While the public sector strike leaves our classrooms empty and borders unprotected, the parties are finding it difficult to relate to the chaos it will ensue.
David Cameron’s big idea for dealing with the impact of the strikes is to call for parents to take their kids to work – tackling the symptom rather than the cause.
Meanwhile Ed Miliband has been burying his head in the sand as the striking unions are his biggest backers. Around 86 per cent of Labour’s donors come from, wait for it, the unions. No surprise there then that Mr Miliband is strangely very quiet for once.
And Nick Clegg is nowhere to be seen. The deputy PM was last heard bemoaning the lack of black football managers but is yet to speak up about the striking public sector.
With just days away ‘til the strike, voted for by barely a quarter of union members, our health care, borders and schools will be closed for business at this rate.
The political parties would do best to take direction from headmistress Rachel de Souza. De Souza, head at Ormiston Victory Academy in Norwich, is drafting in the Army to fill in for her striking teachers. She risks the wrath of union hotheads by putting kids’ education first.
It is a great pity that our political leaders don’t show the same regard for the future of our children. They may moan that the strike will cost the economy £500m but what are they actually doing to prevent it or in the very least, dampen the blow it will have on our lives?
Is ‘take your kids to work’ really the best advice David Cameron can come up with? I can’t imagine the PM would take daughters Nancy, Florence and son Arthur into the Cabinet Office. How can he seriously suggest that normal people, without a stay-in nanny, can even contemplate that option? It is yet another example of the PM being out-of-touch. For others, staying at home to look after their children could cost them their jobs. As for Ed Miliband, well, his silence is damning. It seems money talks and it has stifled the normally vocal leader. He is impotent against the power of his union backers.
Public sector strikers may feel angry that they have to work a little longer to receive a little less in their pensions, but what do they think the rest of us in the private sector are going through? Their problem is with the Government and the Treasury, not us. So why do they see it fit to make us all miserable for their own ends?
As a result of their two million-strong strike, we will all be out of pocket and may even lose our jobs, something they won’t have to worry about anytime soon.
What happened to the great British bulldog spirit of keeping calm and carrying on? It seems that it is long gone if a few protesters can possess such control of our country. David, it’s time to stop acting at prime minister and actually be it.
We need a leader who can quash threats to our security and keep the country running at all times, but sadly you haven’t yet shown you have the mettle to do so. And the unions are the least of your (and Ed’s!) problems…
Comments
Peter Benson / November 25 2011 1:44pm
The Unions were all but castrated by Thatcher.She took their money and their power.
Labour or should I say,New Labour which was a continuum of Thatcher never redressed this Bosses versus Workers Rights.
Cameron is simply carrying on Thatchers Tradition.
Unions are there to protect their members interests.The Tory Government and New Labour are more interested in looking after big business.
Big Business,ie the Banking Industry brought on this recession.Take the money of the Banks to make up for all we are losing.Stop them giving ludicrous bonuses to their employees.They are rewarded for incompetence.
They have no risk as Government bails them out.Only to sell of Northern Rock on the cheap to Richy Rich,Richard Branson.I bet he donates the the Tories and New Labour also.
Matt / November 29 2011 12:15pm
'Unions are there to protect their members interests'.
Haha! You have a sense of humour I'll give you that.
Unions are there to harness the mass of members towards augmenting the power positions and ideological agenda of the union leadership.
Most union members are not hardline Stalinists, but low and behold, the strategic direction implemented by most mainstream Trade Union leadership is less about proper representation of their members, and more about furthering the political goals of class war. If they were genuinely serious about representing their membership, they wouldn't be spending the majority of their time trying to bring down the government or bolstering their already lucrative personal remuneration packages.
It's no doubt that corporatism is rife within all three major political parties. All of them serve the interests of big lobbyists, big business and big NGOs.
But let's not pretend that Unions are any different or any better.