'Pathetic' barely describes the pathos of yesterday's public (non) service unions attempt to mount a strike. Poor - well, not exactly poor, really - old Arthur Scargill must have cried in his beer as he saw the miserable turn-out. "Eee bah goom", he probably muttered to himself, "It we'ren't like that back in't good old bad days!" Indeed not, and thank God for it, or to be precise, thank 'that woman!' for it. The days of millions, not a few thousand, bringing the railways to a halt, blocking the docks, shutting the mines, closing government offices and schools are long gone. Fraser Nelson has an excellent analysis in The Telegraph. However, what has suddenly dawned on me is that ever since 'that woman!' ran the country there has been a gradual but inexorable change of opinion amongst ordinary people. Up until her arrival the automatic response from the public was that government knows best and the state will take care of everything. Now they are beginning to realize that in very many instances the opposite is true. As Nelson points out in one telling detail:
Most state secondaries have now applied for self-governing “academy” status, reaching out for the freedoms the Coalition offered. Good teachers, it seems, quite like the idea of performance-related pay. The free schools that the NUT so vigorously opposes are so popular with parents that there are three applications for every place, and they have proved more likely to be rated “outstanding” than council schools. Reform, it seems, is working.
The Lefties all chanted "Ding, dong, the witch is dead" when Maggie Thatcher died but she's having the last ghostly laugh as her spirit rolls on and on.