Holiday

Confronted by my sheer lack of posting, I’ve decided the best thing to do is masterly inactivity. Tribune is on holiday and so am I. I’ll be back at the beginning of September with on-the-spot, up-to-the-minute coverage of the TUC Congress in Brighton.

Will he, won’t he?

Jon Cruddas was the nearly man in Labour’s 2007 deputy leadership contest - a contest which, though quickly forgotten afterwards, has resurfaced amid media speculation over the Labour leadership. With The Observer suggesting that unions are backing a ‘dream ticket’ of Health Secretary Alan Johnson for leader and Cruddas for deputy, consider the recent progress of this man - a complex political character, whom some see as the Left’s last hope, but who voted for 42 days and invading Iraq. And who still hasn’t said if he wants to be deputy again.

In last year’s contest, Cruddas, the most left-wing candidate and the only non-minister, won the largest share of the popular vote, but due to Labour’s electoral college system, which allocates more weight to MPs’ votes than ordinary party members, he came third after Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson.

Everyone else in the contest, including Harman and Hazel Blears, the least successful candidate, got government jobs in the subsequent Brown cabinet. Cruddas was reportedly offered one - possibly a junior housing post - but reportedly turned it down. At the time, when I interviewed him, he said he wasn’t interested in a government job (though “never say never”) and he was happy with the way the contest had worked. Pluralism and progressivism had won, he said. On Brown, the jury was out.

Cruddas continued to insist the jury was out after Brown pushed through reforms at 2007’s Labour conference banning contemporary motions - the ones where members embarrass the government by voting for nationalised railways and council housing, in spite of government refusal to provide either*.

Only a few months ago did he start really criticising they way the government was heading. This criticism built to a crescendo at June’s Compass conference, where he delivered a stirring speech to his centre-left faithful troops.

Cruddas is not a man to engage in personal political posturing, and he himself denies being in any leadership contest. He’s only interested in continuing the policy debate, he always says. It’s about policies, not personalities. But now that David Miliband’s Guardian article has been universally accepted as a bid for the leadership, is it possible that Cruddas’ speech was intended just slightly to encourage people to once again see him as a possible deputy leader?

Cynics might accuse Cruddas of opportunism; of only choosing to speak out against the Government when it started sliding in the polls. Cetainly more lefty MPs such as John McDonnell criticise Cruddas and his Compass friends for their positioning.

But be in no doubt - a Cruddas deputy leadership would really annoy the Blairites who want to see Miliband as the next leader. Without Blair, some wise commentators say, they lack a solid personality to be deputy. Cruddas could be that personality.

*The ground on council housing has shifted somewhat, granted, after this year’s National Policy Forum. There’ll be scope for more council house building, and perhaps a significant investment into it. Labour committed itself ideologically to council housing at the NPF, which for some NPF members represented a significant ideological shift on the Government’s part. (My Tribune story on the subject is unfortunately not online.)

The Tories read Tribune - but do they speak union?

Tribune’s circulation is not massive, so I’m always cheered when I come across a new reader, especially if they read my stories. And my god, someone at Conservative Central Office has been reading them carefully.

On Monday, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling unveiled a report, Old Labour is back, detailing how, as the Conservatives argue, the Labour Party is under the thumb of, and financially dependent on, trade unions.

There’s no dispute about the second point: according to the Electoral Commission, unions provided Labour with 93% of its funding in the first quarter of this year. But are they really controlling the agenda? Trouble with this report is that, although it was released on the day after Labour’s National Policy Forum wrapped up, it was inevitably compiled beforehand. Many of the union policy demands mentioned in the report - in fact, all the controversial ones like secondary picketing and higher rates of National Insurance for the richer - were refused.

And where did they get the facts from?

“Tribune also reported that unions were calling for workers in other factories should be able to strike if a company closed one factory and other closures were proposed… Tribune reported that the unions were demanding new rules to protect the jobs of workers whose companies are bought out by private equity firms… Tribune reported that the unions were demanding an extension of the role of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority into the construction industry…”

In fact all their Tribune quotes (and they are word for word) are lifted from my 13 June story on Warwick II (see below). Maybe they only read one issue? I doubt it: a little birdie tells me that no less a person than Oliver Letwin has picked up a copy in CCHQ.

I should point out at this point that I don’t trawl the Internet regularly looking to se if my stories have been picked up. I came across this after reading a story somewhere (I forget where) about Tories attacking Labour for being in hock to the unions.

