The Tories open fire on Unite

Vulture

At last! Tory campaigners should be out in force at Heathrow and Gatwick this weekend leafletting the queues of stranded BA passengers, pointing out that their misery is the direct responsibility of the Union that is bankrolling Liebour's election campaign.

Now that they're struggling on the floor, kick them, stamp on them, and grind them into the dust. Because that's exactly what they would do to you.

Rhoda Klapp

How much does Unite get from public funds, and more importantly how does that compare with unions which do not fund Labour or sponsor its MPs? Is Brown using taxpayers' money to give to Unite and getting it passed to the party as contributions. (I don't know, I've seen the story in various places. If it IS true, I think we need to be told clearly.)

lawrence greek

Good stuff. Labour = Unite and Unite = Labour. Do people want a union for a government? No thanks. Well played Cameron.

Danko

Vulture - Yes, absolutely. A very good idea indeed.

Moraymint

As an ex-military man I would recommend the application of overwhelming force from now until election day.

From here on, for every attack Labour launches on the Tories, the Tories must reply with 3 attacks on the Labour Party in quick succession. Every time.

anne allan

I think the taxpayer's pockets are rifled to give the unions money for 'training'.
A goodly proportion is then hived off to the Labour party.

Jayu

What's that I here you say? Labour are funded, and supported by unions? Wait a minute, was that a bear with a roll of Andrex I just saw walking into the woods?

Irene

What do Unite get from the government for their so called "modernisation" fund? - lets see a breakdown of where that money goes.

This campaign against Unite is fully justified and totally different from Ashcroft.

Whelan has now become the story and will be mentioned with any other Unite strike in the future.

Labour have several non doms - I would rather have honest donations from Belize, from a man who I personally admire, than laundered Union money

Chris lancashire

Odd that three of the most repulsive, amoral spinners of modern times - Whelan, Campbell and McBride - all belong to New Labour.
Something to do with the leadership perhaps?

General Zod

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2010/01/millions-of-pounds-of-the-dfid-aid-budget-has-been-granted-to-the-trades-union-congress.html

It's the TUC, Rhoda.

I had to link to conservativehome, becasue even though the Times still has the headline, the relevant article has disappeared.

[url]http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2010/01/millions-of-pounds-of-the-dfid-aid-budget-has-been-granted-to-the-trades-union-congress.html[/url]

Billy Blofeld

That document is clear and devastating.

The Electoral Commission will do diddly squat.

Which means, that if the BBC don't feel like looking at the story it will go nowhere.

michael

Cash Gordon, and here's me thinking that Labours treasurer was Unite's gen sec, Jack Romey.

Isn't she up for a Brummy constituency after the op.

Maybe civil partner Hattie needs to control the purse strings.

Ben

There are two obvious problems with this poster campaign. First, it's a mistake to set up an equivalence between a single billionaire who represents no-one and doesn't pay taxes like the rest of us, and an organisation that - however much the Tories dislike it - actually represents a large number of hard-working UK-domiciled working people who pay taxes on all their earnings.

The second obvious error is that Unite's influence is actually being disproved as we speak by Brown and Adonis's forthright attack on the union's policy at BA. This will be further cemented if the strike is called off soon.

A third, minor, error is that Michael Gove, a man I much admired as both a columnist and contributor to the Moral Maze, has now lost his credentials as an intelligent man of principle by deciding to give strong support to Lord Belize.

Colin

At last !

ps - I'm with Vulture...

Peter From Maidstone

As a voter this is exactly what I want to hear about, not whether or notCameron does the washing up.

Simon

I have a feeling that the BA strike has been called so that Gordon can intervene and the strike is called off at the eleventh hour thus making Gordon appear to be the "strong, firm leader" that he thinks he is.

I don't think the voters will be convinced by this. We have seen it all before, and it will be a sense of Déjà-Vu.

Mazza1230

This is excellent.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwzeRoFKTfg

(Hat Tip Iain Dale)

THX1138

So Ashcroft is okay but UNITE Isn't ? HYPOCRISY!

Colin

Ben, nice, try...

