Should anyone need any evidence of the collapse in support that the Labour Party is seeing from individuals, and the way in which they are truly propped up by the trade unions then I suggest having a look at the Labour Party donation declarations for Q1 of 2008.During that period, Labour declared donations to the value of £2,889,069.66. Of that figure only £337,526.18 came from non-trade unions. When you strip out Constituency Labour Party donations, the figure is even lower, standing at £246,865.65.
Put bluntly, that means that 89% of donations in total came from the trade unions. The stripped down figure means that only 8.5% came from individuals and companies. The bottom line here is that the Unions are well and truly propping up the Labour Party, to the tune of between 89% and 92% of its total income from donations.
Whilst Guido noted that beer and sandwiches may not be on the menu anymore, it's pretty clear who holds all the cards in controlling what the Labour Party does at a time when it has to pay up over £7m of overdue debts in a matter of weeks.
I guess we can expect some leftward steering shortly from the
21 comments:
Derek Simpson of Unison was on the radio the other morning calling for action by the Labour Government in exchange for Unison's continued support. One idea he mentioned was a windfall tax on the oil companies.
Brilliant! I'm looking forward to the proceeds of this windfall tax being used to reduce prices at the pumps. As if ...
In the meantime I have sold my shares in UK oil companies. Thanks for the tip Derek.
Basic analysis is garbage - the Electoral Commission figures only report donations in excess of £5000 to the National Party and £1000 to CLPs. I wonder what a similar analysis would show as to who determines Tory (or LibDem) policy for that matter - the man with the corner office at CCHQ might be a good guess.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc - I'm afraid.
Talking of Unison, out last night with a group of senior nurses who were all amazed at the result of the vote on the pay deal.
They had all voted against it, and thought that was the general feeling. So gobsmacked at the majority.
The only thing they could put it down to was that the lower ranks were frightened it might drag out before they got any increase.
One of my friends last night had to wait nine months for her area trust to bring in the last pay rise.
But all amazed by the result/majority.
"Basic analysis is garbage - the Electoral Commission figures only report donations in excess of £5000 to the National Party and £1000 to CLPs."
That's funny, I can see lots of donation on the website ranging from £250 upwards.
"I wonder what a similar analysis would show as to who determines Tory (or LibDem) policy for that matter - the man with the corner office at CCHQ might be a good guess."
Go for it. No skin off my nose.
"Post hoc ergo propter hoc - I'm afraid."
Hmmm, think you;re getting confused with your fallacies here. I haven't actually made a statement of causality based on actual events. I put forward a possible prediction (just like you did in the preceding paragraph about Ashcroft) given the vast amount that the Unions are contributing to the Labour Party compared to the previous years when you had a leader that was actually good at leading. If you must insist on trying to look clever by accusing others of using logically fallacious reasoning, at least make sure that the reasoning is already there.
Trying to suggest that I said "X occured, then Y occured, therefore X caused Y". When what I actually said was, "X is what the figures say, I guess we can expect Y in future sometime?" just makes you look silly.
After all, given that Y has not actually occurred, I cannot have been said to be making a causal link between X and Y. Instead I proposed that given X has occured there is a possiblty that Y will as a result, and there is.
That reasoning is sound because it does not make claim of certainty and instead just predicts possibility. The real garbage here is actually your analysis of why my analysis is wrong, because you've started from a false premise about what was written.
Mind you, you do work for an MP so why should I expect any better argumentation?
Do I feel a dodgy dossier on donations coming our way?
Chris Paul said..... Donations to Tories meanwhile come from high-net-worth individuals seeking tax breaks and corporations ditto. Workers versus bosses. But TBNGU has a good point.
This comment has been posted by me because Chris did his link spamming again which he has been told about in the past. TBNGU's point was crap because it was flawed.
Dizzy,
Chris must think it's disgusting to give £1 million to a party which then makes you exempt from tobacco advertising rules, then? Or fund the Dome for a passport or two...
