The Public Sector Unions Just Don't Get It

Although I always enjoy watching Vince Cable get booed, I was curious to see the GMB Union giving him such a hostile reception, and even resorting to booing and heckling him, during his speech at their annual conference this week.

That a non-Labour Cabinet Minister gets booed at a public sector union conference should not be a surprise in and of itself.  Past experience tells us that union cronies rarely have any manners whatsoever, and love to enjoy acting like thugs in ties whenever the opportunity arises.  Additionally, given that unions almost exclusively fund Labour, it is not surprising that anyone who does not belong to Labour is seen as the enemy.

Yet Vince Cable is probably as left-wing as they come, and is probably more left-wing, anti-business and pro-union than many Labour MP’s.  One may therefore be forgiven for thinking that he would receive a positive reception in a union that, like many other public sector unions, appear to have stopped fighting for workers and are instead acting as arms of the Socialist Worker Party.

Cable’s speech was a clever and shrewd warning from a socialist to a fellow socialist organisation.  He noted that while the right to strike was an important right, there was a strong movement in the government to update and tighten up strike law.  He went on to state that as long as strikes remained limited and low (as they have been for the last year) then “the case for changing strike law is not compelling.”  Yet Cable was clear that if there was an attempt at widespread, organised mass industrial action designed to provide another “winter of discontent”, then the case to update strike law would be stronger, and that there would be little that he could do about it.

The message Cable was sending was clear and correct; the Conservatives wish to update strike law to make sure that the public sector unions can’t throttle the nation like they did in the 1970’s and tried to in the 1980’s.  Yet while strike rates are low, such a move is politically impossible.  Only if the unions try to bring the country to its knees and damage the national economy would the Tories have the support needed to clamp down on union action.

Cable finished this part of his speech (after pausing while he was booed and abused) by saying “that is something that you and I will both collectively want to avoid.”  In other words, “I’m on your side, but if you engage in mass industrial action, I can’t keep the Tories at bay.”

Yet he was booed and jeered anyway.  What the GMB members do not appear to understand is that Vince Cable is being a friend not a foe.  He is warning them that there are plenty of Tories (this writer included) who want to see the hand of the public sector unions loosened from around the throat of the British taxpayer, and are looking for the opportunity to do so.  Cable is not stating opinions or views, but is simply observing reality; if strikes are limited, the Lib Dems can keep the Tories at bay, but if there is a 1980’s insurrection, the hands of the Lib Dems are tied, and we Tories get to crush the unions like we did under Thatcher.

This is not what the unions, nor Vince Cable wants to happen; and this is what Cable’s speech to the GMB was trying to prevent.  Yet if public sector unions like the GMB are unable to distinguish friend from foe, then their narrow minded pseudo-communist mindset will surely lead them to destruction, just like it led the NUM to destruction in the 1980’s.

Will 2011 be America's Year of Union Discontent?

My latest article has been published today in the American Thinker, and focuses on the fight for freedom from the socialist trade unions.  This is a fight we in Britain have been engaged in for a long time, and I believe that it is set to become the new fight that Americans have to face.

This has proved true looking at the recent chaos in New York caused by the deliberate slow down by union workers in order to force the New York legislature to agree to whatever demands they have come up with this time.  Unfortunately with Obama in the White House, it seems that the unions are only going to becomes more and more powerful, and this gives them only more of a chance to screw the country up.  Americans, trust us, they will screw your country up given half the chance - it is exactly what they did to our country, and are currently trying to do once again!

The article can be found here.

Britain's Spending Cuts - Inconsistent!

With France having exploded into rioting over the last week over the extension of the retirement age from 60 to 62, we have seen similar outrage today in Britain as Chancellor George Osborne has announced what are, for the most part, pretty meagre cuts.

Do not be mistaken by the Left's rhetoric, these spending cuts are not strong enough, but they are a start.  The Financial Times for instance is trying to paint these as some sort of mega cuts, but 4.5% cut over 5 years isn't exactly earth-shattering  But, with a strong left-wing movement in Britain, as well as the hard left Liberal Democrats having significant influence in the new government, the current cuts are really all that are politically feasible.  And I believe that on the whole, these cuts will work out well for the Coalition.  It will restore at least some confidence to the markets, and possibly to job creators too, in spite of the tax increases that will hit over the next few years.  Personally, I would have liked to see more cuts to welfare, cuts and reform to the NHS (which has remained untouched), less cuts to the military and less tax increases (which will only prevent growth).

I have an article coming out over the next few days which specifically cover the military cuts, but in the mean time I would like to focus on something that caught my eye that not many media outlets have picked up on.  We have seen that NHS spending has been ring fenced, and this has been debated by many.  But, today it was announced that International Aid has been increased by a stunning 33% and Climate Change funding (whatever the hell that consists of) has been increased by a hefty 18% - you can find an easy to read graph of all the cuts etc here.

Now, I'd be pretty annoyed had they not been cut, but for the budgets to be increased!?  It is quite clear that this is a total fop to the Liberal Democrats.  No conservative with any understanding of immigration would support a massive international aid budget.  The only way to get countries out of poverty is to encourage market growth, not to support big government programs and fund state sponsored dictatorships.  There is no country that has been lifted out of poverty by international aid, not one.  In addition, when you are giving some of that aid to India - a nation that has its very own nuclear weapons program - you know your policy is broken.  Yet this is not being tackled.

Climate Change - well, unfortunately, whether or not you believe in Climate Change or not, this is nothing more than economic stimulus for supposed "green jobs".  As we have seen in both America and Britain, this doesn't work.  True green jobs, like almost every job, is created by the private sector, not by tax and spend policies subsidising pointless industries.  Again, conservatives know this, left-wingers don't, so why on Earth have we increased the budget?

The spending cuts tell us a lot about the strength of this coalition.  It shows that they have managed to get spending cuts through, but they have had a hell of a lot of compromises to make to the left in order to get them through.  Increases in Climate Change budgets and International aid are enormous concessions, as are enormous cuts to the military budget.  In addition, even with these moderate spending cuts, we are beginning to see a massive backlash from vested interests in the unions and public sector - it is not going to be easy

If the Coalition wants to try and push forward a conservative agenda that is going to put Britain back on the right track (so to speak), it is going to have to fight tooth and nail for it, and with the gaggle of "centrist" Tories and hard-left Liberal Democrats, I just can't see how they are going to do that.  

"Red" Ed Miliband becomes Labour Leader - The Shortest Suicide Note in History

Well, well, well!  There was me worrying that centrist Blairite David Miliband was on course to become Labour leader and make a real fight of it against fellow "centrists" David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

But no, Labour decided to commit hari-kari and vote for his hard-left, Union loving brother  - Ed Miliband.  And there was me thinking that Labour wanted to actually win an election.  While it is difficult, and nigh impossible, in politics to predict what will happen in four years, I am feeling very confident for conservatism in Britain right now, and let me explain why.

People don't like the left-wing, and generally will not vote that way if a candidate is explicitly left-wing, especially in the modern era when socialism has by and large been proved to be a load of old cobblers.  The most successful left-wing leaders hide their socialism, and instead present themselves as "charismatic centrists" with "visions" of the future etc.  Then, once they get into office, they drift to the left.  They start claiming that while they would love to have a free market with low taxation etc,  "current circumstances simply do not allow it" and go on from there, slowly but surely drifting to the left.  Obama is the latest example of this

However, Milly-E (as he is known) is out and out a hard left guy right from the start, with enormous backing from communist trade unions and classic socialist figures of the British past - none of whom were ever able to get elected into government.  He will not even be able to pretend that he stands for liberty, democracy and the pursuit of happiness.  He believes in Unions, tyranny, big government, high tax and outdated Keynesian economics - and everyone knows it.

It is also likely that Conservatives will move slightly to the right in order to fight the upcoming battle on principles.  The next election will be Socialist Principles vs Conservative Principles.  When the battle is shaped like that, Conservatism almost always wins.

While we must not get complacent, today is a day to celebrate for conservatives - The Labour Party has wandered back into electoral wilderness.  Let us hope it does not return for some time!

The UK Trade Union Congress is very upset - good!

I have always said that the best way to judge the soundness of a policy is if the hard-left like it or not.  If I'm unsure on an issue, or do not have the fullest knowledge and am unsure of where to stand, I simply look to the hard left, see what they think, and do the opposite!  When I find out more about the policy in question, I usually find that my instict has served me well.

So, despite my uncertainty about the Con-Lib Coalition and the softly softly approach it is taking to so many issues such as tackling the National Debt, when I see the hard-left Trade Union Congress (TUC) come out and condemn the proposed spending cuts as "reckless", warning that it will cause "irreparable damage", then I breathe a sigh of relief that Cameron's coalition are at least doing something right!

It is amazing, but not surprising, that the Unions are insisting on absolutely no spending cuts, arguing instead for tax hikes, and probably even more spending.  Not only are taxes already too high, and spending deficits dangerously close to those of Greece, we know from experience that tax and spend doesn't work for a whole range of reasons too numerous to go into here.  We know this specifically from the 1970's, where trade unions were given free reign, and Keynesian tax and spend economics were put into play. The public sector grew and grew, tax rates went into the 90% region and Britain fell to its knees. Communist unions throttled the life out of the nation and nearly destroyed us in the process.  It took massive intervention by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980's to a) put the economy back on track and b) to crush what was essentially an attempt at a socialist takeover by Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers (now a member of the TUC unsurprisingly).

Over the last 13 years, the Labour government has slowly moved back to those same policies that destroyed the country in the late 70's, and now it is time once again for the (primarily) Conservative government to fix it.  Yet hard left groups like the TUC, who are so tied up with vested interests in the public sector and blinded by their ideological commitment to socialism, are going to fight tooth and nail against economic recovery just as they did throughout the 1980's.

It comes down to a basic case of "Turkeys don't vote for Christmas."  The cause of this crisis that Britain is facing comes from excessive growth of the public sector over the last 10-15 years, and the soaring spending that naturally comes with such a growth.  Such spending has been accompanied by high taxes across the board, which has strangled the private sector and sent business investment abroad.  The answer to the crisis is therefore to cut spending, cut the public sector down to size, and to cut taxes - something that the Coalition has slowly started to do.  This will deal with the deficit and stimulate the private sector, which would in turn increase tax revenue as there would be more wealth to be taxed, albeit at a lower rate.

Yet the TUC is simply arguing for more of what got us into this mess in the first place.  It is important to cut through all the talk about how these cuts will hurt the "poor" - this is false. The unions are choosing to ignore the good that spending cuts will do to the private sector and private sector employment (which will benefit the poorer more than anyone else, as it is they who are more likely to be unemployed), instead focusing on the damage it will do to their vested interests.  Yes, this will hurt the public sector, and it will trim it down.  But that is because it needed trimming down in order for us to have significant private sector growth and to make the economy sustainable. The public sector, on the other hand, was choking the country, and was/is entirely unsustainable.

Emotionally charged language from vested interests in the public sector about the "poor and dispossessed" must be ignored.  A bloated public sector and excessive tax and spend policies do not work, and a failing economy helps no-one - not the rich and certainly not the poor.  The only way to end poverty is to have job creation and social mobility.  Welfare and high spending only damage these goals, and make poverty even worse by creating poverty and welfare traps that keep the poor poor.

The coalition must remain strong and cut spending as is necessary, and must tackle the toxic political language spewing from hard left groups like the TUC that want to drag us back into the misery of the 1970's - the future of the country depends on the coalition remaining strong.