Len McCluskey vs Ed Miliband: Look out for the reds under the bed, Ed!

By
Andrew Pierce

Last updated at 10:36 PM on 22nd January 2012

As the leader of Britain’s biggest trade union, Len McCluskey could make or break the leadership of Red Ed Miliband.

Unite’s votes not only secured the job for Miliband, over his big brother David, but the union  is also Labour’s most generous supporter, having given £5 million in 12 months.

But how wise was Miliband to jump into bed with Unite?

Threat: Unite leader Len McCluskey (left) has warned that the union may withdraw its funding for the Labour Party

Threat: Unite leader Len McCluskey (left) has warned that the union may withdraw its funding for the Labour Party

Threat: Unite leader Len McCluskey (left) has warned that the union may withdraw its funding for the Labour Party

McCluskey, who could bankrupt Labour if he carried out his threat to pull the financial plug on the Party, has quietly forged links with Leo Gerard, a militant U.S. trade union leader.

McCluskey has set up a company, Workers Uniting Trustees, to forge a union between Unite and Gerard’s United Steelworkers union. Their aim: ‘Improving international solidarity, political action, co-ordinated collective bargaining … and most of all, fighting back for working people.’

Gerard is the only other director of the company, which is registered at the Unite HQ. And just how  militant is Gerard?

In a radio interview in November, after anti-capitalist protesters occupied Wall Street, he declared: ‘What we need is more militancy. We’ve got to start a resistance movement. If Wall Street occupation doesn’t get the message [across], I think we ought to be doing more.

‘No wonder people are occupying. We ought to be doing more than occupying parks. We ought to start occupying bridges. We ought to start occupying the banks … themselves.’

No wonder the New York Times called him the ‘No 1 scourge of free traders’. Red Ed has been warned.

Was it really wise for Labour’s attack on tax havens in the Channel Islands to be spearheaded by Chuka Umunna, the Shadow Business Secretary?

Last year, the Mail reported that Umunna’s £1 million family home was funded from the Channel Islands.

The purchase of Umunna’s mother’s house was financed via a Jersey-based trust which helps ‘high net worth’ individuals to ‘plan for and mitigate tax liabilities’. The large detached property in his Streatham, South London, constituency was his home until six years ago, when he moved to a nearby flat.

Jeremy Hunt

Blogging off…

In evidence to a joint committee  of MPs and peers, the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt disclosed he wrote a daily blog, but was not optimistic that many people bothered to read it. He’s right. In the past three months, only three people responded to his erudite outpourings.

Quote of the week: Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, said: ‘I am certainly not a blogger. Quite a large proportion of them are nuts and extremists — with the honourable exception of the Culture Secretary.’

Joke of the week: Labour MP Jamie Reed tweets: ‘Apparently, Hitler’s Wolf’s lair is now available to rent. Tory stag weekend anyone?’

Taxing Labour’s memory

As part of his latest attempt to shore up his popularity, Ed Miliband launched an attack on  ‘rip-off Britain’.

He singled out airlines such as Ryanair, which charges passengers for baggage, paying with credit cards, and failing to use electronic ticketing.

It’s hard to disagree with that. But Miliband conveniently omits from his charge sheet the decision of the Labour Cabinet in 2007 to double air passenger duty.

As Climate Change Secretary at the time, Miliband defended  the hike, saying: ‘People believe climate change is happening in the UK … but most people don’t seem to think it will happen in their area. They are still not sufficiently aware of the scale of the problem this could create for them and future generations.’

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

Len McCluskey is another of the Scargill genera of Labour Dinosaurs. Out of place and out of time. By rights, he should have been extinct decades ago, but he still clings to the ancient socialist mantra of old labour politics. Notice I don’t capitalise the previous three words, they were never deserving of capitalisation ever. Just a bunch of loony lefties who still (for some reason) have a very small following of brain dead supporters. McClusky like so many union leaders take a small fortune in pay and perks and do damn little for those misguided people who pay the wages of these union parasites.

Dave must be hoping like mad that the Unions will stick with Red, as by doing
so, that should ensure an extended tenure in No10 for Dave Sam!

Not Reds under the bed, but Reds in bed together!

The Unions won’t drop Red Ed as they have nowhere else to go in order to have political influence. Can’t see them backing the Socialist Worker’s Party (an oxymoron if ever there was one)

Taxing Labour’s Memory: Surely there’s a difference between a minister increasing taxation and therefore increasing government revenue and a private company levying a charge to improve its profits. Surely Andrew Pierce can see that the two actions are not the same and not evidence of hypocrisy. He even admits that “It’s hard to disagree with that”, so what exactly is his point?

This pretence that “Red Ed” and the unions are at loggerheads will fool no one. Not even the Labour supporters. The Unions chose Ed because he was much more of a pushover than brother David. They won`t drop him now they have him over a barrel!

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

Views: 0

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes