The Unions Strike Back

Goooood evening people of the internet. This is another politically charged rant, so I hope people don’t mind what I have to say, if you wish to comment and disagree, then go ahead. Everyone’s allowed their own opinions.

I’ve just been watching the news. The TUC conference seems to be angry at the Labour leader Ed Milib(l)and. He said that it was a bad idea to strike when there were disputes over pensions back in June (2011) and the unions were still talking to government officials. For once, I actually agree with the labour leader. He has a very good point. Strike action should be a last resort, to be taken only when all talks have completely broken down and even then when there is no possible way out of the arguments. However, the current TUC committee seems to be of the opinion that they have the right to strike over anything and everything that ruffles their feathers even the slightest bit (I.e. every time someone asks them to do their job). Surely doesn’t this completely undermine the whole point of striking? A strike is meant to create a situation that suddenly deprives the industry involved of needed labour so that the bosses have to agree to demands in order to keep companies going. If, however, there are strikes so often that there’s no inconvenience and there becomes a separate infrastructure for the hiring of scab labour, then this becomes a complete farce of a concept and unions have no methods of attempting to force companies round to their points of view.

The sheer anger that was shown by people attending the conference shows how these people seem to have no idea how to campaign for anything. They seem to want to play their biggest card at the very start, therefore giving them nowhere to go and showing their position from the very start.  When companies realise that this short-sighted tactic is becoming the norm it is going to make union action a completely outdated concept when there are simple ways to predict and outmanoeuvre strategies such as these. When people get angry at there being a lack of support from politicians over immediate extreme action, they have only themselves to blame when no-one listens. I have exactly the same point of view about the student riots from last year.

The government proposed to put up tuition fees at universities, so people went on marches to show that they were against these. (I even went on a small, local one) but when people decided that the only way to make the point was to start smashing up London, then that’s when I have a problem. If you want a government to take notice of you, then you send people to talk to them, and maybe back it up with a human presence. But the last thing that’s going to persuade people that you have a valid viewpoint is to start having a temper tantrum like a small child. Liken it to a small child having a paddy. The last thing that their parent should do is give in to their demands just to make it shut up. It’s the same with the student protests. When violence broke out, there was never going to be a possibility for a favourable outcome. Free education is a PRIVELAGE not a right. An economically stable country where the only people with degrees are the intelligent ones who are studying to do  proper subjects should go to universities and get degrees, and there should be separate schemes for people going into other types of work. People seem to want a degree in anything at the moment (Harry Potter studies, Beatles studies. Just two stupid courses that I’ve seen advertised at unis recently) which undervalues the whole reason for having a higher education system in the first place. Surely the whole point in a degree is to differentiate between people of different levels of academic achievement. Which doesn’t happen when absolutely everyone has a degree in something. At least the new £9000 fees will force fewer people to go to university and therefore the degree will once again be worth more. However, the way that the government is persuading fewer people to go into higher education is by splitting the country, not by intellect or any academic achievement, but by wealth. Which is no way to decide who is eligible for further education or not.

People at the moment seem to be obsessed with violent protest, and then people get angry when the police get nervous and, in order to keep themselves safe, and to try and minimise damage, they come out in force, heavily armed and in full riot gear. The riots over this summer (2011), have had people attempt to defend them and call them protests, however there was nothing that any of the protesters really knew that they were protesting about. It was taken just as an excuse to loot shops and destroy cars. The idea of having a coherent sense of protest and successful union action is rapidly becoming a solely historical thing. Radical and hysterical action is eroding any respect that the Unions had.

Keep the peace internet folk.

