I wasn’t of working age until well into Thatcher’s Reich, so I have no first hand experience of ‘seventies’ unions. However, Mrs Beermat had free legal support from her union, USDAW, only two years ago when she had the guts to take on a disruptive and abusive colleague who had framed her for one of her own misdemeanours. I have no desire to see the body that did this progressively outlawed.

If that union leader was saying ‘we’ll strike until we have a labour government’ then that would be remarkably undemocratic.. and stupid. And enormously unlikely.

If in fact two things had been deliberately mixed up – a call for co-ordinated protest at anti-association laws, and a desire to raise awareness and thus support for the cause of ousting – toppling – the tories democratically, then.. well, that does seem more likely.

🙂

Just caught up, Charlie. Yeah, got to admit that’s fighting talk. Silly b*gger, it has already been twisted into some kind of attempt at a revolutionary overthrow rather than a campaign to have Cameron democratically voted out. It certainly shows a lack of sophistication to give the Daily Heil that much fodder!

To get to what was actually said I had to fight my way through a fog of what the Telegraph, Mail and even the Spectator wanted people to think they had said.

But still a bit silly

Blimey – go away for a day and four more pages appear!

So, catching up..

‘Bump’ – “Scruffy College lecturer with equally insane ideas”.. ‘Insane ideas’ wasn’t a feature common to the lecturers I have met, except those that only exist as tired 1970’s stereotypes. In fact I think a general statement needs to be made here – the seventies were a LONG TIME AGO.

“I am not sure where all this Corbyn Support has come from”.. please see above.

‘j_jza8’ – you will not see this in the Daily Mail, but ‘Talking with’ is not the same as ‘handing power to’.

Feudalism – well, we have moved marginally back towards feudalism, have we not? The ownership of economic wealth is shifting more towards the property owners, and movement into that category from ‘non-propertied’ is getting harder.

At the same time as seeing this undeniable economic divide emerge between ‘Landlords (property owners and ever-increasing numbers of ‘buy-to-let-ers)’ and ‘tenants (renters), we are seeing increasing numbers of people ‘self employed’ – actually earning less than salaried workers, on average. Modern-day itinerant workers, perhaps. The disappearance of ‘orgasnised labour’ means that some of the gains made since the peasant’s revolt in moving away from feudalism are evaporating.. and will continue to do so while some people don’t even see them as gains.

Of course, it’s not true feudalism, in that the value of the property in question is not the agricultural value of the land, rather it is an inflating bubble of overvalued asset that is only worth what speculator ‘investors’ in the market say it’s worth. But still, it was an interesting comparison to make.

I don’t believe the unions are organising to bring down any governments. Why on earth would they be? It’s another ridiculous scare story, and as it is not the seventies I dare say the majority are sophisticated enough to see that.

If calling him a scruff and ridiculous ‘Ooh, scary, vote for him your kids will be harmed’ posters are all the Tories have then he may well have a chance.

To be clear the minute’s silence he once observed is not a policy. But yes, I am uncomfortable with what appears to be a legitamisation of terrorism.

Or a bunch of ideas that counter the more fashionable ones of the incumbent party (the relative fashionability being measured by democratic process).