Stop the Trade Union bashing

My pamphlet on transforming relations between Trade Unions and the Conservative Party, is published by Demos today.
You can download it HERE.

I also have written this article for the Daily Telegraph:

When we bash the trade unions, the effect is not just to demonise militancy, but every union member, including doctors, nurses and teachers.
It's time we Conservatives stopped bashing trade unions and started remembering our roots. We have a long history of caring for trade unionists, but the battles with Arthur Scargill in the 1980s have clouded many people's perceptions of the relationship. I suspect you don't believe me. Let me ask you this: who first set out to legalise the trade union movement? A Conservative, indeed a prime minister: the Earl of Derby. And who said that the law should not only permit, but "assist" the trade unions? It was Margaret Thatcher.
In fact, Mrs Thatcher was a committed trade unionist. The first political office she held was in the Conservative Trade Unionists (CTU). She understood very well something that many Tories now forget: there is a huge difference between the militants and the grassroots members. That is why, as leader of the opposition, she fought hard to recruit members for the CTU.
It is hard to imagine now, but in 1979, trade union members flew banners reading: "Trade Unions for a Conservative Victory" in Wembley Stadium.
Recent controversy over pensions and public sector jobs does not make this relationship an easy sell. But we cannot allow the Labour MP Denis MacShane to get away with tweeting that "Tories despise union folk". It is simply not true – and the belief that it is could cost our party millions of votes. There are 6.5 million trade union members in the UK – more than the entire population of Scotland – and the majority of them are moderate, hard-working people. A Populus poll in 2009 showed that a third of Unite members intended to vote Conservative in the general election. Of the 58 unions in the TUC, only 15 are Labour-affiliated, leaving 43 non-affiliated unions in Britain.
Conservatives share many values with trade unionists. To start with, many union members are thoroughly capitalist. There are far more of them with private health care than go on strike. In fact, Unison recently encouraged its members to join the private health care scheme Medicash.
Trade unionists are also wonderful communitarians. They are the largest voluntary group in the UK. TUC research has shown that trade union officers are eight times more likely to engage in voluntary work than the average person. They are the Big Society in action.
To be clear, I do not expect Bob Crow and other union barons to become Conservative voters. My point is that these leaders do not always speak well for their members (partly because they hold positions of essentially unchecked power). The Conservatives should try to speak over their heads, directly to the union members. When we bash the trade unions, the effect is not just to demonise militancy, but every trade union member, including doctors, nurses and teachers.
I am not naive about militant unionism. I know this is the source of 90 per cent of the Labour Party's funding, and I would like to see that changed. But I don't believe it precludes me from holding union membership myself, or from believing that the people who belong to these organisations form the little platoons we love to talk about.
Conservatives need to re-engage: they should not be afraid to praise the union movement or even encourage people to join up. In fact, I think we should make joining the Conservative Party a little more like joining a union – charging 50p a month for membership, for example.
We need to show union members that we share similar values and that we appreciate them. I want Conservatives to campaign in the union movement again, standing for election as officials, just as they did under Mrs Thatcher. This way we could oppose subsidies and funds to the Labour Party, and work for tougher strike laws, but do it standing shoulder-to-shoulder with millions of union members that agree.

P.S. Demos have also blogged on this weblink.

Why I opposed Jesse Norman's Bill on Trade Unions

From order-order.com

letter to The Evening Standard

Yesterday in the Commons, there was an attempt by my Conservative Colleague Jesse Norman MP, to bring through legislation to compel trade Unions to refund employers for hours spent on so-called 'faciltiy time'.  The Bill aimed to:

"provide that pay for hours worked on behalf of trade unions by trade union officials during hours when they are paid by an employer should be refunded to the employer by the trade union; and for connected purposes."

The underlying premise of the Bill was designed to curtail abuse on facility time - i.e. time spent by union officials on union matters, whether it be political or on representation, and paid by their employer to do so.
After listening to the short debate, I decided to vote against the proposals for a number of reasons:

First; I do  not believe it should be the duty of the state to dictate to intermediate, independent institutions, whether it be trade unions or charities in this way.  It should be up to employers to decide whether or not to fund trade union activities.

Second; some facility time is useful, in that union representatives have the time and ability to look after union members and offer constructive advice when there are disputes between workers and management.  Again, employers should decide if they want to pay for this and judge themselves whether there is a cost/benefit.

Third; As I have written before, I strongly believe that Conservatives should move away from 'union bashing' and work constructively with moderate Trade Unions.  Behind every Militant,  so often Unions on the ground embody the big society, are community institutions and offer invaluable services to their members.  It is worth noting that one of the first political organisations Margaret Thatcher ever joined, was the Conservative Trade Unionists (CTU).  


In 1975, Mrs Thatcher said to the CTU:

"As you well know, for over 100 years, ever since Disraeli's day, since before the Labour Party existed, it has been the belief of the Conservative Party that the law should not only permit, but that it should assist, the trades unions to carry out their legitimate function of protecting their members".

