The ‘real socialist’ plotting real damage to our summer breaks

HIS critics say that he is a Trotskyist plotting general strikes - and Mark Serwotka scarcely disagrees.

The general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union prefers to say he is a ‘real socialist’, making clear he is ‘Not a New Labour version’. His membership of radical group Socialist Organiser led to expulsion from Labour in 1991 – rejoining only in 2016 after his hard-left comrade Jeremy Corbyn became leader.

And as well as recently being linked to ‘General Strike’ plans, ‘to bring the Tories down’, Mr Serwotka, 59, left, declared in 201 before town hall workers walked out: ‘We should combine these set-piece big political strikes with effective targeted action that will really hurt them.’ But no one can deny father-of-two Mr Serwotka’s will to fight - not least for life, after suffering permanent heart damage due to a ‘severe allergic reaction’ sparked by cleaning his pet dog at his Surrey home in 2010.

Mr Serwotka’s struggles began at birth, with six months in a Catholic orphanage in Cardiff. He was then adopted, his father having a Polish background, his mother Welsh. At 16, he started in the civil service as a benefits clerk – joining the union on his very first day. The next year, he was a rep and he was elected general secretary