You never get much in the way of original thought here at D&N - what do you mean, you know already? - so once again I am grateful to The Spectator for passing the ammunition, as it were. My link, above, is to their blog but the full story is in this week's edition - so hurry, hurry, whilst stocks last! In essence, the Speccie printed a story last May reporting on the fear and loathing within the UNITE union (with a name like that they should be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act!) engendered by the arrival of Charlie Whelan as their 'Political Officer'. (Those possessed of some modern history knowledge will remember that 'Political Officers' were an important, even crucial, part of the Soviet army responsible for murdering tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers pour encourager les autres, so the title is, shall we say, unfortunate.) Whelan, of course, was Gordon Brown's consigliore in the early days of 'Nu'-Labour until he ran across the queen of hearts, Lord Mandelson, who forced him to resign. Needless to say, no links were broken between him and Brown, and Brown's glove puppet, Ed Balls. Instead, he was shoe-horned into UNITE which provided him with the immense power of directing huge union funds to MPs and 'wannabe' MPs who could wake up and smell the gravy train but more important could discern the direction from which it was coming!
Anyway, it was not too long before staff at the UNITE HQ, part of whose raison d' etre was to protect abused workers from bullying management, themselves raised a joint complaint concerning Whelan and the cronies he had brought with him. The Speccie printed the story and before you could say "workers of the world unite" Whelan hired the lawyers, Carter Ruck, on a no-win-no-fee basis to sue. As always, well, nearly always, with these bullying braggarts swollen with their delusions of petty power, Whelan has been found out. The story is true and the Speccie has the internal paperwork plus supporting witnesses to prove it. In addition, of course, their investigatory efforts have now disclosed some of the murky machinations of the Whelan/Brown/Balls axis within the Labour party and the lengths to which they are prepared to go to ensure Brown remains leader until it is safe for Balls to take over. As one Labour peer is quoted as saying "There is no agenda, no principles, no core beliefs. Just raw power, for its own sake."
How does their slogan go? Ah, yes:
'A future fair for all - provided you kiss Charlie Whelan's arse - or else'!
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