Anyway, if you’re waiting for me to get to the point, relax: I’m just about to. In this same report, the Tories complain about unions getting taxpayers’ money. And indeed they do: last year the Unionlearn fund, which encourages workers to take advantage of learning opportunites at work, was funded by the government to the tune of £18.4 million. There’s also a union modernisation fund, which since its third round last year has started doling out £3 million to various projects which won grants.

Neither of these funds are secrets. People from the TUC are happy to talk about them. And they have benefited unions other than just those who fund the Labour Party, although the report doesn’t make this clear.

Question is: what will the Tories do if/when they get into power? Just abolish these funds as an unpleasant vestige of a time when the governing party channeled taxpayers’ money into unions so it could get it back in affiliation fees? David Cameron likes to talk about harnessing the private and voluntary sectors to help deliver public services and social gain. Why not unions too?

Since March this year, the Tories have had a part-time envoy to the trade union movement, former Labour MEP Richard Balfe. And according to one union boss, he’s already doing the rounds of unions and planning for after the election…

Warwick II: “Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!”

That’s what an angry official close to Labour’s Warwick II policy process spat out to me this week when his pressurised mind drifted onto the subject of the Conservative Party. The Tories believe - perhaps soundly - that they can make political capital out of Labour’s relationship with the unions. But is it fair, objectively speaking? In the week when Labour and the unions came under close scrutiny, and the week before Labour’s National Policy Forum meets in Warwick, it’s worth surveying what’s happened - and asking if Labour’s more scared than it needs to be.

Earlier, the Conservatives cancelled a Parliamentary opposition debate on Warwick II scheduled for Wednesday, and chose to focus on the subject of MPs’ expenses instead. Presumably they though richer pickings were to be found.

That didn’t stop BBC Newsnight from running a report last night on Labour and the unions. Picking up on the local government strikes (see post below), it asked the question: are these strikes intended to put pressure on the government to do the unions’ bidding? There was some suggestive use of visuals, including a list of union demands for Warwick II superimposed on a picture of strikers’ placards.

Putting to one side what the unions are asking for (if you want to find out, pick up a copy of Tribune tomorrow and read my article, plug plug) are this week’s strikes anything to do with it? I can’t see how.

We’ve had local government strikes before, in 2002 and 2006. The 2002 one was twice the size of this year’s - 1.2 million workers out instead of 600,000. But we didn’t have one in 2004 - the time of the last Warwick Agreement. The strikes have been caused by below-inflation pay rises - 2.45 per cent for LG staff this year, when inflation hit 3.8 per cent last month.

So why haven’t Labour come out and said this? Why was the low-profile minister Pat McFadden the only member of the government to show his face on Newsnight to defend Labour’s policy-making process? Labour, the unions and their intermediaries, the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation, appear so wary of being tainted by this week’s strikes that they don’t want to even address the question of strikes as undue influence. I failed to get a statement on the subject for my Tribune story this week.

However, they could argue, if they wanted to, that the strikes are a totally separate issue and furthermore that Labour’s policy-making through the National Policy Forum (an elected body) is more democratic than the Tories’. There’s just one catch, which is that what the NPF agrees is not guaranteed to become policy, while the union shopping list will be considered not just by the NPF but No 10 too. It’s therefore likely to have more leverage. Charlie Whelan, a political officer in Britain’s biggest union Unite, is Gordon Brown’s former spin doctors and likely to be influential on topics he chooses to back - just as he was influential in the selection of Labour’s new general secretary.

But to return to the headline of this post, there is anger and tension over the issue of Warwick II. The issue of secondary picketing (already ruled out by Brown) has become a hot potato, although unions say they are only asking for ’supportive picketing’ by members of the same companies.

So when Brown, union general secretaries and the NPF all meet in Warwick next week it seems they will be on the defensive and trying to prevent more stories in the ”right-wing media” (their words) like this one. With the media camped outside their door, they’ll have a hard time of it.

Strike!

Today’s Daily Mail has a rather sensationalist take on the news that about 850,000 council workers are going on strike.* However, even if you hate the laziness of journalists who talk about a ’spring of discontent’ followed by a ’summer of discontent’ and so on (as Kevin Maguire says in this week’s Tribune), you can’t deny that strikes are in the air.

