Climate Change has brought freezing cold rain dripping down the back of my neck so I recommend you stay indoors and fill this up…

You’d never have known that there were any concerns about growing Union power over the Labour Party from this Today interview last Saturday in which we had Labour man Jim Naughtie interviewing (08:10)  (unfortunately now timed out) Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow south-west and the former Labour lord chancellor, Lord Falconer to discuss the proposals….so three Labourites in a BBC studio…any possibility they might come up with the truth?

No….You’d have had no idea that the Unions might come out as the dominant group…we were told the concerns are that the Party becomes too centralised…marginalising other groups like the Unions…..no inkling  that that centralisation favours the Unions….and blocks out those inconvenient MPs who voted against Ed Miliband.

No questions from Naughtie that might indicate the Unions will in fact benefit….you come away thinking the opposite….the new rules will marginalise and minimise the role of Trade Unions….‘That’s the intent of these changes…breaking the link with the Unions’.…Lord Falconer telling us that it will increase the power of the individual voter….not a small group of Union leaders…..

All rubbish…even the BBC itself admits that there are huge concerns about a Union power grab (and Miliband’s intent is in fact to tighten links to the Unions):

Some senior Labour party figures are worried a move aimed at diminishing the unions’ influence could end up handing them even more power.

Just for your information here’s a closer look at what the reforms might mean……

Here are the voting splits in final round of the Labour Party leadership election 2010:

Section 1 is the MPs, section 2 is LP members, section 3 the Unions….

As you can see 262 MPs get the same percentage vote (33.33%)  as 199,671 union members who voted.

This is to change under Miliband’s reforms….the MPs will still select which candidates go on to the short list for leader but lose their block vote in the actual election.

Also…only union members who will have actively chosen to be affiliated with Labour through their union can vote and only their affiliation fees will be forwarded to Labour.

At present there are 15 unions affiliated to Labour (not the NUT surprisingly…though allegedly most Labour membership is made up of teachers)…in total there are 6.5 million Trade Union members…

but …

Together, the 15 affiliated trade unions bring the voices of almost 3 million union members to the heart of the Labour Party.

So 2.7 million are actually paying into the general political fund……but at present they are automatically affiliated with Labour and fees for that affiliation (£3 each) finds its way into Labour coffers….£8 million/year.

If under the reformed rules say 33% (as with Unison)  decide to opt-in and affiliate personally that’s still 900,000….and if 50% can be persuaded to vote as the Union directs that’s a potential 450,000 votes…up against 190,000 votes of the Labour Party members who of course won’t vote all for one candidate….as shown above Ed Miliband actually got fewer votes in the members vote but was levered into place by the unions….who will become even more powerful now.

Even on the figures from the 2010 election you can see 200,000 union members actually bothered to vote as against 123,000 LP members….so already they out vote the members on a one man one vote system….and that’s only 7.5% (of 2.7 million affiliated now).

So are the Unions losing power or gaining it?

The Unions have the potential to absolutely control the Labour leadership election result.

It should be noted that Labour, as an Opposition party gets ‘short Money’ from public funds to help pay running costs…this amounts to around £8m per year.

Many people suggest that Labour will suffer financially from changing the rules whereby anyone not opting out of the Union’s scheme have a portion of their fees paid into the political fund and to Labour….now they have to actively opt-in to pay Labour.

However…Labour could just raise its affiliation fees….and the Union member wouldn’t actually notice.

For example…Unite has 1.1 million members paying into its political fund (of 1.4 members in total)…..they pay in total around £155 million a year in union subs…..and of that £3.5 million in 2012 went in affiliation fees to Labour….or £3 per person paying into the general political fund and automatically being affiliated to Labour. (Bare in mind full membership of Labour Party costs £45/year)

It has been suggested that maybe only 10% of those paying into the political fund will agree to some of that being siphoned off to support Labour once Miliband’s reforms kick in…if ever…there is a 5 year time schedule…and will Labour want to enforce this change just before the next election?

However Unison already adopts the ‘opt-in’ scheme…in its own unique way and:

Approximately a third of Unison members who pay into our political fund are in the APF.

So not 10% but 33% pay into the Labour affiliation fund at Unison.

You might say 33% at Unite would still a big drop….it will only raise around £1.2 million…..but Labour could raise its affiliation fees…and the member wouldn’t pay any more in total…he pays around £150 a year into the Union general fund….and of that only £3 goes at present into the affiliation fees….so treble the fees to £9 and Labour would still get its money…but no one pays any extra in total….the general political fund shrinks a bit but…….

