Ed Balls channelled the bad cop with the trade unions this morning, warning conference that ‘there will be difficult decisions in the future from which we will not flinch.’ This afternoon, Chuka Umunna was sent out to play the alternative good cop. The shadow business secretary spoke at a Unite fringe event this lunchtime, repeating his well-mocked line that the unions are ‘wealth-creators’:
‘I am totally unapologetic to say that trade unions like this one are wealth creators. We need to celebrate unions like Unite.’
In return for this new-found good will, the Unite leader Len McCluskey praised Umunna’s speech as ‘first class’, stating he had ‘never heard a front bencher mention unions so many times in one speech’. Despite Ed Balls’ hard line on public spending, the Unite leader praised the shadow’ speech as a ‘really really good one’ and welcomed his connection to the ‘spirit of ‘45’.
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