It’s not just the local government workers in the union Unison - although that covers a very wide variety of people, from social workers to dinner ladies, sorry,  catering staff. This autumn sees a strike ballot by civil servants in the PCS union, which could see 280,000 people on strike.

And one union - the GMB - told me yesterday that they want to revise the NHS pay deal for 1.3 million staff - which was only agreed last week.

The reason for all this is, of course, inflation and the rising cost of food, fuel and energy in particular. It is those costs, and not pay rises, which are responsible for the sharp increase in the rate of inflation this year, according to Bank of England governor Mervyn King. He said last week that inflation measured accoriding to the CPI - the government way - will hit 4 per cent this year. Council workers were being offered 2.45 per cent.

The real issue is not, I think, the effect that those strike days will have on local services or the economy, but whether the government’s belt-tightening pay policy will still hold in the face of over 2 million refuseniks. Ideally they would like to see 2 per cent pay rises all round, which - they say - will help bring inflation under control. And it’s true that Mervyn King says inflation will come back under control if only we don’t spend too much or pay ourselves too much.

But the unions won’t stand for that. Unison, which is also party to the NHS pay deal, isn’t threatening to reopen talks just yet, but from what I’m learning they will probably do so in a few months - just as the PCS union starts balloting for strike action.

Be in no doubt - Brown and Darling are being tested, and tested hard. David Cameron is already cheerfully talking about how Labour is in a “stranglehold” because of union funding. We may not be about to witness a winter of discontent like 1978-79, it could bring down the Government all the same.

*Update, 12 July: Actually, only about 600,000 workers are due to go on strike, since only the English, Welsh and Northern Irish Unison members were balloted. Scottish members - who make up the remaining 250,000 - are being balloted seperately.

David Davis and his Labour friends

It wouldn’t do for me to post early; so it is that, eight days after David Davis resigns, I get round to posting on the subject.

Now that it’s clear that Labour wil not stand an opponent against Davis, and Gordon Brown dismisses his re-election campaign as a “stunt”, the question arises of whether the Tory will receive widespread support for his cause. Early signs look to me to spell trouble for the Government.

Is it really a cause he’s fighting for? Tonight an alternative and alluring argument was put to me. It runs like this: Davis wins his seat, proves he takes a moral hard line on important issues unlike wishy-washy David Cameron, waits a few years for Cameron’s political stock to decline and then becomes Tory leader. Interesting, but pure speculation, and contradicted by all the commentators (not that that means it’s wrong).

At any rate, it’s not a view taken by many on the Labour left. The New Statesman - a magazine not quite as inextricably bound to the Labour Party as mine, but still pretty close - has this week criticised the Government in its leader column for being “disrespectful” to the voters of Davis’ Haltemprice and Howden constituency for not putting up a Labour candidate to argue the Government’s case. If a liberal - without Davis’ right-wing record - were put up to argue against the Government, the Statesman says, they would happily support them.

But some Labour MPs are minded to further and straightforwardly support Davis - who insisted in an interview with Labourhome this week that he was campaigning on the sole issue of 42 days. Bob Marshall-Andrews and Ian Gibson - both well-known rebels - have already said so.

This week I spoke to one such MP. Granted, he was one of the awkward squad and you wouldn’t expect him to say anything else, but he said that he predicted many other MPs would come out in support of Davis if Labour didn’t field a candidate, which they’ve now confirmed.

I might be inclined to take that with a pinch of salt - had I not heard another, less rebellious Labour MP, say a similar thing last week. They also praised Davis for his stance.

Finally, consider that Jon Trickett, left-wing Labour MP and chairman of the Tribune board, was forced to resign as parliamentary spokesperson of the moderate left-wing Labour pressure group Compass last week, because he supported the government on 42 days. Jon Cruddas, who is close to Trickett and equally lefty, did the same - but he wasn’t the parliamentary spokesperson of Compass and hasn’t made quite as much noise as Trickett about supporting the government’s line.

So all in all, I believe - and I could be wrong - that a good few Labour MPs will come out in support of Davis. But apart from Gibson and Marshall-Andrews, they haven’t admitted so to the public yet.

Update, 21 June: Forgot to say, my editor has written on this very subject for his lead article in this week’s Tribune.

Labour, the unions and Warwick II

About time I posted - not just because this blog’s been gathering dust, but because I’ve something to shout about. And if trade unions bore you, please bear with me.

