Tag Archives: subscription

Who is the worst threat to Labour over the leaked report on right-wing factionalism?

For the many: it seems Labour’s apparent failure to live up to its slogan could do more damage to the party than a few defamation/data protection claims.

How surprising to see The Guardian reporting on a financial threat to Labour after a report was leaked alleging misconduct by party officers that meant the party lost the 2017 general election!

Instead of stating that rank-and-file party members were getting together to demand their subscriptions – that they could argue were taken under false pretences as party officers were working against winning the election…

I found that the people accused of the misconduct are planning to sue the party for defamation and data protection offences.

On one hand I am encouraged by this. I have taken Labour to court over data protection offences after (false) information about me was leaked to the national press by a party officer.

The fact that others are considering the same suggests that I was well within my rights to accuse the party (because, as data controller, it has ultimate responsibility for leaks).

On the other, it is doubtful that any defamation claims should be allowed to go anywhere – at least, not yet.

The information about party members in the report is taken from emails and WhatsApp messages that were placed in the hands of party investigators legitimately and it would be premature for anybody to launch lawsuits on the basis of it, until evidence is brought forward that disproves it.

Also, consider the words of the lawyer concerned, Mark Lewis. He said: “For four years, people in Labour have said there is no antisemitism in the party, it’s just a smear. Now they say that of course there was antisemitism, ‘but it just wasn’t us’. They have not noticed the absurdity of their change of position.”

Nobody in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership said there was no anti-Semitism in the party. I haven’t said that. None of the other higher-profile members who were accused has made that suggestion (to my knowledge).

So who, exactly made that claim? I notice that Mr Lewis did not elaborate on its origin and that is another reason to doubt the usefulness of these threatened lawsuits.

Are they just an attempt to bully the current Labour leadership? Why would anybody expect that to work?

On the other hand, going back to the wider party membership, it seems far more likely that action brought by rank-and-file members would succeed in restoring their subscription money to them.

If enough people do this, then it could put Labour in serious financial difficulty.

And it is entirely possible that the party would deserve to be put in that predicament – if the allegations in the report turn out to be accurate.

Source: Labour party faces financial peril over leaked report | Politics | The Guardian

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How many Labour members will follow this councillor’s example – and demand refunds?

Labour now has an existential problem.

More than half a million members have heard that party staff spent years working to stop the party from winning at elections, and to foment distrust by – for example – failing to do anything about anti-Semitism.

They have been told that the party they joined – and into which they paid subscriptions – has been actively working against their wishes.

And over the last week, they have seen the new leader of that party doing his very best to protect the perpetrators of this monumental betrayal.

So it seems likely that many of them – huge numbers, in fact – will follow the example of Sarah-Jane McDonough and demand the return of the subscriptions they rightly feel were taken under false pretences.

If enough of them do that – and many may band together to demand it through the courts if the party tries to deny them what they want – Labour will run out of money and cease to function.

So Keir Starmer is likely to be facing a choice – either now or in the near future.

He can make explicitly public efforts to clean up the Labour Party – or he can learn to live with being the disgraced leader who killed the Party of the People. It’s up to him.

A Labour councillor is demanding that the party fully refunds all her membership fees and donations following the revelation that senior HQ staff conspired to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Stevenage councillor Sarah-Jane McDonough has written to request a refund of payments from May 2015 to the present day on the grounds that they were taken “fraudulently.”

Her letter was sent after an internal Labour report, titled The Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in Relation to Antisemitism, 2014-2019, was leaked last weekend.

Management and staff on the right of the party were found to have used abusive language in WhatsApp chats to disparage Mr Corbyn and his supporters, along with other left-wing MPs and party employees.

The culprits also boasted of doing no work for months and conspiring to sabotage election campaigns and Labour’s attempts to deal with anti-semitism complaints.

Source: Labour councillor demands refund from party after leaked report exposed sabotage of Corbyn | Morning Star

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Job done: BBC got the Tories re-elected and now Tory pollster is softening us up for privatisation

“Blatantly Backing Conservatives”: but is the BBC irredeemable or could it be restored to its role as the greatest impartial news provider in the world – if the Tories don’t privatise it first?

Did you enjoy a lot of TV over Christmas? Did Worzel Gummidge tickle you? Or was Dracula more to your taste? How about that classic-with-a-new-face, Doctor Who?

BBC output – and not just drama – appears to have won the Christmas ratings war, but the corporation itself is in danger of being destroyed by politicians.

Boris Johnson said in the run-up to the general election that he thought the BBC in its current format – as a public service broadcaster supported by a licence fee paid by all television users – has had its day.

This Writer finds that a strange way to repay the organisation that has done more to re-elect the Conservatives than any other. Around 70 per cent of the UK gets its news from the BBC and a high proportion of those people let its newscasters tell them what to think.

The BBC’s election coverage was hugely controversial; there is a large body of opinion that the Corporation went far too easy on Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, despite policy positions that are, frankly, completely whacko.

In contrast, BBC presenters were almost feral in their reaction to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, whose policies – should they ever be discussed – were actually far more in tune with the thoughts of the nation.

There are many possible reasons for this behaviour by a broadcaster that should have been impartial – especially considering the fact that it relies on our money for its existence.

