The Portsmouth South Conundrum

I've long been a supporter of using Single Transferable Vote for UK elections but I'm going to vote No to AV. When I was thinking of writing this blogpost there were lots of little reasons why, but one seemed more important than anything else. I call it the Portsmouth South Conundrum.

Let's look at Portsmouth South in May 2010

Liberal Democrats 45.9%

Conservatives 33.3%

Labour 13.7%

Others 7.2%

Now let's fast forward to an AV election in 2015. Imagine that the Tories are moderately popular, they got they are up to 35% support. Meanwhile a third of Lib Dem support has deserted to Labour, bringing Lib Dems down to 30% and Labour up to 29%. That might be typical of a string of southern seats.

Now imagine that you're a Tory voter who wants to elect a Tory MP. It might increase the chance of a Tory getting elected if that Tory votes Labour. How's that? We'd assume that Labour 2nd preferences would tend to flow to the Lib Dems, the remaining Lib Dems 2nd preferences would flow towards the Tories (because a lot of the Lib Dems who preferred Labour would now vote Labour). So if the Lib Dems get eliminated then the Tory is likely to win, a Labour elimination would lead to a Lib Dem victory.

How can any AV supporter think that AV will end tactical voting? It'll just get rid of one kind of understandable tactics (if you don't think your 1st choice will win, you can vote for someone you wouldn't mind winning) with this kind of cerebral gymnastics.

Union Street on Hutton

They say that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Well, I've not been mugged and I'm not going to be donning a Tory-blue rosette this side of hell freezing over, but there has been a nasty blast of realism from the Hutton Report hitting my rose-coloured view of the world.

Once upon a time there was barely any such thing as a public sector employer. But even then employers such as Titus Salt and later the Liberal William Lever made sure that their employees were well-housed, well-paid and looked after if they became too ill to work. At one time every large employer in the country provided generous sick leave and a final salary pension scheme. That's at the heart of this whole issue, employees make employers money during their productive years, if they didn't then the employers would soon get rid of them. In turn employers made sure that their employees were saved from an impoverished old age.

Why don't private sector employers provide final salary schemes anymore? It's not because of life expectancy because you could fix that by increasing the retirement age as the public sector has already done. It's because the government provides a safety net equivalent to someone working full time in a minimum wage job. The Government are in effect subsidising private sector employers to increase profits by reducing pensions to their workers. And because public sector workers are properly looked after we become a political football.

Well, no longer, at least not for me. I've already wasted 14 years paying 6-6.5% of my salary to the government on the promise that they'll look after me. I trusted Major, Blair and Brown, but Cameron took only a couple of months to show that he couldn't be trusted. Even if the coming changes aren't that bad, my money will be at risk of any government in the next 30 years. I'm just young enough to chalk off the money I've wasted to experience and start again trying to provide for my own comfortable retirement. So for now I'm in my own boat same as most private sector workers. It's going to be harder doing the sailing on my own, but at least I've got hold of the rudder.

TUC's Own Goal

Good to see that the semi-official UNISON Active blog has come out in opposition to David Cameron's invite to address TUC Congress.

The decision was taken at a meeting of General Council when no UNISON members were in attendance due to our National Delegate Conference happening at the same time, according to UNISON Active. If true it's a disgraceful act by the General Council and we should get some sort of apology from the TUC to UNISON for that.

It is important to talk to your opponents and if the General Council want to meet Cameron it makes sense for them to do so. But an invitation to address any annual conference is a mark of respect, a mark of approval. Only a month before what's likely to be the most savage and ill-timed Spending Review statement in our history, Cameron will deserve no applause from the TUC.

TUC General Council asked to think again

Read an excellent article by my friend Jon Rogers on the madness that is the invitation for David Cameron to address the TUC Congress in September. There's still time to reconsider and on Saturday, South West TUC asked the TUC General Council to do just that by passing this emergency motion.

"The South West Region TUC deplores the recent decision of the TUC General Council to invite David Cameron to address TUC Congress 2010, and asks the General Council, in the urgent interests of trade union unity against this Government's austerity measures, to reverse this invitation."