I’m chuffed. My unremarkable reporting has landed an inadvertent scoop: to wit, some of the demands that the Labour Party’s affiliated trade unions - who give the party most of its funding - are making in the run-up to “Warwick II”, the successor to the 2004 Warwick Agreement. For the uninitiated (and that was me a few months ago), this was an policy agreement that helped form Labour’s 2005 election manifesto and contained demands on everything from paid holidays to keeping the Royal Mail nationalised to use of ASBOs.

One element of the agreement - equal treatment for both permanent and temporary workers - has only just been implemented, and others are still waiting. But with another election on the horizon, Labour and the unions are preparing to sit down and thrash out another agreement. The agenda was drawn up this week, and that’s what my story was about.

I thought it was an important issue, but I wasn’t expecting Labourhome and Labour Outlook to link to it; much less for Sam Coates, The Times’  redoutable chief political corrspondent (and far more frequent blogger than this one) to link to it and quote a large chunk of my article. Not bad on the week of David Davis’ resignation. Seems nobody else was chasing up their contacts in the unions.

Warwick II is important because it’ll be part of the election manifesto, and although it represents the interests of unions the scope is far from narrow and will affect the lives of just about everybody. For instance, the last agreement contained a commitment to award NHS cleaning contracts on the basis of the standard of work done and not just cost.

Now, above and beyond what I wrote in my story  (and bear in mind that there are many, many details of Warwick II yet to emerge), there are two elephant-in-the-room questions. One: are these union demands being made in return for promises to fund the Labour Party out of its approaching bankruptcy? And two: why have Warwick II (it sounds like a computer game, doesn’t it) when Warwick I isn’t fully delivered yet?

In answer to the first, the union sources I’ve spoken to don’t see it that way. But if they did, you might argue, they wouldn’t want to let on about it. It obviously does the Labour Party no favours to appear to be in thrall to the demands of the unions - apart from anything else, it allows critics and enemies to conjure up parallels with the 1970s and the Winter of Discontent, however far-fetched they may be. However, unions such as the GMB have made clear that they are unhappy with Labour’s policies and will respond with adjustments to funding of the party. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown, who has been forced to hold crisis meetings over Labour’s terrible finances, is planning to meet unions next week to discuss Warwick. I’d be suprised if funding didn’t come up.

Mr Coates on his blog says the unions will not let Labour go bust. Maybe not; but Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, a major Labour donor, told his members very firmly at his annual conference last week that he wouldn’t allow any union money to pay for Labour’s debts. Other unions such as Unite - Britain’s biggest - will take a softer view, however. On balance I think Coates (who knows a lot more than I do) is right.

As for the second point - what about Warwick I? - the fact is, unions haven’t forgotten. The GMB, again,  put Labour on notice at their conference to honour their commitment to Warwick. Otherwise, a motion said, the union will reconsider its support for the party. But the idea that all 16 unions will demand full implementation of Warwick I at a time when Labour is so vulnerable to the Tories seems unlikely.

Watch this space, and read Tribune - first with the news…

Colombia: War by Statistics

About time I blogged about Colombia. It’s a place we cover quite often in Tribune. And it was in the papers recently:

“The legendary leader of Colombia’s biggest guerrilla group has died, delivering a devastating blow to the insurgency. Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, the founder and commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), died of a heart attack on March 26, the rebel group confirmed yesterday.” (The Guardian, Monday 26 May)

Such reports might lead readers to believe that the death of this man - who has been commander-in-chief of the Marxist guerilla army for decades (they formed in 1964) - has effectively decapitated the guerillas, and left them vulnerable. The BBC said his death “cast doubts” over the group’s future. Not so.

If the FARC are seriously weakened, it’s not because of Marulanda’s death. It may not even be by the demobilisations which are a linchpin of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s policy.

Marulanda has apparently been dead for two months, but the FARC have not gone ungoverned. Like any good Marxist organisation, they are run by committee: a central high command, with a secretariat of about seven people, has the supreme authority. One of its number, Alfonso Cano, is now commander-in-chief. Not much is known about him, expect that he has not held major military office within FARC. Marulanda himself was ill for a while, and how much power he exercised in his dying days we cannot say.

