The Left: Moribund.

[amateur51]

I'm sorry, but it IS a damp squib: minimal disruption to public services and Heathrow moving 'like a dream'.

These foolish people can look forward to having their pensions slashed AND having less money for Christmas.

The days when strikes stopped anything are long gone: face it. In fact, you could probably count the number of 'successful' strikes in Britain's history on the fingers of one hand.

I warned you all that this thread was a wind-up. Don't feed the troll!

[ahinton]

I warned you all that this thread was a wind-up. Don't feed the troll!

But I don't believe that you were right to warn us all of this, since the subject matter is serious and would be so whether or not any alleged or actual trolling were to intervene from time to time into the thread's development.

I think that it is generally accepted today that "the Left" in Britain is neither represented any longer by a major political party or a powerful force with which to be reckoned; the true "Left" today is represented in purely organisational terms by a handful of small parties and other activist groups, none of which has representation in Parliament in the form of MPs. The British trade unions remain the principal sponsors of the present Labour Party - that much hasn't changed over the years - but I don;t think that anyone nowadays believes that it is any sense a party of "the Left". I have already taken the liberty to question whether it was actually Margaret Thatcher's avowed desire to pull all British political parties to the Right that gave rise to this having actually occurred but, irrespective of who it may be that truly deserves the credit (debit?) for this, its consequewnce has been a substantial reduction in the differences between the three main political parties and this does not seem to be about to change any time soon.

[Pilchardman]

I'm sorry, but it IS a damp squib: minimal disruption to public services and Heathrow moving 'like a dream'.

These foolish people can look forward to having their pensions slashed AND having less money for Christmas.

The days when strikes stopped anything are long gone: face it. In fact, you could probably count the number of 'successful' strikes in Britain's history on the fingers of one hand.

Funny is it, that Michael Gove is right that it was damaging, and David Cameron was right that it was a damp squib? Having it both ways as usual.

The success, incidentally, of organised working class action is the lack nowadays of children clambering under machinery getting maimed and killed, of children working more than 12 hours a day. It is measured in each successive hard-won improvement in conditions. Victories that can be overturned at times like these, bit by bit, by people like Vince Cable.

[Pilchardman]

The present Labour Party is still the principal sponsor of British trade unions

Do you mean the reverse?

[ahinton]

Do you mean the reverse?

Of course I did. So sorry! What an idiot! I'll go edit it now!

[Mandryka]

I warned you all that this thread was a wind-up. Don't feed the troll!

The only troll in this discussion is you, I'm afraid, as will be apparent to anyone reading this thread.

The fact is, the public sector did NOT grind to a halt yesterday and the country went on its way unimpeded. Though the strikers did give the government the gift of some juicy stories about hard-up parents having to dig deep to find childminders because their childrens' schools were closed.

Facts; not conjecture.

[ahinton]

The fact is, the public sector did NOT grind to a halt yesterday and the country went on its way unimpeded.

The fact that the public sector did not grind to a halt yesterday - and I accept that is IS a fact - does not of itself mean that what did happen yesterday amounted to no more than a "damp squib". Ask anyone, for example, whose child could not attend school yesterday or those who, while not directly involved in strike action, had to take a day off work to look after children because they couldn' attend school - or, for that matter, ask anyone who lost a day's pay as a consequence of the strike action whether or not they were themselves directly involved in it - and you will see plainly that the country by no means "went on its way unimpeded".

Facts - not conjecture.

[Nick Armstrong]

The only troll in this discussion is you, I'm afraid, as will be apparent to anyone reading this thread.

The fact is, the public sector did NOT grind to a halt yesterday and the country went on its way unimpeded. Though the strikers did give the government the gift of some juicy stories about hard-up parents having to dig deep to find childminders because their childrens' schools were closed.

Facts; not conjecture.

You do talk rot sometimes, Mandy! (Self-evident fact, not conjecture).

[Lateralthinking1]

THE DAILY TRUTH

Damp Squib phrase was decided days in advance

The power of the soundbite. "Damp squib". Two words from a millionaire educated at Eton versus huge numbers of average people asking for commitments to be honoured. I guess it is for the individual to decide which to focus on but it says as much of the people holding the perspectives as it does of what occurred. Post Number One on this thread. "I'm putting my bet on a damp squib". 26 November. Four days later, Cameron used the same phrase in the Commons. Interesting. The phrase was planned and some people were "in the know".

HMG slept around and splashed the cash but seeks "fair" divorce settlement

I have a cousin currently going through a divorce and the parallels are remarkably similar. Actually this whole business has always been a divorce for me. You have got the loyal hard working partner who remained entirely faithful to the marriage vows. Then there is the other who slept around with anyone who was rich and spent the whole time shopping. Following years of doing this, the second declares that there is an urgent need to talk, while simultaneously bad mouthing the caring one publicly and being believed. Its hope - and isn't "it" exactly the right word here - is that it will walk out of the marriage with most of the money. HMG is of course the second and its stances on this are beginning to define and epitomise the phrase "liberal conservative".

Self-employed are secretly the biggest fans of state handouts

I have a question for the self-employed. Why was that your choice? For those who are self-employed and who invested in pensions, I have sympathy. For those who didn’t, I have the following questions. What world were you living in when you felt that pension provision wasn't something to be arranged by you but rather something to whinge about not having? Isn't it, well, not very business like? What faith should I have in your product or service? I genuinely don’t understand it. You might appear to have decided to rely purely on the state pension. Isn’t this an extraordinary reliance on state welfare given your business ethics?

Vital services demanded by supporters of theft

People were furious or disappointed that teacher wasn’t there. Ditto nurses. They are apparently vitally important to those who feel that they should not be especially rewarded for the services they provide. By contrast, I believe that we should recognise the special contribution they make and yet I didn‘t miss them. How weird is that? Could it be that some are natural takers while others seek to give? One might argue that it is the difference between being adult and a childish parent type.

Father steals child's pocket money and says it is for the best

Maude was even more like a sleazeball on Newsnight last night. "Come back to the table Mark" he said with such a "genuine" tone that it was clear to all that snake oil was pouring down his neck. I tried to think what impression was given by the tone. I realised that it reminded me of a father - not mine thank God - who constantly raided his eight year old's piggy bank. The poor kid goes missing but Daddy knows he will have to come back. "Come home Mark - you know it is for the best".

THE TRUTH SAYS

As for Clarkson, he should be shot.

[Mandryka]

You do talk rot sometimes, Mandy! (Self-evident fact, not conjecture).

I'm afraid you can't dismiss what I say as lightly as that. We were promised the greatest industrial action in a generation - yet very few people were affected and all the headlines have been scooped by Jeremy Clarkson giving us his mature thoughts on what he would do to the strikers.

I stand by what I said.

ahinton - thank you for your more considered response. Yes, technically, you are right: some people DID suffer, but who were those people? Ordinary folks, for the most part, with young families, who are struggling to make ends meet. It dented the plutocrats who sit in the Cabinet not one jot.

Union power was decisively broken in the 1980s and I don't see how it can be rebuilt, even if I considered its rebuilding a desireable end (which, all things considered, I don't.).

So: damp squib or own goal - take your pick. I don't hear anyone using the word 'triumphant'.

[french frank]

I don't hear anyone using the word 'triumphant'.

I think triumphalism went out with Mrs Thatcher.

[Flosshilde]

From my viewpoint (on the march in Glasgow) the day was a success - & essential, the day after the Government announced that public sector staff will experience pay cuts untill 2015, that there will be nearly three quarters of a million more jobs cut (the private-sector jobs that are supposed to absorb them are Oscborne's fantasy), that there will be 100,000 more children pushed below the povert threshold. All to pay for Osborne's completely ineffectual 'plans'.

It's not just a one-day strike that's needed - we need full-scale riots to bring down a government that is morally bankrupt, bankrupt of ideas, and continues to push the burden onto the lowest paid, while protecting its friends.

[ahinton]

We were promised the greatest industrial action in a generation

And in a single 24-hour period that is precisely what we got, in accordance with the vast majority of news organisations; unless they're all promoting the same barefaced lie about it, I think it resonable to accept it as such.

- yet very few people were affected

What kind of twisting of the English language can ensure that the postponement of at least 7,000 non-emergency operations scheduled for yesterday, the closure of almost 70% of the nation's schools and the general disruption caused in numerous major British cities can enable the conclusion that "very few people were affected"?

and all the headlines have been scooped by Jeremy Clarkson giving us his mature thoughts on what he would do to the strikers.

Leaving aside the nature and content of those "mature thoughts", even to the extent that they would be likely to generate news coverage, where are these "all the headlines"? What jounrals have you been reading? - and, more to the point, which ones have you been avoiding in order to jump to so bizarre a conclusion?

ahinton - thank you for your more considered response. Yes, technically, you are right: some people DID suffer, but who were those people? Ordinary folks, for the most part, with young families, who are struggling to make ends meet.

So these folks, by dint of their sheer ordinariness and the facts that they have young families and are struggling to make ends meet simply don't count, then? Even though that's a very great number of "ordinary folks" rather than the "very few" whom you earlier claim to have have been affected by yesterday's events? Well, we'd better sling them in jail for their nuisance value then, especially if they might be similarly affected by the next one. Your remark here could almost have originated with Mr Clarkson!

[QUOTE=Mandryka;105999]It dented the plutocrats who sit in the Cabinet not one jot.
Nothing much dents them, but does that justify your assertion that it didn't really dent anyone else of any importance either? In any case, had it not dented them, why would the Prime Minister call it a "damp squib" while one of his ministers call it "damaging"? In any case, those plutocrats don't want to be dented by it because the issue here is one of mismanagement and misappropriation of a proportion of public sector employees' pension contributions and one can well imagine why they'd want to skate around the risk of having to be held to account for that.

Union power was decisively broken in the 1980s and I don't see how it can be rebuilt, even if I considered its rebuilding a desireable end (which, all things considered, I don't.).

This isn't about union power; if it were, there would be scant sympathy for it from non-union members. Even the lack of sympathy shown by a handful of private sector employees on the grounds that public sector employees' pension deals are better than theirs takes no due account of the act that this is the case - to the extent that it is so - only as a consequence of a quite different manifestation of earlier government interference in their pensions at the hands of Mr Brown.

[ahinton]

I think triumphalism went out with Mrs Thatcher.

So does that mean that it's about to come back in again with Meryl Streep?

[ahinton]

From my viewpoint (on the march in Glasgow) the day was a success - & essential, the day after the Government announced that public sector staff will experience pay cuts untill 2015, that there will be nearly three quarters of a million more jobs cut (the private-sector jobs that are supposed to absorb them are Oscborne's fantasy), that there will be 100,000 more children pushed below the povert threshold. All to pay for Osborne's completely ineffectual 'plans'.

It's not just a one-day strike that's needed - we need full-scale riots to bring down a government that is morally bankrupt, bankrupt of ideas, and continues to push the burden onto the lowest paid, while protecting its friends.

I think that it would be premature to describe yesterday's events as any kind of success until the issue has been thoroughly resolved by whatever means it gets resolved, assuming that it ever does.

As to bringing down this or any other government, there's an instrument called a General Election for that purpose, so there would be no need for riots to achieve that end - and with what would you imagine it being replaced in any case? Are you able to see an administration waiting in the wings that is not morally bankrupt or bankrupt of ideas? - if so, do please let us know of what and whom it consists!