chief issues they were right". McCluskey was elected as the National Secretary of the T&GWU General Workers group in 1990, and moved to London to work in the union's national headquarters. In 2004, he became the T&GWU's national organiser for the service industries. In 2007, he was appointed as the Assistant General Secretary for Industrial Strategy of the Unite the Union, a merger of the T&GWU and Amicus. He defines himself as being on the left of the union, and has been given the label of "Red Len" in the British press because of his involvement in Unite's dispute with British Airways. In a speech at the 2010 Durham Miners' Gala he said political developments in Cuba and Venezuela should be better known, and suggested the reason they were not was because of "the fear of the good example". However, in March 2012 the industrial correspondent of the Press Association, Alan Jones, distinguished McCluskey during the BA dispute from the former National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leader Arthur Scargill: "I think he's more willing to cut a deal". Labour politician Jon Trickett told George Eaton in 2016: "He got to the top through force of personality, intellect and organising skill". He expressed regret in 2009, and again in 2011, that the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did not reverse the legislative changes affecting trade unions of the immediately preceding Conservative governments. He argued in June 2016, that the changes made by those governments have "left the lowest paid and the most vulnerable workers in our society in dire straits". Unite and McCluskey backed Ed Miliband to become the next Labour leader in 2010. The votes of members of Unite, plus Unison and the GMB, were enough for Miliband to be elected leader over the preference for his brother, David Miliband, of party members and MPs in the electoral college (by then 33 per cent each) which was in force at the time. General Secretaryship of Unite 2010 and 2013 Unite election In 2010, McCluskey ran for election as General Secretary of Unite to replace joint-General Secretaries Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, who had both announced their retirement. On 21 November 2010, it was announced that McCluskey had been elected to the post, beating Jerry Hicks, Les Bayliss and Gail Cartmail. He gained 101,000 votes in a total 16 per cent turnout of around 1.5 million members. Simpson