All the fun of the Regional Committee

As I race to catch up with the fun and games over recent days I find myself having to return to Tuesday morning and a meeting of our UNISON Regional Committee.

This was not perhaps the most exciting meeting I have attended in the recent past. We discussed the reasonable positive recruitment data (concerning which I pointed out that the various figures in the reports before us did not tally) and a range of other matters relating to the day to day work of our Union (as we should).

A dishonest and misleading report of our discussion of the threat from the BNP is already available online so I won't detain you too much on this point.

Suffice to say that my contribution in response to the news that the odious Nick Griffin is to stand for the Barking constituency was to say that it is essential that all anti-Nazis vote for Margaret Hodge (and that we should keep any critical thoughts about dear Margaret very much to ourselves from now until the General Election).

I did and do think that New Labour's betrayal of our core supporters has helped to create the political space in which the BNP now operate. I think that is obviously the case and that UNISON cannot give generally uncritical or unconditional support to Labour candidates for this reason (among others).

However where the BNP pose a serious threat we should (IMHO - as we say in blogland) support the candidate best placed to defeat them.

Even if that means that we have to elect to a Council someone who will thereby lose their employment and eligibility for UNISON office.