Debates around this issue are conducted as if it were politicians’ own money at stake rather than taxpayers’.
Richard Balfe is the Conservative Party Envoy to the Trades Union Movement. We are entering the crucial phase of our negotiation with the Unions over the future of public sector pensions. A year ago at election time there was a very real fear in Trade Union circles that the incoming Government would seek a confrontation […]
Richard Balfe is a former Labour MEP who joined the Conservatives in 2002; in 2008 he was appointed to liase on behalf of David Cameron with Britain's trade unions. Here he reflects on what observed at the TUC conference Liverpool. Yesterday afternoon, as Gordon Brown rose to address Congress, quite a few people wondered when […]
Richard Balfe is a former MEP appointed to liase with Britain’s unions. Around one third of Trade Union members support the Conservative Party and many of the core values of the two organisations are similar. One day soon there is going to be a Conservative Government. That’s the way things happen in democracies. This incoming […]
The movement has been increasingly attracting graduates and higher paid workers; the political views of most union leaders are generally ignored by the ordinary member.