I call on the General Council and in particular the nine members of UNISON on that body to heed the call. Inviting Cameron to address us has no upside that I can see but plenty of downside.

Public Sector Redundancy Payments

News comes from the Guardian about a spiteful bit of work by the Government to unilaterally reduce the amount of redundancy pay, if (when) they are made redundant.

The Civil Service scheme is generous, even compared to the rest of the public sector, but the government's not even attempted to negotiate over this, just sent the unions a letter that in Francis Maude's own words is non-negotiable. Frankly that's disgusting behaviour from this government.

Tax Havens

Here's my speech on Motion 2 at the National Labour Link Forum. The excellent motion from Eastern Region passed unanimously and commits the Labour Link to push for more information sharing and tax harmonisation to stop the rich getting away without paying their fair share.

Vice-Chair, Forum, Andy Dowland, National Labour Link Committee pleased to express the National Committee’s full support of this motion and thanking the Eastern Region for submitting it.

It is said that “Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilised society”. Multinational corporations reap the benefits of our civilised society. We educate their future employees, provide healthcare to them when they are sick, build infrastructure that they can use and have established a rule of law to protect their assets. But some corporations do not wish to pay the price to sustain that society.

To give just one example: Over the last two years, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation reported an operating loss of 270 million US Dollars, but by moving money here, money there, claiming rebates where they could and paying taxes only when it was absolutely necessary, they turned that loss into a 2 billion dollar profit.
I don’t think David Cameron’s going to bother changing that cosy arrangement.

Now it’s not just multinationals that can play this game – While it might be difficult to tell where News Corporation are based, our football clubs are clearly based out of one town or city. Not really. Tottenham aren’t based in London, the company’s are based in the Bahamas, Rangers aren’t based in Glasgow, their home is Jersey. Our host city’s own team Leeds United. Possibly based in the Cayman Islands but no-one’s quite sure, least of all their Chairman, who had to tell a court that he didn’t have the foggiest idea who owns the club.

14 members of the Premier League not paying their fair share of tax in the country were they do all their business. Leaving it to their fans and the rest of us to pay for the civilised society that they benefit from.

Do the Tax Havens benefit? No, they get into the position of being dependent on a few rich men. When the Belize authorities investigated Lord Ashcroft’s bank for alleged money-laundering, they halted the case for fear that he might withdraw from Belize and wreck their economy. The likes of Lord Ashcroft don’t want tax havens like Belize to develop economically because then their power would be ended.

As the motion says a multilateral approach is needed. The last Labour Government made some steps in that direction. Now we must shame the Coalition into continuing that work.

More information

More transparency

More tax paid by the rich so the poor don’t have to subsidise them.

Please support this motion.

Originally posted by me on Digital Spy's Politics Forum in response to an Opening Poster (OP) ranting about our "gold plated pensions":

I've come late to this thread because I'm busy working at UNISON's national delegate conference. Yes, I'm one of the nasty public sector union people that the OP was complaining about. During yesterday's proceedings, Paul Moist of the Canadian Union of Public Employees gave us a speech where he pointed out that the real pensions scandal is that Private Sector workers have had their decent pensions stolen from them by their employers.

Most large private sector employers used to offer Defined Benefit pension schemes were the employee would contribute a small amount of their wages and the employer would put money into the pot too. The reasons why they have been closed have been variously put as "we can't afford it any more" and "people are living much longer now". Neither of those are true, the real reason is that employers prefer to have the money to add to their profit rather than provide for their employees' old age.

In 1981 (I chose the year because we were in a recession that year too) Defined Benefit schemes were almost universal in private as well as public sector. The country earned £256bn that year. In 2009 the country earned £1.396trn, but as the pound now is worth only 31.6% of a 1981 pound that is equivalent to £441bn in 1981 prices. Britain now is 72% richer than it was 28 years ago and we could afford decent pensions then.

