'Bob' the Baker ((11/08/15)



I read an article by Kevin McKenna in The Nation recently which wasn't just lousy politics, but lazy journalism into the bargain.

Now Kevin seems to me like an Old Labour kind of guy who in recent times has morphed into a nationalist cum SNP supporter at times, but in any event he certainly referred to his retired baker friend in the run-up to the 2015 general election, as 'proof positive' that New Labour had led the nation down a dead end.

I have no idea who this mysterious East End baker is although he seems to be acquiring the kind of status once bestowed on 'Joe the Plumber' during the last American presidential election.

In any event 'Bob' the Baker (to give him a name) is completely wrong and so too is Kevin McKenna because every Labour leader since Neil Kinnock has supported the law on pre-strike ballots for trade unions, including Labour's 'lost leader' John Smith. 

So it is nonsense to suggest that party policy on pre-strike ballots is a New Labour creation and nor was any move away from the current position mooted by Labour's last leader, Ed Miliband, either. 

I don't recall the bakers' union being held back in any campaign for better pay and conditions by the need to have a vote on whether members were prepared to strike or not.

In fact, I often wonder why the Old Labour trade unions never threatened the big Labour councils in Scotland with strike action over their failure to deliver equal pay for low paid women council workers.

Now just that, I often wonder why as well that journalist like Kevin McKenna never wrote about the fight for equal pay which was taking place right under their noses, while finding time to write fondly about 'Bob' the Baker and Jeremy Corbyn.  

Jeremy Corbyn would not have supported the fight for equal pay in Scotland either because he is from the same Old Labour political mindset as the trade unions who turned a blind eye to the issue for years and the Old Labour politicians who run many of Scotland's local councils - including Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Fife. 

You can read Kevin's views for yourself via the following link to The Nation.

http://www.thenational.scot/comment/kevin-mckenna-corbyn-v-the-bodysnatchers-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-labour-party.5839

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