By Richard Littlejohn
Last updated at 10:07 PM on 30th June 2011
The last time the unions marched through London, Ed Miliband was in full Henry V mode.
Rallying his troops in Hyde Park, he invoked the spirit of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Emmeline Pankhurst.
In perhaps the most risible speech ever made by a so-called serious politician he compared the 'Stop the Cuts' protests with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the struggle for civil rights in America and the Suffragettes.
On the march: Thousands of public sector workers and civil servants took to the streets to protest but they likely inconvenienced more people than agreed with them
People actually gave their lives in pursuit of those noble causes. I can't see anyone making the ultimate sacrifice over plans to freeze the pay of five-a-day co-ordinators.
By the end of Miliband's speech, I felt like throwing myself in front of a horse. This hysterical drivel is what political debate in Britain has been reduced to.
Yesterday, however, as thousands more took to the streets, Miliband went missing.
Apart from a brief TV interview, in which he said he disagreed with the timing of the strikes and called for further negotiations, he was nowhere to be found.
So what was the reason for his absence?
The answer is exactly the same as the explanation for his absurd 'I have a dream' speech earlier this year.
Hiding? Who's hiding? Labour Leader Ed Miliband was nowhere to be seen as the strikes hit the streets
Miliband is bought and paid for by the unions. Without their backing, he would never have become Labour leader.
Without their money, Labour would be bankrupt. The unions provide almost 90 per cent of the party's funds. Since Miliband became leader, private donations have melted away.
And he who pays the piper?.?.?.
Tony Blair used to warm up the crowds with Things Can Only Get Better. When Miliband takes the stage at a TUC rally, they should play Puppet On A String.
Which is all fine and dandy if Miliband's only aim is to ingratiate himself with his paymasters.
But he finds himself caught on the horns of a classic dilemma. The unions might have got him elected Labour leader, but they will never get him elected Prime Minister.
Miliband has worked out belatedly that there isn't widespread popular support for the anti-cuts brigade - even among the unions' own members.
Only one in five members of the PCS union backed yesterday's walk-out. Turnout among teachers wasn't much higher, either.
That's why the Government is under pressure to pass a law requiring that 50 per cent of a union's total membership must vote in favour before any strike can be called. And the sooner the better, if they've got any sense.
Yesterday's walk-outs proved that a determined minority can still cause disruption. More than 10,000 schools were either closed or were forced to cancel lessons.
Some courts and Jobcentres had to shut and there were longer queues at airports. But otherwise, life went on.
Far from advancing their cause, the unions only managed to alienate even more members of the public. Think of all the young working mothers who had to take the day off - and lose a day's pay - to look after their children.
Millions of private sector employees, who have taken pay cuts and lost their final-salary pension schemes, are hardly going to sympathise with strikes by public sector staff already enjoying higher wages, better pensions and an earlier retirement age.
There have been attempts to paint this campaign against the 'cuts' as a re-run of the Winter of Discontent.
Superficially, there are similarities. But there's one fundamental difference. Back in 1978-9, workers in the public sector were playing catch-up.
The wave of industrial unrest that winter was sparked by strikes in the private sector. Ford car workers set the benchmark, winning a 17 per cent pay rise.
With the Government intent on restricting wage increases to 5 per cent to combat runaway inflation, leaders of the public sector unions feared their members would be left behind.
As a result, wave after wave of government and council staff, from ambulancemen to grave diggers, walked out. The dead went unburied, the dustbins weren't emptied and the rest is history.
Some of today's union leaders would like to see an action replay. They should be careful what they wish for.
It's the public sector which is ahead of the game today. There's no chance of a wave of strikes in private industry now. Ford is down from 72,000 workers in Britain to just 11,000. Most production has moved abroad.
The days when the car workers and the engineering workers were the big beasts in the union jungle have long gone.
What's left of the TUC is dominated by the public service unions. Gordon Brown pumped billions into the pockets of state workers. The unions bankroll Labour. And so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby.
It's an incestuous merry-go round, all financed by the British taxpayer. We even pay the salaries of full-time activists in government departments, Town Halls and the NHS.
Hilariously, the anarchist group UK Uncut asked its supporters to turn up at yesterday's demo 'dressed as a worker' in order to blend in with the crowd.
