As the Birmingham bin strike rolls into its eighth week over 700 Ofgem civil servants are being balloted over potential strike action today. Civil Service union PCS has accused management of being “deliberately provocative” on pay and job security – with a third of the workforce voting on whether to strike today. Walkouts could drag on until 12 June…
PCS is also rattling sabres at HM Land Registry and the ONS, fuming over what they brand a “Victorian” push to get staff back into the office. Last week Labour caved in to PCS demands of bumper pay rises for Foreign Office security staff after months of industrial action. Meanwhile, Unite’s national lead officer Onay Kasab warns: “If other local authorities look to cut the pay of essential public service workers, then there is the potential for strike action spreading”. Summer of discontent inbound…
Rayner’s Employments Rights Bill is set to make matters worse, strengthening union’s powers by allowing them to force pay demands on companies with as little as 2% union membership, down from 10%. Visit Britain in the 70s – time machine no longer needed…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”