Labour and the unions have lost touch with the working man

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Labour and the trade unions have lost touch with the working man

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willh ... rking-man/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Last night, during the News at Ten, the Telegraph’s Chief Political Commentator, Benedict Brogan, received a text message from a Tory MP. ”Just what we want on the ten!”, it said. “An aggressive union boss attacking The Sun!” Can you blame them? The Conservatives predicted the Murdoch paper’s switch, but not in their wildest dreams did they imagine the joint general secretary of Unite ripping up The Sun to Labour’s standing ovation.

But that’s exactly what happened, as Matthew Moore and James Kirkup report:

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of the Unite union, won a standing ovation at the Labour conference in Brighton when he tore up a copy of the newspaper.

Union members and ordinary voters “should do exactly the same thing”, declared Mr Woodley, whose union has two million members.

That’s right: two million members. Unite is the product of a 2007 merger between Amicus and the Transport and General Workers Union. It’s enormous, and you can bet big money on a huge number of its members being Sun-readers. Woodley, himself a Liverpudlian Sun-boycotter, has expertly alienated them all.

The Labour Party itself has reacted almost as desperately. Gordon Brown said yesterday that it was people, not newspapers, that decided elections, then almost in the same breath spoke about “drunken louts” ruining town centres – what was he hoping for, the Mail to back him?

Alastair Campbell has denied the significance of the move. But, as Tory spin doctors noted yesterday, he was thrilled at the paper’s switch in 1997, writing in his diary that “the Sun backing Labour was fruit of 3 years hard work.” Harriet Harman did her best to woo the female vote, saying: “Let’s face it, the nearest their political analysis gets to women’s rights is Page 3’s News in Briefs.” I suspect, however, she would be surprised how many women read The Sun – I certainly was when I vox-popped for them a couple of years ago on work experience.

Look, we know that the Labour Party is out of touch with the working man in Britain. Their awful show in the European Elections, and the consequent rise of the BNP, proved it. But the disconnect between Trade Unions and the working man – so gaping that one of their chiefs tears up Britain’s most popular tabloid newspaper – is something that has crept up on the Left unnoticed. It’s no wonder, really, that 59 per cent of Sun readers said in an online poll yesterday that they would vote Tory.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

COMMENTS

*

The ordinary working man has been sidelined by the Labour Party and the Trade Unions in the name of international socialism in collusion with the EU and promulgated as essential by the nuLabour middle and upper class career politicians.

Like many of the pre-war generation I owe my education, good health and wealth to the opportunities created by the labour movement of the 30/40/50s for the children of poor families in the northern cities.

The Labour Party lost it’s way long before Blair came on the scene, try Scargill for one and many others in the 60s, that is when I stopped giving them support.
geoffthereff on Oct 1st, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Report comment
*

Trade Unions lost touch with the ‘working man’ in the 1970s, if not earlier, coming to a head in the infamous “Winter of Discontent” of 1979.

“We will bring the country to its knees” indeed.

The carnage that the Socialist Trade Unions wreaked throughout British industry did the ‘working man’ no favours whatsoever.

All funded by the Soviet-backed World Federation of Trade Unions.
Catweazle on Oct 1st, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Report comment
*

Catweazle – exactly. Well I remember studying by the light of my Grandads’ paraffin rail handlamp during the power cuts of the 3 day week. My late father, in every respect invariably a calm and gentle man, swore he would do every thing he could to ensure they never got to a position of being able to hold the country to ransom again. Woodley has shot them in the foot, that’s for sure.
Dr Stephen Morris on Oct 1st, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Report comment
*

Half of Sun readers always did vote Labour. Most of the other half had already decided to do so a period of years before the Sun itself followed suit in order to preserve its privileged access to Ministers. Before, indeed, anyone other than political anoraks had ever heard of Tony Blair. The Sun is now pro-Cameron for that same reason.

Most Times and Sunday Times readers have no idea that they are buying Labour-supporting papers, and would switch to the Telegraph if they ever cottoned on. However good Sky News may be, hardly anyone watches it. Just how many of us are there who never read anything in the News of the World apart from Fraser Nelson’s column? And even then I don’t actually buy the News of the World.

There are many reasons to want Gordon Brown to lose. But there is none to want David Cameron to win. And the defeat of Mudoch’s anointee would explode the myth once and for all. No cause could be more conservative. The presumed control of our political process by a foreigner is an obscene violation of our sovereignty. Right down there with political parties that feel their patriotic allegiance to two countries other than their own.
David Lindsay on Oct 1st, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Report comment
*

People buy newspapers because the newspapers present their content with an accent or bias that conforms to the readers’ own bias.

So readers are not stupid nor do they lack sophistication, even acting as a group. They are making a market-based choice.

The brilliant David Lindsay just misses the nail with his comment “Most Times and Sunday Times readers have no idea that they are buying Labour-supporting papers, and would switch to the Telegraph if they ever cottoned on”.

Those readers don’t switch because they DO know the politics of the papers, and they ARE happy with the filter that is applied to their news.

Newspaper readership, like so much of British life, is tribal. All DT readers understand this.

The labour movement’s leadership long ago moved from the tabloid fan base to the Guardian/FT/Observer/Indie set. They may slum it with the Mirror at election time, but – like Mandy – they are more guacamole than mushy peas.

So Woodley was conforming to his core tribal belief when he tore up the Sun. He no longer has to pretend that he reads it, likes it, trusts it – or its readership.

More interesting is Mandy’s reaction: Is he Labour’s King Cnut?
barryobarma on Oct 1st, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Report comment
*

barryobama