The people deserve better from Labour

ONE of the most worst aspects of the mess in Falkirk is that Unite had a point about the social bias at Westminster, but it has been lost in the fight between general secretary Len McCluskey and Labour leader Ed Miliband.

According to research conducted by the Policy Exchange, in the Westminster itake of 1979, almost 40% of Labour MPs had been employed in manual or clerical work. In 2010, it was 9%. Thirty years ago almost no MP, of any party, arrived with PR or marketing on their CV. Now it is 11% of those in the Commons, including one David Cameron.

While 7% of pupils attend feepaying schools, 35% of MPs did, and 30% went to Oxbridge. It was this imbalance that Unite’s political strategy plan of 2011 aimed to address. Instead of watching Labour being overrun by shallow drones who had never faced an angry gaffer in their lives, Unite set about schooling a new generation of working-class and trades union candidates, and tried to place them in winnable Labour seats.

A key element was urging Unite members to sign up as Labour members to help Unite candidates win internal selection contests.

The union recently claimed it had 41 hopefuls across the UK, three of them in Scotland. One of the three was Karie Murphy in Falkirk. The effort to promote her was the genesis of the row which now engulfs Labour and Miliband.

After Labour imposed central control on the local party in Falkirk amid signs of members “joining” without their consent, McCluskey defended Unite’s aims. Insisting the union had followed the rules, he said Labour needed more trades unionist MPs, not “seats being handed out on a grace-and-favour basis to Oxbridge educated special advisers. We make no apology for that”.

It was a fair point, but it was too late. The practice on the ground had destroyed any sense of higher purpose to the exercise, with the aggressive entryist tactics bringing to mind Labour’s militant tendency in the 1980s.

The Prime Minister didn’t need his PR skills to know Falkirk could be used to symbolise Miliband’s weak leadership, and Labour’s continued dependence on union funding.

But instead of facing a common enemy in Cameron, Miliband and McCluskey attacked each other. The Coalition’s policies are failing and millions are jobless, yet Labour tears itself apart.

Last month, Miliband signed up to the Tories’ spending cuts; this week he has gone one better and donated to their re-election effort by handing over a gift-wrapped Labour fiasco.

It is not the opposition the country needs. Nor is Johann Lamont’s Trappist silence.

The Scottish Labour leader’s supporters insist she has been striving to set Falkirk right behind the scenes, but to voters it will look more like Gordon Brown’s tendency to go to ground at the first sign of trouble.

Falkirk has exposed shortcomings in Labour north and south of the Border. The People’s Party owes it the people to do better.