Firstly, Lord Ashcroft has contributed more to this country than all the union fat cat bosses and left wing political deadbeats put together.

Secondly, brown has come nowhere near to attacking the policies of unite - mainly because the unelected unite union fat cats who run this midden of an organization own him and his disgusting party. In fact his intervention looks to be more about postponing the strike until after the election, than anything else.

Thirdly, I'd like to know if any of my money, passed by Labour to the union fat cats, has made its way back into Labour coffers. That's not a minor issue.

Don't forget, an unholy alliance of union fat cats and the co-op bank are all that stand between the labour party and bankruptcy.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Ben

Just who is this 'rest of us', eh? If you seriously believe that these 'hard-working UK-domiciled working people' pay taxes on all their earnings you know absolutely sod-all about the HMRC's tax regime. No one ever pays taxes on all their earnings, but you probably wouldn't understand such things. Do you work for a living then, or are you just another sponging NuLab troll? And I take it that we have your personal assurances that each and every member of Unite is hard-working, UK-domiciled, and pays these taxes.

If the strike is called off soon - actually it will - that won't be down to anything that Brown and Adonis do or say. It'll be down to the union bosses trying to ensure that they'll continue to receive huge amounts of taxpayers' cash for 'Modernisation'.

I'd like to see complete and unexpurgated accounts for this 'union' - but you can guarantee they'll fight to the death to avoid that. And when did Unite ballot its members over the political levy, anyway?

Vulture

How about a pic of Leicester Square filled with rotting refuse in the winter of discontent over the slogan.

'They're nasty, ugly, smelly and they're back: vote Liebour for a strikebound Britain'.

Martyn Rowe

Ben/Jayu etc.

The point is not that Labour are funded by the Unions, it is that Unite saved Labour from bankruptcy and in return are rewarded by having a) their say on policy and b) their foot-soldiers given seats to fight right across the country. Labour, through financial mismanagement within their party, are now virtually under the control of Unite.

The point against Ashcroft wasn't that he was doing anything illegal, but instead was used to cleverly insinuate that the Tories rely on the backing of multi-zillionaires, now the point is being made that Labour are reliant on the backing of militant left-wingers. Both arguments from both sides perfectly legitimate.

Personally, I would prefer to back a party whose philosophy attracts money from self-made, patriotic and clever employment creators rather than one which relies on funding from a militant ragbag of communist and socialist bullies hellbent on destabilising businesses.

If anyone can justify how a worker should be effectively coerced into paying Union subs (or feel threatened within their workplace - we all know it goes on) and then see their money paid into a political party they don't necessarily support, then come on here and defend it. It is wrong.

I hope one of the first things Cameron does as leader is make a law stating than no political party can accept more than £50k a year from any individual donor or company, including from Unions. That'd create a fairer system and less corrupt system right across the board.

Osming

Chris Lancashire - the 3 names on your list are bad enough but you've omitted the 3 worst offenders, the profoundly dishonest Brown, Blair and Mandelson.

terence patrick hewett

If after the GE, the unions put the Fabian socialists to the sword, they would have done use all a favour. But they would be well advised to put a sharp wooden stake through the heart, just in case.

Ben

@ Chuck: "No one ever pays taxes on all their earnings, but you probably wouldn't understand such things. Do you work for a living then, or are you just another sponging NuLab troll?"

Good of you to ask. I'm a wealth-creator and small businessman who pays a lot of tax, willingly because, unlike sponging non-doms, I believe in paying for first-class public services, not expecting them scot-free. I know all about the possibilities of tax-dodging when you're on self-assesssment, as I am, but unlike you, it seems, I don't do it because I have too much self-respect.

You're just another out-of-touch Tory if you think that "no-one pays tax on all their earnings". You do if you're on PAYE, like the majority of the hard-working families that Labour is committed to helping. Perhaps you think the BA workers have the option of becoming tax-avoiding non-doms, like your illustrious hero. As your hero would say: "Wake up and smell the coffee."

Richard

Well it hasn't even made the news.
Sky have not bothered with it either....waiting for replies to Ashcroft I suppose, Thursday will be interesting.