And how do we know FARC’s future is in jeopardy? Part of the reason is the government’s demobilisation policy. But some observers, notably pressure group Justice for Colombia (who are no great fans, it must be said, of the government) say their figures don’t add up. The Colombian Ministry of Defence claims that 7,849 FARC demobilised between 2003 (a year after Uribe came to power) and 2007. The government is also supposed to have demobilised  [page in Spanish] over 30,000 of the right-wing paramilitaries who are sworn enemies of the FARC. But JFC say that there were never that many paramilitaries to begin with. They put the figure in the order of 10,000.

Meanwhile, the FARC, while having a fairly standard-looking command structure, is split into seven blocs spread across the country, and further split into fronts. (Details here). Even if one bloc were annihilated (hard to do in the jungle) it would not necessarily precipiatate the fall of the rest.

That’s not to say FARC haven’t suffered setbacks. The assassination of Raul Reyes, one of Marulanda’s right-hand men and his chief negotiator, was certainly a blow. But it seems unwise to write off this tenacious guerilla army just yet. They’ve lasted 44 years and - for now - have guaranteed income from the drugs trade. The war against them is heavily financed by the US, to the disquiet of some on Capitol Hill. With a US election on its way, the FARC may be hoping they can sit it out.

The Saudis Are Listening

I stumbled across something on the interweb recently which gave me a suprise. It happened while I was doing one of those things which, like masturbation, is widely done but seldom admitted: Googling my own name.

The controversy over BAE Systems and their Al-Yamamah contracts, with their well-documented allegations of corruption, is something I’ve written about a few times. In March, I reported for Tribune about a freedom of information case related to attempts by campaigners to force the Serious Fraud Office to repoen their corruption enquiry. Basically, the campaigners had made FOI requests to the government and had been refused; they didn’t expect to find direct evidence of bribery, but wanted the documents to build a better picture of BAE’s relationship with the Saudi and British governments (although the British weren’t a party to the contracts, they were heavily involved at various stages in promoting the deals over several decades). You can read my article here. I am in fact the only person to have reported the story (of which more later).

Anyway, I was surprised in the course of my Google-powered self-abuse to come across this slim brochure published by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Right there on page five was my article, with its rather un-Saudi-friendly headline, “UK ignores Saudi human rights abuses, says former top official”, intact. The brochure announces itself as the Weekly Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Information and Studies Centre. My story appeared alongside others from Jane’s Defence Review, Canada’s National Post and Arab News.

A quick look around the MOFA website reveals what is going on - because they helpfully explain it for you.: “The ministry of foreign affairs in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia established a center that is dedicated to finding the effective mechanism to present all kinds of information in the mean time to decision makers.” This information includes impressive-sounding databases of events, important global personalities and information about the countries of the world.

They also produce publications: “The center publishes daily an English Language report that contains news about the Kingdom foreign media published in English language be they from the Arab world or otherwise. The news items are published in a balanced manner whether they are economic or political. The report is published in a modern style and contains whatever written about the Kingdom be they negative or positive in nature… Senior officials in the Ministry receive a copy of this report which is published daily and consists of 4 colored pages that are increased sometimes to 8 pages based on  the volume of news.”

So there you have it. The Saudi royal family’s officials are monitoring the media, and even - it seems - our humble website. Maybe I can influence global opinion after all!

Welcome to my blog

Hello, I’m René and I’m the staff reporter of Tribune magazine, a political weekly based in London. This - apart from one false start a few weeks ago - is my first proper blog. Strange for a twenty-four-year-old journalist, but true. Let me explain briefly what this blog is, and isn’t, for.

Just as Tribune is closely associated with, but independent of, the Labour Party, so this blog relies on, but is independent of, my work at Tribune.  All the views are my own, etc etc. But this blog won’t be about views, but facts. I’m not going to try to imitate the polemical style of blogging of, say, Guido Fawkes. Firstly, it would just be a pale imitation (unlike Guido, I have no affiliation, official or unofficial, to any political party), and secondly I’ve got something to do which will hopefully be a nice change from that blogging style. I will try to provide some insight into some of the week’s political stories with what little inside information I can muster. Scoops are unlikely to happen, but you never know. Think of this blog as being like Nick Robinson’s, but without all the knowledge and skill. I am a trained journalist, mind, which will hopefully make things bearable. Other subjects may creep in if they can be linked somehow to the main political issues.

I will also try and set the record straight when a media outlet gets something wrong  - something I haven’t been too bad at in the past. And I’ll try to be as readable as possible. On we go.