Was Prescott right to call Hutton a “collaborator”?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

As reported on LabourList this morning, John Prescott reacted to news of John Hutton being appointed chair of a new public sector pension commission by calling the former minister a “collaborator.”

Regardless of your views on the choice of language used (and it’s a little on the nose for my taste) – it’s hard to argue that Hutton comes out of this well. While I’m in favour of bi-partisan solutions to major issues (the future of care for the elderly for example) it is hard to see Hutton’s role as anything other than a fig leaf for Tory plans to cut public sector pensions.

Cutting public sector pensions, whilst also seeking to reign in top level pay for civil servants, may be a politically expedient way to make cuts, but it runs the risk of driving good people from the public sector into better paid private sector jobs.

Whilst many in the party are already resigned to “maverick” MPs such as Frank Field and Kate Hoey working alongside the conservatives, it is disapointing to see someone considered a party loyalist providing this sort of cover for cuts – albeit a loyalist who admitted to briefing against Gordon Brown. It’s especially disapointing after Hutton said he was “stepping down from front line politics.”

However, can we really cry fowl, when so recently we were playing the same game? Although it made many within the party uncomfortable (and came back to haunt us when Lord Myners attacked Labour spending plans in the Lords recently), the GOAT policy pursued by Gordon Brown brought Tory supporters into government. It was surely only a matter of time that those who perhaps felt that they had unfinished business in government, such as Field and Hutton, took the chance to go back and push for change once more – regardless of who is behind that change.

Hutton, recently knighted, will need to work hard to convince party members that this is the correct course of action – and that he’s united with the PLP against Tory cuts.