Keir Starmer was full of warm words for USDAW general secretary Joanne Thomas in his meandering speech at the union’s annual conference this morning. Six weeks ago, Thomas wrote to him accusing him of betraying his word to her members. Has he really done so much in the last six weeks to convince her of his ‘integrity’?
Her letter, leaked to LabourList, said Labour’s ‘failure to deliver’ guaranteed-hours contracts in the Employment Rights Act went “to the heart of… your integrity as Prime Minister”. She even claimed she couldn’t tell her members “in good faith” that he would keep his promise…
To smooth things over, today Starmer reeled off every Employment Rights Act ‘win’ he could think of on the likes of day one sick pay and paternity leave. For those who live in the real world, his list of wins was long and torturous enough. Yet guaranteed hours, the actual provision Thomas is presumably still furious about, went unmentioned…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”