There was never any danger of anyone turning up as a chimney sweep, or a coal miner. Today's 'workers' are properly represented by the scruffy mob on parade across Britain this week.
Forget about the wheel-tappers and shunters. Labour is now the party of the keyboard-clatterers and box-tickers. Of teachers, lecturers and social workers.
There are only superficial similarities between these strikes and those of the Winter of Discontent, and while the political balance is very different now, it will still be Labour that suffers
Thirteen years of Labour persuaded the public sector that the party would never end. Now it must. As someone said: There's no money left.
We are all going to have to work longer and expect less in our old age. Get used to it.
It was instructive to listen to some of the demonstrators on TV. Two young schoolteachers from the Midlands said they were striking not just to protect their pensions but to support parents and pupils.
'Who wants their child taught by a 68-year-old teacher?' one asked.
Actually, pet, given the choice, most of us would prefer an experienced 68-year-old teacher to a soppy bird with no conception of economic reality, last seen waving a Socialist Workers Party placard in the Strand.
Scratch the surface and this is a political stunt, a strike about having a strike - organised by feather-bedded union leaders on six-figure salaries.
It's not a Winter of Discontent, it's a Summer of Selfishness.
Back in 1979, it was a Labour government which stood up to the unions and a Labour government which was brought down.
This time it's a Conservative-Liberal Coalition in the crosshairs. Labour is cheering on the unions, but when the dust settles it will be Labour which suffers by association.
That's the real reason why Mister Ed has abandoned his Henry V act and left the stage.
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It's a border line fiasco
Passengers arriving at Heathrow yesterday were held up for more than two hours because of the strike by border staff.
Days earlier, it emerged that an anti-semitic Palestinian preacher of hate, supposedly banned from entering Britain, had been waved through by immigration.
And now because of the yuman rites act, we can't get rid of him.
Seems like the only people we're trying to keep out are those who arrive here legally.
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Further proof that 'climate change' is fast becoming an established religion.
Coventry Cathedral is to install solar panels on the roof as part of its commitment to combating global warming.
It was always inevitable that one day the Church of England would convert to environmentalism. After all, it has embraced every other passing fad. The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to see himself as some sort of celestial social worker. Only last week he was lambasting the Coalition about the impact of spending cuts.
Now a vicar in Devon has told his parishioners not to bring fruit and vegetables to this year's Harvest Festival.
The Reverend Gavin Tyte, who became the first clergyman to preach a sermon by 'beatboxing' (some kind of rapping, apparently, don't ask me), wants them to bring underpants and socks, jeans and jackets instead.
Rev Tyte thinks these will be of more use to the homeless and underprivileged than a giant marrow.
He is also looking for toiletries and canned dog food - presumably for beggars who keep their mangy dogs on a length of string and feed them discarded pizza.
Yet again I am reminded of the trendy vicar in the Minder episode, Bring Us This Day Arthur Daley's Bread, who gives refuge to a gang of petty criminals led by the late James Booth.
In the old days, they would have stripped the lead off the church roof. These days, they'd have it away with the solar panels.
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Call that a meal? Some robbers bit off more than they could chew tackling Cane the Staffordshire bull terrier
Utterly Muttley
An armed robber fled an off-licence in Torquay after being bitten in the crotch by the owner's Staffordshire bull terrier.
Shop owner Eve Watson praised her dog, Cane, and said he'd earned his keep this week.
'He's had a couple of extra biscuits.'
One way of putting it, I suppose.
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Just my imagination
If rock'n'roll is so right on, why do most of the pop stars I ever meet dress to the Right politically?
Maybe they just grow up as they grow older.
Bono is a tax-exile, Roger Daltrey has just given an interview attacking Labour for importing cheap labour to the detriment of the British working class.
Even that old socialist warhorse Billy Bragg has admitted voting Lib Dem.
Now it is revealed that John Lennon was a conservative who admired Ronald Reagan. Imagine that.
The teachers cannot think they are "better" than the private sector . The private has taken wage cuts during the last few years, do they think they are better than everyone else???? . Its not just them who are biting it. Exepet everyone else is getting on with it
- Bert, Essex, 30/6/2011 23:56
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