KHOODEELAAR! CHALLENGING Boris Johnson to answer the questions, including those summarised below

1935 GMT
London
Sunday 25 October 2009

KHOODEELAAR! CHALLENGING Boris Johnson to answer the questions, including: How is it that NOT ONE ‘mainstream’ ECONOMICS commentator in Britain supports your line?
The line that is an undisguised repetition of Ken Livingstone’s pathetic touting for Big Business CRASSrail scam! The line that must have been in the MINDS of those who scripted the latest Daft DFT ‘question time’ ‘answer’ to [and ‘taunting’] Theresa Villiers that was spouted in the UK House of Commons by the Crassrole-playing Ethnic Surrogate, posing as ‘transport minister’ the robotic peddler of the agenda of the assortment of CRASSrail-scam-contrivers behind the scenes, Sadiq Khan last week?

[To be continued]
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From the Times online web site, London Sunday 25 October 2009


October 25, 2009
Brown faces winter of discontent

David Smith, Steven Swinford and Isabel Oakeshot


Gordon Brown faces a “winter of discontent” of damaging industrial disputes following last week’s gloomy news on the economy.

Last-ditch talks to call off this week’s planned three-day strike by postal workers will take place tomorrow at the Trades Union Congress after both sides accepted an invitation from Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary.

Union leaders have warned of further disruptive strikes in the pipeline. These will hit the public and will draw comparisons with the winter of discontent of 1978-9, which contributed to the election defeat of James Callaghan, Labour’s then prime minister.

The threatened wave of disputes comes after official figures showed the economy shrank by 0.4% in the third quarter, dealing a blow to government hopes that the economy was pulling out of recession. Writing in The Sunday Times today David Cameron, the Tory leader, says Britain desperately needs a radical change of direction.

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Apart from the postal strike, which has resulted in tens of millions of delayed items and threatened the livelihood of thousands of small businesses, a wave of other disputes is looming.

Tomorrow several thousand drivers with FirstGroup, the bus and rail company, will strike against a pay freeze. The action will threaten services on routes in Essex, Yorkshire, Wigan, Bolton and Bury.

Holidaymakers flying out from Stansted airport will face disruption in the run-up to Christmas as 90 ground services staff are axed. Swissport, which operates ground services for Ryanair, plans to introduce a new staff shift system which has been labelled “unworkable” by the GMB union.

A GMB source said: “It’s passengers who are going to get the raw end. There is no question about it: there will be delays and disruption and people’s luggage will be chucked around, because there simply will not be enough handlers.”

The union representing the 14,000 cabin crew of British Airways could ballot members this week over a Christmas strike.

BA announced plans earlier this month to cut 1,700 full-time jobs, enforce a two-year pay freeze and reduce the cabin crew on its 57 Boeing 747s from 15 to 14. After taking legal advice Unite, the union, is preparing for strike action.

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA, is refusing to back down. A BA official said: “Willie is determined not to lose this one.”

A strike by refuse workers in Leeds will enter its eighth week tomorrow, with no sign of a resolution. Repeated walkouts by bin men have led to rubbish piling up on the streets, raising fears of health hazards. There are signs that the action, by the GMB, could spread to Sheffield and Bradford.

Network Rail has threatened to sack its entire maintenance workforce of 13,000 and re-employ a reduced number of workers on new terms and conditions in order to make huge budget cuts.

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT rail union, has warned of strikes on Network Rail if there are forced redundancies. He said the union would have “no hesitation” in balloting members for strike action if any workers were forced out.

The RMT is also balloting 10,000 London Underground workers for Christmas strike action over a pay dispute. In June a 48-hour strike by the union’s members crippled the Tube and affected 1.5m commuters. The union is now preparing for further action after being offered a 1.5% pay rise from April next year, with an additional rise linked to the Retail Prices Index.

Crow said: “The offer is unacceptable. There is increasing evidence that workers are not prepared to accept that they are to blame for this recession. They are standing up for their jobs and working conditions.”

Downing Street insisted yesterday that the prime minister is not rattled by the looming wave of industrial action. Ministers are consoling themselves that the recession has not triggered demonstrations on the streets by people out of work.

Ministers fear that the threatened strikes will add to the impression among voters that the government has lost control of the economy.

The government is keen to see an early resolution to the postal strike, after the unions blamed Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, for sabotaging a deal to end the dispute.

“This is a welcome development,” Mandelson said yesterday of the talks to resolve the postal dispute. “The offer by the TUC presents a real opportunity to break the deadlock. I hope both sides will take this chance to make progress.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said that it was trying to clear the backlog of undelivered letters as quickly as possible before the next threatened round of strikes.

He denied union reports that 65m items of post had been delayed in the strikes and said the figure Royal Mail was working with remained at 30m.

A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union said: “The CWU has been calling for talks and is pleased that Royal Mail has now agreed to return to negotiations.

The TUC played a key role in 2007 in resolving issues between the two parties and we hope they will help to resolve the dispute this time.”

