{"id":2702,"date":"2015-01-14T11:11:02","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T11:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2702"},"modified":"2015-01-15T17:15:23","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T17:15:23","slug":"ed-must-chase-shadow-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2702","title":{"rendered":"Ed must not chase the shadow of Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fed up with the General Election already? Who can blame you? And there are still 16 bruising weeks to go.<\/p>\n

 
\nPlease don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tune out though \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s far too much at stake.<\/p>\n

 
\nCameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098road to recovery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is full of potholes and the wheels are off his wagon. Only one in 40 of the new jobs his government hails are proper jobs and more than 700,000 businesses it claims have bloomed in Tory Britain have NO employees.<\/p>\n

 
\nNot one.<\/p>\n

 
\nHe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s borrowed more than he promised the people because Osbornomics are about as much use to our nation as a dinner service of chocolate teapots.<\/p>\n

 
\nYet the Tories have the cheek to run on their economic record.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs for Nigel Farage, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sworn off the demon drink for January \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it be better for the common good if he could swear off the political poison too?<\/p>\n

 
\nWhenever Mr Farage appears, a shadow descends on public life. To borrow from the famous phrase, he could light up our politics by leaving the screen.<\/p>\n

 
\nThis is what Ed Miliband must remember. Blow away the fear and what do UKIP offer? Not jobs, not homes, not decent wages \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just more fear.<\/p>\n

 
\nSo when Ed says that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll jail bad bosses who use migrant workers to drive down wages, he is offering us something new. Someone on our side. Hope. Such policies have to be just the start.<\/p>\n

 
\nIn what is set to become the nastiest election of recent times, Ed must stay true to himself as a decent man. One who genuinely wants to make our country fairer again.<\/p>\n

 
\nSo let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s see more of the policies that will build the homes we need, give our kids a future and get the wealth of our country out of bank vaults and into the pockets of those who have earned it.<\/p>\n

 
\nAs long as Labour sticks to its values, then its plan for the nation will be the right one. Ed can win if he offers hope \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t chase the shadow of Farage and fear.<\/p>\n

 
\nYour vote matters<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nQuietly, last September, how we register to vote was changed. As a result, the young, the unemployed, one million women, too \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the very people least likely to vote Tory, coincidentally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are falling off the voter roll.<\/p>\n

 
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I back the Mirror\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NoVoteNoVoice campaign to get the missing millions registered, and voting.<\/p>\n

 
\nYour vote matters. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just take my word for it. Former US president Lyndon B Johnson once said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nOr, as he also more bluntly put it, \u00e2\u20ac\u015ba man without a vote is a man without protection\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 
\nKeep the road to rights open<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Danny\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bus driver. He works six days a week to earn what he did five years ago.<\/p>\n

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There are 80 different rates of pay for London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bus drivers. Some earn \u00c2\u01413 less an hour than drivers on other bus route doing exactly the same job.<\/p>\n

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As Danny says, we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect a police officer in one part of a town to earn \u00c2\u0141300 less a month than one in another. Why should it be different for bus drivers?<\/p>\n

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Rather than doing the right thing and helping with talks, the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solution is to stop decent men like Danny from ever again acting to improve their working lives.<\/p>\n

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Cameron and Co want the UK to join a dodgy elite, the handful of repressive regimes where the right to strike has been all but outlawed.<\/p>\n

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This is bullying, not government. Boris Johnson, for all his clownish joviality, is leading the way, hammering workers who seek nothing more than a fair day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pay.<\/p>\n

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Bosses should be wary too. By allowing nasty ministers to play political games with workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re letting them drive roughshod over the precious freedoms of each and every one of us.<\/p>\n

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Leave NHS to our professionals<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Hinchingbrooke hospital carries on today. Patients will be tended to, relatives reassured. That’s because that is what our NHS professionals do \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they care, they put people before profits.<\/p>\n

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We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re told that it is too simple to say `private bad, public good\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. But when Circle said `We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make money out of the sick, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re off\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, it was a reminder that big business has no business with our health care.<\/p>\n

 
\nBut the fight is not over. A Godzilla agreement before EU legislators now \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the TTIP \u00e2\u20ac\u201c means we will never be able to rid our services of profit-first companies like Circle. This government backs the TTIP, just as it backs selling off our NHS.<\/p>\n

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Hinchingbrooke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s flagship privatisation was a spectacular failure. As Circle slinks off leaving the public with the bill for their mess, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remember the words of veteran campaigner Harry Leslie Smith.<\/p>\n

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To Cameron, to Circle, to all those looking to suck money out of our services, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bget your filthy mitts off our NHS.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0098Invisible man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Cam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the run<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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So David Cameron has turned tail on debating with the brilliant Bite the Ballot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s young voters, the only party leader to do so.<\/p>\n

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Do you think the PM who once wanted to `hug a hoodie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but has left our kids worse off than their parents is running scared?<\/p>\n

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He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wobbling too about the national televised election debates.<\/p>\n

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The PM\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advisors are said to have told him that letting the voters have a look at him in 2010 cost him the election.<\/p>\n

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By dodging the debates altogether, he plans to slide into No10 on a tide of smears and crony cash.<\/p>\n

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Surely if he wants to be PM of this country, he should have the courage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and courtesy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to face the people?<\/p>\n

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Time to tax the fat cat landlords<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Are you braced for Blue Monday, the day when there is too much month at the end of the money?<\/p>\n

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Shelter has warned that millions of hard up people will not meet their rent or mortgage payments this month.<\/p>\n

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Fear not though as there are some among us for whom this crazy economy is coming up roses.<\/p>\n

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Private landlords have amassed themselves a fortune in the past five years, the Financial Times reveals. \u00c2\u0141177bn profits to be exact, pretty much by doing very little.<\/p>\n

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Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s busted housing market means those lucky private landlords can sit back while their properties balloon to an out of this world value of \u00c2\u01411TRILLION.<\/p>\n

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A paradise indeed for private landlords but a hell for the millions in housing need.<\/p>\n

 
\nHere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an idea then. How about a 10 per cent tax on the private landlords\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 windfall?<\/p>\n

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It could solve our housing crisis at a stroke. Councils could build more homes, in big numbers, driving down the punishingly high rents in this country. At last, we could begin to free folk from the misery brought about by the housing fat cats.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u02d8 This article first appeared in the Daily Mirror, January 14<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fed up with the General Election already? Who can blame you? And there are still 16 bruising weeks to go.   Please don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tune out though \u00e2\u20ac\u201c there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s far too much at stake.   Cameron\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098road to recovery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is full of potholes and the wheels are off his wagon. Only one in 40 of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[171,160],"wps_subtitle":"GS Len McCluskey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daily Mirror column ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2703,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2702\/revisions\/2703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}