Is it because we're living longer, again, that doesn't stack up. In 1981 if you lived till 60 (the usual retirement age then) you could expect on average to live to 75. Now if you live till 65 (again, the usual retirement age) you can expect on average to live to 81. That's 1 more year of post retirement life. Considering the increase in wealth, we can easily afford that, and if we can't we could increase employees contributions (as the NHS recently did, my contribution went up from 6% to 6.5%).

Ironically as many more private sector workers will have to rely on means-tested benefits to have a basic retirement income, taxpayers are funding their pensions more than they are funding the public sector pensions.

Now that the private sector workers have had their pockets pinched, this government are pointing to the public sector workers and saying "it's not fair, they've got more than you". We're not the enemy though, the bosses, the rich, they have your money. If the government succeed in making public sector retirees poorer, it won't make the private sector retirees any richer.

I do think that it's not fair that the public sector have decent pensions and the private sector doesn't. But my solution is that the private sector should have decent pensions too. If you want to fight for that, the unions want to help.

It's been a long time...

It has been a long time and when I retire I'll talk all about it, but I am back.

This post is about when to be reasonable and when it's best not to be. I think I move across the line of reasonableness sometimes but here's my views. I'm not particularly left wing - I used to be called "Son of Blair" in Yeovil Labour Party and at the time actually enjoyed the label. A few years later I was being called a Trot in Mabledon Place, headquarters of UNISON, again I wasn't offended in the slightest. What I do passionately believe in is serving UNISON, fighting for our members' rights and doing the right thing for my class. But in that I've always been pragmatic, going for what works rather than what the dogmatically correct path might be. I've always been happy to grab the half-loaf if that's the only thing that can be on offer.

So that brings me to Amendment 58.1 at UNISON's national delegate conference. Written by Tower Hamlets branch it condemns the waste of our money on PFI schemes and called for them all to be brought back under public ownership with compensation only on the basis of proven need. Is it realistic? Not currently, even Railtrack shareholders had to be compensated when they were forced to sell up to Network Rail. My good friend James Anthony called it a fantasy policy. But it's the right policy and here's why.

Everything that the union movement and the working class has ever achieved has at one point been called unrealistic. The Tolpuddle Martyrs were unrealistic when they thought they could form a trade union. Michael Sadler was unrealistic when he thought that children under age nine should have to go to school rather than be forced to work. Harriet Taylor was being unrealistic when she argued that women should have the vote. If everyone in history only settled for what's achievable then we would be still living in caves and explaining to each other why we shouldn't bother trying to make fire ourselves.

I think that we shouldn't be ashamed to say what we believe, we might have to settle for less, but if we don't try, we can't succeed. If we stop fighting now, the government will see us bit by bit back into being mere serfs and the sooner UNISON's leadership realises what a fight we're in the better.

Not all Tory union laws were bad

"Repeal Thatcher's trade union laws" is still a cry that will get you a round of applause at any Trade Union gathering. But among all the hateful legislation that the Tories did put in, there's a couple that I actually like.

The first is that General Secretaries must be elected on one member, one vote. Of course I would hope that all unions would do that without the law, but maybe some wouldn't.

The second is much more obscure, the establishment of what's now called the Certification Officer. Put simply, the CO is the person you can go to if you think a union has broken it's own rules, kind of like an ombudsman.

I'm a bit late to it because I was on holiday, but Bob Oram, UNISON NEC and last heard of being heckled at National Delegate Conference has posted on the usually excellent UNISON Active blog that the CO is a government imposition on the freedom of trade unions.

If that's the case, it's a imposition that's been used lightly, in the last 10 years, the CO has heard 17 cases of which 4 have been upheld, 2 enforcement orders have been made and 1 of those was successfully appealed against by the union.

If it's used so infrequently, why is it important? It's important because it gives our members confidence that if the union breaches rules at the highest level, there's someone independent to appeal to. It gives reassurance that the NEC will act in the best interests of the membership. No organisation is perfect and the CO is there to catch the times when the NEC does fall down. That's not an imposition, that's a good thing.

So, for maybe the only time I might say it, thanks Thatcher for the Certification Officer.

General Secretary update

In the interests of fairness, I should mention that Paul Holmes now has a group on Facebook as well.

