Now -read the book!

Here is a link to my memoirs which, if you are a glutton for punishment, you can purchase online at https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/an-obscure-footnote-in-trade-union-history.
Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name. (William Morris - A Dream of John Ball)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

(Don't) take your children to work day...

I recollect that, before the Green Party became a more or less serious political force, one of its principal speakers did notoriously suggest that our leaders were other than human, and perhaps other than terrestrial in origin.

Such thoughts thought are inevitably brought back when we hear that our Prime Minister (the millionaire, formerly of the Bullingdon Club, never having done a proper job) thinks that parents whose children are out of school next Wednesday owing to the public sector pensions strike should be allowed to take them into work.

That’ll work. Tesco checkouts can easily accommodate a bored seven year old. A railway station ticket office would be a happy home for an irritated ten year old. A bus driver could easily and safely sit alongside a hungry five year old. And management at nuclear power stations will be jumping for joy at the thought that they could double up as a crèche for the day.

Cameron gave as much thought to the reality of employment in making this suggestion as Maude did when he called us all out for a quarter of an hour with pay.

What a total pillock.

Meanwhile, in reality, parents who cannot go to work as their children are off school next Wednesday could see to it that their kids enjoyed some special extra citizenship lessons by joining picket lines, rallies and demonstrations in support of the strikers.

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