Vicious union attack deepens Labour rift

[contracycle]

Vicious union attack deepens Labour rift

* Toby Helm, Whitehall editor

Labour's civil war reaches new heights today as the leader of Britain's biggest union launches a venomous personal attack on Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

In an outspoken interview with The Observer on the eve of the Trades Union Congress, Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, the union with the biggest group of Labour MPs at Westminster, accused Miliband, in a stream of swearwords, of being 'smug' and 'arrogant'.

In terms that caused fury on the right of the party, he also said Miliband would take the country back to the 'failings of Blairism' and could be a worse choice as Prime Minister than the Tory leader David Cameron. 'We might as well elect Cameron. We might be better off with Cameron,' he said. '

'Why should we elect a young fresh face when we have already got one in Cameron with policies that are not dissimilar?'

Simpson's officials, who sat in on the interview, immediately ordered that swearwords used to describe Miliband be taken 'off the record'. However, they confirmed that the robust anti-Miliband assault had been deliberate and should stand. Simpson said Gordon Brown should tell those who back Miliband's leadership ambitions, including Charles Clarke, who argued last week that Brown should consider stepping down 'with honour', to 'sod off'.

Labour MPs said last night they detected the hand of Charlie Whelan, the Prime Minister's former spin doctor, behind the attack. Whelan is now the national political director at Unite and controls its political messages. Denis MacShane, the former Europe minister, condemned the outburst as distasteful and damaging to the Labour party and the country.

Another senior MP said there were concerns within the union about whom Whelan was really working for. Whelan said last night that the comments were 'nothing to do with him. Derek speaks for Derek.'

Meanwhile, in an interview with today's Sunday Mirror, Schools Secretary Ed Balls urges Labour MPs to stick together while admitting that Labour is 'two-nil down' to the Conservatives in the race for the next General Election. He calls on MPs to 'stop jeering at the manager', insisting there is still 'a lot to play for'.

'Everybody knows that if you are two-nil down five minutes into the second half, you don't give up. You keep playing. The winner is the team that sticks together, stays determined and has the fitness, resilience and determination to win,' he says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...eunions.labour

[contracycle]

Open warfare as Labour's relaunch falters
The depth of union bosses' anger at Foreign Secretary David Miliband is revealed as the party faces another week of turmoil at the TUC conference. And as Gordon Brown's fightback falters, Toby Helm and Heather Stewart report on the latest threats to the PM

* Toby Helm and Heather Stewart

After a week that was supposed to 'relaunch' Labour on a path to better political health, Gordon Brown heads into his second conference season as leader with more bad blood being shed around him than at any time since he became Prime Minister. On first impressions, and after little more than a year in the job, the game might already appear to be up. His party is at war with itself - as proved today by union leader Derek Simpson's extraordinary outburst against Foreign Secretary David Miliband - and seems completely unable to focus on the external enemy, David Cameron's Tories.

The Conservatives, in their own state of desperation exactly a year ago as Brown wallowed in his long-forgotten political honeymoon, cannot believe their good fortune. 'We do not need to do anything at all. Just sit and enjoy the show,' said one Tory frontbencher.

There will be another outbreak of internal Labour strife this week as the TUC inflicts a series of bruising defeats on a badly weakened Prime Minister, demanding a windfall tax on energy companies, a new progressive income tax system to punish the rich, an easing of pay discipline at a time when inflation is going through the roof, and a huge increase in spending on council homes.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Britain's largest union, Unison, and a voice of relative moderation in the union movement, set the scene for what promises to be an ugly congress, leading to an equally ugly gathering of the entire Labour party in two weeks' time. 'In everything that has happened our government has lost its way,' he said. Labour voters and trade unionists, he argued, were 'fed up to the back teeth', with a leadership that never seemed to act in their interests, while pandering to big business.

Today TUC leader Brendan Barber weighs in by publishing a report trashing Brown's period as Chancellor and Prime Minister, which it says has failed to deliver on the objective of most Labour supporters - narrowing the income gap between rich and poor. Instead it accuses the government under Brown's stewardship of creating a 'golden age for the rich', adding: 'The hands-off policies of recent times are becoming increasingly difficult to justify ... There are clear signs that we have reached the limit of public tolerance of a society skewed so heavily in favour of the rich, irrespective of the impact on others.'

