Mule hands over headlines to "Welsh" Lab Press Office once again

I am beginning  to think that the Wasting Mule should simply leave a page open to the "Welsh"  Labour  press office and  be done with it.

Take  the Mule's "Cheif Martin Simpson on giving space over the claim that Labour and Plaid Cymru have clashed after Plaid MEP Jill Evans failed to support a proposal at the European Parliament aimed at eliminating zero-hours contracts.

According to Labour, Ms Evans’ failure to back an amendment during an employment debate undermines her leader Leanne Wood’s campaign against such contracts, which leave mainly lower-paid workers in insecure jobs and not knowing how much they will earn.

The wordy amendment called for

 “measures to enhance security by phasing out precarious employment and the atypical contractual arrangements related to these insecure forms of employment should be strongly promoted by the member states, with a view to restricting and reducing atypical forms of employment”.

At least Mr Shipton admits the amendment  was "wordy"  Read it and tell me if you think that even if the amendment was passed would there be commitment to abolish Zero Hour contracts .

You could have simply put down an amendment saying

"We should try to be nicer to low paid workers".

This did not stop the Mule on line placing in large bold letters  the shocking 

Ms Evans abstained from voting

It was defeated by 518 votes to 129. there are  191 out of 751 members of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats  group that Labour are part of in the European Parliament  and not even all of them supported  the "Wordy" amendment .  Though Shipton  lends claim that  Among the 57 MEPs who abstained were Ms Evans and MEPs from the SNP and the Green Party.

Calum Higgins, Labour’s general election candidate for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, (Who else?) said:

 “Just a few weeks ago Leanne Wood publicly supported Welsh Labour’s policy to ban exploitative zero hours contracts yet this week Plaid MEP Jill Evans abstained in a key vote helping the Tories defeat a motion that would have put an end to in-work poverty.
“The tens of thousands of people in Wales struggling to get by on low wages and living with the daily worry that they might not get any work this week will be appalled at Plaid Cymru’s failure to stand up for workers.
“Leanne Wood should explain exactly why Plaid Cymru’s policy has changed in such a short space of time.“This May, people across Wales face a choice between a Labour government that will stand up for Wales or a Tory government that will cut spending to the level of the 1930s and cut taxes for a privileged few.
“Only Labour will put working people first, ban exploitative zero-hours contracts and raise the minimum wage. We won’t abstain when it comes to taking action for working people.”

This is some one from a so called socialist party seeking to be an MP  who seems to thinks the words  in the amendment are akin Labours old clause  four which Tony Blair dumped before the 1997 General Election

It  read

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

 I has come to something that today Labour are exited over  those wonderful aims 

“measures to enhance security by phasing out precarious employment and the atypical contractual arrangements related to these insecure forms of employment should be strongly promoted by the member states, with a view to restricting and reducing atypical forms of employment”.

'A Plaid Cymru spokesman responded:

 “Plaid Cymru wants to see compulsory zero-hours contracts completely outlawed.
“This amendment was too ambiguous, didn’t go far enough, and as such we were unable to support it.
“Labour are just playing politics when they know full well that the vote in Strasbourg would not have changed legislation and achieved nothing in bringing an end to compulsory zero-hours contracts.
“We are working hard to bring zero hours contracts to an end and in the Assembly have presented the Labour government with numerous opportunities to outlaw their use. On every occasion the Labour government has refused to do so.”

So there you have it our "National Newspaper  gives space to claims that Plaid failed to support  a move to end Zero Hour Contracts  when in reality its MEP failed to back a bunch of meaningless words