Another wrinkle is that although the general Political Fund is separate from the Labour Party affiliation fund in reality the political fund is used to indirectly support Labour as the Union uses it to campaign on issues that are in effect Labour policies….

As a Unite insider tells us:

In reality, the vast majority of UNITE’s spending from the political fund currently goes to support the Labour Party.

Labour’s Electoral College system by which they elect their leader, 1/3 of the vote for MPs, 1/3 to LP members, 1/3 to the Unions, is to go…and the system will be one man one vote.

This is the system now within the union sector of that system…there is no union ‘block vote’ as such….candidates relied upon the Union which backed them to persuade their members to vote for the chosen one.

Does the Union actually have any influence you might ask?

Yes they do.

It’s proven by these figures….GMB, Unison and Unite backed and campaigned for Ed Miliband, USDAW backed David Miliband.

The results show clearly that union members voted mainly in favour of the Union’s favoured candidate….USDAW members voted in bulk for David Miliband…which went against the trend.

They show that any candidate might expect around 50% of any union’s vote that backs him….and here shows that Ed Miliband often received more than double the votes his brother and nearest rival received, the rest shared between other candidates. (What is scary is just how many votes Diane Abbott received!)

So the Union’s decision on which candidate to back certainly influences its members…therefore the Unions will not only retain their influence over the leadership election but have it enhanced.

The Union Barons will be up against Labour Party members…or at least those that oppose the Union’s chosen candidate.

Your next question might be….what if I want to have the Union send money to the Conservatives and not Labour?

Unfortunately the Unions have close ties to Labour, for example Unite:

The union’s political committees are closely tied to Labour and closed to the vast majority of UNITE members.  A small percentage of UNITE members are in the Labour Party, but not even all of these are eligible to take part in UNITE’s political conferences and committees – Rule 22.5 puts extra hurdles in the way.  Only Labour Party members who are delegated from other UNITE committees or who are delegates to Constituency Labour Parties can take part.  The effect is often to make these committees more like the voices of Labour in the union, rather than the voice of the union in the Labour Party.

Unite will tell you that voting to have a political fund is vital…whatever party you support…

A YES vote to a Political fund is not a vote
for Labour – it is a vote for a voice
You don’t need to be a Labour supporter to recognise
that over the last century, Labour and the unions have
provided a political balance to the Conservative Party
and the rampant interest of big business. 90 percent of
the current funding of the Tory party comes from big
business. 23 of the current cabinet are millionaires.

but of course that is rubbish…as Unite supports only one party…Labour:

With the formation of Unite, our members also approved our own Rule Book, setting out the clear political objectives of our union, which are that we are affiliated to the Labour Party, the party found by working people for working people

From Unite’s rule book:  Their aims….

2.1.5 To further political objectives including by affiliation to the Labour Party….[which are] public ownership of important areas of economic activity and services, including health, education, water, post, rail and local passenger transport

Everything is controlled by Unite’s Executive Council….which is controlled by Labour Party members essentially….many key, influential positions must be occupied by a Labour Party member.

So many of the Unions are almost irrevocably tied to Labour and any political fund will go to furthering Labour’s objectives.

So the Union’s voting power is almost certainly increased dramatically by Miliband’s reforms….and the Unions are irrevocably tied to the Labour Party.

So the question might be will Miliband’s reforms work?

The reforms were supposed to be a response to the now proven allegations of vote rigging in Falkirk….to stop abuses of the electoral system and to demonstrate that Miliband wasn’t just a Union puppet, bought and paid for.

The reforms as seen above completely fail to rein in the Unions, doing the opposite in fact…and Labour will probably not lose any funding….at worst any shortfall being made up by use of the Union’s general political funds to campaign on Labour issues….far from remedying the issues raised by Falkirk they exacerbate them….encouraging even more Union ‘persuasion’ and dubious methods of gathering support.

The reality is that the reforms are a also ploy designed to recruit more people to Labour…making loose connections at first that they hope will lead to full membership of the Party.

Unite for instance has its own ploy…by allowing students and the unemployed to join the Union…. starting them off on a path that leads to more influence and connections to Labour.

3.3 There shall be a further category of membership open to students and others not in employment who wish to play a part in the work of the union in the wider community.

