Once again I was surprised to be the only Berkshire MP who bothered to turn up on Saturday to support the excellent Magistrates Court Mock Trial Competition featuring schools from across the county. It’s a shame my colleagues don’t show more interest in this fantastic event which, in a very real practical sense, teaches young people how the courts operate and helps them develop their reasoning and communication skills. The Magistrates give freely of their time and judge the teams, not on the verdicts but on the way they conduct both their defence and their prosecution cases. Obviously I was mainly rooting for Little Heath from Tilehurst (and a bit for Kendrick) but I’m sure Bulmershe School in Woodley and St Crispins in Wokingham would have liked to have seen their local MPs  as well.

As the vitriolic anti-trade union rant from Rob Wilson showed last week, there is no doubt that the phoney political war is over and the General Election campaign is well underway. Not unreasonably, the Prime Minister has called upon both sides in the long-running British Airways dispute to recommence negotiations, resolve their differences and avoid a disruptive strike. This prompted the Tory attack machine to go into overdrive and a dossier was produced pointing to the level of contributions made by my union, Unite to the Labour Party over recent years. None of this, of course, was news as the financial contributions of all trade unions including Unite are publicly available in the Electoral Commission’s records. They are there for everyone to see, unlike the shadow and strange organisations such as Bearwood Corporate Services or the Midlands Industrial Council which channel money to the Tories. What’s more, trade union members even get to have a say over where their money is spent.

So is this the same Conservative Party that said in its evidence to the Neill Committee on party funding in 1998:-

“The question of trade union funding of parties is not a matter of direct concern to the Conservative Party.  We recognise the historic ties that bind the trade union movement with the Labour Party [...] The Conservative Party does not believe that it is illegitimate for the trade union movement to provide support for political parties”.

In many ways those of us who strongly support the trade union links with Labour should thank the Tories for the tough legal framework that they introduced, for it has meant that the political activities of trade unions are more tightly regulated than any those of other organisation.

There is simply no comparison with the strict regime imposed on trade union political donations and the far more lax arrangements that are in place for the corporate donors and tax exiles like Lord Ashcroft who bankroll the Tory Party.