To strike or not to strike?

By Sue Marsh / @suey2y

When Labour released the winner of a public poster campaign during the 2010 election I had a massive facepalm moment.

Of all the messages they could have chosen, making David Cameron look like the anti-hero of a popular cop-drama did not strike me as well thought through.

Today, I’m wondering just which crystal ball the designer had at his disposal. We’ve had month after month of Thatcherite policy announcements and now we get the Tory Holy Grail of a Strike.

Without strikes, the Tories flounder like fresh caught ells, thrashing around with no-one to blame for their disasters. The divide and conquer of setting the “deserving poor” against the “undeserving” the “immigrants” against the natives, the strong against the weak, the rich against the poor, gain little traction without the great, evil sceptre of picket lines to scare us with.

They don’t negotiate seriously, because they need to set us against each other. From the first day lost to strikes, George Osborne will start to blame his economic disasters on ordinary people. The “wrong kind of snow” will become the “wrong kind of public” and positions harden around the country. “Do you support the strikers?” “Did you see those scabs?” “Bloody Unions” etc etc until battle lines are drawn in every working-men’s or country club in the country.

Well, it’s really not difficult. My 6 year old asked me about the schools closing a few days ago. He asked me why. I took off my rose tinted specs and tried to explain as fairly as I could.

I explained that teachers believe they’re being asked to work longer for less money but to pay more. He thought for a minute, then asked me if David Cameron was doing it too. I said no. He said that wasn’t fair. I told him life wasn’t fair and people were getting older and living longer and we just had to find more money for people’s pensions.

He, however, was fixated on MPs and the Prime Minister. “Does everyone have to pay more, work longer and get less Mummy?” I said that no, this strike was about teachers and other people who work for us. He didn’t think that was fair either. “Well, they should make everyone do it or no-one at all” was his confident reply.

“But why are they striking Mummy? How does that help?” I said that they felt the government weren’t listening to them and going on strike meant that people came together to show the government how important the jobs they do are, just in case they’ve forgotten. I tried to explain that strikes were the very, very last resort.

He pottered off and came back a moment or two later frowning. “Are my teachers striking Mummy?”
I replied, no dear, I didn’t think so. He frowned more. “Why?” “I don’t know dear, people don’t like to close schools, they think children are too important.”

In childlike innocence he told me that “teachers are important too though aren’t they Mummy?”

(Hubby was loitering in the background to make sure there wasn’t a trace of partisan reply…)

“Can you make me one of those badges Mummy?”

“What badges dear?”

“The one with a J and a 30 on it that you’ve made for your Labour people?”

“Why?”

“I want to wear it to school on Thursday.”

“You do? But what will you say if a teacher asks why you’re wearing it? You’re 6 dear, they’ll just think Mummy made you wear it. If you want one you have to understand why you’re wearing it!!”

(Said with the breezy assurance of one who still takes a teddy to bed…..)

“Oh, I’ll just say I’m wearing it because I wish they were striking too. Well, until David Cameron gets the same pension as them, anyway, then it’d be fair wouldn’t it Mummy?”

What could I say? It’s so easy without the nonsense of Westminster and politics isn’t it?

I still don’t know if I’ll let him wear his badge today. He won’t remember what day it is, he’s 6. But I’m tempted. Because our children shame us with their simplicity. Perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm to remind teachers that even a child of 6 can see that their situation is unfair and is willing to take one tiny step to support them.