This can backfire! but the tories are too out of touch, it doesn't know the risks.
Labour relations in this country have been very good up until now. I fear, should the tories get in they will face a backlash.
An attack on Unite will be seen as an attack on all unions.
How about some policies with some hard numbers?

Frank P

Suggestion for poster illustration:

Today's Daily Telegraph front Page headlines:

"£5.41 a gallon: petrol to hit a new high."

"BA strike union steps up help for Brown"

Caption: "Going nowhere with New Labour!"

Vote Conservative and get moving again.

Ian Walker

Simon @ 1:38

Funnily enough, I thought the same... If you believe the conspiracy theory about the "foiled terror attacks" just after he because leader, then Brown has form on this...

Norman Dee

I am of an age when I can remember that there was a very famous boxing commentator who worked for the Mirror, but I cannot remember his name !. But, he was well known for writing long preambles to major fights in which he would at some point predict that they both would win. Of course after the match regardless of the result he would raise his arm and say " I told you so"
I see he is alive and well in your posting, so no doubt in the near future you will be nodding wisely at us with the same message.
Another journalist trying to keep a foot in both camps, gutless I call it.

GDT

I personally believe there is a rather sinister motive behind this UNITE action against BA. I believe their ultimate aim is the re-nationalisation of BA.

Cuffleyburgers

@ Ben - anybody who pays a lot of tax willingly is an idiot.

It is obvious to the meanest intelligence that at least a third of all governemtn spending is either wasted or even worse, counter productive, tredns which under labour, and in particular under Brown have accelerated sharply.

If you are any kind of successful business you will resent bitterly the complexity of the taxcode, the attitude of HMRC and the fact of having to fork out large amounts of tax to pay for services which you don't want, have never asked for, have no option to quality control and which are frequently delivered inefficiently.

You may voluntarily pay your suppliers more than the market price because you think they deserve it, but you would sure as hell resent being told you had to at gunpoint, which is the situation of the taxpayer.

JohnPage

Surely the poster misses the point - which is that Labour has ALREADY been bunging cash at the unions.

EVERY time they are asked what they will cut, the Tories should say that they would start by abolishing cash for unions.

echo34

Self respecting Ben,

let me know where these first class public services are.

You are the new richard and i claim my £5 (tax free of course)

David Lindsay

Honestly, how is it news that much of Labour's money and many of its MPs come from the unions? Where did you think that they came from under Blair, who was sponsored by the T&G and therefore by Unite throughout his time at Westminster? The T&G stitched up a seat for him in the first place, to stop the Hard Left ex-Minister, and 1979 ejectee, Les Huckfield.

Ah, there's the rub. It was the unions that used to pack the PLP with working-class patriots and social conscience toffs, with temperance Methodists and traditional Catholics, whose priorities were the Welfare State, workers' rights, trade unionism, the co-operative movement, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation rather than environmentalism, fair taxation, full employment, public ownership, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, and a base of real property from which every household could resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.

Those commitments were fully and actively compatible with, and more than compatible with, a no less absolute commitment to any or all of the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, civil liberties, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, grammar schools, traditional moral and social values, controlled importation and immigration, and a realistic foreign policy.

Then New Labour emerged from the sectarian Leftist fringes of academia and student politics. But now the unions are re-emerging. Bringing with them MPs such as the above? We live in hope. But we cannot risk dying in despair. Forget the Labour Party and organise such candidates anyway. Then, as much as anything else, demand of the unions why they fund New Labour instead.

Oh, for pity's sake, get out of the Eighties. People do not now have fits of the vapours at the mention of a trade union. As much as anything else, a trade union is a body of people living, working and paying taxes in this country, who do not avoid the last by declaring another state to be their natural home.

When Margaret Thatcher broke the closed shop, made it possible to opt out of the political levy (as one fifth of Unite members do), and drove trade unionism out of the private sector by destroying that sector's manufacturing base, then she removed the leavening influence of millions of working-class Tories from the selection of the Labour candidates for the safe Labour seats in which they lived. Think on that.

