Supporters of the campaign to re-elect UNISON General Secretary, Dave Prentis are busily celebrating the ability of his campaign to engineer nominations from Regional Councils and National Committees.
They are studiously ignoring the fact that support for his campaign at branch level is remarkably less than it has been in the past.
Dave won a convincing victory in 1999 and trounced his opponents (myself included) five years later. In his third campaign (another five years on) he won once more, having sold his campaign to his supporters as his final attempt to remain our General Secretary.
In Dave's third term he achieved his goal of recruiting five new Assistant General Secretaries, removing the previous Assistant General Secretary (who, having chaired one of the recruitment panels for his own successors, left the Union with his reputation unsullied) and deleting the Deputy General Secretary.
However, our General Secretary proved himself incapable of promoting a successor and has therefore sought a fourth term. It would be churlish to remark that this decision will help us to understand why UNISON has consistently failed to support the "68 is too late" campaign.
Jeremy Corbyn shows that there is nothing at all wrong with supporting a candidate for leadership in their mid 60s.
But do you (dear reader) really think that, had Jeremy Corbyn been elected in 1999 he would still be holding on now, having failed time and again to develop a successor?
Do you?
Really?
UNISON needs a future - and the campaign of John Burgess (who has won unprecedented branch level support) offers that future.
The campaign for the re-election of Dave Prentis is a pitiable campaign of failure and foolishness. It is a shame that Dave did this and the outcome of the campaign can only be unfortunate.
UNISON needs a future.
John Burgess offers that now.
A vote for Dave Prentis is a vote to defer the decision.
And a shame.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.
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