That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
The only people who are innocent are those not involved, which means neither customers, nor management, nor owners, nor staff.
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
Ramsay Mac? Wasn't he at Free Kirk and then Kirk of Scotland schools?
It says here
Ramsay MacDonald received an elementary education at the Free Church of Scotland school in Lossiemouth from 1872 to 1875, and then at Drainie parish school. He left school at the end of the summer term in 1881, at the age of 15, and began work on a nearby farm. In December 1881, he was appointed a pupil teacher at Drainie parish school.
On cxhecking the parish school was probably funded by the state anyway (bit like an English free school) by that time, so it counts.
Gordon Brown was also at Kirkcaldy High School.
I think (though not 100% sure) it was a grammar at the time.
But the "first comprehensive school PM" thing is a bit deliberately misleading as it implies all PMs have been to Eton and Winchester, whereas it's relatively recent that PMs are of an age to have grown up with a widespread comprehensive system. There have been a lot of PMs witha privileged background, of course, but a fair number of PMs have been state educated and, as mentioned, Lloyd-George and MacDonald were non-selective schools too.
Fair enough.
But a "High School" was/is often comprehensive in Scotland - the 'High' is often an accident of historical naming. I *think* that was the case in Mr B's time - though he was streamed *within* the school in an experimentasl scheme.
No grammar schools* in Scotland, though there was some streaming into High/Sec Moderns at times.
*in the sens eof the English system, though the term occurs in school names also for historical reasons
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
So you'd repeal the more than century old golden formula on protecting unions from tortious claims arising from disputes "made in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute", currently contained in section 219 Trade Unions and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but originally enacted by Disraeli's Tory government in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875. In doing so, do you expect to avoid the long period of industrial unrest that followed the last attempt to abolish this rule, Heath's, via the Industrial Relations Act 1971, or Thatcher's limiting it to those unions who have passed a vote permitting it? Bold.
Something needs to be done about these vindictive unions. If they choose to strike, damn right they should compensate the innocent people they punish thereby.
"They" don't choose to strike. Their members, ordinary decent working people, who themselves are the victims of vindictive employers, choose to strike. The unions are merely the vehicles through which their members lodge their protests. The companies who force them to strike should be paying. Where do you think the unions would find the money to pay these claims? Through their already downtrodden members, who you seem to think lower than the people they normally serve without complaint, for some reason.
The companies don't "force" them to strike. They choose to strike.
Sometimes workers have no choice. They suffer from strikes too - they don't get paid for the days they're om strike. You don't wake up in the morning and go "oh, I fancy a day off"
Going on strike is always a choice.
"We had no choice" is a pathetic whine and not credible.
If people who use the strike affected service don’t like it then they can use another service…oh, wait, it’s a monopoly. They can’t. Same logic applies to the poor sods who work for monopolies. How would you change your intolerable working conditions if you had no alternative employer? Ask managers nicely? Suck up to the boss a bit more? Where your employer has a monopoly on your field of work you have no choice. . Your argument seems to suggest that public servants are just servants on a very literal sense.
Quit. Get a different job.
You probably won't get paif £50k for anything nearly as cushy, but there it is.
"Intolerable working conditions" for train drivers on £50k+ is just another non-credible whinge.
Bankers need bonuses for those on £50k+ is just another non-credible whinge.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
It is a dispute between employers and unions. Why not phrase it as employers choosing a strike? If employers did as unions wanted there would be no strike, just as if unions did what employers wanted there would be no strike.
It is nearly always a failure of both parties, not just one.
I don't phrase it as employers choosing a strike, because they aren't the ones choosing to strike, the unions are...
Both sides have sets of incompatible initial demands. Either side can choose to back down, negotiate or end up with a strike.
I believe in low taxes but brilliant public services. I believe in economic growth but want to reduce public spending. I believe in reduced public spending but have spent far more than anyone else thought necessary to subsidise gas. I believe in an independent Bank of England but the Governor has to work in lockstep with my Chancellor and me. I believe in people who work but know that its people who don't who actually vote for me so I will see them alright. I believe in growth but don't accept that investing where growth is already happening is the best way to do this.
We know her name is Liz and the Queen in Alice in Wonderland boasted of believing 6 impossible things before breakfast. I think that this is way too much of a coincidence.
There's a female presenter on radio 5 at the Tory Party conference. She's very good. The tiny cynicism in her voice without hectoring should be a lesson to the rest of them. Anyone know who she is?
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then. Your choice.
If they don't want to offer the service, they can quit, or they can go on strike, that is their choice.
If you want to use their service, you can pay whatever it takes to keep the people providing it to you content and happy, or you can find an alternative, that is your choice.
We all have choices.
I do pay for it, £500 a month to go to work on the train. Are you telling me that the train companies can’t afford to pay their staff a decent wage out of that and that the millions of others who pay similar?
Also do you think that literally everyone has the choice to drive to work?
I think you and the train company staff agree on the ability of the train companies to pay their staff a decent wage. It’s the train companies who disagree.
Aaron Bell MP @AaronBell4NUL · 25s Great speech from the PM!
A global economic crisis is completely the wrong time to be raising taxes on businesses that create wealth. Liz’s growth focused approach will mean British businesses have the freedom to grow and invest – creating jobs and boosting prosperity for all. Image
And in 1 tweet I lose all respect for Aaron. As I said before if your desired approach hasn't worked the last 12 times you've tried (low taxes) why is it going to work the 13th time..
Low taxes has worked when its been tried.
