DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Unions are supposed to defend, not bully us

Trade unions supposedly exist to improve people’s employment conditions.

As well as battling to secure better pay and perks, they represent staff bullied or abused by bosses in the workplace.

Yet the testosterone-charged world of the barons has itself always been the sort of breeding ground in which old-fashioned sexism thrives.

Four years ago, Britain’s third-largest union had its own #MeToo moment. A damning report found that the GMB was ‘institutionally sexist’. Misogyny and sexual harassment were ‘endemic’. The union was a ‘hostile environment’ for women.

When Gary Smith became general secretary in 2021, he pledged to make transformational changes.

So it is deeply disturbing to discover that such antediluvian mindsets appear to remain firmly embedded in its culture.

A Mail investigation contains harrowing claims. That female officials continue to be bullied. That some are threatened with suspension or worse if they air grievances. And that large sums of members’ money are squandered on fighting complaints.

Given the GMB is a major donor, these claims pose a problem for the Labour Party.

Sir Keir Starmer with GMB general secretary Gary Smith at the Union’s 2023 congress. Details of the PM’s membership of the union emerged in the list of ministers’ interests published this month

GMB head Gary Smith has been accused of harassing and bullying female staff members in the union

They also raise further questions about Sir Keir Starmer’s judgment, for he still belongs to the embattled union.

The Prime Minister says he’s proud to support women. So shouldn’t he take a stand and resign his membership while these ugly sexism claims remain unresolved?

Police proper crime

If you want a snapshot of how warped the police’s priorities are these days, look no further than their obsession with investigating ‘non-crime hate incidents’. This Orwellian concept lets anyone spark a probe into anything they perceive to be motivated by hostility based on a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation or disability.

The fact no evidence is needed means it has been exploited by troublemakers. In one episode, police opened a case against two girls who said another smelled ‘like fish’.

A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank finds police spend 60,000 hours a year on NCHIs. With real offences rising, don’t officers have enough to do without looking into things that, by definition, aren’t crimes?

NCHIs also have a chilling effect on free speech. If a person fears the police turning up at their door for expressing a controversial opinion, they may stay silent.

This sinister practice, highlighted when journalist Allison Pearson was hounded by police, is a shameful affront to British liberty.

Journalist Allison Pearson was hounded by police. With real offences rising, don’t officers have enough to do without looking into things that, by definition, aren’t crimes?

Yet Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who seems determined to crack down on any challenge to Left-wing orthodoxy, wants to extend the use of NCHIs. The Mail suspects most Britons would prefer them abolished.

Tax grab unravels

How many farms will be clobbered by Rachel Reeves’s inheritance tax raid? The Chancellor says only a few hundred will be hit; farmers themselves warn it will be the majority, driving many to extinction.

The BBC’s ‘truth-checking’ service, Verify, sided with the Government after citing tax expert Dan Neidle. Just one problem: Mr Neidle is a fully paid-up Labour member.

Now he has U-turned. The policy will hit farmers far harder than wealthy investors buying land to avoid death duties, he says.

We welcome Mr Neidle’s mea culpa and hope the BBC starts interrogating, and stops parroting, Treasury lines. As for hapless Ms Reeves, she should rapidly rethink a plan that’s unravelling by the day.