It is not just the direction of policy that divides the party and angers MPs. The very operation of government seems to be dysfunctional under Brown. Behind the scenes, a virtual breakdown of relations between the Treasury and Number 10 (and the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, following Alistair Darling's doom-laden economic analysis) has prevented any coherent response aimed at helping the less well-off deal with the pending global recession.

Everywhere, Labour's personal rivalries and policy differences thwart decisive action. Last week the Treasury, which had cautioned against the introduction of a stamp duty holiday to help first-time buyers, found itself overruled by Number 10 and on Tuesday one was announced - to widespread lack of enthusiasm.

By Thursday, Brown's modest economic relaunch was in further disarray when his advisers admitted that negotiations with energy companies to extract £100 a head to help people on low incomes with fuel bills had broken down. 'This relaunch has already failed and it has not really started yet,' said one former cabinet minister gloomily.

Calls to government departments in recent days to ask about measures to help homeowners with fuel bills - due next week - have revealed virtual paralysis in Whitehall. Number 10, meanwhile, is failing to give a lead as it conducts its own feuds. Stephen Carter, the PR man drafted in by Brown to sharpen his image and presentation, is involved in a vicious turf war with suggestions that he is about to be ousted and may be offered a peerage. Officials who are supposed to give information to the press instead seek information themselves from journalists: 'What have you heard? We don't know what is going on. We can't say if it is definitely coming next week.'

Against this background, it was predictable that Charles Clarke, the combustible former Home Secretary, should try to fuel the flames by calling publicly, for the first time, for Brown to go 'with honour'. Clarke coupled this suggestion with an admission that no one in the cabinet was ready yet to strike against the Prime Minister. Less predictable was the response across the party. Clarke's remarks focused minds not just on the scale of the crisis - but the absence of an answer in the form of an alternative candidate for the leadership. One senior Labour MP remarked: 'What Charles did was to show that we have a crisis - but he also showed we have no one else who can solve it for us.'

Many in the union movement and on Labour's centre-left were talking a few weeks ago of launching moves to oust Brown from office if they could persuade a credible figure such as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, to stand. Now they have swung back behind Brown - at least for the time being. Johnson has refused, thus far, to show what one union source described as 'even the smallest bit of leadership leg'. And on the right, David Miliband's mid-summer display of his own ambition has failed to generate the backing he would have hoped for.

For Labour MPs, the benefits of plunging into a messy and divisive leadership contest at a time when the public expects government to be governing are not clear. Yesterday Andy Hornby, head of the UK's largest mortgage provider, HBOS, predicted that it would be 18 months before house prices would start to rise again. One backbencher said: 'Just now, in this economic climate, [a leadership contest] would seem and look irresponsible. There is a real risk that it would do us more harm than good.'

Prentis, speaking on behalf of Unison's 800,000 public sector members, summed up the current feeling across much of the party by insisting that despite everything Brown should be given more time, not because he deserves it, but because there is no alternative. Changing leader now, Prentis said, would make 'no difference whatsoever'. 'Who has got more experience than the current Prime Minister? Who could we put in who is going to come in with the panacea to cure all these problems? They are not around. The problems are too serious.'

If the events of recent weeks are anything to go by, however, there is scant evidence that Brown and his government will use the stay of execution to good effect. This week, Labour is due to announce a deal with the energy companies under which home owners on lower incomes will receive help with insulation.

But it is only expected to be worth between £300m and £1bn. The Local Government Association calculates that up to £5bn needs to be provided over the next few years for the scheme to work. Such small-scale assistance is likely only to further anger Labour backbenchers, around 130 of whom are now backing the unions' demands for a windfall tax on the energy companies. The windfall tax issue is dividing government from top to bottom. While the Treasury and Number 10 insist that the measure is still a runner, other ministers admit that this seems to be a holding line to get the party through the conference season. John Hutton, the Blairite Business Secretary and bane of the left, would, friends believe, be prepared to resign if the plan, which he believes would drive companies and investment in new, more efficient technology abroad, were approved. There are also continuing tensions about how to assist the mortgage market, with Number 10 backing action on a £100bn extension of mortgage-backed securities while the Treasury and Bank of England remain opposed.

