason Miliband won’t do anything radical about the relationship with the unions is because it risks empowering the activists. Parties use activists, they don’t trust them. Hell, sometimes with good reason.

Vicarious Phil,

There are numerous examples, from A4E activities with DWP, Full Circle and the NHS, stretching back to the Bernie/Blair F1 Tobacco advertising fiasco to show that your attempt to separate donations from wealthy individuals and vested interests is unfounded.