The runners are on their marks

A snap General Secretary election has been called by the National Executive Committee and from Thursday through to 1st April, branches, regions, service groups and the NEC itself will be asked to nominate candidates for the election.

To get on to the ballot paper, candidates will need the support of the NEC, two service group executives, two regional councils or 25 branches.

During the nomination period, this blog will be neutral, there's a hustings being organised for 3rd April and I'll decide after hearing each candidate which one, out of those actually on the ballot paper I'll support and vote for.

At the moment there's two declared candidates with rumours of a third.

Dave Prentis, incumbent General Secretary, wants another five year team. His campaign has launched into high gear with a facebook group with over 100 members already.

Paul Holmes, branch secretary for Kirklees Local Government, announced his candidacy yesterday. He's not put much out but he's worried some Dave Prentis supporters judging from this attack on the UNISON Active blog.

Roger Bannister, branch secretary for Knowsley Local Government, is rumoured to be standing, but I haven't seen anything to confirm that yet.

I do think it's disappointing to say the least that a union with 80% female membership doesn't have any female candidate to lead the union. It's not like there aren't credible candidates out there.

Blair wasn't a Bliar

I've got a lot of time for John McDermott, my comrade in UNISON's Yorkshire and Humberside region who was cheated out of a seat on our NEC and now being disciplined for protesting about being cheated.

I have got a different view on Iraq than him, I supported it at the time, with hindsight I think the opportunity cost was too great, but unlike the Tories, I don't pretend that I wasn't in favour originally. John's got a different view and that's okay. What's not okay is him repeating the Tony Bliar misspelling in his latest blogpost. Blair made clear that he made the decision in good faith, Chilcot's unlikely to report otherwise (if there was a conspiracy, someone would have spilled the beans long before now). Blair was Prime Minister to make tough decisions like that.

There's good people on both sides of the argument and it's rather juvenile for John to demean Blair for making what he thinks was the wrong decision.

UNISON Regional Labour Link Forum 30th January 2010

Jackie Fleming's already blogged on the Labour Link Forum here but here's my report too.

We rattled through the business of the day, including my report on the work of National Labour Link, ably assisted by Rachel Voller, one of the committee's vice-chairs.

The main course of the day was a Question and Answer session with local Labour MPs Dawn Primarolo (Bristol South), Jim Knight (South Dorset) and David Drew (Stroud). Later we were joined by Alison Seabeck (Plymouth Devonport) for a mini Q&A at the end of the meeting.

Jim focused on the choice in the General Election between Labour and the Tories. As Employment Minister he was glad that unemployment appears to have peaked (as February is usually the worst month for employment, the figures could go up slightly before falling). Unemployment here is better than the EU and G7 averages precisely because we have kept our public services going. Jobcentre Plus has done great work, getting half of all newly unemployed back to work within 3 months and 70% within 6 months.

Management of the economy is good too. Despite being ridiculed at the time, Alastair Darling's predictions are still bang on target. We're going to repay the deficit, but when the country can afford it. According to David Blanchflower, George Osborne's policies would double unemployment and send us into a depression.

Dawn said that we'd repaid debt caused by Tory mismanagement at the start of this Labour Government. But debt itself isn't bad if it's keeping people in work. There will be developments shifted back or cancelled due to less tax money coming in but that's nothing compared to what the Tories would do. You need public services more in recession. Investing in schools throughout this government's term has resulted in the gap in achievement being narrowed, more disadvantaged children get to university now, up from 1 in 9 to 1 in 5.

But Tory policies, ending Tax Credits, closing Children's Centres, would damage that. To have tax credits and children's centres only for the very poorest would stigmatise people away from using those services. It isn't true that Britain is broken. The Tories would end secured tenancies for council tenants, breaking up communities. Dawn also referred to the Equality Bill, confident that it would be passed before the wash up at the end of the Parliament.

David didn't have much to add to that, but explained that we can already see what the Tories are like in the way they have run local councils where they have got in. Things are a lot better now than in 1997 and we need to get the message out.

