The Public Sector Unions Just Don't Get It

Although I always enjoy watching Vince Cable get booed, I was curious to see the GMB Union giving him such a hostile reception, and even resorting to booing and heckling him, during his speech at their annual conference this week.

That a non-Labour Cabinet Minister gets booed at a public sector union conference should not be a surprise in and of itself.  Past experience tells us that union cronies rarely have any manners whatsoever, and love to enjoy acting like thugs in ties whenever the opportunity arises.  Additionally, given that unions almost exclusively fund Labour, it is not surprising that anyone who does not belong to Labour is seen as the enemy.

Yet Vince Cable is probably as left-wing as they come, and is probably more left-wing, anti-business and pro-union than many Labour MP’s.  One may therefore be forgiven for thinking that he would receive a positive reception in a union that, like many other public sector unions, appear to have stopped fighting for workers and are instead acting as arms of the Socialist Worker Party.

Cable’s speech was a clever and shrewd warning from a socialist to a fellow socialist organisation.  He noted that while the right to strike was an important right, there was a strong movement in the government to update and tighten up strike law.  He went on to state that as long as strikes remained limited and low (as they have been for the last year) then “the case for changing strike law is not compelling.”  Yet Cable was clear that if there was an attempt at widespread, organised mass industrial action designed to provide another “winter of discontent”, then the case to update strike law would be stronger, and that there would be little that he could do about it.

The message Cable was sending was clear and correct; the Conservatives wish to update strike law to make sure that the public sector unions can’t throttle the nation like they did in the 1970’s and tried to in the 1980’s.  Yet while strike rates are low, such a move is politically impossible.  Only if the unions try to bring the country to its knees and damage the national economy would the Tories have the support needed to clamp down on union action.

Cable finished this part of his speech (after pausing while he was booed and abused) by saying “that is something that you and I will both collectively want to avoid.”  In other words, “I’m on your side, but if you engage in mass industrial action, I can’t keep the Tories at bay.”

Yet he was booed and jeered anyway.  What the GMB members do not appear to understand is that Vince Cable is being a friend not a foe.  He is warning them that there are plenty of Tories (this writer included) who want to see the hand of the public sector unions loosened from around the throat of the British taxpayer, and are looking for the opportunity to do so.  Cable is not stating opinions or views, but is simply observing reality; if strikes are limited, the Lib Dems can keep the Tories at bay, but if there is a 1980’s insurrection, the hands of the Lib Dems are tied, and we Tories get to crush the unions like we did under Thatcher.

This is not what the unions, nor Vince Cable wants to happen; and this is what Cable’s speech to the GMB was trying to prevent.  Yet if public sector unions like the GMB are unable to distinguish friend from foe, then their narrow minded pseudo-communist mindset will surely lead them to destruction, just like it led the NUM to destruction in the 1980’s.

Cable - "I Can Bring Down the Government" - SACK HIM!

The big news coming from the British press this morning is the secretly taped conversations with Business Secretary Vince Cable.  In the conversations (which are actually more like one-sided rants from Cable), The Lib Dem shoots his mouth off to a bunch of people who he thought were Liberal Democrat supporters (but who were actually journalists), and tells them that he has "the nuclear option" whereby if he was pushed to do something he didn't like then he could "bring down the government."  Good one Vince you blithering idiot!

Vince Cable is easily one of the most odious men in politics.  His views are absolutely hard-left and out of the socialist playbook, and the fact that he has managed to get himself the position of Business Secretary in a government that is made predominately of Conservatives is disgraceful.  Yet this shows him up for who he really he is.  He isn't just a socialist - he is a power nut to boot.  In the context of the conversations, Cable is not telling his "supporters" about how the government works, but is simply bragging about how much power he has.

The incident shows that he has no qualms about slagging off the government of which he is a major part either.  He had met these people for the first time, and already he is slagging off the Tories, and how they are going to break their promises in the future, and how he doesn't trust a single one of them.  It raises the question - what would he have said to them the next time they met?

Ultimately though this is a question of power, and Cable's love for it.  Vince Cable is all about power.  All the lefty rhetoric that he spouts about punishing banks, taxing  and beating up bankers is all about transferring power over economic matters away from the banks and into his office.  Cable is a classic statist, and sees himself as the ideal man to run such a large statist economy. There is certainly the usual anti-business mentality present in Vince Cable, but it is power that this man really seeks.  No policy he has ever promoted has ever been about anything other than taking power away from private individuals and organisations, and handing that power over to the State.  He should never have been allowed to even get a sniff of government, and to make him Business Secretary was obscene.  Consequently, we are now facing the consequences of that extraordinarily misguided decision by the Prime Minister.

So, can Cable bring down the government?  In short, no - he is a moron who thinks way too highly of himself, as most statists do.  What he is though is a dangerous moron, and if he is allowed to continue being a moron, and advancing such ridiculous policies like taxing the banks out of existence, then he could  be a danger in the future.  It is for this reason that Cameron and Clegg should demand his resignation before the year is out.  Let's start 2011 Cable-free!