By 2019 we had a fairly balanced budget having grown the economy, got full employment and cleared the deficit that Brown bequeathed thanks in part to lower corporation taxes and a better (but still far from perfect) tax and benefit system that ensured work pays more than benefits better than under Tax Credits.
If people keep more of their own money, they can invest and save and develop the economy.
Go and look at the GDP per capita figures and come back to me after you've done so..
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
The only people who are innocent are those not involved, which means neither customers, nor management, nor owners, nor staff.
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
You do need the dispute to be resolved, but you have no way of resolving it...
It’s just stunning how entirely expected this was.
I remember watching a Tory leadership debate on ITV and seeing the unique appeal of each candidate.
Sunak - was Chancellor, spoke well, talked cautiously about not doing Truss’s economics etc Badenoch - would appeal to the right, was young, but would also potentially allow the Tories to attract new voters (who knows how true this is, but at least it was something) Tudgenhat - the kind of ‘sensible’ guy that might win back some Tories that would go to the Lib Dems. Moderation on Brexit could have been good to shore up their vote. Though uninspiring, I don’t think you get a sub 200 seat tally in 2024 with someone like him. Mordaunt - a much better speaker than Truss, military background, etc.
All of them, in their own way, seemed to have something that Truss didn’t. Liz Truss winning almost didn’t make any sense, apart from her appeal to the Press and the Membership. She was, arguably, the worst placed of the 5 to actually win an election. I dare say she was who Starmer hoped would win.
Truss would have lost with the members to Kemi or Penny. The MPs are the ones who made the mistake by putting Truss to the membership. The same mistake Labour MPs made in 2015 by putting Corbyn to the membership.
The MPs are the ones who made the mistake of putting Sunak to the membership.
Awful, dull, content lacking series of platitudes, few of which seem actually deliverable. I genuinely think she's so deluded she thinks she probably nailed it though.
What i find particularly frustrating is that she's rubbishing the efforts of 12 years of Tory governments and going Labour's work for them. Boris and May were slightly guilty of this but did it in a more nuanced way. And had time on their side.
Once the Tories are eviscerated in late 2024, the Left are now going to run the show for 2 decades if not forever. It's so depressing for those of us who believe in free markets and personal freedom.
Then again, i can't really see any benefit of getting shut of her now. Why would Rishi or AN Other want to take it on now as the car veers over the cliff??
Gosh it's Bob!!! Blast from the past
Despite all the recent travails for the Conservative Party I still think Starmer will be a one term PM. The next election will be 1974 not 1997 IMO.
A small Labour majority but the Tories still in the game.
Keep up. LizT pledged 3% *by the end of the decade* not now, and not before the next two general elections.
Baldy Ben recently said in an interview he'd been promised 3% from 'day one'. What he didn't know was that is was day one of the year 2031.
I think recent events have shown our defence spending doesn't need to go up. If you're invaded you get the entirity of NATO's help which is bigger than Russia and China combined, quite a few times. And Ukraine isn't even in NATO
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
So you'd repeal the more than century old golden formula on protecting unions from tortious claims arising from disputes "made in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute", currently contained in section 219 Trade Unions and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but originally enacted by Disraeli's Tory government in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875. In doing so, do you expect to avoid the long period of industrial unrest that followed the last attempt to abolish this rule, Heath's, via the Industrial Relations Act 1971, or Thatcher's limiting it to those unions who have passed a vote permitting it? Bold.
Something needs to be done about these vindictive unions. If they choose to strike, damn right they should compensate the innocent people they punish thereby.
"They" don't choose to strike. Their members, ordinary decent working people, who themselves are the victims of vindictive employers, choose to strike. The unions are merely the vehicles through which their members lodge their protests. The companies who force them to strike should be paying. Where do you think the unions would find the money to pay these claims? Through their already downtrodden members, who you seem to think lower than the people they normally serve without complaint, for some reason.
The companies don't "force" them to strike. They choose to strike.
Sometimes workers have no choice. They suffer from strikes too - they don't get paid for the days they're om strike. You don't wake up in the morning and go "oh, I fancy a day off"
Going on strike is always a choice.
"We had no choice" is a pathetic whine and not credible.
If people who use the strike affected service don’t like it then they can use another service…oh, wait, it’s a monopoly. They can’t. Same logic applies to the poor sods who work for monopolies. How would you change your intolerable working conditions if you had no alternative employer? Ask managers nicely? Suck up to the boss a bit more? Where your employer has a monopoly on your field of work you have no choice. . Your argument seems to suggest that public servants are just servants on a very literal sense.
Quit. Get a different job.
You probably won't get paif £50k for anything nearly as cushy, but there it is.
"Intolerable working conditions" for train drivers on £50k+ is just another non-credible whinge.
Bankers need bonuses for those on £50k+ is just another non-credible whinge.
Bankers don't "need" bonuses, but surely bank profits are better off paid out in bonuses and therefore taxed at 40% plus rather than retained and taxed at 20% minus...
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
It is a dispute between employers and unions. Why not phrase it as employers choosing a strike? If employers did as unions wanted there would be no strike, just as if unions did what employers wanted there would be no strike.
It is nearly always a failure of both parties, not just one.
I don't phrase it as employers choosing a strike, because they aren't the ones choosing to strike, the unions are...
Both sides have sets of incompatible initial demands. Either side can choose to back down, negotiate or end up with a strike.
Can you explain to me what the railway unions are actually striking over? because once you do you will discover some interesting facts - the main one is that the strikes come from the Department for Transport trying to impose impossible to implement changes...
Aaron Bell MP @AaronBell4NUL · 25s Great speech from the PM!
A global economic crisis is completely the wrong time to be raising taxes on businesses that create wealth. Liz’s growth focused approach will mean British businesses have the freedom to grow and invest – creating jobs and boosting prosperity for all. Image
And in 1 tweet I lose all respect for Aaron. As I said before if your desired approach hasn't worked the last 12 times you've tried (low taxes) why is it going to work the 13th time..
Low taxes has worked when its been tried.
By 2019 we had a fairly balanced budget having grown the economy, got full employment and cleared the deficit that Brown bequeathed thanks in part to lower corporation taxes and a better (but still far from perfect) tax and benefit system that ensured work pays more than benefits better than under Tax Credits.
If people keep more of their own money, they can invest and save and develop the economy.
Go and look at the GDP per capita figures and come back to me after you've done so..
OK. In the 2010s France put up tax rates, George Osborne tried where possible to cut them.
GDP per capita in USD (source: World Bank).
2010 France 40,638.34 2019 France 40,380.10
2010 United Kingdom 39,536.77 2019 United Kingdom 42,354.41
I don't know what they're doing differently here in the South of France but the energy prices haven't gone up and petrol is still 1.58 euros a litre....
.....and the sun is shining the cafes are busy the restaurants are heaving and everyone seems happy ........
............. I wonder if they're tuning in to UK TV?
France has nuclear energy, how do you spend so much time there and bang on about it so much and not know that?
The petrol price seems about the same, its back into the 1.50s here too. The exchange rate isn't the same, but I think France has lower fuel duty.
Oil prices disconnected (mostly) from the natural gas price long ago.
In France, EDF was 100% nationalised and the government directed them not to change energy prices. This means that debt is piling up in EDF - which has to buy natural gas on the open market. The debt is effectively government debt…
They are buying a lot of electricity from the U.K. and other countries, because a number of the nuke plants are in deep maintenance.
French nuclear output is about 15GW down on this time last year. Our nuclear output is down a bit too. It's a huge hole in European electricity supply.
It would be a crisis in its own right if the Feb 24th invasion hadn't happened.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
"When the unions can be bothered to provide it" - WFF?????
Hate to break this to you, but the unions don't provide the service. Their members do. If the unions were not there they can still withdraw their services. With the same result. You want people to provide seamless service then pay them properly. Because the alternatives are strikes or losing the workers you rely on - in that scenario strikes are better.
Aaron Bell MP @AaronBell4NUL · 25s Great speech from the PM!
A global economic crisis is completely the wrong time to be raising taxes on businesses that create wealth. Liz’s growth focused approach will mean British businesses have the freedom to grow and invest – creating jobs and boosting prosperity for all. Image
And in 1 tweet I lose all respect for Aaron. As I said before if your desired approach hasn't worked the last 12 times you've tried (low taxes) why is it going to work the 13th time..
Low taxes has worked when its been tried.
By 2019 we had a fairly balanced budget having grown the economy, got full employment and cleared the deficit that Brown bequeathed thanks in part to lower corporation taxes and a better (but still far from perfect) tax and benefit system that ensured work pays more than benefits better than under Tax Credits.
If people keep more of their own money, they can invest and save and develop the economy.
Our economy was unbalanced in 2019 and we were running a 7% current account deficit. That's almost entirely down to UK businesses becoming dividend cash cows because they've cut investment to the bone.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then. Your choice.
If they don't want to offer the service, they can quit, or they can go on strike, that is their choice.
If you want to use their service, you can pay whatever it takes to keep the people providing it to you content and happy, or you can find an alternative, that is your choice.
We all have choices.
I do pay for it, £500 a month to go to work on the train. Are you telling me that the train companies can’t afford to pay their staff a decent wage out of that and that the millions of others who pay similar?
Also do you think that literally everyone has the choice to drive to work?
Yes I am saying that, considering that train fares are heavily subsidies by the taxpayer, that £500 is not enough quite frankly. As far as I'm concerned we should abolish taxpayer subsidies for trains, why should one person's transport be taxed in order to subsidise somebody else's personal choice? But that's a different matter.
And yes, everyone has the choice to drive to work, or get a taxi, or alternatives like quitting which Driver so kindly suggested as the alternative for train workers. If quitting is an appropriate option for train workers, its an appropriate option for train customers too, who are not "innocent" of any train dispute.
Because the economy of central London depends upon commuters moving in and out of central London every day.
Allowing unlimited numbers of drivers into central London lowered average speeds in central London below those achieved by horse drawn hansom cabs in the 1890s.
Public transport is a public good - public transportation networks create economic connections. (Leaving aside the social desirability of social services for the elderly, the young and women who disproportionately use public transport).
Compare and contrast the economy of greater Tokyo and greater LA.
Greater population densities require greater public amenities.
Ayn Rand might have driven a Ute growing up in southern Australia, of course.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
It is a dispute between employers and unions. Why not phrase it as employers choosing a strike? If employers did as unions wanted there would be no strike, just as if unions did what employers wanted there would be no strike.
It is nearly always a failure of both parties, not just one.
I don't phrase it as employers choosing a strike, because they aren't the ones choosing to strike, the unions are...
Both sides have sets of incompatible initial demands. Either side can choose to back down, negotiate or end up with a strike.
Can you explain to me what the railway unions are actually striking over? because once you do you will discover some interesting facts - the main one is that the strikes come from the Department for Transport trying to impose impossible to implement changes...
