December 2011 Archives

At what point can Labour realistically urge people to forget about its own failings in the past when it goes on the attack against the current administration?

Clearly, Labour already believes that point in time has been and gone - for a good while now, it's been happy to attack the government while neglecting to remember their own actions when in office. The economy is a particular own goal for Labour in this respect, especially with Ed Balls as shadow chancellor. While he was never chancellor, there's no doubt he helped pull Labour's economic strings.

The Tories, on the other hand, will happily bounce any criticism from Labour straight back at them for as long as possible. Immigration, NHS spending and the perennial favourite 'tough on crime' are all good examples here.

Of the many, many interviews done by those on both sides of the pension strikes dispute, the comments made by Michael Gove, the education secretary, on Five Live's Drive show stood out for me. He urged listeners - and union members - to question the motives of union leaders for pushing for strikes so very quickly. He singled out Len McCluskey, the top dog at Unite and the main agitator behind the British Airways cabin crew strike last year, Mark Serwotka of the PCS union and Dave Prentis, boss of Unison and arguably the wettest, dullest, most unconvincing, non-rabble rousing union leader ever to exist. Gove's basic argument was that the motives behind the strike for the likes of those listed above was more political than it was for the best interests of members. Union leaders will be quick to point that this could be construed as a classic divide-and-conquer tactic on the part of Gove. United we stand, divided we fall and all that. And yet, and yet - Does he have a point? In fact, he may even have hit upon two points - whether unions are doing their members a dis-service by going one in, all in, and also whether ideological differences between the unions and the government are clouding the unions' collective judgement.