Alison did cover some ground that the others did but she emphasised that we need to actually get out there and talk to people, the Tories have got lots of glossy posters and letters but we are more real and that can work for us. She was asked about the Ham by-election where Labour increased it's majority from 49 to 567 just by working hard and meeting as many voters as possible. She answered my question about the Hoon/Hewitt coup attempt by saying that it had "lanced the boil" before there were still some mutterings, but now the PLP is united in support of Brown.

Thanks to all four MPs for travelling to Taunton to meet us and we'll be doing all we can to support them and all Labour MPs and PPCs in the coming election.

Whatever happened to People's Peers

Remember back in the first term of Tony Blair's government the idea of People's peers, people were invited to nominate themselves for appointment to the House of Lords, it would an attempt to get good people who weren't part of the Establishment into parliament, the sort of person that would never get appointed through the usual channels.

3,000 applied, 15 were selected, to resounding disappointment at least in this quarter (no I hadn't applied). Most of the 15 were people who would very likely have got in under the old system. Still there were a couple of interesting names there, and maybe after the first batch of appointments it would start to settle it and provide a real way into the House of Lords?

Yesterday, the latest batch, only two this time, were announced, Dame Nuala O’Loan, former Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. Both are Visiting Professors (O'Loan at Ulster and Sacks at both Kings College London and Birkbeck). Both have impressive records and will no doubt be an asset to the Upper House. But, but, can it be said that neither would have been appointed back in the old days? Aren't they both completely Establishment figures.

If the House of Lords Appointment Commission is only going to be appointing the same type of people that would have been appointed under the old system, what point is it playing? Can't that be one of the quangos we get rid of?

Is Lansley telling porkie pies?

It has become the done thing for Conservative-leaning bloggers to accuse Labour ministers of lying recently. But they seem a lot more reluctant to hold their own side to the same standard.

In the midst of dealing with his latest gaffe (in this case meaning making an apparent spending commitment without clearing it with Osborne first) he said this, quoted by Sky News:

"The Health Service Journal have got this 180 degres wrong. The problem in recent years has been that staff pay has simply increased in line with the huge rises in the NHS budget."

This rang alarm bells with me, I started in the NHS in the last full year of Tory rule (1996/97) and pay certainly hasn't doubled in real terms since then. So I've done some digging:

Total NHS Budget in 1996/97 £31.5 billion
Total NHS Budget in 2009/10 £103.4 billion (England £86.4b (pdf document), Scotland £11.0b, Wales est £4.0b, Northern Ireland est £2.0b)
% increase in NHS Budget 228%

Now, I can't find any pay scales for 1996/97, but I do remember my beginning salary as a Management Accounts Assistant (bottom point, Admin and Clerical Grade 4) that was £10,076 per annum. So a 228% pay hike would mean that if Lansley is right, that same post should be starting at £33,049. Unfortunately for the Man Accs Assistants working in my office, that's not the starting salary. The current starting salary for Agenda for Change Band 4 (which is what they get graded as now) is £17,732 pretty much half of what Lansley has claimed.

I'm going to be more charitable than the comrades in the blogger's union. Never attribute to conspiracy what you can charge to cock-up. In this case, I must conclude that Lansley simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

National Delegate Conference Day 3

For some reason I seem to be more busy at National Conference than I ever was at Health conference, the vast numbers of fringe meetings is probably it and the carefully planned timetable I had is in tatters.

Still it's 5:30am on a sunny but cold looking morning here in Hove, here's the recap for yesterday's session.

The morning was taken up by international affairs. There was a rah-rah motion on Cuba, I didn't speak against it because unlike in the 2007 motion, it did not praise the undemocratic nature of the regime, merely celebrating that for a small, poor country, it's done remarkably well for it's citizens. That much is true and if only it were democratic too, I'm sure that the Socialists would win every time. But that being said, why do we need to discuss Cuba every year, the situation's not changed much, UNISON has a settled view on the blockade etc and it just wastes time we could spend on more important issues.

