FOR months now, the media have been discussing how the Trade Union Bill represents a serious attack on hard-won democratic labour rights.

For instance, it includes a clause deliberately designed to restrict trade unions supporting the Labour Party financially.

But nothing is being done to limit the support of hedge funds and millionaires for the party that represents their class interests, the Tory party.

Now the House of Lords has debated the Bill, and the government were defeated three times on key parts of the bill. Peers have sent a clear message that the government has got it wrong and should think again.

The Lords’ amendments do limit some of the political damage inflicted by the bill.

Even with these improvements, the Trade Union Bill remains both an attack on democracy, loading the dice in the government’s favour, and an attack on working people’s voice at work, changing the balance of power in the workplace.

Now the bill heads back to the Commons for those amendments to be voted on. So it is over to our members of parliament once again.

I urge them to listen to the House of Lords and vote to keep their amendments in place. And I can only hope the government takes the opportunity, before it is too late, to drop the whole sorry mess.

I've seen what the lack of labour rights can do in countries in forer times we would have described scornfully as tin-pot dictatorships. Now it seems they have become the model for this country.

Jane Freeland, Shirley