Morning Report – June 20th

As Unison begin their annual conference in Manchester today, it’s looking like strike action is unavoidable. As Ed Balls noted yesterday, the government are desperate for the unions to strike so that they can look tough by opposing them, yet all reports suggest that the unions feel they have been completely ignored by the government. Pensions is an incredibly important subject for union members – arguably the most important – and an attack on those pensions could well push reticent trade unionists to take strike action. Yet there’s one Labour voice (at least) in favour of the reforms – Lord Hutton, who drafted the report which led us here. Hutton says that Ed Miliband should oppose strike action and support the pension plans. Or in other words, adopt the Tory position…

Elsewhere, Boris Johnson is launching a few tactical attacks of his own that may cause a few rumblings of discontent in Downing Street (and the ministry of justice). Johnson uses his regular (chickenfeed) Telegraph column to argue that Europe should abandon Greece and allow them to default. However, the article features the sentence – “austerity measures are making the economy worse”. It’s about Greece of cousre, but that sentiment is unlikely to be welcomed by the chancellor…

At the same time, Boris has written for The Sun, arguing that “soft” punishments should be avoided, in what is clearly an assault on Ken Clarke. Johnson says, “Soft is the perfect way to enjoy French cheese, but not how we should approach punishing criminals.” Florid.

Now it’s entirely possible that Johnson is being honest in his views – or could he be trying to distance himself from the government on crime and the economy ahead of next year’s election? He wouldn’t be that cynical surely…?