This is from the Collins report that lays out Labour’s reforms:

So you can see that these reforms are intended to create a stepping stone, a path for recruitment of supporters who hopefully will turn into full members.

One other aspect is Party funding…the potential is that Labour might not lose any money…but its plan also undercuts the Tories funding.

Miliband is proposing a cap of £5,000 on individual donations……as the Tories get millions from individuals that would have a serious effect upon the Tories…whilst Labour can freely continue to get funding from the Unions…not as a single large Union donation but as a collection of individual donations gifted by people who individually opt-in to affiliation.

The reforms are not about Miliband ‘standing tall‘, as the BBC claim, in opposing the Unions it’s in fact the complete opposite….still doing the Union’s bidding and forging even closer ties to them than at present.

And last summer, after the disaster that kept giving that was Falkirk – when Unite was accused of attempting to rig the process to select a Labour candidate in the by-election – Ed Miliband stood tall and declared it was time for change.

Yes change alright…..bit like the Russian Revolution was a ‘change’.

Two think tanks, Policy Exchange and Civitas, have criticised Ofsted…..apparently that is not allowed.

The boss of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, said he was ‘spitting blood’ about the ‘attacks’…he claims the ‘attack dogs’ were set on him by Michael Gove.

Apparently Sir Michael Wilshaw believes he is above criticism.

The BBC seems to agree…at least when it is from ‘Right leaning’ think tanks…or ‘rightwing’ think tanks as they described them on Today this morning.

They are happy to repeat the very political choice of words used…using ‘attack’ in the headline instead of ‘criticism’…which gives the impression of a determined attempt to undermine Ofsted and to destroy it.

Sir Michael Wilshaw ‘spitting blood’ over Ofsted attack

Wilshaw is the one doing the ‘attacking’ with intemperate language and ill-judged refusal to accept criticism….all seemingly backed up by the BBC.

The categorisation of the criticism as ‘rightwing’ clearly demonstrates the intent to discredit the source and label the criticism as purely ideological rather based on any substance.

However…..from the ‘leftwing’ Demos:

The BBC were quick to follow Miliband’s lead and challenge the Tories on their supposed lack of women in government…as opposed to Miliband’s  abundance of the female of the species on his front bench….most of whom shouldn’t actually have been there…merely shipped in ‘decoration’ for a photo opportunity….a bit of Politicians’ Page three…..not cheap exploitation of women by Labour there then!

Political point scoring aside…does it do Miliband any good?  The BBC aren’t too keen to check that out despite their proclivity for polls on everything.

Here’s one that must make uncomfortable reading for those at the BBC who continue to tell us that Miliband is making the political running with his populist, opportunist empty promises…..

Even Nigel Farage is usually ahead of Miliband.

About time the BBC started to recognise and admit that Miliband is Kinnock MkII….a windbag with lots of headline catching promises but no substance.

Just think..if Miliband is doing this badly now just how badly would he do if the BBC were to tell the truth about him…that he ran scared from the unions, that far from reining in the Unions’ power he has enhanced it, that he knew all along about Unite’s little vote rigging charade, that Assad sits safely in control in Syria happily bombing schoolchildren because Miliband cowardly ducked the decision to threaten force to bring him to the negotiating table…he was brave to stab his brother in the back in the corridors of Westminster but when it really counted and lives were at stake he dodged the decision.

Miliband is a coward, a charlatan and a liar.

Good job the BBC has his back.

Ever get the impression that if Miliband crapped himself in the studio someone from BBC props would rush out and paint it gold?

Just another one, or two, to add to the suspicious list of things the BBC has avoided mentioning recently.

The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in an official visit to the UK recently made some startling comments:

Rise of Eurosceptic parties could put peace in Europe at risk, German foreign minister claims

Now it would surely be churlish to point out that it was the Germans who started both catastrophic world wars in the last 100 years…..and then ask the obvious question….is he saying we actually can’t trust the Germans unless they are wrapped up in Euro bureaucracy?

Is it Germany that will start the next war and not the power hungry Nigel Farage who of course is determined to have a European empire?

That’s  a question we can’t answer because the BBC decided not to report the words of the German foreign minister on a state visit who declared we are heading for war if UKIP gets its way.

Might be of note you’d think….every newspaper in the land thought so and duly reported his words…but not the BBC.

Does the BBC not want us to realise just what fanatical lunatics are in charge of the EU?

