Guido Fawked – Union Rant Unravels

As if one Ron Hopeful post was not enough for the time of year, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole at the Guido Fawkes blog, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere, have produced a mirth inducing slice of utter bilge on the subject of trade union facility time and their part in supposedly promoting the subject among like minded folks in the Tory Party and elsewhere.

Now that's a good idea for a blog post, Stanley

The post – authored by the flannelled fool Cole, that much being obvious by his inability to understand words like “Astroturf” – confirms that the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) routinely waste taxpayer’s money to no defined purpose (“Their ... FoI team had scatter-gunned almost every area of the state”), yet misses irritating little details like his pal Mark Clarke being removed from the Tory candidates’ list.

There is a routine helping of braggadocio as Cole claims to have “seen emails sent around senior brothers expressing concern”, yet the Fawkes blog, which is usually more than ready to publish such correspondence, wants its readers to take this on trust, which Zelo Street readers will know is Not A Very Good Idea, rather like trusting the TPA’s so-called “research”.

But Cole is not to be put off by mere details: he ploughs on, telling that “legislation from the backbenches is in the pipeline”, unaware that without support from the front benches, such legislation would go nowhere. Plus what this legislation is, we are not told, probably because Cole is making it up. And his invocation of the Trade Union Reform Campaign (TURC) ignores Aidan Burley’s little local difficulty.

Cole clearly believes that facility time is all the fault of Tone and Pa Broon: the legislation having been passed by the Major Government does not cause the thought to enter that there may be more to it than some kind of zero sum game. And he sells the pass when trying to smear unions as running some kind of “protection racket”: this is not an opinion being aired, but a phobia.

Here on Zelo Street there is no ideological attachment to any party or dogma: everything is treated strictly on its merits. The TPA has, as I’ve previously told, put out a singularly dodgy dossier on facility time and Cole and his pals at TURC have done no better. No legislation will be forthcoming without a proper analysis of the reality, and its attendant and comparative costs.

And it is this that the Fawkes blog and those of like mind do not want to happen: this would introduce complicating shades of grey into the argument. It would also demonstrate to those in the Tory part of the Coalition that the TPA’s “research” does not stand serious analysis. But Cole’s post does let any like minded lobbyist know one key fact about Staines’ sidekick.

He’s rather susceptible to suggestion after four pints of Guinness.