Look both Ways

Strikes Part II.

When writing an article, a journalist should be clear what the piece is about. Yesterday's Evening Standard wanted to portray the public sector strike as highly damaging to hard-pressed families but equally say the strike had little effect. So pretty serious and at the same time not at all serious.

No.10, now crossing the line into unjustifiably overt political statements, deemed the closure of 6,000 schools as having "minimal impact".

The Conservatives and their Liberal Conservative colleagues had their message of austerity strengthened by an alliance of propagandists led by the Sun, the Mail and the Times. Through those papers, Francis Maude appealed for volunteers to help out in the spirit of "Dunkirk" implying the strikers were at least unpatriotic if not actually "the enemy within."

Clearly there is a war of ideology going on here and, judging by the slightly too hysterical messages from the Govt and media, they are feeling under pressure. Cameron's big line about pensions system being close to bust is not matched by the figures from the Govt's own report. The cost of public pensions is already falling a percentage of GDP and will fall 25% by 2050. The main reason is there has already been a huge overhaul of public sector pensions carried out by Labour in 2007.

The Sun did not need to deal with such trivia when it could focus its efforts on ludicrous character assassination. The portrayal of mild-mannered Christine Blower, head of the teacher's union, as a Scargillite was like a parody of news media. They alleged she is a "hate-filled extremist" driven by her "twisted politics." The Mail gave their estimates for those "on strike" but substituted the phrase "on the picket line" instead, implying they were all hardened, loony-left activists warming their hands over burning oil drums.

All those papers were disappointed there was no violence although some scuffling outside No.10 was somewhat enlarged by the Mail into something quite threatening and seditious. They reported all police leave was cancelled to deal with these nutters but the truth was thousands of police civilian staff were on strike so officers were needed as cover.

I wandered through the crowds in Westminster on Thursday, spotting just one anarchist type who looked very disheartened by the jolliness of the beard and sandles brigade, marching politely through the streets.

Cameron has tried the big bluff which seems to be failing. He has tried to show teachers and public servants as a group distinct from the hard-pressed taxpayer. Firstly, they are taxpayers too but second, the plight of the teachers is not something going on in the distance. Parents know their children's teachers and mostly recognise they have been treated poorly. Cameron's problem is he preceives people to be as remote from each other's day-to-day problems as he has always been from the wider world.