I love a good strike. No, really, its one of my favourite things. Dummett’s last minute strike last night against Manchester United was a thing of beauty, a thing of glory, a thing of wonder. Especially as it kept United well below Spurs in the table. And added yet more misery to the Old Trafforders already horrible season. Though at least they managed 2 first half goals. Which is 2 more than in the first halves of their last 10 games combined.

But this isn’t about striking. Its about striking. Workers’ rights. Trade unions. Militants and protests. More money, less hours, more rights and the new one: ‘work/life balance’. Ooooh, that’s very post-milenial. Very Zen. Very zeitgeist.

We have two strikes currently on display. I can offer you the junior doctors, or I can throw in the Tube workers. Buy one get one free. January sale on withdrawing labour.

And whilst I have absolutely no sympathy for the tube workers, or rather, for their obnoxious and toxic leaders and think they should sack every single tube worker who carries a union card and just start again, I’m fully in favour of the action by the hospital Docs.

This is not just because I’m an every day tube commuter but not normally a hospital patient, but that may have something to do with it. Nor is it because doctors are good people and tube workers aren’t. Its not even because I agree with the reasons for the hospital strikes (which I really do) and completely disagree with those for the tube strike (which I do).

Its because the Doctors, as well as having a very good point to make, striked (struck? stricked??) for the first time in 40 years yesterday. Oddly, ‘to save the NHS’. Oddly because Jeremy Hunt, the health tosser, sorry, health minister, has refused the demands from the doctors ‘to save the NHS’.

The fact the doctors are having this rarest of strikes outlines the severity of their problems. They don’t ‘lay down tools’ for no good reason.

Whereas we have a tube strike about once a month. During ‘strike season’, which runs from January 1st to December 31st every year. They strike for more pay. They strike for less hours. They strike because Boris announced a 24-hour tube service. They strike because a driver was sacked; for being drunk three times whilst driving a train. They strike when a worker was dismissed for being ‘on sick leave’ for 3 months whilst being filmed on the golf course and at the gym every day. They earn shit-loads of money, work about 6 hours a week so now its all about ‘work/life balance’. Which for them is tipped rather heavily in the ‘life’ side.

However… I can’t understand why reasonable people can’t resolve their differences without resorting to a withdrawal of labour. The Tube union leaders simply are not reasonable people. They’re barely people at all, in fact. But the doctors are reasonable. And not money-motivated. Not as juniors anyway. Therefore Jeremy Hunt must be unreasonable. Its just logic.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx