Lots of people seem to be gambling on the seaside resort of Blackpool at the moment. Potential casino operators are buying up swathes of the sea-front in the hope that new legislation will allow them to turn the town into Lancashire's Las Vegas - minus the desert.
Over the next month the Labour government that might change our gaming laws will be also be taking a gamble on whether two major conferences are willing to back its programme to improve Britain, and especially its public services, between now and the next election.
Both the Labour Party itself and the TUC are back in Blackpool for their annual shindigs after several years' absence while the chronically under-invested Winter Gardens were refurbished. Both conferences will test New Labour's commitment to deliver long-promised benefits in the second half of their second term in government, at time when rumblings in the general labour movement about Blair's administration are the loudest they have been since its first term began in 1997.
One of the key questions for unions like BECTU who pay affiliation fees to Labour will be the level of support that the Party deserves from them. As Labour's donations from rich individuals plummet, there will probably be more than a few "told you so" type comments - once the Party's trendy new friends have all vanished, who's left apart from the trade unions and grass-roots members to fill its political war-chest?
BECTU isn't the only union to have faced a call at its annual conference this year to break the link with Labour, but in tune with all of them our branches voted heavily against pulling out of the Party. However, the government's warm relationship with big business looks set to continue, and union leaders are being pushed hard to justify their commitment to Labour, often by moderate members who have traditionally supported the link.
At the TUC, delegates' ears will be straining to pick up hints about the review of the Employment Relations Act which has been promised next year, but is already dogged by controversy, with the employers' organisations howling that there should be no improvement in workers' rights, despite the government's own boast that the "UK workforce is the least regulated in Europe". Not something that you would have expected the workers' own party to be proud of.
Your own union delegates will be particularly keen to hear whether Labour plans to carry through its firm manifesto pledge to support the arts and creative industries by giving full rights to the thousands of casual and freelance staff who work in them, instead of leaving them trapped in legislative limbo somewhere between permanent employees and small businesses.
BECTU is also one of the seven unions hoping to put pensions near the top of the TUC's agenda by tabling a motion which calls for new laws guaranteeing all workers, including freelancers and casuals, a secure income in retirement, large enough to preserve their standard of living. We are also calling for a ban on so-called "pension holidays" by employers, a practice which over the last decade has exacerbated the £70bn shortfall in UK pension investments that was revealed last month.
Although a lobby of just seven unions might not sound much, it represents an unprecedented level of interest in pensions at the TUC, and with all the anxiety about the issue this year, there won't be the usual drift of delegates out of the hall when we reach that part of the agenda in Blackpool.
Pensions should also be worrying the government, given that its changes to taxation of pensions, and the separate introduction of new accounting practices with FRS17, have been widely - some would say opportunistically - blamed for dozens of companies cutting back on pension provision for staff. Even though the UK is almost top of the European league for private provision of pensions, no government can escape the long-term implications of pensioners' poverty.
At the height of corporate restructuring in the 1980s - mass redundancies to you and me - trade unions warned that individual companies might be able to put people out to grass, but The United Kingdom PLC couldn't afford to. Margaret Thatcher's social security bills went soaring up as a result.
Exactly the same applies to pensions, and the voters of twenty or thirty years time will not tolerate a system that puts their parents in penury. The extra £4.5bn per year being spent on pensions by Labour could be a drop in the ocean if major companies continue their retreat from salary-linked schemes.
When trade union stalwarts like Jack Jones and Rodney Bickerstaffe lead the traditionally rain-lashed pensioners' march to the doors of the Winter Gardens, they can expect an even warmer welcome than usual.
Whether or not Tony Blair will enjoy being beside the seaside as much as them remains to be seen.
Tony Lennon
September 2002
