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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The methods used by the big unions to get Ed Milliband elected in 2010 are why he has to stand up to UNITE now
Mail packs, such as the one featured above from the GMB union to those of its members entitled to vote in Labour’s leadership election, played a pivotal role in EdM’s victory September 2010.
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Standing up against what appears to be corrupt practices will not address how he got his job in the first place - but none of this would matter much if he had turned out to be a strong leader - and we'd be discussing policy, and whether "X" would work with the voter.
But we aren't, so it does.
As long as Watson remains in-situ, this problem will keep coming up.
"'Right to buy' to be scrapped in Scotland"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23155904
Whether this is a good idea or not, time will tell - but like the Welsh decision on organ donation yesterday, its a "good thing" that the different bits of the UK are taking different approaches, so we may all learn from them.
Quite how the Scots have managed to sink a flagship Tory policy, while under Westmister's "Jack boot" however, awaits explanation...
When it crosses into their internal struggles then the web of deceit becomes even more cynical.
Scottish labour does not exist, it is merely a brand name with decisions made from London. That is why Watson can have so much say on what should be a local battle between local candidates.
They will have forgotten the circumstances surrounding his election because there will have been almost quadruple-figures worth of Eastenders episodes since then and job jobbed.
I like it. Well played.
You make the big mistake to assume that Ed is weak.
Just compare him with Dave who always capitulates to his right wing at the slightest sign of bother.
Dave shouting "weak, weak weak" at EdM is a sign of his own weaknesses.
He's been pathetic ever since he became PM
I
It's gotta hurt when you find you've been sold a pup.
I don't see where you're going with "doing it to/for themselves". Bitter experience has taught us that even after independence it'll still be "a big boy made me do it" or the "evil Westminister jackboot" for the next hundred years anyway.
So far Ed's strong stance against Len consists of the temporary suspension of 1 candidate. Clause 4 it is not.
Quite simply Ed has to bite the hand that feeds him. "
*chortle*
The far right swivel-eyed loons on here might not notice the cognitive dissonance of bleating about 'Red' Ed and Unions while little Ed frantically triangulates on tory cuts and spending but in the real world that sort of further sliding to the right is getting noticed.
They can't have it both ways.
Either little Ed is copying tory policies and thus validating them for the right wingers or Cammie is somehow just as "Red" as Ed since their policies are self-evidently converging.
Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister
It's like the Daily Mail for toddlers.
As usual the facts are not on the side of the tw+ttish tea party tories.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/scotland-12288-union-public
Its leaders are prepared to take tough and unpopular decisions - applies most to:
Conservatives : 45
Labour: 9
Labour voters
Conservatives: 33
Labour : 25
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/pqvzpfl0l2/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-270613.pdf
I'm not counting here his many non-policies that involve being both for and against something at the same time.
So with many of his own MPs directly sponsored by UNITE - exactly where is he standing up to Len & Co? I'm all ears.
"Unite is Labour’s biggest donor, contributing more than £3million a year. And Unite also used its massive voting power to bludgeon through the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader rather than his Blairite brother David.
So don’t hold your breath if you are expecting Ed to bite the hand that feeds him.
But the exposure of McCluskey as the Machiavellian power behind Labour’s throne is a timely reminder to the electorate.
Vote Ed . . . and you vote Red."
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/sun_says/4508014/The-Sun-says.html#ixzz2XxUP5LLf
- returned Unites cheques
- rewrote the leadership election rules to be 1 member 1 vote to prevent a union stitch up
- re-ran all the selection campaigns that resulted in Unite candidates
Oh, wait...
I cannot see the arcane machinations of how parties dole out their seats to one party clique or other being of interest to more than 1% of the voters. Those 1% are probably affliated with one or other clique already.
The big unions are now almost exclusively in the public sector, and should concentrate on the real matters of interest to their members. In University Hospitals Leicester the portering, catering and cleaning stafe have all been transferred to Interserve, who want to put them all on "zero hours" contracts. A strike about this casualisation of the ancillary staff would be heavily supported.
The staff care far more about this than whether muppet A or sockpuppet B is the Labour candidate.