Herman Van Rompuy: ‘Euroscepticism leads to war’

Democracy eh?  Who needs it?

The BBC does have time to report this:

The Nazi murder law that still exists

but not the rise of the new German ‘bureaucratic empire’…running the EU….based on the power not of its army but of its economy.

The euro crisis will give Germany the empire it’s always dreamed of

Curiously though the BBC has no time for this major study of the EU dream:

Dutch would be ‘better off’ if they left the euro

There are big economic benefits for the Dutch in leaving the EU, finds a major study

Surely that is an important analysis that deserves some investigation…one that would form an important part of the debate that is raging now in this country….and that is possibly why the BBC has ignored it.

No doubt they will report it in due time…once they have analysed it and come up with a workable interpretation that illustrates just how wrong the study is.

The Somerset Levels…..climate change has meant they are now more like the Lost City of Atlantis…or that was the line we were being fed early on.

Then the locals started kicking off….demanding dredging…..if the rivers had been dredged as they were 20 or so years ago this flooding would never have happened they proclaimed.

All a bit inconvenient for the climate change brigade….not climate change but lack of dredging caused the floods.

The solution…..the Met. Office rushed out its rainfall analysis, three days early, telling of ‘record rain’…except it wasn’t really….UK floods: January rain breaks records in parts of England…….because the records were very localised….and not the total rainfall for the UK as a whole (1948 being heavier)….just as in 1682….A severe thunderstorm at Oxford 31st May (old-style calendar). Nearly ‘2 feet’ of ‘rain fell’ into a 4 foot diameter container. Almost certainly accompanied by a tornado and there is much speculation about how much of the rain was due to a collapsing very strong updraught or tornado vortex.

And of course…as we know…that’s ‘weather’.

According to Bishop Hill they have started down the climate change route again:

Lord Krebs, the zoologist who sits on the adaptation subcommittee of the Climate Change Committee, was on the Today programme yesterday telling us that:

“What we are experiencing now in terms of flooding and extreme weather is likely to become more common in the future due to climate change”.

 

With that in mind…and the fact that ‘climate change’ happens all the time…just that when someone like Krebbs uses the term he does so in a rather disingenuous way….with the intended but unspoken message that it is man made climate change…..with that in mind….perhaps this might be of interest and put such ‘extremes’ into perspective:

British Climate from 4000 BC to present day

Thousands of years of massive storms, endless floods covering much of England, tidal surges, typhoons, lighting storms 9 days in a month, long droughts, long periods covered in snow and ice….the climate has always been ‘extreme’ and changing.

Shame we are fed the lie that such ‘extremes’ are unusual.

What is the difference between the BBC and fellow alarmist climate lobbyists and the witch doctors and priests of old (and UKIP councillors) who rushed out to proclaim floods, famine, plagues and pestilence were a punishment from God, and made a very good living out of doing so?

Funny what the BBC misses out of its news reports.

One of the big political  battlegrounds is ‘fairness’….just how much are the Rich really suffering for instance…just how much are they paying in taxes?

That’s right at the heart of Labour’s attack on the Tories…accused of being the party for Millionaires and big business.

First of all though, no mention of this by the BBC in their report:

Growth expected to be 2.6% in 2014 …Growth of 2.6% would leave the UK amongst the fastest growing developed economies.

Yeah…definitely don’t want to mention that.  Why let people know the good news?

Then there’s this…..from the Telegraph:

UK tax system is ‘punishing success’ says Institute for Fiscal Studies

IFS voices concern about state’s growing reliance on tax revenue from small number of high earners

“The Government might be concerned if the Exchequer becomes increasingly reliant on one particular revenue source, as it increases the risk that a shock to one revenue source would have serious implications for total revenues,” the IFS said in its annual Green Budget.

Politicians should resist the “knee-jerk” urge to tax the rich harder during downturns or risk them leaving the country, the economists said.

And the Daily Mail has this big old headline:

Top 1% of earners already pay almost 30% of all income tax as IFS warns half of spending cuts have still not been made

The BBC do not have that headline….and in fact do not mention the rather important statement by the IFS in their report on the IFS’s analysis:

Cost of living crisis to turn around this year, IFS says

Which is curious really because the BBC mentions everything else that is eyecatching except this one very politically relevant fact contained in this IFS press release:

Still not half way there yet on planned spending cuts

Harder to quantify are the risks associated with our increasing reliance on a small group of very rich taxpayers. The share of income tax paid by the top 1% of taxpayers rose from 11% in 1979 to 27.5% in 2011–12. The income tax alone paid by these 300,000 very high income individuals accounts for 7.5% of all tax revenue. These individuals will of course also pay a large fraction of VAT and capital taxes.

