Mark Steel: Unions just want the mums to pay
Michael Gove believes the strikers want 'mothers to give up a day's work or pay for childcare'
Mark Steel
Commentator and stand-up comedian Mark Steel has presented several radio and television programmes, and appeared on Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. In 2006 he published 'Vive La Revolution: A Stand-up History of the French Revolution', and in 2000 stood as a candidate in the London Assembly elections.
Wednesday 30 November 2011
Latest in Mark Steel
Opinion blogs
Why do some men consider the street as a female meat market?
Pronouncements on sexual inequality in the UK are normally met with an eye roll by my generation. As...
Only 4 in 10? We should speak up about harassment
A YouGov survey commissioned by the End Violence Against Woman Coalition (EVAW) this week has found ...
Why we shouldn’t write off Merkel yet
“Isolation is a dream killer,” so the saying goes. Many commentators assert that German Chancellor A...
Related articles
Sometimes when there's a strike, it's tricky to work out the real issues causing the conflict. So the Government is lucky to have Michael Gove, who's decoded what the unions are really after. The strikers, he said, are "itching for a fight", and "want mothers to give up a day's work or pay for expensive childcare".
Presumably, he's heard secret tapes of union leaders making speeches that go: "Brothers and sisters, we the working men and women of this country must stand united against the people ruining our livelihoods – mothers, the parasites. How much longer will they push buggies and dance to Davina McCall fitness programmes with no regard for the impact on our members?" Then they get the crowd to chant: "Two, four, six, eight, Make it expensive to procreate."
Seventeen unions have held a ballot for the strike, and, in each case, they voted at least two to one to support it. Midwives voted for it, so for years they must have been telling women to push a bit more while thinking: "Hee hee, in a few years we'll make you pay a fortune to look after this little bastard. That'll teach you to let your waters break while I'm watching Cash in the Attic."
Eighty-two per cent of head teachers voted for the strike, the anarchists. Because they spend every day bawling at kids in their office: "WHAT is the meaning of THIS? You do NOT walk down MY corridor without KICKING random people. I'm ITCHING for a fight now. PUNCH someone AT ONCE."
A poll suggests that 61 per cent of the country supports the strike, so Britain must be on the edge of a bizarre revolution, itching for a fight with authority, in order to transform society by making mothers pay for expensive childcare.
The Government also argues that the strike to defend pensions is unjustified, because people who don't work in the public sector have even worse ones. This might be a reasonable argument, if we assume that the money saved by the Government in pension payments will be shared out among everyone else with an even worse pension. The plan must be to take it round in a box for the homeless, and then look after their children for free.
The argument that people should put up with being battered because other people are battered more makes as much sense as the Syrian government saying: "How dare these people complain about being shot at? People caught by the Gestapo for escaping Colditz were shot even more. These protesters are simply trying to make mothers pay for expensive childcare."
But at least Michael Gove is imaginatively surreal. Maybe next week he'll do even better and say the strike was simply an attempt to murder polar bears by getting hypnotists hired by the General and Municipal Boilermakers' Union to bankrupt us by making us want to buy them the most expensive fish.
- 1 Letters: Round up all the usual grammar school lobbyists
- 2 Mary Dejevsky: Why the political left should adopt the 'flat tax'
- 3 Adrian Hamilton: Next stop for Europe should be Hollande paying a visit to Athens
- 4 Catherine MacLeod: A good 'spad' is trusted by the minister – and speaks for him
- 5 Leading article: The Prime Minister has questions to answer, too
- 6 Leveson Sketch: The QC damned – with great praise
- 7 Laurie Penny: Why do so many men harass women on the streets?
- 8 The Daily Cartoon
- 9 Owen Jones: If socialists really did run the show, working people would benefit
- 10 The dark side of Dubai
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 Society: The only way is Finland
- 4 Catcalls, whistles, groping: the everyday picture of sexual harassment in London
- 5 Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?
- 6 Owen Jones: If socialists really did run the show, working people would benefit
- 7 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 8 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 9 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
- 10 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos
48 Hours In: Faro
Monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
Catcalls, whistles, groping: just another day for a young woman
Jailing of Maori separatists stirs colonial-era resentment
Pizza Pilgrims: Like mamma used to make



Comments