Backlash warning

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey spoke to The Financial Times today (Monday November 17) about Ed Miliband, the cuts to public spending and union donations to the Labour Party.

The Financial Times last week revealed that the next government may need to cut £48bn from public spending to achieve politician’s aims of reducing the deficit.

A move which Len said Unite members would not accept, especially another real terms pay cut. He warned of a backlash.

The level of the cuts, in my view, is unsustainable,” said Len.

“If you are a cohesive society in a civilised 21^st century country, then you cannot embark upon the type of cuts that cut away at the very fabric of the communities in which we all live. I’m certain there will be a backlash.”

He also threw his support behind Labour leader Ed Miliband saying personal poll ratings have been exaggerated and ‘grossly unfair’.

“It is now looking like bullying and the British people don’t like it when ordinary individuals are singled out for this type of unmerciful attack,” he said.

I’m on your side

“Ed just needs to rise above that, and he has to do what he started to do, which is argue with passion and commitment about policies with the central message that I’m on your side…I’m not going to fight for the privileged few.”

But one poll gave Mr Miliband the worst personal ratings of any Conservative or Labour leader in a generation. Ed delivered a ‘make or break’ speech at Senate House in Central London.

Mr McCluskey described the speech as ‘first class’.

“I’ve seen a kind of passion and steeliness, and a boldness that I think some of us have been wanting to see for a while,” he said.

Our creation

Unite, along with other big Labour-supporting unions, has committed to helping towards funding the general election campaign.

Len hit back at criticism, pointing out that it was the unions who created Labour in the first place.

“Our pennies and pounds have supported the Labour party since its inception for over 100 years,” he said.

“Why shouldn’t we have an input? The right-wing media want a bogeyman and it happens to be me and Unite, this ‘all-powerful’ union.”

Germany a role model

 

David Cameron was a ‘child of Thatcherism’ and his policies were ‘extremely right-wing’, he said. He urged the Conservatives to look to Germany as a model for how unions work together closely with parties of all types to reach compromise.

“Why try to isolate a section of society when you’re supposed to be governing for everyone…it’s got no intellectual sense to it,” Mr McCluskey said.