I’ll join the chorus of approval for Chancellor Alistair Darling’s decision to increase tax allowances for basic rate taxpayers. I suppose the Mrs and I should declare an interest (or rather 240 of them). But I do genuinely think that this is good news for low and middle income Britain. It is also progressive and even (mildly) redistributive in a gentle “don’t scare the horses” New Labour way.

I don’t think that there has been any conversion on the road to Damascus, but the government has been given a bloody nose by normally loyal backbench MPs not the “usual suspects”. What does this mean? Gordon Brown is not stupid. I think he will take account of his backbench MPs and realise a mistake was made over the abolition of the 10p rate and learn from it.

A quick reminder that this coming Monday 28th April is International Workers Memorial Day.

This is an annual health & safety day that remembers those who have been killed while at work or have died of industrial diseases. It also is a campaigning day to improve health and safety at work to try and prevent such unnecessary deaths.

I think that many people know of a friend, relative or work colleague who has died prematurely from a work related illness or accident.

Read a welcome account in “Inside Housing” about research by the “Equality & Human Rights Commission” into the British housing allocations system.

Unlike the nonsense and “Big lies” pedalled by the BNP, the commission reported categorically that there was “no evidence in the research of any abuse of the system including “queue jumping” to the significant detriment of any group including white families”.

The reality is that “new migrants made up less than 2 per cent of the total number of people in social housing throughout the UK. Around 90 per cent of those living in social housing are born in the UK”.

There is still of course the problem that the perception of “queue jumping” and unfairness still exists. This report will help tackle this mis-perception, although I doubt it has been widely covered in “The Sun” or the “Daily Mail”?

For decades we have also had a corrosive policy of allowing Council homes to be sold under the “right to buy” without these rented homes being replaced. This has led to not only rapidly changing communities but scarcity and perceived competition between communities for homes and shelter.

Thankfully we are now planning to build new homes in London (Ken willing).

As well as the GLA and other Council elections taking place across the land, there are also some fairly important UNISON internal elections taking place.

UNISON is divided into 7 Service Groups. These elections are to elect regional members of each National "Service Group Executive” (SGE).

In London Region there are only two contested elections for regional delegates. For Health and the Local Government service groups.  My ballot papers came through the door this morning.

Back from an Easter visit to home in North Wales to find out that the BNP held the seat in the Havering Council by-election on Thursday in Gooshays. A disappointing result of course. Despite Labour coming 2nd and increasing its share of the vote at the expense of the Tories (and the turnout only being a miserly 22%).

However, there is no way that this overwhelmingly white working class ward should be represented by one BNP and two Tories! We all need to try harder! I think there is more to it than just racism and Labour unpopularity.

Gooshays is not a “sink estate” but to all appearances, a well run and looked after, traditional outer London Council estate. Most of the properties I guess, have now been sold under “The Right to Buy”. I don’t think (this was on a Sunday I visited) that I have ever seen so many “white vans” parked outside homes with adverts on their sides for their self employed owners. This made me think.

I received today a persuasive email alert from the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA). At the moment the Government Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) is drafting guidance for Courts on what sentence they should give companies convicted of work “death related” and manslaughter offences.

The CCA research show that most fines against companies convicted of offenses following work related deaths are less than 1/700th of turnover.

“If individuals earning an average annual income of £24,769 were sentenced at this level, they would be fined just £35.

The research also shows that the fines imposed on most of these companies was only 1% of their gross profits”.

Good news – yesterday I spoke to, lets just say, a very senior councillor in a British local authority, who told me that "no matter what", their pension fund will not be reappointing “you know who” as their fund managers.

This is because the councillors, who appointed Fidelity in the first place felt deceived by the company, who did not mention their political partisanship when they gave them their presentation.

Also, they do not think it appropriate for fund managers to support any political party. Fidelity has given £415,000 to the tories in recent years.

Tom P also reports that he has had a few “interesting conversations” with people in the investment business, that they share his concerns about the wisdom of Fidelity’s political postulating.

This is his first “scalp” and I have no doubt there will be more.

Congratulations to the new General Secretary of the Labour Party David Pitt-Watson. I have meet David a couple of times at pension conferences and have been very impressed. He was our guest speaker at a UNISON conference fringe last year which I chaired. It was called “Trade Unionists are the New Capitalist’s”. Check out David’s book on this subject.

He is an experienced former Labour Party assistant general secretary and successful fund manager for Hermes which runs the huge BT pension scheme (unusually the scheme owns Hermes). He can walk the talk. I suspect that he is taking a big pay cut to do this job (which admit it, is going to be a pretty thankless task at times).

