dAVe80

Ironic that the people doing the purging at the moment are the same people who were screaming, "Stalinist purge" everytime grassroots members got any support in trying to democratise the way we pick candidates. Hard place being on the left in the Labour Party at the moment. Getting it from both sides. Was at a Trades Council meeting in the week, and my mate who has been in the party since he was a teenager (he's in his early 60s now), got told by a 20 something year old Wolfie Smith look-a-like he wasn't a socialist/revolutionary socialist because he was a member of the Labour Party. My mate calmly pointed out that actually he was fighitng the far right when they were lobbing bricks and petrol bombs, and that he'd had the living shit kicked out of him by the police on many a picket line. Holding SWP placards and selling papers is the way to bring about socialism apparently. Fun times.

A Labour MP giving interviews to The S*n? Sorry but I'll never buy the "we need to speak to people who don't support us" as an excuse for speaking to that rag. There are other ways to do it.

The dancing horses at the Olympics would be a lot better if the horses were dancing to Slayer.

Actually that's three of the top 4. Guided by Voices making up the rest of the quartet.

With no disrespect intended, the news about Joey Jordison is a bit weird for me, as I was listening to Vatican Broadside by Half Man Half Biscuit earlier today. I'll not link to it or explain why, but if you know, you know. Anyway RIP Joey, no age that.

Dayton, Ohio's third best band (although they share members with one of the bands that are above them in that list).

Yeah, solo Paul McCartney. Deal with it.

I wonder if he's still got being a member of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency on his CV?

Well let's be honest about it. The reason unions donate to the party is the same reason business donate to the Tories. They want influence and power. If McLuskey or whoever is handing over money to the Labour Party, and not being involved in making decisions, and can't have the ear of the leader when he wants it, then that's going to influence the amount of money they give. Corbyn was happy to meet and talk to the affiliated unions, and have a link with the TUC, and go to the Durham Miners Gala every year. He was happy to let the unions help shape policy in the manifesto even. Starmer has moved away from that (rightly or wrongly, depending on which way you look at it). On top of that and very unfortunately, Starmer has been silent when it comes to publicly supporting the unions. Not supporting the teachers unions during covid, the spycops bill, British Gas engineers. It should be an easy win for him. It's bread and butter, and a sure-fire way of bringing in support and money. Obviously he's looking to break that link. Whether it's to minimise the power of the unions, or to win over business, who knows?

I'm not the biggest fan of McLuskey, and I've heard some stories about him that are disappointing from some good friends. I would say that when it comes to spending political funds, unless you're involved as an officer of your branch, you're unlikely to get much of a say on where it goes. Maybe on a local level. I normally get a say in how my region spends our political find as part of the political committee. We decide on which MPs we give funding to etc, and who who we back as the candidate for things like mayoral elections . Obviously there are practical reasons for not giving everyone a say, and (certainly in my union) we elect political officers to make those decisions, so we don't have to vote on where every penny goes. As a member you get the chance to turn up at an AGM and vote for a different political officer every 12 months though. I agree that ideally it would be better to take a ballot on bigger decisions, although that would be time consuming and costly, and where do you draw the line? I think affiliation would be the biggest one. If a gen sec made that decision without consulting the members, or voting at conference, then there would be hell on.

Well the unions have changed and aren't just representative of the old ways of working anymore. CWU looks after some call centre staff, Usdaw looks after shop workers and some warehouse staff. PCS, Unite, GMB, or Unison look after some office workers. Only the work changes. The system stays the same. Bosses still exploit workforces. Bosses still drive down Ts&Cs, and make people redundant, and force things like fire and rehire. Trade unions still fight for the same things, even if the trade union act took away some of the power. They still hold the same ideals as the unions that started the Labour Party though. It may not be a given that trade union membership means you're going to vote Labour now, I'll give you that, but workers still need their union in the same ways as always when it comes down to it, so pay their subs and be part of a union. Unions help people everyday with collective and individual industrial relations matters. They win pay deals, get better Ts&Cs, and help people in sickness and disciplinary meetings. On top of that our unions champion and campaign for equality, health and safety, and education etc.

I don’t think we can blame Unite for Labour's finances being in the toilet. That's squarely at the feet of Starmer and Evans. Yeah reduction of funding may have an impact, but not enough for Labour to cut its staff by a third. I'd vote for Steve Turner all day long personally, but then that's probably not a surprise. I'd have liked Beckett, but he did the right thing and stood aside. Shame Graham hasn't done the same, but wouldn't be the left if we didn't Life of Brian. The thought of Coyne winning makes me queasy if I'm honest. Anyone who gets the backing of Rupert Murdoch, is a straight no from me. The left and indeed the wider Labour and trade union movement need a left winger leader of Unite, otherwise the Labour Party is going to drift further away from its roots. As for membership not being overly left wing, you're probably right (the country certainly isn't), but I'd be willing to bet those that pay the levy will be.

Quite rightly too, if they don't believe the party is going to use their money to aid them. There's a whole long list of crap things the current leadership and general secretary have and haven't done that's worked against the unions. I think their affiliation might be under threat at the moment. Labour lose the backing of one of the big two unions, then they'll be in even more trouble than they already are. Also Unison have a Starmer aligned general secretary at the moment, but the members voted in a grassroots lead, left wing NEC, and if it wasn't for Life of Brian crap, would also have voted in a left wing gen sec. CWU, FBU, ASLEF, Bakers Union, are all left wing lead too. They can't afford to be messing the unions about too much more.

No thats night quite right. There are plenty of people who are right wing who are being let go. This isn't necessarily about which wing of the party you support, or who was in charge when you got hired, this is about cost cutting, because under Starmer and Evans' leadership the party has hemorrhaged memebers and money. Also it's well known that Corbyn retained a lot of staff from the party, who fully expected to get the boot (which when the Forde report comes out may prove to have been a massive mistake), so unless they resigned or left when Starmer got in, there's probably a lot of them on their way out now. Whether they're rehired or not also misses the point. Getting rid of staff and replacing them with staff on worse terms and conditions is wrong regardless. I'm glad your niece has found another job, but I don't think that will be the case for all of them. Especially with the dwindling number of Labour MPs to work for, not to mention the insecure nature of working for someone who could be voted out at the next election. The severance package may be batter than the legal requirement, but it still doesn't make it good. Even the lowest paid members of the company I work for got better, even before the union negotiated a better deal. Whatever way you try and approach it, it's a crappy way for the party founded by trade unions to go about their business. I'm certain Unite and GMB won't be happy about how their members have been treated.

Starmer and Evans getting it in the Independent today, for getting rid of staff and hiring new staff on temporary contracts, with worse Ts and Cs. As a trade unionst who has fought for members in similar situations, this feels a lot like fire and rehire to me. A Labour Party that does not stand against this practice can't call itself the Labour Party. Sickening.

Meanwhile....

I watched the Birmingham vs London game yesterday and must admit to quite enjoying it. I was obviously happy to see Birmingham win. I still don't know why they didn't just do it as a T20, but doesn't detract too much. It was good to see how many young people were there. Lots of kids and families, and they all looked like they were having a good time. If this is a gateway for getting them into other forms of cricket, I guess that's a good thing.

Yes comrade!

If does look very staged, so quite probably. Still gave me a chuckle.

Scouse accents at their best. NSFW.

Yer man from Maximo Park is a Smoggy (Teessider). The Teesside accent is quite different to a Geordie accent, and often it's said it sounds like a mix of Yorkshire and Scouse (I think there was an influx of Scousers to Teesside at some point). The North East has a lot of different accents actually. There's little phrases that people say when they're trying to take off each other's accents. Teesside, you'd say, "perple werk shert". Wearside, you'd say, "whees keys are these". I love some of the words and phrases I've picked up from living up here. Some of my favourite would be: Nee bosh - No worries Reet canny - Very good Scran/bait - Food Gan radged or gan radgie - Gone crazy Mortal - Drunk Workie ticket - Pushing your luck Rarf - Idiot Ding - Idiot Rarfy ding - Absolute Idiot

Depending on the kind of shorts I'm wearing and the length of them. I've got a few pairs of jogging bottoms material shorts, and there no problem pulling them to the side, via the leg to pee. If the material isn't so stretchy, definitely just pull the waist band down, and just get the lad out. His mates can stay covered.

Isn't that rhyming slang? I don't think you should be doing that in a public toilet.

I went with my union to Batley on Wednesday, and did some leaflet drops (with trusty wooden spatula in hand). Feeling was quite chipper, and there was a lot of Labour staffers there, as well as associated trade union officers and reps. Mostly people who worked for various different MPs, local Labour offices, and unions. Can't fault the effort to get the job done, and they put in a lot of hard work. More than a bit annoyed this morning to see Mandleson accusing the left of doing a Mandleson, and saying that the left worked against the leadership in this by-election. That was you pal, in 2019.