Our mate Dave, the smooth-talking old Etonian who hopes to be the next next PM has a reputation for being all fluffy and lacking in substance. Of course, the whole problem with the Tories is that everybody likes him, but not traditional Tory politics. So he has to suggest that he is different. New.
So, while it's been kept a little quiet, it's eye-opening when the Tories do adopt some kind of stance on a policy. Alan Duncan and David Cameron both support this: 'Campaign for Enterprise' and Mr Duncan helped launch their 'Manifesto for Small Business Freedom'(click the Discussion Document link at the bottom for a 121KB pdf).
The policies include:
Policy Recommendation 9 - Repeal Stautory Dismissal and Grievance Procedures in their entirety.They say the Unions don't like them. What they don't mention is that unions think that they are nowhere near strong enough.
Policy Recommendation 10 - Increase the qualifying period for Unfair Dismissal from one year to two years.So employers can sack people for no good reason, you see. If you have a good reason, they can't do you for 'Unfair Dismissal'.
Policy Recommendation 11 - Reduce the maximum compensatory award from £55,000 to £25,000
At least they don't want to go back to the pre-1997 level of £12,000. Let's look at this. If you have an average salary, about £20,000, and it takes more than a year to get your case through (which is quite possible), you can't get full compensation for lost income.
Policy Recommendation 12 - End compulsory Trade Union recognition (for companies with 20-99 employees, smaller companies are already exempt).
Policy Recommendation 13 - Repeal the Human Rights ActEh? I'm not sure if these people or the Tories get this, but the HRA only imports the European Convention on Human Rights into our Law. So repeal would mean that we go back to the pre 1998 situation of cases going to the European Court. Now, we could withdraw from the ECHR I suppose (which is not aligned with EU membership, by the way), but I suspect that Mr Churchill would be spinning in his grave. The EHCR is not even as strong as the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which we signed up to over 50 years ago.
Basically, if you think Cameron is just a slightly greener version of the 1995 Blair, or that the Tories are better, nicer people than they were in government, think again.
(hat tip Action Without Theory)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Once Cameron gets in, I reckon he'll be able to do pretty much what he likes. Good.
Oh, I feel blessed, a visit from Prague Tory, one of the doyens of the Tory blogosphere.
I hope Cameron bulldozes your house then.
Thanks for the hat tip.
I've stuck in a link to Rodney.
Bob Woolmer is attracting more traffic than workers rights at the moment!
Cheers mate.
As fascinating as the old cricket scandals are (with the rumours and intrigue), it's a shame that they overshadow real threats to a lot of people's livelihoods.
Post a Comment