The signs are everywhere: t'unions reckon their hour of revival is arrived. Well, the heroes of the hour are Key Workers and they are all unionised (well, errr, some of them), and lionised, and recognised, belatedly, for how important they are. And the economy needs to be rebuilt, and the unions definitely need to be consulted about that. And the Labour manifesto promised to make the new green future fully unionised ... etc etc etc. Why, L'il Owen Jones has even changed his moniker!
Many of us hereabouts don't routinely think about unions, have anything to do with unions (pace, E-K), nor expected ever again to be troubled by unions. Last time I personally dealt with a union delegation, was when they were begging (I think that's the word, really) to be allowed to come onsite at a shiny new plant I was responsible for in the North East in the '90s. Rather cruelly, I replied: why would we? All our non-managerial technical staff had been recruited from traditional unionised backgrounds in the locality, and were delighted to be under training to be multi-skilled. As they (our staff) would tell us, if you'd volunteered to become multi-skilled in their previous employment "the union guys would break your legs".
Anyhow, it would be foolish not to recognise that there's a bit of a seachange underway, if only in the morale of these dinosaurs. Here's some disparate thoughts on a union resurgence.
1. They're actually a bit nervous
Well, after the beatings they've endured over the past 35+ years, wouldn't you be? And they are of course deeply cognisant of how dependent they are on the policies and handouts of our dynamic new Covid Chancellor, who has basically "outflanked them on the left", moving faster and further than they were even asking for! They'd like to be telling him what to do: but they are also pretty grateful for the substantial crumbs cascading from his table. Could we please, errrr, just have a seat at this table? Please? They know where all the initatives are coming from. And the £££. And who's in charge for the next several years.
2. Green Deal to be unionised - really?
Now Rebecca's "Green Deal" was for a fully unionised new industrial revolution, of course - and it was green in name only. The noteworthy central plank of this policy was the "just transition", which meant, well, anything really, provided unionised industrial jobs were front and centre - new car factories, plastics factories, steel works, you name it.
I'm sure we can easily envisage Boris going for a massive Keynsian splurge. And cars, steel & plastics may well feature - along with even easier quick-wins like roadbuilding and infrastructure renewal. He may even call it a Green Deal, to steal Labour's thunder and give the pudding a bit of a spurious theme. But: unionised? No more so than normal-for-2019, I'd guess. The big advocates of this kind of green Keynsianism, all the way to Ed Miliband (remember him?) are quite keen to be non-partisan (see 'nervous' above).
3. Unions & Starmer: is he particularly keen?
Some say not, nay, they fear not. You could see why. What's less attractive than Unite, the Union and bad-boy McCluskey and his bad-old-days fixer reputation?
Keir Starmer is pivoting Labour away from the support it has given to trade unions in recent years ... leading figures in two Labour-affiliated unions – the Fire Brigades Union and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union – released statements condemning Starmer’s favoured [and of course successful] candidate, David Evans, for party General Secretary as “divisive.” The former Blair-era fixer is deeply unpopular with many of Labour’s affiliated unions and seen as likely to diminish their influence.
And never mind Starmer and his pivoting: there are plenty on the purist Left who despair
of the undemocratic, unrepresentative machinations and general
corruption (not to mention conservatism) they see amongst the ranks of the dinosaurs.
4. Good news for the rest of us
However, it is I think to be expected that they do elbow into a few more seats at a few more tables in the coming months and years - including various organs of the Peoples Party. The great thing about this is, they are really incompetent. Any board or body with heavy union influence is going to be that much more dull and leaden-footed, not to mention conservative - at a time when agility and sharp-sighted radicalism is what's needed. The best you ever get is when some relatively bright union research-department wonk comes up with a load of incredibly well-researched, detailed, earnest, but essentially wrongheaded "roadmap" which may accidentally contain a nugget or two, but which nobody ever reads (case in point: Rebecca's bizarre 2019 energy policy which I believe I might be the only person on the planet ever to have gone through to the very end).
Boris has always been lucky.
ND
 |
| Man of the People |
Ordinarily it's bad manners to derive fun from someone's personal shortcomings, but there is a certain type of in-your-face personality that doesn't quite seem to require observance of such scruples. High on the list is Dr Richard North, about whom I and several others around these parts have often been unkind. We suspect there is a textbook clinical pathology at work here, but until he is finally led quietly away his own robust rudeness and strident arrogance in the public realm rather disqualifies him from the protection otherwise afforded by good manners. IMHO.
Bidding strongly for inclusion on this rather short list is Little Owen Jones. Just as with Dr North, fairly eloquent writing pours forth from his pen (from which, incidentally, he makes a small fortune - another reason he can be left to fend for himself). The relevant backstory is this.
Owen "his parents met as members of the Militant Tendency" Jones, a well-regarded Grauniad columnist and firebrand lefty author (read BQ's glowing pen-portrait of his early career) decided back in 2015 to throw in his lot with the apparently foredoomed Corbyn bid for Labour Leadership. Corbyn's campaign, subsequently to metamorphosize into the baleful Momentum, quickly took on a life of its own with some clever tech-savvy people at the helm. One of their wheezes was to award campaign brownie-points (Corbie-points? brownienose points?) to individual registered supporters for activities in furtherance of the mission, e.g. x points for signing up a new supporter, y for raising some money, z for a supportive social-meejah post etc etc. It was all very competitive, with league-tables and ladders circulated amongst the faithful. (Almost makes them sound businesslike, doesn't it? Like the Boy Scouts; or a squash club ... why do we feel it's all rather middle-class?)
