Daily Mail comment: Unions stand firm in the face of bullying, Boris

‘We are in a class struggle right now. Are you going to stay with us or will you sit on the sidelines during this time? tories Working class butcher? Stand up and fight!’

There is something sad about the inflammatory, prehistoric rhetoric fueled by Mick Lynch, the militant RMT union boss behind rail strikes set to cripple Britain.

While it indulges in the fantasies of the revolutionary Che Guevara, it is ironic that the blue-collar activists he describes as champions will suffer the most.

Employees able to work from home on Zoom will not be bothered by this clutter. But for millions – invariably the lowest payouts – this is not an option. If they cannot travel to their workplaces, their jobs and businesses will be at risk – and they will have to struggle to pay their bills and feed their families.

And what if police officers, nurses, firefighters and others important to save lives are prevented from doing their jobs? The results can be disastrous.

With the Left unions exiting on three alternate days, the traveling public would suffer a whole week.

The indebtedness to taxpayers, who shoveled £16bn into railways during the lockdown to keep trains running when they were almost empty, is staggering.

Of course, widespread industrial action would eventually pile on the pain for union members—as it did during the winter of discontent in the late 1970s.

The more inconvenient it is for people to use trains, the more likely they are to switch to other forms of transportation.

This will further strain the network’s finances (already in a bad shape after the fall in passenger numbers during Covid), therefore putting more jobs at risk.

For this, the huge wage demand of the covetous unions is completely unrealistic. And their attempts to disrupt new work practices and technology are equally unfair.

Labor’s failure to explicitly condemn the planned strikes is reprehensible.

Sir Keir Starmer accused the Tories of splitting fuel to take advantage of the walkout, but that’s bullshit. The only ones seeking a political punch-up are the bullying barons.

Labor is so deeply hesitant for its union paymasters that Sir Keir refuses to speak for the common commuters. So much for being a party of the working people!

Unfortunately, teachers, NHS staff and barristers are now threatening to join railroad unions to ransom the country in the heat of discontent in the style of the 1970s.

To prove that he is on the side of the public, Boris Johnson must stand firm – and not bow down. That ransom should not be paid.

science triumphs

Finally, a welcome outburst of common sense. Transgender swimmers will be banned from women’s elite races if they are through male puberty.

All sports should aim for inclusiveness. But human biology is real. It is not fair for women to be denied the opportunity to compete with the advantages of a man’s size, strength and speed because they identify as female.

Hopefully, this victory of science over ideology is contagious not only across sports but in every sphere of public life.

To take just two examples in today’s paper. Isn’t it funny that in a recent review intended to tackle the NHS bureaucracy, ‘Vocari’ put diversity in front of patients?

And it is madness that education watchdog Ofstead punishes elementary schools for not teaching the horrific gender identity dogma. This is initiation, not education.

• 10 at the time of the 2008 financial crash, says Sage Sunak should end the planned corporation tax hike and hate fuel levies to help struggling families and businesses. When a former Labor PM gave a Tory chancellor a tax cut, isn’t that proof that the Conservatives’ fiscal policy reversal?