LOL
"Belief in the power of the state to provide a better future is weakening across Europe. It leaves Labour confused about what their offer might be, and falling into a kind of silence; and gives the Conservatives more options to emerge from their own purdah, and speak of bolder reform."
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thecolumnists/2013/07/from-stephanshaxper.html
There is a poll in the Times that accompanies this:
"Meanwhile, the public moves on. YouGov recently conducted a survey in four European countries, presented today in The Times (£). We asked voters if they agreed that their main centre-left party "used to care about people like me"; in Germany 52 per cent agreed, in Britain 51 per cent, in Sweden 49 per cent, and in France 36 per cent.
But in all four countries, the proportions for the same parties caring NOW are considerably lower: Sweden’s Socialists are down 13 per cent; Britain’s Labour Party is down 19 per cent; France's is down 16 per cent, in Germany, the proportion who regard the Social Democrats as caring for people like them has collapsed by more than half, down to 24%."
While the fruits of his strategic efforts have been carefully guarded, some policies are now complete. A plan to rehabilitate low-level offenders outside prison and close down jails, modelled on the success of an initiative by the American Right, is said to have been rubber-stamped. Final details of Andy Burnham’s integration of health and social care are being worked on, as Labour decides just how much power and money to grant local authorities.
Shadow ministers are still discussing whether to let GPs commission social care as well as medical treatment and whether to give local authorities one pot of funding, to be divided up as they please between services ranging from probation to bin-emptying. If councils save money, they will be allowed – under this plan – to spend it as they choose.
Although these crumbs are merely tasters for a manifesto, Mr Miliband is satisfied that he now has an agreed stash of policies that will form the backbone of a programme for government. Mr Cruddas has decreed that all outstanding work must be submitted to his review by the end of this month, with no extensions for back-sliders, ready for an unveiling of the first ideas at party conference.
This rare disorder effects mainly elderly and genial LibDems who become unable to impartially analyse the merits of the Prime Minister without pulling their (remaining) hair out !!
It is reported that Mike has refused the only effective treatment - standing outside Bedford Labour Club in orange robes with a tambourine on five successive nights chanting :
"Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister"
"During the twentieth century, progressive parties across Europe based their appeal on two compelling arguments: that they cared for ordinary folk, and they knew how to harness the power of the state to convert care into action.
No longer. A major YouGov study in Britain, France, Germany and Sweden shows that few people still believe either proposition. Millions in all four countries no longer think left-of-centre parties care about them; and most people now reject the notion that governments are any good at solving social problems.
Our figures show how nostalgia is strong but hope is weak. In three of the four countries, half of all voters agree that their main centre-left party ‘used to care about people like me' (Germany 52%, Britain 51%, Sweden 49%)......
However, in all four countries, the proportions who say their main centre-left party ‘cares now about people like me’ are much lower. Sweden’s Socialists have the least bad figures, but they are still 13 points down at 36%. The figure for Britain’s Labour Party is down 19 points, at 32%. In France, the only one of the four countries with a centre-left government, Francois Hollande’s low standing may explain why the figure there is now only 20%. "
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/07/03/crisis-facing-europes-centre-left/
The coalition is reviewing the use of such contracts:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/unions-welcome-government-move-to-review-zero-hours-contracts.21331189
Ed's problem, or potential problem, is that there are factions in Labour who are spoiling for a fight. So we had David Blunkett sticking his oar in yesterday on the Daily Politics and the Union complaining that their new members in Falkirk were being disenfranchised.
The Blairites are concerned that they are losing control of the party. Oddly, this is at a time when Ed seems to have accepted their position on policy. The Union are equally concerned that the position that they are paying for is not being respected.
Where this goes from here may or may not be under Ed's control. If he can persuade the factions that this proxy fight should not be heard in public it will be a damp squib of a story. This is probably still the most likely outcome.
If he can't then there will be evidence of a disunited party which we are always told does not poll well. The problem is that there are enough ex Blairites who are no longer a part of the scene (the grey beards Ed refused to have back) to cause trouble if they want to. And they do.