You won't be surprised to learn that Little Owen proudly came top of this ladder by a country mile. Well done, Owen! Oh, how chuffed he must have been. But then, Something Went Wrong and, rather as Polly Toynbee fell out with Tony Blair and in due course with Gordon Brown, Owen concluded Jeremy was a wrong'un. Imagine! Yes, though candidate Corbyn had triumphed with his invaluable assistance, Owen withdrew his precious support and, compounding matters, proceeded to heap ordure onto the useless Labour leader's head. Guido has documented all this nicely for us; and it's worth taking a look, to savour the sheer scale of the betrayal.
But then what happened? Stone me, if Jezza didn't do really well in 2017! Oh dear oh dear, what is poor Owen to do? With a decent prospect of there being a genuine lefty government in office, a bright young star like Owen can't just smoulder on the sidelines - he needs to be right in the middle of things, important, influential. Panic sets in, and Operation Desperate Grovel is launched, for all to enjoy. A major contribution to the jollity** of the nation.
It's another pathology, of course. Can we decently laugh out loud at such a public spectacle?
Yes, I think we can.
ND
_______________
**You can perhaps imagine how carefully I have chosen my words throughout this post ...
The Secret Diary of Owen Jones Aged 13¾
14th March 2014
Terrible news! The greatest parliamentarian of the age is dead! Wedgie Benn is gone! WoW! His statesman like bearing and ability to get to the heart of the issue by demanding greater union representation made him a hero to everyone who ever lived a proper life. I saw him on the TV once. I think it was the Ali G show. His socialist principles really shone through. I want to emulate him in every way! Actually I want to be better than that coz he never achieved anything and did rather sell out to the Lipton's brigade..So I will be a better Benn. More radical. More uncompromising. More left wing.
And I read in the Daily Mirror that he kept a daily diary, just like ME!
So really I am already his spiritual heir, if not his actual heir. Which is just as well as I don't want all those estates and mansions the great proletariat hero owned. He was going to give them to the people, I'm certain of that. He just didn't have time, dying so young at just 88.
I shall wear red socks for 48 hours. As a mark of respect and protest.
But there is something rather sinister about two great heroes of the left passing so recently. Bob Crow and now Tony Benn. And that's soon after Hugo Chavez who was the greatest leader who ever lived. Greater than Lenin or Mao or even Neil Kinnock.
I bet these deaths are linked. The evil forces of the Thatcherite, NeoCon-CIA-Mossad-MI5-FBI-DVLA- E.ON - AOL special forces probably murdered them all to prevent the coming uprising of the downtrodden peoples of the world.
I skyped my secret best-g-friend, @PennyRed.
She has moved to America with her parents for her dad's financial work. I asked her if she must hate being in the very belly of the capitalist parasite, New York.
She said "uhh..Umm..well..I guess..Its so .. Unreactionary and immune to the plight of the working class people..But they do have good bagels."
That's weird. I heard that New Yorker's loved eating big apples. Maybe that's New Mexico. I'll have to look it up in my atlas of amazing socialist facts by Dr Eion Clarke. I got that for Christmas, which I don't celebrate as its a bourgeois, religious-oppression invention to confuse the proletariat and promote corrupting capitalism.
But mum says its very rude to turn down a gift.
Anyway the book is brilliant! Loads and loads of facts about everything.
Did you know more people have died from the bedroom tax than died from the black death?
@PennyRed was sure I was right and that there is a plot to eliminate all the left leaning leaders of the world. She even mentioned Shirley Temple's death was 'big news on the cable' whatever that means. I think she confused Shirley Williams, with Temple, but i didn't want to correct her. She can get very stroppy if you do that. Calls it 'male domination of misrembering' and that is a HATE CRIME!
She is so hardcore! She won't be tempted by all that glitz and fake glamour. She won't sell out.
She is one of the three founder and only, bloodbrothers, slash, sisters of the Stockport urban guerrillas popular front of
Gramsci, Internationale, Trotsky Socialists.
PennyRed and me and the Dalai Lama. Although he never replied to my text to join our freedom fighters, I'm pretty sure that was just because the authorities took his phone charger, so he is in.
As the upcoming leader of the Gramsci, Internationale, Trotsky Socialists, or GITS, I must take care that I am not on the hitlist of the Bildeberger assassins.
I shall push my rubber plant across to the door and keep my Pol Pot nightlight on at all times.
And the squeaky floorboard at the top of the stairs will give me plenty of time to escape through the window should I hear the agents of injustice creeping past the airing cupboard.
Sleepy now. I shall dream of myself, bravely alone and on the run from the forces of imperialism. Clad only in my Michael Foot donkey jacket, red protest socks and Manchester United Pj's.
{I didn't choose them! But as I said earlier, Its very rude to refuse a Christmas gift. .. Especially one from your mum.}
With apologies to the late Sue Townsend
