Robert Crow RIP

[Beef Oven!]

Very sad news, Bob Crow RMT Union Leader has died. He was only 52.

"a fighter and a man of character."

RIP Bob

Robert Crow 1961 - 2014

[Flosshilde]

Yes - he's one of the Mail/Express/Telegraph hate figures (like Arthur Scargill) but he (again like Scargill) was totally committed to the industry he worked in, & fought to maintain its public service.

[teamsaint]

We badly need the likes of Bob to help people fight back in tough times.

RIP.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

succinct or what ...

[eighthobstruction]

it's a shame RIP BOB....

[Beef Oven!]

succinct or what ...

Bob was great, but he couldn't count!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've never quite worked out just why people use the word "dinosaur" as an insult. The dinosaurs were the most successful living creatures of all time, surviving for over 100,000,000 years, or longer than that if you include some of today's large reptiles: crocodiles, komodo dragons, etc.
And could the human race survive an asteroid impact of the magnitude of the one that struck the earth 70,000,000 years ago?

If Bob Crow's a dinosaur, count me in. Better than being a weasel.

[Ferretfancy]

I've never quite worked out just why people use the word "dinosaur" as an insult. The dinosaurs were the most successful living creatures of all time, surviving for over 100,000,000 years, or longer than that if you include soke of today's large reptiles crocodiles, etc.
And could the human race survive an asteroid impact of the magnitude of the one that struck the earth 70,000,000 years ago?

If Bob Crow's a dinosaur, count me in. Better than being a weasel.

Three cheers for that !

[Serial_Apologist]

He quite likely believed in the Soviet Union to the end, but he was right about many things. There was that great interview on the Sunday Politics Show a couple of weeks back.

[amateur51]

I'd gone into central London to meet up with a friend for coffee and a natter and we agreed to meet at Bond Street tube. As I got up to street level I turned on my mobile phone and collected a message from another friend telling me the news about Bob Crow. I felt pole-axed for a moment, stunned with the shock of it and then gutted that such a vital public figure should have been snuffed out so young.

Nick Robinson, BBC political correspondent wrote the following on his BBC blog and I think it sums up Bob Crow for me:

"This was a man who knew what he thought, knew whose side he was on and knew who the enemy were - in an era when that can be said of a shrinking number of people in public life."

The interview with Andrew Neill that S_A mentions is here and exemplifies Robinson's comment well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aiUVsky6Obg

Bravo Bob!

[Serial_Apologist]

Many thanks, ams.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26527325

[Stillhomewardbound]

The DTs and the DMs constantly bang on about 'the unions' in our midst/ Their paen of turgid rhetoric speaks as if to warn of a cancer at the heart of our society, but rarely do they ponder and pause to accept that trades unionism grew out of necessity.

That need has not gone away. Without unionism, let us face facts, we are on the verge of a new era of serfdom.

Bob Crow did the job he was elected and payed to do. That was the least of his impact in his short life and, genuinely, he will be sorely missed.

[jean]