UNISON's Leadership choices update

Just to correct an earlier post – the news about UNISON deciding to nominate Gordon Brown for Leader is on the website, but only as a brief press release. Whereas the news that Labour has so far failed to fulfill its promise to create a more equal society rightly gets more coverage.

If anyone thinks that there is a contradiction between our criticisms of the New Labour Government and our support for candidates who stand more than anything else for continuity – well I guess you would have a good point. In some debates within UNISON I get the impression that we want to have sound progressive policies ourselves but don’t necessarily expect them to influence Government…

The decision of UNISON’s Labour Link Committee to nominate Alan Johnson for Deputy and to encourage members to give their second preferences to Peter Hain multiplies still further the number of ways in which trade unions are facing on the fairly unimportant question of the Deputy Leadership. (And also raises some interesting questions about how to engage with ballots using STV).