There are two strikes now in process which are in the worst traditions of the union indiscipline which exploded in the 1970s and put Labour out of power for nearly twenty years. They are the Southern walkouts over who shuts the doors of the trains and the threatened shut down of Crown post offices in the midst of the Christmas posting rush.
Whatever impact upon the businesses brought to a halt by this utterly crass union muddle-headedness, that is as nothing to the suffering of ordinary people as a consequence of the resultant breakdown in public service. These are strikes against, not the supposedly errant companies, but the public whom they serve. They ruin people’s jobs because they cannot get to them, wreck people’s home lives because they cannot get back there. Children cry because their mum is not home to read the bedtime story and will cry because the present from Santa is not there under the tree.
I do not care about the supposed merits of the cases in dispute. Listening to the massacre of the train union official on this morning’s Today, it was clear that his union did not have one. The public have had enough of this, particularly across the London area and the south. Labour activists need to do something to rescue their mission because, believe me unless they do, they can kiss good-bye to the Corbyn revolution and any thought of power for a generation. The hopes and aspirations of the rising enlightenment will be sunk by the icy mass of public rejection of everything coming from the left, however good, wise or worthy. Thatcherism will be back.