Golly, don't you know that "serial labour voters" are immune to the hilariously inept spin of idiot tory spinners. ;^ )
"...Actually, few Labour leaders have been from what used to be called a humble background. Only two Labour prime ministers – Ramsay MacDonald and Jim Callaghan – were working class, and Callaghan was also the first party leader since MacDonald not to have been a university graduate.
The 1945 Labour government, arguably the most effective of all Labour governments – certainly the one which did more than any other to transform Britain – was led by Clement Attlee (Haileybury and Oxford) . (In the Thirties he was generally known as Major Attlee on the strength of his wartime commission.)
There were working-class members of his Cabinet: Herbert Morrison (Peter Mandelson’s grandfather), Ernest Bevin, and Aneurin Bevan, but his three Chancellors of the Exchequer were Hugh Dalton (an Etonian), Sir Stafford Cripps, and Hugh Gaitskell (both Wykehamists), all three Oxonians. Gaitskell succeeded Attlee as leader, and when he died, Harold Wilson beat the working-class George Brown in a leadership election. Wilson liked to reel off the names of Huddersfield Town football teams and declared that he preferred tinned salmon to the fresh or smoked fish, but, the son of a teacher, and himself an Oxford-educated economist who spent the war years as a civil servant, he wasn’t exactly your horny-handed son of toil. His Cabinet incidentally contained more men with first-class degrees from Oxford and Cambridge than any other, and Wilson himself saw nothing wrong in sending his sons to a fee-paying school.
After Wilson came Callaghan and then Michael Foot, son of a successful solicitor and himself a Fleet Street journalist (a favourite of Lord Beaverbrook). Old Footie was certainly a Radical, but more a Hampstead intellectual than a Man of the People. He was followed by Neil Kinnock, the first member of his family to go to university. And after Kinnock came John Smith, a middle-class Scots lawyer, followed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
It’s hard to see why Ed Miliband should be thought more out of touch with the working class than most of his predecessors in the job... http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100069833/why-do-people-believe-the-old-myth-that-successful-politicians-need-to-be-in-touch-with-the-people/
However it's hardly unknown on PB that I follow the advice of my ARSE and do very nicely thank you.
On the substance of Ukip winning a handful of seats whilst the Tories remain the largest party do you believe that the electorate is so homogenous that small parties cannot have minor wins outwith the prospects of the Labour and Conservative ?
Electoral history tells us otherwise.
As I said, I'm all ears.
To be fair, an LD cabinet minister has called for a review. The Tories give every impression of being very comfortable with zero hours contracts.
No wonder that hospitals are dirty and inefficient when service companies abuse their staff in this way.
I think Ed is a poor leader and wish he was not in charge, so why should I defend him? But unlike you I do not hate the Labour party so will not mechanically condemn everything it says, does or is associated with.
It's the comparisons with Militant, the role of UNITE in the leadership election and its extremely influential chequebook re MPs and the Party - these aren't trivial things that can be brushed aside.
Labour being funded by unions is a non-story - but when unions become belligerent the public don't like it - especially so since most unions operate largely in the public sector nowadays. It doesn't matter that the RMT or PCS are unaffiliated - they're in the same boat as the NUT or whomever as far as 99% of the population are concerned.
Perhaps we need to glance back at Militant and see what was going on back then/compare-contrast to now. Len is certainly as far left as they were back then, and now runs the biggest union in the country.
Christine Blower also seems to be cut from the same cloth, but her members aren't so keen on coming out as she is.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/zero-hours-contract-plan-sparks-4701329
"Perhaps PBers will be kind enough to indulge an old Jacobite as I'm unsure if I've mentioned before that :
Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister"
You've morphed into Martin Day. Come back Jack we miss you!
It is a large part of the problem of the welfare trap, the reduction of the advantages of being in work.
Zero hours contracts are just a dodge to circumvent employment rights.
The problem is how you can effectively legislate against them without completely undermining freedom of contract and interfering with part time work.
