The Tory party - it's like a lottery that rewards stupidity...
It must be a slow week for the Daily Mail. There's clearly not enough immigrants-gets-free-porsche stories to go round, so they printed this:
Britain’s biggest trade union has set up a new wing – which can only be joined by the unemployed. Tory MPs said it was ‘scandalous’ that Unite, led by the hard-Left former docker Len McCluskey, was trying to exploit benefit claimants for political and financial purposes.
Outrageous! It's for Poundland and Tesco to exploit unemployed people!
In return for £26 a year in ‘subs’, the jobless members of Unite Community receive perks including discount designer glasses, advice on ‘claiming the right benefits’ and a pre-paid debit card offering cashback in high street stores.
Exploited, to the tune of 50 pence a week... and they're going to tell the unemployed what their rights are? For shame! Also, why the scare quotes around subs? Sub is short for subscription fee. Don't they have those at the Daily Heil? Perhaps direct debits are an underhand form of communism? I don't know. But here's where it gets really silly:
Last night Tory deputy chairman Sarah Newton said: ‘It is scandalous that Labour’s largest donor, Unite – which backed Ed Miliband for the leadership – is looking to politically mobilise the unemployed and plug its falling membership subs.
‘The public expects trade unions to protect the rights of their members in the workplace – not try to fill gaps in their funding off the back of the unemployed. Is Ed Miliband really comfortable taking money from a union that is acting in such a cynical way?
Cynical? Well, of course, Tories are experts on British trade union history, and are only to happy to respect the terms of collective bargaining. It's a shame then that somebody who knows so much about trade unionism and only has it's best interests at heart (you shouldn't be filling any gaps in funding off the backs of h the unemployed, oh no) could have forgotten about The National Unemployed Workers Movement of the 1920s and 30s. What was Sarah Newton MP thinking, eh?
