IT IS bad enough that the government has further diluted an already watered-down employment rights Bill by introducing protection against unfair dismissal for workers only after six months in a job.

Labour won office on a clear manifesto commitment that such rights would be introduced on day one, offering all workers a degree of protection against arbitrary and unscrupulous employers.

But what makes the ministerial climbdown still worse is that involves a capitulation to the unelected and anachronistic House of Lords.

The Lords have ignored the convention that they should not block the legislative implementation of a government manifesto pledge.

In doing so, they remind us that the so-called upper house is a reactionary ramp, an insurance policy for the capitalist class to block the democratic will to the greatest extent possible.

That truth is not obscured either by the fact that the abandonment of the day one rights pledge was superficially negotiated with unions as well as business. This was only because the Lords were holding the entire Bill to ransom.

Nor is the nature of the Lords altered one whit by the adornment of a number of former trade union leaders and Labour politicians, many of whom alas cling to the reformist mantra that any agreement is better than no agreement.

It is frankly demeaning for the TUC to now be pleading with the Lords to ”do the right thing” and allow the Bill to become law without further delay and amendment.

The only self-respecting democratic response to the Lords’ obstruction of basic rights for working people would be a pledge to proceed immediately to the abolition of this medieval abomination, even if it does deprive some former workers’ leaders of their £371-a-day tax-free attendance payment.