Labour MPs in marginal seats and union leaders trying to justify their financial links with the party to their members want some drastic, decisive action, not piecemeal, disappointingly limited measures. Increasingly, they cite the boldness of moves being made in the US to help home buyers there as evidence of how to tackle a crisis with firm responses.

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was last night poised to announce an emergency taxpayer-backed rescue plan for giant mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as Washington battles to prevent the year-long credit crunch claiming fresh victims on Wall Street.

News of the mooted rescue emerged as another regional American bank, the eleventh so far this year, collapsed in the face of losses from the housing crisis. The Silver State Bank, in Nevada, which until recently counted Andrew McCain, son of the Republican presidential candidate John McCain, on its board, was shut down by federal regulators on Friday.

By the time MPs return to Westminster next month, the clock will be ticking again. By then higher winter fuel bills will be arriving and MPs postbags will be filling up with complaints from angry constituents. In October or early November, Labour could face another humiliating Scottish byelection reverse - this time in Glenrothes - at the hands of the resurgent Scottish Nationalists. Defeat in Brown's own political backyard would unleash another bout of speculation over the Prime Minister's future.

Prentis and other senior party members have decided to give the Prime Minister time - but they will not wait for ever. 'We will review things at the end of the year,' he observed. 'It is a very interesting situation.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ip.gordonbrown

[Washington]

I somehow think that it is time for Labour to accept their imminent defeat in the General Election and use it to reassess themselves as a party. The are the victims of the classic symptom of being in power for too long and losing touch with the electorate. I'm not sure how much stock I put in Cameron's leadership but I certainly think that it is his time.

[Ronners]

Or they could give themselves a fighting chance by making David Miliband leader. Brown is over; too dour and dithering (and Scotish) . Miliband has the political nous and the instincts needed to reinvigorate the Blair project, which is the only game in town for the party against Cameron's reformulated Tories.

[Washington]

Or you could tee-up one of the party's brightest young prospects for an inevitable beating, one from which it will take a while to recover. Remember William Hague. I don't care if they put the messiah himself as party leader, Labour will not win the next election.

[Zan de Man]

They said the same thing about the Tories in 1992, but Major led them back to a sort of government.

[Dave]

The problem is, as far as I see it there is currently no viable alternative to Labour. The Tory party is just as bad if not worse. Dare I say it but I would prefer Brown as PM over Cameron any day of the week.

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Ronners

Or they could give themselves a fighting chance by making David Miliband leader. Brown is over; too dour and dithering (and Scotish) . Miliband has the political nous and the instincts needed to reinvigorate the Blair project, which is the only game in town for the party against Cameron's reformulated Tories.

washington's quite right, he'd inevitably get beaten. and besides, labour couldn't have another change of party leader without calling a general election, and they're nowhere near ready for that.

the blair project is way past reinvigoration. a few loosers might be hanging on hopefully, but thank god theres no way it could be resurrected now. dubya's out, finally, and with the neocons goes nulab. both equally disgraced.

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Zan de Man

They said the same thing about the Tories in 1992, but Major led them back to a sort of government.

and look how much good it did them. instead of regrouping it wore them out entirely, and handed labour over a decade in power.

i do think major got a raw deal at the time though.

[Bonniedundee]

Labour needs some serious regrouping that is for sure. Its alienated its old leftwing base, quite a few of which are going to the BNP, Greens etc, and now the Tories have been able to take back the centre and centre right who may have left the Tories during its troubles a decade ago.

All you need is to add more problems in Scotland and labour are pretty much screwed for a very long time.

They need a large rethink, hopefully getting rid of the Nulabour bs.

[Ronners]

By leftwing, I suppose you mean working class, or else going off to vote for the BNP doesn't make much sense. I don't think there is a significant leftwing base for the labour party and probably never was. Sure there are a few members of the intelligensia and some poor misfits who did nothing worthwhile with the education wasted on them, but that's hardly a 'base'.