Bits and Bobs

Gooooooooooooood evening people of the internet. I’m going to try and have another vaguely topical rant... Today, I’m thinking about those stories that keep on going on and on without anything actually developing. People keep on publishing and airing stories that don’t go anywhere. Stories like this really annoy me. They clog up the news bulletins for weeks so that by the end of the however long that the story is on for you can recite all the words exactly and know which pictures are coming up.  If a story has to be played over a few days, what’s wrong with trying to write a new script, or at least try and update it a bit? I find that constantly repeated news merely undermines the quality of broadcasting as it just show off the lack of other material that is available to the producers. Putting on the same stories day after day should only really be necessary if there’s been some sort of development (maybe not if it’s a nationwide manhunt, or a murder of some kind, but for those repetition is more a call for help, or to keep people informed and updated, whereas constant reporting on news stories that don’t change at all, or even happened days in the past seems like a waste of time to me).  Although I think it’s important for other reasons, surely there has to be more than one story in Uk news this week. I am, of course talking about the ongoing debacle that is the News International story. Phone Hacking- was bad, was news, the people have been prosecuted. Surely that part’s now over. The closing of The News of the World as a Newspaper; that happened last weekend, it no longer exists, so how is it still relevant? And now the failure of the attempted takeover of BskyB. This was written a few weeks ago, when I had not much on. The only thing that seemed to awaken the media world to the existence of a wider universe was a racist maniac committing mass murder in  Norway. Surely this shouldn’t be the only other thing in the world that manages to force the news corporations out of their inward looking states of mind? It’s idiotic, and seems like all it is is a reason for news programmers to attack each other.

The main reason that I haven’t posted anything recently has been because I have been on holiday. On a cruise. Which is not what I am complaining about, what I am complaining about are certain... aspects of the cruise.  I was sitting in a bar one night, and it turns out that I was sitting next to 3 generations of idiot alcoholics, arguing very loudly, to the entire ship it seemed, about why people put mixers with alcohol, claiming that it’s merely to mask the taste and therefore to enable you to drink more. What I want to know is how, without sounding smug or too self-righteous is one meant to broach this argument and point out reasons which, to me at least, seem obvious. Such as the mixer diluting the alcohol, therefore enabling your body to process it slower, therefore more of it has gone out of your system before it’s all gone through at all. I sat there for over an hour listening to grandma alchy extolling the virtues of making things taste nice then downing them in as quick succession as possible. My other point is the entertainment. Why is it all always so predictable and cheesy. Every night it was the same rota of bad quiz game shows, drunken karaoke and really bland show tunes. Surely a band playing a mix of originals and covers would be better. No-one really goes to a gig to hear a cover band playing every night. I’d far rather go and hear something I don’t know that was a bit more interesting to the ear than listen to the same Take That and Abba covers over and over.

Anyway, that’s the rant over once again. Thanks for paying any attention to it. As ever, please be constructive with any criticism.

Keep the peace internet folk.

Read all about it

Well, I know that I posted one of these only yesterday, but there's been lots of things happening today in the news which has made me ponder things and I thought I'd share these musings with the people/person who may read this.

Today, the News of the World had to close after 168 years in publishing. Now, I'm not going to talk about the morality and what they did or anything- the phone hacking of murdered school children, criminals etc was dispicable and horrible, so I'm glad that the paper's been brought to justice. However, surely it was the people involved in the editing of the paper who should have been punished, rather than the actual publication itself (my personal opinion of the quality of this shall be inferred). Surely, the paper itself is completely innocent, it's the editors, investigators, hackers and writers involved in the relevant stories that should have been punished. The editor, I believe, Rebekah Wade (was it? If I'm wrong, then correct me) was forced to quit, so she should be prosecuted now for it, rather than all of the people involved in the publication being published for a minority of people's balls-up. However, the closing down of the paper surely has very little impact at all, the News of the World was the Sunday version of the Sun. Now, the Sun is now going to be published on Sundays and the people in the company will now have similar jobs but as the Sun instead. Which, as a mate of mine put it, is "a bit like getting rid of Blair and bringing in Milliband." i.e. there's literally no difference underneath, just a slightly different face.

There should be something done to make sure that people who are in control of any media are more responsible than they are at the moment. People like Rupert Murdoch encouraging this king of phone hacking in order to get sensationalist scoops in order to try and scare people and move copies. He also needs to be brought to justice, no matter how powerful he may be and no matter how much control he may have over politicians in the country. (which I also believe is wrong; David Cameron should cut himself lose from the Murdoch empire and stop fearing the press)

Really all this is about is an excuse to change the name of a paper and to stereotype journalists as evil, immoral, phone hacking devils.

Although, one thing that I can say is good is that we can now listen to that classic by The Jam "News of the World" and be all ironic and "cool".