I suggest a starting point should be that rights should accrue on the basis of the hours actually worked over the last 4 or 13 weeks regardless of what the contract says; that those employed for more than, say, a month, will be deemed to have the right to the number of hours worked in that month (or at least a proportion of them) and those that work exclusively for one organisation for a qualifying period should be deemed to be employees of that organisation whether they technically work for an agency or not.
This has been an increasing problem for the best part of 10 years now and it is shameful that the last government did not seek to address the gross unfairness that results. I can only conclude that they were frightened of looking to be in the hands of the unions.
The outcome of the European surveys was foretold by the great George Orwell long ago:
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Miliband is trying to find his own route down the middle of the road. He's not doing too bad, but stagnant or slipping polls will not help.
But for jobs that are largely 37.5hrs a week and predictable like cleaning or portering etc, it seems very retrograde/builds no loyalty or commitment. And frankly doing largely unskilled jobs requires a feeling of belonging/comeraderie, as the work itself isn't terribly interesting in itself.
The Coalition is so much more fun.
Come over to the dark side Roger, you get to wear a black uniform, cape and helmet and hiss at folk from the Federation of Labour Luvvies
There's plenty of inter galactic travel opportunities - Ask John O who recently ventured as far as distant and exotic Bournemouth.
Alternatively nothing will happen.
That said, any Labour council which imposes them should hang its head in shame. Good on LD cabinet minister Vince Cable for seeking to investigate them. No wonder the Tories hate him. Having the LDs in power currently is so much better than having a fully-fedged Tory government
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10156170/Twenty-years-to-fix-economy.html
"Professor James Curran, director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre at University of London, carried out the research by interviewing 10,000 people across 10 countries... But from Norway to Colombia, women knew less about politics than men. Prof Curran suggests this is because across the 10 nations, women were only interviewed or cited in 30 per cent of TV news stories.
The UK itself fares worse than Norway, Italy, Greece and Australia in terms of women’s political knowledge. In total, 34 per cent of our hard news stories featured women – above average but still a disappointingly low figure.
“It’s enormously off-putting for women to be looking at the news as always being about men,” Prof Curran tells me. “Politics is projected as a man’s world and that encourages a sense of disconnection,” he adds. The opinion pollster Deborah Mattinson, founder and director of Britain Thinks, isn’t surprised by the research, but agrees it’s worrying.
“Polling in the UK what you find is that on any subject women are much more likely to answer ‘I don’t know’ than express an opinion. That’s not to say women don’t hold views – they live and breathe politics, but they experience it in a different way. They feel much more distant from the game of politics in which they’ve no interest whatsoever,” she suggests.
...Analysis by Women in Journalism of general news stories found that 84 per cent of those quoted or mentioned in lead pieces were men, and 78 per cent of front page articles were written by men.
...Its own studies have established that although there’s no shortage of women featured as “victims” in news stories – 79 per cent of victims in the media are women – three quarters of “experts” used by the media are men..." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10154822/British-women-know-less-about-politics-than-men-but-why.html
But this is not a sufficient remedy in itself. These iniquitous arrangements started with large service companies in the private sector and they are as unfair there (where staff tend to be non unionised and even more vulnerable) than they are in the public sector.
I see Labour back at 40 and an 8-point lead this morning - how strange that the Sun didn't tweet that last night. Someone (Carlotta?) said they look most at the internals to see how opinion is moving, but personally I look at them from day to day as an indication of the nature of the sample. If there's a shift that can't readily be explained (e.g. there's a bounce in concern about health in today's sample) it probably means that the sample is different in make-up - in this case more pro-Labour, yesterday more pro-Tory.
Does anyone seriously believe Ed Bland will oppose his paymasters, the people who got him elected? He will make a great deal of sound and express fury and it will signify nothing- no change. How many sitting Labour MPs have been endorsed by and receive funding from a big trade union? 100? 150? almost all of them?
Tory MPs may receive funding from businesses as well as individuals but the constitution does not give a vote in any internal election, such as candidate selection to other than individual members. Labour would have to remove the right of trade unions to automatic votes/ representation at any level within the party to break free and I don't see that happening in the lifetime of any contributor to this website.
