Strikes are politically motivated unrest

IS it just a coincidence or my imagination that all the unions calling for strikes over pay involve public sector workers or monopoly organisations? It smacks of politically motivated unrest against a democratically-elected Government. But they are not hurting the Government at all, who are safely behind a wall of their own protection which shields them from the ravages of inflation, which the rest of us endure and will continue to do so regardless of how much the unions and their members continue their demands. It may be creating a few red faces in the Westminster ivory tower, but that’s about it.

No, the people who are really paying the price for their impossible demands are their own fellow workers and taxpayers of this country, many of whom are being swept along in saying some of the strikers have a strong case but will be the first to moan when taxes go up to pay for them.

During the pandemic, everyone clattered their bells and saucepan lids nightly in appreciation of the NHS but, when it came to an increase in tax and national insurance to give them extra money, the majority of those same supporters bleated at the notion of dipping into their own pockets so to do. We can’t have it both ways.

Ninety per cent of our inflation, together with the rest of the world, is being caused by Mr Putin’s actions against Ukraine and our support for that country.

I’m not saying this Government is entirely blameless, but let’s put things in perspective. Our dealing with Covid and now

Putin’s aggression has emptied this country’s coffers. Sixteen billion pounds to support the railways, umpteen billions on a furlough scheme which helped save thousands of jobs (which went on far too long), loans for businesses to help them through (far too open to fraud, which many had foretold). Nevertheless, UK taxpayers accepted the handouts, ‘warts and all’, and many made a personal fortune in saving money due to no expenses involved in going to their place of work. London civil servants, in particular, who received, and still do, their London weighting allowance for working from home.

So now, taxpayers, it’s ‘payback time’. So many now on strike, or threatening to, should remember it is their fellow man (and woman, for the PC brigade) who is footing the bill as taxpayers and consumers. A Government has no money of its own. Also, when will some of these already well-paid strikers, or those threatening to strike, admit to themselves that there is a vast difference between need and want?

I think the majority slot into the ‘want’ category, not the ‘need’ category. To my mind, we will never have industrial peace in this country until we are all self-employed – who, coincidentally, didn’t receive a penny during the Covid emergency.

Edward Kynaston Lydney, Gloucestershire