There has been considerable outrage that Labour Ministers have been issued with a circular, telling them to be “neutral”, rather than supportive, to Greenpeace because of the environmental group’s threats to certain “great” British companies. Never one to be neutral when he can attack, John Prescott launched an all-out attack on its attempts to block North Atlantic oil exploration. John Battle’s Department (Trade and Industry) have even been advising companies to sue Greenpeace.
Piers Merchant’s name once epitomised the Tories much as the name of his opponent last May, Dominic Welfare, epitomised Labour. Now he has resigned as an MP will now not have a chance to move his Private Members Bill on waste prevention in December. Perhaps he realised the best way he could promote waste prevention was to resign and so avoid the destruction of trees felled to produce the paper for Hansard, the Parliamentary report in which his speeches are published.
The Young Fabians couldn’t be accused of any pinko pacifist bias at their Conference on defence policy for the 21st century. The event is sponsored by the Society of British Aerospace Companies, whose main financial interest is...the defence industry (well, the attack industry really).
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd continues its attempts to ingratiate itself with Labour ministers. Having recruited Peter Metcalfe, Progress writer and former researcher to Energy Minister John Battle, they now have Northern Ireland Minister Lord Dubs as a “BNFL Fellow-elect” on the Industry and Parliament Trust’s list of speakers.
Surely the Gordon Brown currently fully committed to spending on Trident must have replaced the real Gordon Brown as Chancellor? He can’t possibly be the same man as the one who in 1984 described the Trident programme as, “unacceptably expensive, economically wasteful and militarily unsound.” At least in those days he was speaking his own words. Nowadays it’s all Balls.
A few years ago, the NUJ’s John Foster (now its General Secretary) had an unsuccessful battle with John Prescott over getting Labour to take up the issue of trade union rights at the Mirror Group. Shocked to learn that JP appears to hold a grudge? Prescott recently replied to Foster on another matter. He began: “Dear Mr Foster, I am surprised you are writing to me...”
Who says the Labour leadership wouldn’t support trade unionists winning a dispute? We can reveal there were cheers all round at the Teamsters landmark victory over UPS in the USA. That’s because UPS were sponsoring the Labour Party Conference fringe guide and having their name splashed all over it would not have gone down well if the dispute were still on.