I was talking generally about strikes rather than this specific one so don't know the specifics but not at all surprised if its a stubborn govt cock up.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
The only people who are innocent are those not involved, which means neither customers, nor management, nor owners, nor staff.
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
You do need the dispute to be resolved, but you have no way of resolving it...
I've given you six ways, including the one you offered the staff which is to quit. Others have given even more ways too.
If you don't like any of the many, many ways you have before you, then that's your responsibility. If quitting is good enough for the train staff, its good enough for you too, but you have even more alternatives like driving instead etc on top of quitting.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
It is a dispute between employers and unions. Why not phrase it as employers choosing a strike? If employers did as unions wanted there would be no strike, just as if unions did what employers wanted there would be no strike.
It is nearly always a failure of both parties, not just one.
I don't phrase it as employers choosing a strike, because they aren't the ones choosing to strike, the unions are...
Both sides have sets of incompatible initial demands. Either side can choose to back down, negotiate or end up with a strike.
Can you explain to me what the railway unions are actually striking over? because once you do you will discover some interesting facts - the main one is that the strikes come from the Department for Transport trying to impose impossible to implement changes...
In which case you have the picture of UKG deliberately sabotaging the railway system. It's the degree of sapience and self-knowledge that I am uncertain about, mind.
Aaron Bell MP @AaronBell4NUL · 25s Great speech from the PM!
A global economic crisis is completely the wrong time to be raising taxes on businesses that create wealth. Liz’s growth focused approach will mean British businesses have the freedom to grow and invest – creating jobs and boosting prosperity for all. Image
And in 1 tweet I lose all respect for Aaron. As I said before if your desired approach hasn't worked the last 12 times you've tried (low taxes) why is it going to work the 13th time..
Low taxes has worked when its been tried.
By 2019 we had a fairly balanced budget having grown the economy, got full employment and cleared the deficit that Brown bequeathed thanks in part to lower corporation taxes and a better (but still far from perfect) tax and benefit system that ensured work pays more than benefits better than under Tax Credits.
If people keep more of their own money, they can invest and save and develop the economy.
Go and look at the GDP per capita figures and come back to me after you've done so..
OK. In the 2010s France put up tax rates, George Osborne tried where possible to cut them.
GDP per capita in USD (source: World Bank).
2010 France 40,638.34 2019 France 40,380.10
2010 United Kingdom 39,536.77 2019 United Kingdom 42,354.41
Which worked, and which didn't work?
Judging by my visit to France in 2018, I'm going to go with France.
Greenpeace protest looks to have been well done to me. Message on the National news, no disruption to the nation at large, no destruction of property.
Yes, absolutely masterfully executed. You have to hand it to those two girls – they looked the part and got maximum airtime with a simple resonant message.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
If you're not a party to the dispute, you're not directly affected by the dispute.
If you're a customer of the firm whose staff are on strike etc, then you are a party to the dispute.
Not in the sense that you have any way of resolving it.
Of course you do, just not directly, but everything's connected.
If eg your a customer on a train then you could end up paying more in train fees, in order to allow the train firm to pay their staff more, which allows the dispute to be resolved. Or you could choose to take your business elsewhere, drive instead of getting the train, which means that the train firm has less revenue and may need to make redundancies instead.
Everything is connected. If you don't want to be a party to a dispute, don't get involved. Don't use that business or service, if you do, then you're a party whether you want to be or not.
Yes, don't go to work - genius solution!
Who said don't go to work?
Go to work, but don't rely upon the services of those who are on strike to do so. If you normally get a train then drive instead and so on. If you can't, then be prepared to pay more to the staff since you must value them so highly that you're so dependant upon them.
But how do you arrange to pay more to the staff? You can't.
You pressure management to pay more by using alternative services. Support your fellow ordinary working man and woman.
What alternative?
The people that the unions choose to punish by going on strike have no influence on management.
The people that the unions “choose” to punish? They don’t exactly have much choice. The only thing they can do is withdraw their labour in a strike. If you work for a train company, you can only affect train customers. If you work for a cobbler, you can only affect cobbler customers.
What are you suggesting? That the train company employees should ballot on a strike, but they then nominate a different group of employees to go on strike so the effects of the strike are appropriately targeted?
It’s just stunning how entirely expected this was.
I remember watching a Tory leadership debate on ITV and seeing the unique appeal of each candidate.
Sunak - was Chancellor, spoke well, talked cautiously about not doing Truss’s economics etc Badenoch - would appeal to the right, was young, but would also potentially allow the Tories to attract new voters (who knows how true this is, but at least it was something) Tudgenhat - the kind of ‘sensible’ guy that might win back some Tories that would go to the Lib Dems. Moderation on Brexit could have been good to shore up their vote. Though uninspiring, I don’t think you get a sub 200 seat tally in 2024 with someone like him. Mordaunt - a much better speaker than Truss, military background, etc.
All of them, in their own way, seemed to have something that Truss didn’t. Liz Truss winning almost didn’t make any sense, apart from her appeal to the Press and the Membership. She was, arguably, the worst placed of the 5 to actually win an election. I dare say she was who Starmer hoped would win.
Truss would have lost with the members to Kemi or Penny. The MPs are the ones who made the mistake by putting Truss to the membership. The same mistake Labour MPs made in 2015 by putting Corbyn to the membership.
The MPs are the ones who made the mistake of putting Sunak to the membership.