Alex Creel

@ Martyn Rowe, good points but the donations should be capped at a tenner, not £50k. In that way we may coax the parties into receiving support from the people who really matter - their party membership. part of the reason the parties struggle to engage the voters is that since their fees became small change so did their views - e.g. candidates foisted on unwilling areas, all female shortlists etc. There is an opportunity in the next parliament to roll back the clock and reinvigorate politics in this country....please!

Hysteria

@ Ben - this statement "You're just another out-of-touch Tory if you think that "no-one pays tax on all their earnings". You do if you're on PAYE, like the majority of the hard-working families that Labour is committed to helping. "

proves you are a New Labour troll and I claim my five pounds

Bert

GDT

The same thought occurred to me yesterday. i mean this airline is too big to fail. right?

Nicholas

Hmm, all these pro-Labour posters who are "small businessmen" suddenly descending on the Coffeehouse, using Labour propaganda terms like "hard working families" and trying to keep Ashcroft the focus.

Interesting.

Lord Boyders

The current Govt election strapline should be 'unite behind Labour'.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Ben

“I believe in paying for first-class public services, not expecting them scot-free”
So you’re a non-dom too? Where are you based, Davos? Bonn? Villefranche? Surely you cannot be referring to anything in the UK?

“but unlike you, it seems, I don't do it because I have too much self-respect.”
And self-regard, it seems. Actually old chap you know nothing of my financial circumstances.

“"no-one pays tax on all their earnings". You do if you're on PAYE”
Oh, so we ignore personal allowances in your world, do we? What a convenient artifice.

“like the majority of the hard-working families that Labour is committed to helping”
Labour, unprincipled and completely amoral as it is, is committed to nothing except its own survival – and that at any cost. Anyway, why might it only be interested in ‘families’? What’s the issue with single people? What are the definitions of ‘hard-working’ and ‘families’, then?

“Perhaps you think the BA workers have the option of becoming tax-avoiding non-doms”
Well, if they have the ability and initiative no doubt they can. What’s stopping them getting off their arses and becoming self-made millionaires - like you?

“your illustrious hero”
Setting aside the obvious questions as to who you assume that to be, who is your hero? Marx? Stalin? Kim Il Jong?

David Lindsay

Fully 14 Labour candidates have come from trade union employment. Three and a half times that number, 63, are the Tory candidates who are bankers. Who has done more damage more recently? And if public money really is being passed through the Union Modernisation Fund to the Labour Party (I am not convinced - that whole story has the feel of having been concocted by people perfectly, tribally ignorant of union and Labour financial arrangements), then that pales into the merest of insignificance compared to the funding of the Conservative Party by the bailed-out, taxpayer-dependent City.

No one has bailed out Ashok Kumar's Teesside constituents in what would be recognised as a marginal seat, since it was Tory until 1997, if it were in the gin and jag belt, which returned almost only Tories last time without changing the Government, that is inhabited by the people whom those constituents bailed out by paying the full whack of tax that they rightly had no option but to pay. Who do the Tories' paymasters and candidate factories think will bail them out next time?

Chuck Unsworth

Perhaps David Lindsay could be persuaded to reveal the financial arrangements of Unite - just how it's financed, who makes the decisions to pass over large amounts of money to the Labour Party, and so on. For a soi-disant 'democratic' organisation Unite is remarkably secretive and defensive about its finances.

And he should also understand that The City is simply not taxpayer-dependent. Some banks are - notably the ones which the taxpayers' cash has bailed out. Frankly banks like Northern Rock should have been allowed to fail. They will continue to be an economic drain for decades. But then who was it that decided to bail them out - and why?

toni

Every penny donated by the Unions to Labour has been earned in Britain by people who live, work and pay taxes here!

Athesius the Facilitator

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it but I think all this stems from the Warwick agreement. Lots of things talked about but the main thrust was a £12+ million restructuring fund given to the Unions by the Labour government (tax payer)and Labour got £10 million back. The labour party had the good will of the press at the time and nobody threw a wobbly about it except myself and the like minded. It didn't matter what the Conservatives said at the time because the press didn't give a shi...

JONNY

However not a sniff of a mention from Pinko Jon in his opening review of the news at 7.
Nothing like the endless splash he gave Ashcroft.

