No doubt I will be condemned for this but Mister Ed is a scab. It’s not an easy word to use bearing in mind the meaning but on this occasion it’s spot-on. Miliband is a disgrace to the labour movement and to the trade union movement. He was only too grateful to get the support of the unions for his campaign for leader and even used the word “comrades” when addressing an audience (it probably choked him then much as it probably does now).
Just to reiterate the point, Ed Miliband is a scab. What he should be telling MPs in no uncertain terms that they should not only NOT cross picket lines, but to visit picket lines and speak at union meetings/rallies. That’s what a Labour MP should be doing, not, in the words of some Labour Party spokesperson, ”coming to work as normal”.
Miliband coulda/shoulda used PMQs to support these strikes but he kept shtum. Cameron baited Mister Ed with “in the pockets of the union” while he shook his terrified head… I mean, he doesn’t want to give the establishment the wrong idea.
In the words of that doyen of consumer capitalism, Alan Sugar, “You’re fired”…. Fired because Mister Ed continues the long line of despicable, disreputable, and destable leaders grovelling at the altar of the establishment while the working class get further shafted with a couple of crumbs thrown in their way. But when it comes to taking on the establishment, when it comes to workers fighting back the Labour Party leadership has a tendency to sell-out. And Mister Ed is no different.
I mean, what are workers meant to do? One of the options, when all avenues have been pursued, is to withdraw your labour. And that’s the power workers have and it’s the duty of the Labour Party leadership to stand firm not criticise and condemn. I am damn angry that workers’ are paying for an economic crisis that wasn’t caused by them and Mister Ed knows it.
This is a critical time for the fight back against the austerity cuts and the attacks on workers’ pay and conditions and it’s crystal clear that Mister Ed is a spineless crawling squirming scab… too scared to stand up to the establishment. But what I always thought right from the beginnings of Mister Ed’s campaign for leadership is that he was no different to the amnesia suffering neoliberal squalid New Labour toadies.
International solidarity with the workers tomorrow!
Great idea from Partisan
It is not a surprise, and his brother would have been even worse. If we cant get Tony Benn to make a comeback at 86?, then John McDonnell will do a pretty good job!
Honestly we shouldn’t be surprised we know the labour party leadership are a right shower,there are still some good grass roots members in the labour party though who are worth working with. If Ed Milliband had some good people round him in the shadow cabinet would he be any different?
It is extraordinary that at a time of unprecedented assault by the Tories on the working and middle classes — the Labour constituency — Labour’s leader starts attacking the unions. Unbelievable!
Crossing picket lines is an absolute wrong. It should be an expulsion offence. No condemnation from me for your sentiment. I expect to be disappointed by the Labour leadership on all sorts of issues, but this makes me think the Labour leadership doesn’t even understand the party.
It doesn’t make any sense from an electoral viewpoint either. Half a million public sector workers may lose their jobs and this may have a ‘domino effect’ on the private sector, with more job losses. Some people have said that about a million people could lose their jobs.
These people are hardly going to vote for somebody who is attacking them. In any case, I thought Labour was supposed to provide an alternative instead of being a pathetic Tory clone.
Not only is he a scab, he is an idiot, who has fallen for the Blairite line that Labour needs to appease the centre ground to win, despite the fact that we’ve lost well over 4 million working class voters because of their right wing agenda.
unfortunately I don’t see the leaders of the largest unions giving him much of a hard time over it.