Except the issue is the membership are frankly utterly insane and shouldn't be allowed near important decisions..
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
You forget one part of libertarianism
Yes workers should be able to form unions Yes workers should be able to strike for better pay and conditions
the bit you forget is
Yes employers should be able to replace striking workers
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then. Your choice.
If they don't want to offer the service, they can quit, or they can go on strike, that is their choice.
If you want to use their service, you can pay whatever it takes to keep the people providing it to you content and happy, or you can find an alternative, that is your choice.
We all have choices.
I do pay for it, £500 a month to go to work on the train. Are you telling me that the train companies can’t afford to pay their staff a decent wage out of that and that the millions of others who pay similar?
Also do you think that literally everyone has the choice to drive to work?
Yes I am saying that, considering that train fares are heavily subsidies by the taxpayer, that £500 is not enough quite frankly. As far as I'm concerned we should abolish taxpayer subsidies for trains, why should one person's transport be taxed in order to subsidise somebody else's personal choice? But that's a different matter.
And yes, everyone has the choice to drive to work, or get a taxi, or alternatives like quitting which Driver so kindly suggested as the alternative for train workers. If quitting is an appropriate option for train workers, its an appropriate option for train customers too, who are not "innocent" of any train dispute.
Because the economy of central London depends upon commuters moving in and out of central London every day.
Allowing unlimited numbers of drivers into central London lowered average speeds in central London below those achieved by horse drawn hansom cabs in the 1890s.
Public transport is a public good - public transportation networks create economic connections. (Leaving aside the social desirability of social services for the elderly, the young and women who disproportionately use public transport).
Compare and contrast the economy of greater Tokyo and greater LA.
Greater population densities require greater public amenities.
Ayn Rand might have driven a Ute growing up in southern Australia, of course.
It was all there is the economics courses.
If you're going into Central London every day that's your choice, and you need to take responsibility for your choices which may mean paying more for the people who are providing the service that takes you there.
As Driver said himself, you can quit. If its good enough for train staff, its good enough for you and Driver too.
We all need to take personal responsibility for our decisions. If you've made a decision to work in Central London instead of somewhere you can drive to, then you need to own the consequences of your choices, which means being a party to any rail disputes and having to pay the consequences of that since you chose to do that.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
So you'd repeal the more than century old golden formula on protecting unions from tortious claims arising from disputes "made in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute", currently contained in section 219 Trade Unions and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but originally enacted by Disraeli's Tory government in the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875. In doing so, do you expect to avoid the long period of industrial unrest that followed the last attempt to abolish this rule, Heath's, via the Industrial Relations Act 1971, or Thatcher's limiting it to those unions who have passed a vote permitting it? Bold.
Something needs to be done about these vindictive unions. If they choose to strike, damn right they should compensate the innocent people they punish thereby.
"They" don't choose to strike. Their members, ordinary decent working people, who themselves are the victims of vindictive employers, choose to strike. The unions are merely the vehicles through which their members lodge their protests. The companies who force them to strike should be paying. Where do you think the unions would find the money to pay these claims? Through their already downtrodden members, who you seem to think lower than the people they normally serve without complaint, for some reason.
The companies don't "force" them to strike. They choose to strike.
Sometimes workers have no choice. They suffer from strikes too - they don't get paid for the days they're om strike. You don't wake up in the morning and go "oh, I fancy a day off"
Going on strike is always a choice.
"We had no choice" is a pathetic whine and not credible.
If people who use the strike affected service don’t like it then they can use another service…oh, wait, it’s a monopoly. They can’t. Same logic applies to the poor sods who work for monopolies. How would you change your intolerable working conditions if you had no alternative employer? Ask managers nicely? Suck up to the boss a bit more? Where your employer has a monopoly on your field of work you have no choice. . Your argument seems to suggest that public servants are just servants on a very literal sense.
Quit. Get a different job.
You probably won't get paif £50k for anything nearly as cushy, but there it is.
"Intolerable working conditions" for train drivers on £50k+ is just another non-credible whinge.
You don't get many people committing suicide very messily all over your office window, I bet.
Sorry that argument is a nonsense. It's more than most of the army, police, nurses, firemen who all have to deal with traumatic situations on a daily basis.
I fully endorse paying the army, police, nurses and firemen more. I note some of those are banned from striking, which demonstrates what happens when you ban a group from striking! Lower wages!
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
The only people who are innocent are those not involved, which means neither customers, nor management, nor owners, nor staff.
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
You do need the dispute to be resolved, but you have no way of resolving it...
I've given you six ways, including the one you offered the staff which is to quit. Others have given even more ways too.
If you don't like any of the many, many ways you have before you, then that's your responsibility. If quitting is good enough for the train staff, its good enough for you too, but you have even more alternatives like driving instead etc on top of quitting.
None of your suggestions would do anything to resolve the dispute.
It’s just stunning how entirely expected this was.
I remember watching a Tory leadership debate on ITV and seeing the unique appeal of each candidate.
Sunak - was Chancellor, spoke well, talked cautiously about not doing Truss’s economics etc Badenoch - would appeal to the right, was young, but would also potentially allow the Tories to attract new voters (who knows how true this is, but at least it was something) Tudgenhat - the kind of ‘sensible’ guy that might win back some Tories that would go to the Lib Dems. Moderation on Brexit could have been good to shore up their vote. Though uninspiring, I don’t think you get a sub 200 seat tally in 2024 with someone like him. Mordaunt - a much better speaker than Truss, military background, etc.