John Thomas

Ben says "the hard-working families that Labour is committed to helping" - oh yeah? The sad fact is that Labour (and the other parties) have abandoned the ordinary British working people a long time ago - and the people know it, and that's exactly why many will vote BNP (Labour is the BNP's best recruiting hope). And yes, Labour does give considerable help, of one sort or another, to those who prefer not to work (to gain and keep political power (with our system) it is necessary to create and maintain a victim class who can be convinced that they are in one's debt). And no, I don't support the Tories (or any of the other pocket-liners).

GDT

Am I mistaken or have the past 13 yrs been under Labours watch. All these socialists going on about how this and that are the fault of the bankers. If bankers are so deplorable why hasn't the Labour Government of "1997 - present" done anything to regulate them more heavily? The current situation this country is in, is solely, wholely and completely down to THIS Labour Government. THEY have set policy, THEY have legislated law, THEY have made all the decisions. Let us not forget this salient point!!!

David Lindsay

Chuck Unsworth, there is nothing remotely secretive about trade union finances. Say what you like about Margaret Thatcher, but she took care of that.

daniel maris

The Tories are right to point up the Unite-Labour symbiosis. However they would do well to avoid appearing to take the BA management's side against its workers. My (bad) experience of BA had nothing to do with the workers and everything to do with teh management.

Why can a co-operative partnership like John Lewis work well its members (aka staff) and give them a 15% profit share bonus? That's nothing to do with capitalism.

People are highly suspicious of capitalism at the moment. Every time the Tories sound like they are out to solve the economic crisis by attacking people's conditions of employment they lose points in the polls.

David Lindsay

GDT, what would the Tories have done differently? What would they change?

General Zod

Left the eyebrow of the Bank of England in charge, DL.

Chuck Unsworth

@ David Lindsay

So, tell us who in the union made the decisions to pass over large amounts of money to Labour - and how was that made clear to the membership? Did the members actually have any say in the process?

As to what the Conservatives might have done differently, well for a start they would not have hosed our cash about in the same profligate and reckless manner as Brown. Labour came to power with a balanced budget, they will leave us with enormous debts - as they did before.

Prudence? Don't be silly. These people are congenital liars, incapable of recognising truth and - worse - grossly incompetent. I could just about bring myself to forgive their mendacity had they not so comprehensively buggered (advisedly) the economy and blighted the futures of our children and grandchildren.

Herbert Thornton

"Great Untold Story of British Politics"? What a laugh.

The Great Untold Story is about the frantic efforts of the mainstream parties and most of the media to say as little as possible about -

1. the two topics that worry electors most - the deliberate facilitation of unwanted immigration and the deceitful way in which Britain is being press-ganged into unpopular subjection to rule from Europe, and

2. the policy of the BNP on those issues and even about the party's existence.

Untold indeed. Something is seriously amiss - so much so that their conspiracy of silence deserves to be called Omertà.

Niallster

No no no Hoskin a thousand times no and no again and again no.

Unless you haven't noticed the Labour party has opened up with the Howitzers lead by Lord Slimeball (OK you've got a few choices but I bet you know who I mean) who is all over the media accusing the Conservatives of eating peeled babies for breakfast before dynamiting the hospitals.

If Cameron wants to win he must respond in kind. This is the lesson of Clinton politics. Nice does not win.

Laura Fox

Your commentator "Athesius the Facilitator" is right (above, March 16th, 2010 7:29pm).

If the WARWICK AGREEMENT traded party funding for financial benefits for the funders - both direct (funds for the Unions) and indirect (pensions increases for its members worth hundreds of millions, or more), as it is widely believed, then it would have been illegal, unquestionably.

You MUST investigate this deeply, please, for us, working-tax-payers.

And it may bring you the biggest political corruption scandal in British history.

Please do assign a good team of experts to it. It will be worth it. Many in the leaderships of the Unions and Labour party may end up in jail.

Or are we a banana republic?

OK, I'll rephrase that: For how long will we CONTINUE to be a banana republic?

Please do investigate it!