GOOD NEWS AND POSSIBLE BAD NEWS

I'm glad to see plans for flexible working, allowing parents to tasks home and have a better work-life balance, being considered by the Government. I know many mums and dads who have a seriously hard time juggling working hours, childcare, and struggling with the cost of after-school care etc.
But , ominously, signals that the row over trade union donations is to be re-opened. Guardian claims today Brown's aides are saying he wants to introduce laws limiting party spending as well as caps on individual donations at around £50,000. Plans to extend state funding of parties have been dropped.Union leaders are apparently insistent that they will not tolerate any cap on donations. Well, we've heard it all before . But this time they had better mean it.

TILL THE PIPS SQUEAK........

Let's hope the Chancellor is heeding the calls of the unions for a more egalitarian agenda in his
comprehensive spending review. Good news. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber urged him yesterday to use today's review to close tax loopholes for the super-rich and use the proceeds to make further progress towards the government's target of ending child poverty. UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis also said that he wanted the Chancellor to release his "stranglehold" on public-sector pay. The bad news, so I hear, is that UNITE's Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson ( who are rapidly morphing into an unfunny version of Laurel and Hardy in their obeisance to GB) will be advising their members to accept the Government's pay offer and so will the GMB. How many weeks ago did the TUC pass the motion on co-ordinated strike action........and how many weeks did it take for the union barons to ignore that.......

UNIONS LINING UP TO BLOCK BROWN'S ATTACK ON PARTY DEMOCRACY

I'm glad to see Derek Simpson is speaking out, as we all must, against Gordon Brown's plans to remove the last vestiges of democracy from Party Conference. But frankly it's a bit of a shame that Simpson and his UNITE comrade Tony Woodley did not do a bit more to stop Gordon Brown becoming leader without a contest . They were warned and most probably knew full well that Brown would be even more right-wing than Blair but, like turkeys voting for Christmas, refused to countenance officially backing a left candidate.On what basis, I still can't understand as Brown has done absolutely nothing to placate them. Quite the contrary.
Now we are all reaping the whirlwind of Gordon's clunking first. With every day that passes, there is a new pronouncement or appointment that takes Labour further away from its roots. Last night I was at a friend's 50th birthday party where I met an 85-year-old Party member who expressed utter astonishment at that Brown is doing in the name of the labour Party. "I used to be Old labour, then I was New Labour but now I'm definitely Old Labour again, ." she said as she somewhat tipsily waved a red napkin in my face. All in all, Peg was a bit of a star and it's great to meet people who have spent all their lives campaigning for Labour.
But it's also seriously depressing that the left has no influence whatsoever in Govt. However, rolling over and dying just isn't an option. On Tuesday night, there's a TUC fringe meeting on the topic of Brown's plans to put the final nail in the coffin of Party Conference. Tony Woodley, John McDonnell, and Save The Labour Party's Peter Kenyon will be speaking so if anyone reading this is in Brighton do get along. Venue is the Quality Hotel at 5.30pm.Labour Party Conference must be saved!