Deputy PM Nick Clegg wept for joy today, as business secretary Vince Cable – the only remaining Liberal Democrat in the disgraced party thought to retain any trace of liberalism – warned the unions that the strongest anti-union laws in Europe would have to tightened up if they actually tried to exercise their few remaining rights to strike.
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| No more Mr Nice Guy |
The avuncular economist told jeering delegates at the GMB union’s conference that it was all right if, say, a small-scale walkout or two took place in a minor provincial town or two – but if any strike action should affect one of Rupert Murdoch’s journalists in even the most minor way, as an elected representative of the people he would be left with no alternative but to do whatever the Sun says.
“The pressure on us to act would ratchet up,” he warned, as trade unionists booed and hissed. "That is something which both you, and certainly I, would want to avoid, as I rather like my ministerial salary and the car and stuff.”
“Believe it or not, neither we nor the Tories are that keen to make all forms of industrial action illegal, because that would mean outlawing a basic human right that no Western leader since Hitler has dared to abolish,” he added, as the stage filled up with cabbages. “Nevertheless, I want you to realise that Mr Rupert Murdoch is very taken by the idea. Sorry, brother. I just do what I’m told, and so will you.”
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