All of them, in their own way, seemed to have something that Truss didn’t. Liz Truss winning almost didn’t make any sense, apart from her appeal to the Press and the Membership. She was, arguably, the worst placed of the 5 to actually win an election. I dare say she was who Starmer hoped would win.
Truss would have lost with the members to Kemi or Penny. The MPs are the ones who made the mistake by putting Truss to the membership. The same mistake Labour MPs made in 2015 by putting Corbyn to the membership.
The MPs are the ones who made the mistake of putting Sunak to the membership.
Except the issue is the membership are frankly utterly insane and shouldn't be allowed near important decisions..
Which makes the MPs even more stupid for giving the members two options, one of which was Sunak.
Aaron Bell MP @AaronBell4NUL · 25s Great speech from the PM!
A global economic crisis is completely the wrong time to be raising taxes on businesses that create wealth. Liz’s growth focused approach will mean British businesses have the freedom to grow and invest – creating jobs and boosting prosperity for all. Image
And in 1 tweet I lose all respect for Aaron. As I said before if your desired approach hasn't worked the last 12 times you've tried (low taxes) why is it going to work the 13th time..
Low taxes has worked when its been tried.
By 2019 we had a fairly balanced budget having grown the economy, got full employment and cleared the deficit that Brown bequeathed thanks in part to lower corporation taxes and a better (but still far from perfect) tax and benefit system that ensured work pays more than benefits better than under Tax Credits.
If people keep more of their own money, they can invest and save and develop the economy.
Go and look at the GDP per capita figures and come back to me after you've done so..
OK. In the 2010s France put up tax rates, George Osborne tried where possible to cut them.
GDP per capita in USD (source: World Bank).
2010 France 40,638.34 2019 France 40,380.10
2010 United Kingdom 39,536.77 2019 United Kingdom 42,354.41
Which worked, and which didn't work?
Judging by my visit to France in 2018, I'm going to go with France.
Indeed. America’s a wealthy country, but for its citizens it does depend on where the wealth goes. Average statistics for the US always make their economic performance look good, but with such dramatic inequality and low investment in infrastructure and services, for the median citizen things can be rather different.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
You forget one part of libertarianism
Yes workers should be able to form unions Yes workers should be able to strike for better pay and conditions
the bit you forget is
Yes employers should be able to replace striking workers
I didn't forget that, it wasn't relevant to the post I was responding to, but I completely believe in that! I have always said that I think prohibitions on sacking and replacing striking workers should not exist.
If you're prepared to withdraw your labour, you should be prepared for the risk that withdrawal becomes permanent, but if the employer realises they can't replace you and they need you, then they need to meet your concerns.
Everyone should be responsible for their own choices.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
If you're not a party to the dispute, you're not directly affected by the dispute.
If you're a customer of the firm whose staff are on strike etc, then you are a party to the dispute.
Not in the sense that you have any way of resolving it.
Of course you do, just not directly, but everything's connected.
If eg your a customer on a train then you could end up paying more in train fees, in order to allow the train firm to pay their staff more, which allows the dispute to be resolved. Or you could choose to take your business elsewhere, drive instead of getting the train, which means that the train firm has less revenue and may need to make redundancies instead.
Everything is connected. If you don't want to be a party to a dispute, don't get involved. Don't use that business or service, if you do, then you're a party whether you want to be or not.
Yes, don't go to work - genius solution!
Who said don't go to work?
Go to work, but don't rely upon the services of those who are on strike to do so. If you normally get a train then drive instead and so on. If you can't, then be prepared to pay more to the staff since you must value them so highly that you're so dependant upon them.
But how do you arrange to pay more to the staff? You can't.
You pressure management to pay more by using alternative services. Support your fellow ordinary working man and woman.
What alternative?
The people that the unions choose to punish by going on strike have no influence on management.
The people that the unions “choose” to punish? They don’t exactly have much choice. The only thing they can do is withdraw their labour in a strike. If you work for a train company, you can only affect train customers. If you work for a cobbler, you can only affect cobbler customers.
What are you suggesting? That the train company employees should ballot on a strike, but they then nominate a different group of employees to go on strike so the effects of the strike are appropriately targeted?
There is always a choice. They could choose not to go on strike. If they do choose to go on strike, they should face the consequences.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
2 to 5 are not impossible.
6: They're not "innocent". If you're using that workers services then you are a party to the dispute, stop using their services if you want to be unaffected by the strike.
You seem to think you can rely upon workers without paying them what they want to be paid. That's not a free market and its not liberal, or appropriate.
If you want to rely upon workers then pay them the going rate to get them into work. If you don't want to, then don't rely upon them.
If you are using someone's services, why do you think you are "innocent" of the dispute. Stop using the service and then you'll be, but if you're using the service you need to pay for it.
And there are many people who are perfectly happy to pay to use the service, when the unions can be bothered to provide it. But the ordinary people who just want to travel to work, or to see family, for who the train may be the only option - and I'll keep using the word innocent, because they are - have zero influence on the dispute.
In an ideal world, they would have such influence, but this is not that world.
The only people who are innocent are those not involved, which means neither customers, nor management, nor owners, nor staff.
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
You do need the dispute to be resolved, but you have no way of resolving it...
I've given you six ways, including the one you offered the staff which is to quit. Others have given even more ways too.
If you don't like any of the many, many ways you have before you, then that's your responsibility. If quitting is good enough for the train staff, its good enough for you too, but you have even more alternatives like driving instead etc on top of quitting.
None of your suggestions would do anything to resolve the dispute.
Why should it be resolved? You have no right to have the dispute easily "resolved", especially since you consider yourself to be "innocent" to the dispute why would you get to resolve it? All you get to do is minimise the disputes impact on your own life.
In a free society disputes are only resolved once all sides are happy with the dispute being resolved. Or one side gets sacked off etc in which case they cease to be a party to the dispute.
Either accept the dispute as a price to pay for there being a disagreement in the service you're choosing to use not being resolved, or find an alternative solution yourself. You have no right to compel others to reach an agreement they don't want to reach.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
They *are* quitting. Already. In their thousands. And there are no replacements. That's the problem.
You can only use the threat of restrictions on right to strike if you have an ample supply of replacements. There are no doctors you could call on you haven't already recruited. Or nurses. As for teachers, by closing 30% of training courses they're going to absolutely squeeze supply. But that's not even as bad as it sounds because they can't afford to pay their wages anyway.
It's an empty threat. What would she do if they ignored her? Lock them up? Sack them? Sue them?
I would add that actually I don't think education unions are particularly militant. I worked in one school where the head had actually threatened several members of staff with physical violence and they needed a lot of prodding from me to intervene. There were two national strikes in all my years in teaching despite appalling and frequently illegal actions to change terms and conditions and chronic mismanagement and abuse by those in authority. We didn't strike during covid, for example, although we probably should have done given several things the DfE demanded of us were breaches not only of our contracts and covid regulations but of ordinary health and safety law.
That's partly because most teachers don't want to strike. They care about children, unlike say, the DfE or the Daily Mail, and they don't want to disrupt their education. There's actually one Union, the Voice, which has that as its fundamental principle.
But you have to have the right to withdraw your labour to protest at misguided or especially illegal actions by the bosses. That's a fundamental point of workplace law. If she restricts it, the NHS and the education system will certainly both implode.
There's one sentence in my comment which you didn't address, perhaps because you don't have an answer for it:
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
If you're not a party to the dispute, you're not directly affected by the dispute.
If you're a customer of the firm whose staff are on strike etc, then you are a party to the dispute.
Not in the sense that you have any way of resolving it.
Of course you do, just not directly, but everything's connected.
If eg your a customer on a train then you could end up paying more in train fees, in order to allow the train firm to pay their staff more, which allows the dispute to be resolved. Or you could choose to take your business elsewhere, drive instead of getting the train, which means that the train firm has less revenue and may need to make redundancies instead.
Everything is connected. If you don't want to be a party to a dispute, don't get involved. Don't use that business or service, if you do, then you're a party whether you want to be or not.
Yes, don't go to work - genius solution!
Who said don't go to work?
Go to work, but don't rely upon the services of those who are on strike to do so. If you normally get a train then drive instead and so on. If you can't, then be prepared to pay more to the staff since you must value them so highly that you're so dependant upon them.
But how do you arrange to pay more to the staff? You can't.
You pressure management to pay more by using alternative services. Support your fellow ordinary working man and woman.
What alternative?
The people that the unions choose to punish by going on strike have no influence on management.
The people that the unions “choose” to punish? They don’t exactly have much choice. The only thing they can do is withdraw their labour in a strike. If you work for a train company, you can only affect train customers. If you work for a cobbler, you can only affect cobbler customers.
What are you suggesting? That the train company employees should ballot on a strike, but they then nominate a different group of employees to go on strike so the effects of the strike are appropriately targeted?
There is always a choice. They could choose not to go on strike. If they do choose to go on strike, they should face the consequences.
They do, if they go on strike they don't get paid. That's the consequence, don't work, don't get paid.
If you're choosing to use their service, then you own the consequences of your choices. You are choosing to make yourself reliant upon their service. Look in the mirror and take responsibility for your own decisions.
That amazing libertarian ideal of forcing people to work even if they feel they aren't being paid what they're worth. Which I assume will be done with all the force of the state - rules around claiming benefits, police at picket lines, and the choice between serfdom or starving.
We need to retire the idea that Truss is a libertarian - her economics are not about increasing freedom, it's about capital accumulating with the already rich. There is nothing freeing about being unable to collectively bargain, there is nothing emancipatory about claiming the only working unit is the individual.
Not forcing them to work at all - they can quit.
But why should ordinary members of the public - who aren't party to the wage dispute and can't do anything to resolve it - be the ones to be punished?
In an ideal world, curbs on strikes wouldn't be necessary. But in an ideal world, militant unions wouldn't take it out on people who can't do anything about it.
We already have some of the most restrictive union laws in the west. How much further would you go?
I would require unions who choose to strike to pay compensation to the innocent people they affect by doing so.
How about the managers who create the conditions for the strike?
Not saying it's always management's fault, but you'd be essentially making it impossible for e.g. rail strikes etc to happen, which would enable management to do whatever the hell they wanted.
(And, perhaps bizarrely, I say this as a by choice non-union member in a reasonably unionised profession - quick google says 47%, but that seems low to me anecdotally among colleagues)
The managers aren't the ones choosing to go on strike, though, are they?
No, its their employees, who the managers force into this position.
How does an individual whose only marketable skill is, say, laying railway tracks express his opposition to the actions of management save through striking? Move to to a rival provider to Network Rail? Ditto nurses and firemen. Should they just find another job?
There's no "force" about it. Striking is a pure choice by the workers/unions.
So is choosing to use their service.
In a free society everyone is free to make their own choices. If you want to use other people's labour, even when they don't want to provide it, then there's a word for that.
Why should you get to choose to use their service, or not, but they don't get to choose whether to offer it, or not?
Because for many people, their service is irreplaceable. And as I said right at the beginning, if they don't want to offer the service, they can quit.
Then pay for it then.
How???
Plenty of options. If we're talking about trains for example, then just off the top of my head.
1: Put pressure on the train company to resolve the dispute, saying you'll be happy to pay higher ticket prices. 2: Work from home instead and don't use the train. 3: Drive instead and don't use the train. 4: Get a taxi instead and don't use the train. 5: Go somewhere else instead so you don't need the train. 6: Quit yourself, so you don't use the train.
You have plenty of options before you. You want their only option to be quit, well why don't you quit? Or find an alternative that is available to you?
1: They won't listen 2-5: Impossible for many people 6: Why should an innocent person be forced to do that by unions choosing to strike?
It is a dispute between employers and unions. Why not phrase it as employers choosing a strike? If employers did as unions wanted there would be no strike, just as if unions did what employers wanted there would be no strike.
It is nearly always a failure of both parties, not just one.
I don't phrase it as employers choosing a strike, because they aren't the ones choosing to strike, the unions are...
The employer has chosen to make an offer to its staff that is not acceptable to the staff.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Her poll ratings won’t improve, so I guess we are in a holding pattern for a bit
Meanwhile, fixed rate mortgages topping 6%..
This is what is going to ultimately do for the Tories regardless of any leadership changes or not before the next GE. Mortgage holders were a key part of the Tory coalition. They will be leaving the train at the next stop.
Comments
As a customer you're not innocent. You're a party to the dispute. You are getting a service, that the service provider no longer wants to provide. You either find an alternative service, or you need the dispute to be resolved.
Fair enough.
But a "High School" was/is often comprehensive in Scotland - the 'High' is often an accident of historical naming. I *think* that was the case in Mr B's time - though he was streamed *within* the school in an experimentasl scheme.
No grammar schools* in Scotland, though there was some streaming into High/Sec Moderns at times.
*in the sens eof the English system, though the term occurs in school names also for historical reasons
I believe in low taxes but brilliant public services.
I believe in economic growth but want to reduce public spending.
I believe in reduced public spending but have spent far more than anyone else thought necessary to subsidise gas.
I believe in an independent Bank of England but the Governor has to work in lockstep with my Chancellor and me.
I believe in people who work but know that its people who don't who actually vote for me so I will see them alright.
I believe in growth but don't accept that investing where growth is already happening is the best way to do this.
We know her name is Liz and the Queen in Alice in Wonderland boasted of believing 6 impossible things before breakfast. I think that this is way too much of a coincidence.
Despite all the recent travails for the Conservative Party I still think Starmer will be a one term PM. The next election will be 1974 not 1997 IMO.
A small Labour majority but the Tories still in the game.
GDP per capita in USD (source: World Bank).
2010 France 40,638.34
2019 France 40,380.10
2010 United Kingdom 39,536.77
2019 United Kingdom 42,354.41
Which worked, and which didn't work?
It would be a crisis in its own right if the Feb 24th invasion hadn't happened.
Hate to break this to you, but the unions don't provide the service. Their members do. If the unions were not there they can still withdraw their services. With the same result. You want people to provide seamless service then pay them properly. Because the alternatives are strikes or losing the workers you rely on - in that scenario strikes are better.
Allowing unlimited numbers of drivers into central London lowered average speeds in central London below those achieved by horse drawn hansom cabs in the 1890s.
Public transport is a public good - public transportation networks create economic connections. (Leaving aside the social desirability of social services for the elderly, the young and women who disproportionately use public transport).
Compare and contrast the economy of greater Tokyo and greater LA.
Greater population densities require greater public amenities.
Ayn Rand might have driven a Ute growing up in southern Australia, of course.
It was all there is the economics courses.
If you don't like any of the many, many ways you have before you, then that's your responsibility. If quitting is good enough for the train staff, its good enough for you too, but you have even more alternatives like driving instead etc on top of quitting.
What are you suggesting? That the train company employees should ballot on a strike, but they then nominate a different group of employees to go on strike so the effects of the strike are appropriately targeted?
Yes workers should be able to form unions
Yes workers should be able to strike for better pay and conditions
the bit you forget is
Yes employers should be able to replace striking workers
As Driver said himself, you can quit. If its good enough for train staff, its good enough for you and Driver too.
We all need to take personal responsibility for our decisions. If you've made a decision to work in Central London instead of somewhere you can drive to, then you need to own the consequences of your choices, which means being a party to any rail disputes and having to pay the consequences of that since you chose to do that.
If you're prepared to withdraw your labour, you should be prepared for the risk that withdrawal becomes permanent, but if the employer realises they can't replace you and they need you, then they need to meet your concerns.
Everyone should be responsible for their own choices.
Meanwhile, fixed rate mortgages topping 6%..
In a free society disputes are only resolved once all sides are happy with the dispute being resolved. Or one side gets sacked off etc in which case they cease to be a party to the dispute.
Either accept the dispute as a price to pay for there being a disagreement in the service you're choosing to use not being resolved, or find an alternative solution yourself. You have no right to compel others to reach an agreement they don't want to reach.
If you're choosing to use their service, then you own the consequences of your choices. You are choosing to make yourself reliant upon their service. Look in the mirror and take responsibility for your own decisions.
Mortgage holders were a key part of the Tory coalition. They will be leaving the train at the next stop.