Just Daft

The Times also reports on the mauling of Len McCluskey by the former T&G leader Margaret Prosser who described his comments about the Labour leadership as "just daft".

Now that's what they use to say about Chic Murray, one of Scotland's favourite sons, but a least Chic had the benefit of being a famous comedian.

Labour turns on McCluskey over ‘correct leader’ ultimatum

Harriet Harman: the leader will be the choice of the full Labour party

By Philip Webster - The Times

Labour and its union backers were in increasing disarray today after party figures turned on Len McCluskey for demanding that the party pick the “correct” leader who would champion “organised labour”.

The leader of Unite, Britain’s biggest union, appeared to be holding the party to ransom as he warned that it might cut off financial backing unless Labour chose the right person, and it emerged that the possibility of backing other parties such as the SNP would be considered at its annual conference in July

Fearing that the leadership contest risks bringing the party into further disrepute, Harriet Harman, the acting leader, today told Unite and the rest of the unions that they would not pick the next leader, and Mr McCluskey was told by a former union leader and party treasurer that his ideas were “daft”.

Ms Harman announced that the public would be able to grill leadership contenders at televised hustings and added: “The winner of this election is not going to be the choice of the unions or any single section or faction of the Labour party. He or she is going to be the choice of the Labour party.”

She confirmed that non-Labour members would be able to sign up as registered supporters for £3 and get the right to vote for their choice. Union members will also get that chance, though their leaderships will not be able to cast block votes on their behalf.

As the four declared contenders weighed up how to respond to the latest row Margaret Prosser, former deputy general secretary of the transport workers’ union and a Labour treasurer, hit out at Mr McCluskey, who has already been described as the “kiss of death” by Jim Murphy, the outgoing Scottish leader.

Baroness Prosser said it was not Mr McCluskey’s union but the membership’s. Neither she nor they had been consulted about his remarks.

And she said that the whole idea that Labour’s focus should be around organised Labour, as the union leader had suggested, was “just daft”.

“We have to be able to say that a Labour government is going to be there for all kinds of people,“ she said on the Radio 4 Todayprogramme.

Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB union, was careful not to back Mr McCluskey’s remarks but added that it was better to have the “bloodletting” now rather than in two years’ time.

Unite’s financial support remains hugely important to Labour: the union gave £3.5 million to the party’s ill-fated election campaign.

In a sign of the scale of Labour’s loss, Jon Cruddas, who led Mr Miliband’s policy review, said that the next leader needed to “go to the dark places and fundamentally rethink what the Labour party is for, who it represents, what it’s all about”.

Mr McCluskey himself said yesterday that the election of Mr Miliband’s brother, David, in 2010 would have split the party. He added that pressure would grow from his members to look again at its Labour link should it create more “disillusionment”.

He told Pienaar’s Politics on BBC Radio 5 Live: “It’s essential that the correct leader emerges and that there’s a genuine debate about the direction we’re going in.

“It is the challenge of the Labour party to demonstrate that they are the voice of ordinary working people, that they are the voice of organised labour. If they do that in a way that enthuses us, then I don’t believe that the mountain that’s ahead of us is unclimbable.

“But it’s up to them. If they don’t, if they kind of inject more disillusionment in the party, then the pressure will grow from our members to rethink. It’s certainly already growing in Scotland.”

Ms Harman later played down the threat of Unite breaking from the party.”I don’t think there is going to be a break between Unite or any of the unions that are affiliated to the Labour party. We have had a lot of soul searching to do across all parts of our party and we will have robust discussions but no, I don’t think there is going to be a disaffiliation.”