Can A Leopard Change It's Spots?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24020266
Is Ed urinating into a gale here?

[youngmafbog]

Unions are not concerned really with Labours membership.

They just see labour as their political arm to do with as they please and s*d the members.

More Jags, swimming pools exotic holidays etc. Where is Scargil btw?

[Quizmonster]

Did either of you notice from the pie-charts that the Tories get virtually double the amount from "donations" that Labour gets from the unions? So, just who are these Tory "paymasters"?
Actually, a very large proportion of them are from a relative handful of bankers, venture capitalists and the like plus businessmen - such as the family which owns JCB. Now just why would they give money to the Tories if there was nothing in it for them? For example, JCB invariably has an owner/board-member in tow when Cameron goes abroad on sales-pitches.

[bazwillrun]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/arthur-scargill-ordered-to-pay-rent-as-he-loses-fight-to-have-union-pay-for-london-flat-for-life-8428774.html

Last I heard of him, good riddance too

[ludwig]

// JCB invariably has an owner/board-member in tow when Cameron goes abroad on sales-pitches. //

Outrageous. I just bet they're surreptitously trying to win contracts from foreign buyers for British goods on these so-called overseas sales-pitches.

[Octavius]

"I just bet they're surreptitously trying to win contracts from foreign buyers"

Well, that and a nice little peerage from his pal Dave. Presume the little tax issue has since disappeared.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286015/Why-950m-digger-king-Tory-donors-peerage-bulldozed.html

[Quizmonster]

No, Ludwig, the attempt to win contracts is perfectly open and above board; what's "surreptitious" is what the public might never spot, such as the peerage saga outlined in Octavius's link above...and from The Mail, too!
Apart from the failed elevation to the Lords, we'll never know how much this one man gained personally through Osborne's reduction of the top tax-rate. Mutual back-scratching epitomised right there. But he is only one man, so how many more just like him are to be counted among Tory paymasters?

[ludwig]

// No, Ludwig, the attempt to win contracts is perfectly open and above board; //

That's what you appeared to take issue with though. You didn't mention the peerage thing until Octavius did, - which is also somewhat irrelevant because we all know that ALL parties have been selling peerages to their mates since time immemorial.

[emmie]

so they have ^^

[Quizmonster]

I never mentioned subreption; you did and I dismissed it.
(There, in the face of what would doubtless become an ongoing palaver as usual with you, I'll leave it!)

[modeller]

Labour will be far more electable if they break the link. The misuse of union power has held back Labour for years. Signing up people to a party is what happened and still happens in China and Russia. I was in a union and being told by our extreme left wing rep. I should join a demonstration against the government, which happened to be Labour at the time, but some Labour MPs like our rep. were on the picket lines. When I hear and see the leftie delegates at the TUC it turns me against Labour.
What we need is a strong independent Labour party with no ties to any inward looking group , a bit like the Democrats in the US. .

There have been several attempts over the years by various Labour ministers to go it alone . I hope Ed succeeds.