Miliband's defeat in the trade union battle threatens Labour's entire election strategy

By Mark Wallace
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Ed Miliband's increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the unions has many facets: the potential perverting of democracy, the gloomy prospects for Labour's finances, the insights into Miliband's weak character and weaker authority, the list goes on.

Left wing optimists would argue that in the long run it makes little difference to the electorate. "It's a Westminster bubble story", Owen Jones mutters to himself as he tries to sleep. 

That may be true in part. The story has many twists and turns, claims and counter-claims, and most people have more important things to do than follow it closely. However, Falkirk worried Miliband enough to try to tackle it, so even Labour think the issue has some cut through. By the same token, his failure in attempting to deal with the problem will reach some of the electorate and cause damage.

Whether people follow the detail or not, though, the symptoms of the row will reach everyone.

A clear, direct strategy is absolutely essential in any communications, but particularly in politics. Blair's New Labour strategy was written on one sparse page - from its overriding message to the tactical messages that flowed from it. Election winners tend to be able to sum up what they are about in one sentence - and that clarity means everyone else, friend or foe, can do so, too.

A clear strategy makes a campaign focused, concise and free of stumbling blocks.

The union row, and his failure to emerge from it victorious, means Miliband now cannot create and pursue such a strategy (even if he was capable of doing so in the first place).

He knows that for a strategy to be created in simplicity and to remain so when it is implemented, there must be a clear chain of command with one ultimate authority. His need to keep the union leaders happy, and the ever-present threat of them intervening publicly, makes such organisation impossible.

He knows that the messages used must be in keeping with the strategy and targeted at the right audiences. But his internal political and financial conflictsforce him to adopt messages that the public dislike, such as on welfare reform.

He knows that the troops implementing a strategy on the ground must be loyal to its architects and its aims. But Unite and others now boast of "their" MPs, and have reportedly tried to seize ever more influence within a number of Constituency Labour Parties.

There is an old military maxim: order plus counter-order equals disorder. Thanks to his failure to deal with Labour's trade union problem, Ed Miliband is about to demonstrate how true that saying is.

GMB cuts its Labour affiliaton fees by 87% - and the balance of power shifts even further to Unite

By Mark Wallace
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It has now been two months since Ed Miliband made his big speech intended to nip in the bud the crisis over Labour's trade union funding.

We still don't have any answers to the many questions about how his reforms will work in detail - most notably whether he will reject money from unions who refuse to implement an opt-in and how Labour's constitution will be rewritten. 

But we can already see some of the fallout of his inept response to teh scandal.

In high dudgeon, the GMB have cut the affiliation fee paid to Labour from £1.2m to £150,000. Whereas the union previously automatically affiliated 420,000 people to Labour, it now estimates that those who would actually choose to affiliate only number 50,000.

Tower Hamlets council give £64,000 and a recruiting base to Unite

By Mark Wallace
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Campaigning journalist Ted Jeory, who keep a close eye on politics in east London, has an interesting scoop. 

Having clocked that Len McCluskey of Unite and Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman had suddenly become best buddies earlier in the year, Ted did some digging through the council's papers. 

Lo and behold, Tower Hamlets have given £64,000 of taxpayers' money to a Unite community centre (the union is putting in £140,000 and Barclays is contributing £60,000).

The stated aim of the centre is to help people find work or gain new skills. However, it has another purpose:

"The Unite Community Centre is also a Unite recruiting office. The staff are all very friendly, but also very enthusiastic about their employer. The office is stuffed full of leaflets on the negative effects of Coalition cuts and how to join and fight these. One man who’s been in there said he was encouraged to join during a discussion on how the centre could help him."

So this isn't just the commissioning of public services from an outside body, it's a taxpayer-funded platform for political campaigning, too. It's a classic entryist tactic - go in with an apparently respectable mission, then use your newfound status (and cash) to pursue political ends.

Chuka Umunna, "the unions' representative in Parliament", hits choppy waters

By Mark Wallace
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I doubt today's Sun on Sunday was popular at Chuka Umunna's breakfast table. A leaked memo written by former Unite political director boasts of the influence the union has over Labour's business, regulation and wages policies.

By coincidence, the ultra-smooth Shadow Business Secretary and his Constituency Labour Party have received a whopping £47,000 from various unions over the last 5 years.

This is yet another addition to Chuka's growing reputation for being two-faced. He's cosying up to Tony Blair in public, wooing Labour centrists, while simultaneously taking a fortune from the unions and pushing Unite policy in Parliament. When someone claims to be a Blairite and a McCluskeyite at the same time, suspicions start to grow that they might not have any principles at all.

He reportedly secured the Streatham nomination by convincing a number of different cliques that he was their guy - but I suspect that trying to be all things to all men won't wash forever, and certainly not at a national level.

The Sun's leader column delivers a direct warning - something they only normally do if they intend to pursue an issue further:

"If he wants to live up to his reputation then he needs to stop acting as the unions’ representative in Parliament and start behaving as a man focused on helping business prosper."

It seems the glitter is starting to wear off "Britain's answer to Barack Obama". Will he change his ways, or stick to his tried and tested tricks?

Andrew Gimson: The fighting speech Miliband should have made when Cameron denounced McCluskey

By Andrew Gimson
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Ed Miliband’s attitude to the trade unions is hopelessly confused. He has not defined himself, and proved to Middle England how sound he is, by picking a fight with them in the manner of a latter-day Tony Blair. The present Labour leader owes too much to the unions for such a pose to carry conviction.

But Mr Miliband also shrinks from showing pride in Labour’s links with the unions. He treats them as if they are embarrassing relations from an earlier generation. He knows he owes them a lot, but takes care not be seen very often with them in public, and hates it when unkind people point out that he still relies on them for financial support.

In his recent speech on union funding, Mr Miliband attempted to finesse these difficulties. His plan is to distance himself from the unions, while becoming closer to union members: “Men and women in trade unions should be able to make a more active, individual choice on whether they become part of our party.”

According to Mr Miliband, this “could grow our membership from 200,000 to a far higher number”. It is a pleasant dream, but unless it actually happens it will remain no more than a dream. As so often, by trying to find a subtle way through a problem, Mr Miliband has ended up sounding weak, indecisive and desperate to be all things to all men.

To Tory eyes, this is curious. The country is no longer wracked by strikes. The unions have lost their legal immunities, and are no longer strong enough to bring the country to a halt. In 1979 they had 13 million members and now they have 6.5 million.

Small wonder Labour are enthusiastic tax-avoiders - the party is in dire financial straits

By Mark Wallace
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Today's Times contains an awkward revelation for Ed Miliband - despite turning a surplus last year, Labour managed to organise its tax affairs so efficiently that the party paid no corporation tax whatsoever.

Of course, there's no suggestion they did anything illegal, but given Miliband's regular drum-beating about the immorality of tax avoidance it is more than ironic to see his party's accountants engaged in such nifty footwork. Had they paid tax on the headline surplus, their bill would have been over half a million pounds.

But it's small wonder they are looking after the pennies so carefully all of a sudden.

The battle with Unite, and Miliband's proposed reforms to the union relationship, are set to reduce their income by several million quid a year; the Evening Standard reports that the party still owes £7 million dating back to the "loans for lordships" scandal in 2006; and there is a growing row about the millions of pounds worth of extraordinarily cheap credit Labour obtained from the crisis-stricken Co-Op Bank.

The party's money problems are so bad that not even Ed Miliband's enthusiastic tax efficiency can dent them. It would be embarrassing if Labour were to go bust - but at least it would be a reminder of how little they can be trusted with money.

Len McCluskey answers ConHome's question - his power over Labour will continue

By Mark Wallace
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Last week, writing up Ed Miliband's speech on Labour's trade union scandal, I raised a number of practical questions about how the reforms will work. Len McCluskey's interview in today's Guardian helpfully answers the first of them

I asked:

"Len McCluskey told the BBC Miliband is not calling for an opt-in to the union Political Funds generally. Does this mean unions could just split their Affiliation and Political Funds, allowing them to carry on automatically opting members in to finance hard left campaigns? Will Miliband pledge not to accept lump sum donations from such Political Funds?"