Gordon Brown

[Paul]

Cwu along with other trade unions should close all links with Browns goverment NOW.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6968440.stm
Link to BBC NEWS.

Teebs says works now had an extra . in it.

[Paul]

Sorry about the bad link. This is the jist of it.

Union movement

The way Mr Brown deals with the prison officers' dispute will be closely watched by those other workers and the opposition parties alike as they continue to assess just what sort of prime minister Gordon Brown intends to be.

It will also be a test of the prime minister's relationship with the wider union movement - still Labour's biggest donors - which has often seen him as more sympathetic towards them than his predecessor.


Mr Straw has taken a hard line against strike
So far, the prime minister is adamant he will do nothing to undermine economic stability, which has led to union fears there will be no room for improvement in their pay offer.

The Tories, meanwhile, lost no time in attacking Mr Brown over the dispute, claiming he refused cash for more prison places and warning the dispute could compromise security.

Inevitably, there will be talk of the possibility of a 1979-style winter of discontent when striking public sector workers effectively brought down the last Labour government under Jim Callaghan.

That is currently premature, but Mr Brown and ministers like Justice Secretary Jack Straw are painfully aware of the importance of the public sector workers to a Labour government.

Future trouble

Mr Straw acted immediately to win a court injunction against the strikers but the unions also won what they claimed were new talks with the government, with ministers clearly determined to halt this dispute before it escalates dangerously.

But there was even a row over whether that meeting had been planned before the strike or was a result of it.

The unions currently believe they can win public support for their action but that may be short lived, particularly if there is any suggestion safety is being compromised.

Any sign of a climb-down by the government may well strengthen the determination of other public sector workers to push their claims or take industrial action.

But too tough a line may well escalate the dispute and spark bitterness and resentment amongst other public sector workers and store up trouble for the future.

What the prime minister will certainly not want is a lengthy, escalating dispute to bring his political honeymoon to a swift end and recall bad memories of past clashes between Labour governments and the unions.


Cheers Paul

[TrueBlueTerrier]

ARTICLE IN FULL

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

Gordon Brown has so far weathered three serious tests of his premiership - attempted bombings, floods and a foot-and-mouth outbreak. The prison officers' dispute has the potential to be more dangerous.

This is partly because, it is being argued, it is entirely of his own making as it was Mr Brown who, when chancellor, refused to meet the independently-recommended pay rise in full.

And partly it is because the row throws into sharp focus the problems of overcrowding, alleged under-funding and plunging morale in the country's jails.

Finally the risk is that it might strengthen the resolve of other public sector workers, most notably nurses in England who are also considering industrial action after he similarly staged their recommended rise.

The nurses will decide in a couple of weeks' time whether to accept a revised government's pay package after some 95% had voted to go ahead with a ballot on industrial action over the original pay award.

Union movement

The way Mr Brown deals with the prison officers' dispute will be closely watched by those other workers and the opposition parties alike as they continue to assess just what sort of prime minister Gordon Brown intends to be.

It will also be a test of the prime minister's relationship with the wider union movement - still Labour's biggest donors - which has often seen him as more sympathetic towards them than his predecessor.

So far, the prime minister is adamant he will do nothing to undermine economic stability, which has led to union fears there will be no room for improvement in their pay offer.

The Tories, meanwhile, lost no time in attacking Mr Brown over the dispute, claiming he refused cash for more prison places and warning the dispute could compromise security.

Inevitably, there will be talk of the possibility of a 1979-style winter of discontent when striking public sector workers effectively brought down the last Labour government under Jim Callaghan.

That is currently premature, but Mr Brown and ministers like Justice Secretary Jack Straw are painfully aware of the importance of the public sector workers to a Labour government.

Future trouble

Mr Straw acted immediately to win a court injunction against the strikers but the unions also won what they claimed were new talks with the government, with ministers clearly determined to halt this dispute before it escalates dangerously.

But there was even a row over whether that meeting had been planned before the strike or was a result of it.

The unions currently believe they can win public support for their action but that may be short lived, particularly if there is any suggestion safety is being compromised.

Any sign of a climb-down by the government may well strengthen the determination of other public sector workers to push their claims or take industrial action.

But too tough a line may well escalate the dispute and spark bitterness and resentment amongst other public sector workers and store up trouble for the future.

What the prime minister will certainly not want is a lengthy, escalating dispute to bring his political honeymoon to a swift end and recall bad memories of past clashes between Labour governments and the unions.

[BELIAL]

I can spot one big difference between now and 1979 and that is that this is a labour govt. in name only. The thrust of its policies and most certainly their effects are most definitely THATCHERITE.

Call it what you like, but ,no repeal of anti union legislation, record levels of child poverty, fuel poverty, water poverty, unparalleled disparity of income between rich and poor; the continued destruction of the welfare safety net; the continuation of the privatisation programme even in the health service where the tories feared to tread,- these all feel like Thatcherism to me.

[Wild Cat]

There is NO comparison today with 1979.

There were 29 million days lost to strikes that year and the country was used to hyper inflation in consumer goods which is not the case now(the inflation is masked by pushing it into assets).

