Umm, Hi.

I wonder where that charming young man's got to, you've been thinking. Without those mots justes, my day is simply not complete.

Well, sorry for not calling. I've been out a lot recently you see.

Doing what? Well, I'll tell you.

Firstly I've been working a lot of hours, which has a funny way of leaving you knackered.
Secondly I've been going to quite a lot of meetings recently (see previous posts). Last week I went down onto a picket as well, which was a great experience. If you've never been before (none of my previous employers have been enthusiastic about the concept of unions), you definitely should. It's a great chance to see the strike from the striker's point of view, you can offer a bit of moral and, if you've been passing the bucket round at work maybe financial, support; and it reminds you that whatever the BBC says is largely false - particularly this stitch-up job right here. Instead of all that, go here, or here, or here (and particularly this). Or just talk to your postie. As one guy said to us on Friday, the bosses think the customers are the corporate clients, but for posties it's all about the average person in their houses and flats. So why not pass the time of day with them when you see 'em?

The only upside is that it turns out Amazon haven't permanently cancelled their RM contract, so one day we may be able to speak again. In the words of an animated moose in an altogether different context, "now our consciences are clear and the healing can begin." Except for the conscience bit of course.

Then there was some personal stuff, which need not delay us here, and a bloody awful cold to round it off nicely.

In the meantime, we've had a Nazi on telly, which at least thoroughly vindicated the case for no platform.*

We've had the frankly bizarre idea that a war criminal would be a good symbol of the EU. Not that member nations don't have their fair share of guilt in that regard of course, it's just unusual to use barbarity as your actual mascot. It's all a bit, you know, urgh. Thank the lords that's all over.

We've had the Tories unveil stupid and vicious policies clearly aimed at launching a major assault on the concept of public service itself. Nothing new there of course, but the scale of some plans is quite breathtaking. And they're going to be in power next year apparently.

Then the Mail had it's own Sachsgate, where widespread public outrage caused heads to roll at the highest level, sorry, I mean, the chair of the PCC's ethics committee, Paul Dacre, must have had to make some tough decisions over what action to take in the face of an unprecedented 25,000 complaints. Inaction was almost certainly the right ethical choice to make.

On the upside, there's been some good films out recently, I've got a talk coming up on Marx and Darwin that I hope should be reasonably interesting to anyone somewhat interested, and however debased and ridiculous our political discourse gets** at least there's always Americans.

Now I'm off to watch Generation Kill and listen to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.

What?

------------------------------------
*My favourite piece of shameless dishonesty by the way was 'I have not got a conviction for holocaust denial.' Quite right Nick, your conviction is for incitement to racial hatred, which shows you in a much better light.

**I'm thinking particularly of the now legendary HYSer who apparently unironically compared Nick Griffin to Atticus Finch. If there is such a thing as anti-genius, this is surely it.

CWU, Royal Mail and Policy Exchange

I was at this meeting last night when the news that the Royal Mail's entirely unsurprising document of evil had become public came through (and well done the Mirror, btw).*

Now, the SW this week has 5 good reasons you should support the strike anyway, but apart from that, the speakers and posties who were there had plenty of tales to tell: full-timers being replaced with part-timers or just not at all; bullying management; complete lack of interest from the bosses in adhering to the code that they agreed to after the last round of industrial action; bosses scabbing above and beyond their own union's advice...

So anyway I used the mighty iPlayer to catch up on the Newsnight breaking of the story. Just a couple of things:

• Did they really just show the Battle of Orgreave footage backwards AGAIN?
• All things considered, Labour MP not as despicable as she could've been. Hard to tell if that's just because her constituency's got a sorting office and the fact that there's also clips of the Prince of Darkness making her look better by default, of course. Having said that, flannelling over what the word 'shareholder' might mean in a wholly government-owned business was a bit pathetic.
  
• LET BILLY HAYES SPEAK, you twat. You didn't interrupt the bloke from Policy Exchange, did you? Which brings me neatly on to...
• Policy Exchange android Neil O'Brien is a cunt. And is either astoundingly ignorant or brazenly disingenuous at that. Actually, if you'd bothered to speak to the CWU you'd have found out that the CWU want 'modernisation'. What they want is to be a part of the process of updating the service so that it can be brought forward as a public service, not some privatised husk. Repeat after me: competition will only undermine a public service if policy makers let it. The free market is not natural, it is ideological. Now fuck off.

Sorry, but I really am quite angry about this. Support the strikes next week, in any way you can. Remember, as SW put it: a victory for them is a victory for all of us.

*Sample text:

A new relationship with our people is non-negotiable and will happen anyway, with or without union agreement.

Nice.

Time to Boycott Amazon Then.

Bugger. They're so convenient, and cheap, too. Still, scabs.

Support the Postal Workers