How galling for Gordon to have to go begging back to his old friends, now all his new friends think he may be a loser.
It must be like asking the parents for cash when you are a student. You know they will bail you out, but you will be told a lot of home truths, listen to a lot of lectures and may even be asked to justify what you spent the last lot on.
He'll have to bluff it out that its for text books and a special geometry kit and credit for the mobile.
Add to that the fact that membership of private sector unions if falling fast. The majority of union members now work for the government in local govt, health and education.
I suppose this trend was predictable enough, and it is little surprise to find that matters have gone this way, and that Union leaders have become sufficiently bold and open about it to "go public", as per Derek Simpson mentioned in the first comment here.
As an aside: I didn't know (though it comes as no surprise) that TBNGU works for an MP. Is there any proof of this available publicly? I'd be interested to know. Meanwhile, I think whoever it is might be better referred to as "Labour Bods Never Post Anything Worthwhile"...
"That's funny, I can see lots of donation on the website ranging from £250 upwards."
Only when they have already donated more than £1000 in the same calendar year - PPERA is quite clear about the legal limit - go and check on the HMSO website.
"I haven't actually made a statement of causality based on actual events."
I don't think even you believe that! When does insinuation become causality?
PS I don't work for an MP - even in the wider Tory MP/MEP defintion of working for an MP.
I'm sure ex councillor Ward would love to know who I am so that he can add me to his sterilisation/gas chamber list see link below. Next time we debate misuse of references to Stalinism/Nazism I'm sure that Mr Ward will be able to add his contribution on eugenics.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-543688/Calls-Tory-councillor-resign-suggests-parents-benefits-sterilised-child.html
Just a quick point of history, the Labour Party was started by the Trades Unions, specifically in order to get their representatives into Parliament. My real surprise is that the paymasters have been so content to let their wayward child off the leash for most of the last 15 years.
But I think that a "quiet conversation" might be coming, and that it might be along the lines of "We've let you try it your way, and it hasn't worked, has it?. NOW DO IT OUR WAY!"
As you said a Large Lurch Left is a-coming.
"I don't think even you believe that! When does insinuation become causality?"
It's not a question of "believing" something, it's a question of whether your assertion of the existance of post hoc ergo propter hoc is valid. It isn't, you fucked up because you started from a false premise. Sorry to piss on your fire. Go away and read your logical philosophy again and then come back.
Oh yes, and you do work for an MP because a mate of yours told me.
"Oh yes, and you do work for an MP because a mate of yours told me."
Even more logically fallacious reasoning!
Surely it is obvious to anyone, even those of us not taught latin, that post hoc ergo propter hoc requires, well, post hoc, i.e. must be after the event. It is very obvious that Dizzy is speculating on the future.
"it's pretty clear who holds all the cards in controlling what the Labour Party does"
You decide random whether this is a statement about the future or what has happened. If you want to be pedantic and say "cum hoc ......" then it doesn't change the logic/inference of what Dizzy is trying to say. You and he may want to say that providing finance leads to control of the Labour Party - but that is just pure assertion as it would be if I were to same the same about Lord Ashcroft.
CLP's are often supported by trade unions in a big way too.
So I'd count a lot of the money donated by CLP's to Labour Central as union donations.
"So I'd count a lot of the money donated by CLP's to Labour Central as union donations."
Count all you want - but it's unlikely that you will see much money flowing from CLPs to the National Party - Labour doesn't organise its finances in the same way as the Tories.
The post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs.
Robbed from the sceptics dictionary!
It clearly shows that TBNGU is not as smart as he thinks!
V
I doubt anyone is a smart as they think they are, but read the original post - Unions make lots of donations to the Labour Party, Unions clearly hold all the cards in controlling the Labour Party, Gordon Brown is a puppet leader was the argument made and the last two were statements not predictions. The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is that dominating the finances of the Labour Party has allowed the Unions to control the Party and made Gordon Brown a puppet leader.
Of course you could say that Dizzy made all these statements without trying to imply any association or casuation.
Post a Comment