Men Behaving Badly

According to newspaper reports, the leader of Britain's largest trade union - Len McCluskey of Unite - has tried to patch things up with the leader of the Labour Party.

After telling Ed Miliband - rather rudely I thought - to get rid of certain 'undesirable' members of his Labour shadow cabinet.

All this political argy bargy came about because of an article Len wrote for the New Statesman (NS) magazine - which I've written for in the past,  as regular readers know.

But for some reason - after launching his verbal Exocets - the Unite leader then accused NS editors of distorting his message and of using 'lurid headlines' to describe his outspoken remarks.

Now I can't really see what Len is complaining about - I have to say.

Because I reproduced his article on the blog site in which he said that the Labour leader would be consigned to the 'dustbin of history' - if he listened to siren voices such as Jim Murphy, Douglas Alexander and Liam Byrne.

Strong words them - 'dustbin of history' - I thought to myself at the time.

Yet in a curious interpretation of that old New Labour slogan - 'Say what you mean and mean what you say' - Len has now decided that what he really meant to say was that Ed Miliband is doing an 'excellent job'.

Well you could have fooled me - and just about everyone else who read Len's deep thoughts in the New Statesman as well, I imagine.

But apparently what Len really meant to say is that his advice to get shot of Murphy, Alexander and Byrne because otherwise 'we're all doomed' - was really intended as a constructive comment 'from the standpoint of critical friends'.

Before adding - helpfully - that 'disagreement does not mean disloyalty'.

And you know what, I agree with Len on that point - people should be free to speak their minds. 

Which is why I think that Alan Johnson (former Labour home secretary) was not being in the least disloyal when he described the Bubs (Britain's union bosses) recently - as 'fat, finger-jabbing white blokes'.