The Unions Strike Back

During lunch I was reading Sam Coates’ piece in The Times about how the unions are increasingly becoming more influential in the selection of Labour parliamentary candidates.

Apparently this process was fairly common until Tony Blair came along and knocked a little sense into the party, at least enough to get it elected. But now Tony’s out of the way its on the rise again. Blairites are being marginalised in constituency associations as local trade union branches gain more influence. All of it is, of course, designed to take the Labour Party to the left after the next election.

This sort of thing is exactly why I’m a Conservative. In the Tory party there is no organisation that claims to represent ‘the workers’. People from all walks of life represent, think and decide who to vote for themselves. No group is entitled to a third of the votes that will decide the next leader of the party and potential prime minister. In the end all the unions really care about is maximising their power and influence. Its times like this that I thank Margaret Thatcher for not letting me grow up and live in a world where power-mad union leaders can bring down governments.

Now, with my Conservative-party-politics hat on this is good news. If Labour wish to lurch to the left and go back to those glorious days of comrade Michael Foot its fine by me. It’ll once more make them unelectable. But with my ordinary-member-of-the-public hat on I have to greet the news with dismay. The unions are, once again, up to their old tricks; attempting to subvert democracy in order to install candidates who, if elected, will be in the union’s back pocket. They have even been threatening to withdraw any funding they give to specific candidates if the recipient fails to continue to support union causes.

It is estimated, according to senior Labour figures in the article, that three quarters of candidates in winnable seats are the choice of one of the major unions. With yet more Labour MPs in safe seats expected to announce their retirement in the coming months these union-linked candidates are almost certainly going to have an impact on a leadership election that would follow a Labour defeat in the general election.

The General Secretary of UNITE, Derek Simpson (that old dinosaur and class warrior), has even gone as far as to reveal his preferred successor to Brown: Ed Miliband. No not David. Ed. You know, the other one. The Energy and Climate Change Secretary. Yes. Him. I know.

GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny said yesterday at a TUC fringe meeting that public sector cuts would mean that the Prime Minister was finished as leader “and as a human being”. How very sinister.

Simpson’s spokesman, after saying Derek was still loyal to the great leader, used a similar phrase when describing Miliband the Younger as “the only human being” among the next generation. These union people scare me.

Although I’d admit that when you compare any cabinet minister to Ed Balls they can’t help but look human…