Mary Bousted of AMT was passionate and articulate in her defence of her union's first strike in its 127-year history, was in command of her facts and figures, and put her finger on the worm at the heart of the Coalition's apple - namely, that the money raised by this daylight robbery from public sector workers was not going into their pension funds, but instead to bail out the Coalition's failing economic policy.
Ken Clarke, in contrast, was neither passionate nor articulate, and was most certainly not in command of the facts - he didn't even understand the vital - and substantial - difference between a final salary scheme and a career-average salary scheme, a distinction that even the most numerically challenged can understand very clearly.
Ken Clarke - good old jazz-loving, hush-puppied Ken, a rich man from politics and directorships in the tobacco industry, etc. - is now, I fear, past his sell-by date as an active politician, and his cosy persona is no longer enough to justify his ministerial role, nor his place as a PR front for a brutal, classed-based Coalition, stuffed with rich men like himself.
Posts
