Tristram Hunt? No Thanks!

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-c261-Hunt-crosses-picket-line-to-lecture-on-Marx#.UvqLlmr_Rxs

‎Now that Tony Blair has mostly left UK politics in order to spend more time with his ego, there has been something of a vacancy for a really offensive public schoolboy, dripping with contempt for our movement, on the right wing of the Labour Party.

No longer.

Not content with alienating teachers, without winning any significant support from parents or students, with a half-baked hare-brained scheme to register all teachers, Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt managed (as reported in the link above from the admirable Morning Star) to waltz across a UCU picket line in order to give a lecture on (of all things) Marxism!

Trade unionists have more than a century of putting up with a lot of nonsense from the political wing of our movement. Crossing a picket line to work in the trade of the workers on a picket line ‎is, however, entirely outside what is acceptable from an ostensibly "Labour" politician. It should be no more acceptable in our movement than the sort of foul-mouthed racism, misogyny or homophobia at which Tristram would doubtless express his horror if asked for a view at an agreeable dinner party.

As someone who has, in the past, got into a certain amount of if not hot, then at least more than tepid, water for using the word "scab", I suggest we could now replace that with the word "Tristram".‎ 

And as for the individual concerned?

He should be reshuffled into well deserved oblivion at the earliest opportunity.

He may not be, because the Blairite machine is populating the Parliamentary Labour Party with far too many such creatures - but at the very least no trade unionist should lift a finger to secure the return to Parliament of this enemy of our movement.

If we have meant anything we have said in the fight to defend the link between our unions and the Party we created we must now take the fight to these Tory fifth columnists. 

Tristram Hunt is a disgrace.

‎

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.