RMT

Off to parliament for a good session on the fight for a Trade Union Freedom Bill:

It's 7pm on a nice autumn evening, and several hundred trade union activists are gathered at a lobby at the House of Commons, having a fabulous time taking the piss out of T&G general secretary Tony Woodley. As you do.

The lobby is part of an ambitious, united union campaign to interest our hopeless Labour government in the idea of repealing this nation's draconian anti-trade union laws and putting a slightly more humane Trade Union Freedom Act in their place (one that at least allows people to take solidarity strike action). The large audience (it spills over into several committee rooms in the House) is made of up of posties, firefighters, prison officers, union reps, nurses, local government people and tube and train-driving people.

They are all normal, everyday persons whose various attempts to fight for decent pay and conditions in the last ten years have largely been fragged by New Labour's refusal to get rid of the anti-union laws and restore some balance in favour of everyday punters who just want to make a living (as opposed to a killing, like New Labour's neocon and city-bonus mates). The truth is that low-paid people will have almost no means to fight attempts to drive their wages down further while laws preventing solidarity strike action stand.

Anyway... New Labour, whose ex-very own Tony Blair cheerfully bragged about overseeing the most oppressive anti-union laws in Europe and repeatedly ignored Labour conference's calls to get shot of those laws, ain't exactly the most popular gig on the grassroots union circuit. Nor is anyone who tries to argue that unions should keep financing the Labour party.

Labour Party leadership candidate John McDonnell says he's within striking distance of getting his name on the leadership ballot.

A full and rowdy house of trade union activists has rolled up for this evening's John4Leader public campaign event in Euston. The attendees are not all geriatric either: the youth wing of the Labour left is a noticeable force now at many McDonnell events.

The star turn appears on excellent form, not least because the government isn't. Lord Levy has just been chucked in the jug again, and McDonnell tells his very enthusiastic audience that the word - and the hope - on the ground is that one A C L Blair might not be too far behind.

'I think there is a prospect that the Blair government will unravel very quickly now,' McDonnell says with no small pleasure, as he outlines the many encouraging potentials offered by Levy's second exit with the fuzz. 'Things could speed up [with the investigation] even over the next few days.'

If they do, McDonnell says, he and the large number of union members, young activists, reinvigorated leftwing Labour party members and everyday punters who are turning out to these meetings up and down the country will take the opportunity to tell the voting public all about the real traitors to the Labour party.