What is to be done?

It is not difficult to work out what we need now politically.

John McDonnell puts it well over at the Guardian website as follows;

"A consensus checklist of what constitutes real change is emerging from many sources. Securing jobs by intervening in manufacturing and restoring trade union rights; securing homes by a mass local authority house-building programme; stopping the squandering of public resources by ending the privatisation of public services; reasserting the government's green credentials with no third runway; for young people freezing, as the first step towards abolishing, student fees; for pensioners restoring the link between pensions and earnings; halting the attacks on welfare; paying for our programme by fair taxation and cutting out the waste on the likes of Trident renewal and ID cards; and making government ruthlessly clean, open and fair with immediate electoral reform."

This is pretty much in line with UNISON policy.

The interesting question therefore is whether UNISON will align itself with those Parliamentarians who will support this agenda - or whether we will contine to associate ourselves with a group of MPs of whom we appear to be so ashamed that we have removed the list from our website.

No such debate can take place formally at our Conference over the coming week because of the way in which the Standing Orders Committee views the implications of Rule J and the autonomy of the Political Fund Committees from Conference and the NEC.

Other unions - including the CWU last week - can have this debate, but UNISON delegates will have to discuss the future political direction of our trade union at fringe meetings.