Strange bedfellows in the Big Tent

A small article on the news the other morning got me thinking.  Apparently the heads of the UK's largest Trades Unions have banded together to demand that their organisations also be invited into the "Big Tent" which he is building for the Conservative Party.  A strange demand if ever there was one.

Never in the history of politics has one movement been as anti-Conservative as that of the Trades Unions.  Ever since the inception of the Labour Party they have been the collective thorn in the Conservative side; using their colossal power to attempt to bring the country to its knees in order to achieve their demands.


One must admit that, yes, Trades Unions do have a legitimate purpose.  They are a vital tool in the arsenal of the downtrodden worker with a legitimate problem who would otherwise be at the mercy of unscrupulous business owners.  However, my sympathy for them starts to wane when you hear stories such as that of the British Airways cabin crew.

As I have previously blogged, this group of men and women are bringing the country and their own employer to their collective knees in trying to push the viewpoint that they are seriously underpaid and overworked.  I for one simply cannot see the problem with being paid £30,000 a year to fly all over the world and serve the odd cup of tea or gin and tonic when it suits them; but if they want to learn that the hard way then so be it.

But that is a point I've already made and really don't need to make again at this point.

Ask any Briton what they think of when you mention to them the words "Conservatives" and "Trades Unions" and chances are that they will mention the miners' strikes of the early 1980s.

Throughout the 1970s the Trades Unions had enjoyed great success against the Labour government of the time, bringing the nation to its knees time and time again as they forced through increasingly better deals for their members.  Naturally they grew in confidence to the extent where they thought they were unbeatable.  This was to be their downfall.

In 1984 Margaret Thatcher's government announced plans to close a number of state-owned coal mines that were operating at a loss to the taxpayer; a move that anyone with even the most basic grasp of economics can agree was sensible.  In response the Trades Unions representing the miners started a nationwide strike of all mine workers which was to become one of the longest, bitterest, most violent and most socially damaging strikes in British history.

Come the end of the strike in 1985 the Unions were broken and were forced to admit defeat.  Thatcher had stood her ground meaning that the Unions eventually ran out of money with which to pay strike pay to their members and the miners gradually went back to work.  However relations between the Conservatives and the Unions were fatally damaged.

There are still areas of Britain today which refuse to vote Conservative merely because of the events of 1984.

Therefore, for the Unions to now come banging at the door of Westminster demanding to be let in is laughable.

Not only are they starting to play their games again, slowly trying to rebuild the power they had at the end of the 1970s (thanks to another ineffective Labour government that they managed to wrap around their fingers); but they and the Labour party are inextricably linked, both financially and ideologically.  If ever there was a movement whose sole aim was to subversively and cynically undermine the power of a government, this is it.

David Cameron must be firm with these people in refusing to open the door to them unless they drastically change their ways, and then set about making sure that the government stands up to these bullies lest we be dragged back into the darkness of the Union-controlled 70s and 80s.