The second motion was on Palestine, again it's a motion we have every year and I did hear some delegates moan about it but this was more important as we do not have a settled policy on it. I gave the motion some thought and in the end decided to vote for the motion, which included a UNISON boycott of products produced in the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Why did I do that?

Well, there's a common view that there needs to be a two-state solution with one state being an expressly Jewish state (if you don't know why one needs to be a Jewish state, I refer you to the last eight centuries of anti-semitism, from Edward I's expulsion of the Jews from England right up to the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC last week). That solution also needs a stable and viable Palestinian state. I feel that it is in both the interests of peace and the interests of Israel for Palestine to exist and be prosperous.

So the occupation of the West Bank is bad not only for the local population, but the illegal settlement of the best land makes Palestine which even on 1967 borders is pretty marginal in terms of viability even less likely to be a successful nation. UNISON wants to boycott the produce of those settlements, the idea being, if the boycott is successful, for those people who are settling for economic reasons will quit and bring their business back to Israel proper.

Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) were also unhappy with a passage in the motion calling for Israel to negotiate with Hamas, which as TUFI point out, are a vile, rascist, fascist organisation who UNISON really shouldn't align itself with. I don't think we are aligning with Hamas, but as I said at the TUFI fringe, you can't solve this problem without talking and just like we had to talk to the IRA, Israel will have to talk to Hamas. As trade unions are secular organisations, not Jewish or Islamic, we can be promoters of dialogue and I hope UNISON will take the small amount of influence we have in the situation seriously.

At the TUFI fringe Jon Pike, formerly of the UCU National Executive warned UNISON against following the path of the UCU and moving away from where our members are. That's a valid warning and so there will be lots of opportunity for UNISON Somerset Health branch members to make their views clear before this is (probably) debated again in Bournemouth next year.

The afternoon was spent on Rules Amendments. There were some rather technical rules change (4 & 17) which rules anoraks like me got very agitated about and hopefully we defeated (there was a card vote because the chair wasn't sure that there was the 2/3 majority required), and a group of others (13, 14 & 8) which I was okay with but were difficult to understand and therefore fell because delegates didn't know what the implications of them would be. The rules amendments that passed did the following changes to our service groups.

• New service group (Community) moving members in the community and voluntary sectors from the Health and Local Government service groups and into their own
• Merged service group (Water, Environment and Transport) which covers the old Water and Environment and the Transport service groups.
• Renamed service group (Police and Justice) to reflect the probation service and Cafcass members moving from Local Government to join the Police Staff service group.

All good news and what the members concerned wanted.

There was a good fringe on building a rank and file caucus at lunchtime. We were all concerned at the fact that only 7% of members voted in this year's National Executive Council elections. My personal view is that we rely on the centre to initiate communications with members and moan about the centre not doing it instead of doing it ourselves. Communications tools like email, blogs and twitter have brought the cost down to pretty much nothing so we can and should do it ourselves.

National Delegate Conference Day 2

Because the B&B the Somerset Health delegation is staying in is in Hove (about a mile from the Brighton Centre) and the weather's been nice, that's meant a stroll along the front to Conference each morning. Just before you get to the conference centre itself there's a building that I have been mentally trying to avoid, that's the Grand Hotel. For two different reasons, I had to confront that building today. Bear with me, this is to do with UNISON NDC.

I still remember the morning of the Brighton Bombing which took down the front of the Grand. It was during the Miners Strike of 1984-85 and I was 12 years old, just started at Bellemoor School. Despite the fact I was in the soft and pampered south, I already knew all about Thatcher's treatment of the striking miners, her police terrorising the mining communities. I was already a socialist - or rather an anti-Tory. I'll be honest though ashamed by it, I was happy to hear of the bomb, and remember the crushing disappointment that Thatcher had managed to survive. It seemed less an IRA thing and more a smite from God (I was still a believer in God then) which Thatcher, being clearly evil had managed to escape from.

Now, this week, whenever I've gone past, I have tried to avoid looking at the hotel, partly ashamed at what my 12 year old self thought, partly because a little bit of me still thinks that way. I wouldn't wish pain or death on anyone, but if anything bad happened to Thatcher, it still wouldn't balance the scales for everything that she inflicted to everyone else.

