Strike!

[butchersapron]

Maybe it's a geography thing - in my part of London the Olympics is seen on balance as a good thing - it's creating jobs (construction, engineering) in an area of relatively high unemployment and basically people will look forward to it. There are issues, certainly (VIP lanes etc). But whereas it should be Cameron on the back foot explaning why he's wrecking the NHS, instead it's the unions. The sky hasn't fallen in but he just helped Cameron get out of a spot, when he should have been intensifying the pressure.

Of course what happens in terms of the media agenda doesn't *determine* people's political outlook - but it does influence it. - so avoidable mistakes are best avoided.

Given what a mistake this was you'll have plenty of examples of why - beyond saying that a hostile media ran a hostile story. Let's have a look at what they are.

 

[butchersapron]

Your defence of what LM said seems based on an idea that people are at least receptive to the idea of widespread direct action to disrupt the Olympics. Where's your evidence for this?

It was based on the appreciation of the need to accelerate things and that even rhetorical tricks can help this - not that we're on the verge of a general strike you dolt.

 

[articul8]

It was a tactical error - not a collossal mistake. Don't put words in my mouth. It got Cameron off the hook temporarily.

 

[articul8]

It was based on the appreciation of the need to accelerate things and that even rhetorical tricks can help this - not that we're on the verge of a general strike you dolt.

Yes accelerate, not retard - retard

 

[butchersapron]

Yes accelerate, not retard - retard

So, you'll have examples of this happening. Beyond a hostile media saying hostile things right?

Rattled as fuck.

 

[butchersapron]

It was a tactical error - not a collossal mistake. Don't put words in my mouth. It got Cameron off the hook temporarily.

In the media. Which is your world entire.

 

[articul8]

it is to be hoped that this tactical error only results in handing the media initiative to Cameron temporarily. Insofar as it has any wider effects (and I hope it won't) it will begin to drive a wedge between sections of the anti-NHS reform and allied campaigns.

But you spoke of such rhetoric helping to "accelerate" developments. Where's your evidence for that?

 

[butchersapron]

"it is to be hoped..." is this the sort of politician type answer you'd have liked LM to give?

I said that "even rhetorical tricks can help this " - do you disagree? You can't given that your whole remit is the sale of rhetorical tricks.

How has this rhetoric accelerated things? Probably by not very much as i repeatedly said yesterday. It has put anti-cuts action beyond vote labour in 2015 on the public agenda and made sure that the idea that the olympics are not sacrosanct. I don't see why this should be grounds for running around like a headless chicken going OMG the split between the militants and the norms this will inevitably bring with it (where? No it's just a minor thing rather than a movement splitting exercise apparently). Get some backbone.

 

[belboid]

Your defence of what LM said seems based on an idea that people are at least receptive to the idea of widespread direct action to disrupt the Olympics. Where's your evidence for this?

I haven’t mentioned ‘widespread’ action, I don’t believe there is a mass cry for a general strike to halt the Olympics or anything like that at all. But then I don’t believe that LM’s comments amount to any kind of call for action against the Olympics. It’s a call for action around the Olympics. That means anything from some guerilla marketing to get a message onto the TV, to maybe a protest that slightly delays a few people getting somewhere, or maybe everyone taking over the VIP lanes. I think – from people I speak to – that there is interest in some kind of protest, for using it to get other campaigns into the spotlight.

 

[butchersapron]

it is to be hoped that this tactical error only results in handing the media initiative to Cameron temporarily. Insofar as it has any wider effects (and I hope it won't) it will begin to drive a wedge between sections of the anti-NHS reform and allied campaigns.

Will it? How?

 

[articul8]

I haven’t mentioned ‘widespread’ action, I don’t believe there is a mass cry for a general strike to halt the Olympics or anything like that at all. But then I don’t believe that LM’s comments amount to any kind of call for action against the Olympics. It’s a call for action around the Olympics. That means anything from some guerilla marketing to get a message onto the TV, to maybe a protest that slightly delays a few people getting somewhere, or maybe everyone taking over the VIP lanes. I think – from people I speak to – that there is interest in some kind of protest, for using it to get other campaigns into the spotlight.

To be honest re-reading the comments, the reference to "disrupting" the Olympics came from the Guardian journo - and LM didn't really differentiate between the kind of action your talking about above - which I think is absolutely fair game - from some kind of mass action to disrupt the games themselves (like anti-apartheid protests). And then you'd have to question whether LM wasn't actually set up for that.

I think it would be helpful in view of the associations that Cameron and others are putting about - that union thugs want to wreck "our" day in the sun - that he now outlines precisely what actions he thinks might be appropriate. I think there could be widespread public support *if* the tactics are judiciously chosen.

 

[butchersapron]

re-reading? You never bloody read them in the first place.

 

[Lo Siento.]

To be honest re-reading the comments, the reference to "disrupting" the Olympics came from the Guardian journo - and LM didn't really differentiate between the kind of action your talking about above - which I think is absolutely fair game - from some kind of mass action to disrupt the games themselves (like anti-apartheid protests). And then you'd have to question whether LM wasn't actually set up for that.