I'd be looking for a couple of 10+ leads over the coming week - otherwise we may be looking at a drift down from the "8 lead" average we've seen over late Spring.
That its in single figures is gobsmacking for mid-term, with George Cuts Osborne as CoE...
Is Ofgem just howling at the moon? If utility co's could stop it they would.
2007: 131,000
2009: 150,000
2012: 200,000
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pressure-grows-on-government-to-outlaw-zero-hours-contracts-as-it-is-revealed-parliament-uses-them-too-8631639.html
I think the situation is so bad that more people have woken up to the need to embrace pain and cut debt. Labour traditionally does well when it has things to offer in terms of spending.
Cupboards bare, everyone knows it. Labour doesn't have an answer other than more of the same. Electoral system still gives labour a big advantage, that's not going away.
"What are elderly parents to do when their children no longer bother to visit? In China, there’s a new answer: sue the kids.
That’s what 77-year-old “Granny Chu,” of Wuxi, China, did in April. On Monday, a court heard her case against her allegedly neglectful daughter and son-in-law, and quickly issued a verdict: an order that the daughter and son-in-law visit on a bimonthly basis, as well as during important holidays.
The timing was impeccable: Also on Monday, China’s long awaited revision to its “Law to Protect the Elderly” was enacted, along with a controversial new provision requiring adult children to visit their parents “often.” The court wasted no time in citing the law as the basis for its decision.
Granny Chu’s is a tale worthy of a guilt-ridden Woody Allen comedy, except that the verdict -- and the law that enabled it - - are designed to address a serious problem in contemporary China: How to financially and “spiritually” (in the words of the new legislation) support an aging population. Of course, major problems meeting the pension and health-care needs of a rapidly aging population are certainly not unique to China..."
"It's extraordinary that at this stage of the electoral cycle, and after years of a pretty miserable economy with further cuts coming, the opposition party should be less than 10 per cent ahead. Were it not for the continued strength of UKIP, we'd be confident of seeing Cameron remain in Downing Street."
This is as important for Labour now as Tony Blair’s ditching of clause four was ahead of GE1997."
I'm not sure. As things stand not being Tory should be enough to get him over the line. There's a minute danger that the Tories could start looking attractive (and they are being helped in this by Ed holding back on unrestrained opposition to everything Gove and Hunt) but it's unlikely.
Attacking the unions and their relationship with Labour isn't really a goer anymore. After years of emasculation few see them as monsters and more than a few see them as a bastion against the fat cat bankers tax avoiders and Tories who are driving living standards into the ground.
Whether the utilities can do anything about this depends on the data that they collect. I'm not sure they'll have the data to do this.
Much better is the approach of using infra-red cameras from cars and spotter helicopters / planes - the increased heat shows up particularly well.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-go-hitech-to-find-cannabis-farms-26502055.html
I may be looking through rose-tinted spectacles but by comparison with Ed, Kinnock looks good.
In common: A love of long speeches; Kinnock's flowery, Ed's incomprehensible.
Differences: Kinnock went after Militant, and knew what he wanted if he became PM, Ed ... ... ...er ......
He may have got his party back but there was a dud leader attached.
Will it work ?
Swings and roundabouts.
"...It comes as an investigation by The Times reveals further evidence of attempts by Unite to influence process, this time in the target seat of Ilford North.
Britain’s most powerful union wrote to its members in the East London constituency offering to cover the cost of local Labour party membership for the first year. The drive is said to have increased take-up by more than 10 per cent..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3806605.ece
EDIT - just seen this further down the same article
In Ilford North, the union began a push at the start of this year to sign up members before selection for the Westminster candidate in the autumn. Mike Hedges, a Unite organiser who hopes to stand, wrote to 2,000 union members on behalf of Unite offering to pay the first year of their membership. Local sources said that it had resulted in 30 new recruits in a party that has less than 300 members.
IIRC from a single 1000w light you can nett 0.8kg every 12/13 weeks or so
Not often that I agree with Tim, but legalise and tax it.
The private sector has fewer unions since they sold out their members in the last decade or so by supporting a government which pushed off-shoring, closing down manufacturing, bankrupting pension schemes and mass immigration. The private sector unions de-contented themselves so lost lots of members but their bosses still managed to push their salaries up.
