I hope this week's TUC conference in Brighton has some positive outcomes. On the one hand, it's obviously encouraging to hear Brendan Barber calling on the Govt to address inequalities in the tax system and "loopholes" which add up to £4billion a year in tax breaks for UK citizens who spent time abroad.But don't hold your breath.
Barber has rightly slammed the "super-rich" who float free from the rest of us, and think that tax is for the "little people". He is also right to criticise the size of City bonuses - £14bn in total this year. Why? Because the gap between rich and poor in this country is, after 10 years of labour Government, worse than ever.
But then in sadly predictable fashion he steps back from the logical brink and confirms the TUC is not actually calling for a change in the rate of income tax for the highest earners. What's worse, he starts to morph into Gordon Brown -speak which sounds radical without actually offering any concrete suggestions.
Unions, he says, have to "build support for a new progressive consensus of equality and redistribution - not based on the old politics of envy but on a new politics of cutting the costs of inequality".
Now what does he mean by the "politics of envy." Go back three generations and my grandparents were scrabbling around to try and earn enough to feed five children . They couldn't, so my dad was sent to his grandparents in Northern Ireland.
When I was little, we had no car, we didn't go abroad, holidays were caravans in Blackpool and North Wales. Yes our family life was stable and parental love and concern is one thing money can't buy but were we envious of those who had more? The answer , Brendan, is yes of course we were. And we had every right to be.
When I was a teenager in the LPYS, there was a badge in vogue which bore the slogan "We don't want the cake, we want the whole bloody bakery." Fine sentiments, I still think. So can the trade union bureaucrats stop serving us the crumbs.....and expecting us to be contented.
Barber has rightly slammed the "super-rich" who float free from the rest of us, and think that tax is for the "little people". He is also right to criticise the size of City bonuses - £14bn in total this year. Why? Because the gap between rich and poor in this country is, after 10 years of labour Government, worse than ever.
But then in sadly predictable fashion he steps back from the logical brink and confirms the TUC is not actually calling for a change in the rate of income tax for the highest earners. What's worse, he starts to morph into Gordon Brown -speak which sounds radical without actually offering any concrete suggestions.
Unions, he says, have to "build support for a new progressive consensus of equality and redistribution - not based on the old politics of envy but on a new politics of cutting the costs of inequality".
Now what does he mean by the "politics of envy." Go back three generations and my grandparents were scrabbling around to try and earn enough to feed five children . They couldn't, so my dad was sent to his grandparents in Northern Ireland.
When I was little, we had no car, we didn't go abroad, holidays were caravans in Blackpool and North Wales. Yes our family life was stable and parental love and concern is one thing money can't buy but were we envious of those who had more? The answer , Brendan, is yes of course we were. And we had every right to be.
When I was a teenager in the LPYS, there was a badge in vogue which bore the slogan "We don't want the cake, we want the whole bloody bakery." Fine sentiments, I still think. So can the trade union bureaucrats stop serving us the crumbs.....and expecting us to be contented.
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