And it’s not the only time the IFS has mentioned this ….from a few days ago…here being more explicit that there is a risk:

The Exchequer is, perhaps worryingly, reliant on this very small group of individuals for a very large fraction of revenue: the 1% of income tax payers with incomes in excess of £150,000 pay somewhere between 25 and 30% of all income tax.

And income tax is set to become even more important as government’s switch from trying to impose corporation tax on will-o-the-wisp multi-nationals and raise it instead on the income of employees, VAT and NI….

‘….government is becoming increasingly reliant on the three main taxes–income tax, VAT and National Insurance contributions (NICs) –which will account for two thirds of all revenue by 2018–19‘

In other words we will be even more reliant on the top earners….so Labour scaring them off by imposing even more taxes (50p + rate?)  is possibly not a good idea if you are reliant on them to stay and pay taxes…..see the effect Ed’s mate Hollande and his socialist tax has had on the French rich….they’ve all moved to London….along with their income tax.

Interesting the BBC doesn’t want you to know that the rich are paying such a huge sum of money that we are too ‘reliant upon it’….and that there are risks associated with (Labour’s policy of) relying upon soaking the Rich.

Not something Ed Miliband would like to have broadcast.

And note yet again the BBC concentrates on ‘real wages’…which the IFS tells us is misleading as a measure of the cost of living…as it does not equate to actual income received.

In other words even if ‘real wages’ are still rising only slowly it doesn’t mean there is a ‘cost of living crisis’…..sluggish wage growth appears to be a long-term pattern that has little to do with the recession or the current government.

“However painful falling wages may be, it is important to note that they may have been instrumental in preventing a much larger increase in unemployment,” is how the professors put it…..Labour has repeatedly cited the IFS’s research on falling wages without quoting them on this important point.

The BBC as well funnily enough.

‘……But never mind the facts, perhaps it really is how people feel that is most important to the politicians.

As Mr Miliband knows, 81 per cent of respondents in a recent YouGov poll said they believed prices grew faster than household incomes over the last year.’

Here you go, a middle of the week Open Thread! Enjoy!

Not so long ago the BBC was accused of being Miliband’s Moutpiece:

BBC accused of becoming Ed Miliband’s mouthpiece

The BBC is facing calls for an inquiry into the extensive coverage it has given to Ed Miliband’s dispute with a newspaper.

Now it looks like they have managed to avoid publicising another dent in his reputation:

From the Mail….

Ouch! Ed Miliband is left off list of Britain’s best-connected men but his brother and spin doctor are IN

The Guardian reported it:

Ed Miliband fails to make UK’s 100 most connected – but his brother does

Rupert Murdoch, David Beckham and David Miliband on list of ‘influencers and socialites’ which also excludes Nick Clegg

And look…even the the Gloucester Citizen reports GQ’s list:

Prince Charles and Stephen Fry listed in GQ’s 100 Most Connected Men in the UK

Not the BBC though…despite Tony Hall being on it.

Wonder why they didn’t want to publish this bit of fun and games that dismisses Miliband as a bit of a non-entity?

Just been listening to a bit of a royalist love-in on 5Live as Charlie makes a good impression with the boat people of Somerset-Under-Water….and the BBC ‘Royal’ correspondent.

The BBC had no problem with his highly political comments…in fact they give them the headline on the website:

Somerset flood delay a ‘tragedy’, says Prince Charles

How times change when it suits…normally if Charlie interferes in the political process by writing letters expressing his opinions there are cries of outrage…not so here when he’s slating the Coalition….and promoting climate change….suddenly the ‘non-political’ Prince is a valued commentator to whom Government must respond…..

Asked to respond to the Prince’s comments, David Cameron’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister has repeatedly said… that the situation that a number of communities in the Somerset area find themselves in is unacceptable.

As said…not always so….  

Prince Charles is the voice of Mel Phillips, not the people

From Chelsea barracks to education, the Prince of Wales’s abuse of position cries out for constitutional action.

Way back in 2012 we learn from the BBC that the Prince’s comments must be kept secret or he would  “forfeit his position of political neutrality” and would as such “be seriously damaging to his role as a future monarch”.