"It's extraordinary that at this stage of the electoral cycle, and after years of a pretty miserable economy with further cuts coming, the opposition party should be less than 10 per cent ahead."
Strange comment from SS. If he looked at his own polls two years out from '97 '01 and '05 the opposition party was at least 10% BEHIND! and if I remember that's where they stayed. Where does this precedent come from?
If Labour want to regain votes that have been leaking to NOTA in its variations then a clear manifesto commitment to ending these abuses would be a vote winner. Even Orange Bookers like me would see the justice of a rule change.
Alternatively, put MPs on zero hours contracts and see how they like it. It would save a bundle on Gordon Browns salary.
Seems weird to me that F1 teams were mounting their rear tyres the wrong way around. Apparently this was partly to blame for the failures:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/23155008
" Five years ago, as shadow work and pensions secretary, I published a Conservative Green Paper that set out the first stage of our plans for welfare reform. It was halfway through the parliament, and the opposition was setting out its alternative vision for Britain. A month later, my opposite number James Purnell, the new secretary of state, pinched most of my plans. That’s politics. Although, he never actually delivered them: that was left for us to do in government.
Roll on the clock. Labour are back in opposition. The Conservatives are in government, albeit in coalition. I’ve been waiting for the opposite to happen. And waiting. And waiting.
The extraordinary thing about Ed Miliband’s Labour is just how little they have said about their vision for Britain. Is it about a hi-tech future? Or more power to the workers? Or “More Europe”? Or what? Despite a few recent speeches, most of us in the Government have little idea what our opposite number stands for. Ask me what Labour’s justice policy is; I haven’t a clue..." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10154989/Dont-be-tempted-by-Ukips-nice-Nigel-Farage.html
Yep, you are right in that circumstance. Others have been arrested for using their own electricity, or stealing neighbours' power after the meter, which increases their bills.
Small scale growing is less efficient and more costly. Do you have any evidence that they are going smaller-scale?
Those who dislike the unions will get very excited and everyone else will be bored. This is an example of Ed Miliband's weaknesses, not a deal-breaker.
This is interesting tho:
As the imbroglio in Falkirk West began to spin out of control earlier this year and the national party began its investigations into allegations of bogus membership applications, Uncut understands that an attempt was then made to persuade the families to change their story and say they had intended to join the party.
Both families were visited by senior members from the Unite faction in the local Labour party before they could be interviewed by the two-person NEC inquiry team, with this in mind.
However, these attempts to interfere with the complainants backfired and in one case, the intervention was angrily rebuffed by the family.
The result is a situation where it seems that the law has likely been broken with an attempt to subvert a national party inquiries.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2013/07/03/new-allegations-of-fraud-and-interference-with-party-investigations-emerge-from-falkirk-west/
1) The tyres were not designed to be placed the wrong-way around; the internal structure will have been designed for the proper use.
2) The teams were doing this with used tyres; i.e. ones that had already been run the other way around. This would put stresses on the tyre structure one way, and then the other.
This, and the under-pressure running and adverse camber, needs stopping and can be easily done by rule changes. Pirelli have apparently asked for access to real-time tyre pressure data from the teams.
I don't have any evidence that OGH would appreciate me posting on a public forum but small scale dealers have cottoned on to the increased profits from growing their own supply.
I do frequently brush shoulders in bars with some of societies more rogue elements. Anyway off to work now, will check in later.
"Alternatively, put MPs on zero hours contracts and see how they like it. It would save a bundle on Gordon Browns salary."
He was apparently in the HoC last night - his third visit...
If the coalition had followed through on its plan for open primaries we would not be talking about this. The reality is that the self governing oligarchy that runs each of the two main parties does not want to lose its ability to place its chosen few in safe seats.
How many people are aware of how Miliband was elected, apart from us daft anoraks? How many people care?
The tories have no chance of causing him any damage with the claim: 'Miliband in hoc to the unions'. Its what the ordinary Joe thinks anyway (if he thinks about it all).