He is just the bloke to sort the Labour Party finances and its campaign machinery in time for the next election. Good Luck David (you'll need it)

Yesterday morning there was a TULO day of action across London in support of Labour Party candidates in the forthcoming Assembly and the Mayor elections. In our London Assembly constituency, City & East, trade unionists were asked to go and help out with canvassing and leafleting in the Gooshays council by-election in Havering, East London.

Out of the 7 of us in our canvass team, 4 were called “John” (including John Biggs the City & East GLA assembly member)– is this some sort of record? Also, in our team was Gloria Hanson, UNISON London convenor and the candiate herself, Eve Cornell.

This is an intriguing by-election. There was a BNP and two Tory Councillors in the ward. The useless BNP Councillor has just given up and resigned after only 2 years. No doubt there is some sort of court appearance pending. At the last election there was a “dead heat” between Eve (who is standing again) and a Tory. The returning officer had to toss a coin to decide the result. Unfortunately (for the residents of Goodshays) Eve lost the toss.

Just been sent an interesting, allegedly first hand story about Boris Johnson, Tory candidate for London Mayor, while he was in Croydon recently making a public appearance.

During a “walkabout” he posed with a local singer/songwriter and street “busker” Claire Toomey for a photo opportunity.

Just remember this on the way into work tomorrow in London, when you battle through all the hostile and jeering media headlines about Lee Jasper’s decision to resign as a senior advisor to London Mayor, Ken Livingstone.

This really is “Dog Whistle Politics".

Statement by the Greater London Authority on the resignation of Lee Jasper

On Sunday 9 March 2008 there will be a London wide day of action organised by TULO in support of Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone and all our London Assembly candidates.

In the City & East GLA constituency on 9 March we are planning to support our neighbours in Havering by campaigning in the Goodshays by-Election. The ward BNP councillor has resigned. At the 2006 council election, Gooshays Ward was highly marginal between Labour, the Tories and the BNP candidate. Yve Cornell, the Labour candidate, was beaten by the narrowest possible margin, on the flip of a coin. The by-election on 20 March gives us an opportunity to win back a seat on the council and kick the BNP out of Havering. Not only that but we can firm up the GLA Labour vote for Ken and the other Labour wide candidates.

On Wednesday Ken Livingstone ended a powerful speech to Labour trade unionists by speculating whether the “Standard” (aka the “Evening Boris”) would ever print any of the truth about Ken and the Labour Assembly members during the current campaign.

Of course everyone laughed at the prospect of the “Standard” accurately reporting the significant reduction in crime in London.

The event was organised by TULO and held in the historic old Town Hall in Stratford, East London.

Above is a quote from a Shelter trade union member who contacted me following the overwhelming vote by Shelter staff to strike. Last month I posted on my own site the dispute between the Housing Charity Shelter and its employees over its plans to cut terms and conditions and to make staff work longer for no extra pay. I really hoped that this dispute could be resolved quickly since Shelter does marvellous work for its many vulnerable clients.

However, this is not to be and members have voted by a majority of 71% (on a very relatively very high turnout of 65.8%) to strike. Shelter has threatened to sack staff who do not accept these cuts.

The first strike is on 5 March 2008. Must find out the nearest picket line?

Action Mesothelioma Day, on 27 February involves local activities nationwide to raise awareness of mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, and to campaign for prevention of asbestos exposures today and better treatment and benefits for those affected by past exposures. Join a local event - or if there isn't one, consider organising your own.
Asbestos Forum Action Mesothelioma Day webpage and events listing. LabourNet UK. Action Mesothelioma website.

Above is a lift from TUC Risks

Or is it belated good riddance to bad rubbish? Tom P of Capital & Labour (and his Mrs) has finally had enough of active Conservative Party supporters,Fidelity Investment. Fidelity has donated £435, 500 (£115,000 in 2007 alone) to the Tories in recent years without disclosing the information to their investors.

Would you “adam and eve it”, One of the Tower Hamlets gang of 4 who split from Galloway’s Jamaati Respect to form SWP/Respect has now defected again and joined the Conservative Party.

Cllr Ahmed Hussain was one of the very few Bengali card carrying “members” of the SWP. Mugs or what?

Poor old Oli (Rahman) – Hat Tip to Ted from East London Advertiser

Why is it that absolutely anything that Galloway touches eventually falls to pieces?