But even I wouldn't say I was hoping to celebrate Thatcher's death, at least I hope that I wouldn't celebrate it when it happens. I'm content to know that she can't hurt anyone else again. However for Bob Oram to express his disappointment that Thatcher's not dead on the floor of conference was too far. My reaction was equal parts shock, pleasure and a feeling of "this is so not the place to say that" and there was actually a chant of Off, Off, Off toward Bob. Don't get me wrong, Thatcher is evil, I still believe that and any suggestion that she gets a state funeral is profoundly disrespectful of her victims but to wish someone dead goes beyond the pale, even more so in that it was part of a speech on learning and organising. I have no idea what Bob wanted to achieve by it and it just wasn't the right place, Sue Orwin's already written up a piece critical of him in tomorrow morning's regional newsletter.

Despite that excitement the Learning and Organising motion was passed along with Ovarian Cancer awareness, a motion for establishment of good Domestic Violence policies in the workplace and an interesting motion on Fuel Poverty. Then it was off to the Grand for the Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI) meeting.

I'd never gone there before and to be honest, it's too posh for me to feel comfortable in even disregarding it's past. The TUFI had promised a buffet, though I did not want to partake (feeling it was inappropriate as I knew I wouldn't agree with them) I was weak enough to eat the food that Jan collected for me. Note to TUFI, when I go to unofficial fringe events it's normally no food, no drink and a request/demand for a donation towards room hire. I don't feel at home if I'm being pampered.

The debate provoked at times more heat than light at times, though I did manage to get a question in. Terry McCorran had suggested that the composite gave support to Hamas which as he rightly pointed out is a fascist organisation. I take the view that the composite condemns Hamas and I don't care for being labeled a Hamas apologist because I support the composite. My position's close to the Alliance for Workers' Liberty but unlike them I am slightly on the composite's side. More tomorrow on that.

In the afternoon there was a debate on an amendment to call for the nationalisation of all banks without compensation. That led to some rousing speeches but the amendment was lost. A couple of motions on promoting use of the DDA were passed and we finished off with a climate change debate.

National Delegate Conference Day 1

Dave Prentis's keynote had been quietly hyped at the Regional meeting last night, so quietly that I didn't mention it but wow, I wasn't expecting this.

Mr Prentis told delegates that the union’s Labour Link “is an integral part of our union”. But to roars of agreement he continued: “Our members are tired of feeding the hand that bites them.”

And the conference gave a standing ovation when he called on the Labour Link to suspend constituency payments, ensure that the next manifesto does not continue privatisation of public services and “ensure that our union only promotes and supports prospective Labour candidates who are willing to stand up for our values of public service.”

I certainly applauded that, though I would go further, I'm Labour, proudly Labour, but those so-called Labour MPs who has been on the fiddle, tax-avoiding and living the high life with our money? I think they should be forced to step down and barred from standing for Labour ever again. In the coming general election, every candidate Labour stands should be clean, honest and devoted to Labour ideals, that's not too much to ask for at least?

As it happens, I had the privilege of listening to two such people, one a current MP (Kelvin Hopkins), and one who should be standing for parliament (Susan Press) at the LRC/LEAP fringe meeting at lunchtime. They were both inspiring and gave me hope that there is decency still in the Labour Party. More of that sort of candidate please Labour Party.

National Delegate Conference Day 0

I'm now in Brighton and met up with Janet Morton and Pat James, the delegates from the Taunton side of the soon to be merged branch. Attended the pre-conference regional meetings where we were told about the conference arrangements - there are 18 emergency motions already submitted and maybe some motions excluded from the main agenda that might be added back in.

I should be able to twitter from the hall @DM_Andy, but will probably not be able to blog a daily report until quite late.

Looking forward to an early start tomorrow.

UNISON Newsletter 15th June

Just finished the weekly branch newsletter - obviously with the lead up to UNISON Conference, but also looking at our campaign to get Yeovil Hospital to pay the ISA fees for employees when it starts next year and the need for Green Reps for YDH. You can download it here