The labour government in 1979 was under siege from an overly aggressive union movement full of communist agitators and others demanding a revolution,whereas now all people want is a decent days pay for a decent days work so don't believe the BBC propaganda.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

There is NO comparison today with 1979.

There were 29 million days lost to strikes that year and the country was used to hyper inflation in consumer goods which is not the case now(the inflation is masked by pushing it into assets).

The labour government in 1979 was under siege from an overly aggressive union movement full of communist agitators and others demanding a revolution,whereas now all people want is a decent days pay for a decent days work so don't believe the BBC propaganda.

Damn those Reds! Always asking for decent housing, good schools, hospital beds whenever they fell ill, better working conditions and reasonable old age pensions. Someone had to sort them out!

[BELIAL]

There is NO comparison today with 1979.

There were 29 million days lost to strikes that year and the country was used to hyper inflation in consumer goods which is not the case now(the inflation is masked by pushing it into assets).

The labour government in 1979 was under siege from an overly aggressive union movement full of communist agitators and others demanding a revolution,whereas now all people want is a decent days pay for a decent days work so don't believe the BBC propaganda.

Damn those Reds! Always asking for decent housing, good schools, hospital beds whenever they fell ill, better working conditions and reasonable old age pensions. Someone had to sort them out!

Quite so, look how much better off we all are after we smashed the nasty bolshies.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Quite so, look how much better off we all are after we smashed the nasty bolshies.

Yes, those hospitals had to be closed. How else were tax breaks for Sir Keith Joseph and Arnold Wienstock going to be funded? And that cash for research into cot death syndrome was just wasted on those working class babies who would all have only grown up to become shop stewards on the docks. Someone hand me a union jack! I feel as though I'm at the Last Night of the Proms. If only the soft sods realised the song they're about to sing was written by Blake, who would have laughed at the thought of those Tory oiks singing his poem!

[TrueBlueTerrier]

There is NO comparison today with 1979.

There were 29 million days lost to strikes that year and the country was used to hyper inflation in consumer goods which is not the case now(the inflation is masked by pushing it into assets).

The labour government in 1979 was under siege from an overly aggressive union movement full of communist agitators and others demanding a revolution,whereas now all people want is a decent days pay for a decent days work so don't believe the BBC propaganda.

I've got to say that I was just leaving school then and trying to find work and I don't recognise the description. I do remember high inflation but not hyper (well not like Zimbabwe at the moment) and it was coming down after a high of 26.9%. I cant remember any communist agitators, but I know that Militant Tendency was fairly strong even though the Labour Leadership had tried to expel them a few years earlier.

However there is a page on Wiki about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

There is one parallel in that the Winter of Discontent was caused because of a Labour Government trying to keep down pay increases.

[Big Daz]

[edit] Political impact
The strikes appeared to have a profound effect on voting intention. According to Gallup, Labour had a lead of 5% over the Conservatives in November 1978, which turned to a Conservative lead of 7·5% in January 1979, and of 20% in February


So who let Maggie in then? The labour goverment or the trade unions?

[IWW Fellow Worker]

[edit] Political impact
The strikes appeared to have a profound effect on voting intention. According to Gallup, Labour had a lead of 5% over the Conservatives in November 1978, which turned to a Conservative lead of 7·5% in January 1979, and of 20% in February


So who let Maggie in then? The labour goverment or the trade unions?

Quite possibly their Tories running the media had a hand in it.

[duffer 61]

If the Brown government continues to duck out of sorting out whats going on with us,especially since the Blair government has caused much of our problems then we should definitely cut links with them.
He was only too happy to cling to all the imposters who hijacked the Labour Party,the same people who don't have anything in common with us and in truth despise us.
I can't really criticize those who still vote Labour,but much as i follow politics i feel that many of us have no party to support.

[cruisey]

Spanner me old mate, I was a firm believer in Brown being closer to the unions than Thatcher.. sorry Blair. I couldn't have been more wrong. Since the start of the dispute, I have stopped paying subs direct to Labour. I think the current batch, with the exception of a few, like Peter Hain, need educating into what the labour movement was set up to achieve.

[IWW Fellow Worker]

Spanner me old mate, I was a firm believer in Brown being closer to the unions than Thatcher.. sorry Blair. I couldn't have been more wrong. Since the start of the dispute, I have stopped paying subs direct to Labour. I think the current batch, with the exception of a few, like Peter Hain, need educating into what the labour movement was set up to achieve.

Hain isn't the man he once was mate. Peter Hain was one of the Labour M.P's who sold out the dockers in 1998. He's changed a lot since he was a tireless opponent of racism in the 1970s. He was such a pain in the arse, they tried to fit him up on an armed robbery charge which turned him into a tireless opponent of miscarriages of justice. It's a few years since I heard Hain do anything radical.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

His voting record on "they work for you website" does show him as a closet Tory (which is what he is)

http://tinyurl.com/2srsk5

How Gordon Brown voted on key issues since 2001:

* Has never voted on a transparent Parliament.
* Voted moderately for introducing a smoking ban.
* Voted strongly for introducing ID cards.
* Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
* Voted very strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
* Voted moderately for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
* Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
* Voted moderately against investigating the Iraq war.
* Voted very strongly for replacing Trident.
* Voted moderately for the fox hunting ban.
* Has never voted on equal gay rights. v