There was a working class base, but that has been smashed between the twin waves the new liberalisms. Liberal capitalist economics and the liberal cultural hegemony which has effectively sidelined class with its promotion of new 'victim groups' based on race and gender. These don't have to be, and offen aren't co-terminous with being working class, let alone left wing. One of the sillier sheboleths of the left is that they always are. This is a shame since in reality class is still the thing that matters most in terms of life chances and access to all sorts of social goods. Social modility has gone down the toilet, largely thanks to the "shit for everyone" equalitarianism of educational policy makers, which richer people just buy out of, by moving house or going independent.

The left as most of us discovered in the eighties is a busted flust, a scrag end, a sad irrelevance. This might change, but it will be technology and its social implications, and not the moralistic whining of the festering old left rump that will bring this about.

I think Labour can still win, but not with Brown as leader. He's a dour son of the manse with as much carisma as a skid mark. He has not established a narrative, beyond I was once in the shadow of Tony Blair. He blew it when he didn't call the election last year. He is the sort of man who doesn't feel comfortable unless he's wearing a tie. He's toast.

[Zan de Man]

There was an ideological left-wing base in the old working class of the shipyards, mines and docks, but that reduced as the truth of Stalinism came out and was then swept away when Thatcher "modernised" our economy to the point where we no longer made anything for ourselves because it was cheaper to outsource or simply import it.

There are very few truly working class people around now.

[Bonniedundee]

Originally Posted by Ronners

By leftwing, I suppose you mean working class, or else going off to vote for the BNP doesn't make much sense. I don't think there is a significant leftwing base for the labour party and probably never was. Sure there are a few members of the intelligensia and some poor misfits who did nothing worthwhile with the education wasted on them, but that's hardly a 'base'.

Well yes I meant working classes. Once upon a time there was a sizeable "socialist" working class which has unfortunately disappeared.

There was a working class base, but that has been smashed between the twin waves the new liberalisms. Liberal capitalist economics and the liberal cultural hegemony which has effectively sidelined class with its promotion of new 'victim groups' based on race and gender. These don't have to be, and offen aren't co-terminous with being working class, let alone left wing. One of the sillier sheboleths of the left is that they always are. This is a shame since in reality class is still the thing that matters most in terms of life chances and access to all sorts of social goods. Social modility has gone down the toilet, largely thanks to the "shit for everyone" equalitarianism of educational policy makers, which richer people just buy out of, by moving house or going independent.

I largely agree here. We need less PCism and more real leftwing alternatives.

The left as most of us discovered in the eighties is a busted flust, a scrag end, a sad irrelevance. This might change, but it will be technology and its social implications, and not the moralistic whining of the festering old left rump that will bring this about.

The real problem is to break the post-80s neoliberal paradigm and shift to the right. The left has to be a real alternative once more and hopefully a decentralist one.

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Ronners

Or they could give themselves a fighting chance by making David Miliband leader. Brown is over; too dour and dithering (and Scotish) . Miliband has the political nous and the instincts needed to reinvigorate the Blair project, which is the only game in town for the party against Cameron's reformulated Tories.

Ha ha ... that would be about the dumbest thing they could possibly do.

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Ronners

There was a working class base, but that has been smashed between the twin waves the new liberalisms. Liberal capitalist economics and the liberal cultural hegemony which has effectively sidelined class with its promotion of new 'victim groups' based on race and gender. These don't have to be, and offen aren't co-terminous with being working class, let alone left wing. One of the sillier sheboleths of the left is that they always are. This is a shame since in reality class is still the thing that matters most in terms of life chances and access to all sorts of social goods. Social modility has gone down the toilet, largely thanks to the "shit for everyone" equalitarianism of educational policy makers, which richer people just buy out of, by moving house or going independent.

Doublethink in action. Class has been sidelined but it's class that really matters? Did you think before you wrote you or were you simply reciting a mantra?

The decline in the use of class analysis coincides with the rise of the very sort of non-Labour identity politics which you support in the form of Blairism. This is quite silly.

There is most certainly a distinct social class, what it has lost is the solidarity that arose from large factories, barracks-like accomodation and shared insitutions like the dance-hall and the working mens clubs. The change is not an eradication of class, but of it's atomisation.