DO you ever have a feeling of nostalgia for the 1970s?
You know, Toast Toppers and Fawlty Towers, Cortina GXLs, glam rock and Whispering Bob Harris on the Old Grey Whistle Test?
Well, if so — you’re in luck. The Government seems determined to bring us back to the Seventies, pronto. Except without all the good stuff I mentioned above.
Instead, it will be the other stuff for which the decade was renowned (and not much missed). Endless strikes.
Crippling pay awards which neither the Government nor private companies could afford. And that familiar phrase: “The unions are running the country!”
And not running it terribly well.
Since those days, Conservative governments enacted reforms to curb the power of the unions. You may remember the huge battles with the miners, for example. And the print unions.
The Government and industry won those battles and for a long while peace reigned on the shop floors.
But now Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government is promising a massive and radical return of power to the union leaders. No great surprise, I suppose, seeing as it’s the trade unions which bankroll the Labour Party.
He who pays the piper, etc. Under these new proposals, companies would be forced to negotiate with unions — even if hardly anyone working there is a member.
And in companies where there are no trade unions, there are concerns they will be bullied into allowing the unions to set up shop.
As you can imagine, business leaders are not terribly impressed with these ideas.
They fear, among other things, that their companies and also their workers will be “held to ransom” by a small group of bloody-minded activists.
Where there was once peace on the shop floor, there will soon be dissent.
Now, I believe it is every worker’s right to be a member of a trade union, if they wish to be. The unions often do a good job of protecting their members.
But I’m not in favour of people being effectively coerced into union membership. Nor the idea that we should go out of our way to create discord in our industries.
Don’t forget what the Government has already done. It has decided to splurge a whole bunch of money on quite outlandish pay awards.
First to the doctors, who got a staggering 22 per cent. Then to the train drivers, some of whom will soon be earning more than £100,000 per year. The Government didn’t even bother to negotiate.
It basically said: “Yeah, whatevs, here’s the dosh, comrade.”
And then they cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.
This has set a benchmark for all the other unions.
They will now be demanding double-digit pay increases and threatening strike action if they don’t get exactly what they want.
And they will do so from a position of great strength. The Government is handing over new powers to the trade unions, which will make them stronger than at any time since, well, the 1970s.
We are going to see massive increases especially for workers in the public sector. Which will widen the divide with the far more productive private sector.
Anyway, looks like the 1970s are back with a vengeance. Get yourself a Space Hopper, shove Led Zep on your headphones, and try to ride it out. I don’t think it’s going to be much fun.
I MUST have seen that stupid Haribo Starmix advert about 60 times.
The one where there are two fishermen on a loch. Speaking in children’s voices.
And I still haven’t the remotest idea what they are saying to one another. So the point of the advert is lost – on me and I would guess quite a few other people.
I bet the ad agency think they did a brilliant job. And are dead chuffed with themselves.
If I were Haribo, I’d ask for the fee to be returned.
HAVE you been having a bad day?
Alarm clock didn’t go off? No milk for your coffee? That sort of thing.
Well spare a thought for Thanat Thangtewanon. He had a REALLY bad day.
He sat down for a few moments of quiet contemplation on his lavatory in Thailand. And then felt an excruciating pain in his gonads.
He looked down and saw a python had its teeth clamped around his balls.
Blood everywhere. The giant snake wouldn’t let go of him.
He eventually beat it to death with the toilet brush. I hope they let him keep it as a souvenir.
TO listen to the American Democrats, you’d think Kamala Harris was the most wonderful politician ever to walk this earth.
Both Joe Biden and Barack Obama were fawning over the woman this week.
A year ago she was regarded as dim-witted.
And, given her total failure to control border immigration, a hopeless candidate.
But as I’ve said here before, she’s now the red-hot favourite to beat Donald Trump.
That’s bad news for the US and indeed the Free World.
But here’s a thought: Can’t the Republicans get rid of Trump?
There’s still more than two months before the election.
A new Republican candidate, up against Harris, would walk it.
HAVE you ever used Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia? It’s great.
Smart and shiny, very efficient, lots of shops and a fast, automatic, monorail to take you to the domestic departure lounges.
It’s a far nicer airport than any we’ve got, believe me. So you’ll be delighted to learn that a bunch of our overseas aid has been spent on reducing congestion at the airport.
In an area wealthier than parts of the UK.
I have never been stuck in traffic trying to get to KLIA. But Heathrow? Or Gatwick?
Our foreign aid policy is absurd.
THERE was a woman on The Chase the other night who was studying history.
Studying history at PhD level – the highest you can get. Her specialism was the UK 1799 to 1914 and particularly women’s issues. Liberation and the like.
As chance would have it she was asked the question: “When did Emmeline Pankhurst found the Women’s Social and Political Union?”
She was given three alternative dates. And missed the correct answer – 1903 – by 40 years.
How, if you are studying that very thing at PhD level, can you get that wrong?
Believe me, there are some real thickoes in further education. Even at the top.
This lass explained herself by telling Bradley Walsh: “I’m not good with dates.”
She’s a bloody historian.
A BLOKE jailed after one of his horrible, illegal dogs killed a toddler has just escaped from another prison sentence.
Lee Wright had 18 XL bully dogs. Three of them were killed when he left them alone in the garden and a mass fight broke out.
Why he wasn’t sent to prison again escapes me. But more than that, why on earth was he still allowed to keep those dangerous dogs – never mind 18 of them!
He should have been banned from ever keeping dogs again after his first offence.
