Jo Swinson was on stellar form in the Commons this week. In her latest procrastination statement, the Prime Minister tried to claim credit for shared parental leave.
As we know, it was Jo who, as a Business Minister, delivered that against the wailing opposition of the Conservatives. So she naturally took exception to the PM’s claim.
The Prime Minister made much today of her plans to make 'legal commitments' to protect workers' rights after Brexit. Let me tell you what the Conservatives wanted to do when I was Minister for Employment Relations in the coalition government. (1/n) pic.twitter.com/5APqcRYOKz
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
And afterwards, with the help of some excellent gifs, she took to Twitter to rip the Tories to shreds on workers’ rights. She highlighted the times in the coalition when we fought against them. And there was a touch of humility as she said that we might not always have got it right, but we sure as hell battled every day. Here’s are the highlights:
This is my favourite:
First, there was the Beecroft ‘Report’ – though it was really more like a crap GCSE essay attempt without proper evidence. It was written by a Tory donor, though, so they demanded the ideas in it were looked at. pic.twitter.com/5UbbTfddQq
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
Beecroft included ideas like scrapping maternity rights and bosses being able to fire people for no good reason, on a whim. Vince Cable rightly told the Tories to take a running jump.
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
Then there was the ridiculous ‘shares for rights’ scheme, dreamt up by George Osborne, where people could give up employment rights in return for shares. We managed to put protections in place so no one would be forced to do so. But it really was a bonkers idea.
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
The Tories were adamant about their new employment tribunal fees. I tried to get them stopped, but Grayling refused to budge or even review the evidence of the dreadful impact. Eventually – thankfully – the Supreme Court struck these fees down as unlawful.https://t.co/vL0xXKDwZY
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
We won battles to introduce naming & shaming for firms that break minimum wage law, and massively increased the resources for HMRC to clamp down on rogue employers paying less than the National Minimum Wage.
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
You can argue about whether as Lib Dems we picked, won or lost the right battles on workers’ rights in the coalition. But what is not debatable is that these battles were constant. pic.twitter.com/y351GulKOB
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
When Theresa May tries to appropriate Lib Dem achievements like shared parental leave, more flexible working or gender pay gap reporting, I find it irritating, given we had to fight tooth and nail against her Tory colleagues at every turn to deliver these, as she well knows. pic.twitter.com/yrJH8AA5FT
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) February 12, 2019
I like unrestrained, confident Jo telling it like it is.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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9 Comments
VERY well said Jo it is about time the truth was heard about the coalition years I personally am proud of you!! I expect there will many who will take the contrary view though!?
Whilst I agree Jo should absolutely correct claims of the Conservatives’ ownership of the shared parental leave achievement, I really don’t think invoking the EU as some sort of super nanny state that is going to protect the UK from itself is very wise. It feeds into the idea that the EU runs the country and that it stops us deciding things for ourselves. It in effect gives credulence to the “Take Back Control” nonsense
Well you might think I would take a contrary view,but I don’t, well not completely.
The Liberal Democrats DID do some good things in Coalition. especially in the equalities field, and with the triple local on pensions etc.
But we allowed the Tories to out-manoeuvre us on issues like NHS Reform, tuition fees, public sector pay & pensions, and the bedroom tax. The trouble is that for many people the bad stuff we supported affected them far more than the good stuff did.
The biggest mistake was on the constitution. We should have been able to deliver PR (and probably STV) for local government elections in England, but failed to push for it, and instead went for the disastrous AV for Westminster referendum.
I’m happy that MPs do put the record straight on some of the achievements, but its about as useful as saying positive things about the Lib/Lab pact was in 1980/1. The public has moved on, and the coalition years are now the day before yesterday.
To quote from a popular leaflet from those times: “The crucial issue is – do we lurch along in the same old way or do we make a fresh start?”
I have no doubt the Lib Dems in coalition tampered the Tories, but it just like temperring a serial killer, less people may die but great harm is still done. Being from a northern town surrounded by closed pits and factories, I know what Tories do and I have no wish to temper them I want them as far away from power as is possible.
For the love of heaven can I implore postees on this site not to succumb to bigging up either Ms Swinson or Ms Moran. It’s looks orchestrated and presenting the membership with ‘here’s your next leader we’ve prepared earlier’ will not do down well. It is not a political given that a young female leader will do any better than an older male one at present. Plaid dumped their female leader last year who came 3rd in the contest. Also we have minimal press attention sans Brexit.
Very impressive performance. Very clear. That is what is needed. We need more of this, especially if the party ever starts a real pro-EU campaign.
Tories claiming credit for something they didn’t do; who’d’ve believed it? The old adage of “A long spoon and the devil’ comes to mind. A great pity that it wasn’t a party of 50+ LibDem MPs, instead of 11 making the point.
As for…..
@joswinson
The Prime Minister made much today of her plans to make ‘legal commitments’ to protect workers’ rights after Brexit. Let me tell you what the Conservatives wanted to do when I was Minister for Employment Relations in the coalition government.
Maybe. But let’s not raise the issue of what the LibDem Business Secretary did to ‘workers’ rights’ whilst in office.
It’s so great to see Jo in full swing now she’s back from maternity leave, and I’m pleased to see some unashamed home truths for the Tories too. It’s about time we had a bit of fighting spirit when it comes to the coalition. Of course not everything was brilliant, but we shouldn’t allow the Tories to rewrite history by claiming they did the good bits, nor allow Labour to claim that we were enthusiastic advocates of the bad or to ‘forget’ that austerity was a reaction to the world-wide financial crash while they were in power. Not that I go along with blaming Labour for the worldwide crash, but many f them seem to forget it existed at all, or that if they’d won in 2010, they’d have been the ones having to make the tough decisions.
Perhaps my fellow Lib Dems should reflect during the coalition years Vince as Business Secretary increased fees for Tribunals for workers. Effectively pricing many vulnerable workers out of justice. Unscrupulous employers can dismiss their employees knowing full well their ex-employees would find to difficult to get justice from the Tribunal system due to the increased cost. I am afraid the Lib Dems do not have a brilliant record when it comes to Employment rights for workers when in government.