Ayesha Hazarika
(Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd)Two years ago I wasn’t able to go home for Christmas to see my parents in Glasgow because of Covid. This year I’ve taken the decision not to travel because of strikes. The stress of not being able to get on a train and chaos at the airports is enough to have an aneurysm. I remember getting stuck at Luton airport overnight one Christmas and it was a study in how society can go feral very quickly. It was all jolly Blitz spirit until the Wetherspoons and Burger King closed and then it was like a scene from Grand Theft Auto. Men, women and children (the latter were the worst) wrestling over a working power socket.
So who do I blame? A number of businessmen at a lunch I attended yesterday were cursing the RMT union and Mick Lynch. It’s not as simple as that. Because if this was all down to Lynch, why are the nurses, paramedics, ambulance and bus drivers, airport staff, posties, road workers, firefighters and even scientists and meteorologists going on strike? Either Lynch is our new overlord or something has gone very wrong in Britain. Lynch is the easy bogeyman because he fits the bald-headed trade union baron bruiser stereotype — although he’s far more articulate than most politicians, but he doesn’t speak for the nurses or any other sectors.
