Learn from betrayal

Despite the verbal dexterity of Employment Minister Pat McFadden, who denies any real commitment to social justice, Ian McCartney, who was the prime ministerial appointee as Labour Party chairman at the time, knows that the Labour leadership committed itself to tackling the abuse of temporary and agency workers, because he drafted them and signed up on behalf of the party.

Every single trade union leader involved walked away from Warwick believing that a deal had been done.

They had approached the Labour leadership to point out that increasing numbers of their members had become disillusioned with Labour and the unions needed to be able to point to concrete commitments to enable them to throw their full support behind Labour in the 2005 general election.

The unions delivered, both in finance and political mobilisation, contributing to a victory which, although not on the scale of 1997 or 2001, delivered a third term with a comfortable working majority.

It should also be remembered that, in the wake of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Mr Blair was no longer the electoral talisman that he had once seemed. He was a political albatross.

The unions contributed to the wave of feeling that saw Mr Blair's preferred elections co-ordinator Alan Milburn supplanted by Gordon Brown, who was busy cosying up to the labour movement, hinting that he would take a more sympathetic approach to organised labour than his new Labour twin had.

But, having been returned to office, new Labour wasted no time in reverting to its attitude of contempt for those who work for a living, especially the most vulnerable temporary and agency workers.

Sucking up to the rich and powerful was once again the order of the day, whether under Mr Blair or Mr Brown.

The trade unions must refuse to be fobbed off with any tripartite commission, which would be used by employer groups to whittle away any moves towards workplace justice.

They should keep up the pressure on Labour backbenchers to support Andrew Miller's private member's Bill and shame the government into adopting it.

Cover-ups
WHEN Foreign Secretary David Miliband suddenly said: "Oops," last week, suggesting that, while he and his predecessor Jack Straw had always been adamant that no US rendition flights had landed on British territory, it turned out that they had been uninformed about a couple of flights to Diego Garcia, everyone should have smelt a rat.

His intervention had all the hallmarks of a pre-emptive strike designed to head off embarrassing revelations on the subject.

We didn't have to wait for long, now that former SAS soldier Ben Griffin has come forward with his own allegations that the British Establishment has been up to its neck in collaboration with the US torture regime.

Given the toothless nature of Parliament, it is clear that only a full independent inquiry into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has a chance of laying bare the crimes and the cover-ups of our rulers.