But I don’t think that’s why YouGov has just released a poll saying most people want to scrap the licence fee.

YouGov is the Tory polling organisation. It was set up by Nadhim Zahawi and another prominent Tory, and has always existed in the shadow of its founders’ political ambitions.

So, following up on Mr Johnson’s comments, it seems likely to This Writer that YouGov has polled the people most likely to support the end of the licence fee, in order to produce these results.

Remember: polls are published in order to tell you what to think, not to tell you what other people think.

The Tory plan would be to turn the BBC into a subscription-only or advertising-funded service, making it far less capable of providing the services it currently offers.

Then private, billionaire-owned companies could rush in to fill the gap – especially in news programming – with pro-Tory propaganda.

And the BBC itself could be taken over by privateers, leaving the logo only to mislead us into thinking that it’s the same as it ever was.

You know – like the Tories are doing with the NHS.

Labour offered reform of the BBC to eliminate political interference but you (or your fellow voters) didn’t want that.

If you lose the best broadcaster in the world because of the election result, I hope you know where to place the blame.

Source: Half of Britons want the BBC licence fee scrapped, new poll reveals | Daily Mail Online

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Disability News Service holds the DWP to account – and is in trouble. Please help

John Pring’s Disability News Service is iconic among the new media news sites, focusing on just one subject: The hazards faced by people with disabilities under the UK government.

And it needs your help.

The site will not be able to continue for much longer unless it receives donations from individuals and subscriptions from disability-focused organisations.

This Writer would certainly advise Mr Pring to take adverts as well – if he runs his advertising himself, he’ll have full control over the kind of ad that goes up and the cost to the advertiser. Consider it, please, John!

But for now, the more people who help with personal financial contributions, the better.

Over the last nine or so years, Disability News Service has broken scores of important stories.

Many have been about the austerity-related assault on disability benefits and other support and services.

For the last nine years, I have resisted asking visitors to the DNS website for money. Because so many of its stories have been about the grinding, austerity-related poverty faced by many disabled people, it did not feel right to do so. However, DNS will not be able to continue its work without a new source of funding.

My life savings have gradually trickled away over the last nine years and it is time to accept that without a significant new source of funding, DNS will not be here to celebrate its 10th anniversary. For that reason, although access to the website will always remain free, I am asking for the first time for voluntary contributions (please note that DNS is not a charity) to allow DNS to keep operating.

Please note that this is not aimed at those who are struggling financially. Please do not contribute if you cannot easily afford to do so. But if you can, your support might allow DNS to continue well into its second decade.

I would also like to put out a fresh plea to any disability-related organisations that would like to subscribe to DNS. Subscribing will allow you to access the stories hours before they are published on the DNS site every week, and to use the news stories to brief colleagues or to publish on your own websites and via social media. All such subscriptions would also help ensure the future financial sustainability of DNS.

Source: COMMENT: Nine years of breaking important stories. Now DNS needs your help

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Threat to automatic union fee payments is petulant obstruction

Conservative ministers know that the automatic payment of trade union subscriptions from salaries is achieved by a simple keystroke these days – it is absolutely no burden on employers.

Their plan to stop public sector workers from paying in this manner should therefore be seen as what it is – a sulky, ill-tempered attack on the workforce for daring to belong to a workers’ representative organisation.

The process is not outdated – it’s bang-up-to-date.

Ending it would not give workers more control – they have control now, simply by saying that they are union members and they want their subscriptions taken from their salaries.

Ending it would increase the burden on workers’ already-limited personal time – they would have to go through the time-consuming process of creating direct debits from their bank accounts.

This is a waste of time for everybody involved.

The purpose is obvious – reduce union funding, making it more difficult for them to take industrial action, as the Conservative Government’s unnecessary attack on workers intensifies over the next few years.

The philosophy is that workers are lazy, and won’t be bothered to create the direct debits necessary to keep the funds flowing to the unions.

It seems unlikely that the plan will be hard-fought in Parliament. Let’s face it, New Labour was hardly union-friendly, despite receiving a great deal of funding from them.

If this proposal is enacted, then it will be up to the unions to make sure members can make the change quickly and easily – most probably by drawing up the direct debit agreement for them, so all they have to do is check it, sign and deliver it.

Clever union leaders will also use this as a springboard for a membership drive, pointing out that it can only be a prelude to further attacks on the UK’s workforce.

Are you going to fight this erosion of your rights – or are you just going to bend over for the Conservatives and let them do whatever they want to you?

Plans to stop public sector workers automatically paying subscriptions to trade unions through their salaries have been unveiled by the government.

Ministers say the process is “outdated” and ending it would give workers more control and save more than £6m a year by cutting employers’ administration.

But unions could lose funds and say it is a “vindictive political attack” that will “poison industrial relations”.

It follows plans for reforms of union laws, including tighter strike rules.

Civil servants, teachers and nurses are among the union members who will have to arrange for the fees to be collected from their bank accounts by direct debit, under the proposals to update legislation in the Trade Union Bill.

 The government says the so-called check-off system of taking union dues through wages was introduced at a time when many workers did not have bank accounts.

It said it was now a “taxpayer-funded administrative burden” on employers.

Source: Automatic union fee payments ‘to end in public sector’ – BBC News

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