Thursday, September 22, 2011

Biting the hand that feeds you

I had a wry smile at an Express article today on Ed Millipede and his reluctance to condemn unions for planning to bring the country to a halt over public sector pension reform. Don't get me wrong, it would be interesting to see Millipede E grow a pair, but the Express also seems to be forgetting just who is bankrolling the Labour party and Millipede E is not stupid and will avoid shitting in his own nest.
Express.
LABOUR leader Ed Miliband ducked the chance yesterday to condemn unions for planning to bring the country to a halt over public sector pension reform.
With fresh talks due today aimed at resolving the dispute, he refused either to attack or support the unions’ planned day of action on November 30, saying only that the Government must negotiate “in good faith”.
Several unions are preparing to ballot for strikes with a view to coordinated action, which some leaders have threatened could drag on to next summer.
In an interview on the eve of the Labour conference, Mr Miliband replied when asked if he would support November strikes: “I’m not going to get into hypothetical's about a strike that may or may not happen.”
Asked if unions should strike, he insisted: “The unions have to make their own judgement about what they do. We’re not at 30 November. I’ll make a judgement about that if we get to that.”
There is no chance that the Millipede is going to tell the people who are paying for his party's upkeep that going on strike is a wee bit naughty, even if he suspects it might be a bit of a losing situation. Going against the people who put up the money for your organisation requires courage and leadership qualities, something that none of the current leaders of the big 2 and a half have in any abundance so tied as they are to the policies of centralism that they have forgotten that the main ethos of being a leader is to lead, not react, not administer and not play favourites or power consolidation. Yet all the Leaders of the Con/Lab/Lib parties look like a bunch of interchangeable clones, each could be slotted into the other parties team and I doubt we'd notice the difference, they'd simply change the buzzwords as they appear to be politicians first and foremost rather than principled men.
And that sadly until it is resolved is the root of the problem.

1 annotations:

James Higham said...

And this is meant to be Old Labour, is it?