Labour must be hoping that not many people in Crewe and Nantwich decide to watch the evening news tonight. For if they do, what they’ll see is hardly like to encourage them to vote Labour.
The first item, if the BBC website is any guide, is going to be Jacqui Smith being berated by Jan Berry, chair of the Police Federation. With the Home Secretary sitting on the stage, Berry joked about Smith’s past drug use and then absolutely went for her over the government’s failure to backdate the pay rise set by the Police Arbitration Tribunal. She asked who in the Cabinet stood up for police and then denounced the refusal to backdate the deal in headline-grabbing terms:
“It was a breach of faith, a monumental mistake, and you betrayed the police service,” she added.
“How was it the government could find £2.7bn to dig itself out of a hole before a byelection but couldn’t find £30m to settle our pay award?” The politically-timed resolution of the 10p tax deal is going to be quoted back at Labour by every group that wants more government money from now on.
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