This week’s postal strikes would involve 43,700 staff across Britain.

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YOUR COMMENTS
49 Comments
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Skelton Eric wrote:
Lets compromise : All employees who accept a pay freeze get a £250,000 bonus! Surely still solvent companies can afford this if those surviving on taxpayer largesse can?
October 25, 2009 5:53 PM GMT
RECOMMEND?
Christopher Stuart wrote:
Labour never understands economics, the need to balance spending against income, the need for reserves nor could it see that an economy based largely on cheap credit & inflation was bound to see a massive correction as it has. I sincerely hope Mr Blair does not get the EU Presidents job & I think he has earnt enough money from misleading a hung parliament to get his war & the money he so craves. It is not Browns or Darlings fault they were simply not up to the job & they really should in honour resign in the present circumstances or call an election. Whichever party gets in the economy will be on its knees for the next five years or so.
Parliament over
October 25, 2009 3:52 PM GMT
RECOMMEND? (2)
Richard Dingle wrote:
The political car crash that is New Labour is entering its predictable final phase.

We have had 12 years of tinkering from an administration that has enjoyed the sort of majority that could, with real leadership, courage and vision, have provided the leverage for real change in this country.
Instead we have had an administration that prostituted itself to the City dazzled by the wealth and tax revenues.

The primary cause of the current economic crisis was cheap money and an asset bubble, not least in housing. Politicians (Brown as Chancellor) and Central Bankers (Greenspan in particular) are the prime culprits.

This administration reminds me of a middle ranking school bully; terrified of the bigger bullies higher up the chain and in compensation giving an extra hard slap to the people below.

Take the FSA, no action on bonuses, but action to prevent freelancers and the self-employed getting self-cert mortgages; despite the Council of Mortgage Lenders saying that self-cert mortgages (47% of all mortgages were self-cert in 2007) are not the issue.

I do not accept that the bail-out was the only option; I do not believe that allowing the banks to fail would have led to Armageddon and the end of civilisation as we know it. I do believe it would have been a new beginning. Germany is out of recession, has an economy based on high added value manufacturing and a small fit for purpose banking sector.

That the final actions of this administration will consist of doing nothing on bonuses and MPs expenses but instead freeze the pay of millions of low paid workers to pay for the unnecessary, knee-jerk bail-out of the banking sector is so predictable.

This government (and Brown and his fabled viiisiooon) are nothing less than an elected obscenity (un-elected in the case of Brown).

From an ex-Labour voter; or I will be on Election Day – can’t wait.
October 25, 2009 1:20 PM GMT
RECOMMEND? (15)
Gerry Smith wrote:
Brown threw his lot in with the Neoliberal Thatcherites. Copied the public and private debt expansion policy Greenspan used to further enrich bankers. But now that all of this has crashed the economy why does he still consider he has plausibility with the electorate?
October 25, 2009 12:53 PM GMT
RECOMMEND? (2)
Gerry Smith wrote:
Brown threw his lot in with the Neoliberal Thatcherites. Copied the public and private debt expansion policy Greenspan used to further enrich bankers. But now that all of this has crashed the economy why does he still consider he has plausibility with the electorate?
October 25, 2009 11:56 AM GMT
RECOMMEND? (2)
richard withey wrote:
From Phillip Snowdon to Captain Darling
it has always ended in bankruptsy and it will again. "Vote Labour you know it makes sense" (if you are a half wit).
October 25, 2009 11:44 AM GMT
RECOMMEND? (13)
Ron Graves wrote:
Jack Reacher wrote:
Here's an idea...can we (the humble taxpayer) appeal to the European Court as clearly our human rights (to receive basic services) are being denied by these strikes?
If not, why not? We have paid for these services and we're niot getting them. Seems pretty clean cut.
Or...is the European Court only there to impose it's laws when they favour a minority?



Excellent idea - seriously.

And here's another one - why don't YOU do it, Jack? Someone has to, and as you thought of it, I think you should be the one to do it.

October 25, 2009 10:52 AM GMT
RECOMMEND? (4)
the anti-economist wrote:
So - pay freezes for the 7 mio public workers.A government with no money. A winter of discontent.Its lucky the recession is over , otherwise we would be in real trouble.
October 25, 2009 10:37 AM GMT
RECOMMEND? (12)
Jack Reacher wrote:
Here's an idea...can we (the humble taxpayer) appeal to the European Court as clearly our human rights (to receive basic services) are being denied by these strikes?
If not, why not? We have paid for these services and we're niot getting them. Seems pretty clean cut.
Or...is the European Court only there to impose it's laws when they favour a minority?
October 25, 2009 10:05 AM GMT
RECOMMEND? (21)
Jon Bean wrote:
The quickest way to turn this around is to get the bankers that are planning to pay themselves billions this Xmas to repay the money to taxpayers first. Use this money to remove low income families from tax. This will mean less pressure on wages, and strikes. Not rocket science. Let's get on with it before it's too late!
October 25, 2009 9:56 AM GMT
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