Of course, lets get to grips with the Union extremists, and crack down on political abuse - and there will be other ways of doing this -  but its no good complaining that Union leaders are extreme, if Conservatives don't attempt to get involved.  That is why I joined Prospect (not affiliated to Labour) - even if the Union campaigns for many policies I disagree with.


You can read the full debate HERE.


by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Remembering Ronald Reagan

A very special evening in the Guildhall. The event was to commemorate the unveiling of a statue of Ronald Reagan in Grosvenor Square this morning. William Hague, Liam Fox and Condoleeza Rice were all guest-speakers, and all spoke about human values of freedom and democracy.

Reagan was a great American President, and a champion of these values. He stood up to Soviet Communism, and alongside Margaret Thatcher brought about the end of the Cold War. At the time he was he much under-rated. History judges this President very differently.

As Reagan once said: "give people the freedom to choose and they will always choose freedom". Worth remembering as we watch events in the Middle East.

You can read more HERE.

An education for the Liberal Democrats about Mrs Thatcher

The President of the Liberal Democrats, Mr Tim Farron  was reported as having made a speech in which he argued for the Alternative Vote on the grounds that it would stop the 'wickedness of Margaret Thatcher'.  The absurdity of this comment is clear, not just because of Mrs Thatcher's many successes, but that, under AV, the Conservatives during her Premiership would have won many more seats - giving the Tory Government an even bigger landslide over Labour.

Given Mr Fallon's comments, today in the Commons, I asked for a debate on Mrs Thatcher, so as to give guidance to our Liberal partners:

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Can we please have a debate about the achievements of Mrs Thatcher, so that we can kindly educate our coalition allies about how she turned Britain into a nation of home owners, restored our place in the world and crushed militant trade unionism?

Sir George Young: As someone who played a modest role in Baroness Thatcher’s Administration, with a slight hiatus at one point, I disagree with the reported comments of the president of the Liberal Democrat party. The two reforms that were highlighted in the speech, namely the right to buy and the privatisation of the utilities, were actually continued under the succeeding Labour Government, so they cannot have been all bad.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Atkins wasn't just the Galileo of dieticians. We now know its the Thatcherite diet too.

A while ago, I wrote a short piece for the Conservative Home Piece about the Dr Atkins diet. The article was written after I had read an excellent book, called The Hungry Years by William Leith.

My argument was as follows:

"Reading an excellent book by journalist William Leith, The Hungry Years, a quirky and witty look at food and other addictions, I was reminded that almost exactly five years ago, ground-breaking proponent of a low-carb diet, Dr Robert Atkins, died after slipping on his way to work. Even his death attracted controversy, with his critics arguing that he collapsed because of heart failure and ended his life an obese man. None of this was true. William Leith interviewed Dr Atkins a few months before his death and found Dr Atkins to be healthy and of average build. Newsweek magazine, which had published some of the myths about his death, later published a retraction, acknowledging 'inaccuracies'.

William Leith notes that the Atkins low carb diet had a serious impact on the commercial food industry, particularly with his assault on refined carbohydrates (e.g. white bread etc) and so called low fat products - which in reality, are nothing of the kind. In response, a number of studies were published purporting to debunk Atkins, but many of which were found to be directly or indirectly funded by the commercial food lobby.

The Atkins diet first came out in the seventies and has had tipping points in the 80s, 90s and early 2000's. What has been interesting is that whenever there was a resurgence, because of scientific evidence, there was a furious backlash by the carbohydrate industry, worried at potential slippage in the enormous profits of addictive carb-type food. Brilliantly, the food industry has painted the Atkins diet at causing kidney failure, bad breath, not allowing any carbs or fibre, etc etc. None of which are true. So Dr Atkins has been cast as a heretic across the board, merely for challenging existing assumptions, daring to oppose the carb-food lobby, and confronting the cosy consensus on diets. But just like Galileo, the real truth about Dr Atkins will out itself eventually."

I have always been a passionate proponent and doer of the Atkins diet - and this is not just because I love, meat, egg and cheese. Atkins is a diet that works. Cutting the carbs does lead to significant weight loss. I know this from personal experience over the years.

So I was delighted to learn that Atkins is a Thatcherite diet too. According to the Margaret Thatcher papers released yesterday, the Iron Lady, was on the Atkins diet before the 1979 election. She was eating up to 28 eggs a week - albeit for a short period. As the Daily Telegraph notes today, the former Prime Minister was also munching through plenty of steak, spinach and salad, with the occasional glass of whisky! Well, no wonder she won the 1979 election. It makes sense - all that protein helped put the iron in the Iron Lady.

P.S. On reading the news, I had to have a huge mushroom and tomato omelette this afternoon (a late lunch) at the excellent Harlow Grill cafe in Little Walk, Harlow, although it wasn't quite twenty eight eggs. This omelette had come after many strenuous hours of campaigning of course....

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com