Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Why we need more than one Kelvin Hopkins!

As a regular commuter myself I was particulary pleased to see this story in today's Morning Star.

It concerns socialist MP Kelvin Hopkins, who manages to commute from his Luton constituency to his London workplace (like real people do). Kelvin stands out as one of the MPs not abusing a flawed expenses system.

Kelvin is a member of the Labour Representation Committee and co-Convenor of the UNISON group of MPs (as well as being one of those MPs who actually supports what UNISON stands for!)

We need more representatives like Kelvin.

The challenge which confronts our trade unions is how to get more such good representatives of our class. The sad mixture of cheerleading and timidity which we currently practice clearly does not work.

Which reminds me to remind you (in what I promise regular readers Sid and Doris bored-with-this-now will be the last such reminder worked in at the end of a post) to remind any UNISON member you meet to vote for the left in the UNISON NEC elections!

3 comments:

Matthew Stiles said...

Thanks for the post Jon. Kelvin seems a top MP.

Ray said...

I like Kelvin too. I'd like him a whole lot more though if he signed EDM 1163, which for some reason he's refused to do.

Ray said...

I'm talking about a rather more recent, pertinent, and still active EDM! Here

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=29523&SESSION=875
Text of which is
EDM 1163 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE 24.03.2009


That this House welcomes the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the National Minimum Wage on 1 April 2009; applauds the fact that employees in more than one million jobs have benefited, two-thirds of them women; believes that annual uprating and effective enforcement are the key to its continued success; regards the current economic climate as an opportunity to increase the spending power of the low paid; calls for an end to discriminatory lower age rates for young workers; and further calls on the Low Pay Commission and Government to end the exemption of some apprenticeships from the national minimum wage.