I think it would be helpful in view of the associations that Cameron and others are putting about - that union thugs want to wreck "our" day in the sun - that he now outlines precisely what actions he thinks might be appropriate. I think there could be widespread public support *if* the tactics are judiciously chosen.

Don't you think your misreading of the original statement might stem from your "don't scare the horses/what will the papers say/won't somebody think of poor Ed" starting point?

 

[articul8]

It wasn't just a mis-reading on my part. It appears LM was challenged as to whether the union planned to "disrupt the olympics" and basically responded in the affirmative without properly qualifying it.

Union leaders need to be careful, insofar as it's possible without backing down in any way, to present themselves in a way that is appealing to a wider public. Don't forget rates of union membership are massively down on where they were in the 70s. But I didn't ever say that union leaders should trim their sails to what is convenient to the Labour leadership. I've *never* thought that.

 

[frogwoman]

union membership may be down but it's increasing.

 

[articul8]

re-reading? You never bloody read them in the first place.

yes i did - but his failure to qualify the notion of "disrupting the Olympics" - cast a long shadow over the whole piece, and what give Cameron et al a foot in the door. This was a tactical mistake, but clearly not one that was planned in advance.

 

[butchersapron]

It wasn't just a mis-reading on my part. It appears LM was challenged as to whether the union planned to "disrupt the olympics" and basically responded in the affirmative without properly qualifying it.

Union leaders need to be careful, insofar as it's possible without backing down in any way, to present themselves in a way that is appealing to a wider public. Don't forget rates of union membership are massively down on where they were in the 70s. But I didn't ever say that union leaders should trim their sails to what is convenient to the Labour leadership. I've *never* thought that.

Balls.

 

[butchersapron]

yes i did - but his failure to qualify the notion of "disrupting the Olympics" - cast a long shadow over the whole piece, and what give Cameron et al a foot in the door. This was a tactical mistake, but clearly not one that was planned in advance.

I don't think you did. Hence you now acting like you've just read it for the first time. You earlier posts were as they were precisely because all that you could see was the media response.

 

[articul8]

union membership may be down but it's increasing.

It's not just down, it's massively down. And given the public sector workers (where density is highest) are losing their jobs while low paid/casual private sector jobs are still overwhelmingly un-unionised means it's still a huge problem.
Part of what the unions need to do (and they recognise it, if not always consistently) is a public education campaign about what unions do, why the exist, why you should join etc.

 

[belboid]

Well, I'm glad you've reread them and come to a fairly sensible conclusion, but I did say all that to you 24 hours ago!

 

[articul8]

I don't think you did. Hence you now acting like you've just read it for the first time. You earlier posts were as they were precisely because all hat you could see was the media response.

I did read them earlier - but admittedly through the prism of how they were reported (which will also be how most people come to hear about them, read them etc. btw). If LM lays out what he meant as per Belboid's post above he can turn a mistake into an advantage.

 

[butchersapron]

How odd, articul8 was right to be wrong again!

 

[articul8]

Well, I'm glad you've reread them and come to a fairly sensible conclusion, but I did say all that to you 24 hours ago!

OK, OK The damage is less in what he said, than in how it was represented (though he really ought to have been clearer).

 

[articul8]

Balls.

No, nor Miliband either.

 

[chilango]

Union leaders need to be careful, insofar as it's possible without backing down in any way, to present themselves in a way that is appealing to a wider public.

No they don't.

Strikes aren't about public opinion they're about economic muscle.

It's nice (and can help with morale, and thus the solidity of the strike) if they have public support, but not crucial.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Media interventions aim (amongst other things) to shape the media agenda - did it do this a) to the advantage or b) to the detriment of the causes it was meant to be promoting?

We can say, with some certainty, that you are representing McCluskey's words as being detrimental.
We can also say, with a similar degree of certainty, that you've done sweet fuck all to substantiate that representation except metaphorically running around shrieking "oh noes".

 

[ViolentPanda]

The only happy faces I saw (other than what i assume were the happy faces of a tiny number in the anarchoid/ultra-left - an insulated bubble if ever there was one) were coalition MPs and their supporters in the media.

Is there the possibility, the remotest chance, that you saw this because that was where your gaze was focused, that you saw what you expected to see, where you expected to see it, and didn't bother to actually look anywhere else?

 

[articul8]

No they don't.

Strikes aren't about public opinion they're about economic muscle.

It's nice (and can help with morale, and thus the solidity of the strike) if they have public support, but not crucial.

And that's why strikes - in and of themselves - don't amount to a political strategy.

 

[chilango]

That very much depends on what you mean by political strategy, and what is the goal of said strategy in the first place.

 

[articul8]

There's no such thing as an apolitical strike - but that doesn't mean that an aggregate of strikes is the alpha and omega of politics. An element of mediation/representation is unavoidable - even if your goal is to avoid that you'll end up with those questions raised further down the line - and often in a more aggressive and atavistic form than if you took them seriously in the first place.