New Statesman Scotland
The game is afoot. The Prime Minister has asked Ian McCartney, the trade minister, to sort out the Co-op. The Glasgow MP is regarded as highly adept at despatching Downing Street's business, but just what is Downing Street's business with the Co-op?
The combined wholesale and retail networks of the Co-operative movement have a turnover of more than £8bn in an estate of 4,500 shops. The Co-ops represent 5 per cent of all grocery sales in the UK - marginal compared to the big four supermarkets, but a sleeping giant. The Co-operatives employ 148,000 people. The Co-op bank has two million account-holders. It also has an internet bank, a chain of chemists and the best bargain deal for funerals.
Tony Blair has invited McCartney to revive the Co-operative societies and turn them again into lively agents for the Labour Party. What is the plan ? It may be purely political. A Co-op woken from its slumber could be a strong countervailing force against the trade unions. Nobody has a word to say against the Co-ops. They are the essence of "caring and sharing". They are owned by their members. They exhibit none of the venal qualities of the private companies fuelled only by greed.
The Co-operatives used to serve as friendly societies. Members, often with the most modest of incomes, used to put their "divis" into insurance policies covering health or pensions or funeral expenses. In the past, the Co-ops have had furious rows with the medical profession, alleging that doctors have operated restrictive practices against their patients - the Co-op members.The Royal Colleges won.
McCartney has rustled up collaborators with front-rank Labour Party fixers. He has got the Prime Minister's assent to Alan Donnelly, formerly the Labour leader among the MEPs, Lord Simon of Highbury, the former boss of BP (Labour's first privatisation - under Jim Callaghan) and John Monks, the TUC leader.
Why would Blair create a commission populated by people who do not waste their time to examine the options for the Co-operative movement's assets unless something chunky is intended?
Could the Co-ops be asset-stripped? They are ripe for it. It seems more likely that they can be adopted as both agents for the forthcoming general election and as intermediary agents for public agencies. Until 1945, the Co-ops and friendly societies used to subcontract the benefits now delivered by the DSS. Is it possible that future welfare benefits could be claimed at Co-op checkouts? McCartney will not say what he and his team is up to. It may be momentous.
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