A government which claims the right to kill its own citizens with no judicial process on the basis of the vote of 24.4% of the qualified electorate, legislates that workers cannot strike without the support of 40% of their qualified electorate because strikes can inconvenience people. Not as inconvenient as being sliced to pulp by flying metal, I should have thought.
David Davis, a decent Tory, said that some of the provisions of the Trade Union bill are Francoist, and he was not exaggerating. You can read the dispassionate official analysis of the bill by Parliament staff here. One of least publicised yet appalling aspects of the bill is the arbitrary power given to an anti-strike witchfinder, the Certification Officer. He is specifically given the powers of the High Court to compel individuals to give evidence or produce documents, and to make arbitrary judgements.
That extreme authoritarian stance is reflected throughout the bill. It is more publicised that notice must be given of picketing, with names reported to the police and identifying armbands worn, with letters of authority from the union to be there which the Bill states must be produced not only to the Police but to anybody who asks on request. This gives employers a whole new avenue of harassment of strikers.
The provision that 14 days notice must be given of any strike is obviously designed to reduce the effectiveness of strike action. The right to bring in agency staff to replace agency workers is not in the Bill, but the parliamentary staff analysis indicates it is intended to bring that in under secondary legislation – power delegated to the Secretary of State. That obviously is designed to combine with the 14 day notice to make strikes ineffective. The regulation of what individuals say about the industrial dispute on social media is so repressive as to verge on the incredible.
It is obvious the Tory government serve the agenda of corporatism, pure and simple. But it is perhaps surprising they are so entirely open about it. If you do not have the chance to withdraw your Labour, you are a slave. In the days of real slavery in Jamaica, foremen or gangmasters were generally slaves themselves (as opposed to the southern United States where they were generally poor whites). Very often the black gangmasters were extremely brutal to the slaves under them, imparting floggings with gusto to try to cement themselves in the favour of their white masters.
That is the function that token Muslim Sajid Javid plays in this Conservative government, flogging the workers with more gusto than his Old Etonian masters would dare to do. Plus they wouldn’t want to get blood on their trousers. Javid is a most enthusiastic Uncle Tom determined to tick all the establishment boxes. He certified the Trade Union Bill as compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, when it is plainly in contravention of Article 11. But his most spectacular effort to fit in with his Tory masters came at the Conservative Friends of Israel where ignoring completely the terrible suffering, humiliation and repression of the Palestinian people, he declared
“Mr Javid, who described himself as a “proud British-born Muslim”, announced that if he had to leave Britain to live in the Middle East, then he would choose Israel as home. Only there, he said, would his children feel the “warm embrace of freedom and liberty”. For him, only Israel shared the democratic values of the UK.”
Sajid Javid promotes measures rightly called Francoist because he is a person it is perfectly reasonable to call a fascist.
Sajid Javid Hankers After “Israel’s Warm Embrace”
BrianFujisan Thanks, and you are rihg tperhaps I should not have used “pofaced, wrinklies” 🙂 🙂
These cretins in the oligarch owned media compel the saints to swear, day after day banging on about the; Corbyn, this and Corbyn that, while the whole place is falling down around our ears.
Are these oligarch owned media pundits in a parallel universe to the rest of us?
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Glenn you have further highlighted the sneaky methods of glorification of war and militarism through the continual trumped up anniversaries of one sort or another. In this “identity politics” era, we have not had the ruby anniversary, the cotton anniversary and so forth, there is a whole boat full of anniversaries that have gone untapped in glorification of wars and militarism.
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Ba’al Zevul, “Corbyn ate my bunny” a sobbing traumatised bankster said yesterday; “Corbyn just took the live fluffy bunny and put it in between two bits of toasts and ate the screeching bunny” will be the next headlines in some of the more diligent oligarch owned media.
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No Jon it is a very conscious process, the thought of the fall out from the Corbyn policies that would be directly translated into dried up funding and revenue streams from the various sponsors of the “good causes”, is the motivator and the driver underlying the process!
“Shocking scenes at Hungarian/Serbian border. Tear gas and water cannons are being used on the refugees trying to break through. Inevitable as our dear leaders here and in the EU Schengen zone have failed to deal with the situation.”
More shocking than the public massacres of thousands of men, women and children in Syria by your fellow true-believers, Mary? What have you to say about the imagery of slaughter and total destruction of ancient ruins including photographs of children holding up human heads? I suppose it doesn’t even compare to police using smoke and water on rioting trespassers who demand rights of passage to destinations which, coincidentally, offer generous welfare payments to new migrants.
@Pan
No, haven’t read any of those titles. Thanks for mentioning them. Will try to obtain electronic versions.
“More shocking than the public massacres of thousands of men, women and children in Syria by your fellow true-believers, Mary? ”
What a truly stupid comparison. Public officers are supposed to uphold the law, and abide by international conventions. Governments are meant to hold their employees to account, and ensure standards of behaviour are followed. Terrorists and outlaw groups by definition are not upholding any standards but their own, and do not expect to be held to account.
Unless you feel terrorists and outlaw scum set the standards for your own behaviour, why would you draw a parallel?
This is the kind of brutality on defenceless refugees that is being excused by the keyboardi warrior spamming the threads;
Note the distressed child desperately clinging to his father, showing signs of hairless which probably is due to the stresses he has experienced in such an early age.
In case you don’t have the security certificate; “comes up untrusted site” here is another link for the above
Note the distressed child desperately clinging to his father, showing signs of hairless which probably is due to the stresses he has experienced in such an early age.
Glenn, you’re not too bright, are you? Try re-reading my comment and try to comprehend that Mary cries in outrage at officers doing their lawful duty in preventing the free flow of illegal migrants over their sovereign borders while she is COMPLETELY SILENT on the horrors that are the ostensible cause for those people’s mass exodus from Syria. Geddit? Or do i have to bring out the hand puppets to explain?
Jemand: Your stupidity is clearly unbounded, matched only by your dishonesty. Since when is it incumbent on Mary (or any other poster here) to call out terrorists and lawless scum on their atrocious behaviour? And what sort of moron assumes any given individual must be a supporter of said terrorists by default, should they not make such denouncements?
Glenn, insults and lies are a poor substitute for reasoned debate. Mary is on form for taking a tragedy and laying all the blame for the misery upon Western governments, caucasian people and various establishment players. She has never acknowledged the roles of her favoured people, favoured ideologies and favoured institutions in any crimes, malfeasance or incompetence that cause the tragedies she presumes to judge over. It stands to reason that her consistent self-censorship on criticism of those who are responsible has the essential qualities of propaganda — ie selective criticism with an intention to create a more negative impression of her targets (Western establishment etc). You also betray an hypocrisy on Mary’s behalf by excusing her of this conscious bias when she has falsely accused me likewise. I suspect those hand puppets wouldn’t have assisted you in comprehending, afterall.