Len McCluskey.

Len McCluskey says we’re ‘living in interesting times,’ and we know what that means. Milliband’s post Falkirk initiative to distance his pre-owned Labour party from Unite is, well, interesting. By biting the hand of automatic subscriptions to show Labour is free of union influence he also breaks free their autonomous power, presumably on the assumption they don’t have much left. Len though seems to relish the idea. The only problem is unions represent workers and workers are the labour force and Labour is the name of the Labour party. What’s coming is the last stage in a major political realignment that started over fifty years ago. Conservatism moved with the change from individual factory owners, the original capitalists, to corporate and financial ownership of industry. Today workers work for and every person purchases indirectly from what the finance industry provides. Where mill owner had a connection with their workers and customers the finance industry might as well be on a different planet. In the traditional left/right tug of war the right has subtly moved ground and left the left pulling in the wrong direction. The new tug is between all ordinary people and faceless corporate finance with its ad fuelled offers to provide everyone’s selfish dream DFS sofa that constituted the new seemingly unchallengeable political middle ground. Labour merely adjusted to present its own version of it. Both parties, as well as struggling to look different, could not fathom how to curb the new destabilising power of finance. Len, I think, is relishing a new left that correctly defines its opposition and leaving the Labour Party to sink in its middle ground. His plans for Unite are not merely for the work force but for the representation and empowerment of all the people against the supposedly unstoppable forces of finance. Will he draw back the curtain to reveal The Wizard of Oz or will we go the way of other indigenous